Brownies and Kalashnikovs Page 2

  Now Marwan was regaling us with impersonations of Mama during yet another clash with Aramco’s long-suffering personnel department over her accusations of shoddy workmanship in the maintenance of our bungalow (Marwan was the shanghaied interpreter with the Filipino clerks). I knew I could count on shared feelings of outrage at the insolence of the Dhahran Airport passports officer towards me away from Baba’s unsympathetic ears. Our father wanted us educated but unaltered, an impossible task. Politics and demands for civil reforms in Lebanon where I had been studying for the past five years were influencing my perception of Saudi Arabia and Aramco. I was eager to discuss my changing views of the world with my siblings and tell them about my new Lebanese boyfriend, Adnan, a young journalist for the influential Lebanese newspaper, An Nahar.

  I smiled inwardly as Fatin and Ghassan interrupted one another amidst loud laughter at the confusion they’d cause after disclosing their real nationality to new English acquaintances and then watch them politely and discreetly attempt to adjust to the Saudi Arab rather than the American they had thought they were talking to. I was having the same responses in Lebanon but with a lot less hilarity. Neither the United States nor Saudi Arabia was particularly popular in Beirut against the ever-present turmoil of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict that defined everyone’s identity and politics.

  My siblings and I were Saudi by virtue of having been born to a Saudi father and that’s where Saudi Arabia stopped in defining us. Without ever stepping foot in the United States of America, we had developed into a new breed of the American colonized while living on Saudi Arabian soil: Saudi in name and as American as the Americans in everything else, we called ourselves ‘Aramcons.’ Circumstance alone would pull only me into an Arab awakening while my siblings would remain firmly as American as the apple pie we had just eaten for dessert. Eventually we would inhabit two separate worlds at extreme odds with one another…

  Desert Dust to Desert Gold Dhahran began as a dusty collection of makeshift tents and palm tree frond huts in 1933 to house American oil men of the California Arabian Standard Oil Company, Aramco’s forerunner. Even then the oil camp was, as it remains today, the largest American enclave in the Middle East, despite a homesick American’s plaintive song:

  ‘Home no more in Dhahran

  Where the Arabs and Bedouins play

  Where a shamal always blows

  And God only knows

  What causes a White man to stay?’1

  The answer to his question is ‘oil’ of course. The Americans had begun searching for oil in Saudi Arabia in the early 1930s in spite of Great Britain’s firm conviction that the Eastern Province did not have enough oil to be worth the trouble. Doggedly, the first American geologists followed old camel trails and crisscrossed the desert many times over in Ford V8 touring cars and a Fairchild monoplane, certain that they would strike oil. Expectedly, these trips created quite a stir amongst the locals as Nassir Al-Ajmi, a Saudi who rose to become an Aramco CEO, wrote in his autobiographical book, Legacy of a Lifetime. Describing his first contact with cars and foreigners as a child in a nomadic camp on the edge of the Ghawar field, the world’s largest oil field, he wrote:

  “The first time that I saw a vehicle was a frightening experience. I was playing with other children next to our encampment when we heard a strange noise. We saw an odd-looking thing rushing towards us with a cloud of dust behind it. We ran as fast as our legs could carry us and hid inside the tents. As we peeked through the holes to observe the noisy, strange-looking creature, we noticed two or three, unfamiliar looking people wearing funny clothes and deep plates or funneled pots over their heads! It was an exploration party asking for water and seeking directions.”2

  The American geologists finally struck oil in the Eastern Province on March 3, 1938 in Dammam Well No.7. When the well spurted its first 1,585 barrels of oil, Saudi Arabia formally became an oil-producing country and when profits from Saudi oil shot up from $2.8 million in 1944 to $114 million in 1949, the United States slid into dependency on foreign oil in its quest for global supremacy. Aramco’s three tented oil camps were rapidly upgraded to eventually become America’s largest settlements across the globe, outsizing those in Manila, Shanghai and Panama.

  Aramco’s three oil camps were landmarks of social and horticultural engineering in 1950s Saudi Arabia. Their streets and sidewalks were paved; trees, flowers and green grass grew in abundance everywhere. Each of the three communities had its own library, golf course, clay tennis court, bowling alley, yacht club, horseback riding stables and Olympicsized swimming pool. All were Saudi Arabia’s firsts, as were the electricity grid, central air conditioning, and fresh desalinated drinking water. In no other region of Saudi Arabia could anyone (particularly Saudis) go to movies, dance on a moonlit patio to live music played by a popular American band, or listen to celebrated pianists perform the works of Mozart or Chopin. Dhahran even made a mention in the New York Times in 1956, where it was described as an American community transplanted to the Arabian Desert complete with weekend gardeners, women’s clubs, PTAs, television and brightly lit, air-conditioned homes, each with their own yards and hedges. Such mundane details about Dhahran deemed worthy of mentioning by the reporter underlined in bold red the backwardness of the rest of the country. Well-known scholars such as historian Arnold Toynbee, Arabist H. St. John Philby, and anthropologist Margaret Mead accepted Aramco’s invitations to give lectures to members of the community. All three also gave warnings of an eventual backlash against Aramco’s stiff segregation policy from the rest of the country, but their warnings fell on ears that were not ready to listen.

  In the Dhahran that we grew up in, women wore shorts and liquor flowed freely. We bought our food from the company’s ‘commissary’ that sold all things American, including pork products. We moved freely from one area of Dhahran to another on bikes and roller skates, hopped on and off the free bus service driven by Shi’a Saudis that the Americans (and we) were taught to call ‘sadiqi’ (my friend). While everyone living outside Aramco’s towns drank brackish water, we drank fresh desalinated water from our taps. Cold water fountains were stationed in all the public places of the camp complete with envelope paper cups and salt tablet dispensers to combat the intense heat. We camped out with our scout troops on Aramco’s private beach, Half Moon Bay. We competed at American football and basketball with Abqaiq and Ras Tanura. Our swimming pool area, ruled by a stern Indian lifeguard named John, had the air of a resort spa with its reclining sun chairs, and piped-in ‘muzak’ that ranged from country and western to classical to rock, never Arabic. My Catholic classmates attended Catechism, went to confession with a residing Catholic priest, and to Sunday school, which was actually on a Friday. That day of the week was the one non-negotiable where the line was drawn between Aramco and Saudi Arabia. Friday, the Muslim holy day, resolutely remained as the only day when everything closed down and all Muslim men attended prayer in the mosque, even in Aramco.

  My siblings and I addressed one another by the American mispronunciation of our names. I was ‘Fudgie’ short for ‘Fadjyah,’ Fatin was ‘Faahttn,’ Ghassan was ‘Gussaaaan’ and Marwan was ‘Moe.’ Growing up, we entered Brownies and Cub Scouts and graduated to Boy and Girl Scouts of America. On Halloween we went trick-or-treating with our friends dressed up as ‘G.I. Joe’ and ‘Cinderella.’ I joined the cheerleaders for one of Dhahran School’s American Football teams, the ‘Bears,’ Marwan played catcher for the ‘Orioles,’ Dhahran’s Little League Baseball team and Fatin was the star gymnast of Dhahran School on the rings. We hung out with our friends in the pool hall in the Recreation area in the center of Dhahran. There was a ‘Teen Canteen’ set up especially for young teenage Aramcons replete with a jukebox, soda fountain and a Filipino barman we all called ‘Mike.’ A short walk away was the ‘Snack Bar’ where we ate super-size grilled hamburgers and caramel sundaes prepared and served by Hussein and Ali, Shi’a Saudi Arab personnel, from the neighboring Al Hasa oasis towns of Qatif and Hofuf.<
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  On every American Independence Day, July 4th, Dhahran held a parade led by baton twirling, mini-skirted majorettes and a spiffily costumed brass band which included my sister on the clarinet at one point. Two Eagle scouts carried the American and Saudi Arabian flags as they led troops of Brownies, Cub Scouts and Boy and Girl Scouts. Floats draped with pretty girls in sun dresses rolled past clapping crowds followed by Americans on spirited Arabian horses and elementary school children dressed as Cowboys and Indians. To the rat-tat-tat of the drums and the blare of the trumpets, the parade moved triumphantly down King’s Road on to the County Fair spread out in Dhahran’s Recreation area. There we wolfed down hot dog buns smothered in relish and ketchup and washed them down with root beer. We bought rides on laconic camels, paying the outstretched hand of their equally laconic Bedouin owners before embarking. Then there were three-legged races and donkey races to join, and bakery contests to nibble from. We placed bets on races of tiny green turtles fished out from the water canals of the Al Hasa oasis that sported numbers on their miniscule backs. By day’s end, with our prize turtles still racing round in circles in a bowl of water, we were more than ready for a sound night’s sleep as we dragged our bulging stomachs and our booty home.

  My siblings and I led the rarified life of coddled westerners in one of the harshest of terrains on the face of this earth – except when the deadly shamals struck. Nature is the great equalizer and the shamal winds, deadly northeast sandstorms, forcibly drove this home. One such unannounced shamal struck during English class when I was in sixth grade while we were in the grips of the poem ‘The Raven’ by Edgar Allen Poe. As we sat in spellbound silence listening to Miss Mathews’ dramatic repetition of the raven’s “Nevermore” we became aware of a different kind of silence. An eerie red light had stealthily permeated the air outside the classroom’s windows blotting out the sun amidst a deathly stillness. The playground and sky and distant desert horizon had disappeared without a trace into the opaqueness of the red glow and it was as though we were suddenly drifting alone in space. Miss Mathews dropped her book mid-“Nevermore” and walked rapidly to the window. As she stared at the unfolding scene outside, she underwent an astonishing transformation from a stodgy school marm into an excited youthful woman,

  “Drop your books and pick up a pen and paper,” she ordered us in breathless anticipation. “This class is going to be dedicated to the shamal. We are about to be amongst the few, other than the Bedouins, to witness a shamal’s birth.”

  With the somber mood of the raven’s “Never more” still upon us, and the unexpected change that our English teacher had undergone, we entered a surreal world as the shamal unfolded before us. The red glow deepened to shades of darker red and increased in its opaqueness as the air filled with particles of dust each bringing in its own shade of desert sand, much like the gathering of soldiers before the battle. Stirring swathes of deep yellow began to glide amongst the motionless multihued flecks of red-tinted sand. When the last of the red glow disappeared into the deep yellow, Nature gave the signal for battle. Unearthly screaming howls of the shamal’s angry winds shattered the silence, attacking our window panes in a barrage of wildly swirling grains of sands that had turned into tiny but deadly spears capable of choking the uninitiated. The shamal was not stopped by the physical barriers of our classroom and we began to feel the sand crunching between our teeth and becoming embedded all over our bodies, ears, noses and hair. As we bent over our papers writing feverishly we stole surreptitious glances at our transfixed English teacher who remained standing spellbound at the window until the school bell jangled her back to earth.

  The lighter side of living in the desert was the unmitigated joy we felt when it rained. On the rare days that rain fell, the neighborhoods in Dhahran rushed out, adult and child alike, into the streets to revel at this miracle of nature. We hopped onto our bikes pedaling furiously for the pleasure of swooshing through the wet rivulets running down the streets while the adults square danced in the puddles. We twirled in circles like mesmerized dervishes, arms spread out, our faces eagerly turned up to the sky to catch each fat globule of water before it fell to the ground.

  The desert rain fell like a symphony, its raindrops falling softly and almost hesitantly at first, one followed by another gaining in momentum, falling faster and faster, reaching a crescendo to deep rolling thunder and diagonal streaks of lightning, then ceasing as abruptly as it began, leaving very soaked Aramcons to drift back to their homes wearing big smiles on their faces.

  Across the street from our house was a baseball diamond complete with bleachers where family and friends watched the young players strike in or strike out. Beyond the baseball diamond was a vast circular expanse of soft grass for American football games and track meets. With its close proximity to us, we developed a sense of propriety over it, a spacious green playground where we flew our kites and perfected our somersaults with our next-door neighbors, Candy, Crystal and Kelly Riley. We often pitched a tent in its midst for sleepovers where, snug in our sleeping bags, we spent the night talking and singling out our favorite constellations. Sleep would finally overtake us as we gazed in silent wonder at the Milky Way that cascaded in a spectacular explosion of celestial glitter across Arabia’s infinite ink black sky.

  I could see our ‘green playground’ from where I sat next to my bedroom window stroking TC. The full moon appeared on the horizon, a golden benevolent smiling face, so bright that it outshone the myriads of stars covering the desert sky. For me, well into university, Beirut was already outshining Dhahran much as the moon outside my bedroom window dimmed the stars. With Marwan’s graduation we would all have formally moved out of Dhahran. It would gradually recede out of our lives as we moved on to different points of orientation in the unfolding years ahead. I had come home that summer of 1970 with more questions than answers about my life in Dhahran and my Saudi Arabian identity … fourteen years since the morning I had stood before my first grade classroom facing American children for the first time in my young life.

  2

  Brave New World: Growing Up ‘Aramcon’

  Firsts

  The year was 1956 and I was five years old, one year younger than my American classmates. My father had just completed his degree in Public Relations at the American University of Beirut on an Aramco scholarship that had promoted him to Senior Staff, making us one of the first three Saudi Arabian families ever to move into the American oil camp of Dhahran.

  We had arrived in Dhahran from Beirut a week before school began on a TWA caravelle, TWA then functioning as Saudi Arabia’s official airline. As the plane rolled slowly to a stop, the first image we caught of Saudi Arabia from our airplane window was of our father waving to us just a few meters away on the tarmac. Behind him was a dusty hangar with a fat propeller airplane inside and a second hangar, open at both ends, with a long table running down its middle. We headed towards the open-ended hangar where we were ordered to stop at the long table with our luggage. Unsmiling Saudi customs officials rifled rough shod through our belongings, pausing significantly over our mother’s lingerie. Once the guards were satisfied that we had nothing contraband, they grunted, “Seeru!” (Leave).

  We walked out of the shed to meet the desert for the first time in our young lives. There it lay before us under shimmering waves of steaming air, uninterrupted stretches of toneless beige that extended flatly in all directions to the distant horizon save for one single slash of black: the asphalt road that led to Dhahran. Our first introduction to our homeland’s topography was anticlimactically aggravating. Scorching sand, mixed with broken shards of miniscule seashells, slipped into our brand new shoes and chafed our feet through our socks as we trudged to the car. Our shuffling feet kicked up swirls of dust that settled into our eyes and coated our sticky cheeks.

  My father was in excellent spirits that day of our arrival as he drove us to our new home in a red Ford stamped with the Aramco insignia. I tried to absorb the strange town that we were driving
into: a town that had no apartment buildings, no traffic, no loudly honking cars, no vegetable vendors calling out their wares, no shoppers and no shops, no families out on the streets, not a sound of human life as I knew it in Beirut. All we saw were identical one-story houses, one row after the next, with fenced-in gardens. We drove up to our new home, a grey, square house with white windows with a pointed grey shingled roof and a garden surrounded by a thick dark green hedge. There was one other identical house next to it and a long cement sidewalk that stretched alongside empty plots of sand in both directions.

  “Our street is still new,” my father explained. “More houses will come and our neighborhood will soon look like the rest.”

  As we eagerly crowded through the garden gate, we brushed past the hedge’s tiny white flowers releasing their sickly sweet perfume into the hot humid air. Our new home’s front yard, side yard and back yard were disappointingly little more than fenced-in desert, punctuated by wilted clumps of grass watered by a lone, desperately twirling sprinkler.

  We dashed into our new home up three white wooden steps leading to a swinging screen door that slammed shut behind us with a loud clap. We caught our breath when we found ourselves standing directly in the living room. In the homes we knew in Beirut and in Damascus, the living rooms contained the fanciest furniture and ornaments of the house, and were strictly off limits to us, their doors opening only for special guests. Our Dhahran living room was a far cry from any living room we knew. It was a plain rectangular room with taupe colored walls and carpet. Four armchairs of polished wood with taupe colored cushions stood stiffly around a low polished wood rectangular table. Two metallic standing lamps with white conical lampshades shed triangles of light over the rigid seating arrangement. Everything in our new home, Baba told Mama, belonged to Aramco. We explored our new bedrooms, three small square rooms with one window each shaded by white venetian blinds. Each room had a built in cupboard, two single beds, and a circular glass ceiling light fixture.