Feather Pillows, Physicians and Queues

We are in desperate need of new pillows. I "pluff" up our pillows every day when I make the bed. Doesn't seem to make any difference. Bedtime rolls around and I put my head on the pillows and they go flat. What are the manufacturer's recommended replacement age for pillows? Not that I would adhere to any manufacturer's recommendation, because they are, after all, in the business to sell more pillows, so they probably would recommend replacing them at ridiculously short increments - say, every six months. Yeah. RIght. I'm not paying $50. for a pillow that is going to be replaced in six months. I paid $50. for each of the king-sized feather pillows on our bed. I remember purchasing them at home store in Raleigh when we first moved there, and that was in 1998. And, when I paid $100. for two pillows, I recall saying to myself, "They are really nice pillows. At this price, they better last forever!" The pillows are ten years old. I guess I could say we got our $100. worth out of them. But now, they are in dire need of being replaced with new ones.

My dilemma is whether I will find nice feather pillows on this side of the world. I haven't looked yet, so I am not going to say that I won't find them. I just don't know where to begin looking. Marks & Spencer? [DH hates the black towels I got there, for his bathroom, and I paid a small fortune for them!] Marks & Spencer seems to be on the pricey side, to me. There is a mattress factory downtown. I wonder if they sell feather pillows? We'll be going home for the Holidays so the pillows could actually wait - if they had to - but I want to fill my suitcase with other things that I want to bring back and pillows, especially two king-sized ones, are going to take up an awful lot of room. J.C. Penney ships world-wide. I could find them there and have them sent here. A pillow is something you need to touch and feel before you buy it. I'd be hesitant to get on-line and order pillows without being able to touch and hold them and squish and squeeze them.

I must say that The Mall of Dhahran is outdoing itself to cater to Westerners! I have been to The Gap and to Banana Republic. The prices are no different at those stores here than they are in the States. Life would be almost perfect if they had "fitting rooms," but that is never going to happen in this part of the world, and frankly, it just can't. There are some very valid reasons that there are no fitting rooms. [Use your imagination...] During my trip downtown the other day - I did go to the Mall - and found a perfect pair of jeans for DH at Banana Republic. Best part? They were on sale. SR105 for a pair of jeans!!! [$28.15] The return policy for "sale" items is a pain in the butt - you have one day to return whatever you buy if it is on sale and it doesn't fit. Not exactly convenient. I got lucky, though, and the jeans fit great. While racing down the mall "hall" I noticed a linen store - the name of which escapes me - but I bet if I check it out, I can find feather pillows...

I have blogged several times, now, about the Egyptian physicians that are in jail, here, that each received sentences of 15 years and 1500 lashes, for "addicting" a patient to painkillers. [Apparently, the "addicted" patient, in this particular instance, is absolved of any personal responsibility.] The matter is simply not going to be swept under the proverbial rug; Egypt has now banned medical professionals from working in the Sandbox. "The Egyptian Ministry of Manpower said in a statement that it would not approve Saudi contracts to hire Egyptian doctors 'until further notice.' Last month a Saudi Islamic court sentenced Egyptian doctors Raouf Al Arabi and Shawki Abd Rabuh... The sentencing has drawn angry reaction from Egypt's human rights groups and media, who have accused Saudi authorities of unfairly treating Egyptians working there. Protesting the punishment, relatives of the two convicts and rights advocates on Wednesday gathered outside the Press Syndicate in Cairo raising placards reading: 'The 1,500 lash judgment is unprecedented in Islamic history.'" For certain, we have not seen the end of the matter.

Chuckle, chuckle. Snort, snort. "Goodbye to long airport queues." Only if you are a man! A new service is going to "facilitate travel of citizens as they would not be in need of standing in long queues at the immigration [sic] to get their passports stamped. The new service is currently available for Saudi men traveling... It will be introduced for Saudi women and expatriate travelers at a later stage." [Probably about the same time women get driver's licenses...] Pluheeze! We all KNOW that no one queues in this country - it is a completely foreign norm and beyond the realm of comprehension. It will be comical to watch the men all push and shove to use the new technology, which involves swiping their passport or some kind of card through a scanner, and NOT "queue" to go through the process. Not that officials should not be given some praise for making the effort to smooth the process, but... The only way to eliminate a fuster cluck here will be to issue a piece of the equipment - whatever it is called - to each and every individual "male" passenger. Pictures will be unobtainable - not even a possibility of getting a photo of something like that. Notwithstanding the fact that I choose to go across the Causeway and fly out of Bahrain where there is the pretense and at least some semblance of civility that "queuing" is adhered to. [But, hey, that is just my opinion!]

When I Grow Up

… I want to be a Public Relations Ambassador! Hardly the same as wanting to become a teacher or a nurse, but equally as important in today’s society.

Khaled Almaeena’s brilliant article of last Sunday is by-far one of the most appropriate and timely opinions that I have read in quite sometime. Mr. Almaeena and a friend of his, Ali Al-Shiddy, a writer, discussed establishing an association they would call “Friends of Expatriates,” and they both agree “that such an association would benefit all involved . . . that the need for such an association has never been greater than it is today.”

The commentary, which is too good to NOT read in full, states, in part:

“The fact is that we have millions of expatriates living among us. The sad truth is that we hardly know them and they hardly know us . . . Yes, they have come here to make a living and, in most cases, to do jobs that Saudis are either unable or unwilling to do. But let us not forget that we have asked them to come here; indeed, they could not have come to the Kingdom without our help and sponsorship.

. . . Expatriates have played a vital and pivotal role in the development of our country. Our country would not be where it is today without their talents, dedication and skills. We owe them our gratitude . . . Probably the first wave of expatriates who came to what is modern-day Saudi Arabia were the Americans who came with Aramco in the 1930s. They bore the heat, the lack of comfort and facilities and scoured our deserts for oil. They found it of course in quantities even they did not dream of, and with the oil was built the foundations of the Kingdom today and the life that we enjoy.

In the 1950s came professional people, many from Pakistan and India. Doctors, engineers and technicians . . . In our first economic boom and later on came workers from the Philippines, South Korea, India, Pakistan and many Arab countries . . . All were asked to come here in order to do something specific. Not to be forgotten are the thousands who have come here as simple workers; without them and their sweat, the plans and visions of engineers and builders would never have become a reality . . .

There is no doubt that many expatriates did very well in the Kingdom; most of them worked hard and deserved their success. Of course, there were troublemakers as well; however . . . Many of their educated people have set up welfare centers, help centers, medical aid centers . . . to help the needy and unfortunate in their own community. I look very closely at their attitude toward their less fortunate brethren and I see one which we should ourselves emulate.

The overwhelming number of expatriates here conduct themselves with dignity and take pride in what they do – despite their many problems. Unpaid salaries, bad treatment by employers, abuse and injustice. Very few of them have recourse to our legal system and this is a situation which urgently needs to be addressed.

Whether we like it or not, many expatriates will be here for a long time . . . we should try to make them happy and comfortable which in turn will make them work more productively. Let us not look down our noses at them for they can be a very strong and vocal political and social force when they return to their countries. They have lived her and they know what life here is like. They can be ambassadors for us . . .

We should not deceive ourselves . . . while we spend millions of dollars to improve our image, we could save a lot of money by creating a congenial and pleasant atmosphere here. Much could be done along these lines by interacting with existing expatriate communities, focusing on history, culture, music and other traditions. I believe one of the best ways to do this would be through an association such as Ali Al-Shiddi and I discussed. We ought to take great care to use the expatriates in our midst as our fist line of information defense. It has not been done before but its time is certainly now.

Oh. My. Gosh. How powerful Khaled Almaeena’s statements are! I am ready now, today, to put my name on the sign-up roster. We can hold the first gathering of this association at my house and I’ll bake brownies! When the “Friends of Expatriates” group becomes a reality, it would be a privilege to participate. And an honor, at some point in the future, to return home to the United States as a Public Relations Ambassador for Saudi Arabia!!!