While growing up in Saudi, I distinctly remember one feature of the compounds that I have never encountered anywhere else: snack bars. No matter which compounds you were on: Dhahran, Abqaiq, Ras Tanura, or Udhailiyah, the snack bar was the stop in town to catch a tasty meal after swimming or an afterschool sport.
These are the wishes my wife Amira and I hope to share with each of you in October when so many of our Aramco annuitant friends will board together for the upcoming Hafla Cruise.
By the late 1970s, Ali Al-Baluchi had risen through Aramco’s Community Services to become Manager of the Food Distribution Department, where he was proud to employ one of the company’s first Saudi female employees. The following extract from Heart and Soul details how this opened a door to further training in the United States.
A Saudi shopping mall was on fire Friday engulfed in smoke after a blaze broke out in the early hours of the morning. Plumes of smoke could be seen billowing from the Mall of Dhahran in Alkhobar — the largest commercial market in the Eastern Province — as emergency crews battled to contain the fire.
As Ali Al-Baluchi worked hard to establish his credentials within the Aramco workforce, opportunities to study overseas began to arrive. With his cordial personality and winning Saudi charm, Ali quickly formed friendships wherever he went, and even found himself representing the Kingdom in international student forums.
Ali Al-Baluchi was born in the Arabian Peninsula soon after the unification of the Saudi kingdom. Against the backdrop of a conservative society confronting a rapidly increasing pace of modernization, he has witnessed and participated in decades of great social and economic change.
The Holy month of Ramadan is the 9th month in the Hijri calendar. Since the Islamic year is 11 days shorter than the western Gregorian calendar, Ramadan moves ‘forward’ by that amount each year in comparison to our western months, making Ramadan, quite literally, a moveable feast!
Ali Al-Baluchi was born in the Arabian Peninsula soon after the unification of the Saudi kingdom. Against the backdrop of a conservative society confronting a rapidly increasing pace of modernization, he has witnessed and participated in decades of great social and economic change.
The Aramco Retiree Golf Group held their sixth overall and first 2022 event in Phoenix, Arizona at Sheraton Grand Wild Horse Pass Resort March 28 – April 1, 2022. It was a fun filled 5-days of activities including 3 rounds of golf at Whirlwind Troon Devils Claw and Cattail golf courses. The evenings included an “Ice Breaker” Monday night at the Sheraton Grand Lobby Bar area onsite...
Aramco Brat, Doug Grant, hosted a cocktail and dinner gala at the waterfront restaurant, Shrimpers Bar and Grill, in Port Salerno, Florida on April 20th. Nine Brats and one honorary Brat were in attendance.
The word transience often brings up ambivalent feelings for me. On one hand, while it is a word that has defined much of my life, and while it’s enthralling to get sucked into the excitement of change, the word transience is at its best bittersweet. When life feels transient, it’s impossible to create stability and predictability.
Ali Al-Baluchi was born in the Arabian Peninsula soon after the unification of the Saudi kingdom. Against the backdrop of a conservative society confronting a rapidly increasing pace of modernization, he has witnessed and participated in decades of great social and economic change.
A poem by Nimah Ismail Nawwab. Losing oneself...Can this ever happen...‘How can we lose ourselves?’ one asks.
Hooriya Naushad Shah, daughter of Engr. Syed Naushad Shah, celebrated her 10th birthday on April 5th. Hooriya is the granddaughter of Syed Yousaf Shah, Aramco Badge ID 71533.
This article is inspired by a quote from Brian Tracy, "The greatest joys of life are happy memories. Your job is to create as many of them as possible.” and on an announcement by the Dhahran Inspection Department to submit abstracts for the “Inspection Department Technical Exchange Meeting and Exhibition 2005.”
This photo, taken in 1977, is of the Aramco Exploration Camp known as G3 and located deep in the Rub Al Khali. Every five or six weeks the newest (most junior) Aramco pilots were assigned to the G3 camp for a week at a time to fly oil exploration crews (usually four to six men) to their remote sites in the Aramco Twin Otter which was kept at the G3 base. This was actually pretty good duty.
Thank you, Ann Berry, for sending AXP this beautiful, nostalgic photo of UK Secretaries. Ann Berry worked in Office Services for 24 years, from 1978 to her retirement on 1 April 2002. The photo is of her friends at her leaving party. The party included 34 secretaries who had clocked over 700 years working for Aramco.
Prior to arriving in Arabia I had a conversation with a friend already in Kingdom about the possibility of us getting a pet. We understood it might take a few months before our large shipment from the US arrived with our personal belongings.
No one knows for certain when the use of children's Ramadan lanterns began, but it is a very old Egyptian tradition. Indeed, lanterns and lamps of various kinds, of many hues and degrees of brightness, and even both real and imaginary, have always been special to Egypt.
I took the 'then' photo of Al Khobar in 1955 while working as a PR photographer for Aramco. The 'now' photo is of my grandson, Sam Field, taken in 2020.