"You're journalists. Live with it." Easy for him to say. He's Saudi.

I work 12-hour days, six days a week, and the paper is very unorganized. Reporters are pretty lazy and it’s difficult to get work out of them. I’m trying to organize the national desk and get people to produce work. It’s quite a job and I haven’t had an opportunity to get out around town as much as I would like.

Part of the problem is the Saudi culture. People work from 9 a.m. to noon, do prayers, have lunch, take a nap, then return to work at 4 p.m. And work until 5. The mantra here is anything you can do today can be put off until tomorrow.

There are about five nationalities in the newsroom -- Saudi, Pakistani, Indian, Jordanian, American and a few others I can't identify. Understanding each other is a little difficult. And if you thought newsroom politics can be bad, just imagine a similar situation here, but with newspeople from five different countries trying to get along.

The women reporters work in a separate room on a different floor. I can only communicate with them by phone or e-mail. I'm not sure what the big deal is since they wear full black abayas. The other day I needed to give one of the women a news clipping. She had to go down to the lobby and I had a teaboy -- yes, we have teaboys -- deliver it to her. Teaboys are great, by the way, serving me tea, coffee and what-not at any given moment. They are very class and status-minded here. No need for these poor fellas -- all Indian -- but the Saudis insist that we should have teaboys. There must be about 10 of them on staff here.

The writing is extraordinarily bad. We have Saudis, Indians and Jordanians translating Arabic into English with that very formal, stilted, wordy way of talking. Nothing is conversational here in the writing. I spend a lot of time in rewrite. Teaching reporters to streamline their writing may indeed be impossible simply because they don’t naturally form their thoughts as a native English speaker does.

Bush is hated here with a passion. A passion that borders on real fear. Saudis are completely mystified with Bush’s foreign policy. And his recent shift over the Israeli issue is sending folks in the Middle East through the roof. I may be overstating things, but it’s a real powder keg here. Peace in Iraq or a return to normal relations with any Middle Eastern country is remote at best. This is a long haul kind of thing. Things will get much worse before they get better. Then again I’ve only been here a week, so what do I know?

My first night here we ate at an outdoor restaurant about two feet from the shoreline of the Red Sea. Pretty cool.

We live in a compound, which is what I expected. Cinderblock one-and two-bedroom detached apartments. Huge swimming pool in the center, but I haven't checked out the gym or rec room yet. Furnished with TV. Very comfortable. Alcohol is on everybody's mind and there is much discussion how to score the next deal. Yes, that's the way they talk. Actually, there's plenty around, but you have to know where to look.

Drove around town quite a bit with a newspaper company-paid driver. So I have a little feel of the lay of the land. Had another physical for my iqama -- a work/residence permit, kind of like a green card. I learned from my visit to the hospital that the Saudis work in their own time and in their own fashion. No one is in any particular hurry to do anything. Just have to live with it.

Westerners are pretty much ignored, although we occasionally get strange looks and not always a welcoming feeling in restaurants, but we are generally tolerated. The other day we went to a restaurant and got locked in because of prayers, which are five or six times a day. They shut everything down and lock customers inside if they must. We waited patiently for a half-hour until they let us out. There's a mosque on almost every corner and they use a P.A. System to broadcast prayers and chants. The first prayer of the day is around 5:30 a.m. That's my alarm clock, although I don't need to get up until 8 a.m. (we work later days here.)