After a while, my parents decided that they wanted to move to an even more Muslim-ruled country. They were trying to move to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. They were having a difficult time because my father did not have a college degree, and that is generally required in order to get a working visa. My mother, with a Bachelor's in psychology, ended up getting the working visa as our primary with my father, siblings and I under her. She was to be an elementary English teacher. I remember that when she got the good news her visa was approved, she cried out of joy. I cried out of disappointment. Things were already bad for us, why move to a country where men rule?
We arrived in Riyadh. We stayed at a hotel (or furnished apartments as they call it) which had bedrooms, kitchen and two living rooms. My father ended up being able to get a job at the same school as my mother and they both began orientation. They then moved us from the hotel into our new home: a small, dirty apartment with broken furniture and bars on the windows (which is normal for windows in Saudi) and peeling wall paper on the windows and balcony doors instead of curtains. The place was infested with cockroaches. We had no washer and dryer. We were told it would be temporary-but we were there for a whole year or more. We tried to make it as much of a home as possible, but with boxes and suitcases still unpacked, it was difficult to not feel that it was temporary. It was a misery for some of us.
Lesson Learned: Watch out for warning signs! If you are having a difficult time in getting something done, maybe God does not want it for you.
