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Does That Abaya Come in Brown?

The West has a particular image of Saudi women.

Draped in plain black cloth with their faces mostly, if not fully covered.

But basic black isn’t the only option. There are personally designed abayas, gray abayas and a Jeddah favorite, the brown abaya.

Originally we featured a slide show with photos of young women wearing the new trend in abayas. Sadly, these women began receiving negative attention and reactions due to the photos. So we have withdrawn the images.

Laura Bashraheel is a journalist with the Saudi Gazette. She says her closet at home has abayas of many colors.

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A Day with Prince Alwaleed

Prince Alwaleed greeted us at his office at Kingdom Center in Riyadh.

The Prince ranks #29 on Forbes World’s Billionaire’s List.

He is a voracious consumer of the media. He constantly monitors the news and enthusiastically shares his perspective on current events.

The Prince recently made a sizable investment in Twitter. He decided to take a pass on Facebook. After our press conference, Prince Alwaleed graciously invited us to his dessert camp outside of Riyadh on our last night in Saudi Arabia.

There were falcons, camels, and my favorite, Arabian Horses.

And then there was dinner. The food just kept on coming.

After our meal. We retired to the relaxation area. This is when the delegation began to pepper the Prince with questions.

One journalist asked, “What do you think is the main thing Americans get wrong about Saudis?”

In his answer (hear it below) the Prince says, “a patient did this to me,” The Prince then demonstrated by holding up his right hand and moving it as if he were pointing and then firing a gun.

Prince Alwaleed pointed out that Saudi Arabia, like the United States, is vulnerable to terrorists attacks:

The Prince also shared his thoughts on the crisis in Syria:

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This blog was made possible by the Gatekeepers trip to Saudi Arabia organized by the International Reporting Project.

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