Portland State Magazine Spring 2013

18 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE SPRING 2013 Women students from Saudi Arabia are finding a strikingly different but welcoming culture at Portland State. Here in America MASHAER ALFARAJ came here from Alsharqiya, Saudi Arabia, two years ago, right out of high school, to study geol- ogy. Her father and older sister came along and stayed for one month while she got set up in an apartment. “I did not know how to do anything!” Alfaraj, now 20, remembers. “My mom bought all my clothes, she did all my laundry. I had never written a check. I had to learn to do everything by myself. I have a brother studying in Eugene, and he comes up every so often, but mostly I am doing everything by myself.” Alfaraj’s story is not unusual for the more than 100 Saudi Arabian women enrolled at PSU, part of a swelling Saudi student population across the United States. In 2005, the Saudi Arabian government launched the Saudi Scholarship Program, which has pushed PSU’s Saudi student population from 49 in 2005 to nearly 500 in 2012, including another 200 students in English language classes. Their government pays for full tuition, health care, a housing stipend, and yearly round trip airline tickets for trips back to Saudi Arabia. With more than 70,000 students across the globe, the program is designed to promote cultural understanding and establish closer ties between Saudi Arabia and more than 20 other nations. Forging those ties is challenging when language, cultural customs, and everyday expectations are radically dif- ferent. Life in the U.S. is especially daunting for Saudi women, who are not used to mixed-gender classrooms, living on their own, interacting with strangers, or the informal manners of many Americans. DINA LINGGA, 37 , works with Saudi students in the international student advising office. As an advisor, she helps these students—especially women—adjust to life in the U.S. Her duties are many, and include acting as an interpreter, help- ing Saudi women navigate the PSU campus, and providing general information. “We encourage the women to really engage with America and to build social networks both with other Saudi students and with American students,” says Lingga. “Living as a woman WR I T T E N B Y MEG DE S CAMP