Surviving the Sandbox: On the Procurement of Sustenance

On of my favourite things about being in a new place, is checking out the local supermarkets.  I love the fact that such an everyday sort of activity can actually become an adventure, or a complicated and frustrating affair.  Riyadh, in this way, does not disappoint.

Grocery shopping in Riyadh is a family affair - couples come together along with all of their children and more than likely, their nanny.  Which means the grocery store is frequently no less than utter chaos!  Add to this the fact that the shopping carts aren't unidirectional and people don't have a problem pushing you out of the way to get what they want and you have complete pandemonium!

The best way to avoid this uncomfortable shopping experience is to expertly time your shopping to coincide with prayer time.  Saudi Arabia is (I think) unique in the middle east in that they actually enforce store closures during salat (the five prayer times throughout the day).  Now although prayer really only takes 5-10min the stores often close for more than 45 min.  Often you can see the store workers (who are likely expats and just as likely, not muslim) chatting at the tills while the store is closed - infuriating if you just want to get your Starbucks and go about your business.

But back to grocery shopping... if you can time it exactly right you can get into the grocery store just as they are closing for prayer and then do your shopping during the relative calm of salat.  The trick is getting in right on time and having a long enough list to sufficiently occupy yourself for the 45min (because no cashiers will take you until salat is finished).

If you get trapped in the store when you only wanted to grab milk, too bad!  But no worries, you can always entertain yourself with your camera phone...

For example:  Want to get your thobes their whitest and your abaayas their blackest?  New abaaya and thobe wash!

Or this one:  Culturally appropriate breakfast cereal!

As far as what you can buy in Riyadh there really isn't much difference from home.  Many Saudi's have lived in America, Canada or Great Britain at some point and come to appreciate brands from these places.  Also the large number of Western Expats in Saudi means that there is a market for most Western brands.  Tamimi (which is owned by Safeway) will import anything that Safeway carries overseas (I never actually put this to the test but I hear it's true).  Lulu prided itself on it's large number of imports and the manager often stalked us in the aisles to ask us if there were any products we would like him to start importing.  Case in point: before Christmas I was looking for molasses, the stock boy, after offering me cane syrup and bean paste (I don't think he really knew what molasses was) sadly told me they did not have it.  Two weeks later (after Christmas) I found a whole shelf of molasses marked with a large sign, "Just in from UK"!  

Surviving the Sandbox

I am not, it turns out, a very consistent blogger.  I alway knew this, but the last year seems to have thrown that into stark focus.  My efforts to blog about my time in the Middle East were quickly cut short by a most surprising revelation - I became paranoid about internet censorship.  Coming of course from Canada where we take for granted our ability to simply say what we think when we think it (at least before Stephen Harper became the grand poo-bah), I had never really considered what it would be like to be censored.  But then I arrived in Saudi Arabia and internet censorship was obvious and I started to think about what I was saying.  Then I realized that my blog was being read inside the kingdom and I started to become mildly paranoid.  And without much warning I found myself completely unable to write anything for fear that it might insult or incriminate.

Now safely out of the kingdom, I feel like I want to write about what that year was like from my perspective and about the things I learned as I lived, worked and traveled.  I'll admit that the paranoia was probably an overreaction (I'm probably not on anybody's radar) but it was nevertheless an interesting consequence of plunking myself down in such an extremely foreign culture.  So without promising a consistent, concise or even chronological blog, I am hereby undertaking to start chronicling my time in Saudi Arabia - semi-affectionately dubbed "The Sandbox".

Hopefully you will enjoy my musings!

Christina and I at a Saudi festival during our first month in Riyadh... I just like this picture, I think we look like we are conspiring (as roommate Amy pointed out, I often look like I am conspiring).