Mecca is no spa vacation

Posted in Mom Stuff
by Lorain County Moms

This past Thanksgiving, we were visiting my family in Texas and started talking about where we could take a family vacation with the whole clan. We’ve never attempted traveling as a complete group before given that we have enough family members to populate a small town, and we would probably kill one another before our return flight home.

While discussing the pros and cons of resorts ranging from Lake Tahoe to Hot Springs, we started talking about our past travels.

One of my sisters had visited Saudi Arabia a few years back and mentioned how amazing it had been to see the historic Islamic sites, like the Kaaba in Mecca. Somehow, the vacation conversation got hijacked from my dreams about a spa retreat into a religious pilgrimage halfway across the world.

“Count me out,” I immediately informed my siblings and parents. I’ve left my children with my husband (yes, their father) exactly twice, never longer than a weekend. Of course, he’s perfectly capable of taking care of them. I just prefer close proximity to my brood — even when I’m yelling at them to get away.

Plus, a spiritual journey seems best taken alone or with a compatible traveling companion — not one’s overbearing, zealous parents who still see you as 12 years old. To be honest, I was envisioning getting away to warm sandy beaches — not sweltering sandy deserts.

My parents and three sisters decided this would be the year. They called travel agents, found a deal and booked it.

Then, the calls started. First, it was from my sisters:

“C’mon, Aisha, just think about it. It will be so amazing. It won’t be the same without you!” Two sisters reminded me that they would be leaving their young children with their husbands, too.

Then, Mom called. And she has the same talent that Jewish and Catholic mothers harness so well. The Abrahamic family of guilt trips.

“Just take the weekend to consider it,” she said. And, my dear husband, who had immediately encouraged me to go, closed the deal: “You never know if you’ll ever have the chance to go with your parents,” he said. Both his parents passed away relatively young, at 59 and 60, and neither had ever made the trip to Mecca.

When I called my mom and told her to add me to the group, she cried.

I actually started getting excited about the trip. Maybe I did need a spiritual retreat. I liked the idea of taking a break from my hectic, distracted life to simply reflect and pray.

It would take a small miracle to pry me away from my wired life, with the countless hours I spend online.

Then I got the Saudi visa application for our umrah trip (it’s a mini-pilgrimage, sort of like Hajj in the offseason), and the reality of the impending culture shock hit. The application required a notarized letter of permission from my husband to travel without him. Was this a joke?

I was assured that they were serious.

Traveling to Saudi Arabia is sort of like traveling back in time for women. It’s a repressive, patriarchal culture, with its own set of centuries old rules. Most of these restrictions, such as forbidding women to drive, have nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with historic and cultural baggage. I’ll be wearing the required abaya, a cloak over my clothing, and a hijab to cover my hair while I’m there.

I’m sure it will be much easier to keep my hair under wraps than keeping my opinions to myself. But, I’m trying to take this as part of my Zen journey, blocking out the parental noise from actual parents and the in loco parentis noise from the government.

I will become an anthropological religious pilgrim, following local customs to avoid ticking off the gatekeepers. I will keep my separation anxiety over leaving the kids in check. And, I will do my best to avoid asking questions that could land me in a Saudi prison.

I’d never hear the end of that from my parents.

—By Aisha Sultan, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

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(Aisha Sultan is a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Contact her at asultan@post-dispatch.com.)

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