Herdie and I spent an afternoon and evening, touring with Ahmad, one of our Aramco guys. We found him to have strong relationship-building skills, from a leadership assessment program we ran, so it was not a surprise that he invited us to visit towns near their HQ and we hit it off well.
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| Al Qatif (2004) |
Al Qatif
We headed to Al Qatif, one of the ancient cities in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, and met Sayeed, another friend at a designated spot along the main street through the city. He was also an 'Aramcon' who worked in Ras Tanura. He knew the city really well, though his English was broken.
One of the best parts of the tour was the port where the fishermen and their dhows were docked. It was quite populated, an offshore community of dark-skinned Indian men wearing their ‘skirt’ (cloth wrapped around their lower body). Ahmad said a businessman had 10-15 dhows, and employed a number of men whom he'd pay $100/month in salary.
It was indeed a community, with a range of activities among the men: (a) one older man was pulling a rope hard to get his dhow (boat) to sit against the dock, but he couldn’t do it all the way and a younger man simply tied the rope tighter; (b) some younger men playing, and tossing each other into the water; (c) some maintaining a dhow that’s been dry-docked.
The dhows have a white prow and a flat simple stern. The roofing was like our trellis, made simply of 2 x 2s. During the hotter season, the men will put covering on top to protect them from the sun. All of them have the green Saudi Arabian flag attached. They can go only to designated areas at sea, and the flags identify the country to which they belong.
A man was retrieving blocks of ice, one by one, from a truck, and then handing it off to another man, then another, and so forth to the designated dhow. It was their assembly line. Al Hajry Ice Factory was printed on the truck, probably printed there by the owner’s hand. Another truck had Ali Al-Saud Ice Factory.
So this is their part of the supply chain process, and I was thinking there has to be a better, faster way of getting that ice to the dhow. Also, I wonder if it might be economical in the long run to purchase a large refridgeration system and install it on the dhow. But would these men even accept a new idea? Would the expense and upkeep of a refridgeration system outweigh the familiarity and simplicity of what they’ve been doing?
Ahmad said that the team or company didn't actually sell fish to a distributor, but rather distributed it directly to a wholesaler. He said that the fish must be put on ice, otherwise the health authorities would not let them sell what they caught. Sayeed said that once fish was caught at sea, it must be put in an icebox quickly.
One team was busily getting ready to go back out to sea. They were working on large baskets made of wire netting. They’re shaped as a dome with a flat bottom, and they sit on the seabed. Some men were lacing a funnel to the mouth of the basket. Food sits inside, and the fish enter through the funnel and cannot come back out. They’d tie certain colored ribbons on top of the basket, so they could be distinguished from those that belong to another team.
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| Al Qatif (2004) |
We drove through the town of Al Qatif, and saw a number of less than well-to-do neighborhoods with a lot of dilapidated buildings. They were generally made of concrete. But on one building, for instance, the eroded concrete laid bare the wooden beams that must have helped keep the structure together. Still, people lived in some buildings that must have been borderline dilapidated. This part of the trip wasn’t quaint at all, in the way that Old Town Stockholm was definitely quaint. Nonetheless I found the experience and sight equally meaningful.
Speaking of dwellers. In one narrow, circuitous alleyway, a woman in an abaya came out. I saw that she quickly made sure that her face was covered. She must have trailed behind us, but Sayeed said, “Excuse,” and he motioned us to step aside to let the woman pass, and so she did, turned left as we kept walking forward. For a couple of awkward moments, Herdie and I weren’t sure where to stand to let her pass: on the left or on the right?
In another part of town, we saw the remains of a small Ottoman castle. Herdie pointed out a picture of that castle, where we visited the Heritage Village in Dammam. I tried to imagine that castle in its full glory.
There were a lot of mosques, so people could just walk to them. As we drove and dusk descended, I could see the green light emanating from the minarets of the mosques, and it made a glow in the darkening sky.
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| Al Qatif (2004) |
We saw other flags placed outside dwellings: dark red, green etc. They were apparently a remembrance of the death of Imam Ali and Imam Hussein, the blood successors of the Prophet Muhammad (PBHM). I understood that Arab people remembered and talked about the dead as though they were still alive and as though their deaths occurred just recently. In fact, Imam Ali was killed in 661 AD and Imam Hussein in 680 AD.
Ras Tanura
The shops were closed, and we apparently were making good time, as we finished touring Al Qatif. Ahmad dropped off Sayeed, then decided to take us to Ras Tanura. This is the site of the largest refinery in the Kingdom, and it was where Ahmad worked. Like Dhahran, it was also haven for employees and their families. It was a sleepy haven, though, with apparently 50% of the houses unoccupied now. It bordered part of the Arabian Gulf, so there was a beach there. Green grass, too, and a lot of palm trees. It looked a resort.
I met up with an Aramcon last Fall (2003), a woman named Bronwyn. She said that she and her husband owned a beach house in Ras Tanura, and invited us to visit. That was a while ago, and I didn't even think that she remembered me or our conversation. But I thought about getting Joe or Patrick to contact her and see if her invitation was still open. Now that we were actually there, it wasn't pressing anymore.
Dammam
Then off we went to Dammam. The only time I had been in Dammam was in December 2002, when my American colleagues - Val, Dave, Adam - and I flew into the Kingdom. It was a rather crowded airport, and there wasn’t much to see on our ride from there to Dhahran because it was very late at night. This time, Dammam seemed to be a bustling city, with some modern areas. There was a bottleneck at one roundabout, which made me wish these roundabouts were eliminated. Bahrain had a several of them.
Heritage Village is a hodgepodge museum of many items that were sorted according to type (e.g., documents, camera, tools). The owner apparently just purchased them and collected them for display. There were photos as well of various 20th century Kingdom and Aramco activities, including a collection showing King Abdul Aziz.
Heritage Village was also a restaurant. The dining rooms were just that: dining rooms. They were situated according to sections that represented certain cities or regions of the Kingdom. One represented Al Qatif (mostly white, simple colors); another the southern region (lots of red); and then another section representing a region that I didn't recall, except that there were two raised seats here, so the heads of the household sat higher than the rest.
In a traditional Arab household, the son and his wife lived with his family. They raised their children there. There could be other family members living in the same household. The structure of Heritage Village – with its naturally-shaped wooden beams and ribbings made from the fronds of palm trees serving as the ceiling – its décor, and its overall ambience were all meant to capture that traditional Arab household. Everyone had his or her own dwelling within the house, then everyone gathered together with the children in the middle.
It was common for Arab couples to have seven to eight children, unlike Americans who have “One or two.” When Ahmad said this, it was absolutely correct: I have one child, and Herdie has two.
Ahmad also said that over time, houses were getting smaller, so the young couple tended to live away from the family of origin and rent out their own apartment. I didn't think the trend away from traditional could be attributed solely to smaller houses. I bet that houses were built smaller, in light of the fact that young couples were less apt to live with the broader family. Then, I bet that as this trend took hold, contractors built smaller houses, which of course would’ve have prompted families to disperse their young adults further outward.
A number of the houses had water tanks on top. There was a shortage of sweet water, so households had to contract out for it. The desalination process apparently left the water still slightly salty. On one house, the tank was raised even higher, and Herdie reasoned that it was to create more water pressure through the faucet system.
Al Khobar
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| Our pal Joe, Al Khobar streets (2003) |
After tossing around ideas and preferences for places to eat, Ahmad settled on Tandoori. We got in, in the nick of time, as it was the final prayer time. The restaurant owners graciously kept the door open for us, as we hurried in. Apparently the matawan would’ve nabbed them, if they found out they were serving people during prayer time.
We were all starving and thirsty, and so we polished off Arabian bread and hummous and baba gnoush. I had Persain Kabab.
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