As a group of Arab News staff accompanied by the representatives of a home health care organization drove outside Jeddah, the scenery changed gradually. From neat well-lit streets with big boards and little trees on the side, the scene changed into brick houses scattered on sandy ground, no pavement and no trees except for wild ones springing out of the remains of dead animals and dirt. Trash bags were thrown carelessly about as if to complete the picture of a forsaken land. Our guide to this place commented with a bitter smile, “This might be a bit disturbing to you but there are much worse indications of poverty. This place here is what we call among ourselves, ‘the high class’ poor.”
I looked at the sun-burned houses and the sandy twisted roads between them but I could not relate this place to where I live in the middle of Jeddah. We went into a house. The furniture was simply a few basic items; as the electricity was off, there was no escape from the outside heat in the house. The children ran around us, eager and smiling, looking at the strangers who had come to visit.
As we moved from one house to another, the houses were very similar — bare of excess furnishings which reflects in every way a lifestyle that speaks volumes on what most of us never see around us. There were sick people, old men who were invalids, a bed-ridden young man suffering from brain damage who has been lying in his bed for a long time. He did not notice us coming nor did he give any sign of caring if we were there or not. We had come to see him and to hear what his mother had to say about the problems he has and how the family lacks a dependable income. Another woman who lives alone smiled and said that she didn’t need anything because her goats provided her with milk and company. Her house was the barest of all, only a small radio on the floor seemed to be her only connection with the outside world.
The last house we visited showed us the most upsetting scene of all. We met Nora, a young woman who lives alone with her father who is suffering from Parkinson’s disease. She sat on the floor next to him and wiped his face with a tissue every few minutes as she gave him a massage. She talked to us about her life with her father whom she has devoted her life to caring for. A doctor who was with us said, “If anything happens to this man, her whole life will go with him.” That was a strong dose of reality and it stayed with me, haunting me much of the night.
Thinking of Nora crouching in love next to her sick father made me consider all the forces that produce the poverty, the illness and the lack of support that impact so harshly on these people’s lives. These women in particular reflected another image of Saudi women. They do not have access to a decent education; they are deprived of many comforts which most of us take for granted and they have little chance of improving their lives. Somehow the problems that we complain of in Jeddah became small compared to what these women endure in the daily struggles that are their lives.
Leaving with all these scenes in my mind, a smiling face pushed itself to the front of my consciousness. I suddenly remembered Manal, a girl we had met that day. She was about 15 with a beautiful smile that cheered us as she talked to us, speaking for her mother who had a hearing problem. Manal studies at a school nearby and seems to be an enthusiastic student. She talked about what she wants to be when she finishes school. Manal’s smile and Nora’s sad eyes stayed in my memory as a reminder of how life is hard for some people and how hope that lights the face, can make things bearable.
All the time I was thinking of a society that needs to do something about these people, about all that money given to charities abroad whereas right here at home, there are those who need care and help. One of the organizers of our trip said that they had a hard time trying to convince people to donate to their charity; she said that some people think that in our country, we don’t have needy people. But she added, “All they have to do is come to these places and check for themselves. The reality here can change all the stereotypes we have been cherishing.”
