Saudi Arabia - Day one

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June 15th, 2009
My first day went pretty well. Anthea came to pick me up at 8.45am, I had a lay in this morning since I arrived so late last night. The normal start time is 7am.

We went to the ID office for me to get my ID card. Here again they took my fingerprints and photo. The woman who took my finger prints was very nice and chatty. She was wearing the full Abaya covering her face (attached in the middle of her eyes). She was telling me she lived in England for a year and half and visited Paris which she much loved. She also told me she was divorced which isn’t what I expected. The next person I saw took off the veil covering her face to talk to me which I must admit is quite nice. We went for a drive around but Anthea air con doesn’t work and it was just horrible in the car, a real oven so we hurried to get back to the cool air conditioned office. I found out I couldn’t use my laptop in the office due to various IT security. We then went to have lunch at the golf club dinner. A sort of cafeteria for the golf club. It’s so weird to see a green patch in the middle f the very deserted sight along the road. This is really strange, it has a touch of America, the way the streets are, the cars but the heat, sand, dust is so new to me.

Work the afternoon and met with Tom for a catch up. I also bumped into Val who is here early to provide feedback for another group of participants. Back at the “hotel”, I tried to connect to the internet in vain. Shitty thing really. I gave up to go to the dinner hall across the street. It’s another cantine type. It’s ok, not very exciting. I went then on to taking a short walk to the media/cultural part of the camp - they have a café, a cinema, and a library. It’s very strange the road and streets are like ghost town, well not exactly but there are so few people I am not sure how I feel about being here. I got lost trying to find my way back - it all look the same!

One thing I noticed though is the Arabs definitely are really hospitable. I was expected people not talking to me, mostly the men, but actually they smile and say hello, and move on. Let see how tomorrow will go, start time 7.00am, so I’m off to bed.

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