Conversation with Nabil on KLM

I met another gentleman on the flight home from Amsterdam to Chicago, Nabil, a General Manager at Al-Yubr, located in Jubail, Saudi Arabia:

He is of Palestinian descent. Married an ex-pat, American teacher, and they lived in the Middle East about 18 years together. She decided to move back to the US not too long ago.

They have four or five children, ages 18 to 30, most of whom are out of college. They went to college in the Midwest: Purdue, Iowa, and Evansville.

He was heading to the US to celebrate Christmas and the holidays with his family. One daughter was to pick him up from the airport. She lives in Matteson, IL, apparently with her mother as well. They were going to travel together first to Atlanta, then to Florida, where they will actually celebrate Christmas.

He said Al-Yubr is about a 2200-employee company, doing contracting, oil field maintenance (I believe), and other industry services. He said Saudization is a failure, citing that approximately 50% of his company are Filipinos.

He mentioned that having Saudi Aramco on your client list opens doors to other companies. He mentioned SABIC (Saudi Arabian Basic Industries), which PDI already has contacts with and in fact has a big opportunity with.

In my recent efforts now to network, I was very pleased to make the acquaintance of both Azer and Nabil.

> Fortunately I find it easy to talk with people and make friends.  I listen well, and keep track of conversation.  I had a number of such wonderful conversations with a friend, while visiting him in Stockholm, that he came to understand my need to "download" after each one.  That is, I don't take notes, but can remember the conversation really well, as long as I get to my laptop and tap out notes on my journal.

Notes
Ron Villejo, PhD
November 2012 <

Conversation with Azher on KLM

I was in our dormitory, Steineke Hall, at our client's HQ in Saudi Arabia, recounting the bits and pieces of conversation I had, miles in the air, just two days before. 

Steineke Hall

I met a gentleman named Azher, onboard the KLM flight from Amsterdam to Dammam this past Friday. He looked to be a quiet Middle Eastern man. And me, because I am shy underneath it all, I kept quiet as well for much of the trip. He was actually the one who broke the silence between us. As I prepared for my first two days of client meetings, he remarked “Have a lot of work, too?” He had documents and files in front of him as well.

At issue 

We shared the work that we do, our families, and also talked about some of key circumstances surrounding the Middle East: 

The fact that the majority of the September 11th hijackers were Saudis, and concerns about money within the country having been funneled to the hijackers.

The threat of war against Iraq, and my hope that it never breaks out and that the US ultimately addresses what appears to be key causes to terrorism: poverty and lack of business investment in less fortunate countries in the world.

Our client having been very gracious and receptive to working with Americans on their leadership development. We take care to steer away from potentially sensitive, political issues.

The ambivalent, complex relationship between Saudi Arabia and the US., especially as it relates to the Israel-Palestine conflict and the demand for oil.

His business

Runs his own textile company out of Indianapolis, IN, with 56 employees, and apparently serves customers in the Middle East and Europe.

They supply washcloths and linens, I believe, to customers in the hotel, hospital, and laundry industries.

He mentioned that he was traveling right now to the Middle East to address a quality problem with a supply chain partner. Apparently the packaging of their product and the quality control measures in this region are not meeting standards (e.g., loose threads are not being snipped).

The downturn in the economy has in fact impacted them: e.g., because there are fewer travelers, hotels have less need for washcloths and linens.

His family

Has three teenage adolescents, the eldest of whom is a daughter who has requested an arranged marriage. He is Pakistani, and he and his wife met through a similar process in Pakistan. He (and his wife, I imagine) apparently offered their eldest a choice.

Because of travels, he works to focus on quality of time with his family. For example, during the World Cup in Korea, he and his son traveled there together to watch soccer games. He and another daughter traveled together to San Diego (I cannot remember for what).

He and his family just finished observing Ramadan. He traveled during this month-long observation, but apparently kept it to some minimum.

I mentioned our efforts to accommodate prayer times in our work with Saudi Aramco. There are five times: sunrise, midday, mid-afternoon, sunset, and midnight. And Arab folks can combine two of them into one, especially when they are traveling.

> I mistakenly thought Azher was Middle Eastern.  As a Pakistani, he's Asian.  Three months after this journal entry, in March 2003, the US was at war in Iraq (sigh).

Notes
Ron Villejo, PhD
November 2012 <

Venerable Tree of Life

> I kept a Word journal of my journeys to the Middle East, and thought I had lost it for good, when I couldn't find it.  But sometimes things have a way of reappearing, just when we aren't looking.  So there it was, yesterday, in one of my folders.

You may know that the earth's crust is made up of plates.  Its spherical surface is far from smooth, more like a soccer ball with uneven sections than a perfectly seamless beach ball.  These jagged plates lean, and press against each other at the edges with great pressure.  By and large the opposing forces create an equilibrium, but on occasion there is slippage, way deep under ocean waters.  The resulting force is so great, as to cause a horribly destructive tsunami. 

The earth's crust, and its behavior, are called plate tectonics.

I use the word 'tectonic' to mean something momentous.  My journeys to the Middle East are tectonic.  A life-changer in ways I could've never imagined.

Here is the very first entry in that journal, on March 12th 2002.  It was Tuesday morning, and I was en route back home aboard KLM Royal Dutch, from Amsterdam and Chicago, after our first fateful trip to Bahrain. <

Tree of Life, in Bahrain.  Photo, by Faisal Ansari.

What did I do to learn about Bahrain?

I visited the Bahrain National Museum on Thursday afternoon, March 7th. The taxi driver who took me there - an Omani gentleman named Rashid - also took me back to the hotel, and clearly appreciated the fact that I called him specifically to do so.  I arranged for Rashid to take on a tour toward southern Bahrain. He first took me to the Bahrain fort. Then our route to the Oil Museum passed by the mansion of the Al Khalifa royal family. The museum sits off the Jabal al Dukhan, the highest elevation in Bahrain (not very high), and right besides it, the location of the very first oil well.  Bahrain was the first Arab country to discover oil (1932).

Then, the Tree of Life.

It was described as a tree that defied the odds of nature.  Living about 400 years, when the tree is expected to live about 100 years. Living in the desert environment, where its exact water source is still a mystery. The descriptions suggested that the tree commanded reverence from people. 

So I was terribly disappointed when I visited and it was hardly protected from the abuses of people. It had graffiti on it, for God’s sake! There was no surrounding barrier really. There was a banner on it. There was trash in the surrounding area. And there was drag strip racing in the desert, when one guidebook indicated the need to respect the desert. Moreover, the tree’s bark looked like the skin of an elder person and was very much part of the reverence it commanded. Unfortunately, because it was not well taken care of, it looked like it was dying. The bottom part of the tree had relatively few leaves and the top part had leaves that did not look healthy.

> I remember, too, that a horizontal branch had grown so long and so big it was virtually laying on the desert surface.  The photo above doesn't quite depict it, but it was as if this venerable tree had placed a gnarled elbow on the ground to support the weight of that branch.  Imagine yourself thinking at your desk, chin on your palm and your elbow on the desk.  

Imagine sitting at your desk for 400 years.  

Notes
Ron Villejo, PhD
November 2012 <