Saudi and Beyond

The year was 1993; I was just into my second month of my freshman year. My father had gotten a contract to go overseas to work for Raytheon and had moved there a few months earlier. He was living on an American compound and had just gotten family status so my mother was also able to get a job teaching at the elementary school on the compound. Family status meant me, my mother and my father would be moving to a foreign country where women were not only, expected to cover up from head to toe in what I assumed was a bed sheet but also not even allowed to drive. How convenient for a 14 year old girl. And my brother's who were 24, 21 and 18 were "forced" to stay back in the United States (while their parents were out of the country) and take care of the house. Not sure who got the short end of the stick in this situation.

I was sad to leave my friends but I was actually excited to start a new life and maybe even get my own identity outside of "Elizabeth, the youngest of the Doherty kids". I envisioned tipis and camels in Saudi with a house here and there. I never lived anywhere except for my small town and computers weren't as high tech as they are today so we depended on letters, pictures and imagination. My dad was never good at drawing a picture for us during our brief phone conversations so when he told us it was hot, I envisioned tipi's and camels and lots of heat.

There are moments during the packing and moving process that have always stuck with me. Like the list of items that we weren't allowed to bring with us into Saudi Arabia (i.e. Barbie dolls, alcohol) and the tape recordings that we made of the family sitting around and talking so my dad could hear the familiar sounds of home and that last hug that I gave to my dog before I left her and the city lights of New York getting smaller and smaller as we flew away from the United States. I cried and my mother held me.

Those first few days on the compound were....ummm....a shock to the system, to say the least. Saudi wasn't a desert with tipis; it was a city with lots of twists and turns and a lot of people. Our compound had a gate with guards and barbed wire wrapped around the top. It, in some strange way, made you feel safe. The houses were all white concrete and there were bushes, trees and even some palm trees scattered around, (I'm guessing) an attempt to make it feel more homey. There was a pool and a rec center where the compound kids would go to hang out. This is where I made the horrible assumption that I would be welcomed with open arms. I was going through a Kerri Strug stage and had chopped all my hair off, I wore collared shirts tucked in, of course, and stone wash jeans and converse with threaded bead necklaces to finish off my prep look, a look that didn't communicate well with the already established cliques. It never feels good to be called ugly, not even when it's coming from a red headed bully who apparently lacked his own self worth. I suddenly missed my three older brothers. At the time I was vulnerable and all I wanted was to fit in. There were many times when I would run home to my mother and tell her how much I hated it there. I just wanted to go back home and never move away again...but obviously that wasn't an option. My friends, back home would send me letters and pictures with signs that said "we miss you". I waited for those letters and I hung each one on my wall as a reminder that somewhere in the world I had friends.

Outside of the compound was the school that I would attend along with other compounds that students of the school lived on. About a day after I arrived in Saudi Arabia, I took a placement test at the school. My parents were told it was just routine. Come to find out, I placed in an 8th grade level so the superintendant decided that I should start in the 8th grade and get "an extra year's experience in Saudi". After 9th grade the company paid for boarding school, anywhere in the world you just needed to get accepted. No, I was not excited about going back to the 8th grade; I had already started my freshman year back home why would I want to go back to middle school? My parents fought the decision because obviously if I had just finished the 8th grade I would have tested at that level. Unfortunately, we lost the fight and my hatred for the new place grew even more.

Surprisingly, I didn't become a recluse or ban myself to my room; I tried to start each day fresh as though it were a new opportunity for a new beginning. I buckled down and went to school, I made friends there and even continued to go out and attempt to socialize with the kids on my compound. Eventually I started to make friends but unfortunately and, typical to my personality, I made friends with people in different cliques. There was Michelle who hung out with the British kids and Michaela who hung out with the younger kids and Naomi, from school who just clicked with me right away and then, of course, Anna who was the most popular girl on the compound and at school and whose dad also happened to be my dad's boss. You ever see Clueless with Alicia Silverstone, well I didn't end up like that but after hanging out with Anna I did start to become more confident and more focused on my own style. The other kids didn't like that I wouldn't just pick a group so the kids that I didn't hang out with would make comments that I was Anna's puppet. In some ways maybe I was and in hindsight she meant well, she would tell me not to hang out with the troubled British kids because they smoked and I would get labeled. And she would help me with the Arabic customs so I wouldn't accidentally insult anyone, like the time I put my feet up on the bus seat in front of me and she nearly broke her neck flying over the seat to pull my feet down, apparently I was telling our Arabic bus driver that he was lower then me, HUGE insult. But the one thing that she directed me on is a memory that always sits in the back of my mind, its that familiar moment in everyone’s life where you look back and say, "had I known then what I know now". We were talking about what we wanted to be when we grew up and I, without a doubt wanted to be a Veterinarian and rather than being excited for me she shook her head and said "In order to be a Veterinarian, you have to be good at math Liz, and you're really not good at math". She was right and just like that I didn't know what I wanted to be anymore. I have to believe that this moment (like many others in my life) was a part of my journey to find myself. There are people in this world that are meant to come into our lives to be a positive influence but that doesn't mean that they are meant to influence all of our decisions, knowing that difference will set you apart from the guided and the guider.

Aside from my social life, Saudi's culture was definitely an unforgettable experience. If I went out to the city markets, I always had to go in groups and they always had to be with other girls. As a "westerner" we didn't have to wear the traditional abaya or head wrap when we left the compound but most of the time we would wear the abaya to avoid further stares. There were stores in the markets that had signs on them, "no women allowed" and because of the laws for stealing many people would leave the stores unattended. No one was going to steal if it meant losing a body part. As a woman from a free country you would think that I would be insulted by all of this but instead I learned from it. Yes, I appreciated my home country even more but I also found that the respect and dedication that all of the people, including the women, had for their own culture was rather breathtaking. There is a misconception that these women are slaves to their country, however, what I witnessed was pride. Wearing an abaya and head wrap is done so out of modesty not because the men want them to fade into the background. My eyes were beginning to open up to so many new things and I was beginning to realize that there was a whole world out there outside of my own sheltered opinion.

During my year in Saudi Arabia I swam in the Red Sea, found a new love for mushroom pizza with my best friend Naomi, decorated my room in a tile pattern from pages ripped out of magazines, received my Confirmation and had my first underground Christmas (all behind closed shades as religion was not allowed to be celebrated) and I even had my first boyfriend (whom I quickly broke up with when he tried to kiss me). I was finally getting settled into a new life which meant it was time to shake things up again. Raytheon was having "its first layoff in very long time" and my dad's name was on the list. Rather than packing up and going back to MA, my mother scouted the nation and found North Carolina to be the best economical move. We even had a map of the United Stated taped to our concrete living room wall so my mother could research different parts of North Carolina. She planned a road trip for the summer we moved back to MA. It was all very well organized but unlike Saudi, there wasn't a furnished house waiting for us. My mother, I believe, was being spontaneous...