I was 9 when the hostilities began that would go on to become the Gulf War. I remember not paying too much attention to anything but my parents and other people kept talking about it whispers. "He wouldn't!" "Saddam won't actually cross the line. He's just posturing." I remember wondering who Saddam was and what was wrong with his posture.
But it did happen. The Iraqi Republican Guard captured Kuwait City with very little resistance and Saddam overran it's oil rich neighbor with alarming ease. After a lot of pre-war diplomacy that went to naught, the United States and a massive coalition of 34 countries decided to launch a massive retaliation in order to protect the largest oil reserves in the world that are situated in Saudi. Saddam, then foolishly decided that since Kuwait had been such an easy target, moving further south to capture the oil fields of Al-Ahsa and Ras Tanura wouldn't be that hard. But this wasn't to be the case.
All this hardly affected us in Saudi but people started getting scared. What if Saddam decides to use chemical or biological weapons the way he did against the Kurds in Al-Anfal. Everyone started buying up war stores. Tonnes of food, batteries, blankets and a few hundred rolls of duct tape. Have you ever wondered what buying duct tape is all about? People seem to think of it as a miracle fix-all during hostilities. "Is that window shattered? No worries, we've got duct tape here.""Shrapnel wounds? Um... no surgical gauze available to stem the flow, but will duct tape do?" I swear to God, we had about 500 rolls.
My first real glimpse of what was coming was the first landing of US troops on Saudi soil in August of 1990. Well, not the first landing because they have Air Bases in the Kingdom but the first of the war. The coolest sight in the world to a 9 year old kid was scores of US Marines in their Humvees and camouflage walking through the streets of Dammam and Khobar. (The US 6th Fleet is anchored in Bahrain which is no further than 20 kms away). These troops were so cool and I thought they'd stepped right out of the movies. And also, there were WOMEN MARINES!! These chicks were no different from the men in their attitudes or actions and to someone who'd been living in the male dominated society of Saudi, seeing them in real life (as opposed to on TV) was crazy.
In fact, the presence of all these Marines didn't go over too well with the Islamists in the population. They felt that the Saudi government had sold its soul to protect the country. All these "decadent", gum chewing, loud-mouthed who had no fear of the local Mutawwa was something that was unacceptable. Having women Americans do that was just all too much for the local Mutawwa.
So, there was an incident where apparently, a Mutawwa walked up to a woman Marine and demanded she cover her hair and face. The Marine told him to go f#$k himself which would have given him a coronary. No one argues with the Mutawwa and to top it off, a woman had the gall to... so, he grabbed her arm and she coolly took out her gun and shot him. Now, would you call that a little extreme? Maybe. Was it awesome? Definitely. It was the talk of the town for ages. All the women in the country (local or otherwise) cheered for girl/woman power (albeit very softly). The religious fundamentalists were ticked off but couldn't do anything because the US had over 100,000 troops in the country and the woman Marine was airlifted out of the Kingdom before the Saudis could say "What the...?"
So, saying the influx of the US Marine core cause a flutter in the Kingdom is kind of understating it. But Operation Desert Shield (protection of the Saudi border areas) had begun.
It was around this time that the schools had started shutting down and there was much rejoicing amongst all school kids. The first real scary aspect of the war hit home when my dad went out and got us all chemical gas masks.
There is nothing even remotely cool when people are explaining to you that if the siren sounds, put this on, duck for cover and if you see a colored gas cloud advancing towards you, run in the opposite direction because the "cloud" will melt your skin.
Every day, Iraqi Scud missiles would be shot into Saudi airspace and a few hundred Patriots Interceptors would be fired to "intercept" them. I say this in quotes because despite our belief in American tech superiority, I later found out that it was a game of numbers. For ever Scud shot down, some 40 - 50 Patriots were sent up to intercept. The fact that they were peppering the sky hoping for a hit, gives me the jitters.
Two incidents happened that are kind of etched in my memory. The first was when my dad and I went out to buy groceries. We were in the shopping section of Dammam and were out there for maybe 5 minutes when the air raid siren sounded and my dad had asked me to wait in the car. I knew that the first thing I had to do was to reach for my gas mask and put it on immediately. I reached in to my canister bag (which all citizens HAD to carry at all times), hurriedly pulled it on and spent the next 5 minutes in absolute terror breathing hard through the lenses and staring frantically for my dad. Once you put one of those things on, it gives you a very surreal look at the world and everything looks like you're viewing the world through molasses. I think it must've been just a few minutes before my dad came back but it seemed like I was in there for a lifetime. Nothing untoward happened and I was fine but that was so bloody scary at the time.
The second was a little while later after which my folks immediately shipped us away. Like I've said before, off the coast of Tarout, there are, withing seeing distance, the oil platforms of Ras Tanura. These were the prize that Saddam so badly wanted but was never going to happen. So, he figured, if you can't catch them, burn them. He had already started the oil well fires in Kuwait that darkened the skies over Saudi for weeks.
So, Ras Tanura being as close as it was, it was normal to hear the siren and see fireworks in the sky as multiple Scuds and Patriots fought it out in the air above us. One afternoon, the siren sounded as my sister and I were on the roof and we could see a missile sailing above and almost immediately, the multiple interceptor launches and this was one of those times that peppering the sky didn't help. The Scud got through and I saw it make its way inland (the Scuds were never accurate weapons, just brute force) and I saw it disappear over the horizon and then the sound of a huge boom. This was the one that landed in an American residential compound and killed six American families as they sat in their homes.
These two incidents defined the war for me. The Americans called it the "Computer War" but there was nothing computer-like about either incident.
We had an uncle (a family friend) who was a senior executive at the AlMarai Dairy Farms very far removed from the cities and we were immediately sent there while my parents made arrangements for us to leave Saudi. This was a truly different experience. To give you an idea, I'll have to explain what these Farms are like.
Almarai is the largest dairy food company in the Middle East. Normally, when you say the words Middle East, the first thing that doesn't pop into your head is rolling farmlands for as far as the eye can see. But that's exactly what we encountered. Hundreds of acres of lush, green farms growing fodder, amongst other things for the million or so Jerseys that they have on the farms. I guess it doesn't take centuries to make the desert into arable land, just millions of Saudi oil Riyals.
We spent an idyllic few weeks there playing with my uncle's kids in their huge house, feeding the rabbits that were around and went riding a few times.
Then came the final rush out of the country. As you could've imagined, all routes out of Saudi after the launch of Operation Desert Storm (the retaking of Kuwait) were packed with millions of expats striving to get out before any more bombs fell. And this was our last great trip during the war. My sister and I along with another family (close family friends of ours) drove across the Causeway to Bahrain, waited 16 hours to be let through to the airport, flew immediately to Oman, waited a day there and then took the next flight to Bombay. With that, we saw the last of Gulf War I.
Of course, we came back a few months later after the liberation of Kuwait and the severe drubbing of the Iraqi armed forces. There were stories abound about the torture, rape and looting that the Iraqi regular army and the Republican Guard unleashed while occupying and exiting Kuwait. And I remember thinking, wow, I just experienced (somewhat) a war. It was unreal and though I never (thankfully) saw the mayhem and the devastation that the Kuwaitis must've felt, I still thought the experience was very poignant.
There were still a few incidents which flared up through the next few years like the bombing of Khobar Towers of 1996 which claimed 20 lives and injured 370 others. I was a few kilometers away at the time in a friend's place and thought it was an earthquake. Windows shattered and the ground rumbled. But the rest of my years in Saudi were relatively peaceful compared to the turmoil of 1990-91.
My next memory of note is near the ending of my school life in the Kingdom (Grade 10-12) and my subsequent and very eventful relocation to St.John's, Newfoundland. But I'll get to that in a little while. :)
(previous post - Memories - Saudi Part I)
So, that's where I grew up, initially. Now, when it came to school, I attended International Indian School, Dammam. Now, the school only started in 1982 and when I started attending it in 1985, it was a wee school with a few hundred students and a few dozen teachers. Today, this behemoth is home to 14,500 students and over 600 teachers. I believe, it is the biggest school in the Gulf.
By the time I left the school in 1997, it was now located in the above building. The beauty of schools in Saudi is that they are all segregated by sex. If you have 7000 boys on one side of the campus, you have 7000 girls on the other side, both seperated by high walls and fraternizing across the wall was not only frowned upon but was punishable.
My dad served on the Managing Committee of the school, which was chosen by the Indian Ambassador to Saudi at the time, Mr.Hamid Ansari (who is now the Vice-President of India). So, this made school both extra-enjoyable and extra-tricky for me. I could always rely on things getting done two minutes before I wanted them but at the same time, if I ever got in to trouble, then Dad would also be aware two minutes before the deed was done. I made some great friends in school, ALL of whom are married now, with kids, which is scary but that is another topic for another day.
We used to spend our weekends (Thursday and Friday in the Middle East) visiting Dammam and Khobar and the only thing and I repeat, the only thing we had to do as kids was visit malls or play sports. Am I talking fun malls with movie theaters and crazyness? Nope, just sprawling malls where you'd walk around with friends (movie halls don't exist in the Kingdom because they're "un-Islamic") and maybe, if you're lucky, spot a cute girl. Now, anywhere else in the world, this would mean that the girl is actually cute, but in Saudi, where ALL the women wear Burqas (infernal cloths that cover them from head to toe with an eye slit to look through) the phrase takes a new meaning.
So, when we spot girls, they had to have exquisite eyes or great hands. And you're not allowed to stare either, cause then you'll be rushed by other Saudi males and you will be summarily beaten for "dishonoring a female". Soo, all my friends were AWESOME at sports. I, myself, wasn't great but I could hold my own.
Saudi is a strange land with archaic customs that were old-fashioned a hundred years ago. But yet, they remain. No one dares say anything for fear of repercussions from the all powerful Mutawwas. I'd have a lot to say but Wiki summarizes it better:
"The Mutaween in Saudi Arabia are tasked with enforcing Sharia as defined by the government, specifically by the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (CPVPV). The Mutaween of the CPVPV consists of "more than 3,500 officers in addition to thousands of volunteers...often accompanied by a police escort." They have the power to arrest unrelated males and females caught socializing, anyone engaged in homosexual behavior or prostitution; to enforce Islamic dress-codes, and store closures during the prayer time. They enforce Muslim dietary laws, prohibit the consumption or sale of alcoholic beverages and pork, and seize banned consumer products and media regarded as un-Islamic (such as CDs/DVDs of various Western musical groups, television shows and film). Additionally, they actively prevent the practice or proselytizing of other religions within Saudi Arabia, where they are banned."
They are honestly loathsome people who make the life of any non-Saudi non-Muslim, living hell. People were always in fear of these Mutawwa and their ability to walk in to anyone's life and tear it apart. I knew about them and had seen what they could do, but I, myself was quite sheltered and never had direct dealings with one.
The general populace consists of two types of people, the educated elite (educated abroad in Europe or the US) and the bedouins who make up one group are understanding and welcoming of foreigners. The former, because they see that expats are necessary to run the country because the majority of the Saudi population can't and the latter, because they still believe in the old ways of bedouin hospitality where they treat a guest with utmost respect but are quick to anger at an insult. Then there's the other group of small-minded, fundamentalist Islamists who know that foreigners are necessary but feel that they are better than any non-Muslim, non-Saudi. I have no idea what perpetuates this belief because a lot of them are plain stupid and/or ignorant, but that's the general belief.
This is the reason that over 90% of expats there prefer to live in closed or sheltered communities with other non-Saudis and very rarely do you see a Saudi and a non-Saudi fraternizing.
I have mixed emotions about Saudi. When a person lives their entire life in a country, they have a sense of belonging to their adopted place, some loyalty. Saudi Arabia makes it very hard to feel anything towards it but a thinly veiled mistrust. I myself love the country and dislike the people. I would never go back there voluntarily. But having said that, once a person moves to the Gulf, it's almost impossible to leave (any Gulfie can back me up on this). Most of my friends grew up there and are still there, working, as are their folks. I don't know whether it's the lure of money and no taxes or it's just simply that easy to fall into a routine that's almost impossible to break.
Gas still costs less than a Riyal per liter. That's Rs.12 or $0.25. And this is AFTER a 25% increase.
I both love and hate Saudi Arabia and I guess now, you know why.
Before I end with this, I want to show you pictures of some of these sprawling colossi that Saudis called "malls". This one is the biggest and most famous, it's called Al-Rashid Mall. This is where my friends and I spent a lot of time as kids, eating and checking out Burqas. ;)
I was in Saudi, Grades 1 through 12. The moment I was done, by some lucky chance, I moved halfway across the world to another little known place called St.John's, Newfoundland in Canada.
But before we leave Saudi, I'd like to talk about a little incident called the Gulf War.
(to be continued)
I'm feeling quite nostalgic today so I thought I'd revisit some of the places I've been to in the past, through pictures and memories.
I was born in India waaay back in 1980 and moved quite quickly to Saudi Arabia. My parents were doctors and they were working there so I spent the next 17 years of my life in the sun-soaked country where temperatures reach 55 degrees Celsius (that's 131 Fahrenheit, for those of you who are metrically challenged). I had a good childhood. I spent the first few years in a place called Al-Oyoun in Saudi's Eastern Province. It's a sleepy little town (oasis) about 60kms inland from the sea. It's near the populous Eastern Province city of Hofuf. It was 120 kms back and forth to school everyday which isn't as bad as it sounds when cars can speed at 130-140 kmph.
It's not abnormal to see sword-wielding Bedouins in Oyoun's quiet streets as the entire area is still unofficially under the rule of the powerful and proud Shi'ite Muslim tribes in the predominantly Sunni Kingdom.
"In classic Arabic, Ahsa means the sound of water underground. It has one of the largest oases in the world with Date Palms of the best in the world, the oasis is located about 60 km inland from the Persian Gulf. All Urban areas are located in the traditional oasis of Al-Ahsa. In addition to the oasis, the county also includes the giant Empty Quarter desert, making it the largest county in Saudi Arabia in terms of area. The Empty Quarter has the world's largest oil fields and connects Saudi Arabia to Qatar, the UAE, and Oman."
The gun and sword laws aren't really enforced because, it is rumored, that these tribes can ride out and set fire to these fields at a whim and the government would be powerless to stop them.
So, as I was saying, going to school was an adventure. It's a beautiful drive, too. When you're driving, you have nothing but the highway in front of you and the desert in every direction. The first 5 years of my life, I spent at least 2-3 hours a day looking out at the sands and dunes roll by and it seemed like they were frozen relics of a time when the country was at the mercy of the elements and humans hadn't yet found the courage to wander the unforgiving landscape or disturb it, lest they awake some primeval beast from that deceptively quiet and beautiful scene. But, I remember feeling safe despite there being nothing but openness in every direction. I felt like nothing could disturb me there and it always seemed a welcome place. Once in a while, I'd see a herd of camel roll by and they seemed not to notice us and our trespass.
After a few years, we moved to Tarout. Tarout is a little island just off the coast of Saudi. It connects to the coastal town of Qatif which is one of the largest oil-producing cities in the world. In Tarout, there was a village called Sanabes and this is where I spent the next 8 years of my life. It was gorgeous. We lived about a few hundred meters off the beach and yes, it was palm-lined and the high-tide used to bring the water to a point where it almost touched the road that ran the perimeter of the island.
We used to go for walks along the beach at night. If you notice on the map, the entire central part of the island shows no habitation. That's because it was nothing but date palms and stud farms. Here they used to breed championship Arabian stallions the way they did way back in the day and I'm sure these animals never went for less than a few $100,000. And I could see the trainers running these horses up and down the beach at times, training them, exercising them. Even as a kid, I knew that I was in a special place. From our window on the 4th floor, we used to be able to look out at all of Sanabes and then right out to sea. We could see the three oil platforms of Ras Tanura and these massive tankers pulling up beside them.
This place is even more like the land that time forgot than the rest of Saudi. Saudi is a paradoxical place. It has rich, luxurious cities with everything in the world that oil-money can buy but it is also a thousand villages, with houses built of mud and people in their thobs and burquas selling dates and drinking black tea on carpets on dusty roads. I lived for the better half of my childhood amongst these people. The nomads and the date-sellers.
"Tarut or Tarout means goodness and beauty in the Semitic languages. Additionally, the town’s name is recorded as "TARU" in historical Chinese texts and "Ashtarut " in Arabic history. Today, however, most of the new researchers argue that the correct name is "Ashtarut " because the Canaanites and Phoenicians, who originally lived there, idolized the beauty of the town and called it Ashtarut.
We cannot separate the history of Tarut Island from the Eastern Arabian Peninsula's history. Tarut Island has survived for thousands of years and its antiquities prove that it was inhabited since the Stone Age, approximately 5000 B.C. It died several civilizations ago and was part of many Empires and countries. Some of them were before Christ, such as Dilmun, the Akkadian country, the Assyrian country, and the Persian Empire. Others were after Christ such as the Persian Empire, the Islamic country, the Portuguese Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. Now, Tarut Island belongs to Qatif city in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia. It was a place of economic migration because of its important strategic location and it was a trade center between Indian contraries, the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq. In addition, it has a lot of natural resources, including pearl fisheries and date farms."
In the heart of Tarout, is this massive sand fortress that is, I believe, over 400 years old. I used to see it everyday passing by it, as a kid and I remember thinking that it still looked impregnable just like it must have when it was first built.
"Tarut Castle is the most famous castle in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia and the oldest castle in the Persian Gulf. Tarut castle was built by the Portuguese in the 16th century, on the rubbles from an event 5 thousand years before. It is located in the center of Tarut Island in Ishtarut near a waterhole known as Al-Awda in the sixteenth century. Later, it was fenced in. moreover; it is located on main beautiful streets near shops and main services. It is even now fighting nature’s force, age, and negligence to remain an important emblem of antiquities and heritage not only in our valuable country but worldwide. On the towers of the castle, the viewer can see most of the island, its shores and ardens from every direction, and can see where the blue of the sky meets the blueness of the sea and the greenness of the land. "
(to be continued)
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