April 25th 2010 – Day 2 in KSA

In Italy today it's holyday and my wife took the children to the beach, but here in Saudi it's working day, so let's start a new day in Riyadh. One of our meetings is canceled, so we have a slightly lighter program today. To remember the names of the hospitals we have to go I always have to take my notes: today we go to King Fahad National Guard Hospital and to Kingdom Hospital; I try my best, but I really can't manage to remember the names of these hospitals!!! It seems that there's some kind of algorithm to name hospitals in this Country (at least the public ones)! For your convenience I'll resume it for you: take the name of a King you like and respect (let's assume it's X), choose one of "Medical", "University", "National Guard", "General" (we'll call this part Y), add a final "City" or "Hospital" (the Z part of the name) and compose your brand new hospital name as follows: "King X Y Z".
To confirm the validity of the algorithm, I'll recall a part of the list of appointments for the week:
King Fahad Medical City
King Khalid University Hospital
King Fahad National Guard Hospital
King Fahad General Hospital
King Abdulaziz University Hospital

I guess that the names of our hospitals in Itay and around Europe should sound strange to them as well ...

Clinical engineering at King Fahad National Guard Hospital is in the basement (I'd better say it's an additional loading ramp below the basement ...). You can see the enthusiastic expressions of Roberto and Youssef taking the now traditional picture in front of the entrance sign.


The meeting at KFNGH is just great! The director of the Clinical Engineering Services, Mr Al Shuail, is very welcoming and helpful; with his collaborator Mr Schawsmidth they give us a lot of suggestions for what services may be needed in Saudi and what specific needs their hospital has that we may help with. When we leave the hospital we have a feeling that we'll be back soon.

Than we go to Kingdom Hospital and we are immediately impressed by the architecture at the entrance (you can see Brian in front of the glazed wall, posing like a Hollywood hero ... or a russian drug traffiker, and Roberto that's much like a CIA agent, maybe spying the russian trafficker ...).



Inside, the hospital is covered with marble, so we have some expectations about the meeting location with the head of clinical engineering (who, we are informed, is a woman). Unfortunately the lady we're waiting for is home sick, so the appointment is canceled and we're ready for lunch.

To continue our discovery of the local traditional food, we go to Fuddruckers (www.fuddruckers.com), where we have the least healty meal of the trip (up to now ...).
On our way to the restaurant, we discover the competence of Majid in everything regarding the roots and meaning of Islam; he's telling us of the origin of the pilgrimage to Mecca recalling that it roots to Abraham going there following the will of God (and along the way throwing stones to the devil that was trying to convince him not to go). The intense story that Majid is so passionately telling us, recalls me of my personal struggle against the IT department to be authorized to keep using my Mac, and I start kidding with Majid and the other buddies saying that "the next time they'll tell me that I have to go for a PC I'll say that God told me to go for a Mac-ca, and if they'll insist I'll throw them stones ... and I will say that Majid told me to do so!"
Really surprising (to my ignorant ears) the origin of the 5 prayer moments that muslims have during the day: at the origin Muhammad said that they had to be 25, but Jesus (who he actually met, since the muslims think he didn't die) told him they were too much, so they somehow negotiate and at the end they go for 5; Majid is much more precise than me, but I hope I've been able reporting you at least a little of how amazing this story of Muhammad meeting Jesus and agreeing on the number of prayer moments in a day really is.

In the afternoon we have a couple of internal meetings at the AHCSC-OLAYAN offices, and then we go for dinner at a lebanese restaurant. There I give my best in telling jokes: by the way, do you know the joke of the banana eaten by a nun, a prostitute and a married woman ... well I can't really report it here, and it would not be so funny in words as it was with my acting performance (that fortunally Brian failed to record on the iPhone), but ... well it was a funny night! And the food was excellent: I like this eastern delicacies, even though I can't always understand what I'm going to eat. At the end we take a couple of coffees (we convince Brian that a cappuccino after noon is just immoral) and mint tea, and than we go back to the hotel.

Hey, hey, wait a minute ... I didn't mention the great news of the day: to my wife's upset (but not too much, thank you honey for understanding), I'll have to stay in KSA a few days more than planned for a conference on eHealth. This means that my Saudi report is to go on a little longer: continue following the blog, and leave comments!