So my bad week is over, it ended with a sore throat, cough and cold from hell, a period and generally feeling like I'd been trampled on by a herd of elephants. Please remind me though in approximately 4 to 5 weeks when I start to be irritable, making mountains out of molehills and feeling like no one loves me that my hormones are clapping their hands and doing a merry dance!!!! At 45 you would think that I would recognise the signs and that I am not the same person that I am for the other 20 days of the month, an alien of some kind invades my body, uses it for a home for a few days (a bit like a squatter) and literally ransacks it!!
Anyway, I've been here 6 weeks now (time is flying by) and have not yet managed to get a Saudi Sim card to enable me to make calls or text people who are in Saudi (colleagues, the drivers, taxis, the spa). As you know, mobile phone companies charge an extortionate amount to use a phone abroad....£1.50 per minutes to call and 50p to send a text and we won't go into the data bit. So I needed a sim card and that was that. You would have thought two things. 1. my employer would have kindly got one ready for me on my arrival and on it put all the contacts I might need in an emergency (joke) 2. If my employer had not bought me one, I would just pop along to the nearest phone shop and buy one (even bigger joke!!) Wrong.... this is Saudi Arabia remember, I am a women, I am a foreigner and I have no Iqama (residency card, we spoke about this earlier). It seems I stood about as much change of getting one as I did running down Riyadh main street naked and not causing an accident.
Let's go back 3 weeks. I've mentioned a few times that I really need a sim card just for emergencies after all I am a woman in a Muslim country and in this country if you get in the front seat of a taxi alongside a Saudi driver, whether you are a man or a women it means you are up for sex (note to self.....always get in the back and make sure the driver is an Indian, unless you are feeling a little fruity!!)
So, this is the LAW, no breaking it if you want a sim card (unless you know a Saudi and then they just walk into the nearest phone shop, show their Iqama and get one for you!)
This is what actually happens....firstly you get an official letter from you sponsor. In mine and Mysti's case the Princess who owns the spa who is probably a very busy women, looking after her children and doing what princesses do, who has little time to be bothered writing a letter "To whom it may concern" to say "Just give them a bloody sim card!!"
Secondly you get your passport and your visa, (I did mention that mine had been confiscated in a previous blog) a copy will suffice. Thirdly you find a store that serves women.....you can't just turn up at any and fourthly you arrange with the spa to get the driver to take you during you lunch break. So off we set, Dindo (Filipino Driver), Mysti and myself to STC Main Branch Store. It's 3.15pm and prayer time when we arrive so of course all shutters are down, doors are closed and all the salesmen are on their knees facing East (we could only see bottoms and feet when we looked through the window). Dindo had told us that there was a separate entrance for women so we went to look for it only to find a note on the door saying they no longer served women at the store and to try one of the four branches listed below. Lessons learnt here, DO NOT attempt to get anything during prayer time! Lesson 2 Saudi Arabia is a Man's World, don't expect to get anything if you are a women. Lesson 3, Dindo thinks anything further than 10 minutes drive is a very long way! No time to try another store as our lunch time was almost over so we head back to work with no sim card. The only consolation is Dindo was banging out all the old 80's tunes and I sat reminiscing and singing at the top of my voice.
After 6 classes, I fitness meeting, 1 failed attempt at STC we decide to try again this time we take with us the Spa Receptionist (Mona) who is heading in our direction on her way home. We arrive at the store, the same one we went to at lunch that doesn't serve women but I think they thought we were making it up or hadn't read the notice right so decided to check the information we were giving was correct. Mona, with Mysti and I in tow walk to the entrance only to be met by a man literally blocking the door to stop any women going in..... he was even unwilling to answer Mona's question of "Please can you tell us which store will allow women in" so back in the car we get and head back home as it is too late to go to another store. We decide to have one final attempt in the morning to go to the STC store at Exit 5. I swear if I don't get one this time I am giving in.
I reluctantly get up early the next morning so that we can go to Exit 5 before work. Your free time is so important as you work so many hours and 6 days a week so taking an hour out of my sleep time better be worth it. Exit 5 is approximately 10 minutes away (a very long way, according to Dindo). We enter the store, the man on Reception asks us for our ID, letter and pretty much any other bit of paper they might need to get a sim card. He points us in the direction of two salesman, not one of them with a smile on their face. Saudi's hate work!!! He processes my application and then asks for 25 riyals, I give him 30 and he kindly (well not kindly really, because he still hasn't smiled) informs me that he can't give me any change as he has none!!! What the!!! anyway, 5 riyals is the last of my worries......At last I have a sim card!!!
Lessons learned this week....1. I do have patience. 2. Sometimes you have to follow the rules 3. If you are a women living in Saudi, you a second class citizen and a prisoner 4. A sim card is like gold dust! 5. Appreciate the small things in life,
Anyway, I've been here 6 weeks now (time is flying by) and have not yet managed to get a Saudi Sim card to enable me to make calls or text people who are in Saudi (colleagues, the drivers, taxis, the spa). As you know, mobile phone companies charge an extortionate amount to use a phone abroad....£1.50 per minutes to call and 50p to send a text and we won't go into the data bit. So I needed a sim card and that was that. You would have thought two things. 1. my employer would have kindly got one ready for me on my arrival and on it put all the contacts I might need in an emergency (joke) 2. If my employer had not bought me one, I would just pop along to the nearest phone shop and buy one (even bigger joke!!) Wrong.... this is Saudi Arabia remember, I am a women, I am a foreigner and I have no Iqama (residency card, we spoke about this earlier). It seems I stood about as much change of getting one as I did running down Riyadh main street naked and not causing an accident.
Let's go back 3 weeks. I've mentioned a few times that I really need a sim card just for emergencies after all I am a woman in a Muslim country and in this country if you get in the front seat of a taxi alongside a Saudi driver, whether you are a man or a women it means you are up for sex (note to self.....always get in the back and make sure the driver is an Indian, unless you are feeling a little fruity!!)
So, this is the LAW, no breaking it if you want a sim card (unless you know a Saudi and then they just walk into the nearest phone shop, show their Iqama and get one for you!)
This is what actually happens....firstly you get an official letter from you sponsor. In mine and Mysti's case the Princess who owns the spa who is probably a very busy women, looking after her children and doing what princesses do, who has little time to be bothered writing a letter "To whom it may concern" to say "Just give them a bloody sim card!!"
Secondly you get your passport and your visa, (I did mention that mine had been confiscated in a previous blog) a copy will suffice. Thirdly you find a store that serves women.....you can't just turn up at any and fourthly you arrange with the spa to get the driver to take you during you lunch break. So off we set, Dindo (Filipino Driver), Mysti and myself to STC Main Branch Store. It's 3.15pm and prayer time when we arrive so of course all shutters are down, doors are closed and all the salesmen are on their knees facing East (we could only see bottoms and feet when we looked through the window). Dindo had told us that there was a separate entrance for women so we went to look for it only to find a note on the door saying they no longer served women at the store and to try one of the four branches listed below. Lessons learnt here, DO NOT attempt to get anything during prayer time! Lesson 2 Saudi Arabia is a Man's World, don't expect to get anything if you are a women. Lesson 3, Dindo thinks anything further than 10 minutes drive is a very long way! No time to try another store as our lunch time was almost over so we head back to work with no sim card. The only consolation is Dindo was banging out all the old 80's tunes and I sat reminiscing and singing at the top of my voice.
After 6 classes, I fitness meeting, 1 failed attempt at STC we decide to try again this time we take with us the Spa Receptionist (Mona) who is heading in our direction on her way home. We arrive at the store, the same one we went to at lunch that doesn't serve women but I think they thought we were making it up or hadn't read the notice right so decided to check the information we were giving was correct. Mona, with Mysti and I in tow walk to the entrance only to be met by a man literally blocking the door to stop any women going in..... he was even unwilling to answer Mona's question of "Please can you tell us which store will allow women in" so back in the car we get and head back home as it is too late to go to another store. We decide to have one final attempt in the morning to go to the STC store at Exit 5. I swear if I don't get one this time I am giving in.
I reluctantly get up early the next morning so that we can go to Exit 5 before work. Your free time is so important as you work so many hours and 6 days a week so taking an hour out of my sleep time better be worth it. Exit 5 is approximately 10 minutes away (a very long way, according to Dindo). We enter the store, the man on Reception asks us for our ID, letter and pretty much any other bit of paper they might need to get a sim card. He points us in the direction of two salesman, not one of them with a smile on their face. Saudi's hate work!!! He processes my application and then asks for 25 riyals, I give him 30 and he kindly (well not kindly really, because he still hasn't smiled) informs me that he can't give me any change as he has none!!! What the!!! anyway, 5 riyals is the last of my worries......At last I have a sim card!!!
Lessons learned this week....1. I do have patience. 2. Sometimes you have to follow the rules 3. If you are a women living in Saudi, you a second class citizen and a prisoner 4. A sim card is like gold dust! 5. Appreciate the small things in life,
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