Women's Kingdom

I just wanted to share with you one of my shopping experiences. Unsually on my day's off I feel the need to get off the hospital compound, as when I am working I often don't leave for a couple of days in a row. One of my favorite places to shop is Kingdom Mall.

Kingdom Mall is a three storey mall located at the bottom of Kindom Tower. It was built my Prince Al-Waleed, the fourth richest man in the world. He owns 30 billion dollars, and surprisingly not of it is directly oil money! Kingdom Tower is 303 meters tall - the tallest building in Saudi and 25th tallest building in the world. It includes a four-season's hotel as well as the highest mosque in the world.

Something else intersting about the tower is that it includes the only all-women's shopping floor in Riyadh, called 'Women's Kingdom'. Women's Kingdom is interesting because it's on the top floor and once you get there you can take your abaya off because men aren't allowed up there. And you can actually try on clothes in a fitting room before buying them. And there are actually women behind the counters. In other malls only men work in retail, selling everything from underwear at Lasenza's to make-up at Body Shop.

The other day I went to Al-Fisalia, another favorite shopping spot of mine. But there are no women only area's, so you can't fit clothes on before buying them. You just have to guess if it's the right size. And the other difficulty about this is that you only have one day to get a complete refund and 3 days to exchange. That means if you go home and decide you don't want it you have to go back right away and pay a 30 Riyal ($10) taxi fee. To avoid this I sometimes just try clothes on in the public washroom at the mall.

Last week when I went to the restroom to try clothes on and the wheelchair stall with a mirror in it was occupied. So I tried to wait for it, but the girl using it was taliking on her cell phone and after waiting 5 minutes, I got really impatient and just decided to try the new clothes on in the sink area over my other clothes. There were two Saudi girls there retouching their make-up in the mirror and they found me quite amusing. They would give thumbs up for clothes they liked. And then of course, like all Saudi's you interact with, they ask 'ayna anta' (where are you from). To which I reply 'Canada'. And they usually say 'Canadi Quayes' (Canada good).

My Minor Stress Break-Down

So for the most part I've found the adjustment to Saudi not too difficult. But last Monday I officially had my worst day in the Kingdom. It was the first of 7 work days in a row. I started off with a very sick pediatric patient. He was two years old, but only weighed 7.5 kg. We were trying to give him total parental nutrition (nutrition that goes directly into the blood stream) and all these other medications, but kept loosing IV access because his veins were so fragile. He has a brain tumor that he is going to die from eventually and yet was being treated very aggressively. Add to this, his mother, after seeing her son suffering for so many weeks, was very emotionally detached from him. When he was wimpering in bed, she rarely picked him up to comfort him. And I just felt so helpless because I couldn't speak her language. My communication is limited to the few Arabic words I know and to pantomime.

My other patients where not acting normally either. When I went into one of my other patients rooms to take his blood pressure, his escort valiantly tries to convert me to Islam. My other patient's father gave me a marriage proposal to his oldest son (who looked about 18). And my other male patient was saying inappropriate things to me (I doubt it had anything to do with his brain tumour as it was temporal and not frontal). Then two hospital staff members that I had briefly met before dropped by the ward to give me their phone numbers and hinted strongly that they were expecting a call back (oh dear me!). I would like to beleive that this attention was due to my charm and whit (ya right) but I suspect it might have more to do with my Canadian passport. Looking back on these interaction I find it quite humerous that they all happened the same day (except of course the sick baby), but at the time I was not impressed!

At around three in the afternoon I went into my bosses office and closed the door and told her I just didn't think I could handle it any more. I was sick of nursing and that this would be my last nursing job. Of course she said..."give it another chance...actually Tara give it a second and a third chance". Then she gave me a hug (I suspect she's counceled other nurses new to the Saudi experience before). Sometimes it's nice to have another Canadian around (she's from Montreal)!

Anyway, my day got much better after that. I have really great co-workers and they were really supportive. They noticed I was stressed and did what they could to help. When two of my friends came onto night shift I told them about my day and they were surprised that I'd only had my first meltdown. It made me feel better to know that they've had several of their own while living in Saudi. But we thought it was funny that it tends to be more prevalent among young western staff then with our other co-workers.

So I've made it here three months. There have definately been ups and down...but I'm still happy to be here. I thought I should share this day with you so that you know that Saudi isn't just one big vacation for me. There are alot of aspects that are just really challenging about living here. Almost everything is strange. In fact there are alot of things about this country that just don't make any sense. I suppose the sooner I accept that, the easier life will be for me.

I remember how when I first came I wanted to see everything. When I walked down the main hospital hallway...watching the people I passed was so interesting. Looking at what they wore, watching their interactions (seriously, men in this country hold hands in public while walking together), looking at the women's eyes under their veils, watching people stare at me cause I'm an oddity. Now when I walk down the main corridor, I keep my head down and my eyes averted. It's just easier that way. It's funny how you can always tell the new people by the way they look around with bright eyes like everthing is a novelty.

But the novelty wears off quickly. I remember how the first couple of weeks, you feel slighlty flattered by the attention you get as a foreigner...then it really anoiyes you for a while and you get mad when people stare at you...and lastely...the stage I've happily come to...ambivilance.

my home: hospital compound

Just some pictures of the compound where I live. The top picture is of my apartment building. The other two are of the main entrance of the hospital.