Inside the walls of Jeddah's residential compounds where working expats live, it usually doesn't look like the rest of the city at all - with lush tropical vegetation of palm trees and bougainvillea and other flowers. Compounds are walled in with security guards on duty 24 hours a day. Many also have barbed wire on top of the high walls and an obstacle course roadway one must drive through to enter the compound.
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That does sound like taking security seriously.
ReplyDeleteWhy is there such high security for expats? Who are the expats being protected from?
ReplyDeleteActually inside the compound walls, there is gender mixing and female residents are free to wear regular clothing, even swimwear, and to participate in sports like swimming, tennis, etc., which women are not allowed to do freely outside the compound. Women can even drive inside some compounds in the country. So the security is to keep Saudis and the religious police out, I guess, because heaven forbid if they were to see a woman batting a tennis ball while wearing shorts.
DeleteThat being said, there are security concerns living abroad, some countries more so than others obviously. I don't live in a compound and I feel very safe here in Saudi, but there are some expats who work in other countries who never venture outside their compounds, which I think is a shame. We do receive security alerts fairly regularly from the State Department about security concerns.