Welcome To The World Little Prince!

We were blessed with a healthy baby boy a week ago. Everything went well with the labor this time and we had a beautiful all natural birth experience. I could not have done it without the support of my husband! It was the most amazing experience of my life. We are so proud of our little peanut. His birth weight was 4 kg and he was 53 cm long like a Viking!

The little man is keeping us very busy and eating non-stop so I will probably not be able to blog much in the near future from this milk monsters demands :)

The hospital we went to is a large private hospital in the center of Riyadh. The reason we went there was actually to be able to do the labor with a western midwife, not a doctor and thus have a better chance for a more natural birthing experience. Because my first delivery ended up in an emergency cesarean section also here in Riyadh, we were hopeful to have a VBAC this time. I had been told by all the obgynes I had seen (there were over 15 in different hospitals) for the entire nine months that this would be practically impossible. These physicians only discouraged me and pushed me for another c-section that I had lost most hope to actually succeed in avoiding another c-section.

Birthing in Saudi has become such a business it's actually sad to see how far people have gone. Many if not most of women going to private hospitals are now opting for elective c-sections. Having experienced both a natural birth and a c-section, I cannot fathom how anyone would choose to have the surgery. It is simply a nightmare to recover from and is a huge risk as surgery always is both to the mothers and the babies. The c-section rate in Saudi-Arabia is very high, one of the highest in the world.

All this laboring business has somehow become about making the delivery most convenient for the mothers (although I still don't see how major abdominal surgery would be convenient for anyone). Nothing about child birth seems to be natural anymore, it's all about getting the baby out as "easy" as possible with least damage down there to the woman and then after the birth going overboard and showing off. Many Saudi women are so concerned that their husbands would take a second wife if they get damaged from childbirth and this is even openly discussed among women here which came as a surprise to me.

I was shocked how the hospital was offering all sorts of "vanity" services to mothers who have just delivered, as if the baby itself is secondary importance. Most important thing here seems to be looks. The hospital catalog was more like a five star hotel directory. The services on offer tell a lot about the priorities of women giving birth nowadays.

Where are the breast feeding support services and lactation consultants? How about nutrition and exercise support and advice? Which of these services actually support bonding of a healthy mother and a baby? The sad truth is breast feeding is not at all encouraged and all newborns will be offered formula from day one unless the parents specifically refuse it. Infants will spend most of their time in the nursery where nurses change diapers and give formula, then bring the tightly swaddled babies to the rooms for viewing.

We were told by the pediatrician that our baby was in fact starving and NEEDED formula. Unbelievable. How did the human race survive I wonder? And for the record our baby has gained 200 grams in just six days on breastmilk only, despite the fact that infants normally LOOSE weight for the first two weeks.

Only in Saudi? In room maids and private nurses so that mothers don't have to "lift a finger".

The most shocking service to me was the piercing of the newborn babies ears. In my country it's simply not common at all and girls get ears pierced at the around the same time they would start doing other "beautification" such as wearing make-up. So to me piercing a babies ears has always been strange but I understand that it's a cultural thing. To do it on the first days..and while the baby is sleeping? As if they want to say it will not wake up to this? Quite frankly in Finland this would be categorized as child abuse.

I'm all for women being able to look and feel beautiful after delivery and it surely makes us feel better after all those 9 months of feeling bloated and what else..But maybe this is going a bit overboard..This is not Oscar night, it's a special time with your baby..

The price of this service is mind blowing. 5200SAR for room decorations! For the love of God I don't see the point. Even if you swim in money, it's just too much. I would like to see how the beds are decorated with crystals and lights though, it must look like a spaceship.

And after they are done entertaining the guests for a good 4-6 days..How to get all this stuff out of the hospital?? Answer: Hire a TRUCK.

My husband had ordered these balloons for me. Now in Finland people would probably laugh their butts off if they saw someone bring all these balloons to the hospital, but in Saudi these are actually quite modest.

And now I'm off to feed our little prince again!

InterNations Expat Community

In case you haven't heard of them, InterNations is a very useful site aimed for expatriates to share information, network, meet other expatriates and find interesting places and things to do. They require you to request for an invitation to join and you can do it for free here: http://www.internations.org/saudi-arabia-expats

Blue Abaya is one of the InterNations recommended expat blogs and I did a short interview with them some while ago which you can read on the site as well.

-   Please tell us a little bit about yourself. Who you are, where you come from, when you moved to Saudi Arabia, etc. 

I'm a Finnish medical professional who moved to Saudi-Arabia four years ago for a position in a large government hospital. Originally the plan was to come for one year and then go back home, but you never know where life will lead you!

-    When and why did you decide to start blogging about your experiences?

I actually started a blog about Saudi when I moved but I only wrote a few times and then deleted it because I simply did not have the time. I started again after my life had settled a bit from the hectic first two years. After reading so many negative and biased views from other blogs, I wanted to write about Saudi in a more light hearted but also realistic perspective and to help expats find activities around the Kingdom. Having a Saudi husband gives me a special insight into both the local and the expat life of the Kingdom.

-      Do you have any favorite blog entries of yours?

I like some posts about Saudis as patients most and then the cultural comparisons of the Finns and the Saudis J

-     Tell us about the ways your new life in Riyadh differs from that back home. Did you have trouble getting used to the new circumstances? Did you experience culture shock?

Oh it differs a lot of course! There are some things that are better now, some worse like the obvious no driving for women. I find the relaxed pace of life here is more suitable for my nature and I love the weather (except sandstorms!).

Everyone experiences culture shock; people just go through it differently. I think I had an easier time than many because I had previously lived and worked abroad and was used to scenery changes since childhood.  My culture shock presented itself as an unexplained anxiety and restlessness which I treated by keeping myself active and making many friends as well as getting to know and understand the local culture better.

-    Do you think you were fully prepared for what awaited you in Saudi Arabia? If you could, would you change some decisions/preparations you made?

I think I was fairly well prepared, but could have read up more on the local customs and culture and especially religion before coming! I was in the impression that the hospital's three week orientation program would prepare us but I was very wrong! Knowing just the basics of Islam I think should be included in the orientation especially the medical professionals would benefit from it greatly and it would prevent many misunderstandings from occurring.

-      Every expat knows that expat life comes with some hilarious anecdotes and funny experiences. Care to share one with us?

Oh there are so many stories! I think some of the funniest happened with patients and lack of understandings of each other's cultures. Bedouin patients would be among the funniest because their style of life is just so different from ours. I have many such experiences on the blog J

-      Which three tips would you like to give future expats before they embark on their new life in Saudi Arabia?

-Keep your mind open, try to take things with a dash of humor and surround yourself with positive people.

-Try and find out as much as you can about local customs and culture before you come and once you're here, ask the locals and get to know them. Don't get stuck in the closed (minded) expats circles only.

- Keep in mind that although this is a Muslim country not everything you see around you is from Islam. Don't judge the book by its covers or the religion by some of its followers. Always try to find out for yourself and don't listen to or believe in the rumor mills.

  

-     How is the expat community in Riyadh? Did you have a hard time finding like-minded people or fellow expats?

The expat community is very lively and there are many different nationalities. Unfortunately some nationalities prefer to only socialize with their "own kind" and sometimes very tight knit groups form. Saudi has the tendency to make people very patriotic and unfortunately some become extremely negative of the host country.

Some western expats that live in closed compounds hardly ever interact with other nationalities let alone locals which is a shame.

There are of course many like-minded expats out there who have no problems making friends across borders and religions which makes Saudi-Arabia such an amazing place to make new friends. I have made true friends from around the world here and am truly grateful for that. It was one of the reasons I came here!

-      How would you summarize your expat life in Saudi Arabia in a single, catchy sentence?

Life in the Magic Kingdom is full of surprising adventures and undiscovered beauty for those who seek them!

To Blog Or Not To Blog

That is the question..

Over the past week I've been pretty depressed about this whole blogging thing. Why? Well it started with Sumayya Mehtar and the realization of how ruthless and shameless people are nowadays when it comes to other people's property and work, and since then I have been contemplating my need or desire to continue blogging. If you don't know the background of this incident you can read my previous post about it: http://www.blueabaya.blogspot.com/2012/09/copycat-blogger-exposed.html
American Bedu's post here: http://americanbedu.com/2012/09/07/american-bedu-plagiarized/
Carol's new touching post about this issue: http://americanbedu.com/2012/09/14/saudi-arabiaworld-remember-your-heritage/
and Aafke's post here: http://clouddragon.wordpress.com/2012/09/05/thieving-in-blogsphere/

Eventually her fraud site was closed down and before that some of the plagiarized articles which had been reported to Google team were removed by them. Not surprisingly, she opened a new blog (not going to mention the name sorry to "disappoint" you folks) with most of the plagiarized material in it. She lost the AdSense though and her days as a modern day Robin Hood were over.

I checked through her new blog briefly and found a rewritten post on Janadriya (the one stolen from American Bedu had been removed by Google). When I saw three of my photos from Images of Saudi blog used on that post (cleverly combined with pics of her posing in front of various Janadriya locations) I just lost it. I mean, is this for real or am I just imagining things because surely nobody would continue stealing after being publicly called out for doing so then claiming she had only then realized stealing was in fact wrong and promising not to ever do it again? This was a bad joke right? I asked my husband to check just in case I was hallucinating or something, because it was simply so MIND BOGGLING.
Nope, it was real, and I was REALLY pissed off.

With smoke coming out of my nostrils from rage, I searched Google images for "Janadriya" to see what that produced. I was shocked to find two additional cases of copyright infringement of my material. This time it was not a attention-desperate blogger though, but reputable online news websites who cannot, unlike Sumayya Mehtar claim ignorance to copyright rules. To my surprise a photo collage that appeared on Al Arabiya English website had used three of my images on it that had been taken from the Images of Saudi photo blog. I was pretty taken aback and could not believe it. If even a newspaper is taking my work without permission, then what else is out there?

Next I Googled "muttawa" to check this key word which often brings hits to my blog. Well surprise surprise, another of my images, on the top results btw, was taken by a news site called Albawaba. Again no credits or mention of sources.

Then I stopped searching, frustrated and angry, finding it pointless. Some of these images even had watermark on them. What is the point of placing the watermarks again? It doesn't seem to matter if even Alarabiya can use them regardless.

All this just made me feel that my work on Images of Saudi is for what? For people to come and ruthlessly just take it? Or for people to see perhaps a side to Saudi-Arabia they didn't know before, maybe learn something new or even change their outlook on this country that has such a bad rep in general all over the world?
I started that blog for the purpose of showing the world what Saudi-Arabia is really like, from my perspective of course. When people think of Saudi they usually have a negative and boring image of it. There is more to this country than sand and camels. I wanted to try and portray a more realistic picture of Saudi people too. It's not all just black and white.

Now I started to feel this blog is being used merely by people to come and pick and choose what they like and use as they wish without any recognition. Like a free image gallery of Saudi-Arabia. I felt like a fool. I put so much time in that blog, it's not just snap a pic and go upload it then click post. It's much more than that.

Naturally I was aware of the possibility and even likelihood of my images being used without permission when I started blogging and had accepted that, but all this was just too much. I was so naive to think people would have the same level of integrity as I do. I had good faith in people. I've always had a problem of trusting people too much.

So I started placing watermarks on some of the most searched (and assuming most stolen) images, if that would deter the laziest people. I placed it blank in the middle so sneaky people can't crop it out. I don't care if it looks ugly! This is my work, don't steal it!
However if I were to place watermarks on all the images, on both blogs, that would mean about 1800 images. Do I have the time? Do I have the energy? No. So what to do?

I have decided to either close down the Images of Saudi blog altogether, or leave it as it is and slowly add watermarks and see how I feel. I'm so utterly frustrated and overwhelmed that I can't simply get all the images protected with watermark now. I wish there was some easy way to do it, but I noticed that the only way to make it work is doing one by one and carefully selecting the placement. The watermark program I used to do hundreds of images at once (which I lost after the computer crash) simply placed the watermark on the same place on each image and it's not visible clearly or then can be cropped out on some of the images. Is there a company to hire to do this?? In any case there are still ways to remove the watermark. The disable right click option is annoying to readers and it also means you can't open many pages or links from the blog.

How about a watermark like this on all the images from now on :)

P.S. I contacted both news websites and Al Arabiya english responded promptly, took the images down and are now investigating the matter.
Albawaba did not remove the image but placed a mention of the source on the image caption.
Sumayya Mehtar's new blog is now for invite only.
P.P.S The good news is Carol aka American Bedu has asked me to help by providing her with images for the American Bedu documentary project! I am so honored and excited about it :) The primary message of the documentary is the need for building bridges between cultures and spreading awareness of support for cancer.
Here is the link for the trailer and fundraiser: https://www.wepay.com/donations/fundraiser-for-the-americanbedu-documentary
Half of the proceeds resulting from the sale of the documentary are being directly sent to organizations involved in cancer research and patient support.

Copycat Blogger Exposed

Many of us bloggers put a lot of time and dedication into our blogs. I would go so far as to say we sometimes pour our hearts out online. I sometimes work on a particular post for many days, if not weeks at a time. I do research, I re-write stuff, check for spelling mistakes, I edit and upload pics. Maybe I'm a perfectionist and I could spend less time on here. But my motto is, if you're going to do something, then do it 100%.

I would say blogs are like gardens. Us bloggers need to start from scratch, we build the foundations, plant the seeds and wait for our work to grow. It takes time and effort. "verta, hikea ja kyyneleita" (blood, sweat and tears) as the Finnish saying goes. Like flowers need regular watering to strive, the blog needs constant up-keeping to flourish.

Taking material from another blog without permission is like sneaking into someone's garden and ripping the plants and flowers out, then giving them to someone or planting them in your own garden. Simply put, it's stealing of someone else's property.
When a blogger steals material from another blog, this naturally feels very upsetting, maddening and frustrating and like all our hard work is being exploited. It seems like some people just have no shame these days and this happens despite us having copyright notices on our blogs.

The reason I'm writing this entry is my random discovery today of a so called "copycat blogger" who I am going to expose because of the outragous plagiarism on her site. I randomly found her site by doing a google search. This is not just a case of a single copied post but the entire blog seems to be based on taking material from others. How can someone think they can get away with this in the first place? I'm upset on behalf of everyone she stole from.

According to her site and FB fan page she is a Muslim of South African origin who works as pharmacist at a large reputable hospital in Riyadh. She calls herself the "Desert Pill Pusher" but her name is Sumayya Mehtar, a self proclaimed philanthropist and public figure. Strange then that she needs to take most of her material from others.

Blue Abaya is not the only site that she has plagiarized from. American Bedu, Susie of Arabia, Rasheeds World, A Canadian in Riyadh, Saudi Jeans, from who she either directly copy pasted the articles off, or used material and altered the text a little. I don't get how this site has been running for over a year and nobody noticed this before. All those subscribers and fans on FB must not have a clue.

Some of the articles she stole from my blog just last month, like this post I wrote about Ramadan and the Hardees fungus burger incident: http://blueabaya.blogspot.com/2012/08/ramadan-junk-food-and-fungus-burgers.html
She divided this into two posts on her site, basically copy pasting the entire article, but "cleverly" changing the last part where I explain about emailing McDonald's, she writes "my friend emailed". How ingenious. And sorry but I am not your friend.
http://desertpillpusher.blogspot.com/2012/08/ardees-ramadaan-special-fungus-burger.html
http://desertpillpusher.blogspot.com/2012/08/ramadhaan-junk-food-and-obesity.html

Can you believe the audacity? The more I looked the more I found plagiarized content, it seemed endless. This really PISSED ME OFF. I posted comments on her blog and Facebook "fan page" exposing her plagiarism but she has deleted the comments and afterwards changed the title to "by Layla" like that makes any difference. Get real. No links, no mention of source and most importantly no asking permission, apologies or withdrawing the stolen content.

I also informed a few bloggers of the plagiarism and they and some friends posted on her Facebook page but all those comments were deleted as well. The plagiarized material still remains there though.

Browsing through this fraud site I found more material taken from my posts, for example from Bedouins as patients, Eternal Veil, Saudi Dating scene and Saudi culture and Visiting the sick
which I recommend you read and compare to the below post. I'm not going to post multiple links to her blog and just in case she takes it down here is her version of my article:

"The culture of visiting the sick in Saudi Arabia is very much the same to what I have experienced in South Africa especially amongst the South African muslim community. Muslim families in South Africa are usually very close knit and hence when one family member is admitted in hospital it is not unusual to see the whole family gathering at the hospital including, uncle and aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews and oh yes let us not forget the 45th cousins, neighbours and the extended family as well. Many a times family members will bring food for the patient and sometimes there would be extra food for all the family members visiting the sick. There were times when I noticed families ordering pizzas or machachos chicken that was delivered to the hospital.

Now in Saudi Arabia visiting the sick is a very important part of the culture simply because it stems from the Islamic religion. A patient in a Saudi hospital is rarely left alone. The patient will almost always have a "miraafiq" or a "sitter" staying in the room with them. These sitters are usually family members. They might be a son, a daughter, a mother or father, grand daughter or grand son, aunt or uncle, brother or sister. The most important thing is that the patient is never neglected or left alone. The patient must always be look after by the family.The family may also provide a paid sitter in addition to a family member.

For many western nurses, this usually comes as a huge surprise, a positive one of course!! In many western orientated countries, sadly patients rarely have visitors. They may visit over the weekend only or may come by during a holiday if the patient resides within an old age home. Many a times the old and elderly are forgotten in these old age homes with absolutely no relatives visiting them at all.

In the Kingdom, it would be considered a great shame and a disgrace to place one's parents in an old age home.Old age homes are non existent here.There is no need for them as it is considered an honour to take care of one's parents and have them reside within your own home.

The sitters take care of all the basic needs of the patients. They will help them eat, even feed them if they can not feed themselves. They will assist in taking the patient to the toilet, bathing the patient and very simply carrying out any task that the patient requires in order to make the patient feel as comfortable as possible.I think this just fantastic!!The families here are just so close knit and its amazing to see just how dedicated they are to towards the wellbeing of the patient.For example, I would bet you that no average western man would "babysit" their very ill, possibly demented, bedridden mother.Would a western man change her diapers, feed her, turn her in bed, rub her feet, read her books or recite the Bible to her? The Saudi man on the other hand would never say a bad word or get irritated if the mother is demanding, forgetful or confused.

In the Quraan, there are several verses stressing kindness towards parents. Here is one of them..."be dutiful to your parents,if one of them or both of them attain old age in your life, say not to them a word of disrespect, nor shout at them but address them in terms of honour. (Quran17.23). Do a google search on "kindness to parents" and you will be amazed to find that the top 10 rdsults are all from Islamic websites.

And how about a husbands dedication to his ill wife? They will go through anything to please their wives.This also comes from Islam where the prophet Muhammed (saw) mentioned "the best among you (men) are the ones who are best in treatment towards their wives." The elderly patients will be the most respected and they may have great great grand children visit them.Children are much valued in Saudi culture and I've come across parents with 17 children. Mind you in South Africa there are a few families within our suburb that do have 12 and 15 children and a my friend's dad came from a family of 21 kids...Yes folks.. 21 kids from one mother.

A patient might have many visitors all at once. Sometimes they would fill up the whole room.They will bring tea or Qahwa (arabic coffee), chocolates, flowers, cakes and pastries to offer the patient. Sometimes trolleys of cooked food is wheeled into the patients room and the whole family will partake of the food with the patient. Saudis are the most hospitable nation I've ever met.They will always invite the medical staff to join the family for a cup of qahwa or tea or to taste the food. They are noted for giving generously even if they are poor they always want to give you something. Often the visitiors will come in groups of either men and women and they will visit the patient separately, although if they are closely related they will go in together. Many a times the family members will burn 3oud inside the room as a welcoming gesture to the guests."

I am simply too shocked and disgusted to say anything to this. Actually in a way I also find this really pathetic and sad.

The most outrageous thing I noticed was a recent post by her called "My article in the newspaper" and a link to a South African newspaper which published her article titled: "The magical month in the Kingdom". This article has a part of it DIRECTLY copied from my post two years earlier titled, surprise surprise "The Magic Month In The Kingdom". "Her" article was published in Lenasia times: http://www.lenasia-times.co.za/editions/july2012/travel/1.html.
I have contacted this newspaper and informed them about the plagiarism.

So if you are a Saudi blogger I would suggest you check this pill pusher site out. Maybe she popped some of your work on there too. She says on her site "NO I'm not a terrorist." Well you certainly are a thief, and this is not the way to go about blogging. Respect other bloggers and their material, ask permission, link back, mention the source, don't take someone's hard work and use it as your own and expect to get away with it.

I remember as a kid complaining to my mother once about some girls who would copy everything I did. She said "don't mind them, they are just envious of you and want to be more like you. The more they copy you the more awesome you are in their eyes."

EDIT/UPDATE

Sumayya Mehtar has removed some posts from her site which were directly copy-pasted from Blue Abaya. She however re-posted her plagiarized version of my "Visiting the Sick" article on her site, without asking permission. She only posted a link on the bottom. The audacity is mind-boggling to me.

She did issue a public apology directed to me (but not any other blogger or journalist she stole from) on her FB page, claiming she did not know what she was doing was wrong. That is like saying, I went to the bookstore and took a book home to read without paying, I didn't know this was wrong. Nobody is that clueless or naive. I think she is just trying desperately to save her face. She has now added some links to the posts she stole trying to make it look like she had asked permission.

Her claim that "someone had randomly emailed her the articles" which she then posted and altered (to sound like she wrote them) is equally ludicrous. Why in the world would someone do that, and even if they did (which she has FAILED to provide any proof of) it's still using someone else's material and trying to make it look like your own.

The thing that makes this even more serious is that her site uses Google Adsense, which means she is profiting with the plagiarized content. She even directly informed me about the money coming in from adds, begging me to let her keep the articles so she doesn't loose money (which she claims to donate if someone wants to believe that). 

The Lenosia times have not contacted me back yet regarding the plagiarism. It has come to my attention that the ENTIRE article published on Lenosia times was copied from different bloggers and journalists. The others parts were from these sites:
Susie of Arabia's post: http://susieofarabia.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/ramadan-tv-tash-ma-tash/
Caryle Murphy of The National: http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/ramadan-in-saudi-arabia-is-a-different-experience
Bassma Al Toaimi in Destination Jeddah: http://www.destinationjeddah.com/portal/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1184%3Aramadan-saudi-style-the-month-of-cherished-traditions&catid=99%3Asettling-in&Itemid=485

I suggested to her she contact each and every one of the bloggers and journalists she stole from and apologize. Secondly for her to issue a public apology addressing everyone on the blog and Facebook page explaining what she has done. Then, remove all plagiarized content from the blog (would there be anything left?). Also contact Lenosia times herself and inform about the plagiarism.

She has blocked several people including me from her Facebook page and deletes comments sent to her blog re plagiarism.

And after all this, she still wishes we could be friends and share content and she has asked me to take this post down because it is bringing her shame. That is called KARMA coming right back at you.