As I found my aisle seat on Etihad flight 451 bound for Abu Dhabi, I smiled and greeted the young girl who was sitting next to the window. She appeared no more than sixteen or seventeen and was dressed in a chequered shirt, jeans and a birka.
Suddenly a voice in the row ahead asked if we wouldn’t mind swapping seats with her parents who were seated several seats behind. She had a baby with her. The young Muslim girl obliged so I followed suit. We moved and settled ourselves into our new seats.
I discovered that my new friend had travelled from Dunedin, in the south island of New Zealand the night before and she was returning on holiday to her home town, Dammam in Saudi Arabia. She told me she was studying commerce and had just received a scholarship three days ago to continue the rest of her studies. It was a Saudi grant for students who excelled academically. I asked her where she was living and she said with her husband. I couldn’t help myself and asked her how old she was. Twenty-one. Her husband was studying medicine and was finishing this year. He would be joining her a week later as he had not yet finished his semester. He had been in New Zealand for several years already and she had joined him recently after her would be mother-in-law had chosen her to be her son’s bride. I was curious. I asked her how it had all happened and she said that it is common her in culture. She had met her future husband a few times, had spoken to him on the phone and they agreed to go ahead. I asked her how the marriage was going and she said ‘good!’.
What I write here will only show my deep ignorance about Middle Eastern cultures. This delightful girl, Zaina brought it to life for me as she patiently answered my many many questions. We only had 15 hours to share together. She showed me a photo of herself without her head dress and asked me what I thought. I told her it looked liker her with hair, to whaffectedmen apart from her husband, father, brothers and uncles could see her uncovered. I asked her if she went swimming and she said only at the swimming pool where it would be a private booking for her and her family. They would take food and spend the day there. I asked if anyone swam at the beach and she told me only the men did. What a shame. The inflight video advertisements for the UAE clearly showed images of beautiful coastlines and beaches.
All I recalled about the Muslim faith, learned in primary school, was that one faced and prayed to Mecca 5 times a day, that Ramadan was a month of fasting, that the key figures were Allah and Muhamad and that there was some black rock which was a famous pilgrimage site. Apparently that was more than the average non Muslim knew in Zaina’s experience as she was fascinated that I had learned ‘all’ this at school. She then proceeded to look for another photo on her phone of this black rock. To my disappointment, it was a black box. I told her I thought it would be a large black rock or stone in some natural setting. She told me the rocks were in the box.
The conversation turned to more serious topics. Again showing my ignorance, I asked her how and whether she was affected by the violence that we saw on television in other Middle Eastern countries. She told me that the violence also existed in Saudi Arabia, although she personally did not feel unsafe where her family lived - it just wasn’t being publicised to the rest of the world. She told me people in her country felt their rights were denied them but what could anyone do - it was dangerous to speak up so it was best to endure and keep quiet. I asked her how it had been for her the first time she had returned home after living in Dunedin where one could assume and live a life of greater freedom. She said she was shocked but she didn’t speak of it because those who had never left the country did not understand.
Seeing that her husband was finishing his studies this year, I asked her what would happen next - were they intending to stay in New Zealand? To my surprise, she said that she would stay in Dunedin and he would probably return to Dammam. Here was a culture of paradoxes. Women who were married off to husbands at a young age and forbidden to be seen by other men with their heads uncovered and yet she was planning to live by herself on the other side of the world in a remote town like Dunedin. Curious to know what she ate at home with her husband, I asked about her cooking. She told me they ate out most of the time although choice in rural New Zealand was limited. She did cook her native cuisine with spices she had brought from home and when I asked her what sort of food that was, she told me it was similar to the biryani that I had just eaten.
After many conversations that were interrupted only by periods of intermittent sleep, we finally arrived at Abu Dhabi International Airport. I had a two and a half hour layover and Zaina’s was slightly shorter. As we walked through the transit area and came to the duty free section, she exclaimed that she could now shop. I laughed. Her manner was so typical of a young girl and I said ‘really?’. She told me Dunedin had no shops. Of course. She then told me she had to pray and that I could come with her. I was a little unsure about this but I followed. I found myself in the ladies bathroom so I asked what the normal protocol was before praying. She said you washed your hands and face, so I did the same as she did. She then proceeded to leave the bathroom and headed down a passageway - she told me she wouldn’t be long so I wasn’t sure if that meant I was to wait for her or whether she wanted me in there with her. I said I would wait for her outside and she looked disappointed so I asked if it was really okay for me to go in. She led me down the hall and to a closed door and next to the door was a row of what looked like square blocks (not dissimilar to diving blocks at swimming pools) with some sort of washing facility in front of each block. We removed our shoes, entered the room and she walked to the opposite wall, placed her bags on the floor and put something on the floor before her. It was an object wrapped in a piece of cloth. She faced a corner of the room adorned by an ornament - presumably that was the direction of Mecca. I felt a little fraudulent being in here. There appeared to be some sort of attendant, half lying on the floor in the opposite corner who was eyeing me suspiciously. I knelt behind Zaina, bowed my head, not knowing what else to do. She proceeded to mutter something to herself very quickly as she started a process of standing up and kneeling down repeatedly. After several minutes of this, she packed up the little cloth and whatever it contained and picked up her bags and I followed her out of the prayer room. As we stepped out, I asked her what the white blocks were and she told me it was where people washed their feet. She then suggested we get a drink so I followed her to the food hall. She wanted fresh strawberry juice - I really didn’t think that was an option at the airport. I grabbed a bottle of water as I waited for her to decide what she wanted in the absence of strawberry juice. While she was waiting to pay for her purchase, I spotted a man dressed as if he had walked off the set of Lawrence of Arabia. I asked Zaina if that outfit represented a particular country. She told me all Arab men dressed like that. I was puzzled. He was the only man dressed in a white robe and a white cloth draped over his head secured with a red and black head band. I told her we hadn’t seen anyone else dressed like him. She said, they probably didn’t feel comfortable. Fair enough.
We finally proceeded in the direction of the gates only to find that hers was in one direction and mine in another. She looked at me forlornly and said ‘so you have to go now’. We really had had a pleasant time together in spite of the twenty years and our different cultural backgrounds that separated us. Zaina on many counts was so much more mature than her years, and only her delight at the prospect of shopping or her desire for strawberry juice gave her age away. I was grateful for her gifts of a new experience and a window into a culture I would like to see more of.
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