Justins Saudi Adventure!: Construction and More Toilet Humour

Saturday 13 September 2008

Construction and More Toilet Humour

The amount of construction going on in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia is astonishing.

New offices, apartments and shopping malls are shooting up everywhere and the government are spending huge wedges of cash building roads, infrastructure, power plants, desalinisation plants and oil refineries. I’ve been told that 75% of the world’s cranes are presently in the Middle East!

I know things back in the UK are not so good economically and that the country is on the verge of recession, but quite the opposite is true out here. The high oil price means that the Middle East has staggering amounts of money to spend and the present boom is expected to last for another 10 years.

Consider for a moment the Bahrain Royal Family. Now Bahrain is a small country, just 30m long by about 10m wide and has a population of just 500,000. However, the King and his 2 sons have a personal wealth of US$ 900 Billion between them!

So the Arabs are investing very heavily in their infrastructure. The Arab News announced today that the value of construction projects commissioned within the Middle East in 2008 is expected to total over US$ 2 Trillion!!! (That’s right folks…that’s Billion spelt with a T!!) When you consider that the total government spending in the UK is about £600 Billion a year it kind of puts things in perspective.

When I see the amount of construction going on I can’t help but think that It's amazing what you can get done with slave labour these days.

Slave labour? Well there's plenty of anecdotal evidence of actual slavery going on in remote parts of Saudi Arabia. But generally the immigrant construction workers get a pretty raw deal. Most are Pilipino, Indian, Pakistani or Nigerian. If they are lucky they earn US$ 60 a month, and for that they have to work 12 hours a day 6 days a week out in the sun.

Now I know what you are thinking, even at US$ 60 a month they are earning three times what they could in their own country….and you would be correct. However, the workers have to live in appalling conditions and are treated terribly by their employers. Most only get 2 weeks holiday a year and sometimes don’t get paid for weeks on end. To cap things off, their Passports are kept by their employer so they cannot leave the country unless their employer agrees.

Last year in Dubai construction workers attempted to strike because they weren't being paid. Some were so desperate they walked out into the crazy traffic so that their suicide would look like an accident. Families only receive compensation for accidental deaths.

This is not an isolated incident either. In Bahrain, there are regular strikes and protests by workers. Generally the police go in with guns and sticks and end up killing a few of the disgruntled workers.

Last night I was withdrawing money from an ATM in one of Bahrain’s many fabulous malls and two foreign national guys (Pilipino) came up and stood right next to me. Their close proximity was breaking an unwritten ATM rule so as I was completing my transaction I turned to give them the patented Boydell scowl.

When I'd finished one of them made a gesture with his card so I nodded my head and waved him towards the ATM. But he then shook his head and handed his ATM card to me. I realised this wasn't a gift, he didn’t understand English or Arabic (the only two languages the ATM offered) and so he needed my help.

So I ended up entering his pin number, showing him his balance and then helping him withdraw all of his money. After an embarrassed thank you he went immediately to the post office next door to (presumably) wire his money back home.

This is one of the many subtle ways in which people can end up feeling trapped and alienated.
Here is another example. Imagine you speak neither English nor Arabic, you're in the mall and you need the toilet. You live in Saudi Arabia, a country where almost all men wear ghutras (the "tea towel", if you're western and you need a hint) and women cover their faces. You look at this picture on the toilet door and wonder "is this for men or for women?"

Did you get it right or would you have been running for your life from the Muttawa?

The only uncovered woman in Saudi Arabia and she's on the door of a toilet. It's a funny old world.

Is it just me, or does she look like she's in excruciating pain? Is she suffering from constipation or from the Muttawa, I wonder?

Wouldn't it be less confusing to just use the following sign?

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Glossary

Abaya - A long black robe designed to cover all of a woman's body
Haram - "Forbidden"
Istemarah - Car registration
Khalas - Finished, the end
Mushkilla - Problem
Muttawa - Religious policeman, the "authority for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice"
Throbe - Traditional dress for Arabic men
Ghutra - The tea-towel like headscarf worn by men
Iqual - The black band that holds the ghutra in place
Wasta(h) - Having powerful social connections
Insha’allah – God willing
Insha'allah Bakora - Tomorrow god willing ......or definetly not tomorrow in my experience, more likely next month, if you're lucky!
Iqama - Visa

Monty Python Sketch

Although its not anything to do with living in the Middle East, I find the following Monty Python Sketch hilarious and pub lish it in the hope it also brings a smile to your face:

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, very passable, that, very passable bit of risotto.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chasselas, eh, Josiah?

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You're right there, Obadiah.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Who'd have thought thirty year ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Château de Chasselas, eh?

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In them days we was glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
A cup o' cold tea.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Without milk or sugar.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Or tea.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In a cracked cup, an' all.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we never had a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son".

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was right.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Cardboard box?

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

ALL:
They won't!