Last week, we called round to some friends house whom we collectively as a group all hadn’t caught up with each other for almost three years, although we would have seen each separately in passing here and there in that time. They’ve been super busy with their growing family, and we’ve been doing our own thing too, so it was great that we finally got to meet after so long. During our long conversation about everything and anything, our friend mentioned he was going to Riyadh in a few weeks, the capital of Saudi Arabia, for two weeks to work. Knowing that I lived in Al Khobar, a city on the eastern coast, over twenty years ago, he asked what I thought of the place. I didn’t have much to say because it’s been so long, and the place is probably unrecognisable from when I was there all those years ago. But it did get me thinking about me sitting in the old terminal at Cork Airport with my family in the very early morning around the end of October back in 2001, waiting to board a flight to Gatwick and on to Dammam International Airport in Al Khobar to begin work experience with an Irish-Saudi engineering company as a junior engineer. It feels like it was a different life, and in some ways it was because it was so long ago.

For context, I had finished my second year in an engineering course at a local college, and my third year required work experience. Through my mum’s friend, who was acquainted with a couple they had met while working in Saudi Arabia, I was introduced to a manager at an Irish engineering company that operated over there. Following an interview in their Irish office, I was offered the placement as part of my work experience abroad in Al Khobar. Then 9/11 happened, and I didn’t hear anything for a few weeks until the middle of October when I received my travel details. So, I, a twenty-year-old, moved from my parents' house to what I described at the time as “it’s like Ireland but the opposite; there’s sand instead of grass, sun instead of rain,” and so on. Thus started my experience and adventure of living far from home in a foreign country.

Day-to-day life was incredibly different from what I was used to back home, and living in an apartment with a roommate who was an alcoholic and recently divorced wasn’t something I was capable of understanding at that time. It was always hot and working in a fast-paced office environment with an Irish ‘expat’ boss who would regularly shout at his multinational staff definitely taught me a lesson on how not to engage with people. The majority of the food, from what I remember, was imported from America due to the presence of a large compound in the city with thousands of Americans working at the major oil company, Saudi Aramco. My food palate wasn’t as developed as it is now, so none of the local food from the region—dates, hummus, falafel, and spicy curries—appealed to me. Looking back, it is my one regret because I’d eat it all now. Big American burgers with fries, Domino’s pizzas, and heavy caloric foods were what I ate, and my twenty-year-old body’s metabolism could only work for so long to keep me skinny.

Having not lived away from home during college and being very sheltered up until that point in my life, the freedom of living on my own was amazing, albeit accompanied by bouts of loneliness. A few journal entries that I’ve kept were about missing home and trying to fit in with the way of life there. Visits to downtown Al Khobar and the Souk helped me better experience the Saudi culture instead of the typical American-style shopping experience at the Al Rashid Mall. As the months went by and into 2002, I became more confident and began enjoying my life there. The company I worked for had moved me into a new compound, where I lived with two guys around my age. I have photos of the many parties where we got to meet other migrants from all across the world who came to Saudi Arabia to work. It was great, but unfortunately it changed for me following the tragic death in a horrific car accident of my friend and roommate. He and the front seat passenger died in a head on collision, and the back seat passenger lived. It was the scariest thing to ever experienced and pushed me to want to go back home. I didn’t want to be there anymore and being back in Ireland for his funeral in his home village so soon after he died, I knew I wasn’t going to stay.

Looking back at my time living as an Irishman in Al Khobar, I know that I wasn’t ready for it. The tragedy of my friend’s death had a lasting effect, and even if it hadn’t happened, I still think I wasn’t ready to live on my own. I was too young, naive, and sheltered. Would I go back now? No. It’s not a place I would ever want to return to, but during my time there, I did have my first experience of freedom within the bubble created for me by the confines of where I lived and who I worked for, so I’m not too regretful about my time there.