The Right Home For Everyone
- Pipeline
- In Search Of Oil
- Saudi Aramco Publications
Author: Aramco World
Released 13 May 2007
Aramco World - November 1955
Any difference between Dhahran, Ras Tanura, Abqaiq and three communities of like size in the United States lies in the towns themselves and not in the people who live there. On sites beside the Persian Gulf which only two decades ago were great stretches of desert, these communities now thrive, all built of materials and equipment brought in from the outside. Their inhabitants move in and about, fall in love, get married and have babies just like they would if they lived anywhere else. Only in Dhahran, Ras Tanura and Abqaiq the problems created by such normal activities are vastly complicated because these towns are so new and so remote.
Mrs. Felix Sagan selects a color to harmonize with her own personal household accessories, which like most people, she shipped over from the States to supplement Aramco furniture.
Since the first producing well was struck in 1938, the Arabian American Oil Company has invested nearly $77,000,000 in housing and related facilities for its employees in Saudi Arabia. In the three Persian Gulf towns and in Jiddah, on the Red Sea, Aramco has erected 1,670 housing units, divided among one, two and three-bedroom houses, duplexes and seven-unit apartment. For unmarried employees there are just under 1,200 buildings containing approximately 12,000 rooms. And still there never seems to be enough housing to meet current demand.
The individuals best qualified to say why this is are members of Aramco's Residential Services staff. These men have charge of such myriad projects as community landscaping and beautification, recreation, laundry, dry cleaning, shoe repairing, moving and storage, barber and beauty shops, mail services - in short, all the facilities which go into making life smoother and more pleasant for some 25,000 Aramco people in Saudi Arabia. They are also responsible for all housing arrangements, and try to allot each employee the shelter he wants when he wants it. This is not as simple as it sounds.
R.L. Mestrezat, superintendent of residential services for the Dhahran district, cites an instance: "The Jones family is on what we call 'long leave'. The Joneses have been spending their vacation in Europe and we expect them to return by, say, October first. Perhaps they've covered their itinerary faster than they planned to, or have run out of money, so they decide to trip their travel time a bit and along about September 24th here they are.
"Now, of course, Mr. and Mrs. Jones want to get back into their house, but the Smith family is occupying it temporarily and they don't want to vacate yet. In fact, the Smiths couldn't if they wanted to because they're scheduled to move in the Browns' house, and the Browns aren't leaving for another week."
Home assignments are made in this checkerboard pattern because, in spite of constantly increasing housing facilities, Aramco still has a housing shortage. While this situation exists, every available dwelling space must be utilized at all times, and so some families have to occupy the homes of others who are on vacation.
Such improvisation now comes naturally to the district superintendents of Dhahran, Ras Tanura and Abqaiq. Mr. Mestrezat and C.F. Heywood, residential services supervisor for all the districts, sit on top of an unavoidable housing monopoly, and too often they are forced into the position of saying to a housing applicant, "Take it or leave it." Some would think from talking to these two men that Aramco had no more important function than to see that everybody was happy with his quarters. At the same time it wouldn't be too difficult to find witnesses who would swear fervently that Heywood and Mestrezat have only one objective: to make everybody as miserable as possible. Both shrug off such negative thinking philosophically. "You just do the best you can," they say.
Residential Services moving men always have plenty to do. While neighborhood children Robert Savage and Marcia and Jan Lunde look on, they ease a valued chest into the home of Mrs. Don Ray, at the door.
Residential Services people would, in fact like nothing better than to be able to move every new employee right into the house he wanted the day he stepped off the plane in Saudi Arabia. It would make their own jobs so much easier. But even a casual understanding of the problems this would involve clearly shows that such an ideal is simply not economically practical. For one thing, Aramco can never be certain how long the employees it transports to Saudi Arabia are going to remain there. Some Americans have been working in the country for over fifteen years, others have left after completing a two-year tour, while a few have not stayed this long. But everybody, of course, requires housing, so in order to be fair to all comers Residential Services has devised a carefully worked out point system. Every month that an employee works he builds up a certain number of "housing points," the value of which depends to some extent on his job classification. The type of housing to which he is entitled is determined by the number of points he has accumulated.
"And then," explains Heywood, "we have a policy called 'utilization'. Every two years an employee is entitled to 'long leave,' which runs from two to three months. If he is living in a family house we require that he make it available to us while he's away so that some other family can use it. Last summer there were 114 families occupying homes on a temporary basis in the three districts, and they had to move every three months or so until we could get permanent quarters for them. They didn't like it and we didn't like it. If we make full use of every house in this way, though, a new employee can have his family with him in Saudi Arabia much sooner than if he had to wait for permanent housing to become available."
In the cool, shadowy pattern made by the overhead trellis, Mrs. J. S. Stirton (center) serves Arab-style coffee to her guests, Mrs. Willard Drumm (left) and Mrs. Roy F. Haug, Sr.
In most towns all over the glove natural changes in the status of individuals and families take place and the people affected generally work out their own living arrangements without any outside agency coming into the picture. Not so in Dhahran, Ras Tanura and Abqaiq, where such occurrences become very much the business of the people who work in Residential Services. R.L. Mestrezat explains:
"Just like anywhere else in the world we have romance. We'll have a bachelor and a bachelorette and each has an apartment or a room, and we think they're settled for awhile. Then, what happens? That's right: they fall in love. They get married. The bachelor has enough points for a house and he wants it - but now!
"Then, just like everywhere else, people here have babies. So, instead of needing one bedroom, or two, they need three, or maybe four."
R. L. Mestrezat (left), in charge of Residential services in Dhahran, studies a housing plan with C. F. Heywood, responsible for coordinating all Aramco community services.
Along with a house that Residential Services tries to match with individual requirements, every Aramco family gets basic furniture such as tables, chairs, beds and chests. Each household, however, is expected to provide such items as draperies, linens, dining and kitchenward. Family groups are allowed up to 2,500 pounds worth of personal effects and single personnel, 500 pounds. Since these things come by boat, they may take anywhere from ten weeks to three months to arrive. In the meantime, new employees may take advantage of another Residential Services faculty, the Family Loan Service, which is set up to provide china, glassware, dining and kitchen utensils and appliances.
"People are bringing over more and more of their own things," Mestrezat observes. "Every woman has her own ideas, and her fancy really takes wings when she sees some of the beautiful and unusual things that can be bought in the Middle East, or in East Africa, or India, or Pakistan.
Aramco families obtain groceries in the commissaries of the towns where they live, while such items as books, magazines, stationery and sundries can be purchased at local canteens.
"This is good. We want people to think of their dwellings as 'home.' For our part, we try to make the home attractive on the outside, as well as on the inside. The Company puts in the original lawn, trees, shrubs, and we maintain the garden plots of bachelor residences and multi-unit apartments. Any additional flowers, or things like patios and outside fireplaces are up to the occupants, although we make materials available within reasonable limits."
Like other corporations operating overseas, Aramco supplied food and housing without charge to employees during its early years. But its own studies and those of other companies showed that it would work much better all around to charge for these things, the difference being made up with a cost-of-living allowance to each individual. The employee can thus budget this allowance to suit his own needs and wishes, apportioning it as he sees fit among food, housing and other items. The Company tries to base its food and rental charges on actual costs, but generally loses some money on them.
In Dhahran beauty shop, supervised by Residential services, Mrs. T.H. Herous trims hair for Mrs. L.A. Slwek while Mrs. C.A. Renfer (left) and Mrs. W.T. Johnson chat under driers.
Last year Aramco spent about $937,000 to beautify the areas where its employees live, planting around 700,000 square feet of grass roots and 40,000 trees and shrubs. In 1954 mail centers in the three Aramco communities handled 6,000,000 air mail letters, 3,000,000 letters sent and received by ship, and 54,000 pieces of registered mail - not to mention 8,000 cablegrams. During the same period a $340,000 plant in Ras Tanura handled 2,200,000 pieces of laundry and 147,000 garments sent there for dry cleaning from the three Persian Gulf towns which it serves.
Supervision of this big-volume, many-sided business is the special responsibility of the Residential Services group. It knows very well how important letters from home can be, or getting a fresh dress back from the cleaners in time for the Saturday night dance, or having greenery growing in strategic spots to relieve the sameness of the surrounding desert. But most of all Residential Services realizes that a happy worker is one who is well housed, and is constantly working on ways and means to see that this end is accomplished so that a man's house is still his castle.