All in cultural musings

Cambodia Off the Beaten Track

Cambodia Off the Beaten Track

Don Mankin
Historic Travel, adventure travel, cultural musings, exotic travel

words + photos by Don Mankin

Our narrow wooden boat churns upstream powered by what looks like a motor from a small lawnmower. The wide, almost empty river is straight out of “Apocalypse Now.” I feel vaguely like Martin Sheen looking for Colonel Kurtz as I scan the sparsely populated river banks. The small boat has barely enough room for the four of us -- my wife Katherine, our guide, the operator and me.

We are heading to a small, isolated village buried in the jungle about 45 minutes up a tributary of the Mekong River, deep in the heart of Ratanakiri province, a mountainous region in the far northeastern corner of Cambodia. This is as far away from our home in Los Angeles as you can get in this world -- geographically, culturally, and in pretty much any other way you can imagine.

Joey and The Wrath of God

Joey and The Wrath of God

Jess Smith
Life Lessons, Personal essay, Travel Humor, cultural musings, travel essay

by Jess Smith

Dear friends allow me to invite you on another Gypsy memory from my years traveling the country roads and glens of bonny Scotland in a blue single decked bus. I was the tender age of seven.

Spring with its bouncing lambs, yellowed valleys of blooming gorse bush and bluebell woods had given way to a warm sun kissed summer. Early spring rains had brought the fruit fields a mighty yield of raspberries as big as a man’s fist. The farmer on seeing his annual droves of Gypsies arrive at his family friendly campsite was rubbing his hands with glee.

photo by fotologic via flickr (common license)My family of seven sisters, parents and our snappy terrier dog crowded down at the bottom of the field, signalling dad to reverse our bus home onto a nice flat piece of ground which was south-facing and secluded by a hedge of mayflower to meet a rising sun. I ran around laying marker sticks for our relatives who would soon join us. Aunt Maggie and Uncle Joe along with little Ed and his big brother Joey were the first to arrive. I swear to you, Joey was an all time excuse for a human being and I hated the ground he walked on. I had good reason to feel this way because he took a sadistic delight in torturing defenceless creatures like mice, birds and insects where as I gave them all the protection I could.

By late afternoon, Aunt Josephine and Uncle Sandy with their three kids arrived, followed by Aunt Jenny, uncle Toby and their brood of ten who erected a circus tent to accommodate them all for the duration of our fruit picking holiday. By sunset we were a big happy bunch of gypsy people circling a blazing campfire, sharing stories, singing songs and enjoying our cultural ties.

To complete the characters who make up this memory I must now introduce old bible Nell; the most formidable lady in the entire campsite. To the Gypsy people, Nell was a Priestess of high esteem. She wrote the rules on how everyone should behave and co-exist as gypsies. No drinking alcohol on the campsite, no flirting with another man’s wife or another woman’s husband. Dogs should not be allowed to run amok and babies should never be set out in the sun without a hat. Every child who didn’t want a slap from her bony hand or nurse a swollen backside after being caught by a flying wallop from her one-legged crutch stayed well away from her tent. Out of earshot, youngsters would call her a witch, older people with no respect said she was Lucifer reborn.

Coffee Rituals Around the World

Vera Marie Badertscher
Culinary Travel, cultural musings, travel essay

by Vera Marie Badertscher

 

Drop me down in a coffeehouse somewhere in the world, and if I have ever visited that country the native rituals will tell me where I am before I’ve heard a single “sucre”, “glyko”, “milchcafe”, or  “café negro.”

flickr photo by uteart via flickr (common license)In Europe and the Americas, coffee is the upstart, edging out the earlier communal drinks of hot chocolate and hot tea.  I have learned from impeccable sources that coffee was first discovered by goats. That legend somehow makes me feel better about the fact that although I love coffee houses and their ritual, I really can’t stand coffee. With a few slight exceptions, I drink tea—or hot chocolate.

In Greece, my husband and I acquired a taste for Greek coffee, in defense against the alternative to American coffee. The waiter inevitably served a small shiny packet of powdery brown stuff, which would perhaps dissolve if the water in the cup were hot enough.  From the prevalence of this powdery stuff throughout southern Europe, we figured that some Swiss Nescafé guy was one heck of a salesman.

To ease into drinking Greek coffee, served in a small cup that holds strong black liquid on top of a spoonful of black sludge, and makes you grateful it comes in a tiny cup, we took it sweet. This coffee, we decided, explains the hairy chests on Greek fishermen. It helps to drink it down after a glass (or between glasses) of ouzo, the licorice-flavored, clear firewater of Greece. While ouzo is getting you drunk, the strong coffee is sobering you up.  I could keep that routine going for quite a while.

I had first discovered that trick in Switzerland, where I found I could indeed tolerate a cup of coffee livened with a lot of plumkirsche or orange or pear-flavored liquer, or best of all, cheri-suise. Yum!

Echoes of Our Ancestors in Cape Coast Castle

Kathleen Koprowski
Historic Travel, cultural musings, travel essay

by Kathleen Koprowski

Photo by bdinphoenix via Flickr (Creative Commons)I stepped out of the flat, gray day and into the black depths of the tunnel that led to the Female Dungeon beneath the Cape Coast Castle. Sensing my way along the stone floor, I followed the footsteps of other visitors ahead as my eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness. Cool air in the tunnel provided no lasting respite from the thick humidity outside; any sense of relief was overshadowed by the heavy weight of souls in this place. We fell silent, immediately sensing the terrible truths housed within.

The castle guide led us down, down underground to the dungeon used to hold female slaves before they were taken from Africa’s Gold Coast (now Ghana) to be sold in the Americas at the height of the slave trade in the 1800’s.  He ushered our small group into a stone chamber and closed the heavy door behind us.  A single bare light bulb illuminated the room for just a moment before he flipped the switch, pitching us into blackness.  No one spoke.  

Gypsy Memories

Jess Smith
Life Lessons, Personal essay, cultural musings, travel essay

 

The ginger-haired boy positioned his freckled face above the school gate, “Hey you, white nigger.”

I gulped a lungful of air and screamed back defiantly, “Go roll with your pigs, farm yard scum.”

He slammed the gate shut, and screeched back, “Rather live in a dung heap than a filthy tent! Tinky vermin, your mother can’t knit, your father kicked a policeman and is lying in the nick (jail).”

I flew at him with fanned fingers and grabbed bunches of red hair. Like tail tied wildcats we scratched, punched and rolled in the dirt and chuck gravel. I knitted my legs around his heaving chest and hissed, “My daddy says your father spends more time on the hillside with the sheep than he does with your ugly mother!”

Teeth clenched, he retorted, “Your mother’s a witch; you’re a goblin, so there!’

Fueled temper blotted all memory of the battle, except for the teacher shouting as he cast me aside like a rag doll, “Bloody uncivilised tinker, go home. You too, boy.”

I limped home from school that day sporting two bruised shins; he was such a big boy with hard capped boots. Layers of pink flesh under my nails and red hair between my swollen fingers proved I managed to hold my own.  

“Mammy,” I cried, “why does every school have a nasty boy who hates us and what’s a nigger and when did we live in tents?”

The previous month, my beautiful raven-haired mother had given birth to her eighth daughter. Her back was still weak and painfully sore as she bent over a metal bath scrubbing nappies (diapers). Rising slowly, she straitened her spine, inhaled and rested two soapy fists on slender hips. I rushed over and circled her thighs. “Oh mammy. Why is life so awful?”

“Oh dear, not another fight.” She blew onto my tear-sodden eyes and kissed my knuckles.   

“Empty headed boy, he’ll never live as rich a life as you.  All that waits for him is moaning about the price of cattle food.”

She lifted my chin and smiled. “You share the world with all God’s creatures and strong, powerful warriors from Africa are called niggers but only by ignorant people who don’t know better. Now remember I told you about grandma and grandpa living in tents most of their lives. Tree bark peeling, hazelnut gathering, snaring rabbits and selling the skins put food in our bellies just like you going berry picking in summer and potato lifting in the autumn. I was raised walking behind the horses’ hooves, as was your father. If the tent was erected properly, it was cozy and kept out the worst snow and gales.”

Dressing for a Jerusalem Wedding

Bliss Goldstein
cultural musings, travel essay

by Bliss Goldstein

 

What does one wear to an Orthodox Jewish wedding in Jerusalem?  In August?

This became my preoccupation from the moment I heard over the telephone wire—which ran like an umbilical cord all the way to the Pacific Northwest from my son who was calling from Israel—the announcement that he was engaged.  As a bagel-and-cream-cheese Jew, I knew there were various body parts that could be shown in any U.S. city but would have to be hidden from sight in the Middle East.  Having never stepped into an Orthodox temple, and certainly not into one built on sand, I was instantly horrified to think my elbows or knees might cause an international incident.

My son and my soon-to-be daughter-in-law reassured me.

“Just wear whatever makes you comfortable.”

Liars.  I was perfectly comfortable in tube tops and sweats, but I knew that wouldn’t be kosher.

“Ummmm, you probably don’t want to wear red,” my daughter-in-law-to-be added.

Red?  Who knew red was a problem?  Clearly I had to become educated about the Jewish laws regarding modesty.  When my research revealed several hot zones on the female form—no elbows, knees, toes, or décolletage—I walked into my closet and stood there, horrified.  All my summer clothes reveled in showcasing at least two pieces of offending flesh.

My long, black never-wrinkles ankle length TravelSmith skirt made me look frumpy. Turtlenecks were out as the Promised Land promised over one-hundred degrees in the summer. 

Searching for Shakespeare

Searching for Shakespeare

Jean Kepler Ross
Art and Culture, Literary Travel, cultural musings

by Jean Kepler Ross

Venice. I was waiting for a traghetto gondola to ferry me across the Grand Canal when I spied a building plaque indicating that the palazzo in front of me was the home of Desdemona, the tragic heroine of Shakespeare’s “Othello.” I didn’t have time to check it out on that trip, but it fired my imagination and I did some research. Desdemona’s home is traditionally set at Palazzo Contarini Fasan, a private home, but now I must go back to see what I can of this home with the plaque. I’ve already been to the Doge’s Palace on Saint Mark’s Square, the Rialto Bridge and the Jewish Ghetto to breathe in the scenes of “The Merchant of Venice.”

In A Pig's Ear

In A Pig's Ear

Dorty Nowak
Culinary Travel, cultural immersion, cultural musings

by Dorty Nowak

There are 72 recipes for animal body parts I have never eaten in Le Meilleur Cuisine de France. I purchased the cookbook, a staple in French kitchens, when I first moved to Paris, and over the past five years it has become a trusted guide for my culinary adventures. However, the section titled “Les Cochonailles et Les Abats” (Pork Products and Offal) remains untried territory.

No, I Don't Speak Spanish

Sallie Bingham
cultural musings

by Sallie Bingham

 

No, I don't speak Spanish. Yes, I tried - a class, some CD's, but somehow it never “took” although I live in New Mexico where perhaps half the population speaks Spanish, and my daughter-in-law and granddaughters speak Spanish, too. But somehow it never came home to me until we were taking a family Christmas vacation at one of the huge resort hotels that wall the beach in Los Cabos at the tip of the Baja Peninsula - or “Baja” as we tourists call it. Everyone who worked in the hotel spoke Spanish but none of the guests did.

The symbol of this linguistic divide, for me, was the rope that was strung across the beach, about half way between the oceans and the throng of lounge chairs under thatched roofs. Perhaps the rope was taken down each night and put up again in the morning, but whenever I was on the beach, the rope was there. On one side, the tourists sat or lay in their lounge chairs surrounded with the usual sunbathing paraphernalia. I was one of them. On the other side, local men and women held trays of jewelry or bundles of brightly-colored serapes and looked at us. Occasionally, one would softly call out to us, but I sensed that this was probably forbidden.

They stood all day on their side the rope, or sometimes walked up and down the beach and chatted with each other. Meanwhile, we sunbathed, read, drank water, gossiped, talked on cell phones, and avoided making eye contact across the rope. During the week we were there, I never saw any tourist approach a vendor or speak to him or her or make a purchase. Yet the local vendors were there, day after day, even on Sunday.

Blood On His Hands

Elyn Aviva
Culinary Travel, cultural musings

words and photos by Elyn Aviva

 

He was a good-looking guy, even though he had blood on his hands and his jacket was spattered with red stains. His eyes were intense, his smile tight, his long fingers graceful as he sharpened his knife, the thin blade scraping rhythmically against the long steel rod.

The carnicería was packed with customers, patiently impatient, enjoying Julio’s ongoing spiel, willing to wait (for wait we would) while he cut each piece of meat to order. There were five butcher shops (not counting two supermarkets) in Sahagún, the small town in northern Spain where we were living, but this was the best. I had it on good authority.

“He’s an artist,” my late friend Paca had explained. “He can slice a piece of meat so thin you can see Barcelona through it.” No small task, given that Barcelona is 500 miles to the east.

Inside the entrance to the small shop was a red ticket machine. Take a number and you will know where you stand. Or so I thought at first. But I was quickly disabused. The flashing number on the bright-lit sign above Julio’s head never changed.

“Who’s last in line?” I asked, my limited Spanish having expanded to cover such necessities. A man leaning on a cane pointed to the elderly, burgundy-haired woman beside him; she nodded. I knew my place and sat down to wait. And wait. An hour would be fast, I realized, for it was just before the holidays, and everyone was stocking up to feed the hoards of friends and relatives returning home.

Homemade chorizo sausage, marinated pork loin, pork tongues, skinned rabbits, quarters of young and slightly older lamb, whole chickens, duck pâte, smoked pork chops, soup bones, bacon, tiny quails packed close together, pig ears, beef steaks, stew meat, chunks of beef to slice into fillets—and more—were tightly packed inside the glass-fronted case that separated Julio from his customers. Another case was crammed with rounds of cheeses and heaps of packaged pork products, its flat top covered with jars of leeks and asparagus and tuna, and bottles of local fruit conserves. On the wall behind, assorted Iberian hams hung from ropes tied around their shanks.

Chasing Fairy Tales In The Dordogne

Kimberley Lovato
Culinary Travel, cultural musings

words + pictures by Kimberley Lovato

Dreams are often born from the most unsuspecting places. Incredibly, mine happened to be delivered by an editor. The assignment that landed in my lap was to head to the Dordogne region of France and follow a chef and her new culinary tour company guests around for a week. No convincing needed, I immediately got in my car in Brussels and drove 10 hours south.   En route I stopped to fuel up and a postcard caught my eye. A picturesque village was enveloped in fog and huddled against a cliff at the edge of the Dordogne River, with a dilapidated rowboat tied to its shore. On the back of the card, in small black and white print, were the words, La-Roque-Gageac, Dordogne.  If fairy tales were depicted on postcards, they would look like this. I bought the card and tucked it behind the visor of my car.

I arrived in Biron, a village of 140 people, at an old priory that sits in the shadows of a 500-year -old castle.  I recall knocking on the weathered wooden doors of the Priory, and hearing the metal against metal slide of the bolt behind it, then a slow creek as the door opened.  Half expecting Frankenstein, I was greeted, instead, by the face of my host, Florida based Chef Laura Schmalhorst. Since then, Laura and I have met up in the Dordogne every year, bonded by our love of a good adventure, good food and wine, and seduced by the convivial people, their passion for the food and their willingness to share it and their stories with us.

While I prefer to travel by bus or local rickshaw, in the Dordogne, a car is essential.  The 2-lane roads are well marked but signs can be miniscule, especially the hand-painted ones directing you to local farms. Be warned: some signs, like those of a walnut farm I was seeking, lead you like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs only to completely disappear. I have learned not to get worked up over this loss of time. We as Americans are programmed for efficiency and if we don’t get where we are going in a reasonable time, our springs pop out and the brain shuts down, reducing us to cursing, yelling idiots.  In the Dordogne, time itself is on vacation. When you live in a fairytale there is no reason to rush, someone once told me. Sometimes it’s good to get off the time track, or be knocked off.

 

Peace and union for all

Peace and union for all

Eric Lucas
Current Events, cultural musings

The afternoon sun was highlighting the vineyard rows next to us as I asked my Croatian guide the key question of the day, if not of all days. She stopped short, appraised me for a minute and smiled, but not an easy smile, one weighed against both pain and promise.

“Of course I visit Serbia. I have many Serbian friends. They are our neighbors. Each people, each country, there are bad persons and good. We do not hold to the bitterness of the past,” Biljana declared. “We must not.

“Do you understand?”

The Two Walls of Israel

The Two Walls of Israel

Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde
cultural musings, travel essay

words + photos by Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde

This is a story about two walls.  They are both in Israel.  One is holy; the other I found to be horrible.  In the short span of 24 hours I had an intimate experience with each of these walls. 

The horrible wall is grey, massive and foreboding.  It snakes over the hills and valleys, reminiscent of many photos I’ve seen of the Great Wall of China.  But this is not a “great” wall.  Its purpose is the same, however:  to keep others out, to make a separation barrier between us and them.  To enter Bethlehem we had to pass through the wall by first entering a large concrete building.  A colorful sign outside said “Peace Be With You” in English, Hebrew and Arabic and was signed by the Israel Ministry of Tourism.  I didn’t really feel like a welcomed tourist as we wound our way through chutes, past large turnstiles with lights that said “green” for “go” and “red” for “stop.”  A flash of our American passports and we were waved on.   We exited through a simple doorway to the other side of the wall, to a different world.

The wall towered above us, probably 20 feet.  No longer just grey, the wall was covered with graffiti.  The graffiti wasn’t just words, but artful angry pictures, one of a lion devouring what appeared to be a white dove with the English words “Stop the Wall” and “hypocrisy.”   Instead of the field of ancient olive trees we’d seen on the other side of the wall, we were right in the midst of a neighborhood.  A woman, her head covered, called to her daughter below from the balcony of her house just 40 feet or so from the wall.  Children played in the street. We spent time with friends of our son Josh, Palestinians who work for peace but who are trapped on the island that is Bethlehem.  We had coffee in Josh’s friend’s home where his mother served us cookies and proudly picked mint and lemon balm from her rooftop garden so we could savor the scent.  

Kandinsky and Kindness in New York City

Shirley B. Moskow
Art and Culture, cultural musings

by Shirley Moskow

They were meant to be together so when I learned that the Guggenheim Museum was celebrating the 50th anniversary of its landmark building with an in-depth retrospective of the Russian avant-garde artist Wasilly Kandinsky, I knew I had to go.

“The Angel in The Architecture,” trumpeted The New York Times headline for the review of the Guggenheim show, which runs through January 10. Frank Lloyd Wright designed the building especially for the museum’s founding collection of Kandinsky’s non-objective work.

I drove into New York City from Boston -- a tactic I do not recommend. And, speaking of angels, one must have been watching over me because I found a parking space within walking distance of the museum. Easy, right? Nope. I had a problem with the parking meter, a style that was new to me. Directions said it took credit cards, but when I slipped my Visa card into the slot and punched in the length of time I expected to be gone, nothing happened. I tried to remove my card from the slot to try again. The parking meter held the card in a vise-like grip.

A father with a curly-headed toddler in hand saw my predicament. He forcefully yanked my credit card from the machine and counted four quarters into my palm. “It’s easier with coins,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said, handing back his change. I certainly appreciated this random act of kindness, but I already had quarters.

“Keep it,” he insisted. “You may need it later.”

I thought about his kindess as I approached the Guggenheim.

A Sixty-Year Love Story from Morocco, Israel and France

A Sixty-Year Love Story from Morocco, Israel and France

Bethany Ball
Personal essay, cultural musings, life

by Bethany Ball

Marco and Aliza descended on our house in Nyack New York with their irrepressible energy.  Aliza, who is visiting from Israel, is the mother of our dear friend Sagi. And Marco is her boyfriend visiting from his home in Bordeaux, France.  They were staying with Sagi in his tiny apartment in Williamsburg and had come over to cook a meal for Sagi and his friends. Marco immediately settled in, a spry, fit man in his early seventies, making the most of our ill-equipped kitchen (I asked myself: Where are my kitchen scissors? Why do I not have large cutting boards? Or serving dishes?). Marco speaks French, Portuguese and Hebrew. Everyone who came for dinner spoke a smattering of one or several of those languages. If we got stuck, Marco spoke to Aliza in French and she translated in Hebrew or English. There was moule (en francais), moulim (b’ivrit) or mussels with a butter sauce that we were instructed to drink. Our friend Anthony (a native New Yorker married to an Israeli) brought lamb kabob and sharpened knives. Kristen, a native Alabaman chopped parsley. Sagi worked the grill, along with my husband. Anthony’s Israeli wife Abi and I chased after our not-quite-two-year olds and filled in the gaps--like searching for kitchen appliances and washing dishes. Abi set the table and tore and folded paper towel for napkins (why do I never have napkins?). Kristen’s boyfriend Etay played DJ, chopped vegetables and teased Marco. “Marco! I put on French music! Just for you.”

“Bah!” he said, making a face, “It is Carla Bruni. She does not sing. She talks!”

“Give us some Yves Montand,” Aliza called out.

Marco served my grilled fish, branzini or Mediterranean Sea bass. He called it by its French name, Loup de Mer.

10 Ways to Start Your Day around the World

Vera Marie Badertscher
Culinary Travel, cultural musings

by Vera Marie Badertscher

I am not one of those Americans for whom a familiar breakfast serves as a security blanket.  You know what I mean.  “I must have fresh ground coffee.” “I have to start the day with a three-minute egg. Don’t those people have an egg timer?”

I welcome that plunge into local culture, as, not quite full conscious, I am confronted with something on a plate or in a bowl that seems, well, foreign.

 photo by Meaduva via Flickr

 

How to Eat Breakfast around the World


1. New Zealand

Baked beans. Okay, get over it.  Beans are a good source of protein, have a touch of sweetness, and the fiber equivalent of stewed prunes.  The milk for your tea will be down the hall in the hotel in a small fridge. 

2. Austria

Loosen your belt. Several times a day, stop in a café for Austria’s favorite sport—piling schlag (whipped cream) on coffee mit chocolate mit maybe a slurp of rum. But that is not for breakfast. At breakfast time, stack your plate from the tidy buffet with meats, pink and brown rounds, cubes, rectangular slices marbled with white.  Beside the meat, platters with neatly arranged stacks of cheeses—hard, soft, pale yellow to pumpkin orange, and hard boiled eggs in egg cups. Appel strudel and amazing breads. Try the sour pickles—honestly they go well with the meat.  Be sure to walk a lot between castles and churches.

3. Switzerland

Same as Austria, but with more cheese. Stuff your pockets with Gruyere and break it out for lunch on a mountainside overlooking a lake.

4. Ireland

Ireland cooks up the kind of breakfast that leaves you in a stupor. Three kinds of meat and four kinds of bread (including Irish soda bread and heavy country wheat bread) and butter so good it makes you wonder if calling that yellow stuff wrapped in foil that you eat at home should be prosecuted for false labeling. Pile on some fried potatoes, some eggs, and take a nap before lunch. Only a few cups of strong Irish tea will keep you alert.

DRAMA AT THE 99cent store

Gwen Davis
Life Lessons, cultural musings
I went yesterday to pick up a prescription at the CVS pharmacy on Lincoln Boulevard in Venice (California, photo via Flickr by ElFreddyless fortunately, but not so bad), and as I parked saw a police car pull up in front of the 99 cent store. Three young officers, two of them men, got out of the vehicle, triangle-cornered a short, squat, fiftyish Chicano just getting onto his bicycle with a green backpack, and guns drawn, told him to lie down on the ground. Guns drawn. No shit. They first ordered him to put his hands on his head, and as he was slow to do so, obviously shocked and frightened, with an apparent language difficulty, got him to lie down on the ground, in increments—I couldn’t hear what they were saying so all of this played out MOS—but first he was on his knees, then fully face down on the sidewalk, where they put his hands behind his back for him, cuffed him, got him gingerly onto his feet, and walked him to the trunk of their police car, made him lean against it, frisked him, and started going through his back-pack.


As it was outside the 99cent store and I had noted great congregations of homeless outside it the day before, I assumed they had been called for a suspected shoplifting. But guns drawn? Three of them, including the young blonde policewoman, holding their weapons with both hands and aiming it at him as if they were breaking into a meth lab.
Fresh Eyes

Fresh Eyes

Jules Older
Life Lessons, cultural musings, travel essay

by Jules Older

When you live in a place, after a while, you lose your fresh eyes.

It doesn't mean you're dumb or insensitive or unaware of your surroundings. Unless you work hard to correct it, sure as fog, sooner or later you're gonna misplace your awareness of what you see and smell, hear and taste on your way to work or walking home from school or going out for the Sunday paper.

Sometimes it’s actually a relief. As one travel-writer friend sighed about her blissful oblivion to her hometown surroundings, “Ah, the luxury of not seeing!”

Hidden Encounters With Saudi Women

Patricia McGregor
cultural musings

by Patricia McGregor

Even in our black abayas and scarves it’s obvious that we’re foreigners. Saudi women rarely venture on to the streets. This is a man’s world. I know the women are somewhere and I’m determined to make contact.

photo by Dave G. HouserWe travel in a full- size tour bus; an escort of police cars, with flashing lights, and secret security men, with big guns, drive ahead of and behind us. No one can miss us.

This works to my advantage. Not being allowed to drive, women stare out of their car windows. We make eye contact.

As my face isn’t covered, it’s easy for them to see my smile. All I can see are their eyes smiling back at me. Some women even return my subtle wave. One lifts up the corner of her veil to get a better look.

Thank goodness for malls and washrooms. It’s there that I get my chance. Curious about me, the women initiate conversations as they touch up their makeup. Why I am here, school, their great shoes, my beaded abaya, Canada. We laugh. I have a brief encounter with woman after woman. As a new grandmother, I admire their babies and show pictures of Claire. We smile and a bond forms in spite of the language barrier.

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