Everywhere You Go You Always Take The Weather With You

I arrived in Saudi Arabia just over a week ago, in a thunderstorm. The plane Captain almost aborted the landing when lightning struck the runway in front of him. Of course he didn't tell us this until we had landed, and only in English. I know this because I have enough French and German to get by, but I wondered why he had kept this to the English speakers on board.

I think I have a tendency to bring weather with me when I go places. Before I was married and divorced, what seems like an eternity ago, I went to the Shetland Islands after the Braer Oil Disaster. The intention was to help clear up the 85,000 tonnes of Crude Oil that came pouring out of the stricken ship.

When we arrived on the ferry, we brought with us the highest tide in the Island's history, as well as a heavy blizzard and high winds. These three things, combined with the rolling waves performed the miracle of breaking the oil up so no slick could develop. Thus The environmental catastrophe that had been feared and predicted never happened.

It really had nothing to do with me of course, but the little old lady we stayed with insisted we were "charmed". At least that's what i hoped she said. The Scottish accent is very pronounced up there and it sounded like she was saying we were "jammed". I may have escaped a nasty sexual experience through naivity, and probably not for the first time.

There has been no weather since, here in Saudi. Just hot sun. Saudi Arabia is very very very hot. I expect this is not really news to you, but this isn't like any heat I have encountered before, including the filling from a McDonalds Hot Apple Pie. It is a dry dusty oppressive heat. When you walk outside even just for a few seconds you start to stagger like someone lost in the desert and you lose your trousers from the knees down.

Friday of course is the Islamic Sabbath. So the weekend here is on Thursday and Friday. It is best not to go outside on a Friday, so I have been told. The religious police (The Muttaween) are out in force making sure people are obeying the Sharia dress code and attending prayers. Here's a news report highlighting some of the issues http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1874471.stm

Some of the other contractors here speak of being forced to go and watch public executions and attend mosques, even when they state to the muttaween that they are not muslim.

For the most part, apparently and hopefully, whites avoid the harsher treatment. To promote Western investment there is a tendency for the authorities to have one rule for the brown skinned and one for the white. I am guiltily grateful of this, but also worried about my fellow contractors who are either Asian , Indian or black.

This means, though, that my workmates like having me in their cars as they get waved through the checkpoints that punctuate the highways in Riyadh without having to surrender their passports or licenses. And back to the metereological theme of this post, this makes me a bit of a fair weather friend to them, at least until we get to know each other better. Its nice to feel needed and it helps me settle in.