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Waiting and Rushing

March 22, 2008 1:19 PM

Ely Brown blogs from Saudi Arabia:

After finally getting more than 2 hours of sleep on this trip, I’ve woken up to find that for the first time I have a few hours to myself.  For once we are not rushing off first thing to an event or another country.  In fact, all the meetings the Vice President has today in Riyadh are closed to press.  We are not allowed to even shoot a “spray” at the beginning as the various participants take their seats.

In most of this world, a few hours of down time could mean doing a little shopping, hitting the hotel gym.  But this is Saudi Arabia.  And being a woman means my freedom of movement is somewhat curtailed.  The embassy has made sure there are habayas available to us if we’d like to go out.  These are the long black robes that women cover themselves with in public.  But after hearing the restrictions that even going out to dinner entails, I’ve decided to stay put this morning.

We are staying at a western-owned hotel, so I look in the usual guide of amenities to see what’s on offer.  The hotel offers a 12 lane bowling alley, golf course, gym, tennis and squash courts and a swimming pool.  Not bad.  But there is a note at the bottom of the listing:  “We would like to advise you that ladies are not allowed to use any of the above facilities except for bowling during our ‘Family Day’ schedule.”  So much for that.

I will just have to wait.

Many days on these official trips are marked by periods of waiting punctuated by frantic scurrying to the next event.  The Vice Presidents motorcade waits for no one.  If you run late, you will find yourself looking at the tail end of a van speeding off into the distance and you are pretty much out of luck.  So when possible the press are pre-positioned ahead of all movements.  Yesterday morning in Muscat, Oman we stood hot and sweaty in a hotel parking lot for over an hour after our security check.  Several of the reporters discussed creating various playlists for their iPods based on locations from the trip:  Baghdad – “I Love a Man in Uniform”, Israel -- “If I Had a Rocket Launcher”, filing centers – “Under Pressure”.

After leaving Oman, we landed in Saudi Arabia.  We were able to shoot Vice President Cheney’s arrival on the tarmac at the airport and a welcoming tea ceremony there.  Cameraman Hank Disselkamp had to keep leap-frogging ahead of the delegation as they headed to the tea ceremony in order to get a shot of them.  He’d shoot for a few seconds, they’d pass by, then he’d sprint ahead again to get the next shot.  Then one of the advance people, hand held high in the air waving a clutch of papers, led us off at a trot to the  press vans and we sped along the roads to the King Abdullah’s farm outside of the city so that we could wait for the Vice President to arrive there.

Waiting at the tea house on the Farm was a bit more interesting than the parking lot back in Oman.  As usual there was some debate about where we were supposed to be staged.  Outside?  By the door?  In the shade?  Finally we were taken inside.  Dozens of Saudi men in their white robes and red-checked head scarves milled about.  Incense burned.  Finally the Vice President arrived and it was another scurry for Hank to get the shots of him being greeted by King Abdullah.

The press now had about three hours of down time.  We were taken to large, couch-lined room that mercifully had an outstanding wi-fi connection.  Within minutes the wire reporters were at work, and I even had the time to download some video of the recent events into my laptop and zap it back to ABC News in London.

After a few hours the press was suddenly told we had to go soon.  Didn’t know when, could be three minutes, could be ten.  No, actually we have to go NOW.  This happens all the time.  Hurry up and wait. Now come immediately.  The advance people try to give us warning, but inevitably something changes somewhere and other things are happening sooner than they thought so we end up rushing to vans with laptops still open and cell phones at our ears.

In this case we got rushed out of our nice couch-lined wi-fi-connected room to go await the vice president at the King’s horse stables.  As a place to wait, this again was somewhat interesting.  A pristine white stable of thirteen stalls faced a covered pavilion filled with comfortable chairs.  In the stalls were fabulously valuable Arabian show horses – brown, black and white faces peering out the stall doors at all the activity.  When the Vice President arrived a trainer brought out about half a dozen of the horses to explain to him why they were so prized.  It reminded me an extremely high-end Westminster Dog Show, where the handler uses grass instead of doggie treats to keep their charges focused.

Following the horse show we were brought to our hotel.  And here I still wait.  A tasty room service breakfast of eggs and toast growing cold next to me as I write this.  Saudi Arabia has been a fairly unusual stop in that most of the events taking place have been closed to the press.  Tomorrow, it will be back to the normal wait-rush-wait-rush with a full day of events for us to cover.

March 22, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (1)

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Posted by: Surelock Homes | Mar 22, 2008 1:57:35 PM

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