RIYADH: At the immigration check at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, Ghadeer Al-Swailim got her first taste of how things are done in the West. As he always does, Al-Swailim’s brother handed the immigration officer his passport as well as his sister’s. The immigration officer initially refused to take the booklets, telling the brother that his sister must hold her own passport when she goes through the immigration and customs process at the airport.
“I felt independent!” said Ghadeer, a 20-year-old Saudi postgraduate student on her way to Maastricht under Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah’s foreign scholarship program.
Holland, one of the most liberal countries in the world, has 138 Saudi students currently on scholarships; 36 of them are women. In 2007 the country was added to the list of authorized Saudi scholarship destinations; students are able to choose from three fields there: Medicine, dentistry and engineering.
Ghadeer’s experience at Schiphol demonstrates how these young women are experiencing a type of social freedom that is different from the one in which they were raised. In interviews with Arab News, four women students described their life away from home and family.
Abeer Al-Nasir, 20, says she enjoys Holland and in particular the tulips and wildflowers that spring up from the ground in so many places in The Netherlands. Like the Dutch in general, riding a bicycle is part of Abeer’s life.
“I am alive, independent and lucky,” she said.
Abeer lives with her family in Holland and studies aviation in a mixed environment that is quite different from her previous studies in the same field in Jordan.
“The interviewers (for the program in Holland) asked me how I could be trusted as a Saudi — especially after Sept. 11 — with an aviation license,” she said. “For almost four hours I tried to convince them that Saudis are peaceful people and coexist with all religions and that our leader King Abdullah is traveling around the world to call for peace.”
Abeer pointed out that some of her colleagues have called Saudis spoiled.
“That’s when I tell them that the government is encouraging all people to study at top universities and even paying the expenses of the students and their families,” she said.
These women have said they learned to adapt to the different cultural environment while still retaining their traditional modes of dress and customs. They live on their own, ride bicycles and do their own paperwork, yet they also continue to wear modest clothes, including colorful head scarves, jeans sometimes.
None of the women interviewed by Arab News said they wore abayas, but they also point out that they ascribe to Islamic values of modesty when interacting with members of the opposite sex.
Fatimah Al-Dawood, 19, a dentistry student at Groningen University, says that she is more comfortable in Holland without the abaya.
“I think the point of the abaya is to not attract attention,” she said. “But putting it on in Holland or any other European country would certainly do that. For this reason I see that wearing a head scarf along with modest clothes are enough in this part of the world.”
Twenty-year-old Kawthar Al-Marhoon, from Qatif, shares an apartment with her women colleagues in Groningen, located in northern Holland. There are 56 Saudi students studying there. She began studying medicine in May after receiving the Saudi study-abroad scholarship.
Kawthar’s brother stayed with her the first three months.
One of the requirements for Saudi women to obtain government study-abroad scholarships is that a legal guardian must accompany them during the entire duration of their studies. In many cases, however, the guardian will go and then return to Saudi Arabia later. The requirement to send a guardian to accompany an unmarried Saudi woman (which is usually a brother, though mothers are also allowed to be guardians in this case) for the entire study-abroad period places an additional burden on women scholarship-seekers, especially if they are unmarried.
In Kawthar’s case, her brother left and she had to learn to deal with a lot of responsibilities that she used to ascribe to men.
“It wasn’t easy for me to adjust with load of household tasks, such as fixing the Internet in my apartment or going to the electricity company to pay my bill,” said Kawthar, who had never been in any European country before winning her scholarship.
Now Kawthar travels to Amsterdam to process her own immigration documents. In Saudi Arabia, a woman would typically need permission to travel to another city and the presence of her male guardian to engage in bureaucratic procedures.
“I knew before I arrived in Holland it would be different from Saudi Arabia and I feel this every day,” said Kawthar. “I make use of freedom within the framework of my religion and principles because I am an ambassador for my country.”
Kawthar pointed out that during Eid Al-Fitr, her university granted all Muslims three days off to celebrate the occasion.
“Dutch people are open-minded and friendly,” she said. “Their views toward Muslims are varied, but generally they have respect.” In the Kingdom, unrelated men and women are segregated from each other in nearly all aspects of day-to-day life. However, when Saudis study abroad (especially outside of Arab countries) that barrier is removed in most cases.
Fatimah, who is pursuing studies in dentistry, has five men in her class and the instructor is also a man. “In the beginning it was quite embarrassing, but after a while I got used to it,” she said. Fatimah says she doesn’t interact with men outside of the classroom. “Outside class I have made many strong friendships with Dutch families, as well as Arab girls,” she said.
Her relationship with other Saudi colleagues in the class is limited, however, “because we belong to the same traditional backgrounds in which the unrelated men and women are not encouraged to mix.”
For dentistry student Nahlah Abdullah, that meant she had to study both English and Dutch. “Understanding Dutch takes a lot of time,” said the 19-year-old student. Although she has traveled to Austria, Turkey and United Kingdom, Nahlah thinks living away from the family is the most difficult part of the expatriate experience.One of the biggest cultural variations that faced Nahlah when she arrived in Holland was the eating habits. “Lunch does not exist for most Dutch. Instead, sandwiches are enough,” she said, adding that this has affected her concentration and that she has lost a lot of weight. She thinks that some Saudis prefer to isolate themselves from the Dutch public because their culture is different.
