From : EKBAL AL-DALAHMEH
Sent : Saturday, September 3, 2005 3:08 AM
To : arabtimesnewspaper@hotmail.com
Subject : the saudi student at the university of jordan


salam:

i am a U S citizen that came from jordan ,graduated form the university of jordan and worked for 18 months in saudia arabia.

i read the email and the responses regarding the upset saudia arabia student in the university of jordan.

first of all , don't ever generalize: because that is the first sign that you don't think before you speak, which is not a good sign! i come from jordan , my country that i will always love and be part of it and defend it with my soul. at the same time i will tell the truth , i beleive that student suffered alot and went back and forth for no reason which some times make us as jordanian mad and hate our selves. but at the other hand , i remember when i went to work in saudia arabia, 2 things happened , first a wounderfull saudian studnet , gave me a ride from the airport to his place and insist that i will stay at his apartment for the night and was very generous , i will never forget the favour he did to me ( we ended renting an apartment together for more than a year). he came to visit me in jordan and i took care of him more than a brother.

at the other hand, the contract that i left jordan for , to work at saudia arabia was changed few days after i got there( for less money of course), they took my passport away and i couldn't have any access to it. many many times when i needed some papers signed by the office in saudia arabia, i had to make many trips to office, they will take the paper in the morning that only needed routine signeture that can be done in a second and tell me to come back after the noon prayer, and when i come back , they will tell me it is not ready, come back tomorrow. and then the next day i find out that i still need another 5 signetures and the same day one will repeat it self. the conclusion that it reminded me of being in jordan. same struggle that the saudian student had in jordan i had in saudia arabia

another thing that happened to me, i went to saudia arabia on january as a lecturrer in a college, so when the summer vacation came they only gave me half of my summer vacatoin and forced me to come back in the middle of the summer for 4 full weeks when there was nothing for me to do just because i didn't work the whole year so i don't deserve the whole vacation. but what did i come back for!? i didn't know?! i used to go every day to the college in the morning and set there tell it is 2pm then go home, there was no students to teach and nothing to do, at the other hand other lecturrers in another areas , who came with me at the same time and the same contract had the whole summer vacation. so it looked really stupied.

as a conclusion : you will find the good and bad people in every country , you might suffer in that country but that doesn't make all those people bad. i 've met a lot of saudian that i liked and i wish they will be my friends forever and i've met some mentally retarded people there too , and i am sure the same principle will apply for jordan.

we in jordan will never deny the fact that we recieve a lot of help from the saudi government and it is a market for our intelligent graduates , so let us keep the good relations and not to listen to a few retarded people who want to start the (fitnah) among us.

thanks for arabtimes for giving me the chance to express my self

may GOD bless us

salam

Ps: please don't publish my email address

thank you

Ekbal