mobile

it was my second trip to saudi arabia in less than a year. the flight from nyc stopped in jeddah for an hour or so for security reasons, i was told, before making a skip to riyadh. so instead of the vast arabian desert, i got a glimpse of the ethereal blue of the red sea coastline from 39,000 ft up.

i’ve been running hard lately. this trip was hastily planned because my host didn’t confirm a date until the very last minute. i was flying in early morning again, and we begun our descent while it was still dark out. staring out of the plane window, as a crisp, deep star field gave way to the city lights, for a minute, i felt i was part of an enormous mobile, see-sawing through space with planets and galaxies.

carlos met me at the airport. i was going to be on a plane home in less than 12 hrs, so i was grateful when he offered his home to me to get it together before our meeting.

i’ve been traveling for almost 20hrs so the last thing i wanted to do was to go to a business dinner. but there was no choice; the driver pulled up to the kingdom tower and i was quickly surrounded by smiling faces and enthusiastic handshakes.

i arrived back at the palace after my meeting, and as usual, put my suitcase into the x-ray machine and walked through the metal detector. a guard i’ve not seen before came up to me.

“hello sir,” he said, smiling.

“hi,” i said, smiling too.

“hello sir,” he said again, smiling, and put his hand on his gun.

“let me show you my passport,” i offered.

we had to stop at two checkpoints before pulling up to a white stucco guardhouse with its gates painted a deep forest green. a man with gun came up to the car and exchanged a few words with carlos. he got out a notebook and a pen and carlos spelled his name. he had to stop and repeat himself several times as the guard kept nodding his head but didn’t seem to know how to pick it up again.

after he got everything down and went back to the guardhouse to call in, carlos turned to me and said, “soldier, you know, don't need to know how to write.”

Posted by cellpharmer at March 11, 2007 04:32 PM