Shrouds

Warning: rant ahead. Children under 12 and those with sensitive eyes should probably just go to the next post. Go on ahead. It's a funny one. This one is not funny.

I've been meaning to write about this topic for some time. I couldn't do it while I was actually in KSA because doing so might have put me in jeopardy of being fired or even expelled from the country, and I've been diverted by other topics from some time.

But this article from the Guardian and its accompanying comments has prompted me to tap out a few thoughts.

I'd have to agree with the overall sentiment of the Guardian article, and many of the commenters, that the domestic abuse ad pictured in the article is hardly going to make a difference in Saudi Arabia. The abuse itself is widely sanctioned by the same religion giving men all the power. Please, readers, give me an example from history when those in power gave it up, in all or part, to make things more equal for their people.

When I first arrived in KSA, I was pretty appalled at the abayas and niqabs and heavy gloves and socks. They are explicitly designed to negate the reality of women as humans. The sight of those black-shrouded ghosts made me really angry. I'd want to say to them, sister, it doesn't have to be this way. You need to fight!

But time passed. I spent more time in the company of Saudis. I spent more time listening and watching. Instead of anger, I felt sad at the extent of the brainwashing and indoctrination. I felt sorry for those zeroed out women. I'd want to say, look what he has done to you, sister.

Eventually, I spent enough time listening and watching, and talking to overtly westernized Saudis, who turned out to be quite the opposite, but their westernized veneer allowed them to talk to infidels relatively easily, and I came to the conclusion that those women are architects of their own misery. Sure, the horrible, barely Bronze-age tenets at the base of Islam (and Christianity and Judaism, when you come down to it), derived from crazed desert nomadic tribes' heat-shimmering visions, that spend a lot of energy proscribing what one can or cannot eat, wear, say, do, fuck, kill, and to whom, in the end, the tenets themselves are not much more than historical curiosities unless one is willing to buy into the craziness. Then things get kind of serious.

And no, sorry, you can't cherry-pick your way out of this. You can't say, well this verse of the qu'ran or the bible says this happy, love-your-neighbor sort of thing, and isn't that nice? No. Because too much of that stuff is garbled, violent nonsense.

Sorry, back to the main point. That's where I completely lost any sympathy or empathy for fully veiled women. Some few, some very few, might be forced into it. Most are not. They like it that way, just like they don't want to drive (despite the uncomfortable yet apparently too easily dismissed theological situations that having an unrelated male driver puts them into). You will hear many fully veiled women say they find it "protecting" or "respectful" to wear the niqab yet they will in the same breath rail at the feral youth roaming streets and shops and malls harassing women. Who raised those young men? Who allows, even condones, this behavior of men?

Their mothers, their sisters, their grannies, their aunts, their neighbors. All of those women have abdicated responsibility for assuming any role as full and complete humans. Why should their sons and brothers and fathers act any differently when the women themselves fail to step up and say, hey, I am a human being. I deserve to be treated like a human being.

In my opinion, this abdication means they can't whine about the consequences. What's a black eye or a bruised wrist when you can walk around "protected"?

Avert Your Eyes

Making eye contact with people in Saudi can be problematic. A woman certainly shouldn't do so when walking around the streets, shops, or malls. Saudi men of all ages, and unfortunately many of the "guest workers" as well, interpret this as a thinly veiled invitation for sex (veiled, ha!).

Conservative Saudis, which comprises a good part of them, hold the same beliefs that many christian fundamentalists do, that women are to blame for men not being able to control themselves, for acting like feral animals whenever they are around women. Thus women shouldn't be seen or heard in public or private if at all possible (and thus the shrouding abaya). The laboring expats take their cues from their overlords (shit always rolls downhill).

Of course, the bad behavior of the Saudi men is fundamentally a matter of cultural/religious indoctrination (they are the same thing in Saudi Arabia). They too take cues from their parents, their imams, their peers. You see this dismissive, aggressive attitude towards women, including their mothers, manifesting even in boys of four and five years.

To avoid the unpleasantness, I found it best to cultivate a tool used and refined by the Japanese that I was introduced to over 20 years ago when I traveled there for a scientific conference and holiday. When you get good at it, you can even be in a room with others and simply not see or hear them. It's a defensive mechanism but also one that smooths public interactions. It isn't a matter of ignoring others. Once you fall into this zone, the other people in the room really don't exist for you. In that way, the illusion of privacy for everyone is maintained.

I got pretty good at this while living in Saudi. As a result, it was always a bit of a shock to me when I left the Magic Kingdom to go anywhere else--people talk to each other in the shops and streets. Women are everywhere, conducting their business without harassment (for the most part; this post isn't going to take on all dragons). It takes a few days to relax the habit.

It's a strange feeling to realize that I don't have to continue mentally averting my eyes.

Extraction 6: Selling the Car

In order to turn in my residence permit (iqama) and passport so that my final exit visa can be processed, I have to get the car registration (istmarrah) removed from my iqama. That is, I have to find a buyer who would get a new istmarrah for the car associated with his iqama.

There were some complicating factors. I need to use the car until I leave, which means the buyer would be paying for a car they couldn’t drive for at least three more weeks. While this is standard procedure around here, sometimes new hires have a hard time wrapping their brains around this.

I was getting pretty frantic a couple of weeks ago because the first couple of people who were interested in the car decided not to get it.

But I’ve learned that problems in Aramco can usually be solved if you can get the attention of the right person. Your ability to get things done is only as good as your own personal network. I ran into a friend on the way into the office one morning and he asked me how things were going. I said, not so good, I can’t sell my darned car. He said, there are some new hires in my area, send me the info and I’ll forward it. This guy, a reservoir engineer, has been here over 20 years, raised three boys here, and has wasta oozing out of his pores. It was a great stroke of luck that I ran into him and an even better boost that he so quickly offered to help. I emailed him the ad when I got into my office. And that morning not two hours later, I got a call from the perfect buyer: an expat (Canadian), wife is arriving in April so he doesn’t need the car yet, been here six months so he’s learned a bit about the strange customs in the weird bubble that is Dhahran.

He ended up offering me a little less than I wanted but it was an acceptable price given the situation. Once we shook hands on the deal and exchanged a couple of emails outlining the terms, the fun started.

In order to apply for a new istmarrah, the buyer first has to get insurance for the car in his name. This took a couple of days although fortunately he didn’t have to go off camp to do this. A couple of the insurance companies have offices in one of the outlying Aramco buildings, although this building isn’t particularly convenient for people like me and the buyer who work in the main admin area.

Then we had to turn over a pile of documents (ORIGINAL inspection report which I’d just had done in January, ORIGINAL buyer’s proof of insurance, copy of buyer’s DL, copy of DL’s iqama, copy of my iqama, and my original istmarrah) and SR 500 to Javed, the car “fixer” who works out the Arabian Auto Association (AAA, funny, right?). Javed takes this stuff to a government office somewhere and in about 24 hours returns the new istmarrah and the original documents. I think Javed is a driver for somebody but he seems to be making a reasonable amount of money taking care of car-related matters like this since very few of us want to visit Saudi government offices.

Next, I had to call my insurance company to learn what they needed so I could cancel my policy. I had to scan the new istmarrah and prepare another pile of documents that I faxed to my insurance company to request a cancellation of my insurance. I am waiting for them to email me a form which I will fill out and send back so I can get a partial refund.

Then I had to go online and initiate a request to cancel the “camp sticker” that is associated with my Aramco badge number. The camp sticker allows me to drive the car in and out of the residential part of camp. I was assigned an appointment date a couple of weeks from now but everybody knows you just drop by the Security office once you start the online process. I had to coordinate this trip with the buyer because he had to go with me. Once my sticker was officially cancelled, he had to initiate a request to add a new sticker for the same car, only on his badge now. They physically remove the sticker associated with my badge and put a new sticker in the window associated with his badge. This seems very silly since the stickers are pretty much identical and are never electronically scanned; why not just transfer the original sticker to his badge? That would make too much sense and would definitely not be the Aramco way.

It’s been more than a week since we agreed on the car deal and no money has yet changed hands. That is planned for next week, hopefully Saturday. The buyer and I will go to his bank (most inconveniently, not on camp) and he is going to withdraw the purchase price in cash, in Saudi riyals. This isn’t as much of a problem as it might sound since I am going to need a fair bit of cash, probably ten to fifteen thousand riyals, for animal shipping, paying drivers and taxis, paying the overweight charges on my shipment, and other things that I’m sure I can’t even anticipate at the moment. I’ll take the rest of the cash to the bank here on camp and electronically transfer it to one of my US accounts before I leave.

This business of selling the car is fairly typical of the way things work around here. Nothing is written down in a guide book, not for Aramcon lack of ability or interest in doing that but because rules change in the Magic Kingdom without warning or explanation. What works today may not work next week. This might sound maddening to you in the real world, but after a while, most Aramcons become rather fatalistic about this reality. Even the simplest task is made excruciatingly difficult so you plan for that. The only constant is building your network and not being shy about using it.

Dog Friends Come Through As Always

It is not uncommon for people to retire from Aramco after working here for 20, 30, even 40 years. In those cases, the home department can choose to host a ma’asalamah (farewell) party. Being a short-timer, I don’t qualify for a work-sponsored event. But two of my dog friends (PM and MW) took care to see that I had a ma’asalamah party anyway: a last day of shopping, food, and drink in Bahrain before I turn in my passport and iqama.

Mmm.

We got an early start to beat the causeway crush and headed to one of the big malls for coffee. Once the stores began opening, we began shopping. I wouldn’t say that my friends are women who live to shop, but they clearly know more about the entire process than I do. We ended up in this small shop where they began trying on tops and each ended up buying one. I didn’t try anything on but they kept pushing this top or that dress at me. I felt a bit churlish for not getting more into the spirit of things but I rarely shop for clothes precisely because I hate trying them on and dealing with the inevitable disappointment when they don’t fit. 

MW and the G&T that she'd been drooling about for days.

Cheeseball! PM.

Next we headed over to M&S. I was extremely pleased to immediately score some cheap flipflops (HellBeast had managed to get at my current pair one too many times and I needed replacements) and I suppose this shopping success put me in a different frame of mind. 

I ended up trying on a few pieces of clothes at M&S including a pair of black leggings. I’ve never tried on leggings before. I’ve never even envisioned myself wearing that particular fashion trend: tunics and leggings. You see it everywhere on women young and old, thin and round, but for some reason I never pursued it. But watching PM and MW spend an hour trying on tunic tops that morning must have planted the idea in my head. The leggings fit so I bought them. But what to wear with them?

We spent about an hour looking at carpets. The shop owner was surly and his selection was poor. Despite being perfectly able and willing, none of us bought any carpets that morning. His loss.

We headed back to the first shop where we proceeded to engage in a frenzy of fitting room madness. Those two crazy women had me trying on dresses and tops and all kinds of weird things that I would have never even given a second glance to. All three of us tried on a couple of the dresses, the same dress, in fact, because although we are very different in size and shape, we wear about the same size. And I ended up buying a very cool tunic top to wear over the leggings. Who knew I could look so fashionable? It's certainly not my normal mode of dress!

I’ve had a number of close women friends over the years but for some reason I don’t usually go shopping with them, certainly not clothes shopping taken to that level. So the morning at the mall with PM and MW was a surprise and a pleasure.

We closed our day in Bahrain with an excess of food and drink at Trader Vick’s where we sat on the patio overlooking their landscaped lagoon backed by the Arabian Gulf. PM and MW wouldn’t take a single hallalah from me for the driver or the meals or the alcohol (including two bottles of wine and a couple of B52 shots each!), insisting that it was all their treat. It was the best ma’asalamah party I’ll ever have!

View of the Arabian Gulf from Trader Vick's patio.

We made a quick run to Al Osra (home of the famed pork store) on the way back. The situation in Bahrain remains unsettled and we ran into a minor roadblock of burning tires and debris. A quick detour and some equally quickly snapped photos and we were on our way again.

Extraction 5

I ran into an acquaintance at the bank today. She is supposed to be leaving the Kingdom tomorrow on her final exit visa. I suspect that she will have some problems since she does not yet have her final exit visa. She was at the bank to close her local account. She apparently used it like a real bank account; when I asked her why she didn’t just walk away from it since there is no departure clearance requirement that the accounts be closed, she claimed that she had “twenty years of savings” in it. I didn’t bother to ask her why she hadn't taken the money out sooner or even more importantly, why she didn’t invest that money in a more reasonable location where it might, you know, earn some interest. Her house was inspected but the item hasn’t been cleared from her online departure clearance list. She doesn’t have her plane tickets. She requested “cash in lieu” instead of having Aramco pack up her stuff but she said she hadn’t received the money yet. She called Personal Effects about that and was told she needed to fill out another form to complete the “cash in lieu” process, which she claimed she was never told about.

In short, she frittered away most of her 30 days’ notice period, apparently not bothering to meet with Personnel or read their departure guide and research the things that she needed to do before leaving. That guide would have clearly indicated she needed to turn in her iqama to get her final exit visa about 21 days before departure, that the final exit visa wouldn’t be prepared until all items on her online departure clearance list were approved, that taking “cash in lieu” instead of an Aramco-organized shipment required almost as much paperwork, that receiving any of her final payments wouldn’t happen until all of this nonsense was dealt with, and that trying to sort these matters out once she left was nearly impossible (payments can be delayed for months). What sort of person waits until the day before they are to leave to do anything in this country? Despite having lived here for 20 years, she’s apparently quite clueless.

She’s also the architect of her own misery. Aramco doesn’t make it easy to leave, and while it is true that the information that you need to make your departure plans may be spread all over the place, it is available without too much effort. After thinking this over, I wonder if effort isn’t at the heart of this. It takes effort to get a clue. It takes effort to pull yourself from Aramco’s clutches, and quite a bit of effort in the first place to keep from sinking into the muffling cocoon that is the Aramco expat lifestyle, a cocoon comprised of housekeepers, car washers, drivers, and an army of small brown men seeing to all of the dirty labor. I see this disease affecting nearly all old-timers to the point that some of them don’t even leave when they are supposed to but beg and plead for extension after extension. Living in the real world is hard work.

Extraction 4

I am officially engaged in what is called “departure clearance”. The day after I submitted my resignation letter, the administrative assistant to my supervisor initiated the online departure clearance process. Within minutes, a series of items appeared in a special location in the Aramco intranet. The list includes the following:

• Housing rentals (appliances and the few remnants of crappy Aramco furniture I retained)
• Housing inspection (to make sure I didn’t knock holes in the walls or run a line from my sweet water tap to my washing machine)
• Furniture warehouse (tied to the housing rentals item)
• Mail center (submit forwarding address)
• Recreation rentals (I never rented anything from them)
• EPiC library (Upstream technical library)
• Training library (I don’t know what this is)
• Medical assets (I don’t know what this one is either)
• Domestic camp (only applies if you are the sponsor of a maid or houseboy)
• Dental services (I never had dental work done here)
• Medical liaison (get copies of medical records from this office)
• Telecom billing (I never turned on the long-distance code dialing)
• Passport office (once the car is off my iqama, I have to turn in my iqama and passport)
• Personal effects (packing and shipping my stuff)
• Industrial security (I have to turn in my Aramco ID)

Being in departure clearance is a lot like playing a computer game. The objective: remove all of the items by the payroll close date of the month you are leaving so all of your final payments can be processed with your normal paycheck for that month.

Some of these items were automatically marked “completed” and I never had to deal with them. That’s a good thing because the remaining items require an astonishing amount of time and fuss to complete. 

For example, you can make an online request for your medical records. There is a button on the request form that you click that says “I want a complete copy of my medical records”. I clicked it. Two days later, I received an email saying the records were ready for pickup at the hospital. I went there right after lunch only to discover that films and other digital records were not included in the packet. In other words, you really don’t get a complete copy of your records. For digital diagnostic items, you have to fill out a separate request by hand and submit it to the same office. Then you wait another two days and take more time off from work to return to the hospital to pick up the second packet.

The Recreation Library is another good example. You have to turn in your library card. Sounds simple enough. But the guys working the checkout desk can’t help you. You have to speak to the Saudi supervisor who takes the typically endless smoke, tea, prayer, and gossip breaks throughout the day as well as the usual lunch hour. “Turning in your library card” really means you must make at least three or four visits to the library at different days and times in the hopes that you will catch this guy at his desk. You have to do this during normal working hours so that means more time that you aren’t doing your own job.

My appliances and house were inspected last week. I signed papers for both inspectors. I waited one day and the items were still on my departure clearance list. So I began emailing. The system lists the name of the person who has approval authority for the item, so it is easy to email them a screen shot of the item clearly showing their name and the code, asking nicely when I might expect the item to be approved (and removed from my list). It took five emails to both groups (total of ten emails) before I was able to get those items cleared off the list.

I’m pleased to report that as of this afternoon, I’m down to the last three items, all of which are pretty important: iqama and passport, ID, and personal effects. 

I am now trying to sell my car. I’ve still got a bit of time but I’m learning not to take any of that for granted. The game timer is steadily, relentlessly clicking down.

Mmmm! Goat!

Last week, my new supervisor (I moved to a different group within the company in December) invited me and my office mate to his home this past Thursday (our weekend) for lunch. It’s a big deal for a Saudi to invite westerners to his home, even more so since I am a woman. I had a fairly good idea of what to expect although I am pretty sure my office mate didn’t!

MS has a traditional “villa” located not far from Dhahran. Completely surrounded by 10-foot-high walls, there are separate entrances for men and women, and in fact the women’s part of the house is completely isolated from the men’s part with only a single connecting door near the kitchen (so the female servants can serve food at the men’s parties). I was invited into the women’s part of the house and visited with his wife and two daughters for about 15 minutes. They served me dates and unsweetened Arabic coffee mixed with ground cardamom, a traditional Arabic social custom. The coffee is served in tiny cups without handles. It can range in color from a clear orange to a cloudy yellow. It is an acquired taste for sure—sometimes you’d swear it was nothing but cardamom tea. The dates that are usually served with Arabic coffee are the dry ones, although I prefer the sweeter, sticky ones.

Image from food.com.

I think I’ve mentioned this before but am too lazy to look up at the moment: you can’t assume a Saudi is westernized just because he wears western clothing and seems to be relatively tolerant of us. Our supervisor, MS, wears office casual clothing to work every day, including the frequent appearance of a natty, black, loose silk jacket, yet he maintains a very traditional household such that his wife and daughters aren’t even permitted to mingle with other males in his own family, much less my office mate. The women would of course not join us for lunch.

MS takes his Bedouin roots quite seriously. He built a modern, city version of a bedu tent within his villa compound. I’ve seen them before at fancy restaurants and at a few places around Aramco where they are used to entertain visiting bigwigs. The building has solid walls and the fancy ones have windows. They always have AC units. The walls and ceiling inside are draped with cloth to make it look like you are inside a tent although there is usually a solid roof on top of the building. Inside, the walls will be lined with long cushions and backrests on the floor with an occasional armrest scattered here and there. Shoes are always removed before entering. It is considered rude to cross your legs (I can’t do it in an abaya anyway; I had to wear the hated thing for the entire lunch). Most westerners don’t spend much time sitting on the floor as adults and we struggle with the sitting down and getting up routines that are required by these cushions on the floor.

MS also invited a couple of other Saudis who live near him who work at Aramco (it would have been too weird for it to be just me, WC, and MS) and one brought his son. The three older men wore thobes. The son was in western clothes.

After more obligatory Arabic coffee and dates, it was time for lunch. Even though MS didn’t tell us in advance, I knew what was coming: kabsa.

Kabsa is essentially a meat and rice dish. It can be made in amazingly enormous quantities and is considered a Saudi national dish. The rice is usually basmati, cooked until it is slightly sticky. The meat is where things get interesting. Kabsa is traditionally served with lamb or goat but camel is also common. Non-traditionalists will substitute beef or chicken. The meat is butchered into very large pieces (it is not deboned) and cooked with the rice and an incredible array of spices. The animal can also be partially cooked whole then cut up and added to the rice later. (You can find a westernized version of a kabsa recipe here.)

A tray of kabsa. This is almost certainly a sheep; it's too big to be a goat. Note the head on the left side of the platter. I ripped the picture from high-10.blogspot.com but the original source is unknown.

Kabsa is served on large trays with the meat laid on top of or mixed in with the rice; sometimes the edge of the platter is decorated with fresh veggies such as tomato and cucumber. You sit on the floor around the trays and eat kabsa with your fingers. The technique of balling up some rice and meat and delivering it to your mouth without spilling it all over your lap on the way or without cramming your fingers in your mouth (considered rude) requires quite a bit of practice (a lot of practice). Just as when you dine with Chinese folks, the Saudis will offer you a spoon but are much pleased if you use your fingers (or chopsticks, as the case may be).

The meat can sometimes cause problems for westerners. Fat is not trimmed off and all of the animals are served, including their heads. I laughed when WC and I sat down with the son at one tray and the son pulled off the foil covering to reveal…a goat head staring up at us, white-grey tongue sticking out of its mouth. I wasn’t laughing at the goat but at WC. His eyes were popping out but not because he’d been steaming with rice for hours. Fortunately, we had other bits of the goat that were well worth eating (ribs and legs, for example).

There's another head on this platter too. Kabsa is eaten with the hands. No, let me correct that. It is eaten with the RIGHT hand. Never use your left hand while eating with Muslims if you can avoid it. I ripped this photo off tripadvisor.com.

In between picking out goat hairs from the rice and accepting pieces of rib and cheek meat from the son sitting with us (cheeks are always a choice bit) while deftly refusing tastes of brains and eyeballs, I rather enjoyed myself. When the son grabbed the head and ripped its jaw off to get at some of the meat, WC stopped eating any more meat and only nibbled at the rice. When the son told us his mother was a master at picking all the meat off the head, then grabbed the goat head and jammed two spoon handles into its eye sockets to demonstrate her technique for splitting the skull to get at the brains, I laughed again. WC simply stopped eating at that point.

Me? I’m an adventurous eater. The goat hair had been well cooked along with the rest of it, and I happen to like fatty meat. In fact, I’ve had kabsa served with mutton (instead of the preferred lamb) and it was downright nasty. So I thought the succulent little goat was delicious!

The meal was followed by more gossip and chatter (Saudi men love to gossip) and glass after glass of super hot, impossibly sweet black tea. We also had an eggy dessert topped with chopped pistachios. It was more salty than sweet but it went well with the tea.

I enjoyed the afternoon quite a bit. It is rare to spend time with Saudis in such a casual setting and I am pleased that MS invited us to such a grand feast.

No Joke

It's done. Today I submitted my resignation to Saudi Aramco. I'll be leaving the Magic Kingdom on April 1st.
I felt such a weight lifting from my mind after it was done. I was telling a friend yesterday that I thought that I was displacing a lot of anxiety onto the resignation event, which turned out to be true. I've still got plenty of things left to worry about between now and the end of March. But the symbolically big step off that cliff edge has now been taken.

Extraction 2

I referred in the first extraction post to the bureaucratic minutiae associated with leaving. Saudi Arabia does not permit free movement of people in, out, or even within its borders.

Every non-Saudi must have a sponsor. For example, Upul’s sponsor is a Canadian family who lives on camp. In addition to his salary, they pay the renewal fees for his visa and iqama (residence permit) and give him money to travel home once a year. When a sponsor brings someone into the Kingdom, the sponsor (an individual or a company) also has to pay an initial fee to the Saudi government of around SAR 10,000-20,000. The army of small brown men who clean, sweep, mow, drive, etc. are sponsored in bulk by Saudi middlemen who “sell” them to contractors. It’s nothing more than slavery thinly disguised as these poor guys often have to work off the sponsorship fees. Hard to do when you only make SAR 200 a month (about USD 50). Their sponsors hold their iqamas and passports so they can’t even look for a better job (a slave isn’t supposed to be able to shop around for a nicer master, right?). But back to the point, Aramco is my sponsor. And even though I hold my passport and iqama, I can’t just waltz out of here when I choose.

One important thing that will happen is that eventually I will be issued an exit-only visa. These have a mythical air about them, becoming a metaphor for all sorts of things to an expat leaving Saudi Arabia.

In order to obtain that magical exit-only visa, there are dozens of hoops I must jump through. Some are silly (turn in my recreation library card; no need to clear fines since Aramco started doing payroll deduction for those a couple of years ago). Some are more difficult (selling my car, which will require paying a middleman to handle the paperwork for me, assuming of course I find a buyer).

The Dollar/Pound Sterling Payroll team in HR put together a departure booklet. Being the nerd that I am, I decided to turn the booklet into a checklist and assign deadlines for each specific task.

I quickly realized that I had to start at the end by defining my last day of work and my departure date. You can’t pick any old date to leave. It shouldn’t be on or around a holiday. It should be a date after Payroll closes for the month, assuming that your final clearance is approved by that closing date. It must be a regular work day, not the weekend. And since I’m flying with the dogs and cats, I will only fly KLM and they don’t fly from Dammam to the U.S. every day of the week. Getting the proper clearances for the dogs and cats can’t be done sooner than two days before the day that I leave so I have to make sure I make enough time for that (I’ll discuss the dog and cat departure saga in a future post). After spending a few days researching all of this, I finally identified those dates, last day of work and departure date (they will be the same day, in fact).

Then I started working back in time, listing all of the tasks that I needed to complete. Right now I’ve got over 40 distinct tasks listed and I’m adding more every day or so. For example, I remembered before I left on my trip to the US that the airlines require animals to have vaccinations at least 30 days before travel. Unfortunately, the entire CircusK9 pack is due for everything in Q1 so they all have to have shots at least one month before I leave. I stagger the dog’s shots, separating rabies from their other shots by a couple of weeks. Even if I take the animals into the vet in groups, I need to schedule three to five vet visits. More tasks added to the list.

I had my exit meeting with a Dollar Payroll advisor this morning. I was appalled at the amount of paperwork he loaded me down with—and the accompanying increase in the number of tasks on my checklist. So tonight after cats were fed and dogs were walked and fed, I spread out a mass of papers and opened a handful of websites and supporting files on my computer, getting ready to call Vanguard….doh! It’s Sunday!

I’m completely stressed. I wake up at night and start thinking about all the things I need to do and I end up tossing and turning for hours (doesn’t help that I’m still jetlagged from my US trip). I am worried and anxious. I feel like I’m stepping off a cliff. Some of you may think that leaving the US would have been difficult. I assure you that leaving KSA is far more so.

Desert Truffles

Yes, I know exactly what you are thinking: what the hell is a “desert truffle”? Is it a euphemism for camel dung or some weird sand dune configuration? 

No, desert truffles are very real. Just like the more familiar European truffles, desert truffles are fungi with underground fruiting bodies that grow in a symbiotic relationship with the roots of specific plants. Desert truffle species have been found in Africa, the Middle East, south Asia, and even in China, and as the name suggests, they are usually found in areas with dry climates. They are a bit more common than European truffles (and often larger too).

This photo appears on several websites but I was not able to identify the original source. This gives you a great idea of the size of these things.

 
A very old myth common across North Africa and the Middle East says these fungi grow only where lightning has struck the ground or, in an alternate version, that it is the rumble of thunder brings the fungi close to the surface. That’s of course silly but in order to grow, the desert truffles need some well-timed early winter rain. Storms in the desert can be accompanied by thunder and lightning, so the association is sort of reasonable, just not directly causal. (You can find some amazing pseudo-scientific babble about lightning, nitrates, and truffles here. It’s total nonsense. Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet. And it's very disappointing that a botany department at a very good school would link to such pseudo-science.) 

Desert truffles are sometimes used for medicinal purposes but mostly they are eaten (fungi are decent sources of protein). A traditional method is to roast them like potatoes in a fire (they are often described as resembling sandy potatoes and are thus treated like potatoes when cooking with them) or fry them in oil. I found several recipes for making truffle soup using camel milk.

Another photo with no clear source. Fungi masquerading as "sandy potatoes".

It appears there is a tempest in a teacup amongst the scientifically illiterate over “true” and “false” truffles. (This site states that the difference between “true” and “false” truffles is based on their "gastronomic" uses [he meant "culinary"]. Utter nonsense. However, the site does have a very good set of photos of the main desert truffle species. It's worth a visit for the photos but you can skip the introductory text.) 

A quick scan of a few peer-reviewed scientific articles cleared up the matter of “true” versus “false” truffles (for example, see this paper and this one too). Nearly all fungal groups contain species which develop lumpy, underground fruiting bodies. The principal difference between “true” and “false” truffles is the way they produce spores (“true” truffles have round or elliptical spores while "false" truffles have club-shaped spores). The group Ascomyota contains the “true” desert truffle species. The main genus of European truffles is Tuber (yes, that's the same word we use for potato in English but truffles and potatoes aren’t related) and the main genera of desert truffles are Terfezia and Tirmania. Saudis call desert truffles "fa'qa" (many spelling variations exist), but they are widely called "terfez" across other parts of the Middle East (which is of course where the genus name came from).

We are now entering truffle season here in Saudi Arabia. Some of the Saudis with family farms have been talking about going truffle collecting (the sites are revisited year after year and their locations, just as in Europe, are generally kept secret). Since I'm not already a fan of truffles, I probably won't make an effort to find the desert variety in a local market. Even so, it was interesting to learn about these weird desert fungi.

Sobering

I’ve changed positions within Aramco and now have an officemate. He and I chose to share an office because we are the only two members of a new division and being in the same office facilitates sharing ideas. WC has decided that I’m something of a grammar guru and sometimes asks me about such things as when to use “that” or “which” (complicated) or whether it is considered okay to begin a sentence with a preposition like “between” or “whether” (it’s perfectly fine to do so).

Today he asked me if I thought it was okay for him to use the phrase “a sobering observation” in a report he's writing for senior management.

This isn’t about a grammar or usage issue, of course, but an example of how living in this place can warp the thinking of perfectly normal people. Even though an enormous filter has already been applied that separates people who decide to come here to live and work from those that wouldn’t, you could perhaps argue from a reasonably strong position that there may be something, well, different about those of us who come here in the first place. 

But let’s assume that most of us are more or less normal when we arrive. 

If you want to survive here, as most normal people would, you quickly learn to moderate what you say to Saudis, self-censoring beyond what typical business settings would require. And even though “a sobering observation” wouldn’t raise an eyebrow anywhere else in the world, the subtle association of the word “sober” with alcohol (the origins of the word mean “without drunkenness”) is enough to doom its use here even though it has good metaphorical value.

There is another side to this self-censoring coin--what happens when you fail to do it. Hash House Harriers are social groups of expats, often British in core, that organize runs/jogs/strolls that usually involve exuberant alcohol consumption before, during, and after the event. They often describe themselves as “drinking clubs that have a running problem.” The local hashers mostly confine their drinking to post-run events in reasonably desert locales off camp, which would certainly seem to be discreet enough.

However, photos of a recent post-hash event were posted on FaceBook. I haven’t seen them myself but apparently there were photos of people drinking alcohol; some of these people were recognized by their Saudi managers. (Saudis are quite fond of FaceBook as it provides them a facade of social connection they are denied in real life. Yet another reason that I prefer real life.) There was an enormous furor over the photos that may still not be fully resolved. I don’t have much sympathy for the hashers as they certainly know better. 

Self-censorship is part of the unwritten, unspoken contract you have to accept if you want to stay in the Kingdom. I’m amused when I read news stories in which Americans are braying about their “right” to do this or that. They truly don’t understand what exceptional personal freedoms they have.

Changes

When I first came to Saudi Arabia back in October 2009, I didn’t have many other options. Saudi Aramco was the only job offer I had in hand at the time. I knew that I was going to lose my house to foreclosure in a few months (it was in fact sold at auction in January 2010). I had already sold most everything I could to keep the animals fed and to keep my internet paid up so I could look for a job. I was running up bigger and bigger credit card debts to pay the bills.

When I asked two good friends for advice, which I desperately needed at the time to sort out this monumental decision to leave home and family and friends, they told me that I probably had to take the Aramco job if for no other reason than I otherwise wouldn’t know what opportunities it might lead to, that an opportunity like this might not come around again.

Being here has challenged me, rewarded me, frustrated me, but it has never disappointed me. I discovered that once you become an expat, willingly leaving home and country, your perspectives may shift alarmingly but as long as you keep your eyes and ears and mind open, you will survive and may even learn something useful.

Even before I left, I decided that I needed to identify some decisions points when I would evaluate my situation in Saudi Arabia. I figured that one of those points should be at five years and the second should then be at ten years.

Although I gave it an honest try, I didn't quite make to five years. I’ve now been in Saudi Arabia for just over three years and I have decided to return to the U.S. in March 2013, a bit before my 50th birthday in April.

My decision isn't based on the fact that I am a outsider in this culture. I had done quite a bit of international travel prior to moving to Saudi Arabia, far more in fact than most Americans. Being different isn't a problem as I've never really fit in no matter where I am (there are exceptions; DogzRule!, I'm looking at you). And on my arrival here, I think that I managed to avoid the worst aspects of culture shock, inevitable when you make this kind of move. I threw myself into activities in and around the community and some of those, like the dog obedience and agility classes, have helped keep me sane. I’ve made some good dog friends who I will miss very much. But there are simply too many negative aspects to life and work here that I can't ignore, replace, or overcome.

You might have noticed that I never talk about my work for Aramco. This is deliberate and will continue. The work itself, the actual projects that I undertook and my regular responsibilities, has been challenging and sometimes even fun. I worked with a large number of people across the upstream part of the company. Some of them have become valued colleagues, mentors, and friends. Most of them are an impediment both to me and the company.

This company is so poorly managed that I cannot continue to work for it. Not even the money is enough to lure me to stay, and I’ll be frank, I’m making a lot of money. Leaving now is another deliberate choice related to that money. I’m leaving before the golden handcuffs are snapped on and it becomes economically impossible for me to leave. I look around and see too many unhappy expats who are in that position, who stay because they can’t afford to leave, who daily try to convince themselves that this is somehow a better life or that if they stick it out just six more months or one more year that things will be better later. I am not willing to sell myself and my future like that.

I’m also leaving because of the other 2/3s of my life here, all of the hours that I don’t spend at work. Housing is one of the biggest problems and I will go into that once I actually leave Aramco. But if you read my blog regularly then you know that I have issues with a number of aspects of life in the Magic Kingdom. 

In short, I don’t like living in a prison. Some parts of this prison are literal: we live behind walls, electrified fences, armed guards. Some parts of this prison are cultural: Saudi Arabia is of course free to demand that people residing in this country behave in a certain manner but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. In fact I am finding it all particularly wearing.

My friends were right, though. Working for Saudi Aramco did open up some interesting new opportunities for me. I don’t want to get into my future plans just yet. I'll probably spend the next couple of months of blog posts describing the unnecessarily complicated process of extraction from this country. Discussion of the future will come around in its own time.

But I will tell you that when I return, I’m bringing all five animals with me.

Cultural Exceptionalism (Part Two)

Even Fox News can string together something that looks more like a narrative than this, but the Arab News is renowned for such tantalizing yet nonsensical tidbits.

I have no doubt that the quote is correct, however.

If The Religious Police Don't Approve, You Didn't Need It Anyway

I want to buy a new iPad. I have a first generation iPad without a camera. While I don't play games on my iPad and thus couldn't care less about the improved display of the newer ones, there were some features such as camera and video that I wanted to have.

I did the research to figure out which one I should buy. Apple isn't making this easy since iPad 2, 3, mini, and 4 are available these days. I knew I wanted both WiFi and 3/4G since the WiFi-only iPads don't have a GPS antenna and that is a function that I particularly value and use a lot. Once I decided on the model, I visited one of the local stores in the Al Rashid mall to price compare and decided that the price difference between buying one in the US and buying one here was negligible, especially when you factor in the instant gratification aspect of picking one up in the mall.

Once the decision was made, I arranged my schedule on Thursday (my weekend) to go get my new iPad and spend the day getting it set up. I was very excited as one usually is when anticipating a fancy new toy to play with.

I walked in the store and asked the guy if they had the model I was looking for. Yes, we have that, he said, but it doesn't come with FaceTime.

For you non-Mac or old-Mac users, FaceTime is a videotelephony app that works sort of like Skype but that makes video calls from one Apple device to another. I have resisted Skype because it ties me to my computer--I'd have to sit in front of my desk in a not-too-comfortable chair. But imagine if I could make those kinds of calls using my iPad. Now that sounds interesting. So FaceTime was another feature I wanted to gain in my new iPad purchase (it isn't available of course in the first generation iPads because they don't have cameras).

No FaceTime, I asked. Well, I can install it myself, can't I? No, he said, FaceTime is blocked in the Middle East. It can't be put or used on iPads purchased in the Middle East.

And I suppose that I have now crossed some sort of threshold for the bizarre after 3 1/2 years living here because I didn't even bat an eyeball. I totally accepted what he said was true. I thanked him very politely for telling me that and I went home.

I've now done a bit of research and found that it is true that iPads and iPhones sold in most Middle Eastern and some African countries do not have FaceTime installed, that it can't in fact be installed at all. There is some vague chatter about ways to force it to install on your device but I won't take that chance. I'll just pick up my new iPad when I'm next in the US.

You might be wondering why FaceTime is considered so horrible that it can't be sold in these parts of the world. In short, mixing of the sexes. The most frightening behavior that mutawahs can imagine is that of young men and women, unrelated to each other, mind you, speaking to each other. And believe me, the world would fucking end in a fireball if they could SEE each other at the same time. (The new age fools who think the Mayans were on to something, and the crass commercialists who want you to think that too while buying their products, have nothing on the Saudi religious police when it comes to apocalyptic scenarios.)

The same kind of censorship is applied to Amazon Kindle book titles. I surf to the site from a Saudi IP address so Amazon assumes that is my "region." Instead of the million-plus Kindle titles you can see from the US, the censored view from the Middle East only has a few thousand. Fortunately, "region" is a variable that can be reset by the user. I change it to "United States" and voila, I can browse and purchase pretty much whatever I want. I suspect the mutawahs haven't noticed this feature yet or it would have been disabled already.

Pfft, you say, so what, this is hardly a big deal for me, I live in the US where I can read and watch and buy whatever I want. Well, I suggest that you do some research on the "global internet accord" that has been under discussion for some time. Countries like China that need to control the internet to control social unrest and Arabian Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia that need to control the internet in order to enforce adherence to religiously defined behaviors want to control ALL of the internet. And that means YOUR internet access and functionality will be affected if they get their way.

Freedom is not free.

Men in Dresses

Thobes are the white dress worn by many Gulf Arabs. Thobes are a costume in the same sense that an actor on the stage wears a costume. The efforts of many people (usually not including the actor or the wearer) are required to construct them and maintain them. In business and social settings, these garments by design and intent create a significant barrier between Saudis and westerners. 

I have worked with Saudis who wore thobes to work every day but at some point and for some reason decided to switch to western clothes. To my eye, the difference was dramatic. Instead of mannequins wearing costumes, they became real people. I had to stop myself on more than on occasion from telling them how nice they looked--worried that they would think that I meant that they didn't look nice before and that I was thus impugning their "traditional" costume (more on this at the end). Pissing off the wrong Saudi can get you fired around here.

Thobes are usually made from a cotton-polyester blend. Linen, silk, and pure cotton all wrinkle during normal wear. But through the magic of blended fibers and lots of starch, Saudi men look like ambulatory, stiff, white, perfectly unwrinkled pipes. The collars can range from a western-style pointed collar to a stand-up “Nehru”-type collar. Thobes are always long sleeved and many have heavy cuffs that require old-fashioned cuff links. The garments are usually pulled over the head and closed at the neck with just a few buttons or snaps although I've seen some with fastenings all the way up. There are a couple of layers under the thobe including pajama-type pants but thankfully I know nothing more than that. Thobes are usually dry cleaned or else housemaids spend hours ironing and starching them.

While thobes are predominantly white, in the cooler months many Saudis switch to dark colored dresses made from heavier fabric resembling that used to make suit jackets.

Saudi thobes are nearly always accompanied by a white or red and white gutra or head scarf and a black iqal, the rope-like device that rests on the wearer’s head (it isn’t a headband and doesn’t hold the gutra in place; it mainly acts as a weight). Saudi men spend an inordinate amount of time fussing around with their gutras, constantly flipping them up and back in various elaborate folds. All of this preening and costume adjusting is strongly reminiscent of 12-year old girls flipping their hair around. (Saudi women also constantly readjust their head scarves so when looking at a group of them you see a sea of flipping motions. It can be quite annoying if you think about it too much.) In a strong wind, men have to hold the two front ends of the gutra down to keep the thing on their heads. The gutras are made from very light cotton sometimes blended with silk. These items are also dry cleaned or require a lot of handwork to maintain. Gutras are thin and serve little practical purpose in protecting the wearer from the sun or dust or wind.

Thobes are constructed in panels with capacious pockets built into the sides (abayas most emphatically do not have pockets; I suspect the sexual innuendo is far too horrific to be contemplated). Thin men have their thobes made with princess seams to emphasize their figure (I am absolutely serious about this). Fat Saudis (plenty of those to go around, Americans have nothing on the Saudis for obesity) have extra material in their thobes so there is no constriction or narrowing to interrupt the straight line of material from shoulder to ground. As an aside, did you know that the waddling ass of a fat man in a dress looks just like the ass of a fat woman in a dress?

Thobes are most often floor length. I always get a laugh watching thobe-clad Saudi men delicately pick up their skirts to cross a wet parking lot or to walk by an area where sprinklers are running. They would of course have to pick up their skirts to climb stairs but no thobe-clad Saudi man would ever do that.

Unlike a woman trying to accessorize a gown, the choice of footwear for Saudi men is simple: leather sandals that resemble gigantic, gold-embossed, fungus-y toenails wrapped around their feet (don’t even get me started on basic foot hygiene; callus smoothing and nail clipping isn’t part of the package) or black or dark brown leather dress shoes and dark dress socks. It looks as ridiculous as it sounds.

Every so often you see a mutawah with a high-water thobe hemmed to around mid-calf (you get a good view of those dress socks). Even the mutawahs who wear western clothes usually wear high-water pants. This is to keep their clothing from becoming dusty or dirty from the ground contaminated by all of us non-believers walking around.

Sadly, you often see very young boys decked out in thobes and gutra and fungus sandals. I say sadly because I don’t view it as an endearing attempt to copy their elders but a display of early indoctrination. 

Even more pathetic are the handful of westerners who attempt to wear thobes. This is usually strongly discouraged by Saudis because we are told that we (westerners) don’t know how to wear thobes and abayas “correctly.” Whatever. They can have the fucking things.

Saudis will quickly inform you that the thobe is a “traditional” garment for Saudi men. Perhaps it is traditional in the sense that in many cultures spanning South Asia, Middle East, and North Africa, men have worn some variant of a robe, skirt, or dress-like garment for centuries. This is of course not what the Saudis mean by "traditional" because they do have a strong cultural exceptionalism. But old Aramco photos do not show the pristine, crisp garments that you see today. Instead, in the photos many Saudi men are wearing dark colored, knee-length tunics, long pants, and sandals, and have cloths tied around their heads in a turban style. Frequently the men also top off their ensemble with western-style suit jackets. In other words, they are wearing clothing suitable for herding goats and camels in a desert climate, which is what the Saudis were doing before the Americans found oil and gas here back then.

(Check back in a couple of days. I have some of these photos but I forgot to bring them home.)

There is nothing traditional about men in a desert-herding culture wearing white dresses and delicate head covers that blow away at the first puff of a shamal. So it is ironic to see poor, rural Saudis who still herd goats and camels for a living today wearing grubby, dusty thobes. But I suppose maintaining the myth of tradition is more important than practical wardrobes.

Funnies

A friend sent this. A joke is always funnier when it has a ring of truth to it.

There's even more irony to be found when you know that in certain parts of camp during the "October community event" as Halloween is euphemistically called by Aramco, you will see dozens of fully veiled Saudi women dragging along costumed children--princesses and pirates and Spidermen--from house to house in search of candy.

While we are on the subject of suitable covering, another friend sent me this.

But Is It Necessary?

A couple of weeks ago, my shopping buddy MG emailed to see if I wanted to go to Bahrain that weekend. I said sure. I didn’t really need anything except some bacon but an outing sounded like a fine idea. The next day, my dog friend PM emailed to see if I wanted to go to Bahrain with her and a friend that weekend. I said, sounds great, perhaps we can all go together! Our respective errands weren’t that different.

PM wasn’t sure that her friend’s car would hold four people plus all the stuff she planned to buy in Bahrain. I said, well, that’s not a problem, we can take my car, plenty of room for all.

No, that wouldn’t work, she told me. She had heard that I had to have a letter from Saudi Government Affairs in order to let someone drive my car. It wasn’t an issue of my being a woman but more an issue that the driver wasn’t the same person that the car was registered to. This didn’t make any sense since lots of Saudis have drivers that drive their (the Saudis’) cars. But the Magic Kingdom is also the logic-free zone. It was entirely possible that she was right. Of course, there had been no official announcement of such a policy change but around here that means nothing. Rules are changed arbitrarily and often with little to no announcement. I had heard nothing about this from my other "rumor" sources. But still, there was definitely a non-zero chance that this was a new rule that we had to navigate.

So I hied off to Al Midra, a new Aramco office building which contains HR, Personnel, Payroll, and Government Affairs. This was not a casual errand because Al Midra is located on the far western edge of Dhahran and is accessed only by an amazingly convoluted set of roads. Getting there is just the first step. You then must find a parking place that is hopefully within half a mile of the building. The parking lots are designed in a most fiendish way with hidden entrances, curbs that block lateral access from one part of a lot to another, and a general lack of signage. It can take more than half an hour to drive three miles, park, and walk to the building.

The main room for the HR services is a large bullpen ringed with counters. It often isn’t clear which counter you need to get to; even if you can clearly state your business, there is nobody to ask for advice. Sometimes there is a machine dispensing numbered paper tickets, sometimes there isn’t, and sometimes the counter you need to get to isn’t using those particular tickets but some other utterly impenetrable system to determine who is next. Queuing would be far too easy and logical.

I made my way to the right counter only to confront a fully veiled Saudi woman who spoke about two words of English, despite the fact that the official language of Aramco is English. I hate dealing with Saudi women who work in these types of jobs because they rarely know the rules or have the information you need, and they always, always, 100% of the time, have to ask their male supervisor what to do. Why not put him at the fucking desk and be done with it?

After a stumbling exchange, she said that such a letter could be produced. I would need a copy of the iqama, driver’s license, Aramco ID, and passport page of the driver, and a copy of my iqama, istmarrah, Aramco ID, and car insurance card. (The iqama is the residence permit and the istmarrah is the car registration.) She said that she could perhaps have the letter done by Wednesday (in time for our planned weekend trip on Thursday) if I could get these items to her by Tuesday morning. It was clear that she was not writing the letter herself but simply passing all this stuff on to her supervisor.

I also tried to get her to clarify whether such a letter was actually necessary. She just looked at me. I repeated my question: is the letter necessary? She continued to look at me, tilted her head a bit, and said, nec…e…ssary? Hmm, clearly I wasn’t going to get anywhere with this one.

Back in my office, I called PM who called her friend who gathered all of his stuff, scanned it, and emailed it to me. I made a copy of all my items then made the tortuous return journey to Al Midra the next morning. I passed the scans over to the woman who passed them to her supervisor standing right behind her. He looked them over then said that it would not be possible to make such a letter. He then said, it wasn’t necessary to have such a letter within the Kingdom, that my friend could drive my car anywhere in Saudi. I was rather stunned (why in hell didn’t that stupid woman tell me this the day before) but I asked him, okay, did I have to be in the car with my friend? He did that weird Arab/Asian thing where he moved his head in a way that was neither yes nor no. I then said, well, what about Bahrain? Can he drive my car in Bahrain? He said that he didn’t know about that (which was probably the truest thing either of those two had told me so far).

I called PM and told her this tale of woe, then said, I think we should go for it, be adventurous, and take my car anyway. She was convinced that we had to have a letter and said that she wasn’t going to risk it, that she and her friend would go in his car. I called MG and said, you and I are going to go in my new(ish), spacious, comfortable car. Come by at 7:30 on Thursday.

Crossing the causeway into Bahrain is a fairly convoluted affair (you should not be surprised). There are five chokepoints in each direction at which you are required to stop and hand over money or passport, or take a slip of paper to hand off to another booth down the line. This sounds far more organized than it actually is.

At some of these chokepoints there may only be 4 out of 20 booths open. Twenty lines of cars, most of which are driven by Saudis, mind you, are gunning to get into whichever line they think is moving. They do not hesitate to try and cross all twenty lanes to get from one side to the other. Booths can randomly open and close for prayer breaks, tea breaks, smoke breaks, shift changes (which are not predictable; if you complain about the wait, invariably you are told that it is due to a shift change), breaks to kiss their friends (Saudi men do a lot of kissing) and there is always a mad crush of cars trying to zoom into a newly opened lane. If this wasn’t frustrating enough, as you move from chokepoint to chokepoint, the booths that are open are randomly positioned. At the first stop, two on the far left and two in the middle might be open. At the next one, three on the far right might be open. Therefore your path through this mess is highly nonlinear. You might be thinking to yourself, why don’t they simply open more booths during easily predicted times of peak traffic? That would be far too logical and imply that the Saudi government had an attitude of “customer service.” (Ostensibly, the Bahraini government runs its side of the causeway but since the ruling family is a puppet propped up by the Saudis, we really only need to blame the Saudis.)

One of the chokepoints is literally designed to be a chokepoint. Twenty lanes go down to one. There isn’t even a guy in the booth. The only purpose is to restrict traffic. The entire causeway can be shut down at this point. They in fact did this several times during the disturbances in Bahrain of this year and last.

The second chokepoint is the one that PM was worried about. At this checkpoint, cameras read your license plate and a machine inside the booth prints a slip of paper with the car registration info on it. The guy in the booth hands it over to you and down the line you hand it to the guy in the booth at chokepoint five. PM predicted that MG and I would not get through the second chokepoint. She called me several times that morning and ended up saying, well, if you get through, I’ll buy you a glass of wine at Trader Vic’s! MG piped up and said, she has to buy me one too because I’m the driver!

To be honest, I was a bit worried too. Technically you are still on the Saudi side of the causeway at chokepoint two (you don’t cross into Bahrain officially until the last chokepoint) and if the guy at Government Affairs in Al Midra was right (that’s the weak link in the chain, isn’t it) then MG should be able to drive my car without any special letter or permission at least up to Bahrain; what happened then was anybody’s guess. But rules do change without any warning and PM knows her way around since she’s been here for almost 20 years.

I had my phone up to my ear as soon as the guy in the booth handed us a slip of paper with my istmarrah number and my name printed on it. PM, I said, we’ll see you at Trader Vic’s! Have the wine chilled and waiting!

Escaping the Heat

The weather station near my house was reporting 118F at 2pm today. It’s as dry as a damned desert out there with about 5% humidity. The dew point is 32F which means, duh, no dew, because even at 9pm last night it was still 98F. To add even more misery, I think that a shamal is trying to start up this afternoon. That could mean several days of strong, hot winds from the north bringing dust down from Iran. All this and it’s only mid-July.

I usually don’t post about my travel in advance but I am heading out in about 10 days and I am really looking forward to this particular break. I’ve been a bit frustrated at work and taking some time off is often a good solution to that sort of attitude problem.

I regret leaving the pups for so long (I’ll be gone for a month) but this trip will be my repat, an annual trip OOK that I am legally required to make. I am pre-imbursed by Aramco according to a somewhat arcane formula for repat expenses.

I will be out for nearly all of Ramadan (and thus will not participate in the dubious pleasures of the sin room) and the subsequent eid (a thinly veiled excuse for Saudis to expand their overindulgence of eating and buying into daylight hours). Not that I’ll particularly miss either of those events. But last year I was here during Ramadan and got the most amazing amount of work done. No Saudis after noon, lots of expats gone as well, no meetings. I started and completed some big projects during that time. This year, I’ll be one of those expats escaping the heat.

A couple of the places I’ll be traveling to will be much cooler than here but that isn’t the reason I chose those places. It’s simply important to get out of here for a while.

A friend and I went to Bahrain on Friday. It was the most normal day you could imagine: walking around a mall ogling hideous shoes and USD 4,500 purses (that were not too hideous), having lunch, then having a couple of glasses of wine in a nearby hotel. When I called her that morning to remind her that the driver was on his way, she said, do I need my abaya? (She’s new here.) And I said, hell no! And that’s another reason to look forward to trips out. I can act and talk and dress like a fully grown, actual human being when out in public.