There Are No Tourists Here, Travels in the Magic Kingdom

It was the golden eighties, the greed is good years. My then husband was a civilian civil engineer with the Corps of Engineers, toiling on the boondoggle of a waterways project in north Mississippi. He was listening to tales from co-workers who had tasted the good life of a civil servant as ex-pat worker in Saudi Arabia. The Corps had undertaken a massive project, assisting the Kingdom in building it's military infrastructure. And although the going was rough for westerners for many years there, we were told it was getting better all the time.

It was a tough sell for me, once I heard of the restrictions on westerners and women. I was a feminist, and had spent four years as an Air Force lieutenant in the 70s, not because I supported the Vietnam war, but because I wanted to be paid the same as the guys.

Our focus settled onto the benefits and the money to be made, and for a young couple with two small children, it became more and more irresistible. Free housing, free car, free travel, free education in a wonderful international school for our kids. Drawbacks? What drawbacks? Women could not drive or appear in public without a male relative. Once I got there I realized that it was a blessing not to have to drive, it was a three ring circus of underskilled third world workers and carefree Saudis driving without the need to observe any road etiquette or right of way. If there was a rock or a camel anywhere near the roadway, it was fair game for a collision.

The first thrill was just getting there. The local military facility in the area was not accustomed to preparing civilians for a trip to the Middle East. There were odd immunizations, official passports, arranging packouts for storage and for shipment. The local movers were also not familiar with packing household goods for a long overseas shipment. After reading and researching the paperwork from the District Engineers office, we realized our primary shipment to Saudi needed to be in a wooden container. The local boys assured us that yes, those cardboard boxes they were loading onto the truck would be inserted into a wood crate as soon as they got back to the warehouse. Ah, the naivete of the first time ex-pat! Our boxes arrived uncrated several months later in Saudi, dirty and crushed.

Then there was the detail of an itinerary. Left in the hands of the base travel office and the ex, (an unfortunate combination as it turned out) it became a convoluted trip through the southeast before we even left the states.  We departed from Gulfport, Mississippi (my parents lived in Waveland and we were leaving our car with them) then flew to New Orleans, then on to Miami, Florida (why?) and thence to JFK in New York City. This is with a four year old and a six year old and enough carry ons to sustain us for the trip. After a six hour layover in New York, we boarded a Pan Am flight for Frankfurt, Germany, tired, dazed and looking at another 15 hours of travel. It was apparent as we got closer to Germany that we were going to miss the connection on Saudia Air Lines to Riyadh, and we asked the attendants what we should do, as Saudia flew every other day between Frankfurt and Riyadh. They must have contacted the ground, because as soon as we deplaned, a lively German lady wearing a Saudia uniform was there trilling "Familie Hoffman! Familie Hoffman!" She snatched up my daughter's hand and saying, "comes tu!" off we ran to the Saudia gate, arriving breathless. 

We arrived in the middle of the night (most international flights seemed to arrive and depart in the dark) and entered the strangest world I'd ever could imagine. We were in the old Riyadh airport, near downtown, a relic from the early years of flight. All types of scruffy looking men from a number of third world countries were there, hired on as indentured servants and workers for construction and hard labor jobs, helping to build the kingdom. We lined up for customs with them, wide eyed and hearts pounding. The local police pounced on a poor soul in line, it appeared he was trying to smuggle in some alcohol which was strictly forbidden. Of course, our luggage did not make that quick transfer in Germany, so X went off to find out what we needed to do. The children and I were plopped down on a bench against the wall outside an office with a view of the customs area. A woman covered head to toe in a black abaya with a small child in tow sat down next to me, and proceeded to take off the scarf covering her head. I waited to see what she might look like, and then was amazed to see that she had another veil under the first one!

We sorted out the luggage problem, realizing that for at least the first few days we would make do with the items in our carry ons. Our sponsor met us at the exit and we began the long dusty drive to B-2, the compound that would be our home for the next few years. The air smelled dry and faintly aromatic with the spices that I soon came to associate with arabic cooking. Every street seemed to be under construction and as we got near Wadi Laban we drove past several vast estates in the process of being built, and learned that they were palaces for various princes. We headed down into the wadi (a dry river bed) past a small village, spying a few shy children and many goats. Then, row upon row of date palms and soon the twelve foot high sand colored walls that enclosed B-2 appeared. The guard waved us in and we were in a tropical paradise, with rows of town houses, a tennis court, swimming pool and recreation center. Our sponsor had arranged for food and some temporary loans of clothing and we were "home".

As time progressed, we found our way around Riyadh, discovering the best gold souks, the rug and spice souks, fragrant and full of the most colorful things. It was difficult to find the few restaurants willing to serve westerners. With that came the challenge of entering the restaurant before or after the early evening prayer call, and finishing in time to avoid the next prayer call. Once, we had to exit a chinese restaurant by the back door, through the bustling kitchen, in order to avoid the mutawahs (religious police who checked on public places to make sure they were not defying the laws concerning closing during prayer call). Families were placed behind screens so that the women would not be seen by Saudi men. They were fascinated by western women, of course, especially blondes. I had Saudi women touch my hair or take my hand on a number of occasions.

We took a number of trips out into the surrounding deserts and discovered that there are many variations on the theme of desert. Different colors and different vistas that changed with the angle of the sun and time of year. One memorable trip we went with a large group of westerners for an overnight campout on the edge of the Empty Quarter, near an abandoned fort. Some of us had four wheel vehicles but there were a few of those government issue white Pontiac Bonnevilles tagging along. We stopped along a high ridge for the night and prepared to bunk in. I was worried about scorpions, so I chose the truck for my bed. The one thing we didn't realize that our site was along a camel trail and in the middle of the night we heard loud clop, clop, clop sounds as they made their way on past. I woke just before dawn and my seven year old son and I went exploring around the old fort. We had been told that there were tombs in the small escarpment near the fort, so off we went looking for adventure. Taking a turn into a cave we looked and not ten feet away was a skull and stack of bones. My usually mild mannered son exclaimed "holy s**t!" and we turned and ran. After the hearts stopped racing, we returned for a more scientific look. On the return trip into Riyadh we stopped at a beautiful old palace, long abandoned but far more graceful than the gaudy edifices the princes were now building in town.

Our four years in Riyadh were a magical time, with sights and smells and sounds never to be experienced again, because there really are no tourists in Saudi Arabia. I don't think I'd return anyway, I'd rather remember it my way, with the spices and the bougainvilla evoking an ancient land that rushed into modern life too fast.