‘Olden Days’ in Saudi Arabia

I see myself when I first arrived in Riyadh. I was excited because now, after a short stay in Jeddah, the cosmopolitan city on the Red Sea, my real married life was starting. I entered our apartment. It was spacious and rather dirty. It had no furniture and there was dust everywhere. The next morning, I wore my beautiful new housedress and went into the bathroom. I rolled up the sleeves and started cleaning the basin. It was literally covered with insects. A few dead cockroaches were lying on the floor. I carefully avoided looking at them. I had never seen any in my life and they actually made me squirm. I started to sing at the top of my voice, convincing myself that everything was normal......... “This is the way it is in Saudi Arabia,” I told myself. I felt I was a pioneer facing a thrilling adventure. I was ready to accept everything willingly. At that time the plumbing facilities were rather primitive, to say the least. But we had water, electricity and air conditioning.
I can’t help smiling remembering those huge “desert coolers,” as they were called, extremely noisy and eternally dripping water from their straw-lined sides.
This positive attitude of mine made me able to succeed in adjusting myself to Saudi society very quickly. In those days, there were very few Western women married to Saudis and they were regarded with curiosity and sometimes with suspicion. From the start, I adapted to and accepted the customs and traditions of Saudi Arabia well. For many years I was considered to be a good example of how a foreign woman should behave when she comes to live in Saudi Arabia. I was proud of my success.
Little by little, I started to realize that other foreign wives were criticized for not having adapted to Saudi society Why? First of all, these women from the very beginning refused to make any great personal sacrifices, or to give up any of their own cultural traditions in order to please their sometimes demanding in-laws. They did not give in to any persuasion to change in order to be more acceptable, to “fit in.” People talked about them constantly, but only behind their backs, though. In a way, their husbands’ families were intimidated by these strong women and, rather ironically, they would treat them kindly and respectfully.
I was lucky because my new relatives accepted me willingly from the very beginning and this helped me to lay the foundation of my new self. Perhaps I would not have made any steps forward on my life path, had I lived in a more “normal” society, like the one I had been accustomed to since birth.
Being here in Saudi Arabia enabled me to also meet a few exceptional women who showed me additional possibilities of being. They helped me to become aware of different perspectives from which to look at situations and circumstances. They have been my dearest friends, the intellectual one, the passionate one, the caring one and the loving one. Their words and their presence by my side brought me to rethink my feelings and the events of my life.
Today, I know it has been worthwhile living in Saudi Arabia for so long. Now I finally know what my true nature is because, beside knowing “who” I am, I also know “what” I can be. Under other circumstances, I probably would not have had the chance to find out.