Put your hands up for Al Jouf

I’m finally here, I arrived at my desert retreat yesterday, and it is literally in the middle of nowhere.

The epic journey from Riyadh to Al Jouf began at 2am on Thursday. Our flight wasn’t till 05:45, but Osama wanted to take us to the airport early as he had to pick up another teacher. I’ll miss Osama, the friendly, tireless Jordanian who is worked like a dog by Al Khaleej, 7 days a week for a very low wage that just about supports his wife and kids. He eats for free because he always joins the new arrivals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and they pay for him; some more willingly than others. I didn’t mind as the food is so cheap here, he’s extremely helpful and has a pretty raw deal. He’s a good man with good morals but I was surprised how even he, who has lived in England and Australia before, has been brainwashed by the media here.

“You know Ben, Saddam Hussein was a good guy. I mean, who else would give free healthcare and education to their people?”

I felt like saying Hitler or Stalin, but thought I’d stay diplomatically silent, and I decided against discussing Saddam’s ethnic cleansing of the Kurds. Anyway, I digress, on with my odyssey.

We passed through customs without any fuss (the guidebook does make that process sound more daunting than it really is), said our farewells to Osama and then waited in the departure lounge for about two and a half hours. Jeremy and I went to sit down and then realised we had entered the female section; the give-away being we were surrounded by burka-clad characters who all looked like Darth Vader and we were getting disapproving looks from the men sitting in the area adjacent to us. We promptly moved. I had read about the segregation of women in the Kingdom, but even after a week here the extent of it still shocks me. When we got on the plane this nonsense (this part of their culture, sorry) continued, as people were moved from one seat to another like a game of gender based musical chairs (jogo das cadeiras!). After about half an hour of kerfuffle the plane was ready to take off.

The flight was smooth, Saudi Airways give you a lot of leg room and there wasn’t much turbulence. The only negative being the food; an omelette that was drier than Ghandi’s sandals, and the gentleman sitting next to me, who smelt like a mix of cumin and body odour and looked at me as if he wanted to unleash jihad on my infidel self. I sat there and focused on my edition of Arab News, making sure I didn’t meet eyes with him. The plane landed and we were in Al Jouf.

The airport is tiny and in the middle of the desert. One of the other teachers here told me they want to make Al Jouf airport international, surprising considering it only consists of a landing strip and a small building which you can walk through in about 10 seconds. I picked up my bag and the Al Khaleej rep greeted us and took us to the car. As we drove for 20 minutes from the airport to the compound I was feeling happy to be out of the hustle and bustle of Riyadh, and I was enjoying the desert landscape. We arrived at the compound at 08:30, and I was dropped at my villa, number 16. I opened the blue gate and was impressed by the size of the place, considering it’s for two people to share. The back garden has a swimming pool, and leads to a spacious one level villa with a big living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a spare room and a laundry room. There are 20 villas in the compound and I think they’re all identical. There’s also a gym, table tennis table, pool table and table football, which I haven’t had the chance to find yet.

I’m living with Nick, an English guy who’s about my age; he also worked in South America (Colombia) before coming to Saudi. He’s been here a year so the house is already kitted out, which is nice, and I was delighted to find out he’s bought the Al Jazeera football package so we can watch Champions League football. He’s an Arsenal fan, but nobody’s perfect.

After a quick trip to the supermarket (a 20 minute bus ride) to get some essentials, I gratefully unpacked my stuff and then went to the next door villa as they were having a birthday party for Laura, one of the teachers. It was a good day to arrive, I got to meet almost all of the teachers, the sun was out and it was the beginning of the weekend. I start work tomorrow, so today I’m going to get to know the place a bit better and continue to settle in. I’ll be in touch soon, and post pictures tomorrow if and when I get internet that works properly.