No taxes, but no pork, booze or mini-skirts in Saudi Arabia says Briona Hannon...

One of the greatest incentives in relocating to Saudi Arabia is that you pay no taxes. You agree on a fixed wage and get it, nobody takes half of it and promises you a better standard of living, you get that anyway. Just be sure you want to give up pork, mass, skimpy clothes, women/men, discos and yes, of course, booze. These are but a few ‘minor restrictions’ you must be prepared to live with if you decide to relocate lock and stock (no barrel) to this wonderful Kingdom. I spent two years there and have lived to tell the tale.

Saudi Arabia has lots of sand, not to be confused with bucket and shovel sand, we’re talking 868,730 sq. miles of desert. But who wants sand? Many moons ago (late 1930’s) the Iraqis discovered oil. The Saudis thought that maybe, just maybe, some of it may have seeped into their plot. The population, some 15 million at the time, decided to employ some whiz kids from America to scout the deserts for this black gold and the ARAMCO (Arab American Oil Company) was born. To cut a short story shorter, Arabs pay off Americans just around the time lots of the black juice starts playing havoc with the golden sands. This little adventure with the Americans pays off. On the last count, the Saudi proven oil reserves were 262.7 thousand million barrels.

Where do I come into this? Well, suffice it to say I didn’t go out spreading the word of God outside porkies take-away in my coolest hot pants. I, being of the fairer sex (female) and with child (pregnant), went to join my husband, who had gone out before me to set up camp. Our camp was in the industrial city of Al Jubail on the Arabian Gulf. We lived on a compound not too unlike army camps. These camps were home to most expatriates living in Saudi, well equipped with swimming pool, tennis courts, bowling alley, restaurant, grocery shop etc. “Is that it?”I hear you say.

Let’s cut to the chase, Saudi Arabia is a Muslim country; Muslims pray five times a day. No matter where, when or how, driving along the road, or swinging out of the rafters, all forms of activities come to a screeching halt, prayer mats are tossed to the ground and a quick look around to decide what direction the holy city of Mecca is in and off they go, up and down praying to Allah.

Money is a relatively new phenomenon in Saudi Arabia and although construction and industrialisation is of the highest standards, evidence can only be seen in the larger cities. Two incredible features in Jubail are the desalinisation plant and the gas and oil pipe lines running above ground 1170 km to Yanbu. The roads, which are the best I’ve ever been on, are strewn with pick up trucks driven by men clad in brilliant white and carrying three or four wives in the back. Women are not permitted to drive, are mostly uneducated and do not work outside the home/camp. In the Islam world it is believed by Muslims that women should find a major part of fulfilment by accepting and discharging a primary obligation to the family.

Later on, I did discover how brave, heroic and utterly superior beings these women were when I had my own baby and was told that they did not have epidurals in that particular hospital. Leaving aside the mind-boggling effect that had on little old me, let alone these buxom Bedouins, the ‘birthday’ was something else. To put it in a nut shell, baby born, tagged, foot printed, finger printed, girls ears pierced, photographed back and front and registered immediately with Irish Embassy.

This article was written by Briona Hannon and originally appeared in An Focal of the University of Limerick