Bank Run

First I wanted to try and help some of you that plugged the coordinates I gave into Google Earth and it didn’t work.  If you’re still interested, go to Google Earth and type in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.  Once you are there, go to the southern edge of town and move your mouse around paying attention to the coordinates at the bottom of the screen.  Eskan village is a small group of buildings that are along the main road that runs SSW from the southern edge of Riyadh.  You can find the location that way.  Good luck!

Yesterday, we embarked on a bank run to SAMBA bank located on the ground floor of the Kingdom Centre.  We traveled in a discreetly armored SUV wearing business attire and carrying handguns.  The Kingdom Centre is a beautiful building but I couldn’t help thinking that it looks like a large bottle-opener (search "Kingdom Centre Riyadh" in Google Images).  Nonetheless, it contains, as I was told, one of the main shopping centers for the upper crust of Riyadh society.  Once at the bank, we met Omar.  He’s a 29 year old college grad and adept English-speaker who has worked with SAMBA bank since 2005 as the conduit for our operations.  Omar is a laid-back and personable individual that while certainly responsive to our requests felt no need to impress or be proactive.  After making our deposits, Omar escorted us through town to SAMA bank.  This bank serves as the central bank or Federal Reserve to all other banks.  Security was a bit tighter this time around as I was apparently scolded by a security guard to put the small digital camera I was carrying into my pocket.  I, of course, had no idea he was even talking to me so Omar sheepishly translated the directive.  Once inside, we walked directly to an open teller.  We were there to withdraw several ‘bricks’ (1000 bills - 10 banded sets of 100 bills) of Riyals in the denominations of 10’s and 5’s as was previously coordinated through Omar.  However, the teller told us he had only 20’s and 5’s to offer.  At this, Omar turned to us and asked, “Can you come back tomorrow?”  Now this pissed me off, but I held my tongue as I have to go through the long relationship-building process this culture demands before I can really do any sword-rattling.  As I found out during my in-brief with the Deputy Chief of USMTM, there is almost no recourse for any Saudi who doesn’t have the work ethic and due diligence expected by their American military cohort.  My problem was that each bank run is a half day gone.  Each run has to be done, now, by my deputy and I.  More importantly, we need certain denominations for a reason.  If that isn’t met, cyclic inspections and management of dispensed funds falls off rhythm which eventually spreads to impact other services under our purview and blah, blah, blah.  Bottomline: we want what we want, when we want it.  But, like I said, we have to grin, accept half-hearted apologies and graciously request that this not happen in the future.  Anyway, we took the 20’s and 5’s.

During our ride to SAMA bank I carried on a conversation about this and that with Omar to start the get-to-know-each-other process.  One of the things I asked was what Saudis are known for.  I prefaced the question with examples that Germans are known for precise engineering and Americans are cheeseburger-eatin‘ capitalists.  Omar was quick to offer that Saudis are known for 3 things: investing money, hoarding money, and verbosity.  On the latter point he illustrated that Saudis do not give simple concise answers to any question.  He said, “If they do, you’ve probably already offended them in some way.”  Good to know.  I also asked, “If there’s one place I should visit during my tour, where would that be?”  He laughed saying anywhere but here (Riyadh).  He said Jeddah (coastal town along the Red Sea) was a pretty contemporary beach town with modern exceptions in regards to Islamic culture (i.e. couples could live together out of wedlock and women are not required to cover themselves in public).  He also said that Dubai is a cool place to visit.  His sales pitch?  There are hardly any Arabs there - all Westerners.  And there's a mall that he claims takes 2 full days to cover.  He also seemed partial to any place that had cinemas.  Movie theaters are banned in Riyadh.  I had assumed this had to do with religion.  But, when asked, Omar said that it actually had to do entirely with business.  He said movie theaters used to exist in Riyadh, but government was not pleased with the “constant wrestling of who would run them.”  Omar’s words, anyway.  I didn’t really understand to be honest.   Didn’t care enough to ask him to elaborate.

That’s about it for now.

I’ll be sure to take some pics next time out.  We make these runs about every 2 weeks or so.  The camera I was holding didn’t belong to me but to my deputy whom I accompanied on the run.  Also, I’m waiting on my October 1st paycheck to purchase a personal wifi device with a company downtown.  Once I have that, I’ll have the freedom to download pics and videos on my own time.