Life in a Small Town

Life in Dhahran camp is like living in a small town. An edgy, "Twin Peaks" sort of twisted-reality small town, but still, it has that feel.

This week, a supremely contagious and nasty little virus is dropping us like flies. I am calling it "brain fever" because the common symptoms are a persistent fever, achy joints, headache, and very severe malaise. Some people get bad diarrhea (I didn't have that). Nobody is reporting sniffles or cough or anything like that. It is a "dry" illness. The brain fever took me down for about 24 hours. But the rate at which it is sweeping through camp is really surprising. My co-worker Paul, who I got it from, got it from his running partner Dave, who got it from someone he works with. My officemate, who was exposed to it (and me) for all of two hours yesterday before I gave up and went home to collapse in bed, is down with it today. Yes, it is hitting us all that quickly. But it seems to last only a day or two. Because expats tend to recreate and socialize with other expats, we are spreading it around amongst ourselves quite efficiently. Small town.

Because western expats are a smaller town within a small town, word spreads...like a virus...when anyone with unusual skills or interests shows up. Right now, I am being introduced at parties as the "dog trainer"!

Quite a few Saudis live in Khobar or Dammam and drive in to Aramco to work. The "Saudi" parking lot on the Khobar side of the "core area offices" is only 50 yards from the building I work in. I usually get to work around 0630 so I can always get a nice spot close to the security gate. But it is pretty clear that there are few western expats who park in that lot. Pssh, I don't care, it is close to the office.

But after some gentle encouragement by my officemate, I decided to park on the opposite side of the core area offices in the "expat" parking lots which nestle between the core area offices and the camp housing areas. I scoped out a lot next to a big tree where my car would be in the shade for most of the afternoon. The walk in to the office is much longer--perhaps 400 yards. But I discovered that on the way from car to office or office to car I may be greeted by a dozen different people that I know through my various activities. All kinds of interesting business, work and social, gets sorted out then. Small town.

In the twisted aspect of this small town, we've got the private DVD club (no Saudis allowed, uncensored DVDs brought in via consulate and military pouches) for which you need a personal introduction from another member to join. The guy has a couple of houseboys who man the store around the clock. They burn dozens of copies of each and rent them for a few riyals each, no due date. There are also quite a few variations on that theme for sources of alcohol--makers of small batches of this or that who don't really sell their stuff so much as allocate it amongst vetted acquaintances. And there is the supremely pervasive houseboy/maid network that runs throughout camp--they are often an excellent source of information when things go awry (houses burn down, a high placed expat gets fired, somebody's wife has left never to return). If any of you have read the book "The Help," I have to say that the houseboy network is quite similar to black maids in small towns of the American South in the 1950's.