Minutes earlier, we (Kent, Chris, Mike, Jeff, Doc, and myself) had been taking photos of the remains of an old Turkish fort, the only one we hadn't already photographed during our five-day survey of the long-defunct Hejaz railway (thanks to T. E. Lawrence's adventures in World War I). We had already seen as much of the railway as we could manage within the time we had available to us, so on our way home to the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, we'd simply pop into Al-Ula, get our shots, and be back on the road in a matter of minutes.
Light rains the night before had sprinkled the area, in places turning the fine red dust to a mud which now squished between the treads on our tires and spattered the thorn-scratched quarterpanels of our trucks as our four-vehicle convoy began to roll out in the direction of the paved road back into town, and then on to the highway and southward-bound. Just as the last truck was about to pull out, a young Arab man approached them from the walled compound facing the fort, just across the sticky dirt track from it.
Jeff's steady voice crackled from the radio, "Hey One, we've got a guy here waving us down. I'm gonna see what he wants."
"Roger that, Four", Kent replied. "We'll wait up for you." After a minute or so of wondering what this was about, Jeff radioed back that the guy spoke English, and that he wanted us to join him in his tent for tea and gawa (a heavily spiced coffee). A short radio huddle was followed by the decision to spare an hour from our drive home for a brief cross-cultural encounter.
We were met at the gate of the compound by our host, Mohammed A., and several other men, as well as a few boys. Mohammed greeted us warmly in his thickly-accented English, "Come, come inside my friends. We would like to show you our culture. Eh, then you can see, in Saudi Arabia, we are not all terrorists."
To call it a tent would be slightly misleading, although not entirely. Inside the compound, there were a few white-plastered, low buildings, and the tent was set up on a foundation of concrete with short retaining walls around the outside. The whole tent was hung and carpeted inside with huge rugs and tapestries, black and deep maroon in color, with intricate geometric patterns worked over white stripes. The front of the tent was dominated by a white wall with a faux red brick hearth in the center. Flanking the hearth were arched, backlit shelves, white with gold trim, holding silver, brass and ceramic tea pots and a black-and-white framed photograph of an important clan ancestor. The mantel of the hearth stood at about head level, with a row of seven large brass teapots, arranged in order from tallest to smallest, looking like a formation of proud, golden birds, their beak-like spouts upheld in a haughty attitude of disdain. At the foot of the hearth lay a tray with tiny cups for tea and coffee, a dish of sweets, a bowl of dates, and off to the side, a fancifully ornamented bellows, patiently awaiting the need for its services. In the corner next to one of the shelves sat a large, four-horned altar used for burning incense. Over this scene burned the incongruous pale light of evenly-spaced fluorescent fixtures.
This particular day marked the end of Eid Al-Fitr, the week-or-so-long celebration coming on the heels of the month of Ramadan fasting. Our hosts looked their traditional Muslim best, with plain white or gray robes, the freshly shaven heads of those that had made their pilgrimage to Mecca, shaggy beards, and some sporting red and white checked keffiyehs. After a quick round of introductions, Mohammed asked the seemingly innocuous question, where were we all from? Until this point in our travels, we had jokingly debated whether or not to answer this sort of question with the predictable and convenient lie that we were Canadian, but it simply had not come up until now. Because our initial impression of our new friends was a favorable one, we decided that "toss the maple syrup, hockey and the bloody queen of England; we can't let the Canadians take all the credit for the goodwill we're sharing here." It was our reply "America" that killed every smile in the room, followed by Mohammed tossing his conversational hand grenade into the middle of the tent.
As we sat sipping our coffee, outnumbered and with the only exit covered, the thought flashed through my mind:
"Well, this is quite a pickle we've gotten ourselves into."