So, I have been in India for two days now and feel that I have gathered my thoughts enough to write more than three words; I was a bit overwhelmed. I arrived in India around 3:30 Monday morning March the 9th. After 20ish hours of plane travel I was glad to be able to walk something besides an aisle way. I have realised (yes, it is spelled correctly; at least for India) that you do not really understand what I means to be part of 7 billion people on this plant until you travel half way around the world on an international flight, or any international flight really. Even then it is only a very small understanding. Walking through an airport you catch glimpses of lives very different from your own and I find myself overflowing with questions. What language was that group of people speaking? People wear those kind of clothes? Where is that person from? What religion would that person be because he is wearing a turban? To which I rack my brain for answers, however for most of them I find myself lacking in knowledge. The cultural understanding that we have grown up with is somewhat left at the doorstep when one travels out of country. Body language that is so natural for us to read in the comfort of our own communities cannot always be trusted in new environments. Things of life that we all just subconscious take in must become more conscious and it is this fact that can make traveling so tiring. Your brain, which is so amazing in it workings, is adapting to the environment, finding patterns in body language, speech, and actions that can help it make sense of the world around it. This is were I am at this moment, trying to make sense of the world in which I have found myself.
During my airport to plane to airport to plane to airport adventure I had a layover in Qatar, which is on the peninsula dominated by Saudi Arabia. Since my flight had a layover at this location I was able to have a conversation with a certain individual. In the O'Hare Airport I meet a 26 year old Saudi Arabian women who was traveling back home after a year and a month in the United States. She was a Medical Doctor who's speciality was internal diseases. She was living in Toledo, Ohio where she was working on her residency but she had spent time in Chicago as well. She came from an Islamic culture where the laws are more restricting towards women. I knew this to be the case but for the first time I was able to talk to women from that society. All previous knowledge was from books and the magical internet. I found out that if she wanted to visit her friends, she would have to ask her brother to take her to there because she was not allowed to drive . . . at all. It is illegal, by law, for women to drive in Saudi Arabia. If her brother did not want to take her then she had to either, talk to her dad about it (she said it was not good to do this to much or her brother would get upset) or reschedule her appointment. I could never image having to ask my brothers for a ride, let alone them telling me they would not take me (it would not go over well at all). Whenever she would go outside she would have to wear an all black outfit with her head covered, otherwise known as an abayas, usually paired with the hijab (headscarf) or niqab, which leaves a slit for the eyes. The other one that western culture is familiar with is the burqa (which covers the body from head to toe, with a mesh for the eyes). She said that in larger cities in Saudi Arabia this strictness is changing, but in the town where she lived it would not be looked kindly on to wear something other than an all black outfit.
When I asked her to tell me something that she like about the United States she told me it was the organisation (it is the British spelling, my autocorrect is automatically set on this) of the roads as well as being able to wear colourful headscarves in public as opposed to the black ones back home. The driving was another plus. Before coming to the United States and taking the driving test she had never been behind the wheel or really paid attention to driving at all. Why would she if she was not allowed to drive? Another part of her life that I found most interesting is that if she traveled anywhere outside Saudi Arabia she had to have her father sign a paper that allowed her to do so, even though she was a twenty-six year old woman. Any woman in Saudi Arabia has to have the permission of their father or husband if they wish to make a trip, once again it is the law. So, for me to travel to India, if I lived in Saudi Arabia, I would have to get my father to sign a paper and if he said no I could not go, that was it. I could do nothing about it. She was also unmarried, much to her mothers disliking, and she told me that one reason she this was so was she enjoyed her freedom. Her father was rather soft (her words), and was okay with her traveling, if she would get married and their would be an argument between herself and her husband then he could restrict her freedom. She stressed how important it was to have the 'right' husband. She told me that many Saudi men hold a modern view about women and their rights but the laws concerning this are near impossible to change. One day she hopes Saudi Arabia will change but for now she lives under these restrictions. Saudi Arabia is her home and even though her rights are limited she still misses it deeply when away. She was so exited to be going back home to her family and the sun. We were going to meet up in Qatar when we arrived to talk some more but life does not always go as planned.
The one and only picture that I took on my flight was the one below on the plane from Qatar to Bangalore. Sorry about the quality, if I was a great photographer I would working for national geo or something. Without being able to read the words one can tell exactly what it means, right?
I thought this was rather neat. It is written in Arabic, the language that was spoken in Qatar. When I was walking through the Qatar airport I had the experience of seeing what is was like having English demoted to the second language, Arabic was on the top with the English translation underneath. I gained a bit more appreciation for there being more than one language used as an explanation. This gave me a greater understanding for the growing Spanish speaking population and the appreciation they must have for the increase of products having a Spanish translation underneath. If one goes to a country and cannot read the language is so helpful to have a translation, especially when that language does not use the Phoenician alphabet.
I know I have written much and I have not even started talking about India however, I am going to take my time, I have two months right?
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