Today is Thursday, June 12, 2025

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.

If you find the text too small to read on this website, press the CTRL button and,
without taking your finger off, press the + button, which will enlarge the text.
Keep doing it until you have a comfortable reading size.
(Use the - button to reduce the size)

Today's quote:

Friday, April 20, 2018

Saudi calling

 

My phone screen displayed country code 966 - Saudi Arabia! I pressed the button and said, "Marhaba!" I could almost feel the oven heat and the sand blowing in from the desert when a voice said, "Al-salāmu ʿalaykum" (actually, what I heard was " السَلامُ عَلَيكُم ")

Yes, it was Sheikh Abdulhameed. After I had wa-alaikum-salaam-ed him back and added a few more niceties, it was down to business. Or rather, it wasn't because, as he put it, he just wanted to stay in touch with an old habibi - after more than thirty years? -, inquire about my wellbeing and what I was doing, and was I thinking of visiting the Kingdom again.

Visiting Saudi Arabia again? Nothing could be further from my mind, habibi or not habibi. A few more pleasantries; talks about his business past and present; the reforms taking place in the Kingdom; what was happening across the border in the Yemen; his assurance that he would call again; then a final telephonic embrace - both sides of the keypad -, and I was none the wiser why - if there was a why - he had called me.

The art of doing business in Saudi Arabia. Maybe there will be a sequel; maybe there won't. The answer, habibi, is blowing in the desert wind.


Googlemap Riverbend