Young man, there's no need to feel down

It's fun to stay at the...

I know what you're thinking: to make fun of such a classic song is downright blasphemous!

Apologies to any Village People fans who may have been offended.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

A Saudi woman has been executed for practicing "witchcraft and sorcery", the country's interior ministry says.

A statement published by the state news agency said Amina bint Abdul Halim bin Salem Nasser was beheaded on Monday in the northern province of Jawf (Al Jouf, where I live!).

The ministry gave no further details of the charges which the woman faced.

The woman was the second person to be executed for witchcraft in Saudi Arabia this year. A Sudanese man was executed in September. He apparently went by the alias "the black wizard", or "da wizard" to his friends (I may have made that last bit up, sorry)

The London-based newspaper, al-Hayat, quoted a member of the religious police as saying that she was in her 60s and had tricked people into giving her money, claiming that she could cure their illnesses.

A BBC correspondent said she was arrested in April 2009. However, the human rights group Amnesty International, which has campaigned for Saudis previously sentenced to death on sorcery charges, said it had never heard of her case until now, he adds.

In 2007, an Egyptian national was beheaded for allegedly casting spells to try to separate a married couple.

Last year, a Lebanese man facing the death penalty on charges of sorcery, relating to a fortune-telling television programme he presented, was freed after the Saudi Supreme Court decreed that his actions had not harmed anyone.

Amnesty says that Saudi Arabia does not actually define sorcery as a capital offence. However, some of its conservative clerics have urged the strongest possible punishments against fortune-tellers and faith healers as a threat to Islam.

No official pictures have been released, but an artists impression (see above) has been made which apparently accurately portrays the spooky events that occurred in 2009. Let's hope the innocent people of Saudi Arabia aren't subjected to that kind of wizardry again.

El Camino

The Black Keys released their seventh studio album last week, and it's a cracker. The band hired Danger Mouse (of Gnarls Barkley fame) to co-write and co-produce their new album, after the success they had working with him on their album Attack and Release and their breakthrough single from last year, Tighten Up. If you're gonna download any of their albums, I suggest Thickfreakness, it's even better than their latest, El Camino. Anyway, here's my favourite song off their new one, enjoy the drop at 2:06.

P.S. 10 days left in Saudi Arabia, ya Allllaaahhhhh!!

Bringing home the bacon

A crime of passion (perhaps) has been committed against an innocent pig. He/she is, in fact, the only animal of its kind in Al Jouf, Saudi Arabia. The animal in question is unfortunately only in picture form, but is a nice reminder of what I have in store when I return to the land of divorced-lesbian-prostitute-pornstar drivers. I managed to smuggle this postcard of a pig wearing sunglasses and smoking a cigarette through customs, and I thought it was safe. The postcard had taken pride of place above my cooker, stuck firmly onto the cabinet in a defiant position of one who knows he'll never have to witness his fellow pig become a meal for a hungry infidel. However, it pains me to say, he never knew the danger he was in. Someone has unmercifully stolen the postcard and now presumably has the pig hostage, if they haven't already disposed of him.

If anyone has seen the unfortunate little swine, or has heard any rumours regarding his whereabouts, please contact Villa 10, Al Jouf teachers compound, Gara, Saudi Arabia.

And remember, a pig is not just for Christmas (or Ramadan)...

Easy rider

Saudi Arabia, November 18th 2011:

“There will be no more virgins in our country within 10 years if we allow women to drive”

Two months ago, a Saudi Arabian court sentenced a woman to 10 lashes because she was caught driving to hospital. The Saudi King however, decided to revoke the sentence a few days later, amid international embarrassment. The woman in question, Shaima Jastaniya, had Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Saudi’s richest man, and his wife, Princess Ameerah, to thank for making a personal appeal to the king to spare the young mother. The royal couple have been working hard to improve the image of Saudi Arabia around the world. 

Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end there. No one seems to have ‘informed’ the court in Jeddah, and it has now notified her that the sentence will stand. Shaima has appealed against the verdict, but there are fears that the ultra-conservative clerics within the government want to make an example of her to warn all women in the Kingdom not to drive. Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz, the newly appointed Crown Prince, is more conservative than his half-brother the king, and has been adamant in his opposition to grant women greater freedoms.

Saudi Arabia is the only country to deny women the right to drive. But despite renewed protests against the ban this year, resistance to reform and change remains strong among conservative royals and clerics. 

In a report released by the Majlis al-Ifta’ al-A’ala (Saudi’s highest religious council), it was stated that allowing women to drive would provoke a surge in prostitution, pornography, homosexuality and divorce. Within 10 years of the ban being lifted, it warned, there would be “no more virgins” in the kingdom.

I don’t know what’s more outrageous: To suggest the most religious country in the world will turn into a state where all the women are lesbian pornstars or divorced prostitutes, or to suggest that every single woman in the kingdom will start sleeping around if they get a driver’s license. If what the clerics suggest does actually happen, then on the upside they certainly won’t have as much trouble attracting English teachers to work in the kingdom. At least then the pornstars will be eloquent, cultured and bilingual.

For more on this story, follow this link

http://www.zimbabwemetro.com/?p=30633

Today I didn't even have to use my AK

Three weeks until I'm back in the motherland. Three weeks where I'm not allowed to shave, as part of Decembeard. Three weeks until I can legally drink a pint of bacon with a woman who isn't dressed like a ninja. It's Arabic Sunday, it's pay day, and I'm listening to this. MASHALLAAAHHHH

Crawling out of my cave

It’s been a month since I last posted. I’m sorry, I realise this has put the vast popularity of my blog into jeopardy (the dizzy heights of 7 hits a day have long gone). However, seeing as I only have three weeks left in Saudi Arabia, I’ve decided to blog again. What caused the hiatus? Instead of admitting it was a chronic case of laziness, in addition to an increased focus on my Portuguese studying, I’ll explain it this way: Every Arab needs to go into hiding once in a while. Sadaam did his stint in a hole with a mars bar; Osama took refuge in a Pakistani compound with a couple of porn magazines. As for me, I have been evading the temptations of the lucrative blog world with only a few bottles of joy juice and the company of some fantastic infidels to assist me. However, the hedonistic mayhem of Sakaka can only be enjoyed for so long, and I’m back to put pen to paper and tell you what I’ve been up to.

There has been no shortage of incident in the past month. The teachers were all shocked to find out that one of the female teachers who used to work at the University, had died as soon as she got back to America. In the same week we found this out, I received news that one of my students had died. He was an intelligent and popular young guy, who was in the top English class, and looking forward to going on to study engineering next year. Both of these cases were a real shame, and pretty close to home for the people that work and study here. Both cases were also completely out of the blue.

In other, more mundane but happier news, the social side of compound life keeps improving. For those of you who can’t sense sarcasm, Al Jouf is North-eastern Saudi Arabia is anything but the “hedonistic mayhem” I described it as earlier. However, there is a really good group of people here now, and while I’ll be excited to move on with my life and get back to England and Brazil, I’ll definitely miss some of my colleagues from Al Jouf. They are the ones that make working in an oppressive environment a lot more enjoyable. They are also the reason that term time is much more fun than summer school. Despite the weather being a lot nicer and not working nearly as much during summer school, you get a sense of solitary confinement, and any semblance of a social scene completely evaporates as most of the teachers leave.

I’ll also miss my students. That’s something I thought I wouldn’t say a few months ago, but I’ve been blessed with great classes this semester. I missed one day of work and the next day they brought in chocolates and coffee with a Welcome back Ben note attached. My other group left a message on the white board saying Teacher Ben, the best in Al Jouf. They were also entertaining during the speaking exam:

“I have 3 sister, 8 father”, “I was porn in Jeddah”, “I like listening to pussy”

That last statement really upset our rhythm (Dan and I). We had to tell the student to leave as we couldn’t control our laughter (strange for two such professionals). Perhaps the student was talking about the Pussycat Dolls? We’ll never know.

Since I last spoke to you we’ve had a Halloween party, been quad biking, had the third compound pub crawl, and as the swimming pool volleyball season has come to an end, the land volleyball season has commenced. I’ll post some pictures from the Halloween party and the quad biking below. Unfortunately my camera broke when I fell off the quad bike, down a hill, and the quad bike proceeded to land on me. Fortunately I didn’t break my neck, but it was a bit sore. The third compound pub crawl was a trip through the decades. Darren and Carlin hosted the ‘60s, Rob and Nigel the ‘70s, Richard and Chris the ‘80s, Bill and James the ‘90s, and we finished off at my place where the decades, like the vision of most of the guests at the time, were blurred. This Thursday we will have the Al Jouf Winter Olympics. Here’s a recap of how the summer Olympics went, The Rest of the World want revenge.

http://maisqueumgringo.blogspot.com/2011/04/al-jouf-infidel-olympics-2011.html

I'll leave you with these, and until next time, fica com Deus مع الحب من الصحراء

Halloween

Arabic gardener, Irish magician

Hairy Jordanian

iStomper

Thief

 A common sight

ATVing

Alhamdulillah ya Saudia