IT USED TO BE

The Penelope*Phone adds a new and distinct character to the HULGER collection.
They designed phones you would want to use in the street, bar, office
or at home on a long (free) VoIP call to your best friend on the other side of the world.
The lavish, sweeping, sensual curves of the Penelope*Phone conjure up images of a 30's deco opulence. This phone seduces the senses while engaging contemporary technology, allowing wireless connection to Bluetooth enabled mobile/cell phones and PC's alike, with an outdoor range of 10 meters. The phone will work with Bluetooth enabled devices. - from greenergrassdesign

There's now email, the Internet and the mobile phone, to get me connected to my loved ones in the Philippines and elsewhere from Riyadh. Add Instant Messaging, webcam or Skype to this list but I have yet to use these regularly.

It used to be that I had to write letters and send cards and use the landline phone for my overseas calls in order to communicate.

I remember decorating the walls of my porta-cabin room (during my first job contract here), with the cards I received from my family and from my partner then. It was a pretty sight and a constant reminder that there were people back home who remember me. I also remember writing long letters - I would type them in my computer and make prints, one to be signed and sent, and another to be kept on file. My letters had to be ready first thing in the morning so that it can be brought by our company messenger to the central post office downtown where our company kept its post office box. In Riyadh, as elsewhere in the Kingdom, street names had never been helpful in getting your mail delivered. Companies and even private residences need to have a postal address box.

Stamps cost two or three riyals, then as now, for ordinary/regular letters. We had to use envelopes that clearly marked the letters as Air Mail, envelopes that had the red and blue marks at the edges. At one point, someone asked why the need for this when all international mail is shipped by air? There were also the so-called Registered Letters but I thought I never really needed it.

Other OFWs also tended to write on special stationery which were popularly sold at downtown bookstores that catered to OFWs. Still others were wont to send audiotape messages instead of just letters or cards. To my mind, it was the height of kitsch, but hey, whatever floats your boat as pundits would say.

The postal system then in Saudi Arabia was part of the government's Ministry of Post, Telegraph and Telephone. It has since been privatized.

I rarely write and send out letters now via the postal system; I now use email and text messaging/SMS, although I have yet to try multi-media messaging/MMS. BlackBerry services are also on the horizon and I can't wait to use them.

To call overseas, our company receptionist, Mang Vic, would allow us to use his landline phone which was connected to a computerized recorder/timer. He knew exactly how many minutes you spent and the cost was deducted from your monthly paycheck inevitably. Mang Vic, who was as carinoso as any stereotypical Filipino uncle can be, would sometimes deduct a few minutes off your call so you can save some. Calls then cost seven riyals a minute. Then as now, a caller had to be mindful of peak hours and peak rates and so I would sometimes make my calls early in the morning to take advantage of lower rates in calling the Philippines.

Other Filipinos who did not have a Mang Vic in their companies nor in their lives, had to use the public pay phones. It was not unnatural to see Filipinos frantically sliding in several 1-riyal coins at a time at the pay phone's coin slots while simultaneously talking on the mouthpiece. It was funny in hindsight but such was the state-of-the-art communications then.

When GSM was introduced in the Kingdom in the late 1990's, a SIM card cost as much as twenty-five thousand riyals! And they were available to Saudi citizens only. Now, the cellphone has become as ubiquitous as an OFW and there are now even two mobile operators vying for subscribers, with a third licensee coming before the end of the year!

OFWs however did not readily embrace GSM technology in Saudi since the SIM cards were quite expensive when these were finally offered to expatriates. Ditto for the cellphone units. So for a while, illegal overseas calls thrived in downtown areas where many OFWs converged on weekends or on paydays. Also for a while, call cabins, which sprouted all over Riyadh, also thrived. But now that even the company janitor who barely earns a hundred dollars a month, owns a cellphone....

I joined the GSM bandwagon not soon after and I was fortunate enough to have been given a company-issued post-paid SIM card. Virtually, my local/national cellphone use was free; the downside was my GSM phone number can't call international, at least not until recently. I now even have international roaming on my GSM!

Indeed it now appears that cellphone use these times is no longer a luxury but already a necessity.

OFW life has genuinely evolved since the first time I set foot in the desert kingdom, at least in the ways we keep in touch. In fact, downtown shops that used to sell the latest stereo components or the latest jewelry styles in gold, have now converted their wares to cellphones and accessories. Some now also even offer repairs like cellphone centers back in Greenhills do.

We've certainly kept up with the times - OFWs now even have blogs!