Creating Community Consciously!

The Back Story

As I have written previously on LinkedIn, I worked for almost 25 years in Saudi Arabia for the Saudi Arabian Oil Company or Saudi Aramco from 1979 to 2003.? Most of those years were spent in Dhahran Camp, the corporate headquarters for Aramco.? During those years, if memory serves, Aramco had 52 different nationalities on the payroll and the population of Dhahran was somewhere between 10,000 and 12,000 residents, perhaps more. ?We had both family housing and bachelor housing.

We had an extraordinary community spirit in Dhahran Camp, which, looking back, probably equaled or exceeded the sense of community that exists in small towns across America.? The other Aramco camps had a similar sense of community, just perhaps not as complex or as varied as Dhahran.? In Dhahran, we had many self-directed groups, every imaginable form of recreation and sports, annual events such as Derby Day and Robert Burns Dinners, parades, a Fall Festival, and holiday celebrations like St. Patrick’s Day, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve.? At Christmas time, people decorated their homes with lights; Santa Claus delivered gifts to the children, both Christian and Muslim; and some residents held holiday dinner parties that were extraordinary, and in a few cases, legendary.? The nationalities easily mixed with bonhomie and great cheer.

After I retired in 2003, I spent two months in Florence, Italy; six months in Ocean City, New Jersey with my brother and his wife; and then relocated to Reno, Nevada when my condo was completed in June 2004.? Nowhere or since then have I experienced the community spirit that was evident in Dhahran and the other expatriate camps in Saudi Arabia.? I suspect that sense of community was engendered by the sense of adventure and the expatriate experience of living in a foreign country.? That shared experience bonded us together without our conscious awareness of it.

Creating Community Consciously (The Three-C Movement)

I believe we have lost much of that sense of community in America, and I am not sure why. The small towns of America still retain it, I would guess, and some communities in large cities have it, such as North Beach, the Little Italy of San Francisco. However, it has gone missing for the most part.

We need to get back our sense of community all across America because we, as American citizens, have a lot in common, regardless of status or wealth.? However, we must create community consciously.? Community doesn’t just happen on its own.? It takes people working together to create it.

A Call to Action

I hope this clarion call for community rings true for you.? Please make a conscious effort each day to create community.? Without community, we are just a lot of families living in the same neighborhood.? Start your own Three-C Movement in your neighborhood. You'll be glad you did and so will the rest of us.

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I hope this short post resonates with your inner knower.? If it does, please share it with family and friends.

Cordially,

Andrew J Guinosso

Reno, Nevada