Welcome to the Sandbox

...and welcome to my blog about my adventures as an expat living in Saudi Arabia and working for Sadara.

One week is complete and the hardest part so far has been finding time to share all the amazing things I'm experiencing and seeing.  Of course the immediate loved ones are hearing from me, but this blog will allow me to expand further (before you all forget about me!!).  In addition, I think it will be pretty cool to have this documented and be able to look back on how things have transpired.

In short, this week can be summarized as one in which I was welcomed here with open arms: 1) By the country: there were no border horror stories at immigration or customs.  2) By my work team:  our team is composed of 140+ people including people from KSA, Brazil, Malaysia, USA, France, Phillipines, India, Pakistan, Germany, England and I'm sure I'm missing a few.  So many names and so many similar names!!  (Mohammed after Mohammeds) There will be more work and work-mate discussions in future posts.  3) By Fellow Canadian Expats:  I already have a few invitations!!  Later today Dave and Catherine Williamson will show me around the area and I will have supper with them.  Dave was a fellow reliability engineer with me at Dow in Fort Saskatchewan more than 15 years ago.  Next week I am invited by Danielle Cyr and Scott Dorward to celebrate an early Christmas before they head home.  The visit will include a sleep over complete with a visit of the beach the next day.  Danielle is a friend of my sister Chantal and her husband Scott is an engineer with Saudi Aramco who I knew back in Canada and rode on his 24 hours of Adrenaline mountain bike team in years past.

As for accommodations, I am in a very comfortable compound.  Its called Alreem and it's nicknamed Al-Dream.  It is spacious, clean, has excellent restaurants with excellent service, a beautiful gym, pool, tennis and basketball courts and a mini-market.  Supposedly, there are yoga classes given by a Canadian lady, Tania on Saturday mornings.  I'm currently in the hotel portion and I'm on the waiting list to get a 1-bedroom apartment. I visited the one of these apartments and they are top notch.  Housing is provided by the company but I do have the option of finding my own accommodation and "pocketing" the difference from the 25%-of-base-salary-allowance that is dictated by law.  It is an option I am exploring.

There are so many different things here!! I'm experiencing "culture shock" moments on a continual basis!!  Probably the most obvious is the attire of both men and women in public.  The formal wear of the men is the thobe and shemagh and for the women it is the abaya and hijab.   In public you will find maybe a quarter of the men dressed formally and probably 99% of the women dressed in their attire.  It's still shocking (is that the right word?), that you have these women all covered up and dressed ALL the same.  At the hospital, there was a separate admitting for men and women and it was cool (or is that the right word?) to see 20 or so covered up woman in one line up.  I've been warned that the Saudi people are very private and it would not be inappropriate to take any pictures of these interesting (maybe that's the right word?!) people.  So I will have to describe in writing to the best of my abilities.  They are dressed this way in all public places including the stores, the park and the restaurants.  There is one accessory I haven't mentioned yet that nearly all the women have....their cell phone.  Of course, like the North American culture many are on their cell phones as well but it was almost 100% for the women in the park yesterday.

The work week here is from Sunday to Thursday here.  Coupled with the fact that we are 10 hours ahead of Canada, I'm done my work week on Thursday morning on the Alberta clock!! Friday is the holy day and family day.  On Friday night, the parks fill up and there are picnics, people sitting around talking, many people walking on the paths.  The park I went to was near the Royal Commission in New Jubail.  I went to the same park in the morning (to cycle) and it was almost deserted.  In the evening there were 1000's of people.

I would say I'm extremely connected with a Saudi company phone (+966-53-908-2432), a Canadian texting number: 506-802-3764, a VOIP Canada voice number: 780-800-8198, Skype: rejean_lavoie, Skype Arizona phone number: 928-239-9319.

There's a few extra pictures on my Instagram feeds:  @expatrej and @bikersk8ter.
Thanks for reading and feel free to share with others.