Killer Camels From Kuwait
The Saudi Stories
by
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Simon was delivered with a warning that he was lazy and needed a good whipping now and then. He was tall, rather scrawny and had facial scars. Other than the scars, he looked and smelled O.K. It really didn’t matter; my boss could not refuse the gift. He thanked the man and took Simon inside. Simon’s former owner considered him a troublesome slave. He was given as a bonus for some work done on a palace garden. The project had a few problems, so a less-than-perfect gift was considered appropriate. Had the project gone smoother, the gift might have been an attractive female. Had the project been more flawed, the gift might have only appeared to be an attractive female. My boss had no idea what to do with Simon. He could not turn him out onto the street because he was now my boss’s property. He could not send him back to Africa because Simon was born into slavery in Saudi Arabia. After a few days of pondering the situation, my boss made Simon his personal driver. He let Simon live in a spare bedroom. He treated him as part of the family. He was paid a regular salary, ate with my boss’s family, and was included in many of their family activities. Simon had a relatively good life -- but he was still a slave. Before I had a Saudi driver license, Simon drove me wherever I needed to go. He was a whiner, but I enjoyed his stories. He was preoccupied with saving up enough money to leave Saudi Arabia and with becoming a free man. He asked a lot about America, but for economic reasons, was more interested in Europe. Over the five-year period that I knew him, he eventually focused on Italy. The last time I saw Simon, he was grinning like the Cheshire cat. He was on his way to the airport to catch a plane to Rome. It was a one-way ticket. Simon was an exception. Most slaves where freed in the early 1960’s when slavery in Saudi Arabia was abolished. That ban, however, did not automatically free every slave. Many slaves were illiterate and could not understand their new options. Some slaves were never given options. For one reason or another, many just stayed where they were and let life go on. Their real gain was that they no longer had to worry about their families being split-up at the auction block. A friend who remodeled a palace for a prince told me that a eunuch guarded the woman’s quarters (harem). The eunuch was a very large black man with no tongue and no testicles. My friend told me that the guard became a eunuch as a young boy when it was common for rich men to have eunuch slaves guard their women. In fairness to the Saudi government, the current situation is not one of forced labor with overseers and whips. Of all those in slavery prior to the early 1960’s, most were given full citizenship, and many where given free education and interest-free government loans to start a business. Some are now successful businessmen, and some are now surviving as day laborers or beggars. A few Saudis have family servants that more or less belong to them. Their ex-slaves have no real choice but to live in servitude. Some of these servants are treated worse than before they were freed. In most cases, though, the family servants are considered as, and treated as, extended family members. It is not uncommon for the female children of former slaves to marry the male children of former masters. Most of these ex-slaves live a much better life than they would if they were forced to leave. For those who want to leave, though, it can be brutal. An American Friend living in Riyadh was driving to an agricultural area called Al Karj. While driving his car on a rural road, he was quickly passed by a pickup and a Mercedes. It was obvious that one was chasing the other. About 500 yards in front of him, the Mercedes ran the pickup off the road. As he approached, he saw the man in the truck jump out and run. Two men from the Mercedes jumped out and chased him. My friend slowed down to see what was happening. He saw two Saudis chase down a black man. The two Saudis caught the man and knocked him to the ground. When my friend was nearly to the point where the vehicles had left the road, he saw one Saudi hold the man down while the other Saudi smashed the man’s skull with a large rock. As my friend drove by, the two Saudis were walking back to their Mercedes. He drove by without altering his speed or turning his head. Then, to his relief, the Saudis got into their car and drove off in the opposite direction. There was no mention of the incident in the local paper or on the local news.
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About the Book
Killer Camels From Kuwait
The book tells how men cope in a land where women are owned but they can’t buy one. It shows the consequences of a culture going from a donkey to a Mercedes in one decade. It tells where Moses crossed the Red Sea. It gives personal accounts of slavery, rape, and murder.
The book goes where the mainstream media is not allowed. It’s a journey through a country that does not issue tourist visas. These are the stories of the engineers, contract laborers, and slaves who keep our gasoline prices low.
About the Author
Christopher Larsen was born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1948. He served in the U.S. Navy during the Viet Nam War. He earned a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Phoenix. He lived in Saudi Arabia from 1977 through 1985. He also lived one year in Kuwait. He now resides in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he works as a water management consultant. When Chris returned to live in the United States, he found a different world than the one he had left. He had missed nine years of movies and TV. The music was different and attitudes were different. The thing that bothered him the most, though, was the negative attitude that most people had toward Arabs. It bothered him so much that he started writing stories to show Arabs as the people they really are: some good, some bad, and some ordinary. Those stories led to other stories about the expatriate experience. The best of these stories are in this book.