The Kingdom-Al Khobar
Saudi Arabia · NoMad Teacher · Aviation
Foreign LandKSA: The Majik Kingdom
A Caribbean dream gave way to a Saudi backup plan—and the desert turned adaptation, teaching, aviation, and humor into a field education.
A year earlier I was riding a horse in the Caribbean, living the dream. Now I was in Saudi Arabia, living the backup plan. Cha-ching.
Sometimes the route changes without asking permission. Tropical paradise becomes desert kingdom. The plan you did not choose becomes the place where new skills, new stories, and a new version of you begin to appear.
The Kingdom was not one experience. It was several: Jeddah, Riyadh, the Eastern Province, classrooms, aircraft, newsletters, cultural collisions, and the comedy required to remain flexible.
The Asymmetric Equation
Backup Plan + Adaptation + Attention = New Capability The destination changed. The opportunity expanded.The Reality Check
From Caribbean Dreams to Desert Plans
A backup plan can become a new dream when you stop grading it against the life you expected.
A year ago today I was riding a horse in the Caribbean, living my dream. Now I am in Saudi Arabia, living my backup plan. Cha-ching.
Life moved from tropical color to desert light. The contrast was severe, but the lesson was useful: adventure is not limited to the destination you originally selected.
The Kingdom offered a different kind of magic—less postcard, more pressure test. It asked whether I could build a life inside unfamiliar rules and still recognize opportunity.
2002–2009
Three Kingdoms, Three Experiences
Jeddah, Riyadh, and the Eastern Province each produced a different version of the same lesson: location changes the work.
I lived and worked in Jeddah in 2002–03 and Riyadh in 2008–09. Later, I found the Eastern Province the most agreeable.
Three Christmases working in the Kingdom produced three different adventures in a land of seemingly endless sand.
The NoMad Chronicles
Teacher Reports from the Field
The newsletter turned the daily friction of cross-cultural teaching into a record of what the classroom was actually asking.
I created a newsletter called The NoMad Teacher Report, chronicling the adventures, challenges, and cultural discoveries of teaching in the desert kingdom.
It was reporting from the field: not abstract theory, but what happened when instruction, language, expectation, and local reality met in the same room.
Career Evolution
From Art Dealer to the Art of War
The career path moved from galleries to ships to aircraft, but the underlying skill remained the same: adapt fast enough to become useful.
The transformation was not from one neat profession to another. It was the accumulation of transferable skills: communication, cultural awareness, improvisation, teaching, and remaining calm when the map stopped matching the territory.
Every expatriate eventually learns that adaptation is not a side skill. It is the art form.
Aviation Wisdom
Equal Takeoffs and Landings
The aviation metaphor became a life philosophy: every departure needs a safe return, and every challenge needs a usable response.
As long as you have an equal number of takeoffs and landings, you are doing fine.
Living and working in the region taught me that every departure is balanced by an arrival, every difficulty by an opportunity to become more capable.
Desert Spa Day
Dead Sea Clay Adventures
Even the most serious foreign assignment contains moments that refuse to remain serious.
I am on land, but is the Dead Sea clay mask going overboard?
From the Disney Magic to the Majik Kingdom and back. Sometimes the best adventures happen while you are simply trying to take care of yourself in the middle of the desert.
Even in the driest places, you find ways to refresh. The desert teaches appreciation for every source of relief.
Cultural Observations
You Know You Have Been in Saudi Too Long When…
Period field-note humor about the point where the unfamiliar starts feeling normal.
With thanks to the familiar Jeff Foxworthy setup, the original field note asked how to finish the sentence: “You know you have been in Saudi Arabia too long when…”
- You do not see a problem with a goat riding in the passenger seat.
- You think being liberated means sitting in the female section.
- You expect to go to jail when a local national hits the back of your car at a stop sign.
- You think a red light is merely a suggestion.
- You resign your position a year in advance.
Continue the Field Notes
Companion Stories
Two more reports from life, work, adaptation, and observation inside the Kingdom.
Companion Story
The Kingdom
Continue the Saudi field notes with another chapter about life abroad, cultural friction, and learning how to read the conditions in front of you.
Companion Story
No Mad People
Open another NoMad field report about Saudi Arabia, the people encountered there, and the perspective gained by living beyond the familiar.