The Old Arabia and The New Arabia

SAUDI ARABIA  1954-1955

On alighting from the green and white Aramco plane in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, I was met with a blast of hot air.  I was told later that, occasionally, a new employee will initially refuse to get off the plane, and, after being dragged off the plane, will demand to be sent back home.

Sometimes, college students would stay a couple of weeks, quit, and then demand to be sent home at Company expense as required by U.S. law.  This was just their “what I did on my vacation” fun.  Aramco quickly learned to recruit only mature employees.

Single employees were housed in air-conditioned one-story white structures with private rooms and a group bathroom.  These were called “Barasti,” Arabic for brush hut. Families were housed in ranch style modern air-conditioned homes with well-kept lawns and American looking streets and sidewalks resting in the shade of palm, acacia and feathery tamarisk. The smooth lawns lay between jasmine hedges and clumps of oleander heavy with bright pink blossoms.  There were three self-contained communities complete with schools, theatres, supermarkets and recreational facilities.

Sometimes the King and his retinue on a visit would be housed in an American community.  On these occasions, the Americans would give up their homes for the royal party which would bring along its own Arab food and customs.  At that time Aramco kept a staff of maintenance workers on 24-hour call repairing plumbing and light fixtures.  Commodes would be cracked with stones (there is no toilet paper on the desert), and American homes are not normally equipped with the squat-type fixtures of the Middle East.  (I understand that hemorrhoids are a rarity in this region.)  The lawns of some homes were drenched with blood from the slaughter of sheep.  Favorite delicacies on the Saudi Arabian table included lizard, gazelle, baby camel (especially the eyes), and parched peanuts.  Boiled locus have the taste of boiled shrimp, I was told.

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SAUDI ARABIA 1982

In 1982 I returned to Saudi Arabia on secondment from my engineering practice to give assistance to a large engineering firm involved in new projects.  Following the energy “Pearl Harbor” of 1973, in which Americans formed long lines at the gas pumps, and Saudi Arabia modified its original understandings with President Roosevelt so as to gain more dominance over Aramco, more oil money started pouring into the Kingdom.  This resulted in a construction boom.  I looked forward to seeing how much the Kingdom had changed since my departure in 1955.

I entered Al Khobar, situated next to the Persian Gulf, and found that a sleepy town had been transformed into a modern city.  I saw Hardee’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken side-by-side in one building.  I walked along a long beautiful plaza having benches, fountains and tall palm trees.  To my right and left were fine, modern looking air-conditioned stores and office buildings.

I walked across the impressive looking plaza to a comfort station--a beauteous, modern structure.  I entered the door, but was suddenly stopped dead in my tracks by an overpowering stench in my nostrils.  As I carefully edged forward, I witnessed the disgusting scene of defecation on the floor and urination on both the floor and walls; all the plumbing fixtures were filthy.  I retreated to the outside, fighting back my nausea.

Something was terribly wrong here!  I thought of tales which I heard many years ago involving American Indians and their newly acquired wealth from oil.  An Indian Chief would purchase a new Cadillac, drive it until it ran out of gas, and then walk back to the dealer to buy another Cadillac. In short, this involved people unable to properly manage their wealth in an organized, modern society.