Sidewalk Skiing in Saudi Arabia First I must explain for those readers who do not know me, I have lived in Saudi, so this does not come as a surprise to me, but it might to you. Along with these really 'neat' photos of Saudian youth just having fun, I am adding a few other anecdotes of things that actually happened while we were there, and one that happened before we got there. http://news.yahoo.com/pho...
First, when you enter Saudi, you already know not to bring certain things with you. You do not bring in a Christmas tree or a Bible. There are no churches allowed in Saudi, so if you have any hopes at all of having any kind of worship hour, plan on having it in the privacy of your own house there, and don't tell anyone about it. You also know not to bring in anything that is made by Sears Roebuck, or Levi Strauss. Also, do not have a stamp in your passport from either Jerusalem or South Africa. In the former two companies, the Saudis will confiscate whatever you bring in and if you're wearing your jeans, you won't be for long! In the second instance with the passport, they simply won't let you in the country. Since 1983/84 they may have lifted the rule eliminating entry from South Africa, but I am not sure about that.
While in Saudi we were fortunate in that we women were allowed to wear slacks provided the top we wore had sleeves past the elbow, and well past the crotch of the pants. The neckline also was not allowed to be low cut. A second plus for we women is we were allowed to ride bicycles. We were specifically told not to allow our children to simply run around freely. They were to ALWAYS have someone with them, several friends if possible due to the child kidnapping and trafficking that went on, or in the case of young girls; rape, and then either sold or murdered. (I should add here that if such thing did occur, it would have been the fault of the parent and child, not the perpetrator. As an engineer, my husband at the time saw many things that just blow the mind as to how stupid these people were.
For example: 1) There is such a thing as a "pig", which is a radioactive instrument that is used in detecting cracks in metal. These are shipped into Saudi for the purposes of meeting ASME Code standards in building things. In this case it was the construction of a desalination plant for turning sea water into fresh water. Radioactivity decreases over time, and in the case of these 'pigs', (if memory serves me right) it was each month it lost a half life. So it starts out from England at 100% strength and it takes about a month to reach Saudi as it is shipped in. When it reaches Saudi, the Saudian handling entry into the country cannot understand where 50% of the curies went, because he must account for them! So he holds up entry for at least another month while the executives try to make the Saudis understand this concept.
2) This same thing happened with an airliner bound for Africa. It left Saudi with 100 bottles of booze (the little bottles you can buy while flying). Now, there is no booze allowed "in" Saudi, but the airfield is a safe harbor as the bottles are counted when the air plane lands and they do not leave the plane. Well, on one particular flight the airline developed engine trouble about a hundred miles out on its way to somewhere in Africa. This meant that they had already left Saudian airspace and were out over international airspace, so people began buying and drinking some of the booze. The pilot radioed Saudi it was returning due to engine trouble, but when the plane landed it only had about 60-some bottles of booze on board and the Saudi's could not comprehend where the contents of those bottles had gone!
3) Our son made friends with three little Filipino boys and on several occasions they had to run from Saudi men. When we would go into town as a family, the men would reach out and stroke his head because he was a "pretty" boy to them! As for the girls, they were told to never be caught on the bus alone. Well, just such an occurrence happened with my 9th grader. We couldn't bring the two older girls because they do not have school for girls past 9th grade. She ended up on the bus (hers was the last stop) with just herself, the driver and one Saudi man. The bus driver drove around behind the apartment buildings for the Saudis, stopped the bus, opened the doors and ran! The Saudi man started toward the back of the bus with every intention of raping my daughter (She had, after all, asked for it!). My daughter grabbed the side rails at the back door, pulled her knees to her chest and kicked the man square in his chest knocking him all the way back to the driver's now empty seat, at which time she ran up to the front of the bus and stomped the daylights out of the man and then ran home.
4) Construction stopped when the camel herder moved his camels in. There is 20 ft high fence that ARAMCO constructed along a stretch of highway they were building. They constructed the fence to keep the camels safe or they might have gotten onto the highway and walked up the partial ramp that was in place. If they fell off that partially built ramp, it would have been ARAMCO's fault. Well, a Saudi engineer would sit each day gazing out his window at this ramp, and he obviously had watched too many reruns of Dukes of Hazard because one day he decided to get in his car and jump that fence. He barrelled down the road and up the ramp and over the fence ... he almost flew! His back wheels caught on the top of the fence and the car was left hanging there. Whatever happened to the driver, we never learned, but the car had hung there long enough that it was collecting rust!
5) There are some very interesting things they have in Saudi they do not have here. One is a machine at the "suk" or the open air super market. This gadget looks like an old fashioned wringer washing machine, except that the wringer portion has 4 inch prongs that stick out of the two rollers. When you buy chicken over there, you select the bird you want, the vendor reaches into the cage, takes the bird by the head and holding the head he then dangles the body in between the two rollers, slams them shut and pulls the chicken out. This successfully kills the chicken instantly and plucks him as well. He then hands you the chicken and the rest? You're on your own!
6) While at the suk, I would give my son and my daughter each money and send one to my right after vegetables ONLY, and the other after fruit ONLY. Then, keeping a close eye on them both, they would eventually end up back at my side and each would have fruits and vegetables. The vendors wanted them to buy both, so they would give samples of what they didn't buy to each of them. So much for today!
Thought you needed a few fun highlights. Cheers! Annette
Dubai one night. He had befriended a local who was in charge of part of the shipyard where his ship was being repaired. The guy had lots of dollars and no sense. We loaded a couple of coolers with beer, grabbed numerous shotguns and rifles from...