Saudi Women Only Hotel
From today’s BBC News:
Saudis open hotel for women only
The Middle East’s first women-only hotel has opened in Saudi Arabia.
It will cater primarily to businesswomen, who work completely covered from head to toe in public and have to observe strict segregation.
The hotel, in Riyadh, has 25 rooms and boasts fine dining and conference facilities, as well as a range of health and beauty treatments.
Its executive director said the response to the idea of a hotel just for women had been overwhelming.
The Luthan Hotel & Spa is owned by a group of 20 Saudi princesses and businesswomen.
It hopes to attract expatriates from the nearby diplomatic quarter as well as local women.
It is the first spa hotel in the kingdom available to women all the time – pools in other hotels are only open to women on certain fixed days or hours.
You can read more about the hotel HERE
History of Architecture in Old Kuwait City (5)
One last quote from this wonderful book by Saleh Abdulghani Al-Muttawa, because it summarizes his ideas on what makes house practical for the weather and customs of this region:
Cultural Response
. . .the major critical cultural and customs problems which concern housing are;
1. Privacy for female inhabitants
2. Separation between female and male guests, and separation between guests, in general, and house members.
3. Future family expansion
. . . The approach to solving those critical problems are as follows:
1. To assure privacy for family members, and especially female members. The family part of the house has been pushed all the way to the back; in other words, it is on the north side far away from the street. It is difficult, or impossible, for anyone passing by the house to be able to look through and see the inside, especially with all those trees and plants placed in front of the house. Another conservative step has been taken by separating the family entrance from the guest’s entrance, and placing the family entrance close to the driveway and the garage for easy and private access. All that gave the female members of the family more free and secured mobility inside the house.
2. The prototype design provides a separate quarter for the guests, “Dewania.” The “Dewania” is placed on the southern side of the house away from the family entrance, to provide privacy for both family members and guests. The “dewania” is actually divided into two “dewanias,” female “dewania” and male “dewania.” For more seclusion and privacy of both sexes, the entrance of the female “dewania” is placed on the west side and the entrance of the male “dewania” is placed on the east side. Both entrances are close to the main road to make it more convenient and easy for the guests to come in and out. Each “dewania” has its own bath. There is only one dining room, because most of the time only men stay for dining. (Women have to go home to cook for their families.) If it happens that both sexes stay for dining, women can be accomodated in their “dewania.” A collapsible partition is placed in between the two “dewanias.” In big events like wedding parties or feasts, the partition can be collapsed, so the space would be large enough for a sizable number of people.
In a post last week, How decisions are made in Kuwait we had a long discussion about diwaniyas in the comments section. What I like about al-Muttawa’s concept is that collapsible wall in between the female and male diwaniyya. It could allow the females to listen in on major political discussions – what? You think we aren’t interested? You are wrong! – and participate.
“How can they participate while separated?” my western friends will be asking.
There are emmisaries. When sitting with the women, in Saudi Arabia, I wondered at first how my husband and I would both know when it is time to go. In western society, we have a meeting of the eyes and my husband will give an almost imperceptible nod and I know it is time to begin to make our farewells. As the hour got later and later, and still later, I finally asked one of the women how I would know when my husband wanted to leave.
“You want to leave?” she gasped in horror!
“No, No!” I assured her, “I just don’t know how I will know when my husband wants to leave!”
“Your husband will send for you! The children will tell you!” she laughed, and I stopped worrying. The children were running back and forth from room to room, reporting on the happenings in the men’s diwayya, where a holy man was discussing morality and requirements of morality.
This was one of my favorite places in Saudi Arabia, the house of friends. In the women’s majlis, there was only a TV, and seating around all the walls. There was nothing on the walls, nothing, not a picture, not a calligraphy, nothing, but the furniture was strong and comfortable, and the hospitality never-ending. When dinner time came, we went to an adjacent entirely bare room, bare except for the lavish dinner laid on the floor, where we all sat and ate, and one huge cupboard, full of mattresses. The dining room became one of the sleeping rooms when all the guests departed.
I didn’t get a tour of the house; I only know what I saw from my entrance through the family entrance into the female part of the house, my brief glimpse of the kitchen area – large and utilitarian. What I remember most clearly was the love and joy in the family, and that all the walls were totally devoid of anything decorative.
+ + + + + +
When I came to live in Kuwait, the real estate people showed me 20 villas and one apartment. The villas, each and every one, were HUGE! Most of them were three or four floors, more than one had an elevator, and several had their own swimming pools.
Most of the houses had a large kitchen – separate from the house, outside! Alongside it were the quarters for the maids, the drivers, the guard, etc. Most of the houses had at least five bedrooms, at least two diwaniyyas.
In the newer areas, there was barely two feet between houses, so windows on the sides of the houses were non-existent, or heavily curtained over, making those rooms very dark. In the older houses, the bathrooms were small and the spaces were divided strangely, by western ways of thinking.
Mostly, though, the villas were lovely, full of luxurious materials and beautiful touches. As I would walk though, sounds bounced off the thick cinderblock walls and the marble floors.
AdventureMan works long hours. I would think of me and the Qatteri Cat bouncing around in the huge house like two little peas in a big bowl, and where would I find him if he hid out for a while? The villas were just too much space for our little family, and we opted for the apartment, although the apartment is bigger than many homes in the United States. AdventureMan and the Qatteri Cat still look at me accusingly from time to time; they always enjoyed an hour or two together in the garden on Friday mornings, and now we have no garden. . . all we have (I can’t even keep a straight face as I write this) is that glorious 24-hour-a-day 180° view of the Arabian Gulf. 😉
+ + + + + + +
If I ever see this book for sale, I will come back here and update. If YOU see it for sale, please come back here and let us know!
Saudi Men Arrested for Flirting
This is in today’s BBC News.
Saudi men arrested for ‘flirting’
Relations between the sexes outside marriage is against the law
Prosecutors in Saudi Arabia have begun investigating 57 young men who were arrested on Thursday for flirting with girls at shopping centres in Mecca.
The men are accused of wearing indecent clothes, playing loud music and dancing in order to attract the attention of girls, the Saudi Gazette reported.
They were arrested following a request of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
The mutaween enforce Saudi Arabia’s conservative brand of Islam, Wahhabism.
Earlier in the month, the authorities enforced a ban on the sale of red roses and other symbols used in many countries to mark Valentine’s Day.
The ban is partly because of the connection with a “pagan Christian holiday”, and also because the festival itself is seen as encouraging relations between the sexes outside marriage, punishable by law in the kingdom.
You can read the whole article HERE.
I wonder . . . is this what is going to happen in Kuwait? So like they segregate the university. . . then they segregate all the schools, EVEN THE PRIVATE SCHOOLS, so there is no choice. . . then they start patrolling the malls?
I lived in Saudi Arabia, and I remember the mutawaaeen were NOT police, but sometimes they took on the prerogatives of the police. So I have to wonder, like who made the arrest in the malls? Was it the police? Was it the mutawa hitting the boys with their little sticks? Did they call the boys parents? I have SO many questions!
As It Snows . . .
Catching up with the news, I was looking at the Thursday Kuwait Times when I came across a photo. I am not going to print the photo in my blog, but if you want to look at it, or one like it, you can see it at Yahoo News, just click here on the blue type.
The photo of the execution, titled Iran hangs 13 on a single day is extraordinary enough. I don’t think we print those kind of photos in American newspapers. Maybe in the tabloids; these photos are considered disturbing. I know they disturb me. This one in the Kuwait Times has big white balls in it and the caption reads: QOM, Iran: Three Iranian drug traffickers hang limply from the nooses as it snows in a square in this central city yesterday.
I remember cutting out a similar one from a paper in Saudi Arabia when I lived there. It didn’t have a photo, but the article was about the Taliban hanging of a convicted man in the stadium in Kabul. It stated the man was wearing a blue sharwal khamis. There was no mention of why this man was hung, of what he was convicted.
The Yahoo version of the same hanging of 13 states: Three Iranian drug traffickers hang limply from the nooses after being executed in a square.
To me, the mention of snow falling as people are executed, of the executed man seems . . . maybe poetic? Maybe some way of softening the horror? I don’t know. It’s not something we would do. Bad news is left bare, without a lot of dressing it up. I would love to get your input on this. For me, it’s a different way of thinking.
Saudis Uphold Rape Victim Penalty
Several bloggers have brought this situation to public attention; BBC provides the full update HERE:
Authorities in Saudi Arabia have defended a judicial sentence of 200 lashes for a rape victim.
The justice ministry said in a statement that the sentence was justified because the woman was in a car with an unrelated man.
The case has aroused controversy at home and condemnation abroad.
The 19-year-old, who has not been named, was travelling in a car with a male friend last year, when the car was attacked by a gang of seven men who raped both of them.
She has become known as the “Qatif girl”, a reference to the largely Shia town which she comes from.
Four of the men were convicted of kidnapping – but the court also sentenced the woman and her friend to receive 90 lashes each for the crime of “illegal mingling”.
Last week the court increased the woman’s sentence to 200 lashes and six months in prison.
It also banned her lawyer from the courtroom and took away his licence.
Most of the world was outraged when the penalty was doubled because the victim went public.
Saudis to Overhaul Legal System
Found this today on BBC Middle East News.
Saudi Arabia has announced an overhaul of its judicial system, including the allocation of $2bn (£981m) for training judges and building new courts.
The reforms, by royal decree, will lead to the creation of a supreme court, an appeals court and new general courts to replace the Supreme Judicial Council.
Reformers have welcomed the measures, which they say will improve human rights and help modernise the country.
They complain that the current judicial system is often opaque and arbitrary.
Until now, Saudi judges have had wide discretion to issue rulings according to their own interpretation of Islamic Sharia law.
The judiciary has also long resisted the codification of laws or the reliance on precedent when making a ruling.
Defendants also do not have recourse to appeal and often have no right to proper legal representation.
Unchecked powers
The new reforms announced by King Abdullah are aimed at addressing some of these perceived failings and at introducing safeguards such as appeal courts that can overturn decisions by lower courts, the BBC’s Heba Saleh says.
You can read the rest HERE.
Levantine/Gulf/Persian Warrior Women?
I’m still reading Sarum, by Edward Rutherford, although I am nearing the end. I am still thinking back to a fictional character – I think she is fictional because when I Google’d her name, I got the name of an English queen, but not this particular Aelfgifu.
In Sarum, Aelfgifu is a warrior woman. As a young girl, she hangs out with all the guys, rides with them, hunts with them, and is accepted by them. When the Vikings raid, she fights them. The Vikings are astounded, and more than a little angry, to be fought – successfully – by a woman. Later, her father reluctantly allows her to ride with the men to counter another Viking raid – they need all the “men” they can get, and she is one of the best.
I am intrigued. History shows that these exceptional women pop up now and then, and usually just at the right time. Joan of Arc for the French, the Amazons, Apache women warriors in Native American lore, Chinese Tang dynasty warrior women, Masai warrior women in Africa. We have women in the US Army, and I often hear their commanders say “some of my best men are women.”
It was hard to find a good warrior women illustration which had women with their clothes on. Most of the illustrator, I guess, being men, they protray women warriors in scanty attire, and most of them have exaggerated breasts and hips, and tiny little wasp waists, and legs about twice as long as a normal woman. Sort of Barbie-doll in warrior women attire. *she snorts in disgust* Leaves a fighter a little vulnerable, don’t you think, fighting in a metal bra and tiny little loincloth? That metal would get uncomfortable in no time, and man, how can you ride a horse for very long without chafing your legs? But then reality wouldn’t sell the drawing, would it?
OK, OK, back to the real question – Warrior women pop up in all cultures. I think that is true, but when I think of the Arabian Gulf, or Persia, or the Levant, no one comes to mind, other than Sheherezad, but she triumphed by her wits, not her brawn, not her fighting skills. I remember hearing that nomadic women could be fierce; are there not legends of Bedouin women?
Is there a woman / are there women who were legendary fighters in Middle East culture? Are there women in Persian culture who fought, or held a castle, or were otherwise brave in the face of danger? Speak now!
Friday Fishin’ and New Weekend
The fish must be running today. When I got up, there were about 25 fishing boats, the old fashioned shuwi. just off the coast. Sorry, they are about a kilometer off the shore, so I can’t get a great photo. I found a photo at agmgifts however, that shows what the boats look like:
Weather Underground says it’s going to be 118° F/ 48°C today – how can they bear it? Some of the boats have no cover? How can they be out under the hot, scorching sun with no cover?
For my non-Kuwait readers, this is a very special weekend, a Thursday-Friday-Saturday weekend, to celebrate the shift to a Friday – Saturday weekend. It has been a long time coming; Kuwait is one of the last countries in the Gulf to make the shift. We were also living in Qatar when the shift to Friday – Saturday happened, but in Qatar, there was no uproar. Here, some people were outraged, saying that Saturday was the Jewish day, and it was a fire-and-brimstone kind of sin to take a day off on the Jewish day.
The government announced the weekend would switch to Friday-Saturday, and then the National Assembly announced that no, it wouldn’t, it would remain Thursday – Friday. Then the government offices started sending out notices to the people working there, and to customers, etc. giving new working hours, and here we go, Friday – Saturday. I am hearing rumors that even Saudi Arabia is considering the change, the last great hold out.
It brings the working week into closer alignment with the rest of the world, having more business days in common. It will make the traffic in Kuwait even worse than it already is.
Shrimping Season Begins
Did you miss it? The Public Authority for Agricultural Affairs and Fish Resources announced the beginning of the shrimp fishing season August 15th, upon the expiry of the seven month ban, from January 15 – August 15.
I checked the fish markets yesterday, and didn’t see any Kuwaiti shrimp, only Saudi farmed shrimp (which is also good, but farmed); I expect we will be seeing the good Kuwaiti shrimp soon. Oh, I have been missing Kuwaiti shrimp!
Chevy’s Fresh Mex
At one time Adventure Man worked in Saudi Arabia, and came home every three months craving Mexican Food. His all time favorite restaurant was Chevy’s, which specializes in FRESH FRESH Mexican food.
Mom may be 84, but she is always up for a new experience. I asked her if she would like to try Chevy’s, and she was sure she would like to try it. You ROCK, Mom!
Mom’s Tostada Salad with beef:
My Spicy Salmon Fajita:
Totally delicious, but too much food! We brought home enough food for two or three more meals!
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