The Day I won't Forget: Jan, 26, 2011.

This is where everything started. It was last night, the last thing I thought it would happened to me or to anyone in Jeddah. I thought what happened last year is the worst thing could happen. I was at Dar Al-Hekma, near KAU which is the most dangerous area in Jeddah in rainy days. Mom, auntie and my little sister were in a mall near by, suddenly the mall went very quite and dark and that's when they knew it was raining, about 10:30-ish. At the same time, I was in the college chatting with my professor about how beautiful the rain is and how people exaggerate in their fear of it. The college sent all the staff and faculty an e-mail saying not to leave until 2:00 p.m. Mom called me saying that she will come to pick me up and swore that she won't move until I leave and get to the car with her. At this time, the rain was getting heavier, so I gave up for her pleads and went out. I didn't realize it was this dangerous.



As we were trying to go back home, the streets got flooded in a blink of an eye, I tried to get us out of this place but we were driving in circles where every road around us was impossible to cross. It was really scary, I thought we would get stuck in the flood but we crossed it somehow. We didn't know where we were, the streets were are alike, they were all like rivers!



We drove straight ahead until a little brave kid stopped us, he told us not drive any further and turn back. He was so little he barely reached the car window to talk to us, we only could see his shoulders and head above the water. We turned back and stopped in a fuel station, the station was a little higher than the street and we thought we were safe. The kid got phone credits for me and auntie and I don't know where he went after that. The rain stopped for a moment, then it started heavier than ever. The water was rising by the second and it started to get in our car, and it was a big USV! Men approached us to tell us to get out of the car and go upstairs in the worker's room, we hesitated at first but when I opened the door and took a look around, I yelled at mom beginning her to go out, too. So, me, mom, auntie and little sis stepped out of the car walking in a water mixed with gasoline and dirt, it was up to our thighs and cold as ice.



We went upstairs and saw a group of women was there already, most of them were from KAU and DAH, and there were kids, too. Girls were coming in the room sobbing and shaking. I asked around about KAU and all the time I was on the blackberry with my cousins and asking my friends if they went to KAU. The things I've heard were horrifying. We all stayed there under the mercy of a wary roof of the upstairs room for hours. Our phones were constantly ringing in every second, my sister was trapped in the bank, where she works, my brother was stuck in a cafe he went to at 10 in the morning and my other sister was trying to go back home for my 3 year old niece, she was home alone. The situation lasted longer than we could fathom, we couldn't stay there while it was raining on and off. The area we were at was under threat of another bigger and more violent flood, so we went out to try to get out of this place, our car didn't work and some woman's car didn't work either. And as we were waiting in the flooded street, the Civil Defense tanker was passing by and saw us, they picked up us after a several attempts to convince mommy to go. The guy forced her and my aunt to come with him in the passenger seat, and me and my sister were on the tanker!



I still can't believe what happened, it was like a dream. I wasn't scared, everything felt familiar, the faces of people around the tanker, the women who were with us and the Civil Defense officers. Thinking about it now shakes me up again, I guess I was trying to be strong for mom because she usually panics so easily and she is a diabetes and hadn't had anything to eat all day. People were screaming begging for help, women trying to catch up the tanker and the Civil Defense were picking up only the women who are close to the car. It was like a movie, cars floating all around and drivers were helpless. Man was sitting in his car with hands on his lap, he gave up driving because the car was floating on water. Another man smiled at us and shrugged saying there's nothing to do and disappeared with the stream. Women jumped on a wall. People trying to save other people. The situation was hopeless and the Civil Defense operation was totally random. They dropped us at Gasir Al-7amra hotel, not far away from the station we were at. The guys took us off the car one by one and I was worrying about how the hellI could climb down the car wearing a short skirt and men all around me. When it was finally my turn, I started to cry like a baby. The guy saw me and when I told him why I was crying, he yelled at all the men who were watching to step away. He helped to climb down step by step and another man was pressing my Abaya on my feet. I squealed when I reached the last step, I felt my skirt rising up to my chest and I cried even more. I have never felt so naked and humiliated and scared like this. The guy put his arms around my shoulders to hold on my Abaya while I was trying to close it up, and all this time, he was whispering comfort words to calm me down before my mom sees me like this. He was saying that he was like my brother and that his only job is saving me. He was so smart for calming me down before mom sees me, she was at the passenger seat; she refused to get out until we were all save at the hotel. When it was mommy's turn, I stopped crying because I saw her about to faint, I suddenly felt so strong and I get back to her to hold her hands. My aunt and little sister were already at the hotel.

The hotel used to be closed, they opened it to shelter the people. We went to a room full of women and we stayed there till the darkness fell on the sky and everything went black. We were all hungry and wet shaking from cold and fear. There was a baby with us, she was probably 4 months old. Her dad took her with him in his way of picking his wife and another side of Jeddah. She was so hungry she was trying to chew my shoulder when I pressed her on my chest. We fed her mashed dates and gave her water but it wasn't enough because she was wet, too. Her dad was torn in between, he was coming in and out the hotel till he found the mother and brought her to us on his back! The mother collapsed on the floor crying, she took the child from my hands and hugged her so tight while the father was rubbing her shoulders. Then, she threw the baby on me and started kissing her husband's hands and pressing them on her face. The scene was heartbreaking, I couldn't look at them and I couldn't stay away from them because I was holding their baby for them.



I was watching this scene out of the hotel room window, I was on my feet all the time and I haven't felt a bit of tiresome. I kept watching and hoping for a salvation, hoping for the water to magically disappear and everything gets back to normal. I kept staring at the unchanged scene until all what I could see is flash lights in the dark and all what I hear is screams and pleads. Helicopters were roaming Jeddah sky going on every directions. It was unreal, I still couldn't believe it even when I saw it on my own eyes. We stayed there until midnight with no food, water or light. We were all wet and dirty and terrified. One woman's husband died on last year's flood, another woman's on the phone crying. Kids were shaking and crying.And I was shaking my bones out and hugging my little sister to warm each other. I couldn't believe we were in a rich country, a country that donates billions to other countries. Finally, my aunt couldn't take it anymore, she went downstairs and checked out the place. She found a man who just came to pick up his relative, and told him to pick us up with him. After tireless attempts from mom and aunt to convince him in taking us with him, the man surrendered and took us in. In the same time, some random guy was following mom and aunt around like a lost puppy so the man would take him with us, too. The guy was totally shaken up and it was obvious from the way he speaks. Auntie thinks he is weird and not trustworthy, mom thinks he's just scared. In the car back home, we found out that his mom died twenty years ago, probably he was just born, and that he lives with his sick father and his big brother. He was blabbering endlessly until we got home finally at 4 a.m.

From the moment I stepped in my house, I threw everything off me and showered three times. Everyone was home already. My big sister was out with her friends and got home early at 2 p.m. My other sister got home around 5 or 6. My brother at midnight.

I learned a lot of this day. My dad is useless, our car is a survivor no matter how crappy it is and mom and aunt are strong women and "3an myat alf rijal."

And above all, Jeddah was one big family. People opened their houses to shelter other people. Young men saving other men on the streets. Groups taking food and blankets for needed trapped people. Everyone was helping the other with everything they could do.

I'm still worried about every person I have met on this day. The little baby, the women we left behind in the station, the women we left behind on the hotel and the man's wife who was calling her all around the place and checking every room in it. I went with another girl looking for her but we couldn't find her.

Last night was a lot worse than last year's flood, I'm scared of what's next. What could be worse than that. I'm ashamed of being a Saudi, what kind of government that could this to its people? How long it would take for them to wake up and fix up the city? How many souls they want to take for them to gain billions over unfinished projects? How long this corruption is going to last? Until everyone in Jeddah drowns or till sea covers the land?

I used to expect wonders from Khalid Al-Faisal, he turned out useless as the King. How can someone be this ignorant to have more than a year to realize that there isn't rain-draining project in the first place, how could they say that it got delayed! How could someone in such a powerful position could be this useless, I will never understand. And how the fuck could Khalid Al-Faisal dare  saying that he went through what people went through last night, how could he say that he reached home after hours when people spent the whole night in the cold! How dare he say that there are only 4 dead; 1 Saudi, 1 Egyptian, 1 Pakistani and 1 Yemeni, couldn't he come up with a better lie? 4 dead and there are girls trapped in universities and schools, there were kids for crying out loud. People died electrocuted or drowned or even from fear and he saying he knows how the people feels.



Look how ridiculous the scene is, a floating trash and a big bus stuck on the road. I love you Jeddah but I hate what all these crooks are doing to you.

* I couldn't sleep last night, I was seeing the whole thing all over again every time I close my eyes, I wish I could go to sleep now.

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Videos from that day.