The storm clouds are amassing over the desert town of Al Baha. This is literal and not the figurative arrival of three loud ladies and a softly spoken man arriving in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – although there is a nice ring to the metaphor. A thunder storm is in fact on its way and I have seen a number of lightening bolts streaking across the sky over the last few minutes. A strange contradiction in a very barren, very dusty town in the middle of nowhere.
So we have been in Al Baha just over 48 hours and where do I start. It has been an emotional rollercoaster beginning with, I must admit, a large portion of regret and now moving up the curve towards a degree of acceptance and anticipation of things to come.
We left Cape Town just as the rain began to fall on Sunday morning. the day preceding that were a mad rush of packing, clearing, recycling and organisation. As I mentioned on Facebook, there simply was no time for goodbyes let alone tears. We ran onto the plane to Joburg and that is when reality hit. Cape Town was home no more and we had no idea as to what was awaiting us 24 hours later. We navigated Jeddah very easily. The few hours of observation there brought a sense of relief. It reminded me of Dubai and Doha – the Middle East dominated by western influence. Woman were very apparent wherever you went and English was widely spoken. It seems we had overestimated the likely restriction that Vicky and the girls may have in KSA.
But that changed as we were spat out the plane onto the Al Baha Airport tarmac. The women very quickly disappeared and as we made our way to the hotel in Al Baha we very quickly realised that a mere 30 minutes flight from Jeddah was a very different, very traditional world. My first emotion in that taxi ride was one of isolation. The men were dressed in traditional wear and the woman – well there were simply to be seen. Vicky and I became very nervous and decided to exercise a huge amount of caution in our early days in Al Baha. We decided Vicky and the girls were not to leave the hotel room under any circumstances. Thankfully that only lasted a day and just as well – Vicky developed cabin fever within 20 minutes of seeing a closed hotel door from the inside and I was about to pack her back to Cape Town. during her 24 hours of hotel lock down, I was dropped squarely on the path to KSA manhood i.e. taking responsibility for everything. I was rushed off to the university after 5 minutes in the hotel room to begin the process of employment; well registering myself and Vicky for employment. It was then that I finally met a fellow Professor who was going to help us through our initial days in Al Baha. And what relief that was as I have been subsequently been told that such service was never offered to other international and may not be done again – although if Vicky, I and Prof Wagih have anything to do with it, we will make induction into the town and university as easy as possible for the other 12 South Africans and a handful of US and UK expatriates on their way. Having taken Vicky and myself through the hunt for an apartment and the medical and administration requirements for our Iqama in a town that speaks no English, I would anticipate that it would be nigh impossible to sort yourself out on your own here.
So in 48 hours we have found an apartment, signed the rental contract for it and will be moving into temporary accomodation tomorrow as our new apartment is being heavily renovated and equiped with brand new furniture for our arrival in a couple of weeks. But that is not the exciting part – we have what I would loosely call a penthouse flat with a 40m by 40m roof terrace for our exclusive use. When I am not braaing (barbecueing) or having non-alcoholic sundowners, the kids will be riding bikes on a roof!
We have also ventured to the local supermarket which, much to Vickys excitement, resemble Greek supermarkets in that the produce available is largely identical to what you would get in her local Athens suburb supermarket. Which does in fact worry me greatly – life here will likely centre around food and the tendency to consume it in large portions. Our hotel room service has never just brought us what we ordered. We have always been surprised by the extra offerings of soup, bread and vegetables which supplement the larger than American portions of kebabs, rice, chips and salad. So we won’t go hungry nor will we pay for gaining the kilograms given the very very reasonable prices of food and general household goods.
So as we slowly walk up the path towards comfort and hopefully happiness we are beginning to get a feel of what life will be like here. The Saudi’s are wonderful people. They are generous, helpful, hugely respectful and a good laugh at times. The conceirge in our hotel has been great, going out of his way to make sure our every need is attended to – in fact to the point we he himself typed up an English menu for us as the hotel room service menu was only in Arabic. Not something you would get in a New York or London hotel.
I will end it there to save pages and pages of further news for tomorrows blogpost other than to say my two girls (and fairly often my Mrs as she is called) have been incredible. Izzie and Gabi have taken this move in their stride. They have had no friends around and no English TV to distract them so they have got on with entertaining themselves in such wonderful fashion. The number and intensity of sibling fights have diminished and their creative play in a hotel suite has been great to watch (Vicky may have a very different opinion of course!).
Oh and no pictures yet – they will be on there way once I have plucked up the courage to act illegally.
ArioS Cape Town 