Camels, Oil, and Fancy Cars – Is That All There is To Saudi?

When we were still in the US, Sean had a Skype interview for a pharmacy job in Saudi. (I already had a teaching job offer that I was planning to accept so we were hoping Sean would secure something before we left). The morning of his interview we were at an AirBnB in Memphis where we were visiting a good Saudi friend/former student for his college graduation ceremony. The AirBnb hosts were in the house still so Sean was trying not to wake them (or me) as he set up his laptop in their dining room. 😆
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Anyway, during this interview, the director of pharmacy at a Jeddah hospital asked him a series of unexpected questions that have continued to amuse us. First he asked, “In an average week, how many camels do you think you’ll see?” Caught off guard, Sean nervously answered, “Idk, maybe…1?,” and the panel of interviewers started laughing. Then the director said, “In an average week, how many Lamborghinis will you see?” Sean replied, “uhh none?” More laughter. Then he asked, “How many money trees will you see?” At this point Sean smirked because he realized what they were getting at.
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Their playful questions lightened the mood but they also dug at most people’s preconceived notions of Saudi – it’s all camels and desert, yet everyone is super rich and throws money around. The director was wondering if Sean knew what he was getting into: Had he done his research? Was he pursuing a job with accurate expectations of the location and lifestyle?
(For reference, we see a couple Lamborghinis a week, and no camels within the city 😆)
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I suppose we were as prepared as we could be to move halfway across the world to a country we had never visited. We annoyed our Saudi friends with questions, connected with Americans living in Jeddah, and pored over blogs and books. I would definitely recommend visiting a country before committing to live there but at the time tourist visas didn’t exist so it wasn’t really an option for us.
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Sean got the job, btw. (Then a couple weeks before we planned to move, they rescinded the offer. 😑 Then they gave him a different offer a few months after we came to Jeddah. But Sean took a better job elsewhere. It was a bit of a rollercoaster. 😬)