After 24 years of living in Saudi Arabia in the same compound, and for the past 17 years in the same apartment, a lot of things have changed. But over the past 10 years, three small details have remained constant. Whenever I look out of our bedroom or bathroom window towards the apartment next to us, there is always a light on in their bathroom. I know it is a bathroom because the apartment is exactly the same design as ours. That light is never switched off. For many years the apartment was lived in by a pilot that we knew but never actually socialized with. I first started noticing that the light was left on when I was recovering from a major operation and so was not sleeping very well. No matter what time I went to bed, or got up in the night, that bathroom light was always on. Then I noticed that it was still on during the day. The years went by and the light stayed on. Then the pilot left. While the apartment was empty, that bathroom light remained stubbornly on. And then a new tenant moved in. He bizarrely blacked out his sitting room window (which faced our bedroom window) with either black plastic bin bags, or black fabric. But, once again, the bathroom light remained lit, day and night. In our home, when anyone has used the bathroom, they turn the light out on leaving. Bulbs also blow and need replacing. But that persistent bathroom light next door never blows, and is never switched off, no matter whether the flat is occupied or empty, no matter who lives in it. The next thing about the house next door is the bush growing out of the wall to the right off the illuminated bathroom window. It is on the first floor level, about 25 feet above the ground. We have watched it grow from a tiny green shoot into a large, healthy, leafy shrub. It clings to the vertical bricks on the wall alongside a few external pipes. We imagine that one of them must be leaking and that is where it gets its vital water supply. But how did it get there in the first place? How did it germinate and thrive in such an inhospitable surface? If I tried to plant a shrub on a vertical brick wall, with no soil or anything to hold it there, I am sure nothing would happen. I can only deduce that the seed was deposited in a tiny nook in the bricks via bird droppings, and that the tiny dollop of dropping provided sufficient manure for the seed to grow. While this shrub has thrived and grown, although maintenance teams have been around the building from time to time, no one has thought to remove it. Meanwhile, its roots are growing longer and longer, stretching down the side of the building. And now to the third, unchanging detail. I swim on a regular basis in a large beautiful pool that is overlooked by a block of low rise apartments. As I floated lazily in the warm water one day, I noticed a poster blocking up one window of one of the apartments. It is an old KLM Airline poster with a swan in full flight, its white wings spread wide against a clear blue sky. Beneath the swan are written the words: “One Day I'll Fly Away”. At first I thought it was just a random poster; so many occupants in the compound don't want to pay for curtains so they just block up their windows with newspaper and pictures. But all the other windows in this apartment have patterned or floral curtains. This poster appeared to have been chosen to deliver its message to the world – and the message is not “Fly KLM”! One thing that all expats in the Kingdom have in common is that one day, they will fly away – on an exit only visa. This is what is so unusual about working here. No matter how many years you live in Saudi Arabia, you cannot establish permanent residency. You cannot remain here beyond the expiry of your work permit (unless you arrange for private personal sponsorship). In many other Middle Eastern countries you can now get permanent residency if you purchase property there. In Saudi Arabia, you cannot do this. You will fly away. Whenever I swim, I look to see if the poster is still there and wonder about the man living in the apartment. (I can definitively say “man” because there are no Iqama holding single women in this section of the compound.) I wonder if he lives alone, or if he has a wife and family with him. Does he enjoy his life here, or is he counting the days until he can return to his home country? Or is he a lost soul, one of those long-term expats who doesn't know where he will fly away to? I wonder who will fly away first: the man in the apartment, or me. If everything goes according to plan, we should be in Saudi Arabia for another 7 years until my husband reaches his retirement age. I will be keeping my vigil on the neighboring bathroom light, the shrub on the brick wall and the poster overlooking the swimming pool. But one thing is certain: one day, I'll fly away. __
