DHAHRAN: When 55-year-old Anita Maas stepped off the airplane in Dammam last month with her 21-year-old footballer son, Robin Kelder, it was like deja vu.
It was just as hot as she remembered when the family had lived there for three years nearly two decades ago.
That visit marked their return to the Kingdom since they left when Dhahran-born Kelder was 22 months old.
Kelder’s multi-ethnic background famously has ties to the Netherlands, Indonesia, Curacao, and the place of his birth, Saudi Arabia. (Supplied)
This season, he is leaving the Dutch Eredivisie side Groningen and joining Sharqiya-based Saudi Pro League Club Al-Fateh.
Kelder’s multi-ethnic background famously has ties to the Netherlands, Indonesia, Curacao, and the place of his birth, Saudi Arabia.
The opportunity to play professionally in the Kingdom was presented to him serendipitously just a few months ago.
“Robin decided, ‘okay, for my personal development, this is the best thing to do.’ So he just decided he can either stay in his comfort zone, or he can step out of it and just develop even further than he expected,” his mother told Arab News.
Maas, who was born in the Netherlands and resides there once again, is excited for what is to come.
“My career was not very linear. I got a degree in industrial design engineering — which I never really did anything in that field — but I worked in information technology first in the Netherlands, then in Norway.
“And after some time I thought it would be nicer to have a profession with more human contact and I switched careers and became a technology teacher in an international school.”
About a year ago, she shifted gears after an illness and now works at the ticketing office of a local theater.
Kelder’s multi-ethnic background famously has ties to the Netherlands, Indonesia, Curacao, and the place of his birth, Saudi Arabia. (Supplied)
Currently an empty nester, Maas is exploring her way of expression by being a singer in local band “Little Wing,” whose name is inspired by Jimi Hendrix’s 1967 song by the same name.
“We’re not a famous band or anything. The most important part for us is to make music together and to have a creative outlet.”
The Kelder boys would express themselves through movement too.
Kelder’s father, who was a petrophysicist, was athletic and his two sons followed in his footsteps.
“I think Robin was born a strong boy, very muscular from the day he was born. He had an older brother, Luka, who was three years older than him, and from the moment Robin could move, he was following his brother around. His brother was also interested in sports,” Maas said.
Does the younger Kelder boy recall his time in Dhahran as a child? “Robin was very young when we left; he was only 22 months old so he has no active memory of it,” his mother said.
Now divorced for 14 years, his parents did sprinkle in talk about Saudi Arabia and Kelder heard stories about his parents’ time there.
This is his chance to experience it for himself.
“Entering the building (within the airport) was a very vivid memory for me. But of course, you have all the technology there now,” she said of the changes.
“I think back then, you had to be very modest and not look at people too much. And right now, I feel everything has opened up.”
What contributed to her recollection was that she was traveling with an 18-month-old (her eldest, Luka) and lugged around “a lot of luggage.”
“I had to take two flights and the whole experience was a little bit frazzled,” she admitted.
Kelder’s multi-ethnic background famously has ties to the Netherlands, Indonesia, Curacao, and the place of his birth, Saudi Arabia. (Supplied)
During this more recent, week-long trip to Saudi Arabia in July, they resided in an oasis city about 1.5 hours away from Dhahran, a place that neither of them had visited before.
“It was interesting because I had only stayed on the Aramco compound (previously), and now I was suddenly right in the middle of an ‘Arabic City,’” she said of her first visit to Hofuf last month, where her son trained.
She admitted that during her Dhahran days, she mostly stayed within the Aramco compound, known locally as “Camp.”
On Camp, they lived on Marjan Street and she could close her eyes and visualize a map of the neighborhood in her head.
“Marjan is like a semicircle street, and so we were on the one end of the semicircle, and people would park their cars in our street when they went to the primary school because that was just around the corner from us.
“And I remember sitting there with a baby and a toddler and looking outside at the moms with the tall boys, and then thinking, ‘oh, I wish I could peek into the future and see what my boys would look like.’
“The time has gone by so fast because now they’re both grown men and way taller.”
Kelder’s multi-ethnic background famously has ties to the Netherlands, Indonesia, Curacao, and the place of his birth, Saudi Arabia. (Supplied)
She made fast friends with mothers with children of the same age as her sons.
She recalls dining at staple spots for Aramcons, and most of all, her coming together with Dutch friends and those from other countries who also lived in the Aramco community.
“They had the barbecue on Wednesday nights — then the weekends were still on Thursday and Friday — and then you would meet everyone,” she said.
She only went to Riyadh once to issue her son’s passport, but did manage to frequent some of the places within the Eastern Province, including Ras Tanura (another Aramco camp) and Sunset Beach.
“We had so little contact with the local people (the first time around), we missed that. But Robin is discovering it now,” she said.
Will she be visiting Saudi Arabia again soon?
“Insha Allah,” she concluded with a laugh.
