November 17, 2004
Letter #3 from Saudi Arabia
R. F. Burton
Private Papers

"R. F. Burton" is the pseudonym of an American who has lived and worked in Saudi Arabia for many years.

Last weekend I watched a bootleg copy of Zack Snyder's remake of The Dawn of the Dead. Most remakes fall flat on their face. Not this one.

A deadly plague has spread across America, turning people into zombies that prey on the living. A small group of survivors finds shelter in a mega mall. Outside the mall the zombies congregate. I'm not sure if the zombies want in because they know the survivors are inside or because the urge to shop transcends even death.

Watching the ghouls shuffling in the mall parking lot, I remembered something Mohammed had said on the advent of Ramadan, when we were discussing the effects of the holy month of fasting on the Magic Kingdom's inhabitants.

"In four weeks," Mohammed said, with a wave of his arm, "You will see dead people. Everywhere you look, dead people."

He had a point. By the end of Ramadan most Saudis did seem more like reanimated corpses than living humans.

They don't start out that way. Like most of us, they start out with the best of intentions, but we all know which road is paved with good intentions.

On the first day of Ramadan the believers strut around like bantams, chests puffed out, with beatific smiles, as though privy to some esoteric knowledge surpassing the comprehension of nonbelievers.

By the second week of Ramadan the smiles have wilted to a grimace. Pale, coughing, sneezing legions drag to work later and later or not at all. Most don't bother to shave or comb their hair. Some wait until they arrive to wash their blotchy faces in the bathroom sink. In the mirror bloodshot, glassy eyes absently stare back from puffy lids. The rings around their eyes grow dark and thick. You hear them hacking and vomiting in the stalls.

The third week of Ramadan I ran into Mohammed at work. He looked haggard and exhausted, but still a bit more lively than most. "I'm starting to see dead people," he said dreamily. Then he wandered off down the hall like a ghost.

I was beginning to see dead people too; Saudis shaking and shuffling to their desks to vegetate until it was time to go home and sleep.

In the Magic Kingdom foreigners are required to observe the holy month of Ramadan. Each year the Interior Ministry advises non-Muslims in French, English, and Arabic, on all radio stations, television stations, and in the newspapers to "respect the Muslims' sentiments by not eating, drinking or smoking in public places and offices." Then the Ministry warns, "Those who do not abide by this, the concerned authorities will take measures to end their work and deport them from the kingdom."

So all nonbelievers fast in public from the time they leave home until they return. It's that or be arrested and deported. In compliance I eat just before I go to work and in the evening as normal. At most I miss following the Ramadan fasting schedule by an hour and a half. I've lost a kilo since Ramadan began. I feel great. So why do the Saudis look like warmed-over death?

Saudis have their own peculiar way of observing Ramadan. During Ramadan the Saudis flip their lifestyles from day to night. True, they do abstain from food, water, and sexual intercourse, during the day. What they deny themselves in the sunlight they more than make up for in the dark. Most Saudis gain weight during Ramadan. Like camels storing nourishment and water in the form of fat in their humps for long treks across the desert, the Saudis gorge on food and drink during the night for the perilous journey from dawn to dusk the following day.

Nightlife in the heart of the Magic Kingdom during Ramadan is frenzied. Shops and restaurants stay open until late in the morning. Some don't bother closing until just before sunrise. Stores are congested. Restaurants are full. Traffic is bumper to bumper. There are Ramadan Special Offers and Ramadan Sells and Ramadan Drawings and Ramadan Discounts everywhere as stores vie for customers.

Aside from an occasional catnap before iftar (the first evening meal at sundown, when you break fast) and after suhoor (the pre-dawn meal) no one bothers to sleep. Sleep can be postponed until the weekend, when you can snooze all day long to your heart's content, which is exactly what the Saudis do. On Thursdays and Fridays (weekend in this part of the world) during Ramadan the heart of the Magic Kingdom becomes one massive necropolis. Streets are completely empty. Shops are closed. Aside from police at checkpoints on the lookout for terrorists it's as though the entire city has been abandoned.

Every time I ask Mohammad what he did the night before, it's always the same story.

"Eat, drink, smoke sisha [a mixture of decayed tobacco and honey smoked in a water-pipe], watch movies, play cards when friends come over. I don't like to shop. If I did I'd be out shopping like the others."

"What time did you go to bed?"

"Three o'clock. Three-thirty. Then I get up and have suhoor then go back to sleep until I have to come to work."

He told me he usually has capsa for suhoor. Capsa is what Westerners call a "goat grab"; large chunks of lamb on top of a savory bed of rice, which they eat with their fingers. It is rich and heavy. Mohammed said most Saudis eat capsa to carry them through the day until the next iftar.

"How many hours do you sleep a night?" I asked.

"Maybe three. Three and a half."

"How can you get by on so little sleep and still work?"

"When it's really hard, Bassam and I take turns sleeping during the day."

"How can you sleep when you're at work?"

"We take turns sleeping in our cars in the basement. One of us sleeps for an hour while the other one covers."

"You know what happened last year?" Mohammad said, laughing, "On the last day of Ramadan, Bassam said he couldn't take it anymore, he had to sleep. I said I'd cover for him. He was worried he'd get caught in the basement so he drove his car off the side of the road and fell asleep. He was supposed to be back in an hour, but he never returned. I kept calling him, but no answer. His parents were calling him. He didn't answer the phone. He slept until it was dark on the last night of Ramadan! Can you believe it? Bassam missed everything!"

One discernible impact of the lack of sleep during Ramadan is a tremendous rise in traffic accidents. Driving in Arabia is dangerous anytime of the year, but during Ramadan it is like playing Russian roulette, only with cars instead of bullets.

The first week of Ramadan, on the way to work, I saw gray smoke billowing in the sky ahead on the Fadh Freeway. Saudis were driving up the sand embankment; others were driving the wrong way up the highway entrance to reach the side street. My driver watched the cars scramble up the embankment like fleeing ants. I told him to just keep going. No matter what was ahead, it was better than the confusion going on around us.

The accident involved a mini-van and a Mercedes. A Mercedes, crushed at both ends, was blocking the middle lane. The burning van was surrounded by three fire trucks, firefighters on top yelling at each other, hosing down the flames. The bodies had already been taken away. Acrid gray smoke filled the highway. It would be the first of many accidents I would see. By the third week of Ramadan the street cleaners would not be able to keep up with the task of sweeping all the broken glass that would eventually litter the city's intersections.

This week the Arab News reported that road accidents were up 20 percent during Ramadan. Brigadier Saad Al-Ghamdi of the Jeddah Traffic Department told the Arab News the accidents peak just before iftar. He said, "I have no idea why people are behaving so differently in Ramadan even though they are supposed to respect the spirit of the holy month by being patient and tolerant. This happens every Ramadan despite our continued warning. Motorists tend to speed more than usual and lose their concentration while driving."

The article when on to say that,  "the increased number of accidents has led the Traffic Department in cooperation with charity organizations to provide a very light iftar meal to motorists by traffic lights to calm them down."

I had a conversation many years ago with a patriarchal Saudi man from whom I rented an apartment when I lived in the Eastern Province. He was an extremely dignified and polite man with a magnificent white beard and burning black eyes. While sipping Arabian coffee and eating dates from Qassim, he told me that fasting was a way to learn self-control. By ignoring physical appetites, one comes closer to Allah. Fasting enabled you to experience the hunger the poor experience everyday. He said Ramadan was a time to clean your body and, more importantly, your soul.

"It's different now," he said. "When I was young people didn't stay up all night. They went to sleep at night like normal. They broke their fast at iftar and they woke up and ate again at suhoor, then prayed and went back to sleep. Instead of driving around all night and shopping and eating they stayed home with their family." I remember another thing he told me. "During Ramadan, each night, Allah releases many souls from Hell."

When I left my compound yesterday morning, out past the three-ton metal gate, the tank traps, barbwire, gun towers, 50-calibre machineguns, and milling soldiers, I spotted another of Ramadan's causalities: a car mangled beyond recognition of make or model. Aside from a detonated car bomb, I've never seen metal so disfigured. It was as though a gargantuan fist had smashed it two or three times, then crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it along the roadside.

I asked my Filipino driver if anything was new in the city.

He squinted in the rearview mirror. "Always the same during Ramadan," he said, shaking his tired head, "Heavy traffic. Crazy Saudis up all night, driving around and around, eating, shopping."

"Where do they shop?" I asked.

"The malls," he said. "Always the malls."

Yes. Of course.

The malls.