After being in country for nearly 90 days I find myself day dreaming about seeing other place on my “Places to see before I die list.” Near the top of that list is Egypt. While planning my exit visa Egypt entered in on an incredible near hostel take over of there government. After chatting with one of my Saudi friends we had made plans to go to Yemen and Check out the tombs and catacombs in the south end of the “empty quarter.” Days after and hours before I was to book a flight I turn on the BBC and Yemen is now protesting. Settling finally on flying to Bahrain to go see a movie, which is what the Saudis have to do to see movies in theaters, Bahrain erupts in the worst riots in the country’s history. Now is seems that each day a different country in the Middle East is in unrest. Adding that I receive emails from the US Embassy on a far to regular of a basis, about the dangers for those living and working abroad in this region, I began to have a bit of an unsettling feeling. Taking a second looks at each person I see, weather they are Saudi, Pakistani, Bengali or even American. The sites and the sounds of this country are so different so foreign that with even the smallest amount of concern yields a rather uncomfortable desire to look over ones shoulder. But one day in, my favorite place so far, the Al Ballad market after talking to a complete Egyptian stranger, I realized Saudi is a rather neutral location. The Saudis seem to not be concerned at all. They are happy with their king. Although not religiously or publicly diverse, Saudi Arabia is an immense cultural melting pot. Each day I see people from all over the world speaking all kinds of languages in all different dialects. English being least spoken in the market environment, which one would think to be a bad thing but yet I find it is fueling to deep inner thought. People in Saudi are very passionate to their country of origin and as opposed to being fearful of a bad situation secondary to unrest in their homeland they find themselves comfortable with there present situation dissolving the my unrest. I find myself comfortable asking there opinion of what’s going at home, this yields incredible conversations of what they have been through and how they ended up in Saudi Arabia. I’m interested to see what happens to the Middle East in the coming months and hope to see the pyramids soon.
Given the situation of not being able to travel as easy as I had hoped I unwillingly settled into a routine of work and sleep and wondering around the market. Finally I had a day off that worked in correlation with several of the pilots and we were determined to find a beach and relax. Now one would think that living in a city that sits on the coast of the red sea, and being able to see the Ocean from my hotel room window, (well in the distance from the ninth floor) that it would be relatively easy to hop on down to the water and have a swim. Well this is not the case. First of all, the port of Jeddah and the oil company’s private ports for fuel shipping consume most of the beach. The public beach is approximately the size of a sand box and its covered in concrete, so you have to find a private beach. All of the private beaches are in north Jeddah approximately a 45 min drive from our hotel. As you turn onto the coast Highway the beach disappears. Seriously you are 500 yards from the water and a 50-foot fence covers the entire beach as far as the eye can see. As you drive up the highway you see gates with guard shacks about every mile, with huge signs saying no public access in every language. Finding a gate that will let you in is a bit of trial and error, first you start with a story from a friend, second you plug the coordinates into a GPS devise because there are no numbers identifying each gates location, and you don’t want to follow the directions from your friend saying “go down till you get to the double headed palm tree, turn left until you find the dead camel and then its about 7 clicks on the left.” Second you have to find a cab driver that will take you to north Jeddah because of the increased potential for rather expensive checkpoints. Once you get to north Jeddah and once you get into the gate you begin interrogation about your race by the guards. The segregation in this country is ridicules. There is an order of seniority in which each nationality is ranked, #1 Saudi’s #2Americans (thankfully) #3 the rest of Europe #4 the rest of the Middle Eastern countries and then the list goes on until the very bottom of the in which you have most Asian country’s. None of it makes any sense what so ever. But nonetheless being near the top of the list gets you onto the beach. Now entering the private beach is like stepping out of the country. Literally as you cross the threshold of the gate and under the protection of the 50-foot walls the rules change. You wont find alcohol or naked Arabian orgies, but what you will find is a paradise. Swaying palm trees and crystal clear water. Cars will pull in through the gate and unload girls that strip down out of their Ebiyas yielding bikini clad bodys before their 6 inched stilettos even hit the ground. Men show up in Board shorts and sandals, which I imagine is a huge relief from the heavy canvases throb of the business world. The next thing that happens is the biggest crack up to me. The Saudis live not only a racially segregated life but a sexually segregated one as well. A huge group of people that arrived at the same time walk down the path to the sand and literally part ways men on one side women on the other, and as soon as they sit down they begin giggling and pointing at members of the opposite sex. It’s like Jr. high all the time. They don’t talk to each other, not because they are not allowed like any other location in the country but because the have this social stigma on talking to members of the opposite sex. When asking my Saudi friends why they don’t go talk to them, they just giggle puff on their sheesha pipe and move on to ogling the next girl like the sexually oppressed people they are. They drink virgin Mohito’s and margaritas smoke shessha and gawk and members of the opposite sex all day and all night with the worlds worst DJs scratching N’sync or Britney Spears records on the weekends, during the week the beaches are near empty, and coast half as much to get on too. The other funny thing is that there are massive signs that read “no photography” in every language. So no picture of paradise, I assume its to keep the “private” beaches “private” and give them all the “privacy” they need, if only they knew what to do will all that “privacy.” With difficulty in traveling, finally finding the beaches and finishing my Open water Diving class I intend to fully utilize this opportunity to avoid boredom with swimming around with a tank on my back.
