We Survived Ramadan in Saudi

It is Monday morning, Oct. 23rd and it was announced in yesterday's Arab News that today will be the official end of Ramadan, the end of a month of daily fasting, and the beginning of Eid Al-Fitr, three days of celebration. This celebration is like three days of our Christmas day over and over again. There will be lots of fine eating, many sweets and nuts, and lots of gift giving and fireworks! At night, during this past month, veiled Saudi women would spread their load of fireworks on the ground to sell in front of malls and grocery stores in Al Khobar. The Saudis have been shopping for new clothes or having new outfits made for this Eid Al-Fitr three day celebrations. Workers are also given vacation time for these three days so apparently nothing will be open except maybe the restaurants and grocery stores. We have never stayed in Saudi during the Ramadan holidays, so not really sure what it will be like these next three days. But I don't see our lives changing much because we only go out shopping for food these days. Due to the month of fasting, going out to lunch or breakfast was not an option as there was no where open to eat until after the sun set. So, maybe now we can go out to breakfast or lunch!
We did go to Bahrain the other day for dinner and a movie. Remember, there are NO movie theatres here in Saudi Arabia ANYWHERE in the whole country. The movie theatres in Bahrain are very plush, but they do tend to cut and slash at some of the American films that come in. For example, we saw "Tallegany Nights", and there was a comic scene where the two male race drivers kiss. That was cut out. Something else was cut out as the movie jumped at another point to something else and it could have easily been that someone said the word "Pig" or made some reference to "Pork, or Bacon".
I saw a very unique sight when I went into the movie bathroom. These are very plush as well and always have a woman on duty cleaning up. There was a long row of about 8 sinks on a marble counter along one wall, and the tiny Indian cleaning lady was sitting on the counter, between two sinks, in the lotus position, her face about 1 inch from the mirror, tweezing her eyebrows. Her long handled mop was soaking in a sink full of soapy water and she didn't miss a tweeze during my visit. Not a sight one sees everyday. The bathroom was spotless.
We always go to the early movies, so we usually have private screenings of every movie we see in Bahrain. Pretty neat! During Ramadan, no one really goes out and about in the Middle East anywhere except after the last prayer of the day, when the fasting comes to a halt for the day. Then everywhere starts to fill up from about 8 PM with hordes of people until about 11 PM when roads and stores and sidewalks and malls are just a sea of people. A couple of times we did go food shopping at midnight and it was really very nice.

There is a Johnny Carinos in Bahrain and we went there for dinner. It totally filled up with Saudis and Filipinos and we were the only Americans there. One Saudi family sat at a table close to us and they were very typical. The woman was totally veiled, and there were two Filipino maids with them to care for their two very young daughters. Because Bahrain doesn't have 'family sections' like in Saudi or huge partitions that can be rolled around tables to seclude Saudi women from public view, this woman would be eating her meal by lifting her veil before each bite and shoving food up under it. These women are very expert at doing this, however, and it is so smooth and slight of hand that one hardly notices what is going on.
It is interesting because we go to Bahrain to see movies and eat out where we don't feel so pinched and stifled. The Bahrainis drive over to Saudi to shop because things are cheaper over here. To me, all the high fashion stores are amazing in both places and the high fashion styles are stunning and very expensive. Fashion is not a trivial matter for Saudi women and they take their clothes shopping very seriously.