By Tania Romanov
Gold Solas Award-winner in the Elder Travel category
Friends were coming to dinner, and I had walked to my favorite Indian restaurant for takeout. Having just returned from travels abroad, I wasn’t about to do any cooking.
Usually a younger man took my order. This time, someone else emerged from the aromatic haze of a steamy kitchen.
“Wow! Your beard is interesting!” I said.Not my most profound opening.
The man, Yusuf, had a narrow, lightly wrinkled face. Graying hair on his chin glowed, colored by henna, a reddish-brown hair dye popular with older men in Muslim countries. It wasn’t something you saw every day in San Francisco.
“Where are you from?” I needed to know.
“Oh, I am from Delhi.”
“Really?” I pulled out my phone and brought up a picture. “Your beard reminds me of this man, but I think he’s from Pakistan.”
“Oh yes, he is definitely Pakistani.”
When he saw the inquisitive look in my eyes, my new friend continued.
“I, too, am Pakistani. But where did you take this picture? I don’t think it was in Pakistan.”
“Saudi Arabia.”
I had no idea how the man guessed I had not taken the picture in Pakistan, since the background was abstract.
“Saudi Arabia?” His brow wrinkled in astonishment. “You were in Saudi Arabia?”
“Yes, I just spent a couple of weeks there.”
“You were in Saudi Arabia?” he repeated, his own gaze now full of emotion, betraying an intensity I hadn’t anticipated. Why was he looking so hard into my eyes? What was it about my visiting Saudi Arabia that so captivated him? He had to clear his throat before he could speak.
“I have dreamed my whole life of going to Saudi Arabia, but I have never been. And I will probably never go.” He looked at the floor, as though suddenly self-conscious. “It is the holiest of places. The holiest…”
I reached out to touch him. Before I could, the man at the grill flipped food from a frying pan onto a plate and handed it to Yusuf.
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As Saudi Arabia was opening to tourism, in 2023 I was among the early visitors. I wanted to see this country that for so long had been closed to most of the world. As a woman who has fought for equality all her life and aches for those who are treated as second- or third-class citizens, I also wanted to reach out to the women. I didn’t believe it was my role to somehow try to change their culture. I simply hoped to look them in the eye and touch them in any way I could.
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As I left the airport upon my arrival, my driver told me that, despite having spent most of his life in Saudi Arabia, he would never feel like a local. He would never be guaranteed a life here. But even though his wife lived in Pakistan, returning would be a challenge for him because it no longer felt like home.
He went on to explain that almost half of the population in Saudi Arabia hailed from other countries, people like him who come for work. The locals choose not to work in service-industry jobs and can afford not to, since the government supports them. Seventy percent of Saudis work for the government, many for less than one hour a day, he added.
Certainly, most of the people I saw as we drove through the city streets were not Saudi Arabians. They came from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India. The occasional locals could be recognized by their white robes and red-and-white checkered scarves, or kaffiyehs.
After petroleum was discovered in 1938, the kingdom eventually became the world’s leading oil exporter, controlling some of the world’s largest oil and gas reserves. It was only now, as they were starting to worry about those resources being depleted, that they had begun exploring alternate ways to support their economy, leading to their newfound embrace of tourism.
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I joined my small group of fellow travelers, all photographers like myself. Our trip started in Riyadh, the capital, and would take us to Jeddah, a port city on the Red Sea, and Medina, one of Islam’s most holy cities. Even holier is Mecca, but we were not allowed there since we were not Muslim.
A visit to a mosque in Medina astonished me. A nondescript fence enclosed a single-story white building that took up several square blocks. Despite being unremarkable from the outside, this was one of the largest mosques in the world. It was the Mosque of the Prophet, al-Masjid an-Nabawī, the resting place of the Prophet Mohammed.
When talked about my visit later, I’d ask friends, “How big do you think a mosque can be? How many people could the biggest hold?”
Some people guessed five hundred, others a few thousand. One friend laughed as he suggested 10,000, as if it were an absurd impossibility.
The reality is almost two million people. Yes, two million people. In one mosque. It takes a while for that to sink in. And the mosque was being expanded, since it was too small.
We went to the noon service, one of five held daily. It was the middle of a week on an ordinary afternoon. I stood at one of the gates in the fence for almost forty-five minutes and watched people enter. Despite their large numbers, there was no rushing, no pushing, no crowding. They just walked and chatted as they went inside.
A little before noon a beautiful call to prayer echoed above us, unexpectedly transporting me to so many other moments in my travels through Muslim countries. Images of the narrow alleys of Marrakesh, the streets of Cairo, and the canals of Srinagar flashed before my mind. I recalled a fish seller in a modern food mall pulling down his store’s metal grating.
As the call ended, I turned on my camera. For two and a half minutes I filmed people enter the mosque. It was like watching a hundred mashed-together stadiums fill peacefully. I have shown that video more often than any I have ever taken. It is simply mesmerizing.
As the prayers started, not only were the faithful inside the mosque, but the outdoor space around it was full of people, too. They kneeled, bowing regularly, oblivious to the hard ground beneath them. Most were women.
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That evening, we had a late dinner in one of the few local restaurants. As was typical, it was divided into private spaces, and we could only see our own group. We enjoyed the now-familiar rice and meat dishes, which were flavored with onions, garlic, and spices, and served with thick, creamy sauces. Afterward, we walked back to our hotel, enjoying a warm breeze as we wandered through the busy town.
Abdu, a young man from Uzbekistan, was one of our guides. I knew him from previous travels and had never thought of him as particularly religious. But, as the rest of us were heading to bed, he was heading for an Uber. It was to take him two and a half hours to Mecca, so that he could perform the umrah pilgrimage. Like the hajj, which is performed once a year on a specific date determined by the lunar calendar, it would require seven circumnavigations of the Kaaba, a stone building at the center of Mecca’s most important mosque and holiest site. The ritual would take about an hour and a half.
“I cannot imagine being so close to Mecca without doing it,” Abdu explained, as he waited for his ride.
The next morning, he barely returned in time for our 5:30 departure, but I could see he was at peace. He smiled as he guided us onto the bus, then relaxed into the voyage as if he hadn’t been up all night.
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As I traveled through Saudi Arabia. I was surprised by the overwhelming amount of building going on. I took in the desert, the ruins we stopped to visit, and—my favorite—the camel market. I was touched by how warm and welcoming the people were, many of whom offered me coffee. And, although we didn’t see large numbers of them, my mind often returned to the women.
They were starting to come into their own. Five years earlier, they were first allowed to drive; more recently, the requirement to cover their faces was lifted. Most women still chose to remain behind the veil, and I suspect it will take a long time for that to evolve.
Jeddah was a welcome exception. Saudi Arabia’s most liberal city, we visited it at the end of our voyage. I was happy to see that here more and more women were showing their smiles.
Before our trip, we had arranged to meet up with a young Jeddah woman who had started her own tour-guiding business. As part of her offering, Amaal invites tourists to dinner in her home, so they can have authentic experiences with local culture.
Her family’s house was an enormous, five-story, meticulously decorated home. As is customary, the mother and father lived on the top floor, their two sons occupied the bottom two, and the middle two were for guests, as well as for having meals and receiving visitors.The evening began with conversation in the living room. Amaal’s mother, sister and brother-in-law, and their ten children joined us. Her mother had a PhD from Great Britain. Amaal had one from the United States. We were stunned, but with men in the room she was reluctant to share more about her education.
Her grandparents were immigrants from Pakistan, Morocco, and Egypt, their last name derived from their occupation: “water carrier.” I asked many questions, but could not figure out how in just one generation water carriers had become so wealthy and integrated into society.
Though the family was friendly, we didn’t learn much about them. When we moved into a long dining room, they sat at one end of two tables that had been pushed together, while we sat on the other. They kept to themselves throughout the meal. When dinner finished, the family entertained us with traditional Arabian clothes. We all played dress up, laughing a lot as we took pictures. In one of my favorites, I’m wearing an elaborate face covering like golden chain mail, concealing everything except my alluring gaze.
As we were leaving, Amaal handed me a little satin bag. With the serendipity that so often finds me, inside I discovered a tiny plastic version of the one item that had become emblematic of my time in Saudi Arabia: a dallah, an elaborate, local variation of a coffee pot. I had wanted to take a real one home, but they were too bulky for my carry-on luggage. Now here was a tiny, lightweight rendering perfectly suited to my carry-on-only travel needs.
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I grew up in an immigrant home where coffee was crucial to existence. Turkish coffee, turska kafa, was key to every social interaction. It was also the only thing my father knew how to make in the kitchen: he brewed finely ground home-roasted dark beans in a copper vessel called a džezva. This was when everyone in America drank insipid coffee like Folgers, long before the second and third waves brought specialty coffees into the mainstream.
My father’s strongest expression of love for my mother was serving her coffee in bed on Sunday morning. My brother and I would share in the ritual as Papa poured love from that džezva into a beautiful porcelain cup.Coffee in Saudi Arabia still involves powerful ritual. No surprise, given Mecca’s role early on in spreading coffee through the world, as the thousands of pilgrims converging there each year took coffee back to their homelands. The first coffeehouses also sprouted there, at least a hundred years before entering Europe via Turkey. To this day, serving coffee is an important aspect of hospitality in Arab societies, a ceremonial act of generosity.
The dallah is the centerpiece of that ritual, a copper—or even gold—pot with a bulbous form that tapers in at the center before gently flaring at the top. A curved beak—like that of a great hornbill—extends from the pot’s upper section. Dallahs are held reverently with the left hand, as the coffee is poured in a graceful manner, sometimes from dramatic heights above the cups. The dallah’s elaborate design puts our džezva to shame.
Every café and restaurant has dallahs, and they line the shelves of shops. A giant one—more than three stories tall—stands in a major roundabout in the middle of the country.
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On one of the last days of our trip, I strolled down to Corniche Road along the Red Sea, ten minutes from our hotel in Jeddah. I walked along the bank, observing the locals enjoying the same warm blue skies. They strolled along a seaside trail, animated as they chatted, laughing and waving their hands. When I noticed two young men sitting on the lawn, I couldn’t resist walking over.
They were on a small Turkish carpet, similar to the ones that lined our hallways when I was a child. Their legs were crossed, Middle Eastern style, and in front of them was a dallah, a few delicate cups, and a box of dates.
They greeted me and invited me to join them. Who could resist?
I could not cross my legs, so I tucked my feet under me and watched with glee as the Arabic coffee—called gahwa—was poured from high above the cups. The aroma of cardamom mingled with the taste of the gahwa as I took a sip, helping myself to a sweet date.
One of the men got up to take a picture of me with his friend. It captured one of my fondest memories, combining as it did the warmth of the people, their openness to foreigners, and my inclusion in one of their most common yet significant ceremonies. It would be hard to imagine park goers in the States showing such warmth and openness to foreign passers-by.
Once more, the sacredness of the dallah in Saudi culture made me appreciate the similar role the džezva played in my parents’ immigrant community. I ached for the culture I grew up in.
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Back home, the next time I went to the Indian restaurant, I took something with me.
I rarely buy souvenirs when I travel, with one exception: refrigerator magnets. My Saudi magnet was a dallah carved in wood. When I saw it in a gift shop, I could not resist. There were two of them. I bought both.
Now I had decided to give one to Yusuf, a sacred memento that I had carried personally from the holiest of lands.
When I held it out to him, he didn’t know what to do. His son, who was by now aware of the whole story, took it from me, and passed it into his father’s hands. Yusuf seemed confused, or perhaps uncomfortable accepting a gift from a woman.
But, unable to resist, a moment later he pressed the wooden dallah close to his heart.
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Tania Romanov is the author of Mother Tongue, also published in Serbian as Po Na’emu; Never a Stranger, a collection of award-winning travel essays; One Hundred Years of Exile, published in Russia as СТО ЛЕТ ИЗГНАНИЯ and winner of Gold for Memoir in the Northern California Publishers and Authors Book Awards; and San Francisco Pilgrimage. Born in the former Yugoslavia, Tania spent her childhood in a refugee camp in Italy, before emigrating to the United States, where she grew up in San Francisco’s Russian community. A graduate of San Francisco public schools, she went on to serve as CEO of three technology companies.