Salaam Aleikum everyone,

Sorry I haven't written for a while. I don't have much to report on, other than that the new term started at Al Yamamah here, and it has proved so far to be as chaotic as last term! Classes were supposed to begin today, but the students hadn't even received their schedules yet, and the administrative person in charge decided now was a good time to take a vacation, and the rest of administration meandered in over half an hour late. By that time the Student Affairs office where the girls have to go to pick up their schedules (a ridiculously inefficient system, by the way) was surrounded by clusters of loud Saudi girls waiting to get their schedules. So no class today, and probably not tomorrow either. I had a student come to see if we would be having class tomorrow, and I told her, "I don't know." She said, "Is there someone you can call?" I couldn't help it--I started laughing. I pointed towards the hallway she had just come from, which was completely crowded with students waiting for their schedules and said, "No. No one knows." Needless to say, this is her first term at Al Yamamah. Haha! Boy is she in for a treat! "World-class education..." right... A teacher who's new this term was amazed. She told me, "I just came from teaching in a 3rd world country, and we had our class lists on the first day of school!" Again, I had to laugh. Welcome to Saudi Arabia, my friend!

Since it's been all over the news, I thought I'd mention the court case getting all the notoriety here. A Shiite woman was gang raped by something like 7 men, and while the men were sentences to prison sentences and lashes, she was also sentenced to prison sentences and lashes. Not for getting raped (what do you think this is, some sort of patriarchal backward country?) but due to the circumstances surrounding her rape. She was meeting a man she wasn't related to, an old friend, to get back a picture of herself that he had. See, the hard-core Muslims won't allow pictures of themselves to be taken, and the women here who actually have pictures of themselves, well, keep them to themselves. So anyway, she met the guy in a parking lot to get her picture back, and while they were in the car a group of guys got in, drove them off, and raped her and "attacked" him.

I'm not sure that I've mentioned this before, but it's illegal here to socialize at all with people of the opposite gender. Since the man she was meeting was not a relative, and she was not accompanied by her male guardian, what she was doing was--here's that fun word again--HARAM. Initially she was sentenced to 90 lashes for it, but because she got the media's attention, they increased it to 200. Some things worth noting here: she's Shiite. In the region in Saudi Arabia where she lives, there are a lot of Shiites, but in general Saudis hate Shiites. The girls at school warn us about them: don't accept any food from a Shiite because they will pee in it. All Shiite men have sex with their daughters. etc. etc. etc. It's amazing how much brainwashing goes on and is completely acceptable in this society. Anyway, when I heard about this occurrence and read the story, which we heard about here before it made it to your part of the world (a good sign, really. At least, it wasn't censored and kept quiet), I was not surprised. And I marveled at how only 3 months in Saudi Arabia has changed me because I found myself thinking, "She got into a car with a MAN? And she admitted to it?!" before ever pondering how wrong it was that she is getting sent to prison and whipped.

The current king here is quite progressive (relatively speaking) and before this incident started talking about setting up a real judiciary system here because currently the only guidelines for crime and punishment come from the Qur'an, but each judge can do whatever he wants depending on his interpretation of the Qur'an and his mood. Of course there are no juries. Sentences are very inconsistent. And actually, according to the Qur'an, a convicted rapist should be stoned to death, but I guess they've cut down on the public stonings here because some human rights groups were giving them a hard time about it. Thus, this woman's rapists got variations on the same sentence she got: lashes and prison time. Another judge would have sentenced them to death, while a different judge would have given them less punishment...you just never know. There's a chance the king will intervene on this woman's behalf regarding her punishment, so we'll see.

On that note, I'm attaching a poem I wrote a few weeks ago. The title is "Under the Abaaya, Behind the Niqab, Below the Men." But it looks a little different on word because I changed the font sizes for everything in parantheses. Thank you all for your prayers and emails and love. I really appreciate it!

Under the Abaaya, Behind the Niqab, Below the Men

Under the abaaya, behind the niqab, below the Men
I live (barely).

Under the abaaya
my diamond necklace that nobody sees
would sparkle,
sending refracted rainbows through the desert air
(if the sun's rays were allowed to kiss it).

Behind the niqab
I breathe in stale, recycled air,
the black fabric sucking towards my mouth
with each labored inhalation
because I must hide
my mouth and nose
lest they make a man think
(impure thoughts).

Below the Men (far, far below);
I cannot eat in Their presence,
cannot look in Their eyes,
cannot use the same entrance,
cannot appear without a shroud,
cannot speak, cannot whisper
(cannot think too loud).

Under the abaaya
They tell me I am safe,
that it is my protection
from Men who cannot control
Their eyes,
Their thoughts,
Their hands
(so instead They control Their women).

Behind the niqab
They tell me I am hidden
and free
to smile
to frown
to feed myself beneath this small curtain
across my mouth (but how?).

Below the Men
They say it's a good place to be-
no cares, no work, no worries,
free to do as I please
(as long as I am pleased
within the four walls of His house).

But...
Under the abaaya
I am not protected:
it wields no more power than
a vandalized No Trespassing sign
dangling by a single nail to a broken fence
on coveted land
(it does not deter
calloused hands from groping).
Made of silk, not steel,
it can be torn apart
(just like a woman's delicate skin).

Behind the niqab
I still can't smile,
for it makes my eyes crinkle
(which could lead to a Man
losing control);
some things simply
cannot be hidden
(my skin, my eyes, my terror).

Below the Men
I still exist:
hungry, thirsty,
(still unsafe as a rabbit amongst starving wolves)
craving light,
craving life,
craving pure human connection.

Under the abaaya, behind the niqab, below the Men,
I silently, fearfully wonder
(how it is that controlling Their women
is easier than controlling Themselves-
is it our fault?)