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| Finally heading out of town . . . |
This last year the break fell at the end of September and
into October. I took the opportunity to finally get out of Dodge—er, Riyadh—and
go in opposite directions: out to the sea and into the desert.
Two by the Sea:
Lifelong Friends Who Had Never Met
When I was first offered the job in Saudi Arabia, the first
thing Sue and I did was try to find contacts who were living or had lived there
to ply them with questions. Fortunately, through work colleagues I connected
with several CSU alumni, one of whom was currently living in Jubail on
the Persian Gulf. Denise Wright Murray had gone through the same masters
program as I, and had even held my job at CSU about eight years prior. When I
contacted her via email, she replied with pages and pages of helpful
information about life in Saudi, much of it aimed at Sue, describing life for a
woman here. Obviously she was successful in offering us the needed reassurance,
as we decided to come.
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| Long-lost Best Friends: Mark & Denise |
Denise and her husband, Mark, have lived in Jubail for over
5 years now, after having also spent time in Kuwait. They offered to pick me up
from the train station in Dammam. The Saudi Railway Organization has big plan
to cover the entire country in a web-like railway network, including a bullet
train between Jeddah and Mecca and then on to Riyadh. The reality: they have
one line operational between Riyadh, the capital, and Dammam, the heart of oil
country in the east. Dammam is actually a trio of cities made up of Dharan and
Khobair: it’s headquarters to Aramco, the huge Saudi-American joint venture
started in the 30s that now drives the entire economy of Saudi Arabia.
They have a spacious 3-bedroom apartment about a 10-minute
walk from the beach. Denise works for Jubail University, which is run by the
Royal Commission. Indeed, everything in Jubail is run by the Royal Commission.
This is a special zone cordoned off by the Saudi government under the special
auspices of this organization. Imagine if the US Government created a special
enterprise zone under its own rule called the Independent Jacksonville-Seattle
Commission, connected by a huge pipeline across the country, in which they also
own everything in both cities and anything within a 5-mile swath of the pipe. That’s
the Royal Commission, which controls the hospitals, the shopping, the
apartments, the university, the streets, etc. within its territory: a veritable
modern-day fiefdom. And what they say goes, period. Some things are positively
feudal here.
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| The Corniche along Fanateer Beach in Jubail |
Jubail is an interesting mix of nationalities: with the
giant oil industry and the desalination plants, the demographics are odd: it’s
about 1/3 Bangladeshi, 1/3 Saudi, and 1/3 Westerners. A walk along the Corniche
confirms this.
After two hot dusty months in Riyadh, my one goal was to go
to the ocean every day. The Persian (or Arabian) Gulf is a 10-minute walk from Denise and
Mark’s apartment. The Corniche along Fanateer Beach stretches for miles along
the beachfront: a wide pedestrian walkway, lovely lawns and picnic areas,
fishing piers, jogging paths, and swimming beaches. But it was still hot—only
this time with killer humidity. I
couldn’t get 20 feet from the door without my shirt clinging to my back with
sweat (ewww).
It was a delightful change from conservative, uptight Riyadh
to be at the Corniche in Jubail and see Saudis actually letting their hair down
(figuratively—certainly not literally): some gals in abayas were even wading
into the surf!
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| Promised myself to go to the sea every day - a nice change from dusty Riyadh |
Denise, Mark, and I spent an enjoyable week in each other’s
company: we felt like long-lost friends who had never met before. We joked that
if anyone asked, I was Denise’s brother, as it was technically illegal for me
to be staying there as a non-relative. By the end of the week, we felt like
real siblings.
After a rejuvenating 6-day stay their driver returned me to
the train station in Dammam for the trip “home” to Riyadh. Farewell, ocean,
humidity, and friends—for now.
One If by Land: A Trip
to The Edge of the World
One week later, while most of the country was still away for
Hajj Break, I had my second opportunity to get out of Riyadh city limits. The
InterNations group I had joined had scheduled a trip to the Edge of the World,
an escarpment about 2 hours northwest of Riyadh in both the literal and proverbial middle of nowhere. Ironically enough, you can find it on
Google Maps.
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| Tamrika (Georgian-American) and Abdullah (Syrian) are among my new expat friends in InterNations |
[InterNations.org is a terrific collection of ex-pats and
locals with chapters all over the world. I joined the Riyadh chapter after I
went bowling with the group at the Strike Bowling Alley in the Ritz-Carlton
Hotel. Very clever of them to hide low-key recreational opportunities inside of
luxury hotels.]
Our eclectic group of expats rendezvoused at some specified
location in Riyadh before loading into our caravan of four 4x4 vehicles for the
trek into the wilderness. (We have to do a little cloak-and-dagger secrecy
occasionally to avoid the scrutinous eye of the authorities who frown on
“mixed” groups—i.e. unrelated men and women fraternizing.) My friend Abdullah
offered to drive his Toyota Landcruiser to the desert. Abdullah is an engineer
from Syria. Like a lot of Syrians, he has lived in Saudi Arabia his whole life
as an expat; unless you’re born a Saudi, you can never become a citizen, even
if you marry a Saudi wife. Women who marry a Saudi man can reap all the
benefits of citizenship, however.
The first hour zooms along the highway northwest toward
Qassim; the second hour veers off the highway onto a gut-jostling 4-wheeling journey
across a rugged desert landscape, through a sandy dry wadi, and over rocky bluffs.
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| Abdullah and Friend: Camels here are black and white |
Along the route are camel camps owned by the Bedouins—an odd
cluster of dark tents and wooden corrals, in which there are camels of varying
sizes and ages and colors. The camels here are always black and white—like
sheep—not brown or tan like in the zoo back home. The word is that camel-herder
is actually a very lucrative profession. They make very good money off
of the milk, meat, fur, hide, etc. (We found out later that camel brains is
actually considered a delicacy here—yuck.) At one point our car caravan came
across a camel caravan—new frequently meets old in Saudi Arabia, come to think
of it.
After an hour of bone-bouncing pleasure, we at last reached
a non-descript wall of sandstone. The women were quite happy to ditch their
abayas once we got out of the vehicles. We watered down and geared up, and
walked up the trail about 150 feet: suddenly the world dropped away practically
from under my feet. While the name is a bit exaggerated, The Edge of the World
is nonetheless impressive as you stand on the edge looking westward over a vast
expanse of desert opening up below you and on to the horizon, where the sun was
heading toward its final descent for the day.
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| Watch your step! (or Be a dork!) |
We arrived about an hour before sunset; the view of the
setting sun off the edge of the cliff managed to blaze through the dusty haze, transforming
the landscape into a panoply of dusky hues. We struck various goofy poses
jumping or falling off the cliff (real original, I know) and collecting photos
in random groupings.
As the sun set we made a camp out of blankets and pads
around a crackling fire. Someone produced a guitar, and we sang American pop
songs while coffee, tea, and snacks materialized and were shared among the group.
Before heading down to the 4x4s again, we took a group photo
of leaping expats celebrating the moment. As it has become one of my fondest
favorite moments in Saudi Arabia, I’ve made it my background screen to my
Facebook page.
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| Our eclectic InterNations group on The Edge of the World |
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