Staring, staring and more staring

I’ve mentioned the staring before in my posts, but I feel it deserves its own blog, and possibly not only once. I’m really, really tired of it. We’ve discussed it many times among the westerners and it’s difficult to know why we’re of such interest. Obviously, there are few women that have their faces on display, and there’s only a handful of us who do not cover our hair all the time, so I ‘get it’ in that sense. But it seems more than that. I think my frustration is compounded by my cultural experience that staring is rude, whereas it’s probably not considered so here. However, we’re all in agreement that I seemed to get stared at the most. It’s not only men. It’s children, women in veils, women without veils, drivers of cars and possibly the hundreds of feral cats that I see everyday (but they get the benefit of the doubt since I’m friendlier towards them).

I usually just ignore the stares, or keep my eyes on the ground, but occasionally when it gets a bit much I mutter comments under my breath about wanting binoculars so he/she can get a better look, or more dangerously, I stare right back. I often cover my hair just to minimize the staring but it doesn’t help much.

I’d joked about getting a veil niqab, and yesterday we found a stall at the souq that sold them. So I bought one. I caused two lovely women to nearly dissolve in giggles as I tried to get it on correctly with my scarf and they kindly assisted me. Well, to cut a long story short, it didn’t help. Our taxi driver suggested it was going to increase my marriage proposals and hassles from men, despite my ‘wedding ring’ on my left hand. I didn’t really believe him but it appears to be true. We’ve nearly caused a number of MVAs walking down the street. Yesterday I even heard a Doo guy yell out ‘Oh my ***” as he and his mate turned to get a better look before barely missing a parked car. So I guess the problem isn’t that my face is on display. What is it? Glenda suggested that it might be my pale skin (Sarah is Australian but looks Filipino so she blends in much more than we do, and Glenda is very tanned). We’ve heard that most western women are thought to be ‘easy’ or worse, so I suggested that perhaps they assume Glenda is like that since she’s much fairer than I, and therefore that I’m marriage potential which increases the staring. Lol, she accepted my theory as possible in this place.

THE 'FLY'



Staring aside, I feel incredibly comfortable in the veil (apart from the increased heat). No one can see my expression, I can pretend that people don’t know I’m western unless they look closely at my eyes and I have increased confidence as a result. People do assume I speak Arabic which can be problematic!

I wonder whether women here are not as expressive with the faces than we are. If they're never witnessed outside of their home to be smiling, frowning, looking surprised, annoyed etc., do they make the same expressions? I am getting used to not covering my mouth when coughing since my face is already covered!