Some music for you

Click on the image, then click on the image at flickr to appreciate some of the details

I've been meaning to take a shot like this for a while. The Riyadh camel souk is probably one of the largest, if not the largest of its kind in the world and covers an area of many square kilometers. Here you are looking across it at one of its narrower parts, on the side towards the city.

At one time it was way outside the perimeter of the city housing and the only things to pass this way were those looking after the well being of the animals and the Dammam highway. Slowly though, this is changing. The poles you see on the horizon are the first stages of housing going into the area. First come the roads, then the lighting poles and electricity, following soon behind will comes the houses.

Already, there are signs that the souk is being pushed further from where it currently sits and it is extending out towards the compound I live on which is around 7-8Km distant from this point. That sounds a reasonable distance, but with the wind in the right direction, its presence becomes all too apparent.

Wandering round and into the place is an experience that's worth the while of any visitor. There are so many things to learn about how other people live, their way of life wholly alien to any Westerner. Despite the lowly status of the people working their and their relative poverty, they are an endlessly hospitable bunch, curious to know where you're from, proud as punch to show off their best animals and be photographed with them, and all this done across a rather awkward language barrier in pidgeon English and Arabic.

The only real downside is that you come home smelling like you've been rolling around in camel poo. Small price...

Addendum: There are definitely echoes here of what's happening with the fishermen in Bahrain that I commented on the other day (see here at flickr). Here though it seems to be happening rather more slowly and the next bit of desert along the road is pretty much like the bit they're on now. They are also endlessly adaptable - you only have to look at what they construct a life out of to see that. Whilst most of the people working here are not native Saudi's, most are Yemeni I believe, the owners of the animals most definitely are. Most city dwelling Saudis will take the first available opportunity to get back to their roots and the ownership of camel stock is very much prized - they're just not going to have the time to look after it themselves. So this way of life isn't being lost I don't think, it's just moving a bit.

So another trip home ends and this time with sad news whilst standing on the tarmac at Heathrow waiting to disembark. News that a work colleague has met an untimely end to his presence in Saudi Arabia.

Whilst I didn't know him all that well, I have known him for almost my entire time out here. I'll remember him most as being perpetually enthusiastic, always with a grin on his face, if anything slightly wired and as an obsessive exercise fiend. It was the latter that ultimately resulted in his death, the manner of which, if reports in this mornings' newspapers are true, are quite horrific, though entirely credible. As I sit here on the BMI flight into Riyadh, I have never wanted less to go anywhere in my life, but this post isn't about me or what I want.

Instead, I dedicate this to John, as the most fanatical Manchester United supporter I have ever met, and despite my own affiliations, I hope most fervently that his beloved Red Devils win the Carling Cup this afternoon. Wayne & Co. you owe him that much.

John, you will be missed and along with you, a small part of all of us died. Rest in Peace

As you drive around Riyadh these days, it's hard not to notice that something big is going on - big vertically, big horizontally and big volumetrically. It's everywhere seemingly. Wherever a spare corner of land is to be had (there are plenty), you'll find a gantry crane or two, sometimes a dozen, sometimes hundreds festooning the skyline for miles. Off the back of the oil price of recent years, the Saudi's have had some serious wonga to hand and they have gone on an enormous spending spree, blowing vast sums on poured concrete in all directions.

In the main though, this hasn't gone on the frivolous and fanciful - not these guys - it's going on some significant infrastructure. The main roads hereabouts are being dug up, underpasses fitted neatly below the existing, traffic diverted down streets clearly never intended for it. At rush hour (most of the day), chaos ensues and minor collisions are common place, major ones a regular event.

The roads are in a way, just small beer. The big stuff at the moment comes in the buildings that are climbing skywards at an alarming rate. If you don't pass through an area for a couple of months, the chances are that on your return, you'll not recognise it. Here though, we're not talking individual buildings but entire complexes. All of the existing universities are expanding and there's an entirely new one going up next to the airport. For scale, the latter quite takes the biscuit. This is the blurb I found on 'The Princess Nora Bint AbdulRahman University for Women'

The project calls for construction of a new university for women. The university is expected to cover 8 millions square metres and located on King Khalid International Airport Road at north of Riyadh. The total built up area is around 3 millions square metres. The university will include administration buildings, 13 faculties, a 700-bed student hospital, laboratories, research centres, and residential area that include accommodation for students and staff. The capacity of university is around 26,000 students.

Source: Construction Week Online

Now I've no idea of the experience of most, but that's a quite staggering project. By all accounts, this will be the largest women's university in the world. Amongst the expats, it's already known as the virgin mega-store! This link to Google Maps gives some idea of the scale of the development, which is around 3 miles long and over 2 wide. That image is now 6 months old and I can assure you there's rather more on the ground than when that was taken.

Alongside this though, the Imam University is growing, as is the King Saud University. There is also the King Abdullah Financial District going up not far away - the aim here being to set up the largest financial centre in the Middle East and I've seen one comment to suggest that they've taken their inspiration from Canary Wharf.

You'd think looking at all this, that this was quite a widespread activity, but it's not. Everything I've mentioned can be seen from the route AM and I travel to go to the supermarket. Now admittedly, our chosen supermarket is a half hour drive into town, but they are all on a 10 mile stretch on the North-West of the city. I have no idea what's going on anywhere else in the city, but a drive to pick up the groceries couldn't possibly be any more impressive anywhere else in the world... or could it?

I went for the OGTT this morning which gave me the opportunity to finish reading Graham Greene's 'The Quiet American'. I'd not really considered too much about the pre-Vietnam War aspects of that country, though I knew the French had some involvement there as a colonial power, so this book gave me some insight into that part of history, albeit through the lens of a piece of fiction in the form of a novel. It's a fine book and well worth a read if you've not already.

I didn't read the introduction by Zadie Smith until I'd read the novel cover to cover, but I was struck by this snippet and wondered for a parallel in my life here in the Middle East and how that has impacted on AM.

The simultaneous we desire we all possess for both the liberty of our lovers and their submission to our will...

Zadie Smith, 2004

There is no doubt that AM would not be in this country were it not for me. It is not a place you'd necessarily select as your home, less still as a woman in a society that places so many restrictions (real and imagined) on their behaviour. There is though a freedom that comes from the financial considerations involved in working here and it is these that attracted me here and have kept me in this golden cage for so long. Whilst here, AM has been able to complete her law degree through the OU, thereby providing 'liberty for my lover', but in remaining here for so long, am I also 'controlling' her with the carrot of stability and security. I don't know for sure, but perhaps I ought to find out.

Given that I spent most of the evening pre-occupied with fixing up the CSS code for the site, time has become somewhat limited for content creation round here. I thought therefore, to tell you a little about that peculiarly British concern, the weather. Not though the British weather, no none of that. Instead to give you a feel of what it's like out here at this time of the year.

For most people, there is perhaps the belief that the Middle East is always sunshine, with never a cloud in the sky. Hopefully by now, I should have disabused most of you of the 'clear blue sky' thing, it's just not happening for the most part. Aside from a period of time around March/April and some time around November, rain is pretty much absent - the lack of which is what's used to define a desert, something I can see all around me, or at least outside our compound cocoon. Rains generally coincide with the change of seasons; winter/spring into summer, summer/autumn into winter. This then is pretty much where we come in now.

Everyone knows that Saudi Arabia is hot - exceedingly so at times; ever seen 55C on your garden thermometer? Mmmm... not so many hands up for that question. What is perhaps less well known is how cold it can be during the winters. OK, so it's not Arctic winter Canada cold, but it still comes as a bit of a shock to the system when it arrives. After a period living out in this region, the blood tends to thin out a fair bit, meaning you feel it that much more keenly. There also the more or less total absence of humidity, it's often below 10% and can drop to 1-2%, certainly in the central region where Riyadh is, away from any body of water - the Gulf is some 300 miles distant from here. Humidity has the effect of holding the heat in against the skin. So thin blood, no humidity and a whopping 40C drop on the summer peaks, and you can see why it feels rather more chilly than of late.

I can understand why the very occasional visitor is more than a tad baffled at what we might be complaining about, but it's all relative against what you're used to. Already, many have ditched the a/c for the winter (or at least the chiller part), woolly jumpers are now the norm in the evening, talk around the office is of putting the BIG quilt on the bed. The temperature isn't such that the heating has gone on yet, but give it another month perhaps, not that this really does much to be fair. Come January or February, we can expect it to drop below 0C overnight on a regular basis. Three years back we had a sustained period where the overnight temperature dropped to -8C; most people living here just aren't geared up for that, with the plant life around the compound even less so, as it killed off literally hundreds of the newly planted flame trees around the compound. That was apparently the coldest Riyadh winter for over 20 years though and it was the first time I'd ever seen frozen puddles on the ground in 10 years - I'd seen a frost on the grass a few times, but ice was a new one.

So where are we at the moment then? Well todays' maximum was forecast for 23C, though it never made it above 20C. It's now around 17C, with the expectations that the overnight low will be in the region of 15C. Most of the day has been cloudy and we are expecting rain on Friday, though I shouldn't think it would be too heavy - the spring rain is generally much heavier and prolonged. It's a little unfortunate that I'll be on my way back from Bahrain on Friday, where it's also forecast for inclement weather. The prospect of a trip back along a rain soaked road that hasn't seen a drop in over 6 months, is not overly enticing, as the aggregation of rubber and diesel will likely turn the surface into a greasy slick reminiscent of a well lubricated eel. No fun at all and the RTA rate goes through the roof - a good time to park up and stay the hell out of it.

Still, we'll get ourselves (AM & I) over there and see what's what. At least Bahrain will have a sensible level of humidity in the atmosphere, so it should feel warmer even if technically it's little different from here. I'll let you know...