The notorious Muscat Confidential blogger recently posted a blog post about how to have sex in Muscat. His blog seems to get hits through searches for sex-related keywords, and I quote:

You know, I get a lot of hits from guys (I'm assuming here) in Oman searching for Filipino girls, Muscat girls, how to get girls in muscat, muscat sex, sex omani girls, prostitutes muscat, gay sex muscat, etc etc etc. Sex is clearly, like the rest of the world, on the mind of a lot of people in Muscat. Oh yes.

Expat wife Angry in Oman does not like her colleagues at work, does not like the people on the road, and surely is not happy about staying Oman. Some tell her it is a transition period and she will eventually like it here, but until that happens, the suffering continues. Here is the starting paragraph of her latest misadventures:

It always happens that when I think things can't get any worse, they of course do.

I now have a toothache to the point the whole right side of my face hurts and my bosses wife's driver came round to the office last night and took the keys away.

I told #3 yesterday that I NEED to get my check cashed today and that I will be late coming into the office. He was fine about it and when I got here I told him that I made a dentist appointment for Thursday.

Leo Americanus thinks that there is something seriously wrong with the perception of women in the Arab culture. He is surprised by the statements made by the family of the recently murdered Lebanese singer Suzanne Tamim:

While female singers have been taken advantage of by rich men the world 'round, I cannot help but feel that there is a special misogyny that surrounds men of power in the Middle East. Alaa al-Aswani's novel “The Yacoubian Building” paints a pretty damning picture of this kind of man in Egypt. The sad thing is that there is a line of thinking that perpetuates such acts.

Popular female blogger Suburban observes the state of hypermarket Lulu (she prefers to call it ‘Zoo-Lu') during the Ramadan. She generally likes it because it is very cheap, but there are a few things that are starting to drive her crazy, here is one of them:

Wonky shopping carts. I am telling you, I have never had a shopping cart there that rolled straight. I am a small girl, and by the time the thing is full, I look like some sort of comic superhero in blue jeans, feet sliding on the lino floors, body inclined to 45 degrees, frantically attempting to navigate the corner of the dairy isle.

The multi-millionaire Grammy Awards winner says soaring gas prices are making it difficult for him to use his private jet, and now has to use commercial airlines to fly. He made his appeal in the following vlog:

Saudi bloggers react. Saudi Jeans quips:

American rapper Sean Puffy Combs complains about the high cost of gasoline, and says he can no longer afford to fly his private jet from New York to Los Angeles twice a month. He is begging the Saudis to send him some free oil so that he can fly in his private jet once again. Sorry bro, you ain’t gonna get nothin’ from these shores, because, just in case you didn’t know, we ain’t got no oil wells in our backyards to give away for free.

Rasheed Abou-Alsamh adds:

Puffy says that a roundtrip costs him $200,000 and that he allegedly cannot afford that. In the video he appeals to his “Saudi sisters and brothers” to send him some free oil so that he can fly in his private jet once again.

I don't think that he's going to get a shipment of jet fuel anytime soon as the Saudis have shown again and again how hard-nosed they can be when it comes to oil prices. A super-rich entertainer such as Puffy might get invited to perform at the private bash of a Saudi royal, but he sure isn't going to get free oil, he can bet on that!

The Libyan blogosphere is being populated by Ramadan posts and while most of them are of a congratulatory nature such as this example from the Alwafy blog run by the duo Hassen and Hana, others have a different flavour.

WEDA 4 All revives the beautiful Libyan traditions of her Benghazi city and she takes us on a virtual tour of the Fish Market (Soug al hoot) which she used to visit with her parents.

“you can't be in Benghazi in ramadn & u don't go there…..really you'll miss alot…..as you go there you'll see the crowed which starts at abut 2pm..alot of home made libyan bread “tanoor”, harrisa, emsaer, boreek, olives, knafaa,…etc..& of course fireworks.[sic]”

There is another touching part to her post but you'll need to go read to understand.

Then there is PH from My Personal Space who highlights several negative societal aspects in the Arab world associated with Ramadan and which apply to Libya as well. These come as a result of - in my opinion - the very fast loss of values which is plaguing our region lately. I cannot pinpoint what brought it and when it began exactly but I admit it is forming a part of the mosaic of our society and culture. So the extensive number of cartoons he has posted reflects: preoccupation with Ramadan TV programmes, extreme socialising of youth instead of spiritual quests, hypocrisy and addictions, bad timekeeping and other bad practices at the office, greed and lust, soaring prices, conspiracy theories from satellite providers and the ‘West', and not forgetting that it would not be PH without the odd political insinuation and so we have the Arab street looking the other way at Arab hot topics and my personal favourite is the cartoon with the US military arresting the Mesaharati (aka the person who traditionally wakes up Muslims so they can have their suhour i.e the Ramadan breakfast before sunrise) and accusing him of terrorism intention.

On the edge, an American married to a Libyan is counting down to Ramadan. She shares with us her Ramadan preparations while her husband went to the beach:

“[…]stayed home to spend the day in the kitchen cooking food to freeze ahead for Ramadan. Ramadan is only a little more than a week away [.]I am hoping that by cooking as much as possible before hand, I won't be spending ALL my time in the kitchen this year [.] Today I did some more cooking by preparing all the pickled veggies by setting them to start marinating. Tomorrow I hope to finish up with baking the pizzas. I also cooked up the soups too. All this goes into the freezer to be taken out as needed for dinners. Next I have to tackle the house cleaning …ugh ! I hate that part more than the cooking .Ramadan is 90% preparation and 10% doing what needs to be done. This isn't the correct way to celebrate Ramadan but it helps to get these things out of the way so you can devote your time to prayer, charitable acts, good deeds, good thoughts, and being good. Behaving well, being the operative words here. That's why prayer is so good, it keeps you on track [..]”

The humour notwithstanding she does manage to remind us that Ramadan is about tapping into your spirituality and connection with God which is Ramadan's message and blessing.

And while we are on the subject of 3ibadah (tenets of worshipping God) and spirituality, another Ramadan related post is by White African , a Libyan in Britain. She recently returned from Umrah and is sharing with us the beautiful spirit of Mecca and Medinah from her clandestine mobile phone camera.

“seeing the haram again was amazing, the whole place takes over you and you forget about all your problems, life, bills, application forms etc… its simply serenity…obviously i took pictures but the ones inside the haram where from my mobile as my camera is too big to hide […] its always weird to come back after visiting mecca and madina, you kinda get absorbed by the life style of praying in the haram and listening to the adhan and generally having more ibadah in your life[..]mecca and madina is filling up pretty fast with people who are coming especially for ramadan, by the time we left it was choca block…”

Another facet is expressed by Khadijateri, an American living in Tripoli and married to a Libyan. Like On the edge, she is making her own Ramadan preparations.

“I've spent the weekend relaxing and getting things ready for Ramadan[…]The shopping part was the pleasant part. I got a new blender and a microwave oven. Also some stuff for the kitchen; plastic containers and soup spoons. I have plenty of everything for the kitchen already. I also picked up some curtains for my bedroom and a small furniture dealie with three drawers in it that fits nicely under my desk. I didn't need those but I wanted them and cash was in my pocket so I got them. I decided that for the groceries I'm not going to go shopping for anything special. There's a shop around the corner that always has just about everything I need.”

She also hits Libyans under the belt:

I can't understand why Libyans go berserk at the grocery store right before Ramadan starts. You would think that all the food was going to disappear or something.

To be fair Ramadan has been increasingly commercialized in the Arab world at least and even in Libya shopping for groceries and cooking utensils and renovating kitchens has become a major aspect in pre-Ramadan planning. Also the ills of modernization and globalization are increasingly catching up with us and eroding some of the more innocent aspects of our culture making us more materialistic. Yet I would like to think that most Libyans were not shopping because they are gluttons or stupid enough to think that food would disappear soon but rather perhaps the simple reason is like on the edge implied i.e. early preparations in order to save more time for religious contemplation?

Ramadan Mabrouk to you all!

We start with Hala, currently living in the US and blogging at HALA_IN_USA, who is giving advice to a single female friend visiting Jeddah for the first time:

Women in Jeddah are dressed in an outside gown called “Abaya”, it supposed to be worn over clothes so dress lightly beneath it especially in the summer. The scarf however, is not a must for a female visitor in Jeddah but a preferred thing to wear (for safety and convenience) in traditional places.

There are a variety of places to see in Jeddah, I would suggest the Balad, the old city of Jeddah, with its historical architecture and old houses, Naseef house is a good example of one. You can purchase traditional goodies from the old shops and enjoy the aroma of Arabic perfumes like Oud and Bukhour, there’s also the traditional handcrafts like the light bulbs or fanoos [lantern], the dates, the sweets and the textiles with various colors.

Then, there’s the famous Jeddah Corniche. I suggest visiting it early in the morning or at 6pm to see the open air sculptures along the sea side, there’s also Jeddah sea-fountain, one of the highest fountains in the world. There is a variety of food choices along the corniche from fancy eating in restaurants to fast food or even small booths for biscuits and chips. The local people would sit for hours by the sea side with their children playing around and watching the passersby.

For more of Hala’s advice of what to see in Jeddah, see here.

Meanwhile American Bedu, an American living in Saudi Arabia, tells us what she thinks of a women-only hotel in Riyadh:

The Al Luthan hotel and spa is the first women only facility of its kind in Riyadh. It is a luxurious hotel and spa for women only. It is a full service hotel and spa offering deluxe, comfortable and safe accommodations. Al Luthan welcomes both Saudi and non-Saudi females. Now some women have spoken out to the media that the opening of Al Luthan is a step backwards. According to these women, they see it as a backwards movement for the Kingdom due to the fact that there is already so much enforced segregation and women not only have few rights but promoting and endorsing a women’s only hotel and spa further diminishes women from receiving rights. Maybe I am in the minority but I take the opposite view. Al Luthan is not unique when compared to the rest of the world. Women hotels or women-only floors are actually common in most major cities (and some not so major) all over the world. Back in earlier times when I was doing a lot of international travel, I enjoyed staying on a women-only floor, especially when in foreign cities which were not as accustomed to business women traveling alone. So to me, I do not see a women’s only hotel as a step backward at all but another nice option to have for women in the Kingdom.

Riyadh blogger Sweet Anger is fed up of foreigners assuming that Saudi women are oppressed, while knowing nothing about their lives or society:

So I was googling one thing or another when I found a post about the abject horror of a reporter in Saudi who was female and was therefore not permitted to stay in the men's section of Starbucks, umm boo hoo hoo. Now what grabbed my attention wasn’t the article itself, but the comments. […] Juuuuuust so we're clear, Saudi is not a bunch of tents stuck together with roaming camels, men in turbans singing “Allah o akbar” raping women cause it’s their right and having a harem of no less then 20. Oh and we don’t circumcise our women, man that’s just nasty and wrong on too many levels. Women are not locked up at home and any who are is a matter of the family culture not the country, still with me? Good. We're not backwards you morons, we're conservative, i.e. if you want to go and mingle with the opposite sex you go to a specific place. […] Now my more important point is, since when do you get off judging people: “Close Starbucks!! They shouldn’t support them by opening families sections” – umm, excuse me? I ain’t complaining, and I need my coffee, so seriously man, GET LOST, I didn’t hire anyone to be my speaker.

For those of you who are still convinced we are an oppressed nation and us poor poor woman need to be taught how to fight back and if not well go ahead and fight for us, let me give you a little review of what a regular day in Riyadh is like. Now yesterday I wake up, make my coffee … get dressed put my abaya on (if it’s too horrific to think about this, think of it as a jacket), pick up my little angel, get in my chauffeured car a.k.a. driver included, drop my girl off, and go to work. By 1:30 I'm having lunch from Subway with the girls, then go back to work and leave at 4:30, go home, relax, take a shower, get dressed, wait for the driver to take me to the Chinese place since I invited the girls out. Get there around 9:45 and leave around 12, get home, get online, check my facebook and hotmail, then hit the sack by 2am. OH MY GOD, WHAT HORROR, HOW CAN I LIVE A LIFE SO OPPRESSED, AAAAHHHHHH!!!! […] My point is, some people have no knowledge about what goes on in our life yet they deem it their right to judge and be almighty. We're different, hell yeah, being different from what you think is right doesn’t make us bad or wrong it makes us us. Deal with it and butt out.