Date Factory

We live in Al Hasa (or Al Ahsa, or Al Ahsa . . . it is spelled various ways), Saudi Arabia. This city is actually one of the oldest in Saudi Arabia. It is also one of the most traditional and conservative. You will see tons of old markets and local craftsmen here.

Al Hasa is also famous because it is the largest oasis in the world! So there are tons of fruit trees here. Al Hasa is also the largest producer of dates.

Since Saudi has been blessed with wealth due to oil, they like to be very generous to others. One way they do this, is by shipping dates to third world countries, for free. The King (yes, we have a King!) even has his own factory that produces these. He pays for the entire bill.

He actually pays a ton of the bills for people here . . . there are no taxes and education is free, even university! The people of Saudi love their king.

Well, we were able to go and visit the King's date factory. Below are some pictures of the factory. Notice, it is mostly imported labor that works there. In fact, most jobs in Saudi are preformed by foreigners!

Some of the teachers from my school on tour.

sorting the dates

checking for bugs