Maverick scribbler Tim Wild reviews… things

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Things I remember about living in Saudi Arabia

Being Nicked

The houses my friends and I lived in were all detached, but with shared walls separating the boundaries of the gardens. As everything was built on a US-style grid plan, it meant that the nimbler members of the gang were more than happy to follow my suggestion, one bored afternoon, that we discover how far away from my back garden we could get without touching the floor.

Quite far, as it turned out. Somewhere along the way, we unwittingly walked along the walls of a house that was empty. A neighbour saw us, somehow convinced herself (I’m sure it was a woman) that we were a crack team of 9-year old burglars and called the police. Or what passed for them, anyway. The sanitised company-built neighbourhood we lived in saw so little crime as to render proper police superfluous, and a private security force took care of everything else. The fear that they caused when they showed up, armed and ready to throw down, was quickly dissipated by the fact that they then had to send for three more squad cars to transport our bikes to the station.

The Heat

Obviously it’s hot in Saudi Arabia. But you really wouldn’t believe how hot. Over 120 degrees in the shade, every day, except for four days a year when it rains constantly. I once tried to emulate the emerging fashion at the US high school I attended by wearing a pair of combat trousers, and suffered the humiliation of appearing to have wet myself less than five minutes from the house, such was the level of perspiration.

Four litres of water a day as standard, emergency water in the car in case you broke down, and a personal habit of at least four cans of Mountain Dew on top of that – and everyone still had to spend all but ten minutes of the day indoors if they didn’t want to fry or go mad.

During Ramadan, the hottest part of the year, it was strictly forbidden to consume any food or drink on the street. This made little difference to us, or our Arabic neighbours, who slept all day and feasted wildly into the night. The burden was on the Indonesian and Filipino street workers, whose shifts didn’t alter, but could be thrown in jail for taking a sip of water.

Flying Over There

I was nine, and my Dad had taken a job in Saudi Arabia. This meant the whole family would relocate. Ignorant of all things Saudi, my brother and I chose to hang all our excitement and trepidation on the forthcoming aeroplane ride. Neither of us had flown before, and back in 1985 an international flight was still sufficiently glamorous to merit a degree of interest and jealousy from classmates.

It was amazing. The flight took about seven hours, and I’m sure there must have been moments of relative boredom, but all I can remember is he overwhelming novelty of it all. We got to sit with the pilots in the cabin, amid banks of lights and switches. When we got tired, the stewardess let us both into the back of first class, lifted up all the seat rests and gave us blankets so we could stretch out.

When we woke up, we stepped off the plane into a wall of heat like nothing we’d ever felt, walked past the first ever uniformed men with guns we’d ever seen, and started life in a brand new world.

David Sablowski

We got new neighbours about two months into our stay, and I couldn’t believe my luck. Not only were the Sablowskis exotic Americans, they also owned jet skis and a catamaran, had a foxy teenage daughter and –wonder of wonders – bought their son David a three-wheel Honda motorbike one afternoon. We’d fallen out briefly, David and I, but when I head the news I resolved to get round there and put things right as soon as possible.

My transparent efforts were rewarded and punished simultaneously by David, who rationed my access to the machine with a torturer’s cunning, and never let me be anything but a passenger. Served him right when riding in shorts one day, the engine block got so hot that it melded to the flesh of his right leg and scarred him extensively.

Every Which Way But Loose

My obsessions as a nine-year old were few but intense. Ocean Pacific sportswear (no idea why), the Beatles, Wham, basketball, Natasha from year 4 and ‘Every Which Way But Loose’, starring Clint Eastwood and a large orangutan called Clyde. TV in Saudi Arabia wasn’t up to much then and it’s probably worse now – endless footage of the Saudi royal family getting in and out of limousines, the very cheapest, least smutty and therefore unfunny US and Brit comedies (‘Charles in Charge’, ‘Upstairs Downstairs’) and the whole shebang stopped five times a day for prayers.

Some expats formed an unofficial video hire business with copied tapes from back home, and EWWBL instantly became my favourite film. There were obvious reasons – Clyde knows how to flip people the bird, a lot of bikers fall in a lot of mud, and an old lady swears with relish all the time, but there was something else too. For all the fighting, slapstick and orangutan footage, it’s actually pretty bleak. Eastwood’s seasoned street-fighter loves, loses love, and eventually throws his greatest fight on purpose, seeing his broken future writ large on the face of his legendary and battered opponent.

Strong stuff, and well worth a watch. A lesson there for us all.

Filed under: Life, The Wild Reviews by Flexmaster Nylon
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One Response to “The Wild Reviews”

1. Bobby says:

   April 10, 2011 at 2:39 am

   HCJVKO IMHO you’ve got the right answer!