Moving to Jeddah soon.

Hi Acuteabby,

Welcome to Expat-Blog

Please note that your post is now on the Jeddah Forum for better visibility

Best wishes !

Thank you

Maximilien
Expat-blog Team

Welcome to Expat-Blog. Wish you all the best

Hi Acuteabby,

Welcome to Jeddah.

I am From Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. I born here and I am sure you will love Jeddah because the atmosphere in Jeddah is not far from the atmosphere in some USA cities.

My wife and I just back from Los Angeles, USA 3 weeks ago after being there 4 years to to get our master degree.

We will be more than happy to help you with all what you need here in Jeddah before or after your arriving ..

You can contact me:

hsh1430h [at] hotmail. com

hsh One Four Three Zero [at] hotmail.

Thank you for your response. I will definitely be in touch & thank you for being open to helping me.

Abby

Thank you.

welcome to Jeddah

you can find many places to go , when you arrive buy a magazine welcome to Jeddah it will show you all details, I am ready for help

Thanks guys.
I'm not sure exactly where my employers are located. I work as a luxury concierge, which simply means I do all the things that rich people don't like to do for themselves. I usually get requested wherever the person is located and I get to live with them for the duration of employment. Needless to say, I will not be in a compound.
As far as keeping cool is concerned, still wondering how that's possible if I'm gonna be covered up in black. But I'm willing to try and I'm hoping to get some sort of cultural experience :-)

Quick question, what do I wear to the beach? I'm totally clueless here😱🙈


Abby

Hi Abby

To the regular beach??? A Burk-ini. Abayas are de rigeur unless your in a compound or resort.

Welcome to the KSA but brace yourself!

Burk-ini? Ok I have to google that one! Lol.

My employer owns a beach house so I'm guessing its at a regular beach.

Hope I can find a Burk-ini in New York!😱

Thank you. :-)

Don't worry to much...you will overcome the challenge

Thanks Mike.

don't take it that hard it will be OK and time will help if you are open maind it will help

Et would be a pleasure to have you here with our marvelous community , so you are pretty welcome to Jeddah your new home
Thanks alot

Hi
My name is Kenny, I'm from Durban (South Africa). I have been working in Jeddah for 8 months now. When will you be coming this side and do you know where exactly you gonna be working?
Looking forward to hearing from you. you can email me if you don't mind.
Kind Regards
Kenny

Acuteabby wrote:

Contacted by an employer from Jeddah about 5 days ago and I got hired today.
...
I work as a luxury concierge, which simply means I do all the things that rich people don't like to do for themselves. I usually get requested wherever the person is located and I get to live with them for the duration of employment.

This mean you will be a maid/nanny for a prince family. I wish you success, but before you go - google and read about experiences in such duties.

Hello Witch

My agency, in the past 12yrs, has never placed me in a situation that I am not qualified to handle. I  trained as a butler/estate manager and most of the time our jobs require us to fit in where the principle needs us. This particulate family however, has its own group of Maids and do not expect me to do any such work. I worked as an Au Pair when I was younger so I don't ever mind working with kids.
I have never been a maid in my entire life and it would not make sense for someone to fly me all the way from America to have me do a job I am not qualified to do. I'm pretty sure they can find a maid from nearby at any time at a fraction of the cost that it's costing them to bring me all the way from where I am.

Thanks again, I will make sure to read up more and I will also double check with the agency to make sure that there are no grey areas as far as that's concerned. For now I take comfort in the fact that I get a 3 week trial period to just see if I'm even interested in keeping the position.


Abby

Who's a witch?

Thanks Rex

Acute how are you doing girl. You said you were born is South Africa rightt?

Acuteabby wrote:

it would not make sense for someone to fly me all the way from America

Forget the American sense and logic - this is the Magic Kingdom.

Which witch, how are you? Are you from and in Jeddah? hope you don't mind me asking

I'm not from Jeddah. I live in New York. Born in Durban, South Africa.

I'm waiting to get a contract from the Employer in Jeddah, which, thanks to the responses on this post, I will HAVE to look over and add "unlimited exit permits". Lol!!
They are also working on my visa, which they said will take 6 weeks.

Abby

Which Witch wrote:

Acuteabby wrote:

it would not make sense for someone to fly me all the way from America

Forget the American sense and logic - this is the Magic Kingdom.

Funny part is that I have an interview with an Israelite family in about an hour. Still keeping my options open. If they match the salary, I'm ditching before signing the contract. This is probably the most negative I've heard anyone speak of a Country. So there must be some truth to it.
I also just read a blog and everyone keeps talking about how terrible it is to live there.

I'm also from Durban. Been in Jeddah for about 8 months

Acuteabby wrote:

This is probably the most negative I've heard anyone speak of a Country.

I didn't say anything negative yet.

Great. How do you like it there? Ngizwa kuthiwa bayahlanya abantu balapho!

For umuntu wesifazane kunzima. Akana say tuuuu. Kodwa kuyajwayeleka

Highly considering changing my mind. I prefer happy places and by the sound of things, this country is all about sanctioning women.

Kanti ungazibona nobasi esekukhwela impela...This is a lovely country

Which Witch wrote:

Acuteabby wrote:

This is probably the most negative I've heard anyone speak of a Country.

I didn't say anything negative yet.

"Yet" being the operative word. Lol!! I like happy places and I'm not sensing HAPPY Here. :-)

Acuteabby wrote:

Which Witch wrote:

Acuteabby wrote:

This is probably the most negative I've heard anyone speak of a Country.

I didn't say anything negative yet.

"Yet" being the operative word. Lol!! I like happy places and I'm not sensing HAPPY Here. :-)

Okay, my 2 cents:  the thing that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up is that you will be totally dependent on this family, cut off from anybody/everybody else.

This is NOT a good thing, particularly in KSA.  I've worked with wealthy Saudi families before and there is an attitude that they own you. If you're living with them, trust me you'll be on-call 24/7 and what they ask you to do won't necessarily be in keeping with any contract you've signed.

If you've got other options, take them.

@ Kenny Sikhumbuzo : As this is an anglophone forum could you post in English please?

Thanks
Armand

My apologies. Was just telling her that she will like it here

and please note that this is not a dating website.

Thanks
Armand

Armand wrote:

and please note that this is not a dating website.

Thanks
Armand

Wait? Who's dating who?

Alliecat wrote:

Acuteabby wrote:

Which Witch wrote:

I didn't say anything negative yet.

"Yet" being the operative word. Lol!! I like happy places and I'm not sensing HAPPY Here. :-)

Okay, my 2 cents:  the thing that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up is that you will be totally dependent on this family, cut off from anybody/everybody else.

This is NOT a good thing, particularly in KSA.  I've worked with wealthy Saudi families before and there is an attitude that they own you. If you're living with them, trust me you'll be on-call 24/7 and what they ask you to do won't necessarily be in keeping with any contract you've signed.

If you've got other options, take them.

Thank you!! What I do is usually highly protected by the contract and failure to abide by it usually has great repaccursions for the client. But that's been my experience in other parts of the world. Unfortunately if my contract can't protect me then I guess I'll definitely be putting myself in a terrible situation.