How is Al-Khobar?

Khobar isn't as bad as I was expecting, life in Saudi Arabia has been negatively portrayed to me. So when I landed here 3 weeks ago, I was already expecting the worst. I've had my guards up and my eyes on the situation. To my disappointment, it turned out quite okay! Not too bad, not bad at all actually. So how is Al Khobar exactly? Let me give it to you with a pinch of salt.

In fact, there isn’t anything really fancy about the city itself. It's more of a town than a city, flat terrain like any other city in the Gulf. There are little greenery patches here and there and many industrial plots every other neighborhood. With lots and lots of streets that forms an urban grid. The people are less inclined to be tidy in their neighborhoods and are entirely oblivious to public cleanliness. Everybody seems to mind their own selves, cars and houses only and treat public areas as their litter dumps. There are observed segregation between the sexes, and one form of it is segregating families and bachelors. Bachelors in the city live in areas designated, intentionally and unintentionally, for them. There seems to be special entrances everywhere for families (to hotels, resorts, restaurants…etc) that bachelor men cannot enter. Sort of like a VIP treatment in other countries. Of-course, bachelor women or single independent ladies are unheard of in here.

Women can't drive, and they are not seen alone on the streets. And when you see a local Saudi woman, they are quite often face-covered. I wonder sometimes if they do that to waiver off potential complaint while anonymously going about doing their business. They cannot fly in or out of the country by themselves, inline with Islamic Shari'a (Islam law) that designates men to the complete care and convenience of women.

The people mix here is fascinating. Many are from Asian descent with a big concentration from the Indian subcontinent; specifically south Indians. Philippinos make a good portion of the working class; for entry-level office jobs and as clerks. There is also a substantial Yemeni community you don’t see that large in other gulf countries and is dominating the low governmental jobs as well as an important segment of skilled jobs. Of-course the remaining population, are made of a great blend of expatriate Arabic communities from the Levant, Sudan and Egypt as well as countries from North Africa.

The streets are large and seem to be modernly designed. I think the city municipality in al Khobar have twinned with a western city to bring about its design and standards. They have done a good design that serves bad functionality in my opinion. The main pitfall is the lack of parking space and lack of enforcement for private parking lots. Some of the pavements, side walks and traffic isles seem to be dug inside out and are just awful to look at while driving, like those on the Dhahran-Al-Khobar and Al-Khobar-Dammam highways. They seem impractical for pedestrians. Traffic here reminds me with one of Woody Allen's Annie Hall scenes when Alvy says this about Los Angeles: "I don't wanna live in a city where the only cultural advantage is that you can make a right turn on a red light" I couldn’t have said it better for my own good, literally!! Drivers here can pass right on a red-light, a fact that got me into a lot of steamed-up traffic rage. More and less, the drivers are nuts and very impatient. They come right at you on the slow lane, and at the speed of flashing light, almost bumping into your trunk so that they get a couple of more meters ahead of you on a heavily trafficked road! During the week it's quite okay to drive, but on weekends the streets flood with Saudis visiting from all over the country in transit to Bahrain. Bahrain is just 30 minutes and a bridge away. Some bring their families and rent furnished apartments for the weekends and go back and forth into Bahrain and others sleep over in the tiny Kingdom of Bahrain.

The people are generally shy and quite helpful when you ask for help. That was contrary to how I perceived Saudis. I thought they were rude, loud and inconsiderate. At the outset, and so far I have not seen that category of people. On my scale, Saudi youth fair quite well against the others in gulf cities like Kuwait, Doha and Dubai. Almost everybody keep their prayers here when the prayers are due, and that’s expected of a people of a land where Islam was first preached and practiced. However I have come to suspect if this kind of practice is tradition-led or faith-found. Mosques at the time of prayers are jammed with people who gather from every shop, stall and office after they cease work temporarily. It is just amazing how for a short while, five times a week and everyday, all mosques host a multi-cultural convention where everybody spiritually unite and kneel and prostrate for the One God. The closure times are different for each Salat (prayer); Dhuhur (noon) is about 30-40 minutes, same as Aser (afternoon), Maghreb (sunset) is less than 20 minutes and Isha (evening) is 30-40 minutes again. everything closes down including petrol pumps. i have taken the below picture when i was queuing up there. Many westerners and western-educated and economic figures complain how counter-productive the practice can be, I quite disagree. Having said that I would love to see unified Athans (call for prayers) for all provinces in Saudi Arabia to avoid out of sync athans and horrible voices of untrained Muathens (caller for prayers) calling for prayers. I would also love to see etiquettes being published to all expatriates and in all languages about hygiene and ablution practices. Sometimes the entrances of the mosques are most repelling because the odor of the prayers' shoes left outside.

Considering that most of the work force here are expatriates, I have only heard the Westerners call themselves that. They live in secluded areas in heavily barricaded colonies they call compounds. They are quasi-paradises meant to reproduce a western lifestyle for all of those expatriate families who do not want to compromise on their standards of living. The expatriates who live there tend to mind their own business and not mix with the local communities behind the wall; and that is somewhat justified due to the bombings of some living areas in Dammam some years back and because of the huge cultural gap that seems sadly irrevocable. There are many rumors about what goes on behind the gates of these communities and many local Saudis here have one too many stories about them. To me I could not have located any of the compounds without the help of Google Earth, and once I did they looked like lost treasure-oases in the middle of sand dunes and shanties. I was eyeing one in particular, which is called Euro Village which has what it seems to be an Olympic swimming pool. Check out the Google Earth image. The rent for one duples villa of 200 meter square 2-bedroom apartment can shoot up to Riyals 165k; which is about $45k a year and is about 550% higher than a similar apartment outside a compound! The reason for this inflated rent-price is due to demand

The best thing about living in Khobar is that business is big and the prospects of excelling and accomplishments are high. there is a nice side to the spiritual prospects too. Anyone with an Islamic conviction, who for whatever reason believed and never practiced, Saudi is a place and opportunity where all can never mind the mundane business and get down to the real one. For that reason alone I believe Saudi Arabia is a fine place to live in.