Google it already!!

We realize that we tend to rant more than rave about Marabs. Don't worry, we'll get around to the raves too... it's just that, for the most part, the rants are more fun to write, and particularly more therapeutic. Trust us, we love Marabs, but constantly navigating their cultural, social, and physical worlds takes a toll on us, which is why we have to rant. Some of our rants are legitimate warnings to those who might follow in our footsteps. Collectively, we have several years of experience dealing with Marabs, and many of us learned some hard lessons in the beginning (see Beware of "The King"). Other rants are more for the fun of pointing out things we find funny about hanging out with Marabs. This is one of those funny things we've noticed.

If you spend any amount of time with Marabs -and we do- pretty soon you will realize that they refer to you on any question about America. Not just America, actually, they refer any question on anything to you, and expect that you, by your very American-ness will be the utmost authority on any subject. The subjects, of course, tend to be far from rocket science: "what time does (insert store/restaurant here) close?" "How much does (insert item here) cost?" "Why do Americans (insert stupid action here)?" "How much will insurance on my (insert really expensive brand-new car here) cost?" and our personal favorite: "Why is Hardees called Carl's Junior on the West Coast?" (Seriously, all of us have been asked this question more than a few times!)


Don't let this expert status go to your head! You really aren't an expert in everything, even if it's nice to be treated that way for awhile. You have several options:

• If you know the answer, you can tell them as you would with anyone.
• If you don't know the answer, you can tell them you don't know OR
• You can totally bullshit the answer with the utmost confidence that you are the foremost authority on the subject. 

Depending on how comfortable they are with you, and what kind of Marab they are, their reaction to your reply will follow one of these patterns:

• They will accept your answer as if it came from the foremost authority on the subject.
• They will automatically reject your answer because, after all, you are a woman and what do you really know about anything... even though THEY asked YOU. 
• If you tell them you don't know the answer, they will look at you as if you just lost your American-ness, OR
• They will follow up with 100 similar questions, as if they are attempting to somehow trick the answer out of you. They know you're really just trying to keep all that knowledge out of their hands! 
• Most likely of all - They will argue with your answer. It doesn't matter if you have a PhD in the subject and they only just learned the word for it today -they will still argue about it with you. There are a few reasons for this: 
• Culturally, they just argue a lot. Watch them play cards, say a game of baloot, within five minutes they will be arguing who put this card down, how did this person get this card, who's father is a pimp, who's uncle is a donkey, ect... 
• Second, they bullshit so much of the time that they believe that everyone else is bullshitting too. Therefore, even if you knew the answer, they assume that you just made it up -even though THEY asked YOU for the answer! This probably explains why, culturally, they argue a lot. 

Eventually, you will come to the conclusion that they only asked you the question so that they could argue with your answer. Ok, sometimes this is fun -just play along with it. Other times, it becomes too much; it is so annoying! When you feel yourself reaching the breaking point with all this nonsense, just suggest the oh-so-obvious solution that they would never come to on their own -GOOGLE IT!!!!!

Beware of "The King"

"The King" is a Marab, in our experience usually a Saudi, who walks around calling himself "The King." This guy, and we've met more than a few of them, is trouble -WALK AWAY!! He is generally in one of two categories:

The Black Sheep
This guy is the black sheep of an affluent, semi-influential family with wasta in Saudi. However, he is a fuck-up, sent to America to "study" (in other words, enjoy all fruits forbidden in Saudi, far enough from home to prevent bringing shame and scandal upon his family). This guy probably took an extra two or three years to finish high school because he is basically an idiot; therefore, he will be in his mid-twenties when he arrives on our shores. He will partake in all that America has to offer, and probably flunk out of school in his first year, loosing his scholarship (which was granted him due to his father's wasta, rather than actual academic merit). His family, not wanting him to return to Saudi as yet an even bigger failure, will then pay out-of-pocket for him to stay in America.

The Wasta-less
This guy is from a  family with little wasta.  He probably has an uncle who works in the office of the Cultural Mission, and got his scholarship through second-hand connections. He comes to America to bank on the American stereotype of Saudis as rich royalty. Here he can be what he is not in Saudi. He also will partake in all that America has to offer, but with a little more restraint than the the Black Sheep because if he loses his scholarship, he has no family money to keep him here.

Neither the Black Sheep nor the Wasta-less have any actual relation to the Royal Family, and would never pretend otherwise in his own country. The fact that "King" is his title of choice shows a total lack of ingenuity on his part. This guy is the prototype for bad stereotypes of Saudis. He calls his conquests his "princesses" or his "queens." While not being intellectually gifted, he is a master manipulator, with an ego the size of Saudi's oil reserves, and he will use you to feed this ego. He will buy you drinks at the bar, treat you like a princess, and then pressure you into having sex with him. "NO" is not a word he understands. When he's done with you, he will trash you to everyone who knows you, scandalize you out of his circle of friends, and probably yours, and move on to the next girl.

Rule of Thumb: Just avoid any Marab with an ego big enough to refer to himself as "King"!!!! 

Between the Sheets... Or Lack Thereof...

Over the years, we've spent a fair many nights in Marab beds, sometimes for innocent reasons...

One peculiar thing we've noticed is that none of these beds ever seem to have sheets on them. Insofar as our research as been conducted, we have yet to determine whether this is a semi-cultural thing or just a general, lazy-single-male-(probably college student)-thing. We've slept in beds in Middle Eastern countries that do, indeed, have sheets on them, so we're fairly certain that the bed sheet is not a predominantly western phenomenon, which hasn't caught on in the East.

Not one of us has ventured to ask a Marab why Marabs don't use sheets. We don't have a good excuse for this, as each of us has had multiple opportunities to bring up the subject. However, it just seems like one of those small questions that by the very act of asking it, may turn into an argument about the what one is implying about Marab culture. Trust us, sometimes one thinks she is asking a simple question, and finds out that the implications of asking said question far outweigh, negatively, the importance of the answer.

Bidoon sheets (without sheets) these Marab beds do seem to have one thing in common -the fuzzy blanket. For some inexplicable reason, the majority of Marabs we've encountered put those fuzzy, synthetic blankets directly over the mattress, and sleep on top of them. Now, this may sound reasonable, in theory, (who doesn't love a fuzzy blanket bearing the image of a tiger?); however, these blankets, being mostly made of synthetic (a.k.a. plastic) materials, lead to a less-than-pleasant night of sleep. Sleeping on top of plastic makes the body sweat at a time when it is already working to detoxify and replenish itself, and worse, it doesn't breathe... like, say, a bed sheet, so the sweat just sort of pools. That is to say, if all you are doing is SLEEPING in the bed; needless to say, other activities produce more perspiration. Furthermore, while the fuzzy blanket seems soft and wonderful when it is on top of a person, it starts to seem scratchy and synthetic when underneath the person.

While we make no claim that sleeping on a synthetic blanket is culturally a Marab thing, we have noticed this so often that it has led to many a series of interesting text conversations. For example, one of us may travel out of town to visit some Marab friends, and due to the fact that Marabs consistently run on a much different time schedule than Americans (i.e. "Saudi Time" "Kuwaiti Time" "Lebanese Time" etc..) she may find herself too tired to drive back home, after staying up until 6 in the morning on whatever Marab time zone she is visiting. Therefore, she will text one of her girlfriends to let her know that she will be staying over. This generally comes after a series of text updates on the night's events, after which, the recipient is never surprised to learn that her friend is not coming home. The next five to ten text messages usually concern sheets, and waging bets on what image the fuzzy blanket will bear... it sounds crazy, and it probably is, but it has become a sort of inside joke with us.

So, just a warning to all those girls out there who expect to find 1,200 count Egyptian cotton sheets in your Egyptian man's bed -you'll be lucky to find sheets at all! 

What is a Marab?!?

Essentially, Marab is just a lazy way of saying male Arab.... but it has come to mean so much more than that. If said in a sarcastic tone of voice, it can refer to those male Arabs; the ones who walk around as if they are literally made of money (for sure, they are clothed in it), and can buy anything (including girls) they want. One can usually smell these guys from six blocks away because the cologne factor mixed with the ego factor seems to waft off of them in all directions. We're not saying we aren't into these guys, but they can be a tedious bunch to handle, and no novice white girl should attempt to deal with them. If said while rolling one's eyes, it generally means the Marab in question has just made some completely ridiculous statement about the inferiority of women, or some generally uninformed political or racist statement that can be attributed to his being Marab. If Marab is said in an excited way with a hint of interest, this is the best situation. For example, if we are in a club and a hot Arab guy walks in, we might say to our friends, "Oh, Marab to the left!" This is just a short explanation of what Marab means. After you read our stories, I'm sure you'll have a better idea of the scope of Marabness. ... Enjoy!