Scrab

Adapting to the Arab custom of napping at midday, Aramco had a two hour lunch break. Americans working outside the fence close enough to return home for lunch needed to pass through the single gate into our fenced community. In my dormitory was a nurse who had been in Dhahran during the early years. She told of the public executions that were staged just outside the gate at noon, making those passing through a captive audience. Theft was punished by cutting off the hand of the offender. The blood was stanched by thrusting the stump into sand. She told of standing by to substitute sanitary treatment and binding for the sand treatment. Someone convinced the Arab authorities not to use this site for executions, and the gruesome show stopped long before I arrived there, but it ... read more

In the Persian Gulf, offshore from the village of Qatif, is Tarut Island once occupied by Portuguese. The people occupying the island in the ‘50s made their living primarily by fishing. Our tour began when we boarded the company launch from a dock in Qatif. The island is surrounded by a large area of very shallow water. As our launch slowed to a stop and dropped anchor, the land was still distant beyond bottle green water over a visible white sand bottom. A number of flat-bottomed boats were rowing toward us. They pulled up alongside of the launch and we boarded them, 3 or 4 people to a boat. The price was one ryal per passenger. That was about a quarter in US money. When we reached a point at which the loaded boat would be ... read more

Soroya met me on my return from Luxor and drove me to her apartment in a nice residential section. As we proceeded along a wide walkway between the apartment buildings, we encountered an altercation between two groups of people. There were more men than women. The women remained silent, but the men shouted angrily with raised fists. They were speaking the Egyptian language, so I did not know what they were saying. A woman dressed in a loose bright yellow garment stood in front of one group. I asked Soroya what was happening. She said it was a divorce. The husband was returning his wife to her family. I knew that, in Saudi Arabia, a husband could divorce his wife by saying, “I divorce you,” three times. I was told that there had to be an ... read more

Luxor Before sunrise, we boarded a small aircraft, carrying no more than 20 passengers, for Luxor. As the sky showed sunrise colors, the solemn call to prayer was intoned by a deep male voice over the speaker. The slanting sunlight revealed a barren but beautiful red landscape. Our hotel was on the shore of the Nile with a road separating it from the river’s edge. There were small sailboats (feluccas) on the water. We checked in and immediately arranged for the trip to the Temple of Karnak. On the way, we passed palm trees and fields cultivated by oxen-drawn plows and irrigated by a seesaw-like contraption that lifted water from the river into the ditches. These, we were told, have been in use for millenniums. Most of the vehicles on the dirt road were drawn by ... read more

Saudi Arabia did not want tourists. Foreigners were restricted to the area near the Persian Gulf where ARAMCO’s settlements and areas of operation were. Relatives of employees could visit for a limited time, but others needed to be requested by ARAMCO for specific reasons. Christian clergy serving our community lived in Bahrain and were admitted as “consultants” on Fridays only. When Lowell Thomas visited, he was called an entertainer, which he fulfilled by having a slide showing for the residents of Dhahran. Only those who had business in Riyadh were allowed to go there. A woman doctor from our clinic went to Riyadh to treat a female member of the royal family and returned with the king’s gift - a brocade sari, made with real gold, which she put on display one day for us to ... read more

Saudi Arabia in 1953 It was August, 1953. We left New York in an ARAMCO airplane, a DC4, which landed at Goose Bay before continuing on a 17 hr. flight across the Atlantic. ARAMCO stands for the Arabian American Oil Company. With the exception of a few wives on their way to join their husbands, the passengers, mostly men, were on their way to jobs in Saudi Arabia. I was one of four single women, two of whom were going to secretarial jobs. My seatmate Jeanine, like myself, was going to teach the children of Aramco’s employees. Jeanine was a beauty who could have doubled for Elizabeth Taylor. The flight seemed interminable in the cabin filled with cigarette smoke that made it difficult to sleep, but sunrise came soon. Finally, we found ourselves looking down over ... read more

Christmas in Egypt 1953 Christmas and the Muslim holiday of Id al Adha occurred at approximately the same time, providing enough time off that I could plan a trip to fulfill my long time wish to see the pyramids. By this time, I had a new roommate. Caroline had arrived from Beirut, where she had been teaching in the American school. She was an American who had studied in an Egyptian university. When Carolyn learned I was going to Egypt, she insisted upon giving me a letter of introduction to her Egyptian friend, Soroya, a fellow student in the university who was now married and teaching in a Cairo university. After I arrived in Cairo, had checked into my hotel, and made arrangements for the following day, I called Soroya, expecting to squeeze in a visit ... read more