Real and Fake Days

Fake Monday

I like this!  Fake Monday is actually Saturday and Fake Wednesday is Monday and Fake Friday is  Wednesday.  Got it?  8-)  From now on, I don’t need to figure that the work-week starts on Saturday here and ‘hump-day is Monday or that the last work-day of the week is Wednesday, although I really do like the shifted work week.  You see, I think of working Saturday and Sunday like working overtime, which makes my work week actually only three days and then I get a weekend.  Isn’t that GREAT?  Hmmmm, maybe you have to be here to understand… 8-/

Meals

Went into Jeddah with a few other people in a private car and had a meal at ‘South of the Border’ a Mexican style restaurant.  They have tried to recreate the chain faithfully here but some things just do not transfer very well.  Take for example the signs for the washrooms – Hombre for the men.  Both gender’s facilities are in the basement and there is a strategically stationed staff member at the bottom of the stairs between the two unit’s doors to direct men and women to the correct washroom.  Why they do not just change the signs to say Men and Women or even add the appropriate Arabic word is beyond me.  I guess ‘chain-style’ is more important than functionality and common sense.  Oh, and on the way out of the place, every single employee is trained to automatically stop what they are doing and chime the meaningless – ‘Thank you Sir, please come again.’  I lost count after the 15^th… Not sure if the guy at the bottom of the stairs said anything as I passed him on the way up the stairs though.  I should go back and try that one again.

Eating on campus... has deteriorated markedly for me.  What used to be ANYTHING on the menu is now the value-meal or a sandwich.  You see, we have to pay now.  I must add, the cafeteria does not have much for line-ups any more, which is a plus!   On the same topic, I have become a budding gourmet cook (in my own humble opinion of myself).  I just need a little bit of help now and then.  For example, I called Donna the other day and found out how to bread some steak and then bake them on a tray in the oven!  Simple… if you like boot leather for dinner but the taste was great, it was just a little tough.  Tonight was oven baked fish and salad.  Note to self: test food before putting on plate as it still might be a ‘bit’ raw.

Oh, I never added that it is quite enjoyable to walk around and read the different names tags placed in front of the food on the counters – always interesting to try to decipher them.  Cicken Berger, Seafood Lasagn or Spagetti Cesar.  I am sure that I have missed many as I just recently learned of the entertainment value of scanning the array of foods available.

Travels

I am a mite delayed in getting my blog out this week because of some unexpected travel last weekend.  A group of 14 people from KAUST traveled to the Eastern side of Saudi Arabia, very close to Bahrain and Qatar, to Dhahran a Saudi Aramco compound in the city of Dammam.   

Dhahran is a fenced-in city, and only Saudi Aramco employees and their dependents may live inside.

Dhahran is a major centre for the oil industry. Large oil reserves were first identified in the Dhahran area in 1931, and in 1935, the Standard Oil company of the United States drilled the first commercially viable oil well. Standard Oil later established a subsidiary in Saudi Arabia called the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO), the forerunner to the modern Saudi Aramco (now fully owned by the Saudi government). Saudi Aramco still has its headquarters in Dhahran, and is considered by many measures to be the largest oil company in the world.

In the Gulf War, a significant number of United States military personnel were stationed in Dhahran. Some of these personnel remained in the city after the conclusion of the war, operating under Army Forces Central Command - Saudi Arabia (ARCENT-SA). [Sourse]

Google Maps and Dammam   (note how close the city is to Bahrain which is reached by a bridge)

There are four main compounds in the region for Saudi Aramco but I have been told that this one is the largest (30 sq miles) with a population of over 11 000 and the oldest standing building still in use is 75 years old.  This is a city within a city!

This is the second time I have flown on Aramco’s Boeing airliners in about as many weeks it seems.  Two differences I found on these flights from any other flight I have ever taken were:  All the ladies were sitting at the back of the plane, the men in the front and ‘us’ in the middle, and the second was about 10 minutes into the flight an announcement came over the PA system to broadcast a recording of the ‘travel prayer’ which was chanted by a man with a very sonorous voice overlaid by a huge-chamber echo effect.  Truly, I am in Saudi Arabia. 

We passed through two checkpoints to get into this ‘fenced city within a city’ and entered an environment much like what you would find in a city in Arizona (OK, am I really in Saudi Arabia?) – lots of bungalow homes with mature trees, green grassed fields, playgrounds and hedgerows and the sounds of mourning doves and a plethora of other bird sounds enriching the air.  How wonderful!  KAUST is so new that it has yet to attract birdlife – I miss the sounds here.   Oh, as an aside, I read in a news item this week that KAUST is so new that it is not even on Google Maps.  Now, if that is a measure of 'newness' these days, how things have changed eh?

On the bus ride from the airport to the Aramco compound, there is very little for lighting along the sides of the highway at night and I got the strange impression that I was driving along a Canadian prairie highway just after a fresh snowfall; not a tree or a blade of grass anywhere and with graders having smoothed and sculpted the verge so that there is very little variation to the ground surface, small sand drifts have built up behind any obstruction and along the curbs.  So, with little light save for distant spotlights and a little light from the moon, the landscape looked like it was not +30 degrees but rather 30 below!  It was a nice assurance when I got out of the bus that I did not need a down jacket – I left that back in Canada. (Man, I’m getting global whiplash from this!)

Self-Directed Groups

In the morning we were pleased to find that the weekend we came on, was one of the main weekends for community activities in the compound, which leads me to WHY I was in Dammam!

Aramco as you have read, is a mature company with mature processes, refined over many years.  Aramco is also funding the first three or so years of operations of KAUST.  Quality of life is one of the main-stays that ensure that people find their tenure in the Middle East rewarding and enjoyable.  Resulting from this, over the years, many ‘Self-Directed Groups’ have been set up by community members and supported by Aramco.  We went to Dhahran to find out how to set up groups like this at KAUST.  I was included in the group of 14 because I inquired about setting up a group involved in Dragon Boating.  It appears as though I am going to need to gather a group of people with similar interests to build an organizational body and that can manage funds, events, training and equipment.

Back to the weekend!

After breakfast at the ‘commissary’ (first time I have heard this term used… guess it underscores the compound’s heritage) which was just a stones’ throw from the hotel, we were off to the races.   We had to drive a long way around the compound’s central area before we found an entrance into a main sports field – we were constantly redirected because there was a road-race taking place and we were not permitted to cross the race-route by the hundreds of volunteer security personnel.  Eventually we were able to cross the route and get into one of the large parking lots beside a sports field.  There was a crowd of fire fighters competing in their annual games, ‘Feel the Burn.’  They were doing an obstacle race at the time we were there.  During the whole time we were in the compound our conversation was drowned out by regular fly-bys of US fighter jets going out to patrol the southern Iraq no-fly zone from the near-by airbase.  We moved on to visit the craft community center building where we saw facilities for Self-Directed Groups: pottery, (they had 4 large kilns and 11 pottery wheels), lead stained glass, painting, print making, exhibit space offices and more.  From there, we went to see fitness facilities and then to some of their tennis courts where a group was taking part in a fun round-robin tournament.   Later we went to the community library that is as well provisioned as one of the larger Edmonton public library branches.  During a presentation on ‘groups’ we were told about the facilities available for woodworking.  They have a huge hanger kind of set up for their shop which seemed even larger than the cabinet factories I have worked in!

For lunch, we moved to the central event area for the weekend that seemed to be something like a miniature ‘Edmonton heritage days’ sort of set-up, but without the heritage theme.  This event was all about Self-Directed Groups and these groups were either showcasing what they do or fund-raising by selling their products. I think my favorite was the boy scout group doing fishing for candy with poles and clothes pegs dropped over a screen while other kids clipped prizes to the lines… or maybe it was woodworking stations where parents were teaching children how to build wooden periscopes.  We walked around a bit and then went into the adjacent theatre to watch a dress-rehearsal of the theatre group’s next production, Mamma Mia.  I can tell you, from my opinion having seen the ‘professional’ version of this production was everything as good -- with two caveats, it was a dress rehearsal and it was done by high schools students and Aramco employees.  I believe there might be some discussions taking place about the possibility of inviting these people to KAUST to inspire the generation of a similar group here.

Fake Sunday at the Beach

Friday was an odd day for me.  I was so close to Dubai and yet could not get there for a very special gathering of my friends – I definitely knew where I wanted to be if I had an option, but I did not, so made the best of it. 

Friday was a free-day as our flight was booked for the evening.  A few went shopping and the rest chose to go to a beach resort.  If you zoom in as much as you can on this Google Map link you will just about see me on the beach chair (well maybe not…. But I WAS there!)  You see, I can use my iPhone and open Google Maps on it and hit a button and I get the ‘pin’ that you see in the middle of the map which marks the location that I am at that time.  If you look closely at the map you will see the water slides and ‘lazy river’ where I floated around on a tube.

Real Sunday

SSunday evening last week and again last night (this week Sunday) I participated in a meeting with some friends in Edmonton, where my family is.  A few of us have purchased a Polycom phone system that can be placed in the center of a room and be used as a conference communication device.  I am here in Saudi Arabia and I dial the homes’ phone number using Skype and they pick up, test the audio and then ‘carry me’ into the room and set ‘me’ down under a table in the room -- for the duration.  This was how I heard, for the first time, my son Garnet’s thoughts.  It is wonderful to be able to listen to Donna and Aven and each as they share their thoughts for the week.  The communication goes both ways as I am able to share a little about my experiences with them, there as well.  My body might be here, but my heart is definitely there.