JEDDAH: Saudi border police are keeping a watchful eye on four-legged drug smugglers — donkeys — that, according to a local daily in a report published recently, have been trained homing-pigeon style to move contraband north unattended. According to the security sources, these donkeys usually come to the borders in two shifts. In the morning shift, rice bags will cover the load while at night smugglers don’t even bother to try to disguise the loads of hashish, qat and other illegal substances. Going back to Yemen, the donkeys will be loaded with flour and other commodities. The animals are trained in Yemeni villages. According to the report, trainers dress up in Saudi border guard uniforms and beat the animals to get them to recognize and avoid the uniforms. The donkeys are reportedly trained to arrive at specified locations to wait for people to unload them and send them back with legitimate loads of stuff.
Garlic ‘suits’ unwanted suitor
JEDDAH: A 26-year-old Jeddah woman didn’t want to disappoint her father by rejecting his choice of an ideal husband, so she resorted to a ploy to get the suitor to change his mind. No, this wasn’t a trick of sorcery; consider it the magic of looking and smelling like a slob. When the day came for the young man to stop by to meet the object of his desire, the woman made sure she was far from desirable — she found the most ragged outfit she could muster and for added effect applied garlic paste to her body to ensure a strong and undesirable odor. After some polite pleasantries, the man departed. The following day he contacted his would-have-been father-in-law to say that he had changed his plans due to some unforeseen circumstances. In Islam, a woman is not compelled to marry a suitor picked by her father, but family pressure can lead to unwilling acquiescence — unless, of course, a way can be found to ensure the suitor changes his mind.
