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, Abu Garda.
Abu Garda was also
an Imam and had committed the whole of the Koran to memory a prodigious feat
and could recite sections of it in a delightful half sung style of the Islamic
clerics. (I wonder how many Christians have learnt the Bible from cover to
cover.) Not only was he working with me but he was also studying English
Literature at the University, from this you might gather he was exceptionally
intelligent, and he was. His spoken English was excellent and his written
English even better. As an Imam he would pray five times a day and during his
prayer time he would give me a passage from an English translation of the Koran
to read so we could discuss it on his return. Despite all his accomplishments
he was a typical Saudi in that much that what could be done today was left to
tomorrow, when I accused him of procrastination he would smile and say “Mike it
is our way we will do it later Inshallah”.
He was a very
serious guy entirely the opposite of Mansour but we got along just fine. Not
unnaturally he was held in awe by his contemporizes and was referred to on all
religious matters and lead the prayers whenever there was a requirement to do
so.
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