Day 8

Monday was a pretty easy day for us. We didn’t have to be ready until 9:30 am, which gave us a little bit of time to sleep in. My sleep schedule is still fairly messed up, even though I take my meds every morning. I don’t think I’ve ever gone to bed before midnight except the very first night we were in Saudi Arabia, and usually it’s around 2:00 am when I go to sleep. It does help that I usually only need about 5 hours of sleep to be fine, but I think it’s something in the air here that keeps me awake until 2:00 am.
Anyways, our first visit was to Effat University, which is the first all female university in the Kingdom, but no longer the only one. It was established by Queen Effat, who was married to the late King Faisal, who reigned in the 1950s and 60s. Effat U is situated in the middle of Jeddah, and it’s inside some massive walls. The compound is fairly large, but nothing compared to anything else we’ve seen. The school is private, getting most of it’s funding from private donors, and through partnerships with various universities around the world, including Duke, Virginia Tech, and UCLA.
We were greeted by the president of the university, Dr. Haifa R. Jamal Al-Lail, and basically all the heads of all the departments. There are a few men teachers now, which apparently caused a fire storm when they joined the teaching ranks a little over 10 years. Not everybody was extremely happy with the choice to bring male teachers in, and the school lost a few major donors, but the school is still going, and it’s actually getting international recognition.
We weren’t allowed a tour of the school because it’s an all women school, and men aren’t allowed around them unless they cover up, which would just burden them. But we were given an incredibly awesome gift: free wireless mouse’s that charge, not use batteries. That’s awesome for me, because my wireless mouse died.
Our next visit was to King Abdul Aziz University. This university is really large, and had a giant medical school. The medical school is one of the best in the world apparently, and is absolutely huge. We didn’t have a long time to meet with anybody, but did meet with quite a few students and one of the deans’. They showed us a movie on the university, and then we were allowed to ask questions and such to all the students and had a great chance to talk with people our own age. That meeting also didn’t last too long, and around 2:00 pm we headed back to the hotel. We had lunch at the buffet upon returning, and didn’t have anything else planned until 4:00 pm, when people from the consulate in Jeddah were supposed to meet with us. I tried to get a bit of nap, but something I ate at lunch really messed with my stomach, and unfortunately I was late to the meeting with the consulate members in our lobby. I did make the last half of the meeting, just in time to hear one of the people who came talk about watching religious trends and such. That’s the exact same kinds of things that I’m interested in, and luckily had a chance to talk to him a little bit afterwards. He was also impressed about my paper’s direction, and said that studying in that area will really help me in my life if I can pass the Foreign Service exam.
After the meeting we had no other official events or meetings planned, and finally got to do some serious shopping. We went to the Red Sea Mall, which was just like any mall in America. Personally, that was a slight disappointment, because I’m not in Saudi Arabia to buy American things that I can purchase for the same price or cheaper in America. I want real Saudi stuff, like camels and thobes. We spent probably an hour at the mall, and then went back to the hotel. The thing I was most excited about was the souk, which apparently is Arabic for marketplace. That’s where one goes to get random Saudi crap and things that you can’t buy in America. I’m not going to go into detail about what the souk is like, because I don’t think I can explain it through blogging, but it’s basically a huge area of town where tons of people have shops set up that are really small and you argue and haggle with them to get the best price. You will always overpay for whatever you buy unless you have a Saudi with you, like our handler Saad, to argue and get our best price for us. This is where I got my beautiful thobe and khafia, the headdress, and a number of other things.
After the souk, we had to get back to the hotel to meet with a reporter from the largest Arab newspaper that is printed in English in the country. He was really cool, but we were all bone tired, as we had been up for a long time. Also, most of us thought we had to pack, which I’ll get into next time. One day left of activities, and then I begin my travels home. Not much more reading left guys. If there are any people reading this, hang in there, I’m almost done. Promise.