One moment I was walking down a cold foggy street in the pre-light hours of the morning, pulling my suitcase behind me and watching the milkman set bottles of milk on the sleeping English families’ doorsteps. Eight hours later I was standing in the steaming heat in the Persian Gulf surrounded by hundreds of people from Pakistan, India, Yemen, Korea, and Saudi Arabia.

Still in my pocket was the ticket stub from the train I had taken from Deal, on the coast of England, to London. Jingling in my pocket were three fifty pence coins. Now that world had disappeared. No more peaceful Englishmen reading the newspaper on the train, no more honking English cabs or quiet conversations in the pub. Now, only hours later, I had deplaned in a land of sweaty chaos.

I was carted off to my apartment in Al Khobar by an Egyptian teacher who had come to meet me at the airport. He spoke very little English, so our conversation was limited. Next to him sat a grizzly Egyptian peasant dressed in a white thobe (a white sheet draped over his entire body) and sandals. This fellow leered at me with dark gleaming eyes for several moments, and then smiled a wide, toothless grin. Though I was working in Saudi Arabia, the school administration and Arab speaking staff were Egyptians. The English speaking section would be composed of one Englishman, one Welshman, one Pakistani, a fellow from New Zealand, two Irishmen, and myself, an American.

The Egyptian teacher had a difficult time finding the apartment, but finally we circled onto a main street called Yamboo Street in Al Khobar. They took me to my apartment in a cinder block building. Our footsteps echoed as we walked up the stairs to the third floor, reminding me of the stairs used for the fire escape in a modern hotel. There was no furniture in the apartment except an unplugged refrigerator that had just been moved in and a bed with an unused mattress wrapped in plastic in one of the bedrooms. The teacher and his companion bid me farewell, and I was left to my own devices.

I decided to walk farther up the stairs outside the apartment to see if I might get on top of the roof of the building and have a look around. Up there I could get my bearings, maybe see the airport where I had landed, see some familiar stars, a constellation or the moon, so that I might feel a little more at home. The roof turned out to be a spectacular place. Surrounded by a parapet, it was like the top of a castle. The evening was warm, but a slight breeze sifted about me. I looked up through the haze at the stars but could not see any of the constellations with which I was familiar. I looked over to where I thought the airport was, but could see no jets taking off or landing. Then as I approached the wall and stared over the ledge down at Yamboo Street, I realized I was in a land unlike any I had ever traveled through. The street was crowded with people, goats, and cars. Strange wailing and crying music interwoven with pungent smells of food being cooked greeted my senses. Men dressed in long white thobes, looking like elegant ghosts, walked ahead of wives dressed in black robes that covered them from head to foot.

Taking a walk on the street proved to be an even stranger experience. A man in a new American truck drove in the front, while his wives, five in this case, sat in the back. Pakistanis, in their baggy pants and loose shirts, carried bread and pastries in huge trays balanced on their heads, while another sharpened his knife and cut thin slices of meat for sandwiches off a hunk of meat roasting over an open fire on the sidewalk. Children ran and played. Someone threw his garbage out of a window four or five floors up onto the sidewalk below, nearly hitting a man walking beneath it. An old white bearded man with a heavy walking stick chastised younger men for no apparent reason. Later I would find out that he was a holy man reminding the younger fellows of their duty to Allah. I was mesmerized by Yamboo Street. It was colorful and primitive, like a scene out of the Arabian Nights, except that there were huge American limousines, glimmering under the dim shop lights, creeping down the congested street.

Exhausted and disoriented I retired to my apartment, found some sheets and a blanket and made up the bed. I decided a hot shower and a good night’s sleep would make me feel one hundred percent better.

I turned on the water in the shower and waited for it to heat up. There was no shower curtain. I stepped into the tub and felt a strange tingling sensation. I knew I was tired and suffering from jet lag and lack of sleep, but something was cutting through all of this. The tingling became stronger, and I felt myself involuntarily shuddering and jerking spasmodically. I sprang fully awake--I was being shocked! I jumped out of the shower, slipped, and banged my knee on the edge of the bathtub, yelping in fright and pain. I could hear yelling from the apartments around me. Someone must have heard my shriek. There was banging on doors and running around outside the apartment, yet no one was banging on my door. Then they were. I pulled a pair of pants over my wet skin, as there were no towels, and rushed out to the door. Some Egyptian men pushed past me and started inspecting the water heater. They sighed with relief and unplugged it. Later I learned that the water heater element had rusted through and that the bare wire was shooting electricity into the water. And it just wasn’t my water. It had affected everyone’s water in the building and several of the Egyptian wives had been shocked while washing dishes or bathing. I returned to my shower after they had left, rinsed off in cold water and went to bed.

I dreamed that I was high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. I was alone, sleeping in a tent, and I was surrounded by wolves. The wolves were howling and screaming, waiting to eat me. The beasts were getting closer and closer, and I knew that any moment they were going to rush me. One of them had the head of a teacher I had had in the third grade who had beaten up a Piute Indian student. In the dream I tried to reason with her, but she said I must be a Piute too, because I had dark skin. I pleaded, telling her that I was Scottish and German and Italian, a mutt, but she insisted I was Piute. She could talk to the other wolves, who began to scream louder and louder. I awoke. It was still semi-dark in my room, and in those moments before full wakefulness, I continued to hear the wolves screaming at me. I jerked up, fully awake. The wolves were still screaming, and they were directly outside my window. I jumped to my feet and stared out. There, across the street, was a mosque, and high above it in the minaret were four gray loudspeakers, the old fashioned type used at hometown baseball and football games which always seem to squeak and whine. An old fellow coughed and hacked into the microphone. After a pause, he continued his melodic wailing again. My wolves were the morning call to prayer.

I rushed to the top of the roof. There I could see hundreds of the faithful taking off their shoes and entering the mosque. The police, driving by in a green and white car with loudspeakers mounted on top, yelled at the people, “Selah! Selah!.“ The old man, whom I had seen the night before with the big walking stick, was also yelling at people while at the same time brandishing the stick. I wondered if I was expected to go to prayer even though I wasn’t a Moslem. The police drove slowly around, and I thought they might see me up on the roof, so I went back down the stairs into my apartment.

When the call to prayer stopped, I once again heard banging on my neighbors’ doors and running in the hallways. I opened the door and peered out. Some of the Egyptian teachers had grown lazy and weren’t going to prayer, so the administration had sent over a lackey to wake them up and make sure they went to the mosque. After they had left, the apartment became peaceful. As it turned out, I wasn’t expected to go and pray five times a day as the Moslems do, and the police I had seen are called religious police. It is their duty to make sure all businesses close down during prayer time, which lasts about forty-five minutes. If one is caught on the street during prayer time, he simply waits until it is over; however, if a business man is caught doing business during prayer time he can be arrested. On one occasion, I was buying a desk when prayer began. The Arabs invited me into their shop, closed the blinds, and we had tea during the prayer. We all sat on the floor, and in a delicate and ceremonious manner, the owner poured yellow tea from a silver pot into small handleless porcelain cups that were hot to the touch.

Later that day, a neighbor, Colin, one of the Irish teachers, and his daughter, Cindy, showed me where the school was. When we arrived the first thing the principal, Ali, asked for was my passport. He explained it was a Saudi Arabian law that the employer must keep the employee’s passport. Colin confirmed this. I feared that once I gave over my passport I would never be able to leave. I was to discover later that in order to leave Saudi Arabia I not only needed my passport but also an exit visa which would have to be approved and applied for by my employer.

There are many reasons why Saudi Arabia has set up a system of this nature. First of all, no alcohol is allowed in the country. There are restaurants and bars in the hotels, but they only serve juices and non-alcoholic beer. There are no theatres, and the local women are strictly off limits. While I was there, a young Saudi girl had an affair with a westerner. Her father found out about it, and he and the girl’s brother met her getting off the bus and cut her throat.

There is no display of affection allowed in public. Kissing, hugging, even holding hands are not allowed. Western women may not wear shorts or skirts, although you will see the occasional American or British woman shopping downtown in a long skirt. Nor are women supposed to show their bare arms. I was told that Saudi men believe that most western women are whores because they reveal so much flesh.

Eon, the Moslem teacher from Cyprus, and I used to wait for the bus to take us to work. Across the street from us a group of Moslem children also waited. Among them was a pretty young girl who had a charming and alluring smile. One day she showed up and her face was covered by a veil. I noticed this change, and was puzzling over it when Eon said, “She has passed through her change of life. She is a woman now.”

Women cannot obtain a driver’s license in Saudi Arabia because it is against the law for them to drive. And, they must ride in the back of the buses in a caged off compartment that has its own separate door, which opens when the bus stops. When one of the teaching couples and I wanted to go somewhere, the husband’s wife would have to sit in the back.

One feels the eyes of the Arabs on you at all times. The religious police circle about in their green and white cars, calling the prayer five times a day, the heat beats down on you, the humid air from the Gulf soaks your clothes, and despite the good wages, you begin to think how nice it would be to leave, but you can’t, for you don’t have your passport, and you need the exit visa.

Survival in those first few months is difficult. Depression sets in. People who gave up smoking start again. If you are used to freedom, to chasing women, watching movies, even reading books of your own choice you can’t help but feel the oppressiveness of Saudi Arabia. (Unless of course you live on one of the compounds operated by Aramco Oil Company. These compounds are virtual pieces of America transported to the Middle East, with such amenities as golf courses, libraries, modern homes, and supermarkets. These compounds are off limits to non-registered guests.)

One senses the oppressiveness of Saudi before arriving, for there is no alcohol served on the jet entering the country. When I went through customs, I was patted down and my luggage searched. When the Arab customs agent saw that I was reading an old copy of Kurt Vonneguts’s Cat’s Cradle, he asked me what it was about. I said it was about life and shrugged my shoulders. He examined the book closely and then tossed it into a bin behind him. Later at the bookstore I found out that all but the most innocuous books are censored. On atlases, or maps in magazines, Israel is blotted out with a felt tip pen. Copies of Time or Newsweek magazine have pages torn out.

The King had declared that all women (including Westerners) were forbidden to swim in the public swimming pools at the modern hotels because of course they would wear bathing suits. If you were put in jail for some minor offence, you would have to have someone provide food for you. The jail in Al Khobar was an old Aramco apartment building. Outside it was a concession stand that sold food. Someone would have to buy you the food and then bring it to you in your cell. Down the street where I lived was a prison for criminals who had committed more serious crimes and would be incarcerated for a longer time. It had a high brown wall like a fortress around it. On top of the wall was coiled barb wire, and outside the main gate, a young soldier sat in a folding chair with a machine guy cradled in his arms. I was told that the prison had no cells. A prisoner was simply given a space, and this was his space to stand, sleep, etc.

Westerners are subject to Arab law. Two British men somehow managed to smuggle two cases of scotch into the country. They proceeded to get drunk and then drive. They failed to stop at one of the road checks and were pursued to the compound where they were living. They were brought before a Saudi court, and though represented by a western lawyer versed in Moslem law, they were sentence to twelve years in prison.

It is not a country where a wise person would test the limits of the law. These customs and laws were particularly tough on the young single men like myself. I did discover, though, that even in Saudi Arabia, where foreign couples must show proof that they are married before they are allowed in the country, and where extramarital and casual affairs are forbidden, there is an underworld of illicit passion, and there are men and women making a lot of money providing it.

Jim Muckle is the author of How To Find Jobs Teaching Overseas (updated third edition for 2006)which includes a step by step guide on how he obtained his first four teaching positions overseas, sample cover letter and resume, teaching contracts from three countries, answers to the eighteen most frequently asked questions about teaching overseas and 200 schools in 75 countries.
Jim Muckle http://hometown.aol.com/jimmuckle/myhomepage/business.html