Mike's Saudi (35) Success for Mansour and I

At work Mansour and I decided to do an investigation of our American contractor. There was no particular reason for our investigation and the contractor welcomed and cooperated with us but we felt it would be a useful thing to do. As it happens it was, we employed the same strategy as we had at Khamis Mansour talked to the Saudi trainees and I talked to the trainer and their management. We found that there had been a mix up and the contractor was under staffed as laid out in their contract. Naturally up to this point no one had noticed at least from the RSAF side they hadn’t. It was raised up to the Head Quarters and put right. Mansour and I got a lot of kudos out of it that was to do neither of us any good in the end.

Shortly after our report had gone in Mansour was moved to the office of the Base Commander which broke up our team at work though we continued our socializing particularly as Fateeha and Syb had become close friends. At the same time our boss was transferred to Riyadh, so we had a new one. A young dynamic captain who drove a BMC Mini and was by Saudi standards very progressive, he had just returned from the States and was fired up with what he had seen over there. He encouraged me to help him in the impossible task of improving the training of the Saudi trainees with my new colleague and workmate.

Mike's Saudi (34) A Saudi Disco

 

We used to visit Mansour and Fateeha on a regular basis and they would visit with us and our bonds strengthened. In fact when Fateeha bore her husband a son after three girls he took us to visit her in hospital and meet his new heir, this was an incredible honour as every Muslim wants a son and we the first to see him. To celebrate Mansour decided to have a disco once Fateeha was out of hospital; his only knowledge of discos was what he had heard and a few videos. He cleared His family lounge out invited all the American managers and their wives along, advised his female relatives it was western dress and a western disco. He had a tape machine and flashing lights, no booze of course but the Saudi girls turned up trumps, I was convinced one or two had sprayed their tight leggings on. It really did look the part, the music started and the expatriates took their wives and started to gyrate in the usual fashion but the Saudis were not used to dancing as couples so segregated and danced girl and girl, man and man which made for in interesting evening. We tried to show them but each time they would separate into same sex groups. Just as a note in Saudi as a man if you walk along hand in hand with another man you are considered normal, if you walk hand in hand with a woman your sexuality is questioned. It is a serious matter for the Mutawa as it is against the teachings of the Quran; Mansour was once cautioned for walking hand in hand with his wife.

Mike's Saudi (33) Syb shops Saudi style



 

Syb and I were soon totally accepted throughout the family and so it happened that when Mansour and I were asked to return to Khamis Mushayt to do a little research into a base that was now totally manned by RSAF personnel with a few American advisors. Our object was to see if there were any tips or pitfalls we could take advantage of or avoid at the Dahran base. Syb lived with Fateeha while we were away. It was during this time the BBC chose to show “The Death of a Princess” a film deeply offensive to the Saudis, which caused much discussion amongst her friends in the house. Not having a full command of conversational Arabic she could only judge that something had upset them and for their part they could speak no English. After what seemed like an age one of Mansour’s brothers came in and explained to Syb, although the Saudis were very upset at the English for showing the film she was not to worry as she was a visitor in their country and their friend.

Syb had a glorious time with the family going out shopping, she insisted on wearing Purdah so as not to draw attention to the group. Apparently behind the veil of purdah the girls were just girls admiring good looking and particularly blond men. Some of the unmarried girls would hand out their telephone numbers but would always stay mystically behind their purdah. Not all Saudi women are as down trodden as people in the west believe; in fact some actually have stock brokers investing their money and are richer than their husbands. Fateeha was in the family circle like many western wives but behaved in line with her religion when required to do so. It was an experience Syb would never forget.



Mike's Saudi (32) Getting to know Mansour

Mansour was what might be described as a middle class Saudi with western leanings but a strong reliance on his faith. So he tended to understand me and my sense of humour and I had by this time been in Saudi long enough to more or less understand him. When Syb arrived back out I had taken him home and introduced him to her, we had a cup of tea made the Arabic way which impressed him, then, much to our surprise, he suggested we go to his home to meet his wife. This should be seen in the context of the time and of Islam, wives did not meet other males outside the family.

We were naturally flattered. When we arrived at his home both of us were ushered in to the family lounge and introduced to Fateeha his wife and the children. Syb and Fateeha immediately took to each other and learnt over the next few weeks to converse with each other in a half English and half Arabic. We all seemed to integrate so well from that moment on we became members of his family and whenever we visited we all used the family lounge, the only exception was when non-family men or women visited, and then we used to split into the two lounges. Mansour’s extended family was very large and we were introduced round “This is my brother from another mother” was not unusually his father had had many wives but no more than four at a time as was required by Islam.

Mike's Saudi (31) First day in Dahran

Dahran in the 1950s

Dahran to day

My first day at work I had been introduced to Mansour, we were to work as a team monitoring the training on a large American contract. We had a staff of two Pakistani Air Force NCOs; Saffi and Khan. Saffi was a very timid type of person and I often wondered how he had achieved the rank of Sergeant but he was a really pleasant person to work with, a great worker but always looked for a lead from other people. Khan was also a Sergeant a small athletic sort of guy with a huge smile and an enormous beard. He was also very astute, knowing precisely the way to form information so as not to offend the Saudi Officers. At first Mansour left me to find my feet in the office with my two Pakistani friends, at first they were very wary of me but when they realized I was happy to work and respect them we formed a good team.

Mansour had worked in the Base Training Office for sometime before I arrived and lead quite a social life with his Saudi colleagues but gradually we got down to work. All official correspondence was in English and to start with this was my main work but Khan was pretty good a creating the day to day letters which gave Mansour and myself time to get to know each other and our American contacts. Very early on I remember once sitting in a car with him; I had just received my permanent base pass and he asked to look at it. “God you’re ugly” he said looking at my photo. Now this was often their ploy to check you out. So I took my pass back looked at it and said “You’re right so I am” He laughed and from then on we were friends.



Mike's Saudi (30) Move to Dahran

Dahran Airport

It was during this time that a remarkable opportunity happened I was offered a new post in the base training office at Dahran seconded to the Saudis. This meant that my boss would be a Saudi, my colleagues would be Saudis and as I found later my workforce would be members of the Pakistan Air Force. For someone starved of contact with the Saudi personnel this was the job of life time. Interestingly if I had applied and got the promotion I was offered earlier I would have been ineligible for this position. It would have been more money less fun. Naturally I accepted this new job and flew over for an interview with the Saudi Captain who would be my new boss.

Just at this time Syb got a signal through the company network that her father was dying, so she was rushed off to see him and support her mother in a few hours. By this time Syb was well known on base and she had much support and sympathy from her friends.

I rearranged my leave and followed her a few days later. I just managed to catch a few days with him before he died up to this stage he had not made a will and we concocted one, he dictating what he wanted while I checked the correct wording with our family solicitor. The will was enough to settle his estate but really it wasn’t too well written. Soon after his funeral I was on my way back to Saudi leaving Karen, Syb and her Mum to tidy up the details.

Back at base I found that I was acceptable to the new boss and arrangements were made for me transfer to Dahran. Although I worked directly for the Saudis they had no way of looking after me and Syb domestically and I was still employed on a BAC contract so they provided my housing and infrastructure. I had no wish to be on one of the large family estates with their intrigues and gossip one of the rumour was that we were Muslims something most of the families seem to find distasteful even though they were paying the wages. I’m pleased to say we were found a villa on a small estate of four surrounded by a purdah wall with a little patch of grass which we nurtured back to health. BAC even got us a lawnmower after a bit of arm twisting.

So when Syb returned I was happy to show her our new home, it was a large single story house built out of a Swedish kit and I’m happy to say she was impressed. We were in walking distance of the centre of town bigger than anywhere we had been in the country. The compound which we were on was used as a staging accommodation for newly arrived families but soon one or two wanted to stay and eventually we had stable happy bunch, who knew of our feelings and accepted them. The gate to our villa was close to the purdah wall which meant that we could have our Saudi friends visit the house without them being seen. That may sound odd but remembering their customs and the unfortunate feelings of the families on the larger estates it would not have been possible anywhere else.

 

Mike's Saudi (29) Hamid our friend and cleaner

About this time and our social life blossoming we decided to get a house boy for two sessions of two hours a week. To this end I went to see Gabbi who looked after the cleaning staff and put the idea to him. “Yes Mr. Mike I will get you the best cleaner possible” he said he was always a bit of a bull shitter. True to his word in a couple of days he arrived at our villa with a quiet and sad looking Pakistani. “This is Hamid the best cleaner on base” he assured us. Hamid spoke only very few words English but soon he and Syb had devised a basic sign language. Sometimes it went wrong as one time when he arrived she looked out of the window and said “It’s a lovely day” crazy thing to say everyday was sunny in the desert! However Hamid understood and cleaned all the windows.

An understanding developed between us that if he finished early we would still pay him the full amount and if he worked over he would still get only the agreed amount. I believe he got the best deal out of the arrangement but only just. One day he brought us some seeds, we put them to our mouths to enquire if we should eat them, he laughed and indicated that we shouldn’t. Next day in his own time he arrived and planted the seeds against the purdah wall from then on he took to tending his little plot in our garden and we approved each time a little green shoot appeared. As I said his English vocabulary extended to about ten words and some of our less understanding visitors were shocked when Hamid would arrive in the room holding the vacuum cleaner point to the door and say “Out”.

The usual system was Syb would show him what to do then leave him to it. One time she asked him to clean the Gas cooker when she went back to see how he was getting on she found he had stripped it to its component parts which were all over the kitchen floor. That day he worked overtime but he left with the cooker gleaming in one piece and operable, we never found out his background was but I think he must have been a gas engineer back home.

A couple of friends of ours who lived off base asked if they could use our villa when we were on holiday. Naturally we let them and Hamid was to clean for them on his usual terms. When we returned we found that they had left the washing up for Hamid something we had never done. Hamid had indicated to them that he didn’t think much of their cooking as he had mistaken the non stick coating for badly burnt residue and taken over an hour to clean it off. We had a replacement non stick pan from stores but kept the brightly polished pan Hamid had cleaned.