Compendium of my Life - Fahaad Mutad ALHamad

Compendium of my Life (eBook)

Fahaad Mutad ALHamad (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
186 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-6510-0 (ISBN)

What some writers said about the book: •'Compendium of my Life is a story that must be told, as it narrates an arduous and eventful journey of a person who triumphed over his circumstances and achieved his dreams and aspirations'. Dr. Abdulwahid Al-Humaid •'Compendium of my Life is among the most splendid and sincere things I've read; my night brightened with the sun of a book by a man who overcame challenges and reaped the fruits of success'. Mr. Hamad Al-Qadi •'Compendium of my Life signifies that no dream is impossible to achieve if a person finds within himself the means to accomplish its tasks, as the young teacher became a prominent minister'. Dr. Ibrahim Al-Turki •'The book portrays aspects of the struggle of a man who defied the compass from Sakaka (north of Saudi Arabia) to Riyadh to become a national icon in administration, consultation, and ministry, making it a valuable gift for generations navigating their paths of struggle and success'. Dr. Fayez Al-Shahri •'The book represents a wonderful addition to autobiographies and deserves to be in every school and university library, and in every home'. Dr. Saud Al-Musaibih

The Author was: - Teacher of Art Education - Deputy Director General of Institute of Public Administration - Member and Assistant Speaker of the Shura Council - Minister of Communications & Information Technology

This book is a biography of Fahaad Al Hammad, who was born and raised in Sakaka, a small peripheral town located in northern Saudi Arabia. He suffered from difficult living conditions during his childhood and faced many challenges and obstacles in his journey to achieve his aspirations in life. However, with determination, perseverance, and struggle, he achieved several successes in various stages of his life. Al Hamad started his professional life as a teacher and ended up as a minister and member of the Saudi Council of Ministers. His orphaned father was compelled, at an early stage of his life, to leave his hometown in search of a livelihood. He went to work in Syria, Palestine, and Iraq, but did not achieve the financial improvement he had hoped for. He returned to his homeland and worked in agriculture, well-digging, and other professions as much as the scarce conditions of Sakaka allowed at that time. As the eldest son in the family, Fahaad had to share his father's struggle and hard work from his early years. He participated in watering the date palms, cutting and selling alfalfa, and other farm chores, balancing between study and work. However, these efforts did not even succeed in meeting the basic needs of the family, and their suffering with poverty continued. Due to this hardship, young Fahad decided, after completing middle school and despite his excellence, not to continue the study at the high school but to enroll in a school or institute where he could obtain a suitable job upon graduation. His choice was the Institute of Art Education in Riyadh, even though fine arts were not among his actual academic options. After three years, he graduated at the top of his class, which included students from all regions of the kingdom. Fahaad returned to his hometown Sakaka to work as an art education teacher at the middle school he had left three years earlier, only to find himself teaching some of his former classmates and being a colleague to some of his former teachers. Although the job and its salary were very suitable by Sakaka standards at the time, Fahaad was not convinced by what he had achieved. He was very anxious and found himself at a higher academic level and in a higher job position. After a year marked by anxiety and suffering, he decided to return to studying alongside work, starting with high school from home and relying on self-study, only taking exams with regular students. He then enrolled as an external student at the College of Economics and Administration at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, which was over 1200 kilometers away from Sakaka, with only regular mail communication available at the time. He balanced work and study, relying on self-effort until he graduated with honors after four challenging years, which were psychologically and financially taxing. Yet, it was determination and perseverance that enabled him to overcome obstacles and achieve success. Fahaad spent nearly a quarter of a century in the Institute of Administration, during which he obtained both his MA and PhD degrees in public administration from the United States of America, sponsored by the institute. He progressed through the ranks, starting as an assistant trainer at the bottom of the organizational ladder, until he became the Deputy Director General of the Institute for Research and Information. The Shura Council was the next destination after the Institute of Administration, where he was selected as a member of the fourth session of the council. After seven years of council membership, a royal order was issued appointing him as an assistant to the Speaker of the Shura Council. Then came the moment of culmination when this journey was crowned by a royal order appointing him as the Minister of Communications and Information Technology and a member of the Council of Ministers of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

I was born and raised in the city of Sakaka, where we would wake up at dawn and sleep in the evening. It was an agricultural area and an oasis in the middle of the desert, slightly lower than the surrounding land, with abundant groundwater, not far from the surface. However, most of the farms were limited in size due to reliance on traditional irrigation methods (Suwanee). People primarily cultivated date palms, and there were also a few fruit trees like figs, grapes, peaches, pomegranates, and apricots, along with some vegetables like squash, zucchini, eggplants, and tomatoes, grown in the summer.

The living conditions and standards of living in Sakaka were quite similar for most people. Some families were slightly well-off due to trade or having children employed in government offices. However, the majority of the people in Sakaka were involved in agriculture, but their production often fell short of meeting their own needs. Even dates, which were expected to be plentiful on account of the abundance of palm trees, were sometimes imported from Iraq. Furthermore, staples like wheat and rice were imported from outside, and in winter, people relied entirely on fruits brought from Jordan, and sold in shops owned by Jordanians. It seems to me that all of this was caused by the primitive means of agriculture at that time.

Sakaka’s houses were built of mud, except for a few made of cement, which were less than ten. These mud houses were not in the same condition. I had witnessed two generations of them. Some were old, inherited, and dilapidated, almost on the verge of collapse, while the others were newer and of better quality. The renovation of mud houses was connected to financial capability, as some residents were able, having improved their financial situation, to construct new mud buildings, representing a quantum leap from their previous homes, in terms of facilities, space, walls, doors, windows, and courtyards.

However, all these houses, whether old or new, lacked electricity and water. The inhabitants mostly relied on oil lamps for lighting, and sometimes they added relatively advanced kerosene lamps for better illumination. As for water, it was often carried by women on their heads from nearby wells, and sometimes they had to go to distant wells for fresh water. Some people also obtained water from carriers who transported it in buckets hung on wooden carriers placed on their shoulders, and walked around the houses to sell it.

I do not recall any paved roads in Sakaka during my childhood. The streets were narrow and uneven, resembling winding alleys more than proper roads. Only after a while, did we hear about municipality and municipal services, as they were practically nonexistent. Healthcare was in its early stages, with clinics having one doctor each, offering basic medical services for minor illnesses. Some people resorted to traditional medicine, which might have been beneficial or harmful, not being based on proper knowledge or expertise.

Life in Sakaka during my childhood and youth was peaceful and modest, and can be described as monotonous. People tended to be content and satisfied with what they had. Relationships were based on communication and mutual support among neighbors, relatives, and acquaintances. The holy month of Ramadan brought a change to the routine of life, enhancing communication through Tarawih (Ramadan prayers) and Isha (night) prayers. Mosques filled with worshippers, including men, women, and children. A daily Iftar (Ramadan breakfast) was usually hosted by one of the neighbors, which was a significant and delightful occasion for children who could enjoy sherbet (the red drink) every night during Ramadan.

On the joyous occasion of Eid al-Fitr, everyone, young and old, men and women, donned their finest clothes, often new. After the Eid prayers, people exchanged greetings at the mosque and then headed to the feasts hosted by different neighbors in each neighborhood. The festivities would go on with lunch and dinner throughout the days of Eid.

When raindrops fell in Sakaka, everyone rejoiced. For the elders, it meant that the desert would turn into a green paradise, and life would return to its dry shrubs. As for the children, rain became a natural season of joy; they played under raindrops and splashed in the puddles. Despite the leakage of water inside the old, mud houses once a while, the joy of rain prevailed the vibe. Rain remained a blessed gift in people’s eyes because their livelihoods depended on agriculture and livestock farming.

Sakaka was surrounded by a number of valleys that would overflow with water when rain fell heavily. When the rainwater dried up, these areas would turn into green plains covered with grasses like Keesum and Nifl. Many locals would head to these valleys to collect and dry them for storage. They might spend days there, setting up tents for this purpose, while some of them would stay in caves that were adequately restored to make them suitable for living.

Due to the lack of healthcare services in Sakaka, the Tabalain Company’s hospital was a significant medical center that played a vital role for the Northern Border Region and Al-Jouf in providing medical services. It served people from both urban and rural areas, offering treatment, hospitalization, and surgical operations. Each patient had a medical record, facilitating the follow-up of their health condition and treatment. My mother received treatment there several times, and was accompanied to the city of Arar for treatment on more than one occasion.

There was no paved road between Sakaka and Arar. Lorries, small trucks, took a long time to reach Arar, and travelers might even stop to spend a night on their way before arrival in the morning. They usually divided the lorry’s surface into two sections with wooden planks, with men and older children sitting on the wood, while the floor was reserved for women and younger children with some of their belongings. If any traveler wanted to ride in the cabin with the driver, they had to pay extra fare.

Whether you entered the city of Arar at night, where the lights and illuminations would dazzle you as you approached, or you entered during the day through its wide, paved main road, extending for over a hundred meters, you would inevitably discover that you were in a modern city, which is evident in its layout, facilities, and buildings, and you would realize that you were experiencing a level of civilization different from what you knew and lived in Sakaka.

The green islands in the middle of the main road would captivate you, while various commercial shops, cafes, and restaurants lined its sides, along with giant Acacia trees. Moreover, Arar stood out for its taxi service, which would take you to the Tabalain Hospital and beyond. Such a service did not exist in Sakaka at that time.

In this environment, I was born on a day of unknown date, identified and surrounded by mere assumptions and comparisons with other events and births of other children. My birth took place in our old house, where I spent about two years after the beginning of my professional life, which means I lived in the same place for over two decades.

This house was located in the area known as Al-Manakh in the Al-Shuaib neighborhood, northeast of Sakaka. On the southern side, it was bordered by a small enclosure, and a small door connected them. On the northern side, there used to be a square, which was an era my generation did not witness, where Bedouins with their camels would gather for trade and barter with the settled farmers in the mud houses. Later on, my father used this square to house his white female camel (Al-Wadha), and then it became a residence for raising his sheep and livestock.

In the early years of my life, the only entertainment available to my peers and me from that generation was to spend time together and play in the narrow alleys, small passages, and tiny squares, which we considered vast enough at the time. We would play with anything and everything possible or available to us in the environment. We spent time playing with an old, senile woman from the neighborhood, who played with us as if she were one of us, sharing our thoughts and interests. Additionally, we had enjoyable times with stray animals, especially that little, docile donkey. I even thought that it enjoyed spending time with us, being innocent children.

We had a great time on the farms, as our children do now in amusement parks. We spent the best time climbing trees, scaling palm trees, and chasing and catching birds, using all possible means for fun or need for food. We used to utilize three common techniques, each targeting a specific type of birds.

The first technique involved iron traps, which we would buy ready-made. The idea behind this trap was the bird’s need for food. We would set the trap, which we hide in the sand, in already harvested clover or wheat basins, or at the edges of palm trees basins. When the poor bird tried to eat the worm tied to the trap, the trap would snap shut, capturing its neck and sometimes its legs, leaving it unable to escape, no matter how hard it tried.

The second technique involved setting snares with the help of adults. The main component was the polished, shiny part of a dry palm branch. We would set it up in the shape of an arch, using a string that ended in a small hole where we placed a tiny cylindrical wooden piece called the Mataraf. When the bird landed on the Mataraf to drink water, the snare would tighten around its legs.

The third technique was called Nibata or Nubayla. We made it from strong tamarisk tree branches shaped like the letter Y. We would tie a rubber strip to the upper ends of the Y...

Erscheint lt. Verlag	1.8.2024
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
ISBN-13	979-8-3509-6510-0 / 9798350965100

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