toughest is when your ambitions and plans are bigger than your family connections and relations. it is a sacrifice 

Yemenis fleeing to Saudi lands seeking better life

Yaseen Abdullah, 30, of Taiz is living in Al-Hodeidah governorate under intolerable conditions. He is married and has one daughter. He decided to immigrate to Saudi Arabia searching for better jobs, better opportunities, and improve the quality of his life. He saw a lot of people talking about their dangerous journey into Saudi Arabia and he noticed many people returned home with new cars and money. This is what encouraged him to leave his family and join others in traveling to Saudi Arabia.    
  Abdullah went to Harradh city that is located in the border of the Saudi Arabia and Yemen. In Harradh, qat smugglers often take Yemenis into Saudi Arabia. He paid YR 10 thousand for one of the smugglers who offered to take him into the country. “I waited for this smuggler to gather other people, all trying to sneak into Saudi Arabia,” he said. These traffickers are very known and aware of hidden routes that extend into Saudi territory. “They knew every detail about the ways for crossing the borders undetected,” he added. Abdullah and the rest of the group with the smuggler started moving at night around 02:00 am. “In this time most of Saudi border guards change their shifts and there will be a time to pass without obstacles,” noted Abdullah.  The Saudi border guards erected an electric fence in the areas and roads that are known to be used by smugglers. “But there are some roads that usually smugglers used that go through deep valleys,” he said. There were children and women in the group like any another cluster that entering Saudi lands illegally looking for better job or working as beggars. “We are tired of being poor and we will try everything that helps us survive in this life,” said Abdullah as tears fell from his eyes.   After they entered the borders, they walked through many farms there. After that another smuggler was waiting for them behind those farms. They paid him 150 Saudi Riyals and rode the car. Those smugglers have contacts with Saudi soldiers in some check points. “They let us go after they receive money from the smugglers,” he claimed. Abdullah pointed that there is a Saudi group appointed to fight the entrance of Yemenis to the Saudi lands illegally. This group called “Al-Mujaheden”. “They are very cruel and they kill anyone trying to flee from them,” he said.  After the heartbreaking journey, most of the people who enter Saudi lands are captured by the Saudi police and deported back to Yemen.  “In the first attempt of entering, I spent three months there working in many things like cars workshops but I have been captured by police and they deported me back to Harradh city,” he added. Abdullah is one of many Yemenis who are suffering from bad living conditions and unemployment. They are fleeing to Saudi Arabia and took the risky fatal journey to arrive there hoping and dreaming of a better life. “This is the fifth time that I will try to go there, and I will go back again and again,” he confirmed. In the time of Somalis fleeing to Yemen from the war and conflicts in their country, Yemenis are fleeing to Saudi Arabia seeking and suffering to getting better life that they didn’t find it in their homeland. The increase of human trafficking from Yemen to Saudi Arabia has become as a phenomena and it is consider it a passing center to the others countries.   In the recent period, the size of the phenomenon spread, which Saudis considers an extremely complex problem and requires re-demarcation of the Yemeni-Saudi border, accusing the families of Yemeni origin to facilitate the process of smuggling into Saudi territory, not only launched heavy fire on the totals of Yemenis hackers without the slightest regard for their right of life Recently, the Saudi authorities sought to build the separation wall to combat the various kinds of smuggling and strengthening border control towers, and the deployment of 120 points along its border and strengthen patrols along the Saudi-Yemeni border in seven sectors of Saudi Arabia in which 43 centers border operates 210 patrols front and rear. “Many of Yemenis shot and killed in their ways to Saudi lands,” said Abdullah. A scientific study prepared by UNICEF, in conjunction with the Ministry of Affairs and Labor in 2004 found that the smuggling of children are often with the knowledge and consent of parents. “Some children are forced into it by their parents, and these families come to the borders in search of smugglers handed over their sons,” according the study. There are gangs of smuggling children and girls to Saudi lands and media reports said that Saudi Authorities captured such gangs that recruiting and exploit them in some illegal acts.
“The phenomenon of trafficking of children imposed challenges on the child because they are not prepared physically and psychologically as they add new burdens on state and so the number of illiterates and hackers from education increasing,” said President of the Shawthab Foundation for Childhood and Development Lamia Al-Eryani.
The essence of the problem is poverty. The Yemeni government’s efforts to combat this phenomenon must represent in raising the level of control on the border with Saudi Arabia. They must implement a popularity awareness campaigns, and establish training courses for security officials, in addition to the establishment of reception and rehabilitation centers in Harradh city in collaboration with donor organizations.   

I  don’t have an issue with who he is, the issue is with when he used the news paper as a platform for this ideas and then it gets picked up by US media as testament to Saudi’s view of something that in fact only people in NY have a say in

“Sobia is a seasonal drink during the holy month, Sobia which is made of wheat and water mixed with sugar and sometime vimito is still enjoyed after Ramadan in Makkah

Ful and Tameez shops experience normal flow despite ending Ramadan demands…

despite Ramadan is almost over and ful tameez shops are experience normal to heavy flow of hungry fasting customers.

It is littlie bit early to predict customer flow to the store, although these days are still within Ramadan final days

She lost it Jeddah

 

Naieema the nurse came to Jeddah on a labor visa, to work as nurse in a hospital here in the city. Mandano is where she from, small island with healthy population of Muslim Filipino, there isn’t that allot difference from Muslim and non Muslim Filipinos in the eyes of the west perhaps, however in the Philippine it is at time a matter of life and death sometime.

She started her work at the hospital, made friends inside and outside, there is Yemeni receptionist who fell in love with her body, and wanted to get to know her closer,

she told him there isn’t much to know other than getting married.

He deiced to marry her on Nikah paper, a paper ratified through an masjid imam, no Saudi needs to be involved labor marriage is something that is been going forever in this country without GOV been involved,

because of the nature of their marriage her husband now, abandoned her, no more he was into her,

she is looking for another man to be her husband

what he knew,

He knew that with all the issues plaguing this culture when it came to attending games in Jeddah stadium two words described the atmosphere, Venting Anger, he had heard about how Roman collusions looked and felt like when sports men were battling inside the arena, this was no different the amount of shouting and nasty words thrown at the opposing players are appalling to say the least, Saudi is Islamic society no matter what is been told, conservative as well no woman's are near the pitch. in fact the stadium it self is near Makah highway far from Jeddah’s north scene of city life, it is the closest thing to to Jeddah's people’s people place no Ahil Al Baalad is one way to call them he just called Jeddah’s Real people.

one guy to him “when I see Al Ahli wins, psychological for the day I am fine” Ahli is been losing allot lately Itihad the opposing team, its people also part of Jeddah are more nasty then the rest,

Itihad’s team unofficially is the “people team” the people..that is to say in Saudi if you need someone beside you when you got none Itihad is your team hence it is there.

anger despair or just revulsion ?

confession of Bangladeshi OFW

I got in on omra visa, even though i am not religious person, I found that there are plenty of people from my country working here, the heat is sometimes unbearable but i can handle it. There are plenty of jobs in this country.

I charge Saudis or Saudi looking people twice as much for the price to increase revenue, i do it for few reasons main one is i can, second Saudis don't bargain much, they are indeed a walking money bags here, even though there seems to be some who look poor but they are no near Bangladeshi poor.

feelings and lost feelings,
time and less time,
space, empty space

part of the reason he thought to him self is that he and others were part of the over all beginning of this country, this kingdom,
it was partly evident in a place like Jeddah, and perhaps Makah as well.

for him and others who came in later to the kingdom this was a shared experience that belonged to all of them, citizens and non as well, this he thought was the reason he was still attached to it, not just him others as well.
this is a place in a motion of development, including its fundamentals about religion it self,.

there is a sense that overwhelms someone who tries to connect with this place, and that is the belief the is a feeling that at the ends of the path might find something that he was a major part of, however this is substantial it cant be factual that's where the dilemma starts and ends for the time being.

The issues in the media is not going to calm down, it is as it seems will stick for more time to come, personally I shared with others the feeling that they had to stand for themselves, this included in my opinion to distinguish between them and others within them,

they as personally observed, got issues mixed at times and at times they seemed clear to explain.

here is dealing with their own, no matter what few from here say to them, they should look within themselves for integrating within not here for sure.

Confliction

The issue for this Saudi student is his country is looked at as the birth place of Islam.

That entitles him automatically in the US to speak not just for Islam but also for terrorism to his class mates.

He never thought that he would be sitting one time to explain religion and terrorism, when he even never talked about these topics at his home land. 

in Saudi he was considered American by look, since he wore pants and t-shirt going out, and not Saudi traditional Thobe.

What is going on in here, how could I do something like that, I thought the point of coming here is to be free, this is an attack on something that is was my life, I grew and will come back to when I return home, what will I say when I look back at this incident?

Ramadan in the future.

the holy month of Ramadan seems to me at least losing some of its intricate warm feelings of 25 years ago.

Makah in particular seems to be changed, for the good who knows, but the city it self is not reflective of the holy month, I am speaking of the people vising and in the city.

for some reason it feels the country as a whole is still under a spell of consumerism of the 70’s or in general oil boom time when things were available and there to buy, money seemed (and still is ) there for things to buy)

I argued with my self from time to time and I still think that spirituality is missing here, our perhaps it did not exist, there is at some times a general feeling of anger floating in here, and Makkah for example, I say that after speaking with many expats in the city who seemed disillusioned  

Always wondered where Hajjaa came from. she is old, frail and children. she along with them walks long distances, unforgiving asphalt roads, children barefoot snot all over the face...just like poor Africa on television ?

but why and how would this fit to the over all picture Saudis want for themselves,. in a way how Saudis are really far from what they claim to be originally (bedu) ?

there was an inescapable sense of illusion that perhaps comes over some people when they visit the cradle of Islam.

is that how the old African woman feels? or is what she is going through sometimes begging sometimes collecting soda cans is just her misfortune.  

A’aai guys

today is Wednesday may 20 2010,
I just met with one of A’aai guys, sometimes back in the 80’s me and my older brother used to be with a pack of A’aai boys at Ibn Sirin elementary school in Jam’aa district. 

I met A’aai guy as I was entering the elevator, he was rushing to come inside the building to catch dinner upstairs.

Every other time, A’aai family gather in our building to visit on their relatives who lives in the building, actually their relative is one of the oldest tenants of this building.

He did not remember me at all, he had grown old and it was showing on his face, he was about my height, and he had some food in a plastic bag. 

few, sometimes many complain about the same thing every day..almost the same thing.

this road is not fully built, that street has way too many bumps along it chaos expats badly behaving, GOV hands are weak almost the same from everyone with a varying degree to the order of how the complains starts  or end.

this made me think about the overall developing process since the discovery of oil and its integrating into the funds for development.

accordingly its been 79 years since the foundation of the nation, and many feel that its still lacks anything close to the basics of foundations. why ?

electronic waves

sad loud electronic voices
five times all day, every day
no heart just sounds, no soul?
where things were lost along the way
where are the voices going
they call but people are not the people
the numbers are not the numbers
the voice might or might not be the same

windows live writer first post

this is my first post using the windows live writer, i heard about it through the news while been in the office, it was at the time when i was trying to get Ram to sign my vacation day application, which he did not want to sign.

it is the time to take whatever writing skill i got to somewhere else as the situation in the news paper is not worth the time nor the efforts.

a consensus I believe has to be made sometime I the future, as Saudi becomes developed.
This consensus has to indeed solve or tries to tackle some of the issues been raised.

There is somehow similar situation happening in this country similar to what the west is bitching about in regards to Muslims. However these Muslims are citizens of these countries, the West must treat them on these basis, these are not expats or migrants in my view these are just typical labeling to undermine the human issue or the reality.

However I take this to the US of example, what is going on here, is like.. how the US will deal with Mexican "illegal" workers, if say these workers wanted to vote, work, live, own if they wanted to live exactly like a typical white person, what would the response be?

Another example…Southeast Asians mostly from India some are Muslims some are not, what if a Saudi workers went to India to take jobs and dictate the way they should be treated what will India's people response be.

These of course are hypothetical examples, but I still think are legitimate questions, and certainly wont occur nor will be discussed honestly in any of these countries the reason been is that these countries know that such thing is ridicules. But its good to play on others instead,

cant complain

There seems to be a change, now that everyone's opinion could be heard on the net.

I was going through one article published here in english, the article is about saudi's human rights commission bitching to the press about how foreign embassies tend to mistreat Saudi
citizens who are applying to get a traveling visa, in this case to somewhere in the EU.

I was going through the comments under the article, almost all the majority of these comments are in favor of these foreign embassies bad treatment.

There is something to be said about this, everyone has right to complain and view their take on things, however the comments seemed not to talk about the main issue Saudis complaining to human rights…it was more about the plight of the expats community bitching about their own treatment in Saudi from a company, sponsor people maybe?

In a way these Saudis cant complain whether or not they have a an expats under them or not, in the eyes of those people its all Saudis must be treated like shit because ones or two or many expats were treated maybe by one or two or many Saudi sponsors.