At the beginning of each semester, our teachers asked us to buy books and lecture pamphlets from the university bookshop. The bookshop was located beyond the girls’ campus, so we couldn’t go there ourselves. While my classmates sent their drivers with a shopping list, Abouya was the one who went there for me. He might have to wait two or three hours to get a copy because of the thick, frenzied crowds at the university bookshop, and each time he refused to allow me to pay for the cost of the books from the monthly stipend the university gave me, no matter how expensive they were.
I came from a very poor neighborhood in Mecca, and an even poorer family. Although I had traveled to Egypt, I couldn’t really conceive of the fact that there was an entirely different Saudi world only an hour away. When I went to study in Jeddah, it was a huge social leap, and one for which I wasn’t prepared. I heard girls talking about clothing brands, and I saw my classmates with luxury bags, expensive watches, and designer sunglasses. I listened to stories about summer trips to Geneva and London, and I saw drivers in luxury cars waiting for the students outside the university gates. The other students bestowed looks of superiority or pity on those who were less well off, and I felt those looks wherever I went.
My father’s taxi was a Toyota Corolla, and like all the taxis in Mecca, it was painted bright yellow. Abouya had bought it secondhand. The air conditioner didn’t work, which was quite an inconvenience given that we lived in one of the hottest regions of the world, where daytime temperatures commonly exceed 40 degrees centigrade (104 degrees Fahrenheit). Each afternoon, when I left the university, I took special care so that none of my classmates would see me getting into the distinctive yellow car. I didn’t want to hear their hurtful comments. But it also hurt me knowing that I was ashamed for my classmates to see my father.
Money had always been an issue for my family, but once I got to university, things got a little easier. The monthly financial allowance from the school (1,000 riyals for male and female students in the scientific departments, and 800 riyals for those in the arts departments) was a huge help when it came to buying things I needed for my studies, even clothes. I worked in the women’s sports club to supplement my stipend, earning an hourly wage of ten riyals ($2.60), and I could earn up to 500 riyals per month. Despite my long hiatus from drawing, I was still a good artist, and I would also create drawings and paintings to sell to my classmates, usually for 35 riyals, but sometimes for as much as 70. On one occasion, I received a request to work on a mural that was two by three meters. I spent a full month completing it, and was paid 1,500 riyals, the most I’d been paid for anything in my life. I used the money to buy a new, remote-controlled television and a VHS player. Abouya still has them.
My financial independence liberated me. Having money enabled me to make decisions and follow them through. Not only did I no longer constantly consult my father, I did some things without him even knowing: fear of physical violence had been replaced by a fear of disappointing him. Now, for the first time in my life, I had the freedom to choose the color of my clothes and shoes, my hairstyle, even where I went (inside the campus). These choices, although simple, gave me the feeling that I had some say over my life. I had been conferred a degree of responsibility, I could trust myself. These were feelings that I had always been deprived of, though I hadn’t noticed the deprivation. I had thought that being under the control of a male guardian was the normal way to live. How could I have known otherwise?
Though we were permitted to do many things in the university, wearing pants remained a taboo. They were allowed only in the sports club, and even then they had to be loose and worn with a long T-shirt to cover the derriere. I found out about the university sports club from my sister. Although women’s sports are banned under the Saudi code, King Abdulaziz is the exception. It is the only government school in the country that allows girls to play sports. I had always loved sports, and I registered at the sports club in my first week. Though I’d been kept from playing sports after I reached puberty—no more soccer with my cousins or riding bikes or running races—my passion remained alive. If I didn’t have a lecture to attend, I would spend my time in the sports club. All of my close friends at the university were also members of the sports club, and I participated in every activity available: basketball, volleyball, badminton, table tennis, karate, cycling, running, billiards, and foosball. I kept my sporting activities a secret from my family, because in their view they were socially and religiously forbidden. Sports was the first taboo that I broke, and I didn’t feel an ounce of guilt. I was happy to be making up for those lost years. But I was also careful to make sure that my sports never affected my academic achievements: I remained a top student throughout all my university years, never once breaking my covenant with Mama.
Because of the separation of the sexes in Saudi society, a female subculture known in Arabic as boyāt (boya in the singular) began to thrive. The expression boya is made by taking the English word boy and adding an a sound, used in Arabic to feminize a word. It referred to women who were tomboys. There was also an entire subculture of feminized men.
At my university, there were a considerable number of boyat. They wore men’s hairstyles, men’s shirts and even men’s fragrance. Each boya had a close female friend with whom she’d walk hand in hand and from whom she was rarely apart. Some of them went to the sports club. My classmates and I often met in our free time to work on projects or homework, and I remember their reactions when I suggested meeting at the club. “I’m afraid of what the sports club will do to my reputation,” they’d say. “I don’t trust that place.”