[This is part of the series: A List of Things I Remember About Living In Saudi Arabia.]
Living in Saudi Arabia, I remember crossing “No-Man’s-Land.”
Don’t worry. It wasn’t anything crazy.
See, the compound we lived on wasn’t just one compound.
There was our compound, with houses, a clinic, a commissary, a dining hall, a rec center, a video library, basketball courts, a playground, a bowling alley, racquetball courts, tennis courts, a snack bar, and a swimming pool.
There was also a second, adjoining compound, which had administrative offices, housing for support staff, and the school.
A six-foot concrete wall surrounded both compounds.
To get to school, we would go to the end of the street, just past the dining hall and commissary, and park our bikes in the bike racks against the wall.
Adjacent our bikes, we would meander through an opened metal door onto a strip of desert about 50 yards wide and half a mile long that separated the two compounds.
Another metal door was on the other side, leading into our school on the other compound.
We called this strip “No-Man’s-Land.”
And I crossed it twice a day going to and from school.
