Greetings from Saudi Arabia! 05 September 2000 Well, I've arrived in Saudi Arabia safe and sound and here's my first webpage from the Muslim world to prove it! As you can see by the somewhat recently-out-of-bed and looking-a-little-shiny picture to the left, you can see that they've got me up at unGodly hours around here, but I'm managing just fine! :-) I arrived here around 8 p.m. Friday, September 1st and I've been spending the last few days acclimating myself to my new surroundings as well as going through some initial orientation and training sessions to prepare me for my new life and job (temporary profession?) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I haven't had a whole lot of time since my arrival to actually run around the country and take a lot of great pictures and write some truly wowing stories, but in the few extra minutes I have had I managed to take a couple pictures with my ritzy new Fuji FinePix 4700 digital camera of my immediate surroundings (largely, of my living space) so you can see how we English teachers live here in this country. I've also included my first few days' worth of "First Impressions and Observations" which will be interspersed with a few pics I've taken along the way. Since I don't have a whole lot of time just yet to create a huge website, I'm going to stick everything on one long page, so downloading times might be a little bit excessive for those of you with less-than-stellar Internet connections. And lastly, if you see anything glaringly wrong with this page, like the text wraps wrong or is too strangely colored or annoying or whatever else, just let me know and I'll change it (like, maybe you prefer black text?) because sometimes the colors on my laptop are not the same as those on a regular monitor. That said, let's begin with the journal entries! First Impressions and Observations In Transit to Saudi Arabia 31 August 2000: 18:55 Flight from D.C. to JFK on Saudi Arabian Air, about 10% occupancy. Passengers (Saudi?) seem to be very lively and walking up around the cabin. Lots of children. Men wearing typical western-clothing, older women wearing colorful traditional clothes (robes). Younger women/girls wearing western clothing with no head coverings. Lots of laughing among everyone - especially the children. 31 August 2000: 19:50 @ JFK I noticed there is a large open space at the back of the plane for passengers to pray, where there would normally be seats (about 5 rows x 5 seats in measurement). People are sitting on carpets on the ground praying behind curtains. Sometime during the evening: The plane is dark, save the soothing deep blues emanating from the seat-mounted LCD screens throughout the cabin. It's prayer time again and the back of the plane is occupied by devout Muslims taking turns praying toward Mecca. Several women are sleeping throughout the plane draped completely from head to toe, appearing like covered corpses. A woman in an all black cloak - face completely shielded - glides past me mysteriously through the aisle in the darkness. I am intrigued. Several hours later while flying over southern France: Minor drama occurs as I sleep in my exit row aisle seat when a gown clad Saudi woman faints suddenly and collapses ON TOP OF MY LAP and then crashes to the floor beside me!!! As it turned out (hear-say from the flight attendant), the younger-ish woman had taken a sleeping pill earlier in the flight and was wandering around aimlessly through the cabin with a blank stare in her eyes prior to plunging on to me. At first I was going to be any significant drama aimed toward me because I accidentally groped her in the wrong places (what part *isn't* wrong on a Muslim woman???) as I woke up suddenly and attempted to catch her as she rolled off my lap onto the floor, but fortunately there was no such drama to be had. The flight attendants (they themselves wearing long blue cloaks) administered her with oxygen and eventually returned her to her seat and the whole event concluded without incident (as far as I was concerned). 01 September 2000 - 15:25 - Friday We just flew over Egypt and I saw the Nile River snaking its way through the North African desert. Very cool. Now we are just minutes from landing in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah located on the Red Sea, where we will drop off passengers and pick up others. It's bright and hazy outside. Most women on the plane have begun covering themselves with black robes in preparation for disembarking into Saudi Arabia. 16:00 - Preparing to depart from Jeddah to Riyadh The plane is being boarded by a new group of passengers replacing those who disembarked in Jeddah. This group consists exclusively of men dressed in long white linen robes and black headbands and sandals. Women are completely covered and some are wearing metallic/gold faceplates. The crew of the plane has just been changed and the exterior doors over the wing (near where I'm sitting (were left open for a prolonged period of time to restock the aircraft) and it is currently rather warm and humid in the plane. As I think about the Saudi women in their black cloaks a part of me feels as though I should be shocked at this, but then I remind myself that it is I who is the foreigner here and that I am the one who probably looks strange.     18:30 - Approaching Riyadh The sun has set (again) and below me I see a large, sprawling city in the desert complete with shopping centers, strip malls, housing tracks and freeways. I feel a swarm of butterflies developing in my stomach as we prepare for landing! Welcome to my new life in Saudi Arabia! The airport here is quite new, impressively designed and it is obvious that a lot of money was spent on King Fahd's personal landing strip. Unfortunately since it is considered government property, hence it belongs to the King and is therefore considered a military instillation, it is illegal to photograph (as are all military instillations) so there will be no accompanying photos here.

I got off the airplane after arrival and proceeded to baggage claim where I picked up my two large duffel bags (thanks Dad!). One of the bags was first off the conveyor belt and the second was dead last so I had to wait forever and a day before leaving the airport, but at least both my suitcases arrived together and for that I was extremely grateful. Going through customs I had to put all my check-in luggage and carry-on baggage through a giant industrial sized X-ray machine. My giant duffel bag packed with clothes went through without a hitch but my back filled with books, shoes, electronics, wires and batteries set off every alarm in the system! So to the side I went. Fortunately they were very nice about it and just requested politely that I put my bag on their table and open up and go through everything and since I didn't really have anything that would be subject to confiscation, I wasn't particularly worried. Aside from explosives and other terrorist articles, for the most part the customs officers are looking for drugs and pornographic materials (i.e., anything showing anything remotely related to sexuality or the human body). I was a bit afraid that my Body-For-Life heath & fitness book was going to be confiscated or at least painted black since it's chalked full of nearly naked men in women in sports clothes exercising their little bodies into perfect, but luckily for me the customs guy overlooked it since it was tucked neatly in between all my Arab grammar books (and I think the guy was impressed that I had all these Arabic language materials, so he barely even looked at the books at all). He went through all my shoes and found no problem - as expected, and then he went through my box of odds-and-ends, which included posters and artwork from Japan and little trinkets I've picked up from around the world. Then came my audio 200 CDs and CD-ROMs and just as I feared might happen, they were confiscated and taken to the security department just a few feet away. I had heard that this might happen especially if I had CD-ROMs on which would be stored anti-Islamic data or pornography. All I could think was, "Shit! I really hope they don't confiscate them permanently&ldots; maybe I'll at least get some of them back." I mean, I did my best to make them look as inconspicuous as possible, blacking out any potentially threatening labeling or images on the CDs. And to my pleasant surprise about 10 minutes later, after a random sampling of the CDs had been tested, all three zipper-cases of CDs and CD-ROMs were returned to me and I was cleared for departure out of the airport. Once I exited security I was promptly greeted by a gentleman carrying a "Vinnell Arabia" placard in the main international-arrival terminal and met up with two other Americans who were also on the flight with me and heading out to the Vinnell Arabia Compound for the first time. We three threw all our luggage into a white van and were off to the compound. It was dark outside but the highways were well lit and I just looked out the window at whatever I could see, which for the most part was the comprehensive highway system we were outside of town and a little bit of the barren desert illuminated by the street-side lights. The first two things I noticed was a) that all the speed limit signs were written in Arab numerals (which are different from the Europeanized "Arabic numerals" that everyone in the West knows), and b) that everyone was driving like a maniac! Although there are lane demarcations on the streets, it seems they are invisible to the natives. Cars were all over the 4 lane freeway and people were speeding left and right. Personally, I think I'll not be driving very often here&ldots; Then before I knew it, we had arrived at the Vinnell Arabia Compound. 21:00 - At the Camp The two other guys who had arrived with me (Jim, a 40-something European-American from Colorado and Denzel, a 30-something African-American from Georgia), they were dropped off in their one-level single-unit housing, briefly checked in, and then I was dropped off in my 3rd floor room in one of the several towers bordering the north-eastern parameter of the compound. I hauled my billion-pound duffel bags and carry-ons up the stairs (the van driver tried to help, but he wasn't having a very easy time of it&ldots;) and then we keyed into my room. He directed my attention toward the folder on the table which included vital information and scheduling for me, showed me a little box of food left on the desk to snack on, then took my passport and returned to his van and drove away. (We all have to surrender our passports upon arrival here.) First impressions of my room? 1. "It's quite large!" 2. "Some of the furniture is really 70s-esque looking and I think I'm going to end up needing to sew together some linen covers!" 3. "Nice air conditioner!" 4. "It looks really stark white and bare, I think I'm going to have to unpack immediately!" So I threw my things down, got on the horn to call my Mom and step-Dad to let them know I had arrived safely (humorously, upon arrival the van man said, "You have one free 10 minute call to the outside world" as if I was in jail or something!). So I made my call to say hello for a few minutes and then proceeded to unpack my belongings and make my room feel homey.

Since my most recent place of residence was Japan, I brought with me a slew of Japanese scrolls, posters, table clothes, sake sets and chopsticks so the room has a very distinct Japanese theme to it. I set up my laptop computer on the desk next to my bed so that when I finally get Internet access in the next few days I'll be able to just roll out of bed and check my email at "o'Dark 30" every morning. And above my computer I hung a nice oil print of the Eiffel Tower exploding in fireworks on New Year's 2000 which my Grandmother and Grandfather picked up for me on their trip to Paris two months ago. (Thanks Gma and Gpa!!!!!!! It looks really nice against my white wall and whenever my eyes wander away from my computer screen the print is the first thing I see and it reminds me of you both!) So I put unpacked, rearranged some of the furniture, and set up the room and suddenly felt nice and cozy in my new digs. I opened my little box of food and found the selection to be a bit interesting: a small cheese and lettuce sandwich, a too-wet tuna sandwich (beware of tuna and mayonnaise that has been left out too long!), a boiled egg, four crackers, a little juice box and a slab of lamb in plastic wrap. Hmmm . . . could be better . . . could be worse . . . but at least they made sure I had sometime small to eat upon arrival at least, and for that I was grateful. I ate the cheese and lettuce sandwich, the crackers and drank the juice and stuck the rest in fridge, which unbeknownst to me was set on FREEZE so everything was rock hard the next morning. I then jumped into bed for a nice long night's rest in preparation for a meeting with one of the senior instructors the next afternoon at 3:30pm. (Sidenote: I arrived on a Friday, which in the Muslim world is equivalent to a Christian Sunday and so the next morning, Saturday, was a Monday and the beginning of the Muslim work week.) Saturday, 2 September 2000: Local Personalities On Saturday I was looking forward to meeting some of my fellow co-workers so I figured that would be my goal du jour. Scott McDillips (one of the senior instructors) called me and we arranged our meeting for the afternoon and I pretty much got the feel from the sound of his voice on the phone that he would be a pretty cool guy - after all, phone voices are VERY revealing of people's personalities, I do believe. Then a few minutes later I got a call from Don McDingles (from Michigan?), one of the new teachers who arrived two days before I did. Upon picking up the handset on the telephone I donned my par-telephone-personality-evaluation skullcap and switched my brain into voice analysis mode. The results: slow, screechy, geeky and asocial. "Ugh . . ." I thought, especially since he lives about 50 feet from me and is bound to be my new floor chum. (Proximity often has that effect.) So after the call Don shuffled his little feet over to my apartment and I gave him the grand tour of the room and introduced myself. As for Don, he just spent the last couple years teaching English in Korea and decided to move to Saudi Arabia on a whim (like me, I suppose). Don is in his early 40's, though his frail troll-ish pot-bellied body is about the size of a 12 year-old's and his teeth the quality of a 200 year-old's . . . but you all know me, I'm not one to judge . . . er, uh . . . But I suppose Don is nice enough though, so I shouldn't talk smack about him. It's just that he has a certain Jeffery Dahmer quality about him . . . thin, wispy blond hair, slow but shifty eyes, etc . . . I shall have to keep you posted. Then Scott showed up at 3:30 and here are my first impressions: just as I suspected he would be, he's cool. He's 32, still very young-in-spirit (and that's the important thing, regardless of one's age!), he's about 6'2 (184cm), probably about 15 pounds heavier than me (190# / 86kg) has brown hair and is a decent looking guy. So he showed up and we had plenty to talk about - especially since my first instinct when I saw him wasn't to slam my door closed and nail it shut and hang crucifixes and garlic all around, as it was with Don! So as it turns out, Scott's got a useless university B.A. degree just like I do (Media and Communications vs. Political Science) (joke!) and he's an Internet junky. So what's not to like? So we had plenty to talk about and I think he and I will get along quite well. Scott, Don and I ended up going for a little walk around the compound at 4:30pm and Scott showed us where everything is, from the little convenience store and the mess hall to the gym and racket ball courts. (Too bad I don't have a racket . . . but since the court's built directly adjacent the smoky fossil fuel belching power generators I a bit afraid the thing might blow up without warning, so I think I'll be staying away anyways . . .) So the compound seems nice enough and I shall have to attach some images soon. After our little tour Scott dropped us off and Don and I had a dinner date at the mess-hall. The mess haul is divided into two sections, one for the Americans and Saudis, and one for the Philippino, Bangladeshi, Indian and Pakistani manual laborers. The mess hall building is shaped like an "E" with the top "-" being the dinning hall for the Americans and Saudis, the middle "-" for the work staff, the bottom "-" deceptively called "The International Hall" for the low-paid laborers, and the "I" part of the "E" is a joining hall where food for both groups is served, though each group's food is served on opposite sides of the "I". Interestingly, Americans and Saudis can eat the "International" food, but the "Internationals" are not allowed to eat the American/Saudi entrée. Ironically enough, as is always the case with "third world people" their food is vastly healthier to that of the "privileged" food (consisting of rice and vegetables) so I think I'm going to be eating their food rather often instead of the somewhat greasier Western fare (although I feel bad about going into the International's food line . . .). Sidenote: as it turns out, of the near 500 people who live on base, about 250 are Americans and a few Saudis (all professionals, and no active officers) and the other 250 are manual laborers from the aforementioned countries who are paid between $70 and $250 a month to clean, operate and upkeep the grounds. On one hand I think this sucks, but on the other hand, many of them are totally "unskilled" and illiterate laborers for whom $70 to $250 a month is an ABSOLUTE FORTUNE, especially in the countries from which they come, so . . . So anyways Don and I had a little dinner together where I very briefly met two of my other colleagues, Keith McDiller (the Senior Trainer/Instructor) and Keith McBeau (an instructor). First impressions: Keith McDiller is a strange one. But I kind of got that feeling from him through our email correspondences over the past two months, so I wasn't terribly surprised (ie, from his written style, word choice, etc . . .). There there's Keith McBeau, a 40-something guy (like the other Keith) but actually appears normal enough, although his personality seems a bit skittish and I get the feeling that he's not much of a socializer. But I can support that . . . to each their own. The one thing I noticed upon closer inspection is that he's got a SERIOUS bald man's clam-shell pull-over hair cut going on! Fortunately for him it looks quite good (it's amazing what enough gel and long dark pulled over hair can accomplish . . .) but all I could think was, "Oh, but it won't last forever my boy!" :-) I suppose I shall get to know the both of them more once I start working later in the week. But one person I'm not terribly excited about getting to know is my freak floor mate Donald McDingles. For dinner I had ordered some rice and vegetables with some sort of stir-fry like meat on top. I wasn't sure if it was beef or lamb, so I made the mistake of asking Don. And since he didn't know either he summoned over one of the Bangladeshi mess hall cleaning staff and said, "Is this lamb or beef?" to which the guy didn't respond immediately either because he simply didn't know or didn't understand (I mean, not everyone on planet Earth has a command of the English language after all . . .) so Don repeats, "LAMB or BEEF? You know, Baaaaaahh Baaaaaaah . . . or Moooooooh . . .?" The guy then replied, "It's beef" and walked away and I just sat there thinking, "Don, you are SUCH AN IDIOT." I felt so embarrassed at this degrading display of cultural idiocy&ldots; I mean, Don's a white American and I'm a white American, so whatever idiotic thing he does, it reflects upon me&ldots; sigh&ldots; but I made sure to be as nice to the cleaning staffer as possible and thank him profusely for all his help for the rest of our dining stay as to hopefully leave a partially good impression upon him! Welp, I don't mean to end this page here on a topic with a somewhat negative tinge, but it's time for me to go to bed here. It's 4:47 a.m. and after going to bed last night at 7 p.m. I woke up at 2 a.m. and figured I'd write for a couple hours on this journal entry, so now I'm going to try to get another hour and a half of sleep before I wake up for more Orientation and Training at 6:30 a.m... so I shall write and post more journal entries on line soon! Ma' as-salama! Good-bye! :-) Feel free to e-mail me at danielschereck@yahoo.com !!! P.S. (Next Day) - I have found that Mr. Donald is a nice guy, who means well etc etc etc... but I still think he's shockingly strange . . . ;-} . . . more on that later . . . ciao for now! Links Megasite / Saudi Links