Sober Saudi

Walla!  Saudi Arabia in January is unbelievable.

Cool breezes replace the sticky humidity, the desert takes on a green hue, and keeping on par with last semester, KAUST decided to give us a four week extended vacation.  It’s borderline scary how used to this lifestyle I’m becoming.

Upon returning to KAUST after the winter holidays, the students have jumped straight into a 4-week “winter enrichment period” (aka. The WEP) during which specialty short-courses and lectures are being offered by visiting faculty from around the world.  Classes ranging from “Finding Science in Finding Nemo” to a Technology & Entrepreneurship have served to give new life to the students by allowing them to study subjects they might not otherwise be exposed to.

In one of the more shocking (and impressive) moves in my tenure at KAUST, we had a LIVE concert on campus as part of the WEP program.  American-Palestinian musician Simone Shaheen graced us with one of the more impressive musical displays I’ve ever seen; only to be outshone by the audience.  What?  Yes.

It’s ironic that we spent the last four months at KAUST with a “no public music” policy considering how much Saudis love to engage themselves with the music they hear (which is great, don’t get me wrong folks).

In what turned out to be just another cultural learning experience, I had to get used to the fact that if Shaheen held a rhythm for more than 8 counts, the entire audience was going to be clapping along to the beat.  It’s one of those give and take situations where if live music is going to consistently resemble a karaoke bar, I’ll learn to take it over NO music at all.

I half-jokingly spoke of “concert etiquette” with our assistant provost the next day while recalling the crowd’s enthusiasm, only for her to respond quizzically, “Concert etiquette?  I’m not familiar with that.”  That explains it.

Music is still one of those gray areas with me in context with Islam.  Some classmates tell me it’s forbidden, others tell me it’s a matter of interpretation.  All I know is that the door’s open and Qusai’s interested.  You play odd-makers.

In other publishable news, I attended a Saudi Entrepreneur panel discussion last week and met the “2009 Saudi Entrepreneur of the Year.”  An employee at Remal IT, this young man developed software that allows companies to track the “efficiency” of their employees by tracking the time they spend on specific projects.

To ensure a market for the software, he proceeded to develop the most complete (and popular) Belote* online gaming experience on the internet that detracts a good 30,000 Saudis from their work, daily.  (Warning: “dad joke” ahead)  Talk about playing his cards right!

…now back to the enrichment.

*You can bet if I learn to play this, I’m going to write about it.
Game info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belote .
His site:  http://www.kammelna.com/

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If there is one way to justify spending half of my KAUST stipend on traveling during my first semester, it’s that I got invaluable experience getting on to an airplane departing for “Saudi Arabia;” a mental accomplishment in itself every time (if you’ve done it, you know what I’m talking about).

I don’t know if it’s intentional or just a coincidence, but the departure gates for Saudi Arabia are always in the weirdest, most aloof parts of the airport… take a look the next time you’re in an airport and let me know if I’m just dreaming.

After spending four fabulous weeks back in Heaven doing my fair share of things that are not permitted here in the Kingdom (a hug anyone?), I was surprisingly ready to get back to the swing of things in the desert.  I don’t know if it had to do with the celebrity status I now hold at John R. Williams elementary school, the added attention that I got from the ladies with the stories I had to tell (“…yes ladies, I own an oil company called KAUST…”), or the fact that I knew what I was getting into this time around.

Back in California, in-between sipping Shirley Temples, catching up on the newest words in the Dictionary (to google; a verb!), and watching plenty of Jeopardy with friends and family; I was actually able to do some serious story-telling.  I spoke to a rotary group (excuse me, it was “Kiwanis”), two different companies, a few high school classes, and my Mom’s elementary school.  Besides getting a taste of the “motivational speaker” lifestyle, it was truly eye-opening to learn just how little my native Californians know about Saudi Arabia (but who’s to blame them, really?).

A few entertaining questions included, “Can girls play soccer?”, “Is the Red Sea red?”, “What language do Saudis speaks?” or “Do people there ride camels?”  As an Arab reader, you might chuckle at these questions as I did, but the sincerity in which they were asked was encouraging to say the least.

Even more entertaining were the responses to some of the facts that I brought up to the listeners, like “There’s no alcohol in the Kingdom” or “Women can’t drive” (although, when I told a group of sixth grade girls that women had personal chauffeurs they were quite pleased with the alternative).

One of the unspoken perks of living in Saudi Arabia (besides being recently added to the official “airport pat-down list”) is that we really are ambassadors when we return to our homes.  It’s especially true of the few Americans at KAUST, seeing as how “involved” our country is in this part of the world, and how little our country actually knows about it.  It’s a job that I truly enjoy.

I know that New Year’s resolutions are made to be broken, but one of my humbler resolutions is to get a deeper appreciation for the people of Saudi Arabia while I’m still here; both old and new, hijab and hijab-less.

I know, good luck Eric.

Sober shout out to all of my friends and family who I saw back home and commented on their enjoyment of this blog.  Look for entries to get back up on a weekly basis (Insha’Allah).

*Wikipedia has a number of reasons for where the Red Sea got its name, my favorite being, “The name of the sea may signify the seasonal blooms of the red-coloured Trichodesmium erythraeum near the water’s surface.”  I’ll make sure someone else gets a pic when the season comes.

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