The Gathering

After a busy few weeks back onsite after the Christmas holidays our department at work scheduled a team building evening to celebrate our recent successes and prepare us for a busy year ahead.

The gathering was held at a really beautiful desert site about 25 minutes from site, slightly inland from where we are on the coast. The site was set up with a traditional Arabic tent , a big central area and a dining area – all really impressive. We were at the base of a huge sand dune/hill that a few of us scrambled our way up and the views across the area were something else.

The scenery is so different to New Zealand, and in a very different way to home, even though its mainly sand, its really quite beautiful.

The evening itself was full of traditional Saudi music, Arabic coffee, sweet black tea, fun games that everyone got involved in and was rounded off with an excellent meal of a whole roasted lamb cooked in the Saudi equivalent of a hangi – it was cooked in a smoky fire pit dug into the sand and covered up. They don’t use sacks soaked in water so the meat is much more roasted than steamed like in a hangi but it was so so good.

I enjoyed the evening a lot and it was a great chance to see more of the Saudi culture first hand. My biggest take away is that is really similar to Maori culture. Many of the Arabic people greet each other with khashm-makh, which is touching of the noses, identical to a hongi. The tent we were in for the gathering reminded me a lot of a wharenui, as you can see in the photos the walls and pillars are decorated with designs that reminded me of tukutuku. The way dinner was cooked and then how important music and singing is in traditional events. The similarities are quite striking.

All in all it was a really great evening and hopefully there will be more to come.Read more