Saudi Arabia, the Country that Changed Me. (Update)

Just thought I would let everyone know that I have uploaded all my pictures and videos of Parts 1-3 now! Hope you enjoy them!

Part 4 should be coming out tomorrow or Thursday :)

Intermission (Part 2): Freshmen Year.

Well I'm home from college, and what a great time that was! It seemed to go by so fast! I really bonded with the guys on my floor and really miss the crazy times we had already.

Most of us are going on church missions for the next 2 years, and it was amazing to see where everyone was going. Latvia, Ukraine, Japan, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Denmark, and quite a few here in the U.S. too. We truly are going all around the world to give God's love to all His children.

Our last Sunday together we all had a goodbye/ testimony meeting and it was a pretty emotional hour. Those were all great guys with great potential. To me it is so exciting to be part of the youth of this generation, because we truly can change the world. Each of us has a different life and a different story, but we all can make a difference in the world. I believe that with all my heart.

I'm sorry this is kind of a short blog, but I thought I would write down a little something while I'm waiting for my stuff to arrive so I can continue with my Saudi Arabia Series. But, I DID put up all the pictures up that I didn't have at college on the previous 3 blogs. I know I had written a lot, so hopefully you'll enjoy looking at the pictures :)

Hope you're looking forward to Part 4, and I hope everyone had a good Spring Break/ Easter/ Passover!

Intermission: Spring Snow Storm Photos

I thought I would take a brief break from my Saudi Arabia trip series and share a couple pictures that I took a couple weekends ago. That night we got a couple inches of snow and in the morning it was a beautiful blanket with perfect blue skies.

I used a little photo editing, but for the most part they're genuine point and shoots. Hope you enjoy them!

I liked the tree/road combination.

Tried to emphasize the blue sky.

Loved the blanket of snow, went for
Ansel Adams kind of Black and White

White tree, blue sky.

Hinckley Clock Tower.

Ansel Adams type again.

Stores kind of ruined the seemingly endless road.

Close up of spring vs. winter

White and blue.

Saudi Arabia, the Country that Changed Me. (Part 3)

Sorry everyone for the delay for getting Part 3 out! I've been trying to have my family send me ALL my pictures from the trip instead of me taking off my Facebook ones. On Facebook I only put up about 80 or so but back home I have over 200. But since it isn't working, I'll just have to add more pictures later! THEY'RE UP! :)

I also need to add a little to Part 2 as my friend Abdulaziz pointed out, I forgot the dancing and acting out of skits that both sides did! I have been reading my account of the trip and I skipped the whole page! But I loved how throughout the week both sides shared their culture with one another! Though, I found the Saudis' dancing and skits more impressive. They showed us how to beat their drums, dance in the sword dance, and have a great time! I will try to upload pictures and videos of this when I get back home in 9 days! THEY'RE UP TOO! :)

Day 3 was another very busy day in Saudi Arabia! We woke up at 6am as always, had an amazing breakfast at our fancy hotel and hit the road by 7am or so. Our first stop was King Abdulaziz's old palace. He is the King that unified Saudi Arabia and really established it as a nation, kind of like a George Washington figure for them.

The Saudi's George Washington.

I'm not sure what to compare this palace to because in America all the Presidents live in the White House, but imagine if every president got his own White House while in office and thats what Saudi Arabian King's Palaces are like. Each gets his own, but the old palace before him is just left as a museum.

A model of King Abdulaziz's Palace.

Across from this palace was a museum all about Saudi Arabian history and culture. I was in heaven! Dr. Qureshi and I were way behind the group because I wanted to read and understand everything! They had so many things that I loved! It was around this time that Dr. Qureshi started telling me that I should look into the Middle Eastern Studies/ Arabic (MESA) Major at BYU. I had already been accepted to BYU, but I didn't know what I would study or major in. Looking back it was around the time of the museum and day 3 that I really started thinking about it!

After the palace and museum we went back to the hotel for lunch and to rest. I was so tired that I just napped through lunch and slept for 4 hours! It was a combination of jet lag, late nights, early mornings, busy days, and the heat which sucks the energy right out of you!

That night we again went to a scout camp where we rode camels, horses, and raced ATVs. The camels were terrifying! To get up or down the camel seemed to want to buck you off, it was almost like bull riding to me!

I pretended I was awesome... I wasnt.

Then with ATV racing, we had a couple people who were very good and a few that were very bad... I was part of the very bad. I like to go fast and speed, but I'm not very good at technical courses, especially in sand.

Racing ATVs.

As you can see, I'm not very good...

After a while the Saudi Scouts wanted to play soccer, much to the American's horror. We said we would play, but when we huddled up to start the game we asked each other if anyone had every played before. Some of us had played in Elementary school, so they were the leaders of our team. I had only played one year of soccer when I was 5 or 6, but that made me instantly "good". Once the game started the Saudi's got 2 quick goals, and after that I'm pretty sure they went easy on us. They even gave us one of their better players...but we still lost 4-1.

After soccer we went into the cafeteria for a few snacks and drinks while we met many of the Scouts from this camp. Soon we were taken to the game room while dinner was being prepared and we had a great time playing foosball, pool, and ping pong. I love foosball and have gotten pretty good since I have one at home, so I naturally went to play that in the room. Soon I had made a team with one of the Saudi Scouts (I really wish I could remember his name!) and we were unstoppable. He was great at goalie, and I got a few shots in and we were the undefeated team!

The Saudi Scouts soon had to pray to Mecca, so us Americans hung out for a little while, but once the Saudi's came back it was dinner time. It was a very traditional meal, and I loved it! I don't remember exactly what we had, but I do remember it was one of my favorite meals of the trip!

We soon were entertained by the Scouts and a Magician. One of the scouts was very good at sound imitations and it made everyone laugh! The magician was very good, and he did tricks that I had never seen before in America! We also looked at some of the scout's artwork and I was very impressed. Soon we had to leave because a sand storm was coming and we needed to beat it back home to the hotel. We exchanged pins and badges, then ran to the cars.

I was pretty scared of the sandstorm, because all I knew of sandstorms was from Hollywood, like Hildago. In the movie a sandstorm is right behind him and all the other people get buried alive in sand. So as we were driving I was thinking me life was in danger, but it turned out it wasn't imminent death. It mostly just got very hard to see and hard to drive. It was like thick fog vision and ice-like slippery roads mixed together.

What I thought sandstorms were like.

I learned a lot about their culture that day too. In my journal I talked about how I learned that Saudis don't celebrate birthdays. (Which is ironic because today is my birthday). I may not have understood this right, but they don't celebrate it because you only celebrate death, so celebrating your birthday is bad luck because they believe you'll die in that year. One of my Saudi friends has informed me that this isn't right. Not sure how I could have mixed that up, but on his comment below he has links to Wikipedia on how Muslims celebrate birthday :)

More things I learned...
-Muslims can have certain prayers. I was talking with Musa that morning and he said that at morning prayer they had a special rain prayer because it had been very dry lately.
-If a Muslim kills someone than you are either beheaded, pay a fine, or the victim's family doesn't press charges and forgives you. I learned this from one of the scouts whose cousin had killed someone. The victim's father asked for 5 million Riyals for payment, and the cousin did so now he is free.
-Also, like many Americans, Bible names are popular for Muslims too. My friend Musa, his name means Moses. And Abraham is Ibrahim. I thought that was awesome!

Musa! (Which means Moses.)

-Saudi Arabian citizens also don't have to pay taxes. The King and Government don't really need more money, so they don't tax the people. That means that most prices aren't fixed, and most trading is bartering and debating.

I hope everyone is enjoying this series, and once again, sorry for the lack of pictures... come look at these posts in 9 days and they'll be tons :) I also hope that through this blog that everyone can appreciate and understand Saudi Arabia more! I love this country and the wonderful people in it!

(Stay tuned for Part 4 soon!)

Saudi Arabia, the Country that Changed Me. (Part 2)

When last I left off, I had just had one of the longest days of my life traveling to the KSA, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I went to bed pretty early but I still felt tired when I woke up because we had another long day ahead of us so we woke up early. To me the sunrise seemed very early, but that was because I was used to the North American spring where there is still more dark than light, but in Saudi Arabia they are actually pretty close to the equator so their days and nights are fairly balanced.

Our first stop of the day was Al-Musmak, a historic fort that is the site where Saudi Arabia first started to become a country. It's kind of like America's Lexington or Concord... it's where the fighting first started in their Revolutionary War.

King Abdulaziz, the Saudi's George Washington.

It was a very interesting place and we got a special tour inside of it. It is mostly made of mud and brick with a few wooden supports, so I was a bit scared when they told us we were going to the top. Going to the top wasn't allowed, but they wanted to take us up there anyway...but seeing the No Entrance sign didn't help to my fear of the whole fort crumbling beneath me 4 stories below!

Model of Al Musmak

Al Musmak, the fort.

Me on top of Al Musmak.
(Musa and Fahad holding the banner.)

Dr. Qureshi and I in front of Al Musmak.

After touring Al Musmak, we went to an old fashioned market with all sorts of awesome things! They had old swords, lamps, coins, spices, and anything else you would find in an Indian Jones movie. I'm sure the Saudis thought we were crazy because they just saw all that stuff as old junk, but we saw them as awesome antique souvenirs! We hadn't exchanged our money yet, so we just had to look that day, but later on in the week we went to buy our treasures.

My kind of shop!

Outdoor market.

Musa showing us everything.

I wondered what my mom would
think if I brought home an Arabic Sword!

When we did exchange at the bank, we found the exchange rate to favor the dollar very well. 1 U.S. dollar was 3.5 Riyals and Riyals were worth a lot in their country. An example of this is buying a soda. With our US $1 we got 3.5 riyals, and 1 riyal could buy a normal sized soda! So to us we could buy 3 sodas with $1, where in the U.S. 1 soda is probably around $1.50! Gas was also amazingly cheap! Back in the U.S. gas was $3 a gallon, but in Saudi Arabia gas was about .50-.60 riyals so about .15-.20 U.S. cents!

After the market we then went to former King Fahd's cultural center outside of town. It was an interesting building that had a large theatre, museum, reception halls, and planetarium. It was a enormous building that could fit thousands of people in a night. But the strange thing was, it hadn't been used in years! You see, using an old king's palace or cultural center is like using your sibling's or cousin's old hand-me-downs. You want your own! So in Saudi Arabia there are dozens of old buildings from old kings that are maintained, but not used very often (if ever).

King Fahd.

Here is a stain glassed window at the cultural center showing the former king,
the current king, and the next prince in line.

The theatre.

After the cultural center we went back to the hotel for a couple hours to hang out and rest. Usually during this time I would write in my journal about the first half of the day, and then before bed I would finish writing the rest of our adventures. Looking back now, I'm so glad I did that instead of napping like everyone else, because this record is a lot more memorable than a nap.

That night we went to a "scout camp" at a local school, and for the rest of my trip it seemed every night we went to a "scout camp"for dinner and evening activities. I put scout camps in qutoes because in the U.S. we think of scout camps as little lodges and dirt patches for tents in the mountains. In Saudi Arabia a "scout camp" is an elaborate compound. These "camps" are at schools and have their own designated area like a soccer field or basketball court. They usually had a greeting tent (we'll talk about that later), permanent tents, basketball, soccer, and all sorts of toys close by. Some had ATV racing tracks, other had horses to ride, one had a camel we took turns riding, and most had game rooms with ping pong and pool.

This was part of the scout camp that
we visited that night.

Once we got to this scout camp we first were greeted by all the Saudi Scouts in their uniforms and in their ranks, and then headed into the greeting room. As I said in my previous post, the Saudis are some of the most generous people in the world and show wonderful hospitality; these greeting rooms showed that. Every single place we went, we were taken to greeting rooms. Scout camps, museums, Bedouin tents, everything! What is a greeting room you ask? This picture shows one, but mostly they were tents or rooms that guests first go to and receive dates, water, and coffee. Then you mostly socialize and hang out! I loved that custom!

This is a greeting room. Everyone sit on the cushions bordering
the outside and accepts dates, water, and coffee.  

The only problem was that me being part of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (The Mormons), our religion prohibits drinking coffee, alcohol, and wine. I asked Dr. Qureshi, who is also a Mormon, what to do in this situation because I didn't want to offend anyone and wanted to show gratitude for their hospitality. He said that I must accept the coffee, water, and dates, but eating and drinking them wasn't required. I quickly soon made a deal with the other Scouts who didn't share my faith. They quickly got addicted to the coffee because Arabic coffee has LOTS of caffeine, and I soon got addicted to dates because they are AMAZING! So us scouts being thrifty, we would switch. I would eat their dates, they would drink my coffee, and everyone was happy! (Sidenote: It's said that a white man can only have 4-5 dates before he has fiber overdose and has an unpleasant bathroom trip... but I guess I'm no normal white man because I had about 10-12 a day and was perfectly normal!)

After the greeting tent, we got to meet every scout at the camp. We traded pins and badges that we had collected for that very reason. I felt bad it was all I had, because they're pins were medal and fancy, but I felt like our badges weren't nearly as cool. Maybe the grass is always greener on the other side? We then had some free time and some of us played basketball against the Saudis. It was interesting to see throughout the week what sports our different countries valued. The Saudis didn't care much for basketball and didn't know very much about football, but they were very good at soccer and loved racing!

Saudi Scouts showing us their songs.

By then it was close to sunset, and writing this blog right now, I really miss those sunsets. It just felt great, after a long hot day the nights would cool off and a nice breeze would feel wonderful! We had dinner there with kabobs of lamb and beef, which were very good. Throughout the trip I noticed that not only did I love the taste of everything because it was so fresh, but that my stomach agreed with everything too!

Quickly after dinner the scouts and everyone there had to wash up and pray to Mecca. It was very interesting because I had never seen a Muslim pray to Mecca before, but afterward I had nothing but respect for them! They are truly devoted religious people, and I admire that very much! After they prayed they even taught us a little class about what they believe and explained a lot of things. One thing that surprised me most was that they believe in most of the Old Testament and believe that Jesus was an inspired prophet. I also learned that they pray 5 times a day, but on Friday it's different because they go to Mosque and have special prayer and lessons from the Imam. As I was learning this I couldn't help think of how many "Christian" friends I have who rarely ever pray or go to church, yet here the Muslims are doing it everyday! I was inspired by their devotion!

I asked if I could take a picture while we respectfully watched.

I hope people are liking this series, and I hope some of my Saudi friends are able to read this and understand my story. I loved this trip and want everyone to be able to have the chance to learn of the wonderful country of Saudi Arabia!

(Stay tuned for Part 3 in the next couple days!)

Saudi Arabia, the Country that Changed Me. (Part 1)

Today exactly a year ago, I was in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia starting a trip that I will never forget. Before going I was nervous because before the trip I had only been to Canada and Mexico before, but those were merely day trips. For this trip I was staying in a foreign country 6,700 miles away from my home (yes I looked it up :P ).

I should probably explain why I went to Saudi Arabia before I get too far into the story... so here it is. In February I was in school and my mom texted me out of the blue and said, "Would you want to go to Saudi Arabia with Dr. Qureshi and meet the royal family in April? You need to let me know ASAP!" Of course I was super flustered but always willing to go on an adventure, so without knowing anything else, I said yes! 

Once I got home my parents explained that Dr. Qureshi (our neighbor and church friend) was part of a group of 12 scout people that were going on an exchange for the Boys Scout of America. One of the kids had dropped out and since Dr. Qureshi was in charge, he picked me as long as I fit four requirements...

1. Be an Eagle Scout 

2. Have a Passport 

3. Be under 18 by April 1st.

4. Pay the $800 for the trip that was already super-subsidized. 

To me, I knew this was a blessing from God, because I had met all these requirements!

1. When my family moved from California to Washington D.C. I was close to getting my Eagle Scout Award but had little motivation to get it done any time soon. But since it's near impossible to transfer records when you move, I hurried up and finished it weeks before we moved. If we hadn't moved when we did I probably would not have had my Eagle Scout, and wouldn't have been able to go.

2. Before we had decided to move the previous summer, we had scheduled a camping trip to Canada for a couple weeks, and to get into Canada you need a passport, so our whole family got them. Of course, once we found out we were going to move we didn't go on our trip, but I had gotten my passport. If this hadn't happened I wouldn't have been able to go because passport stuff takes months and I only had days to send in my passport for permission to get into Saudi Arabia.

3. Our trip was planned from April 1st to April 9th. My birthday is April 12th. If it were just a few days later than it had been planned, I wouldn't have been able to go.

4. The $800 was a big load of cash that I didn't have. My parents didn't have it either so we were afraid that I would have to borrow money somehow. But then God answered our prayers again! That winter Washington D.C. was pounded by 3 blizzards. 2 of  the 3 blizzards over 3 feet deep were after I found out I needed $800. So I didnt what any enterprising high school student does...I snow plowed and shoveled people driveways for money. Luckily Dr. Qureshi was out of town and let us use his new snowblower as long as we blowed his for free. So we plowed his driveway and knocked on every door in the neighborhood to see if they would like us to plow their driveway. Most people didn't have snowblowers, (and in 3 feet of snow it's impossible to shovel your driveway in less than 3 hours.) In two days working a total of 24 hours, we raised the $800 for my trip. It was quite ironic shoveling and plowing snow to go to the scorching dry desert...but whatever gets the job done right?

So that was that, I met all 4 requirements with the blessing of God, and there is no denying it was His help that got me on my trip...Now back to the story!

From Washington D.C. to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia was around 13 hours long and it was about 15 hours to our final destination Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (The Capitol). We flew Saudi Arabian Airlines, which was the nicest airline I had ever flown in in my life! The had TV screens in front of every seat on which you could watch any of their 50 movies for free! 

They also served full course meals (free again), but if that wasn't enough there was a buffet of free food too! When one of the guys that was with me came back with food from the back, I asked where he got it and he said, "Dude there is a huge buffet in the back, just grab what you want!" I was terrified! I thought for sure there was no way the buffet could be free too and I thought they would arrest us for stealing!!

Eventually I went back there and asked the flight attendant 3 times making sure it truly was free... it was, I felt like a dummy.

They also had these cameras on the front and bottom of the plane so you could see live images of what you are flying over and flying into! I always loved the window seat so I could see everything, but this was the window seat times 10!

Screen showing flight.

Once we landed at the Riyadh Airport we learned quickly that Saudis are some of the most generous and hospitable people in the world. They took us through a VIP lounge and merely put our bags through a meal detector. (Unlike coming back to the U.S. where we had to declare and show everything!) They showered us with gifts and took plenty of pictures and off we went!

Driving in Saudi Arabia was definitely a thrill ride! If it were a ride at Disneyland the line would be hours long. We had two government cars that took us everywhere and our drivers were amazing! If I were driving we would have gotten in dozens of car accidents, but these guys didnt get in a single one while we were there, they were truly professionals! City streets..85mph, freeways...more than that! But by the end of the week I loved our drivers, they were brothers and were so nice and very funny! Even though they didnt speak any English at all, we had translators at the end of the week tell us they called us their kids, and they were right it did feel like that!

Fahad and Sultan. The Racing Brothers!

Sultan, Me, and Fahad at McDonalds.

After we had driven from the airport to our hotel we took a little breather (We had just gone over 30+ hours without sleep), and then that night we had a little news conference thing with the Saudi Scout Association. In my journal that night I wrote, "We went to this big conference room and all sat in these super fancy, super comfortable chairs. They filmed us and took our pictures and everytime someone walked in the room we stood up, shook their hand, said our name, took a picture, and sat back down."

View outside my hotel.

Front view of our fancy hotel.

After we had all greeted everyone and sat down for good, they passed around this communal incense holder. The Saudis being the wonderful guests they always are, gave us Americans the incense first. They gave it to Anish, from Dallas and not knowing what to do with it, he put his face close to the incense and smoked it through his nose.

Immediately all the Saudis start laughing and laughing while Anish is coughing and coughing. Once everyone settled down (which was a while) one of the kind Saudis showed us the right way to use it... merely hold the incense in front of you and waft it onto your clothes so the smell sticks and you smell nice. (Sidenote: I thought this idea was genius! In America we could all have so Old Spice incense and at a party just waft it on your clothes so no one feels self conscious about smelling bad!)

After exchanging gifts and talking about our plane ride to the camera, we were off to bed. The time difference is 8 hours, but after not sleeping on the plane was zonked right away. And that was Day One of my Saudi Arabian trip!

(Stayed tuned for Part Two...)