Carolyn Greco arrived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to teach English at a medical college. She was greeted at the airport by the college president who helped her through customs. However, when she arrived at the dormitory where she would be staying, she found it sparsely furnished with no towels, bed linens, or basic amenities. The next day, accompanied by the Dean as her "surrogate husband" due to rules prohibiting unaccompanied women, she went grocery shopping but had difficulties with the required full body abaya. Back at the dorm, Greco had a sparse diet limited by her lack of cooking facilities and supplies.

1. Carolyn Greco
November 30, 2010
Missing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
In 24-hours I flew from what I know and understand to what I don’t know and
don’t understand.
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia can only be described as a beautiful, incomprehensible
contradiction. You cannot come with any expectations.
The American Dean of the Medical college and I arrived at King Khalid
International Airport at 4 a.m. (The United States Air Force used the facilities as an
airbase for aerial refueling tanker operations during part of the Gulf War; it’s also an
alternative space shuttle landing site.) Even at that hour designer and cosmetic shops,
banks, duty free and eateries were open.
A short, stocky man dressed in a long white robe with what looked like an Italian
tablecloth on his head, smiled and embraced us inside the security area. (The robe is
called a dish-dash-ah and the winter scarf is a shumagg). The man is my new
employer, the President of the Medical College where I will be teaching English. He led
us past an embarrassingly long line of new arrivals and we walked through customs and
immigration. They did not speak to me.
We waited a familiarly long time for my luggage, loaded it on a cart and piled it
into the president’s Mercedes. I wanted to take a photo of our arrival but pictures are
not permitted in the ultra modern terminal. It was too dark for me to see anything of the
drive to the college except the lack of traffic lights or painted lane ways. We pulled up to
a gated marble building that resembles a hotel with a wide, 4-storey atrium topped with
stain glass windows. I had not seen photos of the girls’ dorm where I would be staying.
I expected something small like a stay-for-a-week hotel room with complimentary bottled
water, thick white towels, crisp, clean sheets and lots of hot water.
The wide, uncarpeted marble hallways reverberated with the clatter of my
suitcases. A student opened a walnut door with a paper-numbered sign into a sparsely
furnished apartment with a living room, bathroom, bedroom and kitchenette. White
painted walls, 15-foot white recessed ceiling and white tile floor make the apartment
appear cavernous. In the living room I have a brown love seat and oversized brown
chair, a glass coffee table and satellite TV. In the kitchen I found a container with new
cutlery sitting on the white marble counter. No refrig. No microwave. No pipes to drain
the sink water. A package of new bed linen sat upon a new unmade bed. No hangers in
the wardrobe. The bath had an open shower adjacent to the toilet with a squat water
heater suspended from the ceiling. No towels. No hot water. No toilet paper.
I did what any American girl would do at 5 a.m.: I phoned the president. He
immediately returned to the dorm, inspected the apartment and offered to get me what I
needed. I settled for a towel and laundered sheets. I slept for 12-hours and didn’t wake
up until 5 p.m. My next adventure occurred at the grocery store.
Because women are not permitted to go out unaccompanied in Riyadh, the Dean
and I went food shopping together at the nearby Panda. (For the duration of my
teaching contract I have dubbed him my surrogate husband). Before I could go outside,
I was required to borrow an abaya from a taller student across the hall. When trying to
describe an abaya, my eight-year-old niece, Lilah, suggested that it might look like
something the Pilgrims wore. Yep—only I could not pass for a respectable Saudi
woman.
A respectable Saudi woman covers her hair. I made a spectacle of myself
tripping, sliding and running on the marble floor of Panda following Dean Rob. I
bunched up the black fabric in my right hand and tried to hang on to the cart with my

2. left. You need to hold down the handle for the buggy to move. Difficult with one hand.
Most of the women wore black burqas that cover their face; only their eyes show.
I saw men in shorts, khakis and the dish-dash-ah. At first I was surprised to see men
grocery shopping with their wives. Then I remembered that women cannot shop without
their husband or a male relative. Men looked. Women looked and a small boy looked.
I said, “Hello” to the boy but he scurried off to his mother.
The cashiers were all men. Not much was different from an American grocery
except the size but they have Superstores here, too. I did not buy much because my
appliances consist of one hot plate. I guess I need to qualify that. I don’t have any
Saudi money (rials) because I didn’t think to go to the bank at 4a.m. The run to Panda
was my first time outside the dorm.
I bought eggs, cheddar cheese, pita bread, peanut butter and jelly, orange juice,
Activia yogurt, Nestle instant coffee, apples, bananas, tomatoes and onion. I wanted
fresh humus but the store manager only had it in a can. (I couldn’t make it from
chickpeas, no cookware). He was so accommodating, I felt embarrassed.
Next door to the grocery was Helfy, a cholesterol-free fast food restaurant. Dean
Rob wanted a burger and fries. Except for a handful of almonds I’d brought in my carry-
on, I hadn’t eaten in almost 24 hours: Camel would have tasted good. We could not eat
together in public, so I brought my food back to my room and devoured it alone. In
between bites I’d clap a mosquito between my hands to kill it. Today my diet has been
sparse--pita bread and cheese since I can’t wash a dish without using the bathroom
sink. Oh, and I forgot to buy dish detergent.