Flying, Haircuts, and Planning for Eid

Flying across this large country:

ARAMCO owns and operates the Shaybah oil field. The description below is from their website.


“The Shaybah oil field is located in one of the most remote, desolate and inhospitable areas in Saudi Arabia. It is situated in an isolated desert area known as the Rub' al-Khali (the Empty Quarter) among towering rust-colored sand dunes. Dune heights of more than 200 meters (660 feet) are common. Summer temperatures can reach 56 C (133 F). Not surprisingly, the area is very dry. Occasionally, sandstorms pushed by 75-mph winds scour the area, reducing visibility, grounding aircraft and blanketing access roads.”
Saudi Aramco reports to its owner, the Saudi Arabian Government, through the Supreme Council for Petroleum and Minerals Affairs, chaired by King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz and is one of the largest oil corporation in the world with the largest proven crude oil reserves and production. Interestingly, Aramco is managing the budget of KAUST for the next few years as we continue to set up. Associated with this relationship, Aramco invited students and faculty to visit one of their large gas and oil production facility in the ‘Empty Quarter.’ I learned of the trips and was able to join the second.

On Thursday last week, (the first day of our weekend here) I joined about 120 other people from the university and we climbed on three fancy Mercedes buses with leather seats and everything, and traveled to the South end of Jeddah to the private Aramco airport. From there, all 120 of us boarded an Aramco jet and traveled 2.5 hours straight East to Shaybah (details below). We were too late to be given a tour of the oil/gas extraction facilities but not too late to climb to the top of some of the large dunes and take photos of the setting sun. Later, we gathered for some presentations by Aramco employees and then had a wonderful Arabic meal out under the stars and then back on the plane and then busses and home again by 12 am.
Statistics: Shaybah has 19 billion barrels of oil and a similar quantity of gas. Currently they are using horizontal drilling to reach multiple oil pockets branching holes off from the main hole. They have some 106 horizontal wells and 200 plus ‘regular’ wells. The site of Shaybah has four large gas/oil separation plants. I believe that they pump the gas back down the wells to assist in extraction of the oil once it is separated.

Click on the link below to open a map of the area:
Things to look for in this Google Map. To the North on this image you will see the UAE. Along the coast is Abu Dhabi and up along the coast to the North East is Dubai. Use the zoom tool (click on the +) on the left of the map to zoom in on the center of the map to see where I was. As you zoom, you will see the individual dunes come into view.  Closer yet, you will see some roads and closer still, you will see the oil separation plant, buildings and airstrip where we landed. If you see a ‘pin’ that I have placed on the map, it marks the location of the plane when we landed and taxied to the terminal. If you back out a bit, you will see a small road going directly to the south of the terminal. It goes up some hills and ends in a small loop at an interpretive center where we had our evening meal after climbing the dunes just south of the center. Once you are zoomed in close, you can click and hold your mouse on the map and ‘pull’ it around on the screen to control what you want to look at.
When we lived in the UAE between 2003 and 2008, during the first few weeks in Dubai, the family went on a trip down to the left bottom tip of the road that is in the shape of a W just over the border in the UAE in the Google Map image above. Little did I know that I would revisit this area 6 years later – on the other side of the border, in Saudi Arabia about 40 km to the South. In the series of photos on this website http://www.pbase.com/pinicola/first_days_here you will see the family coming down the slip-face of a 300 m. + dune in a Toyota. For those interested in trivia, the moving wave in front of the vehicle as it moved down the slope provided us proof that moving sand ‘sings.’ The moving sand produced a low moaning sound.

Friday I was up early again (this is later in the week and I am still not fully recovered from the weekend!). I was off for scuba diving and my open water exam which I passed and am now a certified Scuba Diver. 8-) I think this next weekend will be spent around the house cleaning and resting! Whew!

A bit of the Globe:
The University is really the most international place I have ever been. On the trip back from Shaybah I was sitting beside an American instructor of Applied Mathematics and noticed that the only other people who were talking English in hearing distance from me were the Nigerian and Chinese men sitting right in front of us.
This past week there was a Mexican celebration (the week before had a ‘China day’). The Mexican students wanted to have a 'catered' meal for all at the university but it eventually became a Mexican meal at the cafeteria – or became ‘as the chefs interpreted Mexico,’ at least that is how it seemed to me. The serving and catering staff were all dressed up in ponchos and a few were strumming and singing with eukalalys (sp?). You can probably guess who was doing the singing (read my previous blogs…). Later, on my way home from dinner, I stopped my bike and watched a group of Mexican students playing and chanting while blindfolded participants tried to bash away at a piñata and with a paper mache bat. 8-)

The Technology at KAUST fact for the week:
This university is loaded with technology and the examples are all over the place. The video clip here, is a demonstration of something called a Visualization Screen.
Standing outside ‘Building One’, I watch a meeting taking place between three locations. On the huge screen (about 30 ft by 10 ft), are the three locations as well as a shared document. The main screen area is a series of smaller displays forming the "wall'. Each meeting can be moved to 'any' location on the large screen irrespective of the independent displays.


Some time soon, I want to get a tour of the inside of that room and experience the different 3D visualization rooms. One is called the ‘cave.’ Stay tuned!

Considering my options for Eid
Well, I got my exit visa in my passport and now can leave the country. The visa is a 8.5x11 folded piece of paper stapled to the back page of my passport. I will have to take care that it does not get ripped out…

I have been looking around for a place to go for the 9 days of holiday. Going to Dubai is an option. I was thinking of going to a yearly gathering of our associates and friends there, but it happens the weekend before Eid and our weekend is not the same as theirs now that ‘they’ have shifted to Friday and Saturday. I am also still in my probation period and cannot use work-holidays yet – Eid is a public/religious ‘holiday.’ So, I am thinking of where to go… The closest place in Africa for me to go is Ethiopia and this seems like a good enough excuse to visit that continent again. There is lots to see and I will write about what I plan to do as things progress. Maybe some other place or opportunity will come up too! Who knows.
A Hair Cut:

The group of guys that I hang out with decided that we did not want to go on the Shopping Bus for the 3 hour round trip plus 4 hours stay at a mall…AGAIN, just to get our hair cut. We had just learned that another person had gone into the small town close beside the university the other day and paid 5 Riyal ($1.50) for his cut. We all though that this was too good to be true and we hired a taxi from the university and shared the cost between the 4 of us. We drove past three barber shops looking for one that was not too grotty looking and decided that the one with the large couch stretching around half the shop was a good indication that the owner considered that comfort was of some importance – we thought that this might transfer to the quality and cleanliness of the hair cut. On the way home, I purchased some medicated shampoo just in case I catch something.
I must add that there is a lot more white coming off my head these days! The most interesting part of the hair cut was the straight razor treatment. This guy replaces his straight razor blade (half of a safety razor blade…) each time he cuts hair. He then dips it in alcohol and uses a small blow torch to light the razorblade on fire. This is what he is doing in this photo of me taken by Arindam on his mobile (I look stunned or something!). He rotates it a bit until it goes out and then does the tidying up of hair around the neck and sideburn areas. After telling this story to some folk at breakfast, they said that I should look forward to the full treatment – the barber takes the blow torch and flashes it over the edges of your ears to singe off the short hairs on the ears. Woooo! Maybe not!