It has been nearly four months since I left Saudi Arabia, trading the west coast of the Arabian peninsula for the east and taking up residence in Abu Dhabi. My first day at my new job someone asked me what I missed about Saudi Arabia. Since I had not been in the UAE for even 24 hours, I just shrugged my shoulders and said, “Nothing, yet.” A few days ago, the same person asked me the same question. I answered very simply, saying that I missed a handful of my favorite restaurants, places where truly good meals could be gotten for just a few riyals. I miss Mehran and Al-Salaam. I miss Al-Zawaqa and, especially, the Lebanese restaurant just up the street from Serafi Mall (maybe someone can get the name for me). I miss the fish restaurants north of Jeddah. I miss ful and marsup from Abuzaid on Falesteen Street. There is more that I miss, though. The other day in Dubai, I was given a wet paper napkin before being served some inexpensive sushi in an expensive-looking restaurant. It was then that I realized how much I missed the ubiquitous “refreshing tissues” in Jeddah eateries. I get refreshing tissues here all the time, but they simply do not compare with those giant-sized, lemony-lanolin smelling soft tissues you could wash your car with that you get in Jeddah. It was a small pleasure but, then, most pleasures are. On the other hand, the fact that I remember them and can remark that Emirati refreshing tissues just do not measure up to Jeddah refreshing tissues must mean that I coveted them more than I realized. There is something else, however, that I truly miss about Jeddah, and it is an absence that I feel in my heart everyday. It is something that, perhaps, most people in the Kingdom give little thought to, though maybe I am wrong about that. I hope I am. You see, what I miss most about Saudi Arabia is not my favorite restaurant, the luxurious refreshing tissues, Friday night strolls through the packed souq downtown...no, it's none of that. In fact, it is something ubiquitous. It is the greeting people utter countless times everyday: Salaam alaikum...Walaikum asalaam. I am sure it is true that many people in Saudi Arabia who utter this greeting do it unthinkingly, the words taking on no more meaning than an everyday formality, something which has to be said at certain occasions whether one means it or not. But the more time I spent in Saudi Arabia, the more important that greeting came to be. It did not matter the situation, the setting, the place or even the people. Entering a room and wishing everyone there “Salaam alaikum” put us all on the same level, all in the same realm. It conveyed more than anything, I began to feel, a common sense of humanity. More than anything else in Saudi Arabia, it made me feel as if I were a part of the country, the community, the culture. Let me explain that I am as white as white can be. I am never going to be mistaken for an Arab nor are most people likely to assume that I am Muslim, which I am not. So saying “salaam alaikum” as soon as I entered a taxi or as soon as I entered a restaurant or as soon as I approached a counter to conduct business of some kind or another immediately broke through assumptions. It was not me playing “local,” trying to be one of the guys. It was me saying “May peace be upon you.” And I liked that. During my first days in Abu Dhabi, I hailed cabs and when they stopped, I climbed into the passenger seat with a hearty “Salaam alaikum!” In response, I got a grunt, an incomprehensible grunt. Most of the cab drivers here are Pakistani, not unlike in Jeddah, actually. But Arabic is not the common language here. English is. Everybody speaks a little bit of English. Some people speak a lot. There is Hindi and Pashtun and Tagalog. But not much Arabic. Mainly English. Now, when I get into a cab, I say “hi.” Sometimes the driver responds with “hi.” Sometimes he just grunts. Whichever it is, it is just not the same as “walaikum asalaam.” __
