Mike's Saudi (28) Settling in at Tabuk

Now in my day to day working life I met few Saudis or Pakistanis but the ones I did meet I got on well with. There was one occasion when a very young and arrogant trainee accused me of laughing at the Quran, just about the biggest insult he could throw at me. He was not expecting what happened next, I grabbed him by his shirt front held him against the wall and read him the riot act then I handed him across to the senior Saudi in the room who had known me at Khamis. He then repeated much of what I had said in Arabic. I had a great respect for Islam and our arrogant friend was not going to get away with that type of insult. Word must have got around as in future I was respected by all the Saudis on base.

Whilst I had the respect of the Saudi personnel, I cannot say I had the same from the British technical management although I always felt the Base Manager saw things my way. I have always believed I should do my best for the people who pay my wages and in this case it was the Saudis through BAC.  To the Technical Management I was interfering with their maintenance schedule by constantly worrying them about training the Saudi trainees as well.  In fact they were getting pressure from both sides but as I saw it the future of the Royal Saudi Air Force was in trained Saudis and not having to rely on expatriates for the foreseeable future. For me, life was simple I was not concerned about the political and religious side of the situation, so I could just focus on my job as I saw it. Looking back on it I was pretty naive to behave as I did, in Saudi there is always an underlying reason which is not always visible on the surface but at the time I was quite ignorant of it. However let’s not bother with that, life was pretty good all in all.

With Karen back in England and no job for Syb she kept herself busy playing tennis and swimming. The swimming pool was surrounded by a purdah wall but the tennis courts only had the usual netting. One day BAC received a complaint that the Saudis could see the ladies in their tennis dresses through binoculars! BAC hung sacking over the netting and honour was satisfied. None of the Saudis I knew would have objected, rather the reverse, I suspect that the Mutawa had something to do with it. There were times when the Saudi men would take exception to me photographing their women folk even though they were completely covered. I was once chased through Khamis because I was setting up to take a photograph of the backs of two Saudi ladies looking into one of the old shops. I did learn more about their customs from that point on.