Success!

Today was the last day of the Women in Entrepreneurship Workshop, and we’re sad to see it end. The portion we were teaching actually ended yesterday with a session in leadership and project management. We had a lot of fun creating exercises for the women and going through them together. We had the group do a “Trip to the Moon” exercise. For you Haasies out there, it was very similar to Desert Survival, but for some reason, we felt that a desert survival game just wouldn’t translate well in Saudi Arabia! Talking about leadership, such a culturally sensitive topic, gave us the amazing opportunity to hear about the challenges these women face on a daily basis. We ended the workshop feeling like we had learned just as much from them as we hope they learned from us.

For today’s final session on social entrepreneurship and the challenges Saudi businesswomen face, the pressure was off, and we were lucky enough to enjoy the session from the audience. The speakers were incredible and the day ended with closing words from Dr. Suhair, certificates for the participants, and a BIG cake, decorated with the Haas logo no less (pictures to come). As another treat, we had a closing dinner at a beautiful open-air restaurant by the water with some of the DAH administration and workshop participants. We sat on grand couches with lots of pillows and traditional décor and had a real taste of local food (pictures of this to come as well). Just one problem – we were the only ones in the restaurant - again. Sure our usual 6:30PM dinners are a little early for Saudi tastes, so this time we held out until 9. But it wasn’t until we were leaving at 11PM that the place started getting crowded and the music turned on (on a weekday). Our conversation with our driver on the ride home was reinforcement that our time schedule just isn’t aligned with Saudi culture. When we told him about walks we take along the waterfront at 12 noon on the weekends, he advised us to learn Kung-Fu in case we run into any problems in an abandoned city that doesn’t wake up until 4PM. But tomorrow is Wednesday, which equals Friday for us, so we’ll see what our next (and last) weekend in Jeddah brings. Hint, there could be some Red Sea snorkeling involved.