Five Pros and Cons of Living in Jeddah
The end of every tour almost demands that we record our best and worst memories. Here are five pros and cons from Jeddah, which we left in Summer 2017.
Pros
1) The dates. Bateel.
2) The compound. like a little village where the kids can run around freely. swim before school, play tennis at night, get take out from the compound cafe. almost makes you forget you're living in a bubble.
3) It's most always sunny. except for the few times of year where the rains (link)
4) Other Expats. It's a segregated society, but all the westerners are in the same boat and understand far better than your friends back home about what you went through here.
5) travel opportunities. To stay sane here, you really need to leave frequently. something on the order of once every 2-3 months. during our time here, we visited. etc..
.
Cons
1) Being a customer. Between prayer times shutting down businesses at lunchtime, right after work, and dinnertime, you'll also find yourself segregated between bachelors/singles and families. your daily schedule is forced to revolve around prayer time, like it or not. oh,
2) Women not being allowed to drive. seriously, the traffic is worse because you have all these empty cars going to pick up some woman that, if she could drive, would have the car at her place. Also, if my wife wants to go to the spa, i have to take her and the kids because we don't have a nanny.
3) household staff. Ok, this is a totally privileged complain, but it's really hard to get good nannies or cleaning staff in Saudi Arabia. Because if you could get a job somewhere else, why would you stay in Saudi?
4) the dust and pollution. in addition to the sand storms, the warm haze and moist grit that accompanies high humidity and high heat means you can almost taste the air.
5) Forced modesty. The abaya. muslim swim wear. censored faces in the mall. basically, it's body shaming, and using the rationale that "men can't control themselves" is kind of insulting to those of us who can and do.
And then more text. so much content! Closing paragraph as needed.
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Pros
1) The dates. Bateel.
2) The compound. like a little village where the kids can run around freely. swim before school, play tennis at night, get take out from the compound cafe. almost makes you forget you're living in a bubble.
3) It's most always sunny. except for the few times of year where the rains (link)
4) Other Expats. It's a segregated society, but all the westerners are in the same boat and understand far better than your friends back home about what you went through here.
5) travel opportunities. To stay sane here, you really need to leave frequently. something on the order of once every 2-3 months. during our time here, we visited. etc..
.
1) Being a customer. Between prayer times shutting down businesses at lunchtime, right after work, and dinnertime, you'll also find yourself segregated between bachelors/singles and families. your daily schedule is forced to revolve around prayer time, like it or not. oh,
2) Women not being allowed to drive. seriously, the traffic is worse because you have all these empty cars going to pick up some woman that, if she could drive, would have the car at her place. Also, if my wife wants to go to the spa, i have to take her and the kids because we don't have a nanny.
3) household staff. Ok, this is a totally privileged complain, but it's really hard to get good nannies or cleaning staff in Saudi Arabia. Because if you could get a job somewhere else, why would you stay in Saudi?
4) the dust and pollution. in addition to the sand storms, the warm haze and moist grit that accompanies high humidity and high heat means you can almost taste the air.
5) Forced modesty. The abaya. muslim swim wear. censored faces in the mall. basically, it's body shaming, and using the rationale that "men can't control themselves" is kind of insulting to those of us who can and do.
And then more text. so much content! Closing paragraph as needed.
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