Tarut Island and Jubail

---

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 grounded if it proceeded further, we were met by crudely made donkey carts. The cart was a square wooden box which required care to avoid picking up a splinter. Four people could perch on the sides, feet placed close together in the middle. This ride cost another ryal per rider. The sand bottom was uneven making the ride slow and bumpy. Once on land, our ride continued up a gently sloping hill to the ruins of the Portuguese fort, where we all disembarked with relief from the uncomfortable ride. An Arab accompanied us as we toured the fort, as much to make certain we knew of the restrictions as to guide us. We had been told in advance that the top of the walls and the towers were out of bounds to men because the women’s hamam - toilet and bathing place - were directly below. We were also reminded that no one was to take photos of the women anywhere. Women in public always wore the aba, a black tent-like garment that covered them from the top of the head to their toes. Most were veiled twice below this - a mask with holes for the eyes and mouth and a thin face veil. If a picture were taken, the black aba would be all that could be seen. All women seen in public looked the same. Underneath the veils, many were beautiful and wore colorful clothing, but could only be seen like this by other women and their families within the walls of their home. With the women in our group, I climbed the steps to the top of the walls and the towers. There below was the scene denied the men. Several women were standing in the shallow pond below us, bathing themselves while still wearing most of their clothes. Had the men been with us, they would have seen no more than they regularly see of American women.

The tower offered us a nice view of the island with date palms and barastis, homes of sun-dried brick or scrap wood. Most Arab homes or barastis were surrounded by an outdoor yard protected by a high brick or thatch wall to enable women to go outside in privacy. Beyond could be seen the white beaches and the blue-green water of the Persian Gulf. A substantial portion of the mud brick fort walls still stood, though there was certain amount of decay from centuries of buffeting by the elements. Sentry posts and firing ports could be identified.

There were some separate ruins near the beach where our donkey carts had brought us ashore. These piqued my interest, and I resolved to walk back toward the beach to check them out. The walk was downhill, not a long one, and more comfortable than riding the donkey cart. In these ruins, I found what appeared to have been a Portuguese chapel. It still had a roof but was bare of furnishings, with niches in the walls on the sides, where there would have been statues of saints. When Muslims took possession of a church, they invariably destroyed any figures, which were considered idols. There were no pews, tapestries, crosses, or stained glass. Nevertheless, it was hard to believe the last worshiper had left this place over 300 years ago. For Saudi subjects, attendance at mosque on Friday and all other Muslim observances were compulsory. No other form of worship was permitted. When I reached the beach, the tide had come in so that the jarring donkey cart ride to the boats was mercifully shorter on the return trip.

The only paved roads in the Persian Gulf shores of Saudi Arabia were those in the ARAMCO colonies and in the American air base plus the roads connecting Dhahran, the air base, Al Khobar, Jubail, Ras Tanura, and Abqaiq. Al Khobar’s and Jubail’s streets were still unpaved. ARAMCO provided free buses between Dhahran, the other American colonies and Al Khobar, plus transit buses within the communities. The buses traveled slowly in a low gear, and were routinely stopped at prayer time so that the driver could get out with his prayer rug, spread it on the sand, and pray. Our weekend was Thursday and Friday. Although we had an Olympic size swimming pool in Dhahran, everyone liked an occasional weekend in Ras Tanura, where we had a lovely sand beach and transparent water so salty that swimming was nearly effortless. For a reasonable charge, we could use a vacant dormitory room near the beach on Thursday night. On the bus trips, we sometimes saw Bedouins herding goats, or rows of camels along the road as well as people carrying burdens, usually water containers on their heads. I noticed several structures that looked like towers along the road and asked someone what they were. The answer was that they are water wells. When first dug, the top rim was at ground level, but the wind blew the sand away, leaving a tower. Jim, a man I had met at a Dhahran square dance, was building a pier in Ras Tanura. The work often continued into the night, and he told me that the strong lights in the water revealed that the sea there was teaming with a great variety of sea life, some of which looked wicked enough to make him wonder about swimming in the gulf.


One day I joined an excursion to Jubail, a seaport town on the Gulf which was not far from Dhahran. We visited their suq (market) where we watched bread baked in brick ovens. The fire is built inside the oven and permitted to die down to coals. The leavened bread is patted into large flat rounds, stuck onto the walls of the oven to bake, then removed by a long handled tool. There were also metalworkers there who made gracefully shaped brass coffeepots. I learned that different areas in the east had a distinct shape for these coffeepots so that the place in which they were made could be identified. Saudi pots were made roughly the shape of an hour glass with a spout that curved from the base to the top. Though these coffeepots were a common necessity for any Arab family, they made an attractive souvenir purchase for western visitors. I accumulated a number of them, which I carried home as gifts or for myself. We also found camel owners in Jubail who offered us a ride for a few ryals. Do not misunderstand. None of us mounted and took the reins for a trot out over the desert. We took a very short ride with the driver in charge. He would order the camel down, help us up on the saddle, warn us to lean back -way back, then tap on the large animal. Camels are noted for their unpleasant disposition. With much groaning and complaining, a sickening froth often foaming from the mouth, the camel would rise, rear-end first, which made clear the reason for leaning backward as the rider strained to avoid pitching head first down the long slope to the camels head. The camel was then led a few paces while obliging friends took photos. During the time I lived in Dhahran, a dairy farm with mechanical milking machines was started in Jubail. This was great news for Dhahran. We had no fresh milk. The day I first arrived in Dhahran, still fighting a poor appetite because of jet lag, I found a milk shake offered on the menu of a lunch counter and ordered one only to discover it was made of powdered milk. Ugh! Canned was all right, and later, frozen milk was imported, which could be made fairly good by heating and beating it with a blender to get the ice out. The news that there was a dairy in Jubail spread like wildfire. The milk was not pasteurized, but sanitary practices were observed and many of us found our way there to buy the milk.
More about life in Saudi Arabia, locusts, and royal visits next.

---