christmas in mecca

Christmas day, and my poor mother’s luggage didn’t make it. Last we heard it was somewhere in Rome. We needed to get her some clothes, and so we ended up spending most of the day at the Mecca Mall. With the exception of the Arabic, the indoor smoking and a quarter of the shoppers wearing kafias and hijabs, you would never be able to tell the difference between this place and a mall in middle-America: Five levels, crowded with shoppers carrying bags and talking on cell phones, scores of restaurants (like McDonalds and KFC) , and a movie theater (with half being U.S. movies).

And oh yeah… it was Christmas. The place was decorated on every level with trees and bells and snowflakes, with the mother of all tress in the center of the mall. There were signs everywhere with two cartoon character calling for joy in celebrating Christmas and Eid (the Muslim holiday). But the best moment was when we walked into one huge store that had a dj in a Santa outfit. It was quite a “melting pot” moment: Hijab wearing mothers took pictures of their children with Santa in front of the Christmas tree, while the speakers pumped out Spanish songs by Shakira and Christmas carols like “Jingle Bells” and “Silent Night” in Arabic. All the while shoppers came in droves and piled clothes and accessories at the registers. When Jenn looked out the window this morning and saw brown and minarets, she said it didn’t feel like the holiday, but that afternoon between Santa and the sales, it really did begin to look a lot like Christmas.

For a first day back in the Middle East it was a little culturally disappointing. After several hours of seeing the same stuff I can get in Lexington and standing in some long check-out lines, it became very clear to me the impact the U.S. has on the world… even the Islamic countries. Of all the things we can offer, our biggest cultural export has got to be our extreme consumerism. This could be our legacy:


There are other pictures, but this computer is screwy. More to come...