Jobless in Riyadh

To console myself tonight I am promising the following: I will not age in this city nor will I die in it. They may bury me in Riyadh, whoever they are that wash and burry the dead, but my readers will forever know that my wish is to be turned to ashes and blown in the face of wilder lands--Canada will do.

Three weeks into a holiday which I was obligated to take along with my colleagues (though I barely started working) have brought me back to what I vaguely knew: one should not sit jobless in Riyadh. Work in this city is the figurative alternative for alcohol consumption, a series of escapes. Without the alternatives, these days, I am conscious of being imprisoned in a variety of fancy houses.

Because I am very sad inside, feeling emotionally clogged and suffocated, I have been increasingly caving-in. There’s truly not much interest on my behalf to chat with anyone about the wonderful things I do throughout my day—caring for a toddler, walking in the house, walking in the other house, eating what the maids have generously cooked and trying to strike up interest in life by calling up a friend or going to the mall.

There is something DEAD in Riyadh, I recognize it starting with myself. Dead as the beef kept inside a fridge so as to "age it" without rotting. On my first weeks in Riyadh, my toddler would cry asking to go to the ocean. I tell him there are no oceans in Riyadh, but then he wants to go swing, slide and swim in a pool.

A lot of planning has to be done in Riyadh, to satisfy such little requests. If you don’t have a pool or a playground in your house, which I don’t, you must arrange to go to a family’s house which has a playground or a public playground after investigating whether it is safe, clean and if the weather has cooled down. Let’s not forget arranging transportation and better yet a man to come along with you for reasons of safety. Another thing to consider for the public option is that you'll have to wear the abaya and the headscarf. There's going to be little freedom to chuckle, laugh and run about with the child without being scrutinized or mistaken by other men for flirty.

Men in Riyadh whose car pedals only need their feet, cannot emotionally understand how it is like for outgoing women to be living in Riyadh—even if they theoretically empathize. The daily struggle between needing a man in Riyadh and craving for independency is so complicated that it drives the sanest insane. It can evoke sensitivity on both the man and woman who find their relationship redefined by the country law as well as the cultural norm as father and a child (a servant and a spoilt brat!?)

In the pitch dark right now I look about my house and feel little interest in furnishing it further. Five years from now I hope I would move on. I am heavy as it is and should not ground myself in Riyadh much further.