#4 LIfe and Living in Saudi Arabia

Well this is my third week in the kingdom. All in all things are going well, as eluded to previously, unlike previous assignments I have been fortunate enough to participate, this is a modern city with reliable internet, good infrastructure, many western restaurants, and grocery stores with everything we can buy at home with some differences due to local culture. Though there is one big thing missing in this culture that all westerners take for granted – BOOZE!

Like most – I enjoy a cocktail/beer when the occasion strikes. For me, if I’m not drinking tequila with my brother every second Friday, I love a nice gin martini (lemon twist please – hold the olives) at the end of the work week. Or here in Riyahd, a cold beer sitting around the pool where we congregate on the weekend to enjoy the sun. I have befriended several Irish guys that I sometimes see around the pool – and true to the stereotype, they also especially lament this particular deficiency in this society. They were quite excited about an event at the Irish embassy. Where you are not allowed entry unless you have a voucher to ensure you have a taxi ride home! 

Embassy events in Riyahd are big deals around here and a big part of the social calendar for most expats. The two big reasons: one – real booze, and a small, albeit remote, connection to home. Typical of government I sent an email last week to sign up for membership in the CCOR (something like Canadian Citizens for Riyahd) and have yet to hear any news since. Membership is important (for 100SR/yr or $30) as only members are informed/invited to Canadian Embassy functions. For example they had a gig the evening the Canadian men kicked ass in the Olympic gold medal hockey game. I don’t know for sure but I get the sense that embassies here have a greater meaning than in other countries – and the one big reason is it is these lucky people can legally import booze (that whole diplomatic thing – hell if you can kill people and get away with it using the diplomatic immunity line what is a few bottles of real booze?). In Timor for example I made sure I was registered with the embassy and never heard a peep from them thereafter.

I say real booze as there are many industrious lads in our compound (and every other I assume) that make beer, wine, and even distilled spirits. And while never as good as the real thing (though I have heard, but not sampled, that the beer is as good as any you can purchase) when the real thing isn’t available, necessity being the mother of invention, provides that needed elixir with a kick. I tell myself that from a health perspective not drinking is never bad. As a result I have never drunk as much water as I have since I have been here. Why I did my usual booze abstinence month in January I question every day. As I noted previously – diet drinks are not as popular as they are at home (though I did find some diet coke) so water becomes the beverage of choice.

Speaking of water – bottled water is widely available and inexpensive (usually 1 SAR or $0.30/bottle), and we have those big water dispensers at both the office and in our villas. Tap water is fine to drink but tastes funny as water in this region has to be desalinated first from water taken from the Persian Gulf and then piped to us thirsty folks in Riyahd.

You have to excuse my thought process and desultory ramblings as I write and all these things bombard my head in myriads that I can’t scribe everything at once.

With that caveat admitted too, let’s talk more about booze (am I becoming focused here??) and other prohibitive activities in this restrictive country. It is really all about a question of freedom, as noted, I enjoy a drink from time to time but I don’t think about it back at home. If I want it it’s there. Movies (there are no movie theaters here) are another example, I don’t go to the theater often but when I do want to go I can. When you can’t have things – people find ingenious ways to get them anyway, so yes the black market is alive and well in Saudi Arabia. First there is the pseudo legal thing everyone does here to get Netflix and social media via a service that provides you with a different IP address in your computer so it “thinks” you are in the US, Canada, etc. I always wondered, when even at home, you go to certain websites, click a link and you get the message that the following X is not available in your country. How does it know? The IP address is your answer. For TV here, I have heard that if you go to the Pakistani district and know the right people you can get a cable box that provides all the porn you can watch – available to anyone. That’s the bad thing about black markets – at home – if you’re into porn there are restrictions to get it – parental controls, credit card payments, age verification, etc to ensure that mostly only adults who wish to can watch – here any kid with the proper payment can walk away with one of these porno boxes.

That said the TV in our compound does have a pretty good selection of movies, news (we get Aljazeera news here, and despite what I thought is not a bunch of radical rhetoric), and sports. There is even a Bollywood channel to satisfy my closet pleasure of Indian musicalsJ. Also I have Netflix back, though the streaming doesn’t work so well at times. As a result I have finally been able to finish the final 8 episodes of Breaking Bad. The TV is OK, but what we forget quickly about our past is the absence of an on-screen guide to display what is playing.

While to some the exotic locales and travelling to the far reaches of the globe appear glamorous in reality, especially in this culture, life here is pretty low key: up at 5:40am at work by 6:10 or so – leave shortly before 3, swim for 30 minutes, eat, watch some TV/computer time, crawl into bed at 8:30 read for a bit and crash early to do it all over again. Self admittedly I’m an early to bed, early to rise guy – so not too far off my routine at home.  

My excitement recently was going out to find traditional Saudi food (if you read the last blog I mentioned Kapsa).  Not understanding/pronouncing or reading anything Arabic I hopped in the car by myself and hit restaurants on the GPS, picked one that sounded Saudi (like I know) and hit GO. Approximately 3 kms away there was the restaurant I selected on the GPS - so I go in to discover the place is almost empty where the dude working there quickly said he “only Arabic” – he brought me a sample of rice and raisins on a plate but that’s as far as I got. After a few failed attempts to communicate, I bailed out and noticed on my way to the car a place almost beside it that looked a bit like a takeout place with the illuminated menu sign above the cash register with all Arabic writing but pictures – English wasn’t much better with the guys there but I pointed to the sign of a picture of something that looked like kapsa and held up my thumb to say OK that, then loud banter with the cook about half or one?, half or one? Not knowing I picked half. It turns out half or one was the amount of chicken – half or whole. The next challenge was where to eat? Thankfully a guy waiting for takeout could understand the frustration in all parties and said to me eat in or take out? Well of course it was eat in, and where the fun begins. I am led to a cubicle with a swinging gate and approximately 1.5 meters square. It was sparse at best: nothing inside except for a box of Kleenex, hot sauce, the rug and a few stiff cushions. Before sitting down they have a sheet of plastic that was laid down in the center (I immediately think – are these for messy infidels like myself or just a general rule in this establishment?). Within a short while my order arrives, served again by a guy on his knees. Picture an aluminum looking platter a little bigger than a dinner plate heaped with rice – and I soon discovered a buried half chicken underneath. All alone in this little private booth (there are a lot of private booths so women are not out in the open) with a big plate of rice and chicken two things become apparent: one, I’m very clumsy eating things like this with only one hand (it was hot too!), and two it’s a little bit our culture and a little bit my age but I haven’t sat crossed legged like that for many, many years. I was very self-conscience sitting by myself thinking someone was monitoring me and barge in and say I was doing something wrong. Thankfully no such thing happened but then I wondered would it be offensive if I left too early? In the end all was well, the food was good, my pants were littered with rice and it was only 20 SAR (about $6).

Would I go back? Absolutely – just wish I could have had a cold beer with it. There’s that booze reference again. . . . . .

Speaking of booze again - every Thursday is Choir Practice at one of the villas. Choir practice is a term I found out, originating in the north many moons ago when guys worked in camps building our northern generation. Here is where the finished products of the industrious booze makers are made available.  As for a buzz not really, and truth be told I can go without the booze if I have to drink that stuff – it’s not that important to me to get a buzz. 

I will wait for March 13 when I fly to Dubai for the weekend, and while still restricted compared to home, real booze is available. I have always wanted to see the Texas of the Middle East and this work experience forces me to leave the country every 30 days as your “visa” must be reset to stay in the country.  Here Dubai is the closest destination (about an hour and a half flight), with Abu Dhabai and Bahrain being close seconds. Seems dumb, but something that must be done if we want to stick around here. I will get one other such “out” prior to my departure home in May. Guys who have been here longer than myself find it a burden and sometimes will fly to Dubai, get off to find an airport bar, have a few drinks, and hop back on the plane home. If you have a longer term contract (a year or longer) the next step is to get your Igama which is the equivalent to a green card in the states where you can open bank accounts, have a Saudi drivers licence, etc.

The last little kicker I will leave you with is a quick economics lesson. Electrical rates are highly subsidized (retail residential rates being about 30 halalas – with 100 halalas’s making 1 Riyal (SAR) = about 30 cents our money. You do the math – it’s cheap around 3 cents a kWh. Further humility is the fact that 60% of the generation to produce this energy is by burning oil. Speaking of oil you will be shocked to hear that gas is a whopping 15 cents/litre. Yes that is about the same price it was when Canada went metric sometime in the 1970’s. So as you can imagine the size of vehicles here tend to be much larger than in Canada. Our cars (Hyundai Azera with a V6 engine) which I filled the other day cost 40SR (with 2 SR tip) about $10/11. I’m not an economist but even I know that you can change behavior most quickly by hitting people where it counts – gas prices. Though what is a market rate is hard to determine as many industrialized nations impose high taxes on petrol.

What follows are a few pictures I took of driving around.

Such a contrast from home this foreign land
From a sea of snow, to a landscape of golden sand