First of all, a bit of an editorial note: now
that I’m in Saudi, my computer has decided to take on Arabic preferences, and
all my punctuation keeps moving to the beginning of my sentences haha My
apologies for this. I’ll try to figure out how to fix it soon!
Well, if anyone placed bets on my visa, whoever
guessed day 71 is a winner! Yes, dear readers—on Wednesday December 14, 2011 I finally
received my Saudi visa! The previous day, I had sent a desperate email to the
head of my visa consulting agency, explaining how long I’d been waiting and
asking what was going on. How could things possibly be taking so long? The next
morning, he emailed me back with the news that my visa was on its way via Purolator,
to arrive before 9am on Thursday morning. Alhamdulillah (praise God in Arabic)!
I was sitting at my laptop upstairs, and upon
reading the news I literally bounded down about 20 stairs, hitting only 3 of
them, yelling “I GOT MY VISA!!!!” I scared my poor cat to near death, and my
dad came running… I hugged him and just started crying with relief. Yay!!!
Next, I called my husband who didn’t answer the
phone, so I forwarded him the consultant’s email, and then called my soon to be
boss having promised to let her know as soon as I received any news.
DH soon called me back and said he nearly began
to cry in front of some former students he had been visiting. We were both so
HAPPY!!!!! A Christmas miracle, one of my friends says! J I think so!
I didn’t waste any time booking my flight to
Jeddah, and after being reassured that my visa would arrive before 9am Thursday
morning, I figured it would be safe to book a Thursday night flight. DH’s best
man is a travel agent and he was kind enough to book me a great flight on
Etihad Airways. I had a longggg stopover in Abu Dhabi, but it was nice to walk
around the airport. I put on my abaya to blend in, and got more used to walking
around wearing it.
 |
| Etihad Airways |
In Abu Dhabi I met my first Saudi friend, who
had been on my flight from Canada. She’s from Riyadh and is returning home with
her husband for a school break. He studies in Canada, and so we got into a
conversation about student / accompanying spouse visas for Canada. Inshallah, I
will write more about this lovely lady in my forthcoming post on Saudi women.
After only 4 days here (and I’m still very jet lagged)
I have LOTS to write about! I want to describe life in Jeddah, my first Saudi
friend, and my experience at the university medical center where I had my first
encounter with a very different way of interacting (or not interacting!) with
the opposite sex. In experiencing these things, I have the tendency to see the
culture, its people and life through an academic lens lol I don’t know if this
is good, but it is, in truth, a big part of what drew me to agree to come to
Saudi.
 |
| mini Jeddah roundabout at night... |
I have, if you will, a working thesis that I’ve
brought along with me to the Kingdom. Every Saudi / Saudi resident I’ve so far
met in person agrees with me, so let’s see how true it turns out to be!
Basically, my “argument” is that the Western
World has an extremely biased and tainted view about Saudi Arabia—its culture,
its women, its religion and its laws. Our conceptions of the Kingdom impede us
from recognizing the unique and valuable elements of Saudi society, and many
positive values we might benefit from integrating into our own society.
This is doubtlessly not controversial to most
people I’ll meet in the Kingdom, but to readers, family, friends back home, it
might be more shocking! What do you think? Has the media perpetuated a
particular view of what Saudi Arabia is? How its people interact? What the
nation stands for? How women live? Certainly, there will be some elements of
our conceptions that are true, but I want to suggest that, for the most part, our
ideas about Saudi Arabia are overwhelmingly tainted by media dramatization and propaganda.
Thus far, I’m holding my breath. Having been
here only 4 days, I have had some bits and pieces of culture shock in a couple
situations, but I’m trying to learn how to interact, to learn the etiquette and
the proper way of doing things here. Inshallah I’ll learn quickly!
Finally, I can acquire experiential knowledge
that extends beyond my extensive and long investigated “book knowledge” of this
amazing country…the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
I look forward to sharing more of my journey
with you all!
All my love from the desert sands of
Jeddah…where we have pleasant warm weather, sunshine and no snow!
