
The US–Saudi Story, Through the Eyes of an Aramco ‘Brat’ - kwindla
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2020/01/31/the-us-saudi-story-through-the-eyes-of-an-aramco-brat/
======
cs02rm0
Much of that echoes with me.

I spent a lot of my teenage years in Dhahran as my dad was a UK expat
instructor pilot to the Saudi Air Force. Living on compounds with swimming
pools, endless sunshine, homebrew and smuggled pork products are features of a
few of the childhood memories I cherish, that most around me in the UK don't
have.

We crossed paths with Aramco families occasionally as there weren't exactly
many other reasons for Westerners to be there. The US influences were striking
to me, while things like segregation in restaurants were a little jarring even
as a child mostly sitting in the family section, it gave me an exposure to US
brands I still don't have in the UK. We get quite a few McDonalds but Dhahran
had Fuddruckers, Baskin Robbins, Taco Bell, Wendy's - it was like being
Charlie in the Chocolate Factory to me at the time. These were places I had
only heard of from movies, something we still had in Saudi despite the lack of
cinemas - one of the houses on the compound had bookcases full of pirate VHS
tapes where we'd spend ages choosing from just the titles printed on labels.

We left before 9/11\. I've no idea what, if any, is left of that life. Odd to
read about it here, news coverage of the Kingdom is very one dimensional.

~~~
david_draco
How did the Saudi attack on 9/11/2001 change your view of the country? Similar
to the author of the article?

~~~
cs02rm0
I'm not sure it did, immediately.

We'd had the Khobar Towers bombing, my dad was in the first Gulf War and even
before that I remember him checking under the car in the UK for devices before
we could get in because of the IRA. So I was already aware it was a relatively
messed up part of the world, but separately terrorism and plane crashes were
perhaps already more part of my worldview than for most people. I felt
slightly numb to it compared to those around me at the time if I'm honest.

I think it was probably the wider Western reaction to 9/11 rather than my own,
that meant I increasingly viewed Saudi as a more isolated, riskier place.
Since then overheard comments about how you never saw anyone in a wheelchair
have reverberated over the years with more meaning as an adult hearing about
human rights records and becoming a father has moved me further from any
personal desire to return.

I always found the people we met genuinely welcoming and kind though, as is so
often the case when you meet individuals rather than succumb to broad strokes.
On that level I think the relationship went deeper than oil but we've undone a
lot of that. When I hear about things like beginning to issue tourist visas or
even just getting the Ruiz Joshua fight it leaves me hopeful that in time
we'll overcome the divisions that seem apparent despite talk of special
relationships.

------
vmurthy
I had the pleasure of reading “The prize” (0) last year. It gives an overall
picture of the oil industry and obviously the Saudi-American relationship.
Should pair well with this insider view.

(0)
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/169354.The_Prize](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/169354.The_Prize)

------
tonystubblebine
Reminds me to recommend a great book about the history of oil, The Prize. It
really explains a lot about our current world and how we got here.

------
bradleysmith
I was born in Dhahran in 1986, left in 2002. My dad worked in Aramco’s
drilling department and was not insignificantly involved in introducing PCs to
the organization. From his telling it was mostly for selfish motivations to
improve inventory, logistics, and accounting workflows to be more manageable
for his own teams. He was getting the Aramco library signed up for computer
magazines before I was born. He has some interesting stories about the early
days of computing, from inside the bowels of this company.

I learned to build PCs from parts I purchased from Philippino merchants at al
Shula mall in the mentioned Khobar. I attended LAN parties on the initially
mentioned street in the article in Dhahran proper, Prairie View. I taught
myself to program on a TI-83 calculator at Dhahran school.

I transitioned into the tech industry pretty quickly out of college after
studying poli-sci related curriculum w focus on Middle East, and have worked
in O&G related tech for a good part of my career. I’m a product manager for an
O&G portfolio product now. I have friends working in Aramco still, many Aramco
friends in the town I live, and family in the region in similar arrangements.
Happy to answer questions regarding any of the above.

There are quite a few resources available for those curious about the country,
company, and history of expatriate workers in the region. “The Prize”
mentioned in another few comments is an excellent primer, a lesser know
resource I’ve come to like are “Out In The Blue”, by Tom Barger who retired
from Aramco as CEO in 69. The book is a collection of letters from himself and
other expatriate workers to their families about the establishment of
exploration activity in the country. It’s got a bit of “the party line”, rosy-
towards-the-Saudis feel but is some excellent and generally unknown primary
documentation of the company’s early years. Another book less charitable to
Saudi, American, or even my own role in the country’s history is “Cities of
Salt” by Abdelrahman Munif. That was a multi part fiction giving a semi-
historical recounting of the establishment of a Dhahran-like town in a Saudi-
like country from the perspectives of different local people living there
already. It is phenomenally authentic, and has a spirit of understanding of
the sentiment there that is not common. The work has been banned in kingdom.

------
otoburb
This article really resonates with me. I lived in Riyadh during my childhood
for a decade and I'm around the same age as the author. I wasn't an Aramco
brat as my father was a British english teacher on the civilian airport so we
were in a mixed expat-Saudi compound, which didn't have nearly as many
amenities or protections afforded to the expat-only compounds.

" _Today, Saudi Arabia feels to me like an estranged father. Someone I love
and mistrust simultaneously, whose news I follow at a distance, with a keen
interest I’ve tried to quell but can’t. I remain restless, dissatisfied with
both of my homelands, critical of how they relate to each other and how they
treat their people._ "

Rare is the gift of a writer who expresses more clearly what I could not
clearly articulate to myself over the intervening decades.

------
meristem
It is not just in Saudi. I grew up with a parent working for a very large
European company. Lots of people from the home office lived rather
'colonially' when homed in my country.

