Job Discussion Forums

[sanuk]

Hello


I am considering an offer from the NGHA based in Riyadh. Does anyone have any information about the housing compound/medical city? I have asked for photos but have not received anything yet. I will be living there with my husband and 4 children and would like to get a better sense of the size, the facilities and accomodation and whether there are many children in this compound?

Second question - generally speaking do western women wear the abaya at work. I will be working in a hospital but I am not a nurse and will be in a managerial role. I am assuming I will have to wear it but wanted to hear from others living in Riyadh.

Thanks

[007]

[Cleopatra]

An abaya is not considered professional attire: in hospitals I have been in, even Saudi admin staff do not wear them. Instead they were green 'scrubs' complete with black headscarf and usually face veil too! The first time I saw that I thought it utterly bizarre, but like so much else I have now grown used to it.

If you are in an office job, my guess is that you will be given a uniform to wear, or perhaps you will be asked to wear a lab coat style garment, even if it's not appropriate to your job. Since National Guard is likely to have a rather conservative 'clientele' I would say it's unlikely you'll be able to wear your 'own' clothes at work.

[Mia Xanthi]

As convenient a garment as the abaya is, I assume it would cause major safety hazards if worn in a hospital or clinic environment. They are big, loose, long garments, often with billowing sleeves. My students have complained that the abaya gets in the way of eating properly at times, let alone the problems it could cause to getting a job done.

I would imagine that hospital staff, after seeing the thousands of injuries caused from tripping on abayas each year, would ban them from any medical workplace.

That being said, you will most certainly have to dress more modestly than you would in a Western medical environment. And you will have plenty of opportunities to wear the abaya when you are off from work!

[Stephen Jones]

I've been treated by a female Saudi doctor in a burqah.

[Mia Xanthi]

[scot47]

Burka/Burga

A fine 8th Army word, which is probably where Stephen learnt it. Consider the words of that well-known song :

"There is a street in Cairo full of sin and shame
And Shara Wag El Burka is the b******'s name.

Russian, French and Greek bints all around I see, crying out
"You stupid *****, abide with me."

[veiledsentiments]

The word 'burqah' has come into English and ended up being a complete misnomer. I usually see it here in the US in reference to the cover worn by the Afghani women - which they never refer to as a 'burqah.' They call it a chador just as the Iranis do.

I only heard it used in the UAE and Oman, where it refers to the mask referred to by Mia, which actually doesn't denote age, but marital status. Traditionally the Bedu women put it on at marriage, but their face was never covered up to that point. The tradition is dying out with the young educated women according to my students in the royal family - who feel obligated to wear it.

VS

[Cleopatra]

[007]

[Stephen Jones]

The correct spelling is apparently 'burka'. It has been in English since the 19th century. The SOED defines it as:
A Muslim woman�s long enveloping garment worn in public.

Merriam Webster dates it back to 1836 and gives the meaning
a loose enveloping garment that covers the face and body and is worn in public by certain Muslim women

Google gives 1,570, 000 occurrences of the word.

The 360-million-word corpus of American English at BYU gives 38 examples for 'burkas' and 50+ for 'burka' though maybe a dozen of those refer to somebody's name.

The 100-million-word British National Corpus only has 3 entries for 'burka' and one for 'burkas' but the source material only goes up to 1993, and it is in the last fifteen or so years that the word has entered common British parlance.

In 'Brick Lane' by Monica Ali, there is a marvellous reference to various of the young teenagers in the area having 'upgraded from the hijab to the burka'.

Regarding the exact details of the garment I must plead ignorance. No doubt tongues will wag and many will construe the worse from it, but I do not make a point of staring at strange females' attire in public places in Saudi Arabia. I do realize that this deprives me of many delights including a detailed inside knowledge of custodial constructions.

[johnslat]

If a picture is worth a thousand words, Google images provides a million or so. But what a manifold and diverse array is presented.
It's apparently not a case (to paraphrase Ms Stein) of "a burks is a burka is a burka is a burka."


MOD edit

[veiledsentiments]

[Cleopatra]

So far as I know, 'burqa' is spelt with a 'qaf'. Its various mistranslations into English aside, as I've said, it is used in Arabic to refer to a very specific garment.

[Stephen Jones]

'Burka' has been in the English language since 1839. Questions of transliteration only arise when you are dealing with foreign words. Nobody discusses the transliteration of 'camel' or 'orang-utang'.

Monica Ali is an English writer of Bangladeshi descent. 'Brick Lane'
http://www.amazon.com/Brick-Lane-Novel-Monica-Ali/dp/1416584072/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212915884&sr=8-1
is a novel about Bangladeshis living in the eponymous street in the East End of London, which street is famous for its curry emporiums amongst other things. The novel is excellent, as Ms Ali is one of the best contemporary prose stylists in the English language. I highly recommend it.