A Saudi Life

Ch1: Cross Roads

 The room was quite as the judge at the Specialized Criminal Court, also know as terrorism court, in Riyadh prepared to read the verdict to my case. Sitting there with 3 others in Court accused of being a terrorist and an anti government sympathisers is so surreal for me as I wait for the judgment to be handed down. The prosecutor has requested a jail term of 10 years and 1000 lashes a prospect that scared me very much. I still can't believe I ended up here, how did this happen? Am I going to spend the next 10 years of my life in jail for something I did not do? How did this all start? Well I guess it actually started 23 years ago.

It's 1992 and its a new school year and I'm back to school transferring to my first year in secondary school. Its been a hard last year, Saddam's Armies invaded Kuwait and all hell broke loss. Saudi Arabia has been in a state of war for the first time in its history since its unification in 1932. Life has been weird and crazy the last year with schools closed most of the time and people moving all around the country trying to move away from the range of the scud missiles Saddam unleashed on us, recruitment camps for volunteers 16 years or older were established under the pressure and demand of the population to play a part in defending the country, the patriotic fever has reached its ultimate level in the country. Thousands of Kuwaiti refugees moved to Saudi including the royal family. This also coincided with the deployment of US forces in Saudi as a major part of the international coalition to protect Saudi and liberate Kuwait, which didn't go smoothly with many Saudis who saw it either as a symbol of weakness to depend on others or saw it as an invasion of infidels to the holy lands. But little did the Saudi government have an option in the matter, Saudi forces were small compared to Iraq's one million man force and with little to no real combat experience compared to Iraq's 7 year war experience with Iran, plus Iraq was massing an assault on the Saudi Kuwaiti boarders, at least that's what the US and their satellite photos claimed, if you ask some till this day they would tell you those photos were brushed and the Iraqi forces were building defences and not an assault, but that's the past and what happened happened.

Oh ya I forgot, let me introduce my self. My name is Faisal AlKhalidy from Saudi Arabia, born and raised in Riyadh city but my family originally descends from the Qassim region just north of Riyadh city. I'm 16 years old and starting my first year in secondary school I guess its called high school in the USA. My father is Naseer AlKhalidy an accountant for the Ministry of Defence, my mother is Haia AlMishary a house wife and a great mother. I have three brothers and one sister. I'm the oldest in the family. We live in one of Riyadh's modern middle class neighbourhoods in the north called AlOliya. I love it here it's a bit more modern then the rest of Riyadh with more of a western style. Our house is decent and average for a middle class family at the time. Its about 650 square meters with a small garden, a room for the chauffeur, 5 bedrooms, mens guest living room, women guest living room, family living room, dinning room, kitchen, and 6 bathrooms.

Man I miss summer vacation, waking up so early is no fun, "Mom close those curtness the light is annoying" I shout out as my mother enters my room and opens the curtness to let the sun light in and wake me up. "Its 6 am and the drive to school takes half an hour so get out of bed and get ready it's a school day not a vacation anymore." she says that as she turns the AC off and exits my room and continues her morning routine of waking me and my brothers and sister up. 6 am, man I got used to sleeping in till 12 pm if I wanted. I start to lazily move out of bed, man its cold that AC works great at night. I finally get out of bed and head to the bathroom. I look into the mirror and man do I look horrible, I got so used at staying up late during summer that I didn't sleep till 2 am last night. I brush my teeth and wash up and then perform wodu, woudu is a ritual washing that muslims need to perform before praying, start out with washing the hands, followed by the mouth then the nose, the face, arms. hair and ears and finally the feet. I didn't wake up to perform the fajer (sunrise) prayer today so better late then never. I exit the bathroom and there on my desk I find a hot glass of milk, I guess the maid brought it in while I was washing up. My mom has gotten us used to having a glass of milk every morning just before school. I'll just let it cool down a bit while I pray and change into my school clothes. Its nice to have your own room, I feel sorry for Ali and Saad, my youngest two brothers, they have to share a room together and do they fight a lot. Ya I got my own room with a bathroom, Fahad the oldest of my brothers has his own room but shares the bathroom with Ali and Saad, Nora my sister has her own bedroom with a bathroom because she's the only girl even though she's the youngest. Of-course my mom and dad have their own room as well. I finish praying and head to the closet where I get my clothes for school out. Well nothing special for school, we wear what we usually wear everyday here in Saudi a thob and a somaq. A thob is like a shirt that is body length usually white specially during summer and a somag is a cloth that we wear on our heads. Its traditional Saudi clothes, we also usually wear an uqal to hold the somaq to our heads but its banned in school as some students used it as a weapon, an oqal is like a thick circular rope and can be painful if you hit someone with it. After I get my clothes on I check my bag, got a notebook and pencils, hope we get our books today. I drink my milk and exit my room. In the family living room I find my mom relaxing and having a cup of coffee, my dad is still asleep he won't wake up for another hour. I head to my mom kiss her forehead and sit down beside her as we wait for the rest of my brothers and sister to come down.