Oh what an experience it has been!

So I guess the time has come where I’m meant to be reflecting this experience.  I think I will be digesting this past year for a while.  It has been so exciting and entertaining to say the least.  I am so thankful and happy for the experiences and opportunities that I have had!  I have had so many wonderful trips, met friendly people from all over the world, and experienced cultures in a way I never expected!  In Saudi Arabia I have seen a culture that is so closed to the outside world, I have had the opportunity to even experience a little bit of this very different world.  The expat community of Riyadh has never failed to be entertaining with desert trips and embassy parties!  And work, well I’m happy to be heading back to the western way of practicing medicine, but it will allow me to further appreciate the advances in medicine that are actually practiced in America.

I will miss my friends here in Riyadh and the fun that we have shared!  But we have been making plans to get together and do more traveling or visiting, so yay!  I will miss the lack of responsibility.  The things I’ve worried about this past year has been, ok where will I go for all my 55 days of vacation!!??  Which since I’m such a good vacation planner turned out to be 101 days of vacation out of Saudi Arabia to 14 countries (if you include USA), 4 continents, and oh I never even got sick on any vacation!!  I must have a steel stomach because every travel companion was sick at some point, and I love eating the local foods!  I have learned that people all over the world are really funny!  Everyone seems to have a sense of humor that we can share with each other!  I have learned so much in such unexpected ways; it has been a beautiful experience! 

I have had enough religious chats to last a lifetime it seems.  But it is still interesting to hear people’s opinions.  Every country, every people practice their faith in such different ways.  Sometimes it seems to be more of a forced doctrine and other places religion is more private, personal, and natural.  I have a great respect for those who have faith.  As we learn to respect each other’s differences we move closer to living in a more peaceful world. 

My friends and I have been reflecting together about the state of Saudi Arabia as a whole.  In a country with all the money in the world it seems unequally allocated.  I suppose this wealth has only become available in the last several decades so maybe they are still working on updating infrastructure, healthcare, education, and civil rights to a modern level, and I hope that this country is working in that direction.  I feel empathetic for the women in this society.  It is not easy to be a woman here.  For me though, as a foreigner, as an American, I can leave anytime.  I know that I have rights and freedoms in my home country.  I know things are different in other places and I know I will have all my freedoms and rights handed back to me as soon as I leave here.  But for the women here, they can’t leave without the permission of their guardian, they can’t have jobs, they can’t drive, they have to cover.  They are citizens without rights covered from the world without a voice, stifled by their own government, the entity that is meant to protect you and provide for you is taking everything human decency away from you.  Women can’t even order from the same counter at a coffee shop as the men, if the coffee shop allows women at all.  Women are blamed and oppressed.  I am hopeful that this is changing.  Women are speaking out as much as they can by driving and protesting and through social networks.  With the wave of the past year, the Arab Spring, I was hopeful that Saudi would jump on board, but the government is strong, the King is well loved, and I think people are both fearful and even mildly content. 

As far as the expat community goes, it was unexpected entertainment galore!  I have lived out of the USA before but never in such a way as this, and probably every experience is very different.  I think in such a closed society we had to bind together and try to make our little oasis of western normalcy.  Lots of parties at embassies and compounds.  Desert trips for hiking and camping and dune driving.  The community is pretty small as far as those who go out end up continuously running into each other at various events.  This is both comforting and also at times a bit hilariously like high school.  Again, it has been a fun and entertaining year!

What am I looking forward to back in my homeland?  Oh my my my!!!  As much fun as this has all been I am excited for the next adventure, as always!  I can’t wait to see my friends and family, hike with my puppy, go out with friends, be in the outdoors, listen to music, ride my bike, drink yummy microbrews, and just simply be!  I’m sure there will be a lot of reverse culture shock.  But hopefully I will handle it gracefully!  I am sure to appreciate all that I have in terms of freedom so much more having had this experience!  Thanks for coming on the journey with me! 

High Tea at the Ritz Carlton!

The Ritz Carlton in Riyadh is this huge beautiful monstrosity of a building by the Diplomatic Quarters, which I have been passing and dreaming about since arriving here to Riyadh.  It just only opened two or three months ago.  We heard it was beautiful and that they serve high tea.  Being the fancy Riyadh ladies that we are (uh hmmm), we went to their high tea this past Saturday (which is the first day of the work week in Saudi Arabia).  This place is gorgeous!!  So very sparkly and dazzling.  Kind of what we had thought Saudi Arabia would be like before arriving.  Something you would find in Dubai. 

So anyways we were sitting having our tea, crumpets, and clotted cream and we noticed there were a lot of people around, well men, que music, “this is a man’s world”….  Anyways and some had tv cameras.  Kelsey, my Canadian roommate bumped into a Canadian Senator by the bathroom who said his wife, a national Senator was there for the Speakers G20 Conference!  How very exciting.  Just as we were thinking this was a big deal and talking about how we wondered if our friend Yavuz, Turkish diplomat was there, he walked by with the Turkish speaker of the house and was being photographed!  How very exciting.  I feel like this is a place where one should be reserved and act like someone who belongs there….but….I was so excited I was jumping up and down frantically waving my arms at him….good thing he nor anyone else really notice before I got a hold of myself!  He came over and confirmed that this was the G20, and how excited we all became!  Oh diplomacy at work!  I kept joking about how I wanted a pass to get into the conference, and what should appear, but my very own pass!!!  I sat in on the conference!!  EEKKSS!  Yes I was trying really hard to act like I belonged, but really I was just a giggly girl.  So this speakers conference was the G20, talking about the economic status of the world.  I listened to the head of the UN parliament speak about how he was grateful for the opportunity for a new outlet for discussion on the global economy as in the speakers getting together this time instead.  And then the speaker from Brazil spoke and I got to use the translator head phones!  Yay!   Meanwhile, Kelsey was interviewed by an Arab TV program about her experiences in Riyadh and asked how she enjoyed the Saudi culture, etc, etc.  This was practice at speaking in a diplomatic way!  Later we were asked to be interviewed for a French radio station, but we declined, since we don’t know the language.  Once we thought things were calming down and we were about ready to leave there was a huge sandstorm outside, day turned to night it was so sandy!!  And the roads were closed.  Then it started to rain, and people were really scared of going out in the weather.  Rain here is like a big snow storm in Louisiana!  So we were ‘forced’ to stay at the Ritz, what a tough life!  We put our feet up and enjoyed the glitz some more.  We met all the representatives from Canada.  They were very friendly talking about the day to day of a senator and special interests that they are involved with.  When they asked us about why we were here in Riyadh, somehow all four of us turned into 17 year old giggly school girls, star struck maybe.  Oh also I met a member of the Shira Council (the governing body of Saudi Arabia) because he heard I was from Oregon and he had spent several years there for education and has sons/nephews still there at Lewis and Clark, Reed College, and so on.  Small world.  He gave me his business card, maybe I should get in touch with him about what I think about women’s rights in the kingdom!  Maybe after I’m safely back in my mother country!

So the diplomatic fun does not stop here.  Since Yavuz is good friends with the ambassador of Kuwait, he got us into the Kuwaiti National Day Dinner, also at the Ritz, this past Monday evening.  We went since it was going to be a delicious meal and so we could check out the happenings at such an event.  It seemed to be the fancy who’s who of Riyadh socialite society.  This was a womens only event.  This is kind of how things are in Riyadh.  Everything is separate.  No mingling of opposite sexes, because let’s be honest, how could unrelated males and females possibly function in each other’s presence!  But now at least we know what is underneath an abaya and niqab!  Glitz and glamour!  These ladies were dressed to the nines, their hair was professionally done, their eyebrows were recently done, arab style.  Good thing we three ladies broke out the nice jeans for the occasion!  So at the entrance there was a big mirror and ladies gathered around it to fix their hair and makeup after taking of their abaya, scarf, and niqab.  Little girls were dressed up in traditional clothes and sprayed us with scented lotion and gave us a rose as we walked in.  Then we went through the receiving line where we were welcomed by the ambassador’s wife, etc.  Music videos with Kuwaiti artists were playing, the videos had scenes from Kuwait which was really exciting to see and recognize since Kelsey and I had just been there in December!  There was just a lot of national pride!  Flags were placed on every seat and many of the women came in wearing red, green, and black (the national colors).  So we were sitting in the room for about an hour and a half as everyone was arriving, good people watching.  We were served tea and Arab coffee and sweets from ships that sailed around the room!  Kuwait has a proud shipping history, as we learned when we were there!  Then we were welcomed and feasting began!  HUMMUS!  Yay!  I will miss the Middle East and the hummus!  We sat with some Saudi women who were pretty interested in what we were doing there, being the only non Arabs in the bunch.  One woman kept asking me if I was there with my parents….again being confused for a child, gez!

Diving in Sri Lanka

Before I even came to Saudi I had hoped to become dive certified.  So Kelsey and I booked a trip to Sri Lanka to take care of that during a weeklong vacation!  Yay certification and vacation at a beautiful beach in January!  This was a really lovely week!  Relaxing and entertaining!  Our instructor was Sri Lankan and had tons of diving experience.  He actually said lots of Sri Lankans don’t know how to swim because they have been taught from a young age that the water is dangerous with dangerous creatures living inside of it.  Even fishermen who go out on boats that look like big rocking horses don’t know how to swim!  And as far as the dangerous creatures, Kelsey and I both were actually stung by jellyfish in the water.  Her experience was a bit more traumatic because it was right before our first dive and she was nervous already, then got stung by a jellyfish and the instructor jokingly convinced her she was sure to lose her arm.  Our instructor was actually our cultural guide as well!  He took us out for a local dinner.  Delicious!  The food was similar to Indian food, which I love so much! Yay!  At dinner I think we got the local amount of spiciness, not tourist amount of spiciness and we were hot and sweating and couldn’t drink enough water, but it was delicious!  He claimed it wasn’t hot at all to him.

During our dives we saw so many beautiful fish and coral!  It was an amazing world underneath the water.  We saw lobster, huge sea turtles, and schools of fish swimming together, tons of neon colors!  Just all very exciting!  We went to coral gardens and rock gardens with boulders the size of houses and a oil tanker ship wreck!  The water was warm and clear.  However I kept complaining how cold I was, guess I will not be diving where it is not tropical because it doesn’t get much warmer.  We met a couple that dive regularly in Sweden, 4 degrees Celsius, brrrrr, no way!!  I will have to share pictures from this trip later when I do a little computer recovery!  Eeeks!