Around April of 2013 I acted on my decision that it was time to bid farewell to my then current employers. I visited family and friends around the US for a while and then I headed south to Costa Rica, spent some time in Nicaragua, and then made my way further south to Antarctica. At that point I was forced to head north. So I made my way back to Santiago and then into Bolivia (I swear I will finish the Bolivia blog within the year). I got back to the States in March and wandered around Virginia, Indiana, Georgia, and Florida with a brief venture into New Jersey for the Fourth of July. I had basically been doing whatever I wanted for close to a year and a half. In July I got certified as a PADI instructor and was ready to continue living happily with no money and no cares. Then I got a call from a recruiter asking if I’d be interested in a project management position in Saudi Arabia.
So here I am.
Perched on the edge of the Red Sea and some of the finest diving the world has
to offer. Hopefully I’ll get to sample that soon. So far I’ve just been getting
accustomed to the completely different customs and getting into the flow of
things at work. These different customs include: no music in public vs. music
everywhere you want it, prayer time five times a day that results in literally
everything being shut down for 30 – 45 minutes vs. pray if you want, don’t if
you don’t want, but you can go to the store whenever you want, gender
segregation to the point of separate rooms in dining establishments for women
and single men vs. freely mixing it up and trying to have a good time, a strict
ban on alcohol (can’t even have mouthwash with alcohol in it) vs. having a
drink when you feel like it, and women banned from driving vs. crazy broads all
over the road. So it’s not all bad.
Here’s a
recap of the first week.
4 p.m. On a
Thursday
I got to Jeddah
and was not looking forward to a four hour layover, especially when it was only
a three hour drive to Yanbu, my final destination. It turned out, I needed almost
all that time to get through passport control and customs. Even with the bump
to the front of passport control I got after telling one of the airport workers
I had a connecting flight coming up. Most
people I’ve encountered have been happy to give me some help when I asked for
it and that’s one thing that makes all these differences tolerable. People that
want to say all Muslims are horrible people and the Middle East is just a bunch
of terrorists really need to reevaluate the way they look at the world and quit trying
to generalize everything bad in the world so that it suits their own personal
views. End rant. After arriving in Yanbu, myself and another guy from the
US were picked up at the airport by a couple of colleagues and given a short
tour and taken to dinner at a Turkish place.
Friday
I just hung around the hotel. It was a really
nice hotel. I wish I was back there now as I am writing this. Nothing too
exciting happened Friday. We walked to Pizza Hut because it was the closest
restaurant to the hotel. Next door was another Turkish place that I had heard
was supposed to be really good. While we looking like a couple of newbies
trying to figure out what door to go in (women and families in one, single men
in another) a guy who claimed to be Texan and Mexican showed us the way in and
the three of us ate together. After about an hour of some pretty good grub and
the mostly coherent ramblings of a stranger musing on the forthcoming downfall
of the almighty dollar, the benefits of buying tangible gold, and the unstoppable
rise of the Chinese Empire, it was almost prayer time again and we had to go. Tex
paid.
Saturday
Irish were idle. Got a tour
around town. There’s not much here, but there will be. This place will be huge.
The largest oil export city in the world when it’s done, and all of the stuff
it takes to support the people working in it. I know. It sounds like something
I’d have nothing to do with. But I’m here to implement district cooling systems
to make the number one electricity consuming monster (air conditioning) more
efficient and thus decrease the carbon footprint. And I sold out. Lunch on
Saturday was like 4 or 5 bucks and it was big enough to double as dinner. That’s
three dinners in a row that I didn’t pay full price.
Sunday
First day of
work. Bunch of admin stuff and a free lunch.
Monday
Don’t
remember. Didn’t take any notes. Pretty sure there was some free food in there somewhere.
Tuesday
At this point
I’ve had my fill of chicken and rice and I venture out in search of vegetables.
This search leads me to McDonald’s. I shit you not, this is where I had to go
to find a healthy meal. This is my first time driving in Saudi Arabia and in
general, the rules are, there are no rules. At least that’s what people say. I
don’t think so. I mean you don’t always stop at stop signs, turn left from the
right lane and stuff like that, but this isn’t The Philippines, or even Ecuador
for that matter. Plus there aren’t many cars on the road. So it’s kind of fun.
It was the 40th anniversary party for Yanbu and National Day here in
The Kingdom, so I was detoured far away from my intended route. And the truck
has been on E for a while. I remember saying something earlier like, “F*** it,
let’s just get gas tomorrow. We have enough to get home and back to work”.
Using my homing-pigeon-like sense of direction, I navigated my way through the
darkened unfamiliar streets of Yanbu to a random gas station and drive right
past it. Into the McD’s drive thru. I was three cars away from ordering when
the call to prayer came and the lights went out. I thought I would sit there
for 45 minutes waiting, but they discreetly took the orders of those in line
and ushered us through. A garden salad and a Big Mac were almost in hand. The
only thing that stood in my way was a Suburban trying to drive the wrong way through
the drive through lane and a family of 7 ordering ice cream from the drive-up
window. The driver of the SUV stopped just short enough for me to make my way
through before throwing it in park and hopping out to order some ice cream from
the drive-up window. At first I thought the employee was shooing these insane
line-jumpers away. He was just motioning for me to drive around them so he
could toss me the bag of health food I so desired. Dinner in hand, I headed to
the gas station. 8 bucks to fill-er-up.
Wednesday
Nothing
notable.
Thursday
Thursday is
my new Friday. I celebrated by moving from my luxury hotel to my
less-than-luxury apartment and going shopping. Remember women can’t drive here?
Their solution is often to have their kids do it for them. I had heard it’s not
uncommon to see 10 year olds driving. I saw a boy that couldn’t have been over
6. I mean this little Benjamin Button had to be sitting on two phonebooks with
stilts attached to his feet. At first I thought I was having some sort of
lack-of-alcohol hallucination. But it was all for real. I should have known
something was up when he slowed down to let me turn in front of him instead of
trying to gun in right through me. The little ones are still a little cautious
behind the wheel.
That’s all
for now. Oh, and someone else bought me a welcome to Yanbu lunch.
Week 2 highlights coming soon. Right now my internet is super slow. I hope to remedy that and get pics up soon.
