AVisit to the Desert

We were up and out by 8 am. This morning for a presentation about a project called the King Abdulaziz Center for Knowledge and Culture or “Ithra” for short. Ithra means the search for knowledge in Arabic. Basically it’s this massive project that Aramco (the oil company that brought us here) is undertaking to create a center that will bring together all types of people to interact with each other. Aramco wants to give back to the community and the country. It is still in the planning stages but they hope to have it completed by 2012.

Our next stop was Leadership Development Center and a College Preparatory School for girls. This is a program through Aramco in which girls who graduate from high school near the top of their class are then helped to prepare to go to college in the United States or Europe with Aramco paying the bill. In return they must commit to work for Aramco for several years. We were able to meet some of the students, observe classrooms, and then have lunch with some of the students.

This student agreed to show us what was inside her locker.

A girl named Noor sat at our table. She was hoping to attend college in Boston and was a computer science major. She was very concerned that women in Saudi Arabia get educational opportunities.
After lunch we headed to the desert, the northern part of the Empty Quarter. We were headed to a camel ranch—a real camel ranch, not a tourist stop. We had to get out of the tour bus and climb into the back of vehicles and bounce off road over the sand to get to the ranch. The rancher had collected his roaming camels from the desert early for us to see. Here they are in the pens.

He also milked the camels and offered us a taste of camel milk. Our guide had warned us NOT to drink the milk for fear of getting ill.

We spent the day walking on the dunes, watching camel caravans come home for the night across the desert, and just taking in the vastness of it all. After sunset the desert got very cold and we went inside the rancher’s tent. It was a huge tent with carpets on the floor and a fire in the fireplace. He served us cookies, dates, and Arabian coffee.

Next we headed to dinner at the Heritage Village Restaurant. This meal was served Bedouin style, in a tent and seated on the floor. The Bedouins are the nomadic people of the desert in Saudi Arabia. This meal was full of traditional foods and LOTS of it.