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1960s- You might think the life of an expat wife whose husband has a job in Saudi Arabia might be glamourous. But when the husband is not there, the world is not safe for a western woman…
In the Kingdom of Men
What you need to know before your trail
Gin McPhee’s husband Mason takes a job at the Arabian American Oil Company in Saudi Arabia. At first this seems like the ideal escape from their normal and understated life in Oklahoma. They may live on a compound and have butlers, dinner parties and other luxuries but life in still in the enclosed space of a compound..
Once the glitzy facade of this expat life style has worn off, boredom and a bold sense of reckless abandon replace it. But a western woman in a strange world and a man’s world at that is not going to be safe for long. Her husband may not be either.
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Oklahoma to Saudi Arabia requires a remarkable readjustment process and for one expat couple, this journey to a new land is one they wished they’d never taken.
this is the land of opportunity at first however. a nice compound filled with everything they could wish for – materialistically at least. Freedom might not be on the cards here but a new job and a new and glamourous life style at first really impress.
Here is the first thing you need to know about me: I’m a barefoot girl from red-dirt Oklahoma, and all the marble floors in the world will never change that.
But this is the Saudi Arabia of the 1960s and it a strange an distant land. it was a time where the oil industry was growing and where the americans were first in there. The major players and shakers of this oil boom were taking their places and the gap between rich and poor was growing. Seeing the country transform in this way is fascinating –
“The bunker like Suqs that functioned as a quite marketplace, enclosed and attached to the main compound, Abdullah said so that the company wives could shop without leaving camp.”
But this is a man’s world and there is no room for Gin. She does however find that her poor childhood and lack of opportunity back home in Oklahoma is magnified here. From the red dirt Oklahoma Gin now walks on the marbled floor of her Aramco home – the american compound where she feels so trapped.
Life for expats is fraught with dangers and this is a world where no one really understands the rules.
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