ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

What I Learned From Arab Women

Updated on June 17, 2022
Kathleen Cochran profile image

Kathleen Cochran is a writer & former newspaper reporter/editor who traveled the world as a soldier's better half. Her works are on Amazon.

Source
Source
Source
Source
Source
Source

The lovely women I came to call my friends.

I lived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from September 1990 to July 1994. During the first two years in the kingdom I taught English as a Second Language at the Women’s Language Center in the Thalatine District of the city. I got an up close and personal glimpse into the life these women lived in one of the most restrictive cultures for females on the planet.

The women who were my students at the Language Center called me Mrs., just Mrs. Some of them called me Madame making me feel like I should have loose girls in the rooms upstairs in my villa. Eventually, they would start calling me Teacher. At first I was offended. Couldn't these women be bothered to learn my name? Then I learned. They were honoring me. Teacher was a term of respect. I was so grateful I hadn't made a big deal early on about what they called me.

My classes were advertised as a chance to learn five hundred words in English in just a matter of weeks. It became a joke between me and my students. They'd learn five hundred English words, and I'd learn one word in Arabic.

We met three mornings a week, which I didn't realize was quite an effort for these ladies. Getting up early was not part of their routine. But they made the effort and went out of their comfort zone to learn English, which they needed more and more as their middle class husbands traveled more and more outside the kingdom, and more and more to the west.

Being able to travel with their husbands served a vital purpose in their marriages, as I learned when one of them asked me if my husband had girlfriends when he traveled alone. My answer was an adamant, "He better not!" This response drew laughter with a hint of "How do you know for sure?"

I quickly learned a proverb of the Arab culture is a sin hidden is half forgiven. Also, it is assumed the laws of their religion only apply if you are within the boundaries of the kingdom. An urban legend in Saudi Arabia involves a well-known prince and an airplane full of prostitutes that circled above Riyadh for several days. The party was within bounds because it didn't take place on the kingdom's soil.

It was hard to believe the men here would so blatantly cheat on these women when the consequences are so extreme if the situation was reversed. Besides, these women were gorgeous. But then, men are men everywhere. Those guys who cheat on Hollywood's most beautiful women don't do it because they are looking for someone prettier. They are just looking for someone else. It's the same everywhere – if you are "one of those guys."

The men who lived on my American compound were primarily U.S. soldiers and were intensely curious about Arab women – naturally because they were absolutely unattainable even to view– an unusual situation for the military men who were my neighbors. I was only too willing to be the one to report to them in vivid detail how beautiful the women all were, every single one of them, like no mass of females I had ever seen: to die for figures, faces to launch more than a thousand ships, skin like satin, hair like silk. I wore myself out coming up with more and more elaborate descriptions of their beauty. Hey, there was not a whole lot of entertainment around there. Torturing horny men was as good as it got.

There were two absolutes I had to learn and adapt to in my classroom. One really irritated the heck out of me until I finally learned to live with it. When I was in school, if I was late, which was a cardinal sin in my day, I'd quietly slip into the back row as unobtrusively as humanly possible, hoping against hope no one would notice – especially the teacher or professor.

Not these girls. If they were late, which happened a lot, they barged right in and said "Hello" to each of their fellow students, all of whom stopped what they were writing or reading or listening to (generally me) and returned the greeting. Now this greeting might be a verbal exchange, but more often than not it involved standing to their feet and exchanging kisses on the cheek – not one, but one on both sides, Or if they were close friends or relatives, one on one side and then several on the other. I once saw sisters reunited at the airport, and I thought the kisses on the second cheek would never end.

What I learned from my fellow western instructors was that it was considered the height of rudeness in the Arab world not to greet anyone entering a group – each and every one. So much for slipping in the back row quietly.

The other absolute was "Insha’Allah." God willing - the phrase following any and every statement. We'll meet again on Wednesday, Insha’Allah. Tomorrow we will study gerunds, Insha’Allah. I'm going to get a cup of tea and will be back in five minutes, Insha’Allah. Every single thing in these women's lives was dependent on God's will, and they were darned sure going to acknowledge it.

working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)