I pop another piece of gold-fried sweet ball into my mouth and look into her eyes.<\/p>\n
“I love these! Please send my regards to your mother, amazing culinary skills!”<\/p>\n
“Yeah, I will.”<\/p>\n
“We both know you won’t.”<\/p>\n
My friend and I burst into laughter. It’s midnight and we are sitting at a table right next to the pool in one of my favorite compounds. Lanterns, typical for the Ramadan period, combined with the dazzling blue and red neons produce a slightly harsh ambient lightning, not unusual for similar venues in this region.<\/p>\n
Night temperatures in Riyadh fall down from the hellish 45 to cozy 30 degrees, but with the sound of water lazily splashing against the walls of the pool and the soft mist coming out of thin hoses laid around the floor, I feel almost cold.<\/p>\n
The restaurant consists of a kitchen and a set of tables and chairs located around a pool, located inside of a block of 4-story tall apartment buildings. The guests are mostly mixed groups of families, friends, or couples. As of now, I still have no clue of differentiating between the nationalities, but my best guess would be a combination of Syrians, Jordans, Lebanese, and other non-Saudi Arabs. Only here and there does a glimpse of blond hair and blue eyes distort the mostly dark-haired group of people.<\/p>\n
I roll down the sleeves of my shirt and take a deep breath from my shisha. Grape with mint, my all-time favorite flavor. With thin clouds of smoke still leaving my mouth, I ask my friend again.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut really, let\u2019s say I would pop up at your house here in Riyadh. How would your family react?\u201d<\/p>\n
My friend closes her eyes and presses her full lips together for a second, as if imagining an extremely hypothetical and difficult situation. After a short while, she looks back at me and answers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat would be just\u2026 unimaginable. My family is not from Saudi, but they are crazy conservative. Not all people from my country are like that, but it\u2019s maybe because we have lived here for a long, long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand, but my question remains the same. How would a hypothetical visit to your house look like? Like me knocking at your door and saying something like \u2018Hey Mr. Mother, how are you?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHaha, I\u2019m willing to pay a serious amount of money to see that with my own eyes. So first and foremost I could<\/em> not invite you. I mean, I would<\/em> not invite you. My mother would think that I have become crazy. But my brothers could actually invite you and that would be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBy OK you mean that I would be able to enter your house and chat with your brothers, right?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, you wouldn\u2019t be able to see me, my mother, nor my sister. You would be spending time in the men guest room, my brothers would bring food from the kitchen, and you all would spend a lovely evening.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWould I be able to eat more of these sweet fried balls?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, sure.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYalla, let\u2019s go then.\u201d<\/p>\n We both smile. I continue: \u201cYou mentioned that you mother would think that you have become crazy. What do you mean with that?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just\u2026 well it\u2019s funny because today I perceive it as strange as well, but I can still somehow relate myself to it as I was a part of a sect before and I was a bit different. At that time, I just didn\u2019t see it as normal. I mean it depends, some families at my country are more liberal, some are conservative. My family is on the conservative side.\u201d<\/p>\n I know that she was a member of an Islam sect back in \u201cthe days\u201d, but I want to push a little bit more to understand it better.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you mean with your family not seeing it as normal?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou see Michal, back at that time I just thought that being with an unrelated man is plainly scary. Anything could happen. I guess it was fear. You remember the video you sent me the other day about those two girls helping people from Muslim societies to become non-religious?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat is actually not so easy. I\u2019m not saying that it is the same everywhere, but since I was born I was taught that Islam is a great religion. I was taught that I was, in a way, chosen and that I was extremely lucky to be born as a member of this society. That Islam was my privilege. Who would ever want to leave this amazing group of people? That is the ultimate over encompassing question and that is what will define you as crazy when you start trying to get out of this society.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI understand, but there are many faces of Islam \u2013 look at the differences between the Islam in this region, Africa, South-East Asian countries, or even Europe. The face and perception of Islam changes, in many countries it\u2019s becoming less external and more internal. And I\u2019m not even talking about the religion itself from 200 or 800 years ago \u2013 you had constant dialogues going on about how exactly should the implementation of religion look like. And we are not even talking about the difference between religion and the societies practicing a certain interpretation of it \u2013 like you and your sect for example.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, you are right. But as I said before, my family is on the conservative side. Many of my friends are as well, in fact. That is the funny thing \u2013 I have met you only few times, but I could tell you things that I couldn\u2019t tell many of my long-year friends, as they wouldn\u2019t understand this part of me and would judge me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLike the part about your bisexuality?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHaha, stop it, that\u2019s not even true! That was just my boyfriend who said it by looking at my finger.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI have absolutely no clue how does that work but I\u2019m not letting you go until you explain me that story in more detail.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell there is not much to explain. He just looked at my finger tip and said that based on the length of the last segment of my index finger I\u2019m a bisexual.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is that analysis based on?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo idea. All I can tell you is that my Saudi boyfriend said that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo\u2026 you are bisexual then.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI told you already that I\u2019m not!\u201d<\/p>\n I smile and continue: \u201cSo you have never even kissed a girl then?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, never. I didn\u2019t do many experiments during the teenage phase of my life and now I just don\u2019t feel like it anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou won\u2019t believe me but I have a friend who discovered that she wants to experiment a bit more with one girl she met at the age of 28.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo way! You have<\/em> to tell me more!\u201d<\/p>\n I take a deep, dramatic sip from my shisha to increase the tension a bit, and unfold the story.<\/p>\n The night goes on and on. We exchange many more stories (ranging anywhere from \u201cInternalization of religion\u201d to \u201cHow one day my Arab dorm-mate removed her hijab and unconsciously showed a neck full of hickies\u201d) and at half past one we decide to call it a night.<\/p>\n While waiting at the entrance gate for our IDs, I ask my friend about her plans for the rest of the night.<\/p>\n \u201cWell I will arrive back home at two. Maybe watch some Youtube, then have a tea or water at three, and perhaps go to sleep at dawn. As I told you I took some time off so I\u2019m not going to work now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m slightly jealous. But it surely sounds like a nice plan. Anyway thanks for today and good night. Oh and by the way, you mentioned that your boyfriend will be free next week.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, he should have some time off.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat about going for a tea together?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat sounds like a good idea. I can\u2019t guarantee you anything, but I will definitely try to ask him.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPlease do. Based on what you have told me he seems to be a really nice guy. Plus, it\u2019s not like one gets many opportunities to meet a Saudi who took a similar path from extreme religiousness to a slightly more relaxed worldview.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I pop another piece of gold-fried sweet ball into my mouth and look into her eyes. “I love these! Please send my regards to your mother, amazing culinary skills!” “Yeah, I will.” “We both know you won’t.” My friend and I burst into laughter. It’s midnight and we are sitting at a table right next […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zakomiso.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zakomiso.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zakomiso.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zakomiso.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zakomiso.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=385"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.zakomiso.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":390,"href":"http:\/\/www.zakomiso.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions\/390"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zakomiso.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zakomiso.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zakomiso.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zakomiso.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}