November 30-December 1, 2011 - Soccer Tournament in Jeddah (جدة)

As Mom said in the last post, I got to go to Jeddah for the varsity girls' soccer tournament.  We live in Dhahran, near Dammam in the Eastern Province (gold) and Jeddah is in Makkah (tourquoise), so I flew all the way across Saudi Arabia to get to Jeddah.

                        

Both the boys' and girls' varsity soccer teams played in Jeddah at the same time, but at different schools, so we rode the bus to the airport and flew on the same flight.

We arrived in Jeddah around 11:30 in the morning, but had to wait a few hours till our game.

We played two games that day and won both of them.

 I had fun making new friends and learning new Arabic words that day.  I learned two new words: wallah and yallah. Wallah means "I swear" and yallah means "let's go".

Here is my team.  The girl in the yellow is the goalie.



After our two victories, we met our hosts.  Instead of spending money on hotel rooms, whenever sports teams travel, they're hosted by families of the home team.

I was hosted by a girl named Lilly El Jerby.  Her mom is American and her dad is a Palestinian Arab.

After our games, I donned my abaya and followed her out of the school where we waited until her driver pulled up.  I loaded my duffle bag into the trunk and climbed into the backseat with Lilly and her mom.  Lilly's family doesn't live in a compound but in a complex in the city itself, so they have to wear abayas every time they walk out the door. I'm grateful we only have to wear our abayas when we leave the compound. At the El Jerbys' house we ate take-out Chinese food and chilled for the rest of the afternoon.

This is a picture of Lilly and her mom at their front door.

Here I am with Lilly.  You can see how close their neighbor's door is since they live in a complex.

After breakfast the next morning, we drove back to the school, which is only five minutes away, and prepared for the games that day.  My team was certain we would win; we had beat the most intimidating team six-to-one the previous day and figured we had a good chance of winning the tournament. But when our last game finally came around, we found that the two teams were pretty evenly matched, and that it would be a tough win. Neither team could seem to score a goal, and we were afraid that we would tie and have to shoot penalty shots to determine the winning team. Then, when we only had a few more minutes left, our competitors scored a goal. To our dismay, the game ended one to zero, and we placed second.

I was selfishly relieved to find that the boys had also won second place and that we all had the same color medals. I had a great time in Jeddah, but more importantly, I had an amazing experience that I will always remember.

                                                       

~ Jordan ~