Jeddah

Wow I have no idea of what day it is. Today is Tuesday but here the weekend is on Thursday and Friday o today is kind of like Thursday. We have been on such a tight schedule that this is really the first down time we have had during the day. I am overwhelmed by everything that I am learning. This morning we have been at Effat College which is a university for women. All of the women here are so intelligent. Many have been educated in the U.S. or the U.K. and so they don't have a lot of questions about us but we have a lot about them. We usually eat our meals with our hosts or local people and they are great about letting us ask questions. Effat college was amazing, but they are only able to accomodate so many students. This place is a mixture of culture and religion and tradition, and people want things to change but it is slow. Women re making many advancements. I learned today that more women graduate from college in the kingdom than men but once they graduate there aren't jobs for them. The women are working very hard to change that. We also visited the Jeddah chamber of commerce and the women's chamber of commerce there. It has been in operation for 5 years. the men in Jeddah are very supportive of it. Women wanted to be able to be elected to the board and were able to. The board has two elected females and two appointed females. Their goal is to remove the obstacles facing women. One reason they have been able to do what they Are doing because of the Royal Decree 120. It basically says that women need to participate in the economy. King Abdullah has made many changes for women. Women are 49.4% of the population and 1/2 of the country's population is under 20 years old. 30%of the Saudi population supports 70% of the population. Total population is 16.834 million people. There are so many other things I have learned and I hope that I can come back and teach everyone.

Yesterday was the best though. The camel farm was amazing and I will try to post some pictures for you.