Janadriyah Cultural Festival

Every year in Riyadh the Janadriyah Festival comes to town.  There is a large fairground area outside the city that is only used once a year to host this.  People come in from all the different regions to showcase what their region is famous for.  I went with some teachers after school one day to check it out.  Here are people showing how to make baskets:

 Some people were doing pottery:

People from the Eastern province made their living by fishing and pearl diving so they showcased their ships and netting:

In the background a guy is playing a traditional musical instrument called the Rababah that was used by the Bedouins to help recount their poetry of love and war.  You can see the different displays of Saudi life:

There were many women's dresses showcased, and most were used out in the desert before the law came into effect that all women must wear the abaya:

 There was an old man spinning straw into thread to make hammock style beds:

 We ate some traditional food and wandered around.  Some women were selling little trinkets and it was fun to chat with people and make new friends.

 I also got a henna tattoo.  When a woman gets married her friends will put henna all over her arms and legs but I just wanted a little bit done.  During that week many of my students came to class with henna that they got from the festival.  It only lasts about 2 weeks before it fades and disappears:

 In another building there were men making all sorts of drinks and food.  I was given samples of sweet drinks and cookies made from the abundant dates and honey that this area is famous for.  There was a place to buy different varieties of dates:

 You could also get different kinds of honey from the mountains near the city of Abha.  The honey here is simply amazing:

 At the end of the night the dancers and drummers come out:

It was nice to be able to sit down and watch a show after walking around all day and I always learned new things about Saudi culture and customs at this festival.

The Camel Beauty Pageant

In December there was a big camel beauty pageant held in the desert outside of Riyadh.  The idea intrigued me so I joined a tour to go see what it was like.  It wasn't quite what I imagined a beauty pageant to be but it was still interesting.  We drove a few hours and soon we began to see people setting up tents.  Some tents are smaller canvas tents, but the black ones are made from camel hair and are still used by Bedouins today (and they are actually quite expensive to buy).

As we got closer we could see the big gates - even though there is no fence and the gates are in the middle of nowhere.  It's very typical for them to build something big and glorious that is in reality quite useless.

As we got closer it got more and more crowded and we saw very few women (except the ones from our tour group and a few selling things on the road.  There were all things related to camels.  Camels being hauled around in trucks:

People wearing camel skin coats:

People making (and shops selling) the harnesses and decorations to put on your camel:

And even I had to try on one of the camel coats.   I didn't buy anything because there is no way it would fit in my suitcase along with everything else and I'm sure very little of it is made from actual camel.

We got back on the bus and went out to where the pageant was held.  We drove through some more gates because only the judges and media were allowed in.  Our tour group got special permission since we are foreigners.  The judges all waved at our bus as we drove past them (and we made jokes about what scores we would get).

I thought it would be a pageant for individual camels but it turned out to be scored per herd.  Each day they score a different color of camel (white, black, brown, grey) and we were there on the day for white herds.

We couldn't understand anything the judges were saying so we don't know what kinds of scores each herd was getting but they were all beautiful to me (as far as camels go, anyway.)  After that we were taken to an area with some traditional tents set up for lunch.

  It does get cold in the winter so they had a fire and served tea and coffee before lunch.

They also had some camels for the kids to ride.  A lot of the adults also rode around, especially people who had never ridden a camel before.

Just before lunch they brought out a falcon and some very skinny hunting dogs.  They showed us how the falcon and the dogs work together to catch small desert animals.  Falconry is a big part of Arabian desert life.

Then we finally got to eat lunch.  There was a salad and dessert buffet and the main course was Kabsa, which is very typical food of flavorful rice with nuts and spices and raisins with roasted lamb on top.  You can also make it with chicken or even, you guessed it, camel.

We had the lamb and it was delicious!

Magnificent Mada'in Saleh

Back in November I went on a tour of Mada'in Saleh.  This is one of the few major tourist sites in Saudi Arabia and it was well worth the trip.  Mada'in Saleh is an ancient city and large cluster of tombs that were built by the Nabateans, who also built the rock city of Petra in Jordan.  I really enjoyed seeing Petra back in 2003 so I was curious to see its sister-city.  Our group met at the airport and we flew to the holy city of Medina. 

Both Mecca and Medina are closed to non-Muslims but the airport of Medina is outside the city so we were able to land and take a bus along the outskirts.  The 'Haram' area is the 'restricted' area that we were not allowed in.  The word 'harem' is related to this word because it was the sanctuary where the women were kept and strange men were not allowed in.

 Our guide, Meteb, was wonderful and one of the few really hard-working, open-minded Saudis that I've met here.  He did everything he could to make our tour informative and enjoyable.

Our first stop was Al-Ula which was the ancient capital of the Dedanites.  The city is built along a green oasis valley.  It's like walking through a mud brick maze straight out of Arabian Nights.  They are making an effort to preserve and restore it so it was fun to wander around.

After lunch we drove out to Mada'in Saleh and wandered around the tombs.  Some were more isolated but with spectacular carvings.  Interestingly enough, not many Saudis come here.  There is something in the Qur'an that talks about this city becoming prideful and rejecting the prophets.  It is said that if you travel here you need to do it with a sad heart for those who rejected Allah.  And really, who wants to go to a tourist destination where you are supposed to be sad the whole time?

 Most of the tombs were built into existing rock cliffs.

Each building was built by a family and it served to house the remains of generations of that family.  So the inside felt more tomb-like with individual coffin holes in the walls.  I'm not sure if the small holes are for children or for artifacts they wanted buried with them.  Either way, the people must have been much smaller back then.

At the entrance to the tourist area there is an old Hejaz railway station that was built between 1901 and 1908.  The Ottomans built a railway line from Damascus to Medina that would have extended down to Mecca but World War I broke out and T.E. Lawrence and the Arab revolt kept blowing it up. 

The next day we went out in 4X4s and drove over some big sand dunes and through red rock canyons.  But first we had to let the air out of the tires so they could drive through the sand easier.

I didn't really get pictures of that because we were bouncing around so much.  The next stop after that was a large rock formation called "Elephant Rock."  You can see why.

On the way back to the airport we stopped at the ancient ruins of Tayma which was a big center of activity along the spice trade routes.  Some artifacts have been found from places as far away as Babylon and ancient Egypt that were brought from travelers passing through.  It most likely would have been a stop for Lehi and family.

In fact many of these places are mentioned in the Bible (such as Jeremiah 25:23).  It was a fun trip and it was nice to get out of Riyadh and see a bit of the northwestern part of Saudi Arabia.