Today is a direct challenge from American Bedu to YOU! I challenge you to do something nice pertaining to Saudi Arabia. If you are a Saudi in Saudi Arabia, do something unexpected that you know is going to give joy to someone. Maybe it could be as simple to surprise your mother and have tea with her. Or even suggest an expat colleague join you for khawa and dates in the early evening. If you are an expat make this a day to share with a Saudi something you enjoy about Saudi Arabia or want to know more about. Don’t be afraid of invisible barriers. And if you are not in Saudi Arabia, perhaps doing something new and different at a Saudi cultural center or school will give you a new and positive experience. Try it and let me know what happens!
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Thank you so much for the great post! I’m not in Saudi and I dont have the opportunity to do something right now but I participated in the International Fair in my school a couple of weeks ago. We brought some food and Arabic coffee. We also tried to show some pictures about Saudi. It was simple but it felt good seeing how interested people were in the culture and in learning things about Saudi.
Keep up the great work. We love u!
Houstonian,
How I wish I had been in Houston and participated (watched) your presentation. It reminds me when I was taking my arabic classes at a local university and one day our assignment was to demonstrate cultural understanding. I did something similar to you. My husband was great letting me borrow the Ambassador’s beautiful Saudi coffee pot with crystal and precious stones on it as well as VIP saudi khawa cups. So I wore a traditional and classic ladies thobe and my culture lesson was how one would be greeted with typical Saudi hospitality. I served the class khawa and dates from Saudi Arabia while having a slide show playing showing the different scenes of the Kingdom. Then again thanks to my husband, I was able to give each student in the class a poster depicting some aspect of Saudi Arabia as a take home gift. The posters include pics of falcons, camels, salukis, arabian horses, maidan’al saleh, map of Saudi Arabia, the Haram, etc.
And just today I had my own opportunity to share about Saudi. I was at the hospital getting transfusions and had my laptop with me and was working on the blog. The nurse sat down beside me and noticed my blog. She wanted to know what it was so I started showing her the different pages and some of the posts and explained to her that I wanted to give a broader and more realistic perspective of Saudi Arabia than what one sees in the media. She in turn wrote down my blog address and also told a few of the other nurses what the patient in room 5 was doing. I found myself visited by a few other nurses asking if they could see my blog and then asking me so many questions about Saudi. Insha’allah, I hope that in my own way today I helped broaden some perspectives and impressions of Saudi Arabia.
WOW Carol. You’re great! What you did is way better than our humble table at the international fair. We had a simple board and we posted the Saudi flag and pictures from Saudi on it. The pictures included a map of Saudi, Mecca, Madina, Al-Masmak Palace in Riyadh and some other places.
It was really nice to see different people coming to our table, many of them have actually been to Saudi before and they were interested in sharing their good memories about Saudi with us ! As a matter of fact, the person who helped me with the presentation was an American who lived in Saudi for six years because of her father’s work. One of the things I appreciate about participating in such events is that they give you the opportunity to meet very interesting people.
Houstonian,
Please do not hesitate to contact me or Reema in regards for materials for any projects. The Saudi embassy has fantastic videos, DVD’s and so many things which they have always nicely given for such occasions. I’m sure the Consulate has materials too and the Consular had also served in WDC before too.
I have two videos I adore; one is the history of the Arabian horse and the other about camels, raising and breeding them. There are also videos about Saudi and its dates and how they are farmed and mated and harvested.
Did you know that this is the month of Advent? I didn’t know it until a friend of my mom’s took us out for breakfast at a swanky country club one morning a few weeks ago here in the US and said that she had taken us for Advent…a time when you are supposed to do something nice for someone else….. So sweet….should be a year-long thing for all of us!
No, I did not realize that! You’re right…we should do something nice all year long but at the same time it is fun to remind and then share with each other, huh?