ALKHOBAR, 30 October 2005 — Prince Bander Street is at the center of the Ramadan shopping madness in downtown Alkhobar. The street is lined with stores selling clothing, fabric, cologne and accessories. Every night on this street there appears to be some sort of huge block party in progress, with people shopping, eating and even sitting along the curbs, accompanied by the clamor of car horns and children’s excited chatter.
But look closer, and soon you’ll see that while some make merry, others are hard at work. For them, Ramadan is a difficult month of never-ending toil and few rewards. Starting at the top of the street last Wednesday, Arab News stopped by the emergency ward at Dr. Fakhry Al-Mouhawis Hospital. There, the head of Emergency Medical Services, Dr. Tharwat Taha, from Alexandria, Egypt, was treating a young girl suffering from a high fever. The doctor was tired. He had been on duty for hours and seen almost 20 patients. After the child was sent off with her mother to the pharmacy, the doctor gratefully sank into a chair.
“Some nights are worse than others in the Emergency Ward, and there’s no way to predict how busy we might be,” said Dr. Taha. “Before iftar, only the gravely ill people come to the hospital. As iftar approaches we receive the cases of kitchen accidents and the victims of terrible traffic accidents. After iftar, that’s when the flood of patients comes in.”
Dr. Taha is most concerned about the numerous injuries caused by senseless behavior during Ramadan.
“I’ve been in Saudi Arabia almost 10 years and I tell you, people just don’t understand that when they are fasting they shouldn’t do dangerous acts,” Dr. Taha remarked. “People here are used to drinking coffee and tea all day. By the afternoon their brains are in need of fuel and their reaction times are not ideal. They must be cautious. Men should drive slower. Women should move with care around a hot stove. But people don’t take care and then they, or even worse their children, end up in an Emergency Ward.”
Leaving Dr. Taha to deal with a new casualty, a stroll down Prince Bander Street found Muhammad Kawther, standing along the roadside outside the shop, Oxygene. With two cologne bottles in his hands and slips of paper in his pocket, Kawther was attempting to get passers-by to take a whiff of the new scent on offer.
“I am working here part time during Ramadan, to earn some extra cash,” he explained. “I work all day for a large company in the Eastern Province and then at night I stand out here from 9 till 1:30, trying to attract customers to the shop.”
Kawther admitted that his legs were tired and he’s exhausted every night, but he needs the money. “I’m from Bangladesh,” he said. “I earn just SR400 monthly in my regular job. It’s not enough. I have my parents and my wife and son to support. After 13 years in the Kingdom, I’ve decided to go back home for good. This is one last push to earn what I can before I leave next month.”
Half a block from Kawther, a queue hugged the outside of Haroun Al-Rashid Restaurant. At the front of the line, sweating and working like maniacs, were two Turks, Jihad Mohiyaddine and Jumah Suleiman. They were bagging SR3 chicken shawarma sandwiches as fast as they could roll them up.
“It’s a good Ramadan, which means we are very tired,” said Mohiyaddine with a laugh. The temperature outdoors at midnight was 31 degrees Celsius with 87 percent humidity. Standing beside the shawarma grill, in a tiny outdoor kitchen with no airconditioning, Mohiyaddine was himself, getting cooked. His face was flushed and there was a towel around his neck to sop up the sweat.
“We are serving at least 600 customers between 8 p.m. and 2 a.m. and actually, due to the road construction on this street, those numbers are down compared to last year,” he said. “During the remaining days of the month we’ll be even busier. Since we even work during Eid, I won’t go back to Turkey to see my relatives till late November.”
It was time to move on because the heat in the shawarma kitchen was unbearable. How the men work there night after night is beyond belief! However, another amazing sight was yet ahead at Prince Bander Street’s seventh cross. There, young police officers were struggling to direct traffic amid the pandemonium caused by female shoppers in the street, weaving around moving vehicles, without a care in the world.
“This is nothing,” said Abdullah Hamid Al-Turki of Alkhobar’s traffic police. “It will get worse nightly through the end of Ramadan. We thank God every night that passes by without an accident. My job is to support the vehicles and the pedestrians in this street. I must look out for them even if they don’t have a care for me.”
Al-Turki went on to explain that car drivers don’t pay attention to anything but getting to their destination. A police officer in the road is a minor obstacle. Female shoppers though are perhaps worse, because many are completely negligent about traffic safety.
“We have to be extremely polite to women pedestrians,” said Al-Turki. “We can’t raise our voices or be rude to them in any way. If we want to ask them to do something, our request must begin with ‘please.’ Despite that, most of them ignore us and some of them are even outright rude to the traffic police. So I hold my temper and keep the ladies safe. I am happy to do my job well and that is reward enough.”
It was 1 a.m. and the lights still shone brightly on Prince Bander Street. Taking in the scene, it suddenly came to mind that one group of regular visitors was missing. We went in search of them and found the trash collectors in Bandariyah, the next district over. They hadn’t made it yet to Prince Bander Street that night.
“We are late, but there’s nothing we can do about it,” said Indian Muhammad Arshad, a garbage truck driver for Al-Yamamah Company. “There’s trash everywhere. All the cans and dumpsters are full. We have to empty all the garbage containers and with so much traffic on the roads it’s difficult.”
His crew is supposed to work from 9 p.m. till 9 a.m., although he was sure they wouldn’t finish till 10 or 11 in the morning. Arshad has been a garbage truck driver in the Kingdom for 10 years. Despite better equipment, the job is now more difficult because people are less tolerant.
“Drivers are constantly coming up behind the truck, honking their horns and flashing their lights,” said Arshad. “What are we supposed to do? Leave the trash and move out of their way? Drivers park illegally blocking in the trash containers and then we are in trouble. It’s a very hard job. I beg people not to make it worse for us. Ramadan Kareem.”
