ALKHOBAR, 27 October 2006 — Eid Al-Fitr is a lovely holiday. What could be nicer than seeing children delighted with their candy and toys and everyone working hard at enjoying themselves? But trekking around town this holiday, too often the ugly side of Eid has been clearly visible.
On Alkhobar’s Corniche, traffic is tightly packed every night. One mistake by any driver and a multiple car pile-up is sure to result. So what could be stupider than to throw firecrackers onto the roadway? But that is what young punks delight in doing every night. They hide behind signboards near the street, light the “saroukh,” and toss it over the signboard into traffic. Usually several miscreants are engaged in the activity together. Locals are aware of this form of Eid fun and pay no attention to it, but visitors to the city are likely to swerve away from the explosion — with predictable results.
Where do the brats procure the fireworks? At the shopping malls, of course. A visit yesterday to a mall near the city’s Green Belt area found six women sitting on the ground in front of the mall’s entrance with their wares spread before them. The fireworks have names such as Saroukh (small rocket), Nafourah (fountain), Thoum (garlic), Tom and Jerry, Faham (coal) and Farasha (butterfly). Six medium-sized rockets were selling for SR50. To really burn through their Eid allowances quickly, children were purchasing the largest rockets for SR100 each.
“The women arrived at the mall 10 days before the end of Ramadan and they’ve been here every night since,” said the manager of a toystore located near the mall’s entrance. “The mall’s security guards can’t touch them because they are women, so the security guards call the police who eventually arrive and the women flee. It all seems very staged because the women are never arrested. In a short while, the women come back and the whole bad business starts right up again. The truth of the matter is that if parents wouldn’t give their children money to buy the fireworks, the women would soon go away.”
Fireworks and traffic accidents are nasty but there are some really disgusting activities going on at many of the city’s restaurants. To get a perspective of how bad it is, check out the dumpsters and trash bins at the restaurants. Vast quantities of food are being thrown away this holiday. Customers order too much at restaurants or pile up too much on their plates at buffets and then they just throw away whatever they don’t eat. In past years, people took home leftovers from restaurants in accordance with religious strictures that frown upon the wasting of food. But now such behavior is considered to be miserly.
Even more sickening are the restaurants which are throwing away prepared food. A visit on Wednesday morning to an internationally branded donut shop found the staff there stuffing hundreds of donuts into plastic crates. The donuts were leftovers from the previous day and would be sent back to the central bakery and destroyed. When asked why the donuts weren’t dropped off at the close of business the previous night to a local charity for immediate distribution to the poor, the attendant replied that it was company policy that the food be destroyed.
Tamimi Markets has a different and better solution for the disposition of sweets that are less than ideally fresh. Tamimi operates bakeries at all its supermarkets. After 11 p.m. each night, the bakery attendant on duty at each market packages up all the donuts, sweet rolls and other perishable baked goods, marks the packages to be sold for SR2 each as “day old bakery” and then sets the plastic wrapped plates out in front of the bakery counter. The market is open round the clock and it is extremely unusual to find any of the “day old bakery” still left in the morning. This solution serves both the market and all its customers.
The poor are among us and it is important that society cares about their needs. It is also essential to recognize that there are those who hope to prey on that goodwill. For at least a month, a 30-something, attractive woman has been working the crowded corner outside Jarir Bookstore on the Corniche. She approaches men and begs them to please give her SR10 to buy gas for the car so she can get back home. She explains that she’s out of cash and the ATM machine won’t give her any money. It just keeps rejecting her card.
The tale is intricate, painful and boring after anyone had heard it a few times. Men usually do give her the SR10 and she acts grateful and pretends to rush off to her vehicle, but she never leaves the parking lot. Once the sucker who gave her the cash has driven away, she returns to her position outside the bookstore. When asked yesterday why she takes advantage of people in this way, the con artist whispered, “Aish legafak?” (Why are you meddling?)
She may have a point. If people think it’s all right for their children to burn SR100 rockets and throw packets of fried potatoes in the trash, then what’s the difference if someone cheats them out of another SR10?
