Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

One year after my twin sister Helen and I were born in Georgetown we moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. We spent two years in Riyadh- two years that have totally slipped my mind, which is why I got my mom to recount our time spent there:

"We lived 100 yards from the US Embassy on the Diplomatic Quarter where most of the diplomatic missions were located. The Diplomatic Quarter was located above a wadi, which means "valley" in Arabic- it was very attractive with trails and parks and palm trees. It was open to the Saudi public- most days families would picnic there, which often created culture clashes between the local Wahhabi muslims and more secular expatriots. For instance, when Kurt went running in his spandex outfit he would sometimes be stoned by small Saudi children who considered his clothing inappropriate. At the same time, even though it was a diplomatic enclave, as a woman I was prohibited from driving and had to obey the social mores of the country, which meant that I had to dress conservatively or if I didn't want to dress conservatively I had to put on abaya, which was a black cloak that would cover my body, and which all Saudi women wore when they were outside of the house. Because Saudi Arabia is a desert country I found the black polyester abaya to be particularly uncomfortable and instead preferred to dress in very conservative bag lady like clothes.Oftentimes we couldn't do activities as a family like we could in America. The zoo for instance had visiting hours for women and children and separate visiting hours for men. The same thing happened with swimming pools."

U.S. Embassy, Riyadh

"We ate well in Saudi Arabia. The standard "Saudi food" was actually Lebanese food- hummus, baba ganoush, tabbouleh, lamb, and kibbeh. There are also more than a million Yemenese working in Saudi Arabia. We would go to food stalls (Kurt would) and pick up chicken in a bag, which was a greasy paper bag filled with saffron cooked rice and a broasted chicken, which was wonderful and inexpensive! We would also drive downtown and Kurt would stop at the schwarma shops and pick up chicken and beef schwarma sandwiches which were terrific. We would look at the mob of young Saudi men standing in line- you'd almost never see a woman in public in those kinds of settings. If you went to the malls, however, and Saudi Arabia had terrific modern Western malls- there was a different story. There you had the finest European shops, amazing lingerie stores (staffed only by men, go figure...), and Saudi men and presumably groups of unmarried Saudi young ladies would be walking up and down the mall attracting each other's attention while making sure to avoid the unwelcome attention of the Religious Police."

Saudi Religious Police

"The Religious Police were a real problem. Not for us because we had diplomatic ID cards but for all the other expatriots and certainly for the average Saudi, a religious police was a real danger- on the look out for any violation of Saudi custom or law- they were constantly on the hunt for women and men in contact with one another who weren't related. Because in Saudi Arabia women could only be in the presence of a male who was her husband or family member. And the social mores applied to all of the mini millions of non-Muslims from south asia from the phillipines from indonesia and europe who worked in the Kingdom. The first time I was in Saudi Arabia when I was unmarried it was possible for a Western male who was driving me to a reception or to a party and who was not a diplomat himself for the religious police to arrest him and to deport him for violating Saudi law. Even your dad and I on more than one occaion were accosted by religious police and this was before we were married who objected to us having dinner together. While they couldn't arrest us they could threaten the staff at the restaurant or the store and oftentimes we just had to leave."

the Saraha Desert in Saudi Arabia

"But our memories of Saudi Arabia remain terrific. We had great adventures in the desert. We went desert camping with groups of expatriots who wer'e still friends with. We attended desert concerts with hundreds if not thousands of expatriots who would gather in a canyon in the desert to listen to classical music. We took trips around the country. Your dad visited the Nabateyan ruins. He did a car camping trip along the old  Hijaz railway. We explored nearby deserted palaces and towns. We visited the assir region close to yemen where baboons would run around the forest. We went to Dahran and saw the amazing Aramco compound where women were actually allowed to drive. We went to Jiddah and went swimming and snorkeling in the Red Sea. And we met many interesting Saudis along the way. Also, Phoebe was born there!!!! One of several embassy kids who have Riyadh as their birthplace and it was with some regret and fond memories that we picked up and transferred to Pakistan."

my little sister Phoebe (on top)