Louise's Grandfather with Aramco Colleagues - 1950

For the most part, the Saudis I met treated me with kindness and generosity. I will always cherish those good memories and warm friends. I also understand the importance that the relationship between our two countries has had in bringing wealth and power to both countries. Hundreds of thousands of American families have worked in the Kingdom over the last seventy years, feathering their nests, sending their children to college, and seeing the world. In fact, my wife Louise’s grandfather Arlis (Buck) Estes worked there in the oil industry from 1947 well into the 1960s.

King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals - Dhahran

The University was a short drive from the airport, and it was just a couple of minutes before I could see the brightly lit campus buildings on a nearby hill. It really was quite stunning. The campus had been designed by a Houston architectural firm in the 60s. They used multiple rows of sharp, elongated arches running along the outsides of the various buildings. It was both Islamic and modern, and I began to feel that perhaps I had made the right choice in coming.

Camel Market in Hufuf

On the day I went there were about one hundred camels were up for auction. They were being transported by little Toyota pickups that were dwarfed by the camels. There were cranes to lift the camels out of the trucks and there was lots of loud complaining by these ships of the desert. Bearded Bedouin men with heavy wool capes called farwa were walking among the camels, pulling up their lips and inspecting their teeth. Camels are foul tempered in the best of times and this invasion of privacy nearly cost one Bedouin his face. I quickly learned to keep a safe distance from the large gangly critters.

Asir Village

Anyway, we were eager to get on the road as we were excited to get into the greener mountainous regions of the southern provinces of Baha, Asir, Najran, and Jizan. Our first stop was in Al-Baha, a small city in green rolling hills. Our hotel was adjacent to the abrupt drop of the Escarpment. This is where the African continental plate pushed up the Asian plate, creating the Red Sea, the Arabian Peninsula, and the sharp ridge of mountains that runs along the southern coastline of the peninsula.

Najran - Fort on the Rock

Being photographers and fearless adventurers, we decided to visit some of the mountain villages. I was aware that in some of these more rural areas that the villagers may have seen few, if any Westerners before, but I felt my Arabic could get us through most situations. Photography is a bit of a taboo, especially in someone’s backyard but we couldn’t pass up the prospect of getting some good close-ups of the buildings. We were doing great until a pack of youngsters appeared. They started shouting and pretty soon there were twenty-five to thirty of the little urchins buzzing around. Suddenly it was more like being in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco than anything I had yet experienced in Saudi Arabia.

Wedding Drummer - Riyadh

The courtyard was covered with dozens of red oriental carpets. Out in the middle, a huge black man wrapped in the colorful traditional skirt of the tribesmen from the southern province Jizan was pounding on a large drum. He was backed up by three other drummers, and his young boy of five or six sat at his feet, neatly dressed in a miniature white thobe. His white gutra was wrapped such that only his bright shining eyes peered out.

Slowly, the wedding revelers began to march in a counter-clockwise circle. Rows of men began to skip forward, raising their legs in unison, right and then left, as they marched round and round. A barefoot man with a pole raised in his hand led the pack chanting mesmerizing tribal poems.

Bedouin in his tent

Suddenly, a flap was opened on the tent and a Bedouin man in a gray thobe with a shemagh wrapped around his face with just his eyes showing came out and gave a sharp whistle. The dogs stopped on a dime. He then waved his hand back and all the dogs casually pranced back behind the tent. We could see Joy shaking his hand, explaining herself; then she waved us over.

Inside the tent we were introduced to the wife, grandma, and several children. This was clearly one of the strangest things that had ever happened to these people, and they are probably still talking about it. There was a brief awkward moment, then Joy, who was born in Ramallah to a Palestinian father and an American mother, started rattling of in Arabic about how much she wanted to learn about the weaving traditions in the region. Immediately, the ice was broken.

Bedouin Camel Bag

First, we drove up to Aleppo (Hallab in Arabic.) Aleppo is an ancient city that had an incredible covered bazaar dating back to the 1300s (a third of it was destroyed in the recent eight-year civil war and is being slowly restored.) Joy and I found some beautiful Bedouin camel bags and at great prices. We stayed at the old Baron Hotel, which was quite an experience. Once the legendary hangout of Agatha Christie and T.E. Lawrence, it was here that Christie wrote Murder On The Orient Express.

Henry Kissinger with the Author - 1996

I previously mentioned the comments Henry Kissinger made in a lecture, as well as those that he made to me privately. He stated that a great many of the world’s eight billion people are unconvinced that American style liberal democracy would work in their country and may not even pass the test of time in the United States.

However, that should not mean we cannot have economic, cultural, or military relations with non-democratic countries. In fact, it is critical to U.S. national security that we maintain positive relations with as many countries as possible regardless of their religion or form of government.