Al Ghat weekend

We finally experienced Saudi Arabian Hospitality like we had been hearing about and, believe me when I tell you it was really worth the wait. One of the junior Boys had invited whoever was interested to spend the weekend at his family farm. We jumped on the opportunity to get more acquainted with Saudi culture and to get out of Riyadh. So, on Thursday morning, a group of teachers in a three car caravan did the two hour drive to Al Ghat, a small town at the bottom of a huge cliff in the Arabian Desert.

On the way we saw herds of camels, roaming the desert, guarded by a camel shepard, on foot or on the back of his donkey. Although our long-held belief that camels are beige and brown, most of the ones we saw off the highway were a dark-black. It’s always interesting to see them walking behind each other in a nice orderly line. At some points, the Kingdom roads authority even build a bridge OVER the highway for camel crossing. Other times, there were tunnels dug UNDER the highway to serve the same purpose. As an added security measure, the highway was fenced on both sides. I have a sneaky suspicion that this measure was taken after many collisions between crossing camels and incoming traffic..and it is not difficult for me to think of the damage such a collision can bring on to the camels and to the cars!

A little before reaching the exit for Al Ghat, we stopped at one of the gas stations/rest stop/mosk that line the side of any highway you travel. This particular one was pretty well equipped and what should have been a quick fill-up/restroom break ended up taking almost 30 minutes. We all went inside and were surprised to see how well stocked this highway gas stop was! We could have bought all and any desert camping gear we would have wished for, dinner for a family of 15, including meats, roasted almonds and cashew nuts. Of course, the always present drinks and snacks too!

When we reached our destination, our 17 year old host met us at the highway exit and lead us to his family farm. His ride was an amazing Ford F-150 pickup, custom built to meet his desert driving and dune bashing needs…but more on that later. Immediately upon our arrival at the farm, we were led into a comfortable dining lodge and were served a delicious full breakfast, with eggs, omelet, onion-tomato comfit, pancakes, labneh and zatar, fresh fruit salad and juices, milk, coffee and teas. We were waited on by 2 workers in full attire; one was in charge of the teas, the other the food cook. The coffee tables were all laden trays of different variety of dates, all for us to enjoy! This welcome was our first hint that announced a great weekend.

After eating our breakfast, our host showed us our accommodations: the guest quarter set up was ideal. Imagine a street starting with parking places for over 30 cars, a dining room with tables, couches, even a pool table. From there, each side of the street is punctuated by adorable adobe style villas, each providing private accommodations for many guests. The Thompson family was housed in villa 16 in the cul-de-sac at the end of the street. Our villa was a cleverly disguised old trailer with 2 bedrooms, one bath, one living room and one kitchen. From the outside, there was no way of distinguishing the humble origin of our sleeping quarters. Each villa also had its private patio, making it a thoroughly relaxing spot.
After settling in our quarters, we met all up, loaded the cars and left for our first activity, as Mosaed had prepared a full agenda of activities for his guests.

Our first stop was a library/cultural center built by his grandfather. He was very proud to show us that achievement, which again gave us an insight in the Arabian culture. Family is everything and its achievement should be celebrated and regarded with honor. His grandfather saw a need in the community for a library and built one. His grandmother also contributed and built a side for women, as like everything in Saudi Arabia, the library was segregated, with one side for the men and one side for the women. Each side contained computers with internet access, books in Arabic and some books in English.   There also was an auditorium magically covered with a tent! The room was really four walls but no ceiling or roof. A tent-like contraption was protecting this whole complex and shed the most wonderful orange colored light over things. As we came in the auditorium, a camera was following us and projected us on a huge screen. This, of course, made the kids’ day...Seeing themselves on a huge screen. In front of the library was a beautiful lush green garden with waterfall and coy pond…do I need to say again that we are in the middle of the desert! Anytime we see green grass or lush vegetation, we know it’s because of irrigation, long hours of yard work and frequent watering. Water is everything in the desert, as you can imagine.

We left the library for our next stop: the date processing factory. Since we’ve arrived in Saudi, we’ve all become quit avid eaters of dates. Our packed lunch always include a few dates, which we were told you could only eat in odd numbers: eat one, three or five, but never just two! So both Worth and I were really glad to finally find out how they sort the dates and their packing process. We arrived at the factory and were again received the VIP treatment, including sparkling date-apple juice and the five dates variety processed at the plant. We all donned on surgical hats and masks and were shown the different stations, starting at the dumping station, the pressured air station, the brushing station, to finally see the conveyor belt and the workers sorting and packing the dates. To quote Worth:”I could go back to Riyadh now and be happy!” He really enjoyed learning about dates! Thankfully this was not the end of the weekend and we still had so much to see!

On the drive to the date processing plant, we had seen ruins of what looked like an old Arabian mud house village. We asked our host about it and he immediately offered to take us there as this was the village where his grandfather and great grandfather used to live. We packed the cars and followed him there. What we had first called village ruins turned out for the most part to be just that, old walls, build of mud and twigs who had given up the fight against the Arabian wind and sand… However, some of these were still in passable condition and one in particular stood out as it was in pristine condition. Of course, we stopped right in front of that beautifully restored mud house!

Our host took us in and filled us on its history: his great-grandfather had built it over 160 years ago and his family lived in it for over 100 years until they moved to a more modern location about 40-50 years ago. The restored house was truthful to the original, including small windows, doors through which you had to watch your head, winding stairs and a roof top viewpoint. The woodwork all looked hand scrapped and even gave the impression of artisanal work. The house’s purpose is now a guest house for the farm guest. The restoration was just completed and we were not its first guests.

Hopefully, if we are invited again, we would love to stay in that house to feel its history! A room that used to serve as date storage, with 2 compartments still stained with date juice and with the smell of date still lingering has been turned into a computer center. Another room, at the top of the stairs leading to the second floor has been turned into an Arabian living room, with a huge oriental rug on the floor and floor cushions all around, probably one of the most comfortable rooms I’ve seen here. We all sat down and just started visiting… The only thing missing was either some delicious sweet tea or must unlikely in the Kingdom a nice drink.

By now, it’s after 3:00 PM and our host is inviting us for lunch back at the farm. We expect to be lead back to the dining room where we had breakfast but instead are lead to the official reception banquet hall. As we walk in there, we can feel the passage of many leaders of Saudi Arabia. The room is filled with photographs of important figures in the history of the Kingdom. There are several photographs of the current ruler, Kind Abdullah at various family functions, as well as some of our host as a young child, riding his horse and showing the resemblance with his grandfather. The room is also decorated with weapons and an antique copper tray that must have played an important part in the family history. His grandfather was the uncle of King Fahd after all, so it’s normal that the family picture be all over the room!

So, we had lunch…full blown lunch including two sheep served over a bed of rice, each on a platter about 3 feet in diameter! Other items on the menu were eggrolls and Chinese noodles, eggplant “caviar”, sweet potatoes, a cucumber-mint salad…and let’s not forget the dessert spread! Kids seated together while we enjoyed a round table for the ten adults. Our host sat with a bunch of his friends at another table. After lunch we enjoyed a short rest time, changed up for the desert and loaded in 4x4. After asking them how rugged the terrain was, we left our SUV behind, not daring to bring it for a spin in the desert. A short 15 minute drive and we were faced with the most magnificent set-up: on top of a large hill/dune was erected an authentic black Bedouin tent, complete with oriental rugs on the floor, teapots on a burning fire and men in authentic Saudi thobes and gutra. We all spread out and enjoyed the vista: red dunes complete with wind ripples on the top of the sand. The place was so quiet...no cars, no birds, no humming of any kind… After obligatory sand and dunes pictures we all packed in the 4x4 vehicles for some dune bashing…

OMG! How did I live to this age without ever doing this…Dune bashing was probably one of the most exhilarating, crazy fun and utterly irresponsibly dangerous thing I have done! We had two vehicles: a supped up custom modified Ford 150 with a super charged V-8 engine and over 500 horse power. The other one was just a Nissan Patrol. A lot of us packed into the truck cabin and bed! I know, now in retrospect, I realize how crazy it was to do this, but we had so much fun, going up and down on those hills, bouncing all over the place in the truck bed… We were all screaming so loud in the pickup I’m surprised none of us ended up with hearing loss! So, at one point, we were going up a hill and BAM! The truck got stuck in the sand. The more the driver tried the worst off the stuck was! We all got off, started looking, pushing, digging, wondering until one of us called the Nissan Patrol to come pull us out…with a slight difficulty, they were stuck too! How we laughed at that; too funny. The whole crew, both cars are stuck in the middle of the desert. I guess the Nissan was not as bad off as us (or we worked harder to get their vehicle out…pwt) because they eventually showed up and pulled the F150 out using its installed wench! That whole rescuing did not take longer than 30 seconds. Amazing how quick it was! I had been driving in the back of the pickup but decided to ride back in the Nissan… As you can guess, the truck made it back to the tent before us, while the Nissan got stuck again…we all tried to push and pull and even rock it to no avail…so we called yet another car to the rescue who could not get their wench unwound. So they brought us back to the tent, picked up a few pieces of wood and went back to rescue the Nissan.

After all this excitement I was worn out. It was already past 7:00 PM. The rest of the group had gone back to the farm to freshen up and rest before dinner. We had less than 2 hours to wait, so Worth, Ric (another teacher) and I decided to just chill at the tent! That was definitely the best choice! The tent was what is called here a black tent, made of goat hair. It’s mostly black with stripes of white at specific spots. The sand floor was covered with three huge oriental rugs and scattered on its perimeter were big fabric covered rectangular prisms used as pillows to lean on. So, the three of us sat down, propped up on a pillow and were immediately served tea. One of the workers only job was to make and serve tea. You would think that’s a pretty easy job but you would be wrong. This man had several tea pots on the campfire, to boil water and to keep the prepared tea warm. Over the course of the evening, we had 4 kinds of beverages: typical black tea sweetened with loads of sugar, the freshly grated ginger tea, the ginger milk and the Arabian cardamom coffee. And as good guests, lounging in the tent, we had to sip each and every one of them!

As the evening progressed, so was our knowledge of the Arabian culture and the best way to pick dates! There were two platters of dates and Nasser, one of the old men there, saw me pick a date. He shook his head and said “no, not that one!”, then he proceeded to show me how to pick THE best date from the pack. I soon became an expert, looking for his approval after picking a date. When Worth picked one, I stopped him and showed him which one would be a better one, which made Nasser truly laugh out loud! We just chilled for a while.

When the rest of the group joined us, the evening party truly started. Our host also brought a variety of meat for the barbecue: chicken and beef kebabs, ground chicken with spice kebab, lamb and goat chops, burgers and hotdogs. Mosaed and his friends all took over the barbecue cooking, before realizing they had forgotten all the flipping and turning barbecue tools…but they managed by burning a few fingertips and even using a Styrofoam plate (imagine when they laid it on the barbecue…thankfully one of them reacted fast and the plate only had three holes! A group of 17 year olds can be very resourceful and the barbecued meat turned out delicious! What we did not realize was that this was only the appetizer!

We then all were led back to the tent where eating areas had been set up, with a large plastic round tablecloth laid over the Persian rug. We all sat cross-legged in a circle and the large dish with the cooked goat was laid out in front of us. The goat had been cooked INSIDE a fire pit dug in the ground. It was placed on a platter over the fire, covered with some fabric and then covered with sand. To take it off the fire, the cooks had to slowly shovel the sand off the top of the fabric wrapped goat. We were told that this is a very traditional way of cooking goat but also that many Arabian may never had had it that way. Like some of our friends in Louisiana would say, this is kind of like a Cajun Microwave, but I personally think it was way cooler and laden with tradition!

The evening started winding down… All our eyes were getting heavier, some were yawning..It was time to call it a night, but our host wanted to show us something else. The boys were planning on going gerbil hunting and explained us their procedure. Armed with a huge floodlight, they roam the dunes in their 4x4. When they see a gerbil, they flood it with light and the poor little creature freezes in sheer terror. They insisted it was so much fun, but we were so exhausted that we did call it a night. It did sound fun though. We made it back to our cabin and just collapsed…Next thing we knew it was 10 am and we were going to be late for breakfast, which was being served at 10:00! Again, food was a full spread and delicious!

Our last activity for the weekend was a tour of the farm.. We drove around the farm and saw a variety of animals, going from horses, pigeons, goat, sheep, rabbits, and even ostriches! Most of these animals are for their own consumption…we did eat two sheep and one goat over the weekend after all! The farm also has its own date processing plant, just for the dates grown on site.

The end of the weekend was getting near and soon time came for all of us to load up our cars and bid farewell to our host. As a parting gift, each of us received two 5kgs boxes of dates, one filled with almond stuffed dates, the other with mandarin stuffed dates. So, not only did we have a great time discovering another side of Saudi, but we left happy, tired, and fed with dates for a long time! This weekend was really unforgettable and will stay with me for a long time. Dates, Dune bashing, Tea drinking, black tent, fire pit cooked goat will forever mean Saudi hospitality!