Living in Saudi Arabia with epilepsy
November 21, 2010 11:25 AM Subscribe
Asking for a friend. He is considering taking a teaching position in Saudi Arabia for a year. He has epilepsy. Question about Saudi attitudes towards epilepsy and begging for general SA advice within.
When he taught in Korea, he hid this condition because Koreans are afraid of seizures and believe they are caused by ghosts. How do Saudis react to seizures? His are mostly controlled, but still occur occasionally. Also general advice about a how a white American male who likes to drink alcohol and watch movies can enjoy a year in Saudi Arabia are also welcome. Thanks!
When he taught in Korea, he hid this condition because Koreans are afraid of seizures and believe they are caused by ghosts. How do Saudis react to seizures? His are mostly controlled, but still occur occasionally. Also general advice about a how a white American male who likes to drink alcohol and watch movies can enjoy a year in Saudi Arabia are also welcome. Thanks!
American Bedu has an interview with a Saudi suffering with the same condition. His problems seem to have been more with his family's traditional views than any lack of modern medical treatment in kingdom. But your friend will be working for a foreign company, right? Won't he be getting medical care from the company?
As a foreign national, he's basically going to be considered strange in all ways by the various Saudis he encounters. Some foreigners make homebrew, which always seems risky to me.
And the same alcohol question from 2008.
posted by Ideefixe at 11:45 AM on November 21, 2010
As a foreign national, he's basically going to be considered strange in all ways by the various Saudis he encounters. Some foreigners make homebrew, which always seems risky to me.
And the same alcohol question from 2008.
posted by Ideefixe at 11:45 AM on November 21, 2010
It depends on where he is going to be living.
I visited my uncle for Christmas a couple of years ago, and he lived in an Aramco compound in Eastern Province.
Inside the compound (which was walled off and guarded by incompetent seeming Saudi guards), the Saudis turned something of a blind eye; beer and the two kinds of liquor (brown and white) were brewed and consumed at house parties. (You can't put 2000 chemical engineers on a compound in a desert and not get homebrew.) The premise is that small amounts, strictly amongst infidels, for personal use were okay. (That's how the pork came in, as well; from butchers in Bahrain who labelled it "veal".) Outside the compound was the typical Arab megacity, inside was a pleasant suburb of Des Moines, circa 1970.
Outside the compound, it would be going to Bahrain, which is just across the causeway; a reasonable Saturday. I don't think booze can be brought back, except in the liver. Eastern province is one of the most liberal parts of the country.
Elsewhere, the country gets more conservative, and being based in Riyadh would require flights to Bahrain, Dubai or elsewhere for sweet sweet booze.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 3:12 PM on November 21, 2010
I visited my uncle for Christmas a couple of years ago, and he lived in an Aramco compound in Eastern Province.
Inside the compound (which was walled off and guarded by incompetent seeming Saudi guards), the Saudis turned something of a blind eye; beer and the two kinds of liquor (brown and white) were brewed and consumed at house parties. (You can't put 2000 chemical engineers on a compound in a desert and not get homebrew.) The premise is that small amounts, strictly amongst infidels, for personal use were okay. (That's how the pork came in, as well; from butchers in Bahrain who labelled it "veal".) Outside the compound was the typical Arab megacity, inside was a pleasant suburb of Des Moines, circa 1970.
Outside the compound, it would be going to Bahrain, which is just across the causeway; a reasonable Saturday. I don't think booze can be brought back, except in the liver. Eastern province is one of the most liberal parts of the country.
Elsewhere, the country gets more conservative, and being based in Riyadh would require flights to Bahrain, Dubai or elsewhere for sweet sweet booze.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 3:12 PM on November 21, 2010
Just a tiny point of reference here. A friend of mine who is a rather distinguished surgeon in his home country was forced to surrender his passport upon entry into SA, and evidently, that is standard procedure. His relevant medical records followed him, and would that have been relevant (had he stayed), he felt his chances (as a physician) to have been treated properly would have been severely compromised. His offer was to stay in the Kingdom for two years (without passport control). He rejected that offer in large part because his passport was no longer under his control (which is evidently something common among foreigners who come to work professional jobs in SA), and the general feeling that he had of the personal "disposability"that he had. YYMV. Good luck.
posted by msali at 6:34 PM on November 21, 2010
posted by msali at 6:34 PM on November 21, 2010
Pretty much what Homeboy Trouble said, but just to add another data point:
My dad worked for Aramco and I was born and grew up in SA. If your friend is working for Aramco or any of their contractors, he will live on a walled in compound that is almost exactly like a military base - All services (hospital, schools, commissary, recreation centers) are provided by the company and it has the atmosphere of a tight-knit affluent American suburb. The schools were highly regarded and both treated and paid teachers very well.
As far as alcohol and recreation, pretty much everyone we knew made their own alcohol with either a still in their garage or homebrewing kits (my dad would put yeast and sugar into 10 gallon jugs of grape juice). Customs coming back from Bahrain knew that the Americans working for Aramco were a huge part of the government economy, so inspection was half-assed and knowing a little bit of arabic and being polite could get you out of them completely, so bringing cases of alcohol and pigs back was not very hard at all. If he smokes at all, getting ahold of hashish was also pretty easy and looked over for the most part. For stuff to do, there was a pretty nice golf course on the compound and the company had a private beach/yacht club on the gulf, there were numerous tents set up along the highways where you could rent four-wheelers by the hour for super cheap and ride around on the dunes, and we often got groups of people together and went for camping trips out in the desert.
(for what msali said, promising jobs as doctors/lawyers/engineers and taking away passports upon arrival was a pretty common way of getting cheap janitorial labor into the country from places like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and they would barely get paid enough to survive and still end up sending most of it back to their families in their home countries. What people often did was hire them to come clean their house or turn on their sprinklers and pay them an obscenely disproportionate amount of money for it.)
Anyways, hope that helps and feel free to memail me with any more questions he has.
posted by LarrenD at 12:42 AM on November 22, 2010
My dad worked for Aramco and I was born and grew up in SA. If your friend is working for Aramco or any of their contractors, he will live on a walled in compound that is almost exactly like a military base - All services (hospital, schools, commissary, recreation centers) are provided by the company and it has the atmosphere of a tight-knit affluent American suburb. The schools were highly regarded and both treated and paid teachers very well.
As far as alcohol and recreation, pretty much everyone we knew made their own alcohol with either a still in their garage or homebrewing kits (my dad would put yeast and sugar into 10 gallon jugs of grape juice). Customs coming back from Bahrain knew that the Americans working for Aramco were a huge part of the government economy, so inspection was half-assed and knowing a little bit of arabic and being polite could get you out of them completely, so bringing cases of alcohol and pigs back was not very hard at all. If he smokes at all, getting ahold of hashish was also pretty easy and looked over for the most part. For stuff to do, there was a pretty nice golf course on the compound and the company had a private beach/yacht club on the gulf, there were numerous tents set up along the highways where you could rent four-wheelers by the hour for super cheap and ride around on the dunes, and we often got groups of people together and went for camping trips out in the desert.
(for what msali said, promising jobs as doctors/lawyers/engineers and taking away passports upon arrival was a pretty common way of getting cheap janitorial labor into the country from places like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and they would barely get paid enough to survive and still end up sending most of it back to their families in their home countries. What people often did was hire them to come clean their house or turn on their sprinklers and pay them an obscenely disproportionate amount of money for it.)
Anyways, hope that helps and feel free to memail me with any more questions he has.
posted by LarrenD at 12:42 AM on November 22, 2010
It's not clear to me whether the two questions refer to the same individual. If they are, then only partially-controlled seizure activity + alcohol seems like a bad idea. What does his neurologist think of this, and of the move to SA in general?
posted by apartment dweller at 10:25 AM on November 24, 2010
posted by apartment dweller at 10:25 AM on November 24, 2010
« Older Knitting Group Relationship Filter | Looking for articles about diversifying our energy... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Houstonian at 11:40 AM on November 21, 2010