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types of wrestling and other interesting activities.
Once an American friend of mine invited me to the
compound where she lived. I was fascinated by what I
saw there. It seemed to me I was at a place other than the
Kingdom, like somewhere in Spain. Along the banks of the
emerald and blue artificial lake and small island in its midst,
which is surrounded by velvet grass, and amidst densely
growing plants, there rose villas built according to the
Spanish style. The vast expanses of lands and settlements
reflected European and quasi-European undulations (in
the middle of the desert !) I also discovered there well-
equipped golf grounds, a theater, a round area for skating
and sliding and an acrobatic sports facility, basket ball
grounds, a volley-ball ground and a football playground,
as well as a balling path, a racing course and a stable for
Arab stallions, and a small zoo. I did not have time to
see all the playgrounds (one can move around in small
convertible cars). May be I missed many other interesting
things which I did not have enough time to see.
The city of Riyadh today resembles a giant building
ground. The construction activity proceeds without
interruption at regularly increasing rates of intensity.
Construction includes every thing: private villas, banks,
employment offices, hotels, commercial centers and stores,
although the existing selling outlets are empty and await
buyers. This has always made me wonder in amazement.
For his part, my husband proposes a convincing argument,
namely, that since they continue to build them, this means
there is demand and need for them. What I would like
to point out to is that the building process is carried out
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systematically. Thus the land designated for construction
is surrounded by a beautiful fence on which original
drawings are exhibited reflecting the future building. It
is amazing that they plant 8 to 10 meter-tall palm trees
so that when the fence is lifted after completion of the
building activities the astounded eyes of the spectator see
a well arranged and blooming garden, while the window
glass of the lower windows is carefully cleaned and the
building is ready to receive the first dwellers, even as
finishing activities and internal décor continue inside.
When villas or palaces are to be constructed (just as it
is the case with the buildings of government departments),
architects, engineers and foreign workers are invited
and are allocated by the employers not only residential
accommodation but also small mosques in an integrated
construction unit. Building activities are carried out on
a large scale, using traditional shining alabaster with an
undulated sky blue color, marble and other paving rocks.
The styles of building are varied. No villa is like another.
Individual buildings are surrounded with high-rising
fences (between four and six meters high). They also are
paved with exquisite and valuable stones; the gates are
beautifully designed and made of laced iron and colored
glass that is decorated with engravings. All along the wall
fence of the external gate, trees are planted and are later
pruned with utmost care.
In the parks and gardens, there abound jets, pools and
waterfalls, as well as European interlacing. The shaded
paths that are planted with trees are lit with special route
lights. One can see original equipment specially invented
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for servicing the parks and gardens, which shoot up
powerful jets of water. The climate is made pleasant as a
result of the cold breeze. This in itself constitutes a well
delineated area that has its own climate within a privately
owned protectorate. Some owners of the property erect,
in isolate corners of the parks, and gardens attached to
them, bedouin striped tents in order to satisfy their eager
desire to reproduce the kind of life in the desert which
they had got used to and the hidden inclination to recollect
the pleasant memories of the past.
It sometimes happens that relatives that belong to
the old generation live in these tents because they could
not get used to sleep indoors within rooms in which the
air is cooled by modern air conditioners that are highly
expensive and are considered symbols of high life. Thus
they feel moral and physical cold when exposed to the
coolness of the air produced by the electric and electronic
machines. Sometimes one can see such a tent on the roof
of a high rising building with multiple flats, wherein live
grandfathers and grandmothers.
As the plots of land in Riyadh are expensive enough,
all that has been described above largely applies to high
income and wealthy citizens who own two, three or more
houses. A plot of land that belongs to a middle class owner
is not usually larger than the built house itself. In the front
of such a house, there is usually a small space paved with
marble slabs. On the edges, there is often a small pool.
In the rear or on the roof, there are usually rooms for
servants and at the gate there is a one-storey building for
the janitor or the chauffeur. In some squares, a plot of land
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