How it all started

A Big Change

    My family moved to Saudi Arabia in 1979.  My father was a pilot and had gone to work for the national airline. We moved to Jeddah which is on the Red Sea which surprisingly enough isn't red!   As I was only 6 years old, I didn't realize what a tumultuous and dangerous time it was in the Middle East.  All I knew was that we had moved very far from friends and family and were now in a very hot, sandy place.  When we arrived, we had no place to live and stayed with friends.  I walked down the street in the compound with my father until we came to an empty house and he said this looks good.  He made the arrangements and soon we moved in.  The house was fully furnished which is a good thing since our shipment of personal items wouldn't arrive for about six months.

This is what our house looked like when we moved in.  Grass and landscaping came later.

The water tower in our compound.  It was our directional beacon for every place in the compound.

We had moved to a place where you had dust storms instead of rain storms.  It was so hot but the dry heat was something we gradually got used to but we still loved the air conditioners we had in every room!