I was strongly opposed to the “supermarket method” of selecting a bride, a process where neither the prospective bride nor groom has much of a say in the end result. The potential groom’s mother comes to visit the girl first; if the girl wins her approval, she goes home and describes the girl to her son. The prospective groom then comes with his father to meet the girl’s father. During this meeting, the groom also gets to see the girl briefly. This supervised encounter is known as a shoufa, and it’s the only permissible way for boy and a girl to lay eyes on each other without being married.
The day came for Sultan’s mother to pay my mother a visit. I was very upset at the thought of her seeing our modest house, and the only clothes I owned that were appropriate were my university clothes. Since our father did not allow us to go out except to visit my family and the only family member left was my uncle—my grandmother and aunt having passed away—I had no formal dress clothes, no colorful long skirts or elegant blouses. My friend Jihan offered to lend me some of her clothes for the day. I was very embarrassed; I’d never worn anyone else’s clothes before.
When Sultan’s mother arrived, I served her coffee and juice. It is customary in Saudi culture for the suitor’s mother to be able to briefly look upon the intended girl. But there should be no conversation between them, and the girl should never be the one to open the door and welcome her prospective mother-in-law into the house. I stood in front of Sultan’s mother with clothes that didn’t belong to me and a mind that was elsewhere. I was only going through the motions.
Though I wished that she’d hate me, find me ugly, and dismiss any possibility of an engagement, she contacted Mama again to set a date for Sultan and his father to visit with my father. If my feelings had been mixed before, now every fiber of my being resisted. When my college friends brought in pictures of their engagements or marriages for us to look at, I would think that something like that might be nice for me. But whenever I was alone and thought about excelling in my studies and my work, dreaming of a job that would lift my family out of poverty, I could not imagine being married. Slowly, I began to consider the real reason for my aversion to marriage, and memories of the barber Abdulaleem and my bloodstained yellow jalabiya came flooding back. I told my parents that I was no longer interested in completing the rituals of engagement.
“Give me one reason for your refusal!” my father demanded.
For once in my life, I spoke the truth. “The day of my circumcision disfigured me horrifically,” I replied. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get married, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive you.”
In those few sentences, I was finally able to voice the blame, helplessness, and frustration that I’d held within me since I was eight years old. I wanted to wound my father, even as I closed my eyes and prepared for the slap that I was sure would come. But there was nothing. Abouya simply turned and exited the room. He never raised the subject of marriage with me again.
In 2002, as I prepared to graduate with first-class honors and a high grade-point average, I still hadn’t found a job. The prospect of sitting at home after five years of hard work was devastating. One of my classmates, Marwa, who was from the Eastern Province, mentioned that Aramco, the giant Saudi oil company, ran a summer internship program. “They award a monthly remuneration of 4,000 riyals to the interns,” she said. I hadn’t even known until then that women could join Aramco; the Aramco office in Jeddah employed only men.
I was desperate to get a spot. “Will you help me apply?” I asked.
She said she would.
I gave her all of the necessary paperwork and waited.
When she called, her first words were, “Manal, pack your bag.” Then she told me that we were going to be colleagues that summer.
My father had to sign a consent form for me to do the internship, but this was one form he was happy to sign. It was a dream for any Saudi to work at Aramco. “It’s an honor to belong there,” he said proudly.
For the first time in my life, I’d be completely alone as well.
I still keep my plane ticket from Jeddah to the eastern city of Dammam in my box of precious things: it reminds me of my journey from a troubled, angry home in a poor, miserable neighborhood to a world that was the opposite of almost everything that I had known. I was assigned to work in Aramco’s Expatriate Recruitment Unit. The department’s driver, known as Uncle Ali, met me at the airport. As our car pulled through the gates of the Aramco residential compound, I had the biggest shock of my life. I stared out the car window like a new arrival in a foreign land; nothing about my surroundings resembled the Saudi Arabia I knew. I saw clean, organized streets, with trees, lush public gardens, and water fountains. I saw American-style wooden houses, their large windows free of the protective iron bars soldered onto most Saudi residential buildings. Instead of high walls around the houses, there were beautiful gardens. We passed a woman behind the wheel of a car, wearing sunglasses, her hair uncovered. Fascinated, I fixed my gaze on her and craned my neck around to get a better view. There were women walking in the street without abayas; some of them were even running or riding bicycles. “Are you sure we’re still in Saudi?” I asked Uncle Ali. Looking into the rearview mirror, I could see him smile.
In the housing office, I received a key to my shared house, Number 622 on Sixth Street of Aramco Dhahran Camp. I’d be living with Rima and Dina, two dental students, and Alia, a computer science student like me. I headed to my new home and carried my small bag over the threshold. The house was built in the American style, just like the ones I’d seen in the movies. There was a backyard, an open kitchen, and large windows for sunlight to stream through. Everything was tidy, awaiting our arrival.
Neither the dishwasher nor the fully automatic washing machine was what I liked best about the house—though both were fantastic luxuries. My favorite thing of all were the two faucet taps—one for cold water and one for hot. Though this was fairly common in Saudi Arabia, it was something I’d never had at home. Our apartment building was very old, and when the building’s external water tank emptied, usually within three days of its monthly filling, we survived the rest of the month without running water. We kept a small water tank inside our apartment and a larger one on the balcony, and each day, we measured out the minimum amount of water we needed for bathing or for brushing our teeth. Muna and I had complained constantly to our father, but nothing changed.