You know you're an Aramco Brat when...

1. You can't answer the question, "Where are you from?" (And when you do, you get into an elaborate conversation that gets everyone confused and/or makes you sound very spoiled)

2. You flew before you could walk.

3. You have a passport, but no driver's license.

4. You think California is cold.

5. You watch National Geographic specials and recognize someone.

6. You run into someone you know at every airport.

7. Conversations with friends take place at 6:00 in the morning or 10:00 at night.

8. Your life story uses the phrase "Then we went to..." five times.

9. You can speak with authority about the quality of various international airlines. (P.S. British Airways is the best)

10. You feel self conscious around all white people.
11. You get offended when someone turns down an offer for food.

12. You live at school and go home for vacation.

13. You treasure pork and alcohol as highly-valued commodities.

14. You have ever had to wait for prayer call to be over to finish shopping

15. You are fascinated by any wildlife bigger than a gecko.

16. You know the true meaning of "football"

17. You know that it's a small world.

18. You have ever gone to the hammam or endured a shamal.

19. You get all the jokes in Aladdin.

20. Rain is still one of the most wonderful sounds in the world.

21. You haggle with the checkout clerk for a lower price.

22. Your wardrobe can only handle two seasons: hot and warm.

23. Your school memories include duck-and-cover drills and sonic booms.

24. You are used to being stared at.

25. You think VISA is a document stamped in your passport, and not a plastic card you carry in your wallet.

26. You call a chicken burrito a shawrma.

27. Your dorm room/apartment/living room looks a little like a museum with all the "exotic" things you have around.

28. You've heard of hubbly bubbly, and its the only thing you smoke shisha out of!

29. You've woken up in the middle of the night to watch the Superbowl on cable.

30. You have sat in a "men's" or "women's" section in an airport, hospital, or restaurant.

31. You know the geography of the rest of the world, but you don't know the geography of your own country. (Isn't Philadelphia it's own state?)

32. Your best friends are from 5 different countries.

34. You ask your roommate when the houseboy is scheduled to come clean.

35. You read the international section before the comics.

36. You sort your friends by continent.

37. You don’t know where home is.

38. Every time you drink from a water fountain, you think, Water Is Life, Save It.

39. You've run from Security.

40. You can have an educated discussion on the quality/functionality of major International Airports around the world.


I guess I'm just aching to be in Saudi today. In my childhood home, on the streets I know, with the warmth and sunshine and endless swimming pool days. With the racquetball courts down the street, endless sand dunes and quading adventures. Shawarma's and Desi food and crazy Khobar streets, with their gold, stray cats and nauseating odors and fluids. And the beach. Oooh, the beach. The Commissary, its cheesebread, the palm trees, and the gates coming in. 


Yes, I'm an Aramco brat.
My dad works for Saudi Aramco.
I hail to the small compound town of Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
I am a TCK (Third Culture Kid).


And I love it.


Love,
Brittney

Going Home...

Saihat House

Birch House

It’s been a year since I’ve felt the Saudi sun shining down on my face.

A year since I last rode bikes through the streets of Aramco with Bobbie, singing the song, Rain drops keep fallin’ on my head! at the top of our lungs, scaring all the workers waiting for the buses to come take them home.

A year since I sat on the sand dunes talking with my sisters, went dirt biking/quading with my bro in the jebels,

walked to the racquetball courts with my dad (and sometimes mom), put on my beautiful abaya and headed to the souqs and malls, crammed all 5 of us guys in the front seat of our Desert-Storm era blue suburban (Car-ie), or took Kamiah out to the 2 foot patch of sand a quarter mile from our house.

When I was in boarding school, I would wait all week to go home… to get away from the British dorm parents, the Bahrain School, which was commonly mistaken for a prison (I’m completely serious. It was so secured and foreboding/horrible looking, people thought it was a prison), from my isolated life as a white Christian Dormie.

I would sit on the crowded, loud Saudi-Bahraini transit bus and think about the gates to Dhahran. The pretty rock/waterfall facade as you drive in, the white mosque on the left hand side. And the gates with Welcome to Saudi Aramco above them. And then, as years went on, they got a digital display that would encourage safe driving, and my personal favorite Aramco saying, Water is Life, Save It (That has become my very favorite phrase for life. Every time I get a drink from a drinking fountain, I think it. And when I miss home. And when I go swimming. And when I see someone waste water. And when I see some stupid slogan saying something to the effect of conserve water. Nothing is as clever to me now, after having grown up in Aramco).

And the Security guards, standing there ready to raise the gates to my personal paradise, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. In their brown security jackets. Some cross and others just as jolly as Ole’ St. Nick. And I always do the gun check. Not all security have guns. As I’ve always heard it, and I can’t verify it, but everyone knows it, Security only get guns if they pass this mental test. If they have a gun – they passed. If not, they are not mentally stable. So naturally, I do the gun check.

The big green tanks with the camo-mesh-netting and the 16 year old boy sitting on the seat texting have even warmed their way into my heart. The front gates just don’t seem as complete without them now.

Yes, the front gates to Aramco have a special place in my heart. I can’t wait to go home. To drive up, be waved on through, and continue through the familiar streets to my house.

Park next to my Saihat house, where I spent most my time as a kid. We played every game imaginable. Night games were our favorite. This view is accross the street from Ghada's house. With the top left window brown from her fathers' smoking.

Closer view of the park

The phonebooth in front of our Saihat house. We used it like a second phone line. Seriously. At any point of time while living there, one of the Johnson's could be seen standing there having a casual conversation. My house is right behind the phone booth, and to the right.

Saihat Phonebooth. Saved our family. This was, of course, back before we all had cell phones.

Khalas