Salaam wa leikum! Well, we lived in the sleepy little town of Ras Tanura, run by ARAMCO, for F-I-V-E long years. We had the BEST lives over there of all the Americans.
I HAVE heard all the horror stories! My husband (a mechanical engineer who could do ANYTHING) and I lived in a BRAND NEW three and a half bedroom home, wall-to-wall carpet, three bathrooms, all electric kitchen, TWO humungous A.C. units (in case one broke down, we had the back up), one-car garage with a special room (zillions of electricity stuff in there) that ALL Aramcons used for making booze, phone line home to the U.S., three cars (beat-up leftovers from previous ARAMCONS), small back yard which I filled with cactus (indestructible!!), a front lawn and a Philippino houseboy.
On camp we had a movie theater, commissary, pork store, bank (Saudis always ran anything to do with money), club house [with a pool, restaurant, school (K-9)], three ministers (one priest, one vicar for the six Anglicans and one minister for ALL the Protestants), their respective homes, recreation department, beach house, life guard, hundreds of new homes, just like ours, a hundred or so older homes which were cheaper but had cockroaches, golf course (ALL SAND) and ITS clubhouse and, of course, the refinery.
The refinery belched orange and white (sulfuric acid) flames. The latter made us ALL sick as dogs when the wind blew the wrong way. The Saudi police "guarded" the front gate. I once saw one of them picking his feet with his bayonet. Lovely.
For us it was the adventure of a life time. We traveled all over the place...Egypt twice, Syria, Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, China, India, Europe, even Kenya! I learned to read and write SOME Arabic, and al hamdu lillah and shukran were the phrases that carried us throughout the ENTIRE middle east!
My wonderful husband (now passed on) made an INDECENTLY large salary and I made exactly FOUR times my back-in-the-states salary. After TWO years there we had enough to BUY A HOUSE in San Francisco. We came home after five years. That was enough! Also, you DO remember that ARAMCO and the U.S. government had an agreement: WE ARAMCONS PAID NO FEDERAL INCOME TAXES ON OUR SAUDI EARNINGS. We were from California and after being out of the state for longer than a year, we were no longer California state residents and paid NO STATE INCOME TAX!
We had the house fully PAID for after nine total years. What a deal!
SO!!! Fi iman illah and Ma salaama.
THANKS for serving, General.
The big money is no more for the non oil people. They are hiring Pakistanis now because even the Filipinos are too expensive.
The maids and outside help is mostly Malaysians now.
South Africans and Australians have replaced Americans in most places.
Saudis are driving taxis now which I’m sure didn’t happen when you were there.