Dear Family and Friends,

And so it begins. Again. I’ve again begun adventuring. But this time I am in the Middle East. More particularly, in Saudi Arabia.

Before I departed the States, upon my breaking the news that I was going to teach English at a university in Al-Jouf, Saudi Arabia, inevitably I would elicit a swift intake of breath and a “Really?”. This shock, repeated over and over, must I suppose, stem from the question of truly what do we know, what do we really know about Saudi Arabia?

Oil. Obviously. We imagine obscene oil wealth coupled with sand dunes and tents and camels and Bedouins. We know that Islam and its holy cities of Mecca and Medina are thriving in Saudi Arabia. Women, muffled head to toe in black and segregated in every aspect of life, are, we believe, a human rights issue here. We’ve seen pictures of the Saudi royal family and heard rumors of exploits… And of course, Saudi Arabia terrifies us because we know Islam parlayed into terrorism. Fifteen of the nineteen September 11^th hijackers were Saudi.

I’ve been here for just over three weeks and I have yet to collect more than fractured impressions. Like kaleidoscope pieces, understanding, mores, and landscapes shift and twist. So far, a complete picture eludes me.

A few weeks ago, a male colleague and I were waiting for our ride home from a grocery store. We were standing next to each other, he in perfectly acceptable Western dress while I was properly attired in the strictly required women’s long, black robe-like garment known as the abaya with my hair, now often mussed and unruly due to the constraints of keeping my head covered, was tucked under a black scarf. A youngish Saudi man stalked by us, disdainfully calling over his shoulder, “NOT AMERICA!” before disappearing into the night.

My colleague and I blinked. And laughed, exchanging, “Uh, duh!!” remarks. At every moment of every day, we are in no doubt that we are in Saudi Arabia.

For the record, that has been the only overt disapproval that I’ve encountered regarding my – our - presence here. And of course, that Saudi was right. I am not in America. I have indeed temporarily traded our hard-fought equality in the eyes of the law along with my freedom of dress, my freedom of movement, and my freedom of speech in exchange for in-depth knowledge of an Islamic country and a financial foundation for graduate school.

I mention this at the outset because now that I’m in Saudi Arabia, there are issues with my blogging. You see, in the past on this blog, I have preferred to share the different, the interesting. I have preferred to write as a conduit for all of you – rather than report on me, myself, and I. I prefer to assess well and write fairly, avoiding stereotypes and exposing not-quite-usual perspectives.

However, here, the web is monitored. As I prefer not to actively excite the notice of sensors, out of necessity, this blog is going to be self-censored. It is going to reflect my experiences but it will not stray from neutral or positive. Therefore, it will not, of course, tell the entire story.

As before, this blog is posted at http://dawnrevisited.blogspot.com and I will e-mail it from Gmail. Also, as I am now experiencing an area that we so little understand, please, please help me, help my perspective and my writing by posting comments or e-mailing me with questions.

And so it begins. Again.

More from me soon.

Love,

Laura