Dear friends and family,
I just arrived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and am already so amazed that I would like to share some thoughts with you all.
The Saudis flew me on business class, which was quite an experience. On both flights we were served an absolutely delicious three course meal, followed by amazing coffee and chocolates. The seats reclined into nearly horizontal, although I didn't get a chance to fully enjoy that feature since I didn't sleep. Business class was nice, but I would have rather flown coach and gotten the price difference in cash. (My plane ticket cost over $10,000.)
I left Seattle at 2pm Wednesday afternoon, and arrived in Frankfurt, Germany in the morning very tired. It turned out I was sitting next to the mother-in-law of my colleague, and we had a nice talk during the flight. I had a 5-hour stopover in Frankfurt, and decided to try taking the train into town, although I had not had time to do any research into the city ahead of time. The train system was incredibly confusing, and I had to ask for help several times before I figured out what to do. I found that when I asked people for help, they gave me polite, short answers that technically answered my questions but did not actually help me quite enough to figure out what I was doing. A couple times it turned out I was talking to Germans from other parts of Germany, and they were just as confused by the Frankfurt train system as I was. But I managed to get downtown, and had just enough time to wander around and get lost. I had a map, but the street names changed every block (one street had a different name on the left side and the right side), and the abbreviations used on my map were different from the ones on the signs, so it didn't help much. Also, the streets were so windy that it didn't work to just remember which direction I had come from. I saw a pedestrian mall, a couple nice little parks, a beautiful medieval tower with a fast-food restaurant in it, an old church, and a great little farmer's market with lots of vegetables and meat for sale, as well as beer and wine sellers with people sampling the wares out in the plaza in the middle of the day. I was hoping to see the river, which according to my map was only a few blocks from the train station, but I never found it. I eventually found the train station again and even figured out which train to get on from the schedule, which I was very proud of. While I was waiting, a German lady from Hamburg asked me which train to take the the airport, and I was able to tell her! She talked to me all the way back to the airport, telling me stories about her friend's computer problems and every other detail that was in her mind. She assumed I was from England, and told me to have a nice flight back to England.
Then I headed to my gate for the next leg of the flight, to Riyadh. I met my colleague Mike at the gate, who is coming from Colorado to give workshops with me. He will be teaching the men and I will be teaching the women. Mike and I were both deliriously tired, and probably far too loud on the plane for the polite Saudi company. By the end of the flight, we couldn't stop laughing about the lemon-scented towels. (We arrived around 9pm in Riyadh, and it seemed best not to sleep on the plane so we could adjust to the time change.)
At the gate in Frankfurt, I saw a woman wearing full covering, with only her eyes showing. I realized I had never actually seen this before in real life, and I was surprised how viscerally shocking I found it, as I told myself that I had better get used to it. I have always been bothered by the tendency in European countries to ban covering women, and thought that women should be allowed to be covered if it's part of their culture. But when I actually saw it in real life, the core of my being revolted at the way (in my perception) this woman's dignity was being taken away. She was traveling with her husband and daughter. The daughter, who looked like she was about my daughter's age, was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and a mini-skirt. I noticed several other little girls, and covering them seems to be a gradual process as they grow older. The youngest girls were all wearing western clothes, often tank tops and short skirts, and no head covering. As they got to be around 9 or 10, they were still wearing western clothes, but now they had long sleeves and long pants, and they wore head coverings. Most of the muslim-looking adult women on the plane wore head coverings, but I saw only one with the full face covering. I was surprised how many women on the plane were wearing western clothes that were less conservative than what I was wearing.
When we arrived at the airport, I was surprised to see guards with guns, and a giant luxurious fountain with so much water flowing that the air felt humid, in spite of the fact that we are in the middle of the desert. Aside from the men with guns, and the clothing people wore (most women wore black gowns and head coverings, most men wore white gowns and red-and-white checkered head scarves), the airport felt exactly like being in an arabic-themed hotel in Las Vegas.
I was the only woman in the "business visitors" line at immigration. They did check my passport one extra time, and not Mike's, but everything went smoothly and easily. Our host met us at the airport and took us to the hotel, where we finally got to sleep. The trip from the airport to the hotel was mostly on a busy road, after dark, on the outskirts of the city, so I haven't gotten to see much of Riyadh yet.
We arrived Thursday night, and Friday is the holy day, and almost everything is closed Friday morning, so we are "free" until Friday afternoon, when our host will take us to the National Museum. We're not sure if we're supposed to leave the hotel on our own, and it doesn't look like there's much around here anyway. We will probably spend most of the day Friday preparing for our workshops, which are on Saturday and Sunday. Given how much they paid for our plane tickets, we definitely feel an obligation to do a great job on these workshops!
At the hotel, our host gave me an abaya and a head scarf. An abaya is a black robe that covers your body, but not your head, which all women are required to wear in Saudi Arabia (although it did not seem to be a problem that I was not wearing it at the airport). From what I have read, it is not technically required to wear the head scarf, although it is recommended. When I got to my room, I tried them on, which felt very strange. I was surprised how thin the abaya is. The front is held together with just a few tiny snaps, so I think it will matter more than I realized what I wear under it.
I fell asleep OK, but woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't go back to sleep. By the time I checked the clock, it was 5:30am, but it seemed like I was awake for awhile before that. Writing to you has been nice. I think I'll try to go back to sleep now before the day really begins.
Sam
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