C.M. Moore's Blog, page 2

September 6, 2013

Chapter 2-THE JECOR COMPOUND

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Eventually you would get to your compound, a neighborhood surrounded by a wall and with a gate and often a guard. The first place we lived while my dad worked for JECOR (Joint Economic Commission Office Riyadh) was pretty small and you couldn鈥檛 drive onto it. All the rest were much bigger and you would drive right to your house. This first house wasn鈥檛 like any place I had lived before. The biggest oddity was the inter courtyard that served as a backyard. This walled backyard is unusual in the states but existed in some form in all of our houses in Saudi. Each of the bedrooms and the dining room had a sliding glass door that led to it. There was a path around it tracing a U connecting all the sliding glass doors. In the curve of the path was this double mound, 3 or 4 feet high. It was covered with white rocks and had a couple trees and an open space in the back with some other vegetation. The wall that capped the U was as tall as the house and was shared with another courtyard for another house on the other side.

The compound had strange elements too. The pathways connecting all the houses were lined with lush high bushes, shrubs and small trees. The paths themselves were made of a couple foot square paving stone set in straight rows. The only place that didn鈥檛 have these light brown stones was the front gate to the compound. That was just concrete. The gate was big enough that you could drive a large truck just inside the compound. Right next to the gate was a little one room house. The guard lived there. I don鈥檛 remember seeing him much but I do remember the one prank I played on him.

I hesitate to call it a prank since I was really more curious that malicious. On the outside of his house was mounted a fire extinguisher. At 7 or 8 I had not had much experience with fire extinguishers and here was one outside just sitting there. The big black nozzle was pointed down to the ground. I wondered what would happen if I activated it. So I pulled the pin and gave the handle a nice squeeze. The canister didn鈥檛 move but I was rewarded with a satisfying rocket exhaust like stream of white power that hit the ground and quickly spread out. I thought that was pretty cool. Until the door to the guards house opened up. I don鈥檛 remember even thinking about the fact that the extinguisher was attached to his house and that might be a problem. Once that door opened I connected it all up in a rush and realized I was in trouble. I did the only sensible thing, I ran. Not that it mattered. He knew who I was.

In no time at all I was back there under the orders of my folks. This walk back to the scene of the crime would be a frequent element of making amends for misdeeds. Alone I knocked on his door and mumbled an apology. I might have arrived bearing dustbin and broom to help clean up, perhaps they were his. Regardless I was told that the guard would have to pay for recharging the extinguisher himself and I was under strict orders to never do that again. I am sure I was grounded which meant no access to the best part of the whole place, the pool.

Right in the center of our little community was a pool. It had a diving board and the ubiquitous poolside chairs, loungers and tables and was fairly small. It was right next door to our house and we spent a lot of time there. All through the years in Saudi a pool was present, often very near and a frequent destination. My sister and I had learned to swim a few years back in Florida while on a joint vacation/work trip when my dad worked for NASA. I am sure that while grounded I could hear the sound of kids playing and screaming in the pool making the punishment even more effective.

Only a few months after we arrived my mom got word that her father had died. My mom and dad were both English but immigrated to the States before I was born. I had met her father a couple of times but my dad鈥檚 father had died before I was born. At the time my dad was out of the country. My mom was going to head to England for the funeral but was left with the uncomfortable need to leave us with a family she hardly knew. She asked me if I wanted to come with her but for some reason the 8 years old me said no. I wish I had said yes.

It is strange to think back and remember such an important event in my family鈥檚 life as a kind of non-event for an 8 year old. I don鈥檛 remember the family we stayed with. I think their last name was Grinlind. They had two boys and a girl and were the first people I ever saw eat scrambled eggs with ketchup. If any of you Grinlind鈥檚 read this reach out, I would love to connect. Anyway, I assume we continued to go to school on the little bus with jump seats.

We didn鈥檛 have a yellow bus at this time like you might have in the States. These buses were small and held maybe 15-20 people. There were these odd fold-down seats at the end of a couple of the rows. The biggest surprise to my eight year old self was that in the winter heading to the bus it was cold. When you have gotten use to Saudi summers it is shockingly cold. Of course the light jackets we wore were usually abandoned by lunchtime and totally unnecessary for the ride home.

Our school was called RICS which stood for Riyadh International Community School. It was huge. I am sure it held grades from Kindergarten up to 9th grade all on one campus. I started attending at 2nd grade. It was the second time I had been through that grade. The story I was told was that I was small for my age and that I would now be one of the oldest not one of the youngest. Yep, that is definitely what I was told.

But there was tether ball. Tether ball was great! I sucked at it but there were dozens of these big car tires filled with cement with a long pole sticking out if it. At the top was a long rope and at the end was a special volley ball hung from a loop. One person would serve and start the ball going around the pole, may-pole style. The other kid playing would have to stop the ball going around and get it going the other way. Each rotation around the poll the rope got shorter and the ball moved faster. First kid to have the ball go around and around and use up all the rope in their direction won. Simple, fun and not entirely based on strength. Height helped a lot.

Of course this was all played in sand. The playground was a sand lot. The parking lot was a sand lot. The baseball field was a sand lot. Ok so the baseball field was mostly rocks layered over sand but you get the idea. Sand drifted into the corners of the walkways and architectural nooks all over the school. Jumping off playground equipment into sand was great, like your own pillow pile. Of course then your shoes were filled with sand. Sand in your pockets, your hair and if you were very unlucky your mouth. The teachers took a stern line about throwing sand but it still happened all the time. I can鈥檛 imagine the constant battle against it all the parents in Saudi waged.

This is about when I went through my ninja phase. There were always a few magazines floating around about martial arts. I remember them mostly as catalogs for all the cool stuff we wanted to buy. Nunchucks, throwing stars, knives, all the weapons an 8 year old needs. I even spent a year learning tae kwon-do. I remember enjoying it well enough. I was really disappointed by the kata system. At that age I never could understand how what looked like a dance with memorized steps increased my badassery. That was all you were after at that age. The magazines and the classes all trying to improve your personal level off badassery. I received a yellow belt and moved on. 听In tae kwon-do, not badassery.

Being in a ninja phase at 8 means a lot of running and jumping. Jumping off of ledges, running into walls and generally being 8 but with a ninja like nonchalance about falling, stumbling and smacking into walls. Funny thing about the outside walls of the buildings I grew up around. They were all stucco like, patterned much like some ceilings. but they were sweet. I don鈥檛 mean they were awesome, I mean they actually tasted sweet. We didn鈥檛 lick the walls or anything but after touching them and being 8 your fingers would inevitably find their way to your mouth and they would taste sweet. The air almost tasted sweet if you breathed in near an exterior wall. I have not experienced that since Saudi and never discovered why.

At 8 anywhere in the world you spend a lot of time playing. In Saudi some of the 鈥渘ormal鈥� distractions are missing. There are no movies or concerts to attend. No public entertainment of any kind although you could go ice skating if that counts. Instead you played at other kid鈥檚 stuff like manhunt, G.I.Joes and tag. You would get in fights. I remember on time when a friend and I were just hanging out. He started shaking his soda can and got this evil grin on his face. He was going to open it in my face. I told him not to and since I have my favorite rock in my hand I threatened to hit him with it if he did. I loved this rock. It was nearly as long and thick as my 8 year old forearm, stuccoed and had what can only be describe as handles jutting down from it. Yep, it was a rock gun. I don鈥檛 know if it was made of sandstone or was some petrified piece of camel dung. I do know that when that can of soda opened in my face I smacked that kid with it across the top of his head. The rock broke in two. I was much sadder about the rock breaking than any kind of trouble I was going to get into for breaking it over this kids head. Inevitably I had to walk over to his house and apologize to him and his parents. I bet he never opened a can of soda into someone鈥檚 face again.

Rock plus head and the fire extinguisher as rocket events are not the dumbest things I did in that compound. Nope, the dumbest thing involves G.I Joes, cars, a lighter and natural gas. I am playing with a friend, right outside his door in some dirt and vegetation. G.I. Joes are fighting Cobra and having car chases. Of course after the car crashes the figures would look fine and would have no damage. Well that is totally unacceptable. Not to worry, I had a lighter. Think the face melting scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Cobra has a car crash, extremity gets melted. Good times. Then see my mom finding the lighter in my shorts while doing laundry. Hear her ask me what I was doing with it. See her face as I tell her about the car crashes and confirm the location of such imaginative and wholesome play. Right under the big silver natural gas storage tank outside my friend鈥檚 house. See the images of explosion appear in my mom鈥檚 mind. I wasn鈥檛 allowed to play there anymore.

Ok so if you aren鈥檛 playing or swimming there was a chance to go to the mall. The malls were not too terribly different from what you might expect in the US. Perhaps smaller, perhaps with more chrome and the lighting fancier. I think the stores were a bit smaller too. There was a little cassette tape shop tucked into the area under the escalators. We would always go in there but rarely find anything worth buying. If you did it was a copied version of something from the States or Europe. Often the cover had been photocopied and slid into the tape case. There liner notes too but the lyrics were obviously written by non-english speakers just listening to the songs and compiling the lyrics. There were some strange song compilations that didn鈥檛 actually exist in the US. I had a 鈥渂est of鈥� for ZZ Top and CCR when neither of those bands had a 鈥渂est of鈥� album. I remember the malls as a lot less crowded than a mall in the US. Western malls as an idea was relatively new. There was often a bus from the compound to the nearest mall on the weekend. My dad worked a 6 day week at that time and I assume other fathers did too. Since none of the women drove the compound bus was the only way to get some shopping done other than a Friday.

So I should mention that in Saudi at the time the weekends were not Saturday and Sunday but Thursday and Friday. This was to accommodate the Jumu鈥檃h held at noon on Fridays. So my dad was off on Fridays and worked Saturday through Thursday. The weekend in Saudi changed to Friday and Saturday in 2013. There were strip mall shops and of course open air souks. The souks were usually concentrated by type. You could go to the gold souk which would have lots of jewelry. I think there other kinds of souks but we mostly stuck to the malls and grocery stores. Most merchants spoke some English, enough to make the transactions. Although I do remember there being a requirement for the schools to teach Arabic. It seemed a little halfhearted. More culture and history then language. Every 2 years or so you would have a class. Didn鈥檛 really stick.

I have mentioned how bad the driving was in Saudi. It was usually not a big deal just requiring a little more vigilance. There was one time it got really scary. I am not sure how it started. Perhaps there was a fender bender where my dad hit the person in front of us. Maybe there was a slow sideswipe as someone tried to merge in front of my dad. What I do remember is a guy standing at the driver鈥檚 side window yelling at my dad. Lots of Arabic, a little English and a very angry Saudi. My dad has his window down halfway and is trying to calm him down. It isn鈥檛 working. This guy tried to get his hands in and attack my dad. He shoved the offending arms out of the car. Then some spit came fly in to the car. Us kids are screaming and losing it, my mom is crazy scare but trying not to show it while trying make sure my dad doesn鈥檛 get angry and make the wrong move. In this case the wrong move would be to get out of the car and continue. It isn鈥檛 the wrong move for exactly the reasons that you would find in the west; injury, danger and the eventual involvement with the authorities. In this case the involvement with the authorities could be a big problem. At this time the rule was, if you get in legal trouble with a Saudi, the Saudi is going to win. There was a lot of resentment towards the westerners in their country teaching them how do technical tasks, run businesses and their country,听 in essence, holding a nationwide class on how to be 鈥渕odern鈥�. We kids experienced the resentment sometimes but I鈥檒l talk about that later.

So my dad did the only thing that made sense. We ran. Our car went around his, and we sped away. Only he jumped in his car and followed. Crap! Now we have a 鈥渉igh鈥� speed chase going. Keri and I are wailing in the back seat scared as scared can be. I can hear my mom and dad talking about being followed and trying to come up with a solution. They needed a friendly place to head into with a gate and a guard. I don鈥檛 know if we were heading there anyway but there was restaurant we would go to sometimes. It was in a compound like ours but the first building you came to was a restaurant and it was close. So we head there with this Saudi chasing us. We get there and my dad tells the guard that we are being chased and we are all yelling at him to close the barrier behind us. He does and the chase is over. The only time I have been more scared is when a small pack of dogs chase me on my bike, but that is another story.

Two years in Saudi Arabia passed quickly. Lots of swimming, a vacation to Greece where I started to fall in love with food, a weird dream about flying through the compound which I which I was convince was real for a few years. Just growing up really. Then it was time for the discussion.听 Our assignment period in Saudi was coming to a close. We had a family discussion about staying longer. I guess my dad had been offered a new job with Bechtel as a project manager building the new airport in Riyadh and we needed to decide if we would stay for it. The three of us were ready to go back and missed being in the US. It was hard on my mom as so many of the freedoms she enjoyed in the US were absent in Saudi and there was so little to do trapped on this little compound. My mom, my sister and I all 鈥渧oted鈥� to go back to the States. We stayed.

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