Today I went to a major mall here in Riyadh to pick up an abaya I had ordered and instead got a story. The abaya was supposed to be ready yesterday but when I got to the shop there was an off vibe to it. The abayas on the racks were plain. The creative cuts [...]
Posts Tagged as ‘Abaya’
October 29, 2008
Blackmail: Saudi Style
This is a quite expressive cartoon by a longstanding cartoonist, Al Rabea, from yesterday’s edition of Al Riyadh newspaper. It depicts a recurring and widespread situation in Saudi Arabia. In it a woman is backed against the wall in a helpless and hopeless fetal position and a man is pointing his camera equipped cell phone [...]
May 2, 2008
Sandstorms and My Ancestors
These past two weeks Riyadh has seen on and off sandstorms. When it’s really bad it kind of looks like a yellowish brown blizzard. People with asthma and allergies are confined to their houses and it’s not strange to see some people walking around with surgical masks on. No matter what you do, the sand [...]
April 28, 2008
Abayas
I’m pretty sure that to outsiders all covered women look the same. But actually how a woman wears an abaya tells a lot about her. Of course this is a cultural issue and as such can be given to many interpretations. Another point before you read on, is that in order to explain culture, I [...]
