ANOTHER ADVENTUROUS TRIP

Madain Saleh, also called Al-Hijr

MEMORIES, 6^th Installment
(Scroll down for the previous installments, or type 'Memories'  in the search box.)

ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS AND ANOTHER WEEKEND TRIP

©Edward R. Close 2018  

My immediate supervisor continued to try to make life miserable for me. I’m sure he thought I would fold and ask to be shipped back to the states. I learned from co-workers that this had happened several times before. I decided that I would not succumb to the pressure. The Saudis wanted me here, even if my employer did not. I had saved the mangroves, and there were other environmental issues that needed redressing.

There was a concrete batch plant located just outside the eastern boundary of the construction area with no air pollution controls, belching out dust and smoke that often hung over the construction site like a dark cloud, causing workers to cough and wheeze. There was raw sewage flowing from irrigation pipes that were supposed to be carrying clean recycled water in residential housing areas. There were two thousand North Korean workers in a camp designed for one thousand. Raw sewage was running into the desert from their over-burdened sewage treatment plant. There was a huge illegal excavation pit just outside the northern boundary where sub-contractors were stealing fill dirt. The workers called it the “Grand Canyon”. And I was sure these were just tips of the iceberg, as the Company pushed to finish on schedule and get the most out of the situation, even if it meant devastating the environment behind the Saudi’s backs. 

My supervisor continued to try to get me off track by sending me on wild goose chases and assigning meaningless busy-work projects. But I was on to him. From a technical engineering point of view, he didn’t have a clue! I also began working on a set of environmental regulations based on USEPA regulations adjusted for the climate and conditions here in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The paperwork for getting my family over was continuously delayed. Multiple reasons were given. When about twice the time they had originally promised had passed, I decided it was time to go over their heads again. I went to my friend Hassan. After hearing my complaints, he asked if my wife and son were requesting 90-day visitor’s visas or residence visas. When I answered that we wanted residence visas for the entirety of my contract, he said there should be no problem. He picked up the phone, spoke rapidly in Arabic to someone at the Ministry of Immigration in Jeddah, and then to someone in Company administration. When he hung up, he said: “Your family’s Visas will be sent to Pasadena tomorrow.”

With this problem solved at last, I relaxed a bit and Giorgio, Doug and I planned another trip out of camp for the next weekend.

“Why don’t we ask Admin for our documents: igammas (Saudi work permits) visas, etc. so if we get stopped, they won’t throw us in jail?” I suggested. 

The Company took all of our travel documents, for “safe keeping” when we arrived in the Kingdom.

“No,” Giorgio replied, “I tried that, when I first got here. They keep our passports, so they can control us. They just say no and warn you to stay close to the work site. They do allow us to go to Yanbu Al-Bahr, to shop or eat in the Al-A’rish French–Lebanese restaurant and to the Sharm without papers.”

Doug and I weren’t as brave as Giorgio, but we did want to get away from the job site!

“I know what we can do!” Giorgio exclaimed. “We can drive up to the Sharm, put on Bedouin garb and drive all the way to Petra, if we want! Are you guys game?”

Giorgio could pass for an Arab. He was dark with black hair and moustache. Doug, maybe … But me? I’m very noticeably white.

Giorgio laughed. “Haven’t you ever heard of makeup? And, anyway, not all Arabs are dark.”

So, we hatched a new plan, and the next Friday we carried it out. North of the Sharm was the village of Umm Lajj, from there, we could see some beautifully rugged mountains, looking like the exaggerated dorsal fins on a dragon’s back, stretching from near the Red Sea into the Hejazi range. I was excited to see what those mountains were like.

We stopped at the Sharm and donned our Bedouin clothes, -supplied by Giorgio. Giorgio was about four inches shorter than me, so my thobe was a bit short, but because desert wear is intentionally loose-fitting, it wasn’t a problem. The Saudi head gear, the ghutra, could cover my Northern European complexion, and sunglasses hid my blue eyes.

As we were driving north, past Umm Lajj, I shouted over the engine and wind noise:

“Can we really go to Petra?” I asked. “Petra is across the border in Jordan. Don’t we need a passport with exit and entry visas?

“I bet there’s no border guard or check point there.” Giorgio responded. “It’s in the middle of nowhere, a desolate area, sparsely populated with wandering nomads, and if there is a check point at the border, we’ll just turn back, and go off-road around the check point.”

I thought about the "wandering Nomads" that had chased us out of the mountains a couple of weeks earlier. Doug and I looked at each other. I could see some concern in his eyes.

“Petra is too far.” Doug declared. “I’ve looked at the map, and it’s still five or six hundred kilometers from here. We have to be back in our offices in Yanbu tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, I’ve disappeared for a couple of days before;” Giorgio grinned, “they didn’t send out a search party.”

“Yes, Giorgio,” Doug replied, “but you’re known for not playing by the rules. If the three of us go missing, they may well become suspicious.”

“Yeah, if I’m discovered to be AWOL, my supervisor will use it to get me sent home,” I ventured, “I’d really like to see Petra, but I think we need to be back in Yanbu before morning.”

We ventured on toward Jordan, but after dark we took a wrong turn and were lost for a time, somewhere northeast of Tabuk.  I judged that we were still about a hundred kilometers from the Jordanian border. At one point, we drove past a monolithic rock outcrop standing apart from the mountains in the desert. We pulled of the road and aimed the headlights at it. There was an ornate edifice carved into the rock face. “Had I miscalculated our position? Could we already be in the out-skirts of Petra?” I wondered.

We tried to climb up to the shadowy entrance, but we only had one flashlight, and the jumble of rock in front of the edifice made it too dangerous. We climbed back into the jeep and drove on for fifteen minutes or so. Finally, as Doug and I expressed concern, Giorgio agreed to turn back. After a long, tiring drive, we were back in our bunks before daybreak, with just enough time for a short nap before starting our next ten-hour day, six-day work week.

I learned later that what we saw was probably part of Madain Saleh, also called Al-Hijr, a site within the borders of Saudi Arabia, much smaller than, but similar to Petra, and believed to be the southern-most remains of the Kingdom of the Nabateans, the people who built Petra as the hub of the Frankincense Trail, almost 2,000 years ago. Looking at the maps, I determined that we had probably been within one hundred kilometers of Petra. So close, and yet so far away! Something about the stately edifices carved into the sandstone cliffs fascinated me and beckoned to me. But it would be nearly 40 years before I would get another chance to see the Ancient City of Stone!

EXPEDITION INTO FORBIDDEN TERRITORY

Note: This is second in this series of posts. Scroll down to read the first.

THE NEED TO EXPLORE

©Edward R. Close 2018

I was standing there alone for what was probably five or ten minutes, but seemed like an eternity, until a young man showed up, driving a dust-covered Chevy Suburban. After a brief tour of Yanbu Al Sina’iya (Yanbu Industrial City), which consisted mainly of driving to the “Bird Tank”, a water tower painted blue with white sea gulls all over it, and pointing out where the future refinery and deep-water port were to be constructed, the “Company man”, an Australian named Robbie, dropped me off at the entrance to my temporary quarters. He gave me a key with the number 101 on one side and the same number in Arabic on the other.

The Bird Tank

The entrance to the temporary quarters was an Arabesque arch, a miniature version of the grand arch over the entrance to the Industrial City site. Everything was painted white. Two rows of box like structures stood in an enclosure beyond the arch. My room was the first door on the left. I unlocked the door and stepped into a small cubical, maybe 8 feet by 10 feet, with a bunk, a chair, a small table/desk and a peg in the corner with three clothes hangers on it. A single window was over-shadowed by two air conditioners. One droning away, the other on stand-by as a backup. Afternoon temperatures of 120° F plus was not uncommon here in the summer months. After Robbie drove away, I looked around. There was no one here but me.

Robbie had pointed out the dining hall, about a hundred yards away, as we drove up to the temporary quarters location, and said it opened for breakfast at 6:00 AM. It was 4:30 PM as I stood there, and that meant it was 5:30 AM back home in Pasadena. I hadn’t slept more than 3 hours in the hotel in Jeddah, after arriving in King Abdulaziz International Airport about 11:30 the previous night and going through customs. Customs in the Jeddah International Airport was a grueling three hours of mostly standing in line while customs agents went through every piece of luggage, looking for weapons, pork products, alcohol, Christian - or any other non-Muslim literature, and pornography (anything with pictures of the uncovered female form - like, e.g., the lingerie section of a Sears Catalogue). All such things were confiscated. In the hotel, before going to sleep, I read about half of the ornately decorated Koran that had been placed on the desk next to an arrow pointing toward Mecca.

“Well, this is it; the beginning of a new adventure!” I said to myself. I closed the door, set my suitcase down, hung my jacket on the peg and flopped on the bunk. I was sound asleep within minutes. That night, I dreamed of climbing the highest mountain in the range of black jagged peaks looming to the east of Yanbu. Ay breakfast the next morning, I met Giorgio Daher.

Giorgio was something of a wild man. Of Turkish-American origin, from Atlanta Georgia, he looked and sounded a lot like the TV journalist, Geraldo Rivera. He was a landscape architect who had been in Yanbu for a year or two when I arrived; he spoke some Arabic, and he had just purchased a jeep. He and Douglas, a British engineer from London, were two of the friends I made among the 30 or so expatriate co-workers on the Yanbu Al- Sina’iya Project.

There was not much to do within the boundaries of Yanbu Al- Sina’iya during off-duty hours. There was a commissary and a swimming pool, and that was it; and the old city of Yanbu Al-Bahr (Spring on the Sea), about 15 kilometers north, had only two or three shops, and a French-Lebanese restaurant. I was trying to learn Arabic but found it much more difficult for me to get a handle on than any of the European languages.

As the only environmental engineer and planner on the project, I was one of a few “key personnel” who had family status. I was told that it would take about 90 days to get the paperwork in order and bring my wife Jacqui and our 3-year-old son Joshua to Yanbu. In fact, it took quite a bit longer. I had a few books with me and a Rubik’s cube, and I was working on a paper that would become part of my second book, “Infinite Continuity”, but, except for the challenges of the job, after two or three weeks, life in Yanbu became very boring.

Giorgio was a free spirit who would disappear for days at a time, driving his boss to distraction. One weekend, he invited Doug and me to go with him for a drive out of the compound. There was a beautiful white-sand beach, called Al-Sharm, about ten kilometers north of Yanbu Al-Bahr. I had already been there once, on the Company bus. It was a nice change of scenery, and the snorkeling was amazing among the brightly colored fish and coral in nearby tidal pools. But the intense tropical sun and the crystal-clear water made for painful sunburns, so an hour or two on the beach was about all I could tolerate. Another weekend rolled around and the Sharm had lost its charm. We needed something new.

 “OK,” Giorgio said, “Where do you guys want to go? We can drive anywhere within a couple hundred kliks!” (‘Klik” was expat jargon for kilometer.)

I immediately pointed to the highest peak east of Yanbu.

“Let’s go climb that mountain!”

I was fascinated by the massive dark barren wall of igneous intrusive stone about 15 to 20 k inland, running parallel to the Red Sea. What could be up there? Had those peaks ever been explored? The explorer in me always wanted to go where no one, or at least, very few, had been before. Giorgio and Doug agreed, but we had to plan for such an ambitious expedition. We gathered supplies: food, cameras, climbing gear, and a tent that week end and headed out in Giorgio’s jeep shortly after daybreak, the next week end.

All our papers: passport, igamma (work permit) and permission to travel in the Al-Madinah Region, in which Yanbu was located, were kept on file in the administrative office of the project.  It didn’t occur to me, or to Doug, as recent arrivals, that we were supposed to request these documents before leaving the immediate vicinity of Yanbu. Giorgio knew this, but he didn’t mention it because he also knew that, if you asked for them, you would be told that you were not allowed to leave the Yanbu Area except for authorized work-related purposes.

To be Continued…