Part 19

After an extremely long and exhausting working day, I come home and go straight to bed. The prayer of the muezzin wakes me gently after a few hours. I decide to go for a walk since it is still light and bright.

I step out the door, take a deep breath, the air is clear and pure and very refreshing. Since it is still prayer time, the streets are still deserted. No soul to be seen on the wide road in front of our residence. I walk pass the nearby petrol station and see some cars and people waiting for the owner to come an open the services and to fill up the vehicles and do their shopping. My route leads me to a place where many trucks like the one on the photo are parked. I have often passed this place, but never dared to go closer as it always seemed very busy and I was afraid of being asked various questions and/or get into trouble. Now, as it is deserted, I dare go in and have a closer look and find out what it is, although I can guess what this is. It is a well from where the city gets its water. The trucks are filled with water, that is then brought to the households. In Saudi there is no running water from the tap like anywhere else. That’s why it is distributed to the houses. You should under any circumstances, never ever, drink water from the tap. If you do, you’ll get stomach pain and diarrhea. This water is used for washing only. Drinking and cooking water is available in the supermarket and in many shops.

Each house has a water tank on the rooftop and gets the water from there. The tank is filled up frequently so the household doesn’t run out of water. But what do you do with the waste water? Where does it go to? You call a truck to take it away. So now you can imagine the truck traffic on the roads.

When I leave the site, I see a particularly beautiful specimen of a truck parked along the street. It is a yellow truck with nice décor. I walk once around it and then place myself in front of it and marvel at it. I then take my BlackBerry out of my pocket and photograph it. When I’m done with it, I hear somebody shout:

“Doctor!”

I turn around and see no one.

“Doctor!” yells the voice again, “here!”

I look at the other side of the street and see five boys wave at me.

Can it be that they are our students who call me ‘doctor’? Our project manager has told all our students that all teachers hold a PhD and are university lecturers back in their countries. When I come closer I realise that they are not our students. As I stand in front of them, one of the boys starts asking me questions, like what my name is, where I am from, what I am doing here, etc. Then he translates my answers to the others.

“Do you like the truck?” he asks.

“Yes, very much!” I reply.

“It’s mine”, he says.

“Very chic” I say.

We talk for a while and I am amazed how good his English is.

“Where did you learn English so well?” I ask him.

“From the telly”, he replies.

No shit, I think to myself, but say: “Fantastic!”

A few minutes later, a door opens on the house on the hill behind the boys and a woman shouts a name. All five turn around, say something in Arabic and turn back to me.

“Mum has called. Dinner is ready. Unfortunately we have to go now.

We shake hands and walk to different directions. When I reach the next corner and am already lost in my thoughts, I think to myself, what a pity, I didn’t even take a photograph of them. I turn around, but there’s nobody there. Only the yellow truck stands silently along the road and shimmers golden in the setting sun.

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