Topic: A Foreign Country

A Foreign Country

Or, Dumb Things I Have Done

I spent a semester of my sophomore year in college in Rome, Italy with the University of Dallas. This gave me the travel bug and my ears perked right up when I subsequently heard, while in my Medical Technology internship, that it was possible to work as a medical technologist in Saudi Arabia. Rumor had it that the salary was great compared to what one made in the US, and it was tax-free as well. Also one’s only expense was food, as the hospital provided transportation and housing. Finally, it was a strategic location from which to base further travel -  Amsterdam was only a five hour flight, as was Bangkok. Africa was also close and I had designs on going to Rwanda and hanging out with some gorillas. 

The main requirement was two years experience, so literally the day I reached two years of employment as a med tech I sent off my application to the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), in Nashville. It took about three months to hear back. Later I found out that most of that was a background check to insure I wasn’t of Jewish ancestry. Anyway, I got the nod and was soon thereafter on my way to Nashville for about a week of orientation prior to flying to Riyadh on Dec 12 1986. My contract was with the government of Saudi Arabia for a position at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre. 

The rumors turned out to be true. I made about double what I made in America, and it was tax-free up to $70,000 at that time (which I was in no danger of making!) Housing would be in a villa with two roommates, and the hospital took us to and from work in buses. This turned out to be a very good thing because they told us of horror stories during orientation, such as the one about a Saudi woman in a high-rise apartment building who inadvertently let her toddler crawl between the railings of her balcony. The child fell to his death, striking a parked car. The kicker was that the car belonged to a Western expatriate, who was later found guilty of the child’s death because, their reasoning went, had he not come to their country then something soft may have been on the street 17 stories below and if the child had hit that he would have lived. This is a true story and in general, ANY auto accident in which an expat was involved was found to be the foreigner’s fault, for similar reasoning - “Had you not come to this country there would have been no accident!” I was reminded of the line attributed to Mark Twain about arguing with a cat or an Arab - you either come away scratched or baffled.

Anyhow I was an avid musician, a drummer at the time. When I got over there I found there were no decent drums available to buy but there were plenty of synthesizers so I switched over to keyboards, using skills I had learned in organ lessons from a nun. The next step was to find a band after buying my first synth, a Roland Alpha Juno One.

After asking around, one of my roommates turned me on to a dentist he knew, Dr. Steve, who played bass. Steve in turn knew an ER doc, Dr. Bert, who played guitar & sang. I bought a drum machine to program along with providing keys as backing and we were off. It turned out that there were all kinds of gigs available at embassies (think American, British and Australian) and private parties at big corporation (think British Aerospace) compounds. We anticipated being, and eventually were, very busy.

Anyhow at our first rehearsal Bert asked, “Do you mind if I smoke?” I said no problem, as I smoked at the time as well. Soon however the air filled with a very familiar scent that definitely was NOT tobacco. I was flabbergasted. “Damn, Bert, what the hell are you doing?!!” We were after all, in Saudi Arabia, perhaps the uncoolest country in the world in which to get high. “Don’t worry about it! No one suspects a thing like this from a couple of doctors!” Dr. Steve grinned and nodded assent as he took a righteous hit himself. 

So I gave in to the dreaded peer pressure & proceeded to get mightily buzzed. It was Thai weed, and it came in little matchboxes labeled Double Happiness. The dope came in on flights from Thailand and the Philippines, carried in the wheel wells. Filipino flight techs would unload it and then somehow distribute it. Ours always came in the Double Happiness boxes, which I thought was really cool. That is, until our connection’s Filipino supplier was caught and beheaded. We began to reconsider at that point.

But my drugging days in Riyadh weren’t over yet! I was soon to meet Crazy Ray, a RN who worked as a Dialysis Nurse but really made way more money playing pool professionally. I met him through Dr. Bert. One day he came over and pulled out some little squares of paper with pictures of Mickey Mouse on them. I immediately recognized this as LSD and sure enough he offered me some and shortly we were cruising around Riyadh on the public buses after the secret madness had come to life, laughing uncontrollably at the melting locals who smiled and nodded politely. I came down with some Valium I had brought back from a trip to Bangkok, where it was available without a prescription. 

So they say God watches over babies and drunks, and, I might add, some druggies as well! Those days are long gone now of course but actually I wouldn’t trade them for the world.