Four months later, I was munching on my last Pizza Hut pizza at the Dulles International Airport, fighting back the tide of tears as I looked at my friends and family surrounding me. What on earth was I getting myself into? Twenty-two hours of flight later, I was walking down the aisle of an airport that was filling up with people who were speaking in alien terms. For the first time in my life, I was really afraid. What in the world was going to happen in these next five months?
If my spontaneity had pushed me toward doing something different and challenging for a semester, then there was no better place I could have chosen than the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. Stellenbosch seemed like the last place to live to experience the culture of Africa. Yet the contrast between the beautifully sculpted buildings of the university and the flimsy cardboard shacks of Kayamandi, the neighboring black township, was more exemplary of the real South Africa than I ever could have imagined.
The schizophrenic atmosphere of Stellenbosch was often times quite frustrating; I felt like I needed to accomplish something there. I wanted to get a firm grip on what the men, women and children of both the white and black communities were like. Sometimes, the white students of Stellenbosch wanted to speak about their frustrations about being blamed for their parents’ mistakes; other times, it was as if apartheid had never existed for them. The black communities seemed very humbled. They would pour their hearts out about the injustices they had seen, the poverty-stricken conditions in which they were living, if only they were given the chance.
I found myself becoming emotionally drained through my incessant desire to sympathize with the pain all these people were feeling. It is only in hindsight that I am beginning to truly understand; forcing myself to identify with the people in South Africa who were picking up the pieces from apartheid and making a new puzzle was not making me a better person. I never saw my child shot in the temple with a rifle because he was black, and I never had to overcome the fact that my parents honored apartheid more than their marriage vows. I could never identify with the white or black people in South Africa, and if I had really been listening, I would have discovered that they didn’t want me to, either.
So, when people want to hear about what I learned in South Africa last semester, I can honestly only tell them that I made an educated guess in deciding to go to there. It’s only the realization that my experiences will remain twisting inside of me, constantly altering my plans. For this, I am a better person, and there’s no guessing about that.
Jake’s father told the Oil Company and the Saudi Government that I was Jake’s cousin. There was a great deal of hassling paper work and a little trouble getting a visitor’s visa. Once everything was taken care of, I was ready to go.
When I finally got to Saudi, after about 20 hours of traveling, it was about 10 p.m. and the heat hit me like a ton of bricks. It was 104 degrees. I have never been exposed to hot temperatures like this before. The hottest it got during my stay was 121 degrees. As you can imagine, I didn’t spend much time outdoors unless I was beside a pool or at the beach. At the beach, the water was in the high 90s and it felt cold to my skin after baking in the hot temperatures.
Jake’s family lives on a "camp" where other families that work for the oil company live as well. The camp houses around 2,000 families. Many of the families are American, but there are many British, and some Japanese and Chinese families. At the camp there are rocky formations that are formed by the wind changes and the sand over thousands of years. These are called jebbles. Jake and I would often climb on the jebbles to watch the sunset because they are very high and you can see for miles on top of one.
There are many things for the families to do on camp. There is a hobby farm where people can have a horse if they want. There was also an art building where one can go to do stained glass, ceramics, sculpting, painting and drawing. There was even an art show that went on during my stay with the Halls. Jake’s mother won the award for best stained glass. There is also three different pools and workout gyms on the camp.
The schools are American on camp, but they only allow foreign children to go to school there until ninth grade. After ninth grade the families send their children to boarding schools mainly in the States or Europe. This is how Jake and I met; we went to the same boarding school.
My favorite place that we went to was a little town called Hofuuf, where we went to a local camel market where camels, sheep, and goats are sold. The first thing we did when we got there was have a short camel ride. An Arab child led me around while I was on the camel’s back. There weren’t any women at the market, just men.
After the camel market, we then walked around the market place, which was just down the street from the camel market. There were many women in the Saudi market place, a Souk, but the women have a separate Souk from the men. Many of things that were sold in the women’s market place were the long black robe, abayas, masks and spices. The women have to wear abayas if they are going out in public. Arab women have to stay covered in front of any men, with the exception of her husband because it is a part of their religion and culture. The only parts of a woman’s body not covered are her eyes and her hands. I did not have to wear an abaya, but I had to wear pants and a long-sleeved shirt.
I think the Arab women looked down at me for not having my face covered. I remember passing a woman on the street and she pointed at me and put her hands by her face, signaling to me to cover myself up.
Another day I was crossing a road and two children passed me going the opposite direction, and they nearly walked into a parked car because they couldn’t stop staring at me. I felt awkward, and in a sense like I was intruding on their culture. Everywhere I went both men, women, and children stared at me. I wish I knew what they thought of me.
Even though at times I felt uncomfortable because of the stares I received, I realize that the Arabian people were not used to being exposed to people who are not like themselves. Overall, I feel like I have learned a lot about the culture and people of Saudi Arabia.
I spent a full month in Israel. As I stepped off the plane I knew that this would be nothing short of a life- changing experience. As I walked to the terminal, I was wondering if that would be because it was so wonderful, or so miserable. After getting our visas, Dr. Craig Wansink, Dan Spaugh and I proceeded to the baggage claim to discover that our baggage was still in Germany. I am a reasonably tolerant person. I’m making this evaluation based on the fact that my companions got their bags two days later and I got mine four. Amazingly, no one at the university seemed to think that it was abnormal that I wore two alternating tee-shirts for five days, and I was having so much fun that the nightly sink washing didn’t bother me. However, I’m getting ahead of myself.
As we drove the hour trip to Jerusalem, the most popular word escaping my lips was "wow." Desert mountains, lots of rocks, scrubby vegetation, fields of sunflowers. My first impressions of the Holy Land. As Jerusalem rose over the hilly countryside, I was overwhelmed with feelings of disbelief. I was in a foreign country, filled with conflicts as old as civilization. I did not speak the language. I had little knowledge of the customs of the inhabitants, and I had heard that riding the buses was not safe.
The van driver was kind enough to drive us to our apartment. Unfortunately, our land- lady was not around, and the place was locked up tight. Not to mention the fact that the building we would be living in was a 400-year-old Turkish prison.
We were located in the center of the new city of Jerusalem. Directly outside our door was a beautiful park. Our street harbored three of the most popular cafes. The apartment was nothing short of beautiful. However, as a by-product of being a Turkish prison, some of the door jambs were particularly low, like four and a half feet. I took this as an indication that I should live in the room with the lowest door. I bumped my head frequently. I was completely overwhelmed with the feeling that this would either be the best or worst month of my life. I don’t think at that point that anyone could have convinced me of what I would discover about myself and my humanity.
I got on the bus the next morning and proceeded to travel the 15-minute ride to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. There is just something weird about passing the old city walls of Jerusalem, the churches on the Mount of Olives, the Mount of Olives, for that matter. We eventually arrived at the university and wandered about. The orientation included a tour of the campus, quite possibly the most confusing campus I’ve ever been on.
I studied Archeology of Jerusalem. This included traveling to dig sites all over the city. We took four field trips a week.
Unfortunately, the combination of the intensity of the class and the intensity of Jerusalem’s night life proved to be challenging, but I managed. The course offered a solid, somewhat objective background to compare to the information I received in extracurricular lectures and personal observations. One of the first things my professor explained was that the old city walls are new. They are only 400-years-old. This should give some reference to account for the Israeli ideal of recent history. It is important to realize that the conflicts that drive current Israeli politics are thousands of years old.
My first weekend in Israel, I traveled on foot around the old city of Jerusalem. We wandered throughout the Armenian Quarter. Armenians are very nice, relatively quiet, and helpful. The intent of this trip was more navigational than sight seeing, so we moved relatively quickly. We exited the city wall through a gate that I could never relocate, but it was clear that we were in a less-than-safe segment of town. The blown-out van and donkey in the trash pile were a big tip for me. However, there was no one around, so I figured I needed to get a photo of the donkey.
Much to my dismay, as soon as the camera clicked, three Arab children popped up from behind. One was shouting, "My mule, I give you shekel." What they meant was for me to give them a shekel, judging this from their outstretched palms.
Verb tense is always the hardest part of a second language. It was clear that these were bored kids preying on stupid tourists. I didn’t want to be a stupid tourist, so I tried to ignore them, but they were persistent. I tried to reason with them. That was pointless. They followed us for a good bit, patting our pockets and grabbing at the zippers on our bags. I finally gave them some shekels. Luckily we were able to pit them against one another in an argument over the division of the spoils. Eventually, after some stern yelling and mean looks, we escaped. This episode was educational but annoying.
We reentered the city at the Dung Gate. This is the Gate to the Western Wall, or Wailing Wall. In reality this wall is filled with irony, but I won’t bore you with the details. In any case the area is heavily secured and a bit tense.
A nice-looking young man bounced up and introduced himself. His name was Ali. He asked if we needed directions, showing us a map. Indeed directions might have been helpful, but we were reluctant to get into another altercation with the indigenous youth, so we refused. Again the little guy was persistent. So we began to rattle our change in our pockets, and he refused payment for his services. Man, am I gullible! Happily we followed the young man, unknowingly, deeper into the Moslem Quarter. Then he turned and said, "You pay me now." We argued that he had gotten us nowhere, and he said if we wanted to get anywhere we needed to pay. We argued and walked on and argued. Things started to look familiar, and he refused a dollar, asking for shekels. We gave him some change. We later discovered it was about the equivalent of 14 cents. He was angry, but he was dishonest, he deserved it. We wandered home to rest.
When I traveled to Sanai, I encountered my first Egyptians. Moslem Arab cultures see all westerners, particularly Americans, as morally deficient. I cannot count how many border guards looked at my passport and said that they loved Bill Clinton and that they were the love-child of Bill and Monica.
No single experience in my life has ever affected me so profoundly. I hope to return, perhaps for an extended period of time.