It was cool enough for a walk around the local suburbs this morning so I packed my passport, hat, shades wallet, gps and new phrase book into my laptop bag and headed roughly south. One of the first things you notice about Riyadh is it is certainly not pedestrian friendly. If there is a footpath then the owners of the property have probably either utilized it as a car parking space or the branches of the trees are so low you have to walk around them. The following photo was taken in one of the few areas where it was actually possible to walk on the footpath. Usually you dice with death and walk on the edge of the road.
Another rather normal thing for the middle east is for every building to have at least one large water storage tank on the roof.
The city water supply can vary between erratic and non existent. Consequentially every building has sufficient storage capacity to cover the gaps in supply. Moreover I’ve also observed a number of large water tankers going around delivery to properties. The building I will manage has no delivered services, Water will be delivered by tanker, electricity will come from a generator and the sullage & sewerage will be removed by tanker.
There was a newspaper article several days ago reporting 140,000 illegal workers had been deported in the last few months. It’s not hard to see where these workers were being employed.
The above are just a couple of examples of the many construction sites I’ve noticed where the tower cranes are silent and nothing is happening. They are ghost sites! A local informed me an illegal construction worker might make 100 euro per month. Legal workers make 300 euro’s. The cost of labour has just increased by 300% and I suspect construction has halted because of a lack of workers and spiralling costs.
It will be interesting to see what affect this has on my own construction project? I wonder if David Cameron could just kick out 160,000 people by threatening them with a jail sentence?
The good news is I noticed a Panda during my walk.
Not a bear…….. Panda is a local supermarket chain. I’ve finally been able to buy some fruit and a bar of soap. I’m getting tired of kebabs for dinner every night! On a more positive note the cost of living is much lower than the UK. My accommodation costs are covered by my employer and I suspect it might (at a squeeze) be possible to exist on 100 GBP per month.
Life was certainly harder when I lived in Iran!
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