Here, I found myself having tea in a field with one person that I somewhat knew and four people that I didn’t know, which suddenly was unnerving because I realized I did not know the person that well that I thought I knew. We were out in the middle of nowhere. There were no taxis in the immediate vicinity.

There we were. One man was a local farmer. The others were nondescript except for one man. He had that horror-movie crazy person look, not the guy who does the deed but the simpleton that laughs and has no conscience and might bury the body later or cleans up the blood after the bath has been given or who fries up the arm for a snack. This man, they told me, was the man of the field. This made me think that he slept in the field. Maybe he is of the melon. Maybe he is of the corn. He gave me the creeps. I swear I had seen him in some Tobe Hooper film. Or was it a Wes Craven horror-show?

We had come upon them when I thought we were on our way to lunch. They were in the middle of the field sitting on a blanket in the shade. They were eating grapes and rolling cigarettes. We sat and talked and had pita bread and feta cheese and then later we had tea. They were friends with the newest of the Ahmeds and his friend Ahmed.

If something were to happen to me, know one would know where I had been or whom I was with or anything. Sure there are pictures of the new Ahmed and his friend Ahmed but how could anything be proved. In the last few days, I have found myself in that situation a few times. And really, I don’t think that I need to be scared but it does give me pause. My feeling is that sketchy guys look sketchy. Ahmed and his friend Ahmed have fresh faced university written all over them.

I had just been to Sakkara to see the tombs. Finally, I had ridden a camel. Ahmed, I met in Azhar Park there with his girlfriend. When he was taking her picture, I offered to take a picture of them both. We started talking. At university, he studies languages. Sometimes he answers me in French or Italian. He is not accomplished at any of them but he is trying.

“Oui, oui,” he says occasionally.

After we talked in the park for twenty minutes or so, he told me that he wanted to show me Sakkara. We planned to meet on Saturday. He gave me directions to Sakkara via train, shuttle bus, and tuk tuk. He wrote the directions in Arabic and English.

I took the metro but missed my Giza stop. Since the direction I was going had Giza on the sign I assumed it was the terminal station. It was not. When I looked up, I realized I had missed it. A very kind man named Ramy told me it was the stop before. I told him I would just go back one stop. He told me he would help me. He actually led me out of the station and told me he would take me to where I needed to go. We walked on a muddy animal strewn road back to the next station or rather to the shuttle bus area by the station.

Ramy told me he would help find a shuttle bus. That is what I wanted to do. But then a taxi came. Ramy hailed it but the driver wanted too much. I had asked Ramy how much the taxi should charge. I told him I would like to take a bus instead. I would have to make two shuttle connections to the Sakkara stop. That was okay with me.

Ramy tried a few busses but then he finally grabbed me a cab. He told me I might have trouble speaking to a bus driver and they would not know where I was going so a cab would be better. I agreed.

We found a cabbie that agreed to use the meter. Usually this is a good idea with the exception of the other night when a cabbie charged me three times what the cost should have been after he drove around in circles since the destination was not that far but he assumed I did not know where I was going so he was able to fleece me.

So I hopped in a cab and told Ramy goodbye. I promised to write. I felt as if I was on some mythical adventure full of intrigue, daggers and pita. The cabbie knew no English. I started taking pictures of farm animals in front of apartment buildings. He slowed down to let me do this; sometimes he pointed at farm animals for me to shoot. Everyone is getting ready for Eid al-Adha. For this, to celebrate, animals must be slaughtered. Back in mecca, Hassan Mohammad with the most terrible big slash of a scar on his face, at this moment, I know, is preparing to slaughter a camel.

The cabbie drove me somewhere in the vicinity of 30 minutes out into the farmland of outer Cairo. Along the road was a creek that was used for irrigation. Motor vehicles shared the road with animal powered vehicles, donkey, horse, camel, yak, whatever. At the reigns at times were young boys almost too small to control the animal or old men almost too old. At one point, we picked up a toothless old hag carrying a box. She rode a less than a kilometer and was dropped. The cabbie took no money from her.

Me, he had. If he wanted to demand all of my money, he could. I had no earthly idea where I was. I was lost in the African outskirts. Although, the day was as sunny as days get, there was a slight feeling of doom about all of this but this might just be a lark.

We drove past a sign with Sakkara written on it. I pointed to the sign. I called Ahmed. I gave the phone to the taxi driver. We turned around. At the crossroads where I had seen the sign, Ahmed and his friend Ahmed jumped in. We headed to Sakkara.

At the gate of the Sakkara tombs, the guards questioned us, our origins, our citizenship. This was done in Arabic. Ahmed answered and the two Ahmeds gave their identification cards. The guards did not ask for mine since I am a tourist, a traveling ATM.

Ahmed and Ahmed and I saw the tombs and walked around and yes it is awe-inspiring and like nothing anywhere. And it is in the middle of nowhere with just desert around, or let me rephrase that it is out in the countryside down several paved narrow roads, out in farmland. But once you have gone into this vast burial ground, the necropolis for ancient Memphis, there are miles and miles of sand and tombs. This has to be cinema. This cannot be real. Where are the cameras? Where is Spielberg? Where is the Pink Floyd soundtrack?

Inside Sakkara, Ahmed asked me if I wanted to ride the horse. I was noncommittal. He then asked if I wanted to ride the camel. Yes, of course, I love camels. I have to ride the camel. Yes!

We walked to where the camel men were camped, with the camels beside them. The camels and the men looked as if the desert had exchanged their youth for rotten teeth, weathered faces, and failing limbs. The desert had given the camels bad attitudes. They had the look of disgruntled employees on the verge of mutiny. The herdsmen seemed unaware of this.

Maybe this is because the camels are tied to the ground with ropes. You come upon them and they look as if they are relaxing. Soon you find out this is not the case. They are bound to the ground. If you bend your elbow to your shoulder and then have someone tie it between the elbow and shoulder that is how the camels were bound which seems less than P.E.T.A. friendly.

We picked a camel for me to ride.

The herdsman shushed softly to calm the camel. The camel, with not many teeth left in its head, wanted to let out a ferocious roar to intimidate but instead out came a forlorn Chewbacca howl. The herdsman motioned for me to get into the saddle. There was a stirrup for my left foot. This was what I expected but was not what I expected. The camel, though very old, rose with such force that I worried it might try to buck me. Forever, I have spoken of the magic of camels and I was finally able to experience this. These camels will someday be freed from the spell that has been cast upon them. Maybe they will be the ones to inherit the earth. Imagine a camel future - camels playing indie rock, camels playing golf, camels gossiping at the water cooler, camels working at Starbucks.

This moment, getting on the camel moment, I had been looking forward to this for so long. I was ready to take off into the desert for a several day ride, sleeping with the Bedouins. This was not quite what happened because of the location where the camel riding took place. All around were steep drop-offs. In a place where there is just flat desert for as far as the eye can see the place where the camels were parked was corralled by precipices. This was worrisome.

If I was to go flying, it would be looked upon as nothing more than a freak accident, one of those foreign news blurbs, footnote at best. I suppose that wouldn’t be a bad way to go to be thrown by a camel to my death but that is not particularly how I would like to end my tenure on earth. At least give me a longer camel ride before I am catapulted.

Nevertheless though the camel was of a very moody extraction - if I may indeed speak about his ethnic origin in such a way, I am still very fond of camels even the ones who do not wake up with sunny outlooks. But then really I don’t blame them. If my front haunches were tied together I would not have the sunniest of outlooks either.

At the entrance to the site, after the car has been parked, there are guards who ask for money. Ahmed explained this to me after we walked in the site. I was going to have him pay for everything with the money that I had given him to pay the cab at the end of the adventure. How he wound up with my money I do not recall. He is shifty.

When we got back to the gate, he told me I needed to pay the guards. Since he was holding the money, I told him to. He acted a little strange about this. He tried to give a guard the money and the guard would not take it. To Ahmed, he said something that sounded rude. Ahmed handed me the money and I handed it to the guard. He threw it back at Ahmed. Ahmed then told me that the guard couldn’t take money from an Egyptian.

Ahmed had told me to pay the cab to wait while we saw the site, which I did, though Ahmed would be the one to settle up since I gave him the money. We drove through the village of Sakkara. There were farm animals and carts and beat up cars and beggar women and beggar men everywhere. There was bustle and noise and loud tractors and the hollering of youngsters and their elders. Ahmed had said that we would eat here but now I was wondering about that. I was hoping that we wouldn’t because it looked so dingy and dirty everywhere. Third world eats sometimes are less than delicious.

For the second time, I thought that I was going to see the pyramids but it was not to be. Ahmed told me that there was no time to see them. They are the carrot held in front of you. Instead you are taken to a place for perfume or papyrus.

This Ahmed, come to find out, this Park Ahmed, is a bit of a scammer. He is a student, I think. We were near his home, I think. He had lured me out there to make some cash, I know. But at the same time, I hold no grudge. Perhaps, what puts people off about this sort of thing is that it is sneaky. Yes, you meet someone in the park and they seem to honestly like you and in this instance you think that it is like it is in China where they just want to practice their English, a fair exchange. Then they want to take you into their home because it is so unusual to know a foreigner. No, here they also want a piece of your wallet. But then, who can blame them? I don’t. I just come from a luckier zip code.

On my way out to meet this Ahmed, I started to wander about all of this if he really wanted to show me around or if he just wanted to show my money around. Thus, after our tomb visit when we got out of the cab next to a field a bit outside of the village, I was a bit suspicious, not worried, but my detector for the manure of cow being dished to me was starting to register in the higher register.

At the same time, I was out in a field in Africa seeing the local people do their thing. I was not a tourist but a traveler that happened upon a daily scene of pastoral tranquility. I followed Ahmed down narrow raised paths with irrigation ditches on each side. The taxi had dropped other Ahmed off to get a computer. He would meet us.

Then there I was sitting with these men that were friends of Ahmed. At one point, his older brother came upon us carrying some sort of leafy crop. He sat it down and talked to us. Ahmed had to interpret for everyone.

The ploy I have found when you are being scammed is that the person scamming you tells you to relax, no hurry. This happened on the first night I was here. Today was nice sitting in the field but I did not want to sit in a field all day, not when I was starting to see that Ahmed is among the better scammers. Finally, I was able to convince him to find a bus for me to take me back to the city.

As we were leaving, the crazy horrorshow man who had disappeared came back with a donkey. I was to ride the donkey. I told him I would the next time. He insisted I ride the donkey. I told him I would for sure the next time. Again he insisted. Ahmed then told me that horrorshow man had prepared a feast for me, that he had killed a chicken and prepared a feast for me. This totally turned my stomach.

Please could some Tobe Hooper character or perhaps Dracula’s Renfield make me dinner? This just seemed too much like it could be a new smash hit horror movie with a different take. Have it take place in Egypt. Will the main character survive? But then was I the main character or the dinner to be served to the main character, who was yet undetermined? Maybe this was all on the up and up but it was a little too creepy.

Since I knew the donkey could not go very fast, I appeased horrorshow man and I hopped on the donkey but then horrorshow man started leading the donkey back to the field. At that point, I jumped off and ran. Ahmed and Ahmed followed.

We took a dilapidated shuttle bus back to where the cabbie had picked up Ahmed and Ahmed. Ahmed and Ahmed put me in another shuttle bus that would take me to Giza and from there I could get another one to the Metro. That dilapidated bus kept packing in the passengers and then little by little they got off. Behind me sat three brothers, the oldest being in his late teens or early twenties and the youngest being in the vicinity of ten. The one in the middle was closer to the youngest one’s age.

The oldest brother started talking to me and seemed to think we were carrying on a conversation though it was all in Arabic. I just laughed and repeated what he said though I do know at one point that he was talking about slaughtering animals because he acted as if he were eating after he had cut a mock throat. I hope that he was talking about slaughtering animals that is. A few times he said Giza and a word that sounded like pyramids. A boy who had been silent in the front seat looked back at him and me and said ‘metro’. The older brother then repeated ‘metro’ to me.

“Yes metro!” I agreed. I had to get to the metro.

When we got to crossroads - the pyramids one direction or the metro the other, he motioned for me to get off as he got off with his brothers. We stood at an intersection and he called to passing busses. At one point a taxi stopped but I shook my head. Finally, a city bus came by. The older brother flagged it down. I shook his hand and got on. He did not try to scam me out of anything. Really, most people want to help. He looked poor and like he could have used the money but he did not try to scam me. Now I wish that I had given him money.

As the bus pulled away, I waved at him and his brothers. The boy who had said ‘metro’ got on the bus with me. I followed him to the front of the bus. He asked some people sitting near us something in Arabic. I am not sure what. One shook his head yes and then looked at me and said:

“We tell you when metro.”

“Thank you. Thank you.”

Soon this boy got off and the man he had asked nodded to me. The man behind him would go to metro stop.

“I will show you metro,” the man behind told me.

“I go to metro,” the Asian sitting behind him said.

I thanked them all and rode the rest of the way. Soon the bus stopped. The Asian was a Chinese man named Wu. I said a few things in Chinese, which made him laugh. We rode the metro together to the Sadat stop where we parted.

He asked me if I saw the pyramids. I told him that I had not seen them yet. Since he was coming from Giza I assumed he had.

“No, the driver could not find the gate. I did not see them,” he told me. And although, he was leaving the next day and had more than likely been scammed by the driver who could not ‘find’ the gate to the pyramids, he did not seem to mind that he had not seen Egypt’s most iconic landmark but then that is the magic of Egypt.

Who will love Aladdin Sane?

During the day, everyone stays inside - in cars, in buildings, in houses - in the air conditioning. As the sun goes down and night approaches, Jeddah starts bustling with activity. Boys roar by in their cars; sometimes these boys are the ripe old age of 12.

Watching him dash away / Swinging an old bouquet…

On weekends in the evening, Abrahim and I go to the Corniche, which runs along the Red Sea or an inlet of such where we meet up with his cousins. Or sometimes, I ride with his cousin Abdu who is a bit more fluent in his English. Last night, Abdu wanted me to hear what he says is one of the most beautiful English songs. Westlife sings the song. After splashing around in the Red Sea, I can strangely embrace Westlife. Please don’t tell anyone.

All the seas go coast to coast / Find the place I love the most / Where the fields are green / To see you once again my love.

And then it hits me:

Who will love Aladdin Sane?

Outside the window of my apartment in the compound, on the other side of the concrete wall with the barbed wire on top and then on past the second retaining wall that keep trucks from parking and exploding and blowing up my apartment and on past the four-lane road and then there, there in the parking lot that houses Al Baik (the favored Saudi fast food chain that I heard is actually not Saudi, and that same building that houses a few clothing shops including European Shoes that sales, for the most part, shoes made by Caterpillar which is pretty much not European but maybe Kansan or Nebraskan), African immigrants wash cars. Where they get the water, I do not know but there is a gaggle of them with buckets and sponges. There are puddles everywhere. Sometimes I watch them from my window.

A few weeks ago after I had gone to the Corniche, Abraham took me to Al Baik for the first time. We arrived during prayer time. At prayer time, as I have said before, everything stops for 20 minutes at least. Sometimes shop owners are in no hurry to open to the mad throng that is waiting because the crowd gathers like birds in uh, well, Hitchcock’s The Birds. This is what happens; someone who finally gets fed up after a thirty-minute wait starts pounding on the door like the birds that got fed up waiting for Tippi Hedren or the others trapped in the house to come out of the house and the birds pecked their way into the upper floors. Thirty-five minutes later the doors open after five minutes of mad knocking and the crowd flock in like birds or, more like, swarm in like bees.

So in this instance we were waiting in Ibrahim’s battered Honda with nothing to do but wait. One of the Africans approached. Ibrahim rolled down the window and negotiated a car wash. Soon after, bucket upon bucket of water landed upon the car starting with the windshield, thrown on the car by a bedraggled young man who looked to be in his mid-teens.

This is his life. Washing cars in Saudi is his life. Dressed in rags is his life. Living in someplace amongst strangers who do not care for him, do not notice him, is his life, anonymous and marginalized. This ragged Saudi life must be better than what he had in Africa. Do we have to see someone less fortunate who does not question his fortune to know how lucky we are?

That being said, I snapped pix of him while he washed the car because I was struck by something in him, something unexplainable, maybe his acceptance of life with no question. Something stirred me and I don’t know why but it did, maybe it was some sort of Death in Venice wish. My involvement or notice spurred him to clown a bit and throw a fresh bucket of water on the windshield to shield himself from my camera, my life from his - my age, his youth. He smiled as he splashed.

After he washed the car and Ibrahim paid him, I took my picture with him. Ibrahim navigated this because the young man was not sure what I wanted. Why would someone want a picture with him his eyes asked? This seemed like some sort of hallowed moment. Now, here and there I see him in the late afternoon when he arrives to wash cars or at night when he is wet with soap and perspiration and we recognize each other’s existence with a nod of the head. Hallowed be thy name.

Nighttime is when the Saudis truly live. This seems to be the routine for most of them from what I have witnessed. They get up, go to school or work; their first meal is at noon. That is breakfast. They have a big lunch, maybe cupsa, after work or school and then they take a four-hour nap and wake up and go out.

The streets are roaring with cars and activity at night. Sometimes, driving down the highway, I will spot three or four cars pulled over on the side of the road with young men doing nothing but talking and laughing and yelling revving their engines and being nothing more than young men but young men without alcohol since alcohol is illegal in the Kingdom.

Motor sensational…

Sometimes as well, and this always makes me laugh, I see a pre-pubescent at the wheel that can barely reach the pedals. Yes, I know this is a serious business but it cracks me up. Women can’t drive so they have to have their young sons who are not driving age drive to run errands or to pick up older or younger sisters.

Here four cars crowd into three lanes. The lanes seem to be nothing more than white painted lines.

But then what happens at lunch here? For the first few weeks, I went next door to the school for a kibda sandwich but then I decided to change it up. Last week, Michael asked me if I wanted to get falafel at his favorite falafel place that was a bit of a walk. I told him sure. So we started walking. Fahd joined us. He seems to be wherever I am quite often. He has a mountain of things to say to me but all he can ever say since I often saw him at the kibda place is:

“Teacher like kibda?”

The three of us walked a couple 100 meters and then a car nearly overtook us screeching to a halt seconds away from English teacher of the Michael-and-Tyson-variety extinction. We turned around to see a rumbling white 80s model Chevrolet Caprice. Dust was still flying. The car honked. And a large figure blurry in the midday sun emerged. There stood Khaled, one of my students who is big and jolly and should be driving a Caprice. Imagine Peter Sellers coming back from the grave and playing John Candy (grave fabulous) in a movie scripted by Hunter S. Thompson (grave slightly unwashed) and directed by Jim Jarmusch (who is not yet of the grave).

“Teacher! Where you go?” He motioned for us to get in the car. That one phrase was the most English I had heard him speak yet, which made me wonder if some of these guys are just faking it to get out of doing work in class. “Me go you.”

I understood what he was trying to say and got in the front seat and Michael got in the back. As soon as I got into the car, I completely fell back in the seat because Khaled had the passenger seat and the driver seat reclined all the way back. This was his own magic carpet and he cruised the Kingdom on and in it.

“So I see you sleep as you drive,” Michael volunteered. Khaled just let out a blast of laughter.

“Teacher where you go?”

“Falafel,” I said.

“Falafel good,” he confirmed.

Since every driver seems to think he is driving a Ferrari though he is really driving a Crown Victoria, or an Impala, or in this case, a Chevrolet Caprice; Khaled zipped in an out of traffic as if we were racing in Monte Carlo. The affect was that of a ship which through some magic power had suddenly become a rocket. At one point, since I had no seat belts, since seat belts are frowned upon in the Kingdom - or any leverage whatsoever since I was basically being propelled through this cruise ship on wheels or this oversized low-flying magic carpet - I found myself tumbling across the front seat much like Alice tumbling down the rabbit-hole.

“Teacher funny,” Khaled laughed.

We arrived at the falafel place and the falafels are godhead. This is coming from someone who is not a falafel fan but then I had never had one in Saudi. Stuffed in pita bread, there were carrots and tomatoes, French fries and all sorts of other secret magic ingredients. I ate a whole one and then I split one with Michael. While we ate, we crowded six people onto a bench made for four people.

After this gastronomic revelation, the next day, Michael – we share an office – asked me if I wanted to get falafel again since I had been so demonstrative in my love for my first Arabian falafel.

“Yes,” I replied. “Should we try to con a student into taking us?”

“Yes,” Michael confirmed with a giggle. With that, we walked to the school gate where students congregate and asked somewhat loudly who wanted to take us to get falafel. Several students offered.

We accepted a ride with Camel Eyes, Michael’s student. I had met him at the kibda place one day at the start of the term. At that time, I told Michael that I met his student who has beautiful eyes, like a camel. Now we call him Camel Eyes. In the car, Michael who teaches higher-level students told him that we call him Camel Eyes. I added that he has beautiful eyes and that I love camels. He told me that most people think his eyes are not beautiful. I repeated his eyes are beautiful.

Last night, I got a call from a student who was ready to take me to the Red Sea Mall, which we had been discussing for a week or so. He is an Abdullah. We were set to go on Tuesday. To him, Tuesday is Thursday. I tried to explain there was a misunderstanding. Because to me, Thursday is Thursday not Tuesday but he did not understand this. He wanted to go on Tuesday, which is really Thursday because that is when all of the girls are there. And since this society is segregated and single men cannot be around single women, he is often not allowed in the mall on Thursday, which he calls Tuesday, because Thursday, again which he calls Tuesday, is family night.

So he called me when I was with Abdu and Ibrahim and I tried to explain the mix-up, which I could not relay so I finally had Abdu explain it to him. But this made him hang up because he did not understand that I had put Abdu on the phone to explain the situation with him. He thought this to be interference. Naturally, here there are a lot of misunderstandings and miscommunications.

As in what happened on Wednesday afternoon, Fareed invited me to go drink the milk of the camel with him. After that we would go to watch the Ittihad Football Club (the Saudi team) play at the stadium. Abdiramen told me this at the end of the last class of the day. I was perplexed. Why did Abdiramen assume that I knew about this? Then I remembered a few weeks ago when I had marked a date on Fareed’s calendar when I would go somewhere with him.

Fareed is full of energy and is linguistically ambitious at times but at other times when I want him to complete a task he says “Homework,” which always perturbs me because I always know that he is going to say it before he does. He wears me out and I had already had two heart attacks and a meltdown during the day. Not to mention, my head was starting to pound.

The heart attacks were the simple heart attacks that occur when someone says ‘is’ instead of ‘has’ or ‘he’ instead of ‘she’. This is what happens - my eyes roll back in my head and I fall over what happens to be in my way, be it a desk, a chair, another teacher, or a student, whatever. Sometimes a student will come and fan me to revive me.

My inspiration for this comes directly from Edith Hicks, my journalism teacher my sophomore year of high school. In my younger years before I could truly appreciate performance, she was the first teacher who saw the importance of impromptu performance in the classroom. By the time, I had her as a teacher she was near the end of her career but that never stopped her from putting a fruit bowl on her head and singing the Chiquita banana song.

So my mock heart attacks may or may not impose the importance of ‘has’ and ‘is’ or ‘he’ and ‘she’. Or maybe it keeps those metaphysical wolves at the door at bay. Sanity must be my friend. Calgon take me away from meltdowns.

Who will love Aladdin Sane?

Before I go on, I should say that later in the day, after my aforementioned meltdown, my mental sun shone. “Metal Guru is it you?” When Mohammad came to tell me that Bandar would not be in my afternoon class because he is pregnant, I seriously had trouble containing myself. Naturally, I asked Bandar if he was expecting and I pantomimed pregnancy with my right hand making a basketball shape in front of my stomach. Bandar always has a look of shock and surprise on his face, which becomes more pronounced the longer he thinks. I was quite proud that Mohammad - the Mohammad who asked if I would accept his offer to live with him and his three cousins in a two room apartment – could concoct that sort of English ribbing.

When I had my meltdown, there was really nothing unusual going on in the classroom. There was the usual group of students who were listening and the usual group that weren’t. Yussef who I thought had been kicked out of the program because of several absences and extreme tardiness was sitting right by my desk. Yussef is the Herman Munster in my life, not scary just annoying with that same sort of Herman Munster clumsiness and oafishness.

We had been talking about car crashes. This was the question and answer:

“Did you crash your car?”

“Yes, I crashed my car.” Or “Yes, I did crash my car.”

Students had written the answers on the board.

Yussef showed me his answer:

“Did you crash your car?”

“Claw wife indecipherable house.”

Granted, I love the Dadaist movement just as much as the next fish is a light bulb but my classroom has not advanced to the stage of dada. Thus, Yussef coming in and generally dada-ing up my my classroom via his Herman Munster persona was an annoyance to say the least. Especially when he had the gall to start chanting:

“Break Teacher! Break. Break Teacher! Break. Break Teacher! Break. Break Teacher! Break. Break Teacher! Break. Break Teacher! Break. Break Teacher! Break. Break Teacher! Break…”

When he walked up to my desk, Saadoon did not know he was walking up to a loaded gun pointed at the first person to be stupid enough to pull the trigger. He was pleased with what he had written in his notebook:

“Did you crash your car?”

“Yes, I crashed my.”

“My what?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “My what.”

Of course, deep breaths were in order while Herman Munster Yussef in the background chanted:

“Break Teacher! Break. Break Teacher! Break. Break Teacher! Break. Break Teacher! Break. Break Teacher! Break. Break Teacher! Break. Break Teacher! Break. Break Teacher! Break…”

“No,” I continued. “I crashed my what?”

“No, I crashed my what,” Saadoon confirmed.

Also keep in mind that since he was at my desk and Herman Munster Yussef was chanting theBreak Teacher! Break mantra, this gave the rest of the classroom carte blanche to bring their general disruptiveness to a crescendo much like the 20 bar orchestral break in the Sgt Pepper closer ‘A Day in the Life.’

Honestly, I was starting to become envious of the man who ‘blew his mind out in a car. He didn’t notice that the lights had changed.” Did I notice that my lights had changed? At this point, there was a yellow light flashing in my head.

“My what?” I asked again with an increase in urgency. “I crashed my what?”

At this point, Saadoon had that sun-cooked carp look on his face and we were at the point of no return.

He blew his mind out in a car…

“I crashed my what?”

Who will love Aladdin Sane?

Saadoon blank carp stare staring.

“My what?”

Saadoon mouth agape.

“I crashed my what? I CRASHED MY WHAT?! MY DOG?! MY FISH?! MY CUPSA?! MY CAMEL?!”

Here the montage becomes clear as the aforementioned 20 bar orchestral break plays “A Day in the Life” – an atom bomb exploding; Frankenstein pulling the head off of his bride; Jack Nicholson hacking his way through the bathroom door; the Nazi’s lover blasting him with a machine gun in Genet’s Funeral Rites; Anthony Perkin’s in a wig; John and Yoko’s Two Virgin’salbum cover; and, last but certainly not least, Shelley Winters as Shelley Winters.

“I CRASHED MY CAR! MY CAR! MY CAR! MY CARRRRRRRRRRRRR! I CRAAAAAAAAASHED MYYYYYYYYY CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!!”

With that I collapsed in my chair and in my head the final E chord resounded in ‘A Day in the Life.’

"Who will love Aladdin Sane?"

The Secret Life of Arabia This is a new beginning.

“If you go to them, they will come,” the guide told me when we had stopped at a pen of camels.
He made noises to attract them. His name was possibly Mottieb but I cannot be sure. He was wearing a thawb and headdress. I had just spent thirty-some hours on airplanes and in airports including a six-hour delay in Istanbul.

Everything was dreamlike in this desert outside of Riyadh. On the bus, I found myself drifting in and out of consciousness. A genie, was there a genie on the bus? Were there men riding camels on the shoulders of the highway. Were the ghosts of T. E. Lawrence and Peter O’Toole having tea in a souk? What was happening? How did I get here?

How?

A little over a week ago, I was not even certain that I would be going to Saudi. At that time, I had no air tickets, no work visa, and no confirmation. Now, a little over a week later, I am here in Jeddah starting a new life or a new chapter to an old one.

On the day I left the USA - flying from Tulsa to Riyadh, I got my work visa (or a visa that I will use until I get a work visa). The day before it was confirmed that my visa had come through. That evening my new employer made flight arrangements for the following afternoon. In a rush, I did all of the last minute chores in preparation for another year away. After awhile, all of this gets much easier. Really, no matter how settled we are all of us are in transition. For me, knowing this little tidbit makes life in general easier.

The Tulsa airport was as empty as ever making my flight out a pleasure. Flying out of smaller airports such as Tulsa or Oklahoma City is never as nerve splitting as flying out of an airport such as Dallas or Chicago. Don’t even get me on the nightmare of Chicago O’Hare. Did a halfwit lay it out?

Since I got to the airport in plenty of time, I had quite a wait. Having had no lunch, I grabbed a quick sandwich at Camille’s and took it back to the gate to eat it. Surprisingly, unlike most airport food, the sandwich was reasonably priced and actually made fresh.

On the airplane, I had a row to myself, which was nice. A nice, albeit misleading, introduction to what would be a grueling 30 plus hours of airports and crowded airplanes. In Chicago, the pain of the ordeal began. To get to gate 5, in no-man’s land with no restaurants, I had to go out of the actual airport and go through the security line again. There was no line just a mob. The mob discombobulated me so much that I actually left my shoes on the floor and someone had to hand them to me through the screening area when they were discovered. I thanked the woman who found them and made my way to my gate.

Since O’Hare is a world airport, I thought I would be able to eat at a restaurant near my gate once I had gone through security. This was not the case - once inside the secured area the only choice was a few insanely overpriced sandwiches of the 7/11 variety at a kiosk. Yes, I had two hours to wait for my plane but I decided I would just have the almonds and cran-raisins I had packed in my carry-on to hold me over.

Across from me, a Slav and his young son sat down. The man mussed with his son’s hair, talked to him in a Slavic fatherly way and gave the son money, a twenty dollar bill. The son spoke in English at times. The son disappeared and came back with two of those aforementioned 7/11 clone sandwiches and gave his father a few coins in change. The father scoffed at the price and looked at me and said something but it was not in English.

“Yeah, the sandwiches are really expensive.” I replied realizing after I said it that he had no idea what I said.

Finally, the plane boarded. As usual, I hoped that I had a few seats to myself on the transcontinental part of the flight. I did not. A younger man sat next to me. I casually said hello not knowing how friendly he would be. He smiled and said hello. During the course of the flight, he told me that he is a banker and he used to work for Bank of America. Now he is going to Kenya to help a local bank near his hometown. He asked me if I had let Bank of America - my bank I had told him earlier in our conversation - know that I was going to be living in Saudi. I told him that I think that I had alluded to the fact at some point.

During the flight, I tried to sleep but every time I nodded off something woke me so I did not sleep. By the time, I got to Istanbul I felt as if I was in the minions of walking dead. At the airport, I was not sure where to go. I got in a line but then I heard a self-possessed older woman in line behind me talking about all of the times she had been to Istanbul. I asked her if I needed to be in the line if I was in transit. She told me no I should be able to just follow the in transit people through a doorway. She pointed vaguely behind us. I went that way and found my way through the in-transit doorway.

Since I had a few hours, I browsed the duty free and looked for a copy of International Living on the magazine stand – they did not carry it. I debated eating but I was actually fairly full from the breakfast from my previous flight. After sitting in a lounge area, I got up and made my way to my gate.

To get to my gate, I had to go through another security area. Since I was no longer in the USA, the security gate was much more relaxed. The guards gave everyone a cursory inspection but did not seem to be paying too much attention.

Relieved that I had only a couple of hours to wait for Turkish Airlines to take me to Riyadh where I would be having several days of conferences, I sat down on one of the somewhat uncomfortable metal seats in the small waiting area. A few people came and sat and then got up and left. Another Westerner sat down in the row of seats next to mine. He looked as if he might be another teacher. I thought about asking him but then I decided not to because I was not in the mood for conversation.

About thirty minutes before the plane was to take off, I started getting anxious – perhaps I was at the wrong gate. I finally asked the man sitting next to me if he knew why we were not boarding, why in fact there was not even an airline employee at the counter.

“The plane has been delayed 6 hours,” he told me. Naturally, I thought that I had misheard him though he spoke plainly and with an American accent.

“Six hours?” I repeated.

“Yeah, six hours,” he confirmed.

“That sucks.”

At that point, I was so wiped out that I did not even have an iota of an idea of what to do to pass the time. I would have loved to sleep. I would have loved for a genie to come and bring a magic carpet on which to sleep but that did not happen. So I just sat and sat. And sat. I was too drowsy and dazed to read so I sat and did nothing.

A fidgety young man caught my attention. Since I was in a daze, I do not know exactly when this happened or who was first to speak. I do not remember our first words. Maybe he was thinking that we should be able to get on an earlier flight but I am not positive. At this point, I attached myself to the military man and the young man attached himself to us.

We talked a bit. He had been studying in Michigan but was on his way home to Riyadh or somewhere nearby to see his ailing father. He was the most distraught of all of us about the delay. Most of this had to do with his youth, nothing more. 6 hours is a lifetime. The military man, a jet repairman, and I sat. The youth paced and paced. And paced.

At this point, it had been several hours since I had eaten. Hungry and dazed, I went to the bistro. Nothing looked appealing but I knew that I had to eat because I was starting to get a headache. I chose a muffin and a Pepsi. Back at our post, I offered the jet repairman part of the muffin. He had already eaten. The boy had wondered off. I ate the muffin in silence.

The jet repairman and I sat and watched the departure/arrival screen for no real reason other than that was the only thing either of us could muster up to do. Eventually, the boy wandered back over to us. At this point, an airline representative came and told us we were to have a meal comped which was great news. He led us through security and through the airport up to the Turkish Airlines’ restaurant. Along the way, a passenger needed some assistance. The representative asked the Saudi boy to help. To me, this was bizarre. I am not sure what was said. They were talking in Arabic, or Urdu, or Farsi; they were not talking in English. It was beyond Greek to me.

In the restaurant, the jet repairman and I grabbed seats. We both ordered Pepsis. Thinking that the Saudi boy would find us, I kept watching the door. The entire walk to the restaurant, I had talked to the airline representative. He seemed eager to practice his English. I told him his English is good. I could understand him perfectly. He beamed.

Nevertheless, after the food had come, and we had eaten half of it, I was getting a bit concerned for our young Saudi friend. I was not sure what was taking him so long. I kept looking towards the door. Finally, I could not stand it. I told the jet repairman I had to go to the food court to see if our young Saudi friend was there looking for us. Oh I should mention that I had asked the airline representative about our friend and he did not seem to understand me. Suddenly, I felt as if I was in the middle of some sort of Hitchcockian intrigue, some sort of Middle East cloak and dagger.

At this point, the boy had been gone at least 20 minutes. What could be taking him so long? I suppose I was concerned because he had attached himself to us and now I felt like I was responsible for him though I was in his country. When I asked the airline representative again about him, he finally seemed to understand me. He told me we could take a box of food to him. That is all the information he could give me. The restaurant was about to close. I picked at my food and did not eat much. I nibbled the mysterious lamb sausage.

A waiter brought me a take-away box with the boy’s food. I grabbed it and the jet repairman and I left the restaurant. Miraculously, when we walked down to the food court, the boy was just coming from the opposite direction and saw us. As I handed him the food I told him I had been concerned about him, that maybe he had tried to find us and could not. He told me that he had been helping someone who could not speak the language change a ticket. He thanked me profusely for getting the food for him. I told him I was just happy that we had found him. I had been worried. I suppose I had kicked into parental teacher mode.

The boy took the food and went off to find a place to sit and eat. The jet repairman and I went through security again and planted ourselves by the arrival/departure monitor. Every so often, we would make small talk.

At this point, we had a few hours left. The kid returned and found a row of seats and laid down. I followed suit. Someone woke me to tell me we were boarding. Someone I had not seen. He was wrong we were not boarding. Although I was incredibly fatigued, I got up anyway.
Later we did start boarding. Someone mentioned that we had to get out passport checked. The representative checked my passport and then stamped my ticket and told me I could board but I did not want to leave my two new pals but then I was shuffled on to the plane anyway.

The three of us got separated. I boarded. On the plane, I saw the jet repairman sitting behind me. The boy had not boarded yet. I made eye contact with him as he walked down the aisle. Not giving it a second thought, he sat in the seat beside me and promptly fell asleep.

As we taxied down the runway, for the first time I wondered what my new life was going to really be like. Would I like Saudi? Would I embrace it as I had embraced China, the good and the bad? Would I find another friend like Michael? - who became almost like a brother in Shanghai. One thing was certain; I was off on a new adventure, another chapter. Soon, I would meet my fate.