Saudi Arabia - Freedom?

 A Reason to Leave Home

 The title of this blog is “life-twists.” One of the biggest twists in my life was my move to Saudi Arabia in September 2009. Before moving to Saudi Arabia, I worked for more than 20 years in a government-funded research center in Germany. I was head of a research team developing polymeric membranes for gas and liquid separations most of this time. It was an excellent time, and I loved my work, my colleagues, and even my bosses. But things changed for the worse after two new directors were appointed (rumors say that one of these two was fired recently, too late for me).

Sometimes you meet people in life with whom you are not compatible; don’t wait too long, leave them alone, focus on your goals and ambitions! 

New Horizons

I searched for a new position, and four more group leaders did the same. 

By a happy coincidence, I learned during a vacation in Norway that Saudi Arabia had started to build a new technical university, the private King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). The concept made me curious; the university leadership, the faculty, and the students should be international, and KAUST should be the first mixed-gender university campus in Saudi Arabia. In my ears, this sounded like a revolution. And the best for us, my wife Suzana is a chemist like myself, they were looking for researchers with our expertise. We submitted applications, and after interviews at Imperial College in London, Georgia Tech in Atlanta, and finally at KAUST, we were accepted. At the same time, I was thrilled, but I also had some mixed feelings. The news from Saudi Arabia that reached Germany was nearly always bad, executions, public floggings, oppression of women, and so forth. I saw myself always as a fighter for freedom and democracy and now a new life in Saudi Arabia? Friends confronted me, saying, “ I would never support such an undemocratic country; how can you betray your beliefs?” I will come back to this at the end of this post.

The Beginning

We arrived at KAUST in September 2009, when it was opened officially. With us came our son Viktor, with whom we had just celebrated his 13^th birthday before leaving Germany. We received a two-bedroom villa close to the Red Sea, Viktor was enrolled at the KAUST international school, and the work could start. 

Our villa in 2010 (photo: K.-V. Peinemann)

The university was open, but most labs were not operational, nearly no chemicals, very little equipment. We smuggled some chemicals into the country (please do not imitate!), organized essential equipment, and off we went! We must have been among the first at KAUST who started chemical experiments. For me, this was a fun time. It brought me a deep satisfaction that I could now work with an experimental polymer, which was forbidden for me in Germany. We had the order from our new director only to work with traditional polymers, 20 years or older.  Can you believe this? 

We were excited and enjoyed our new freedom, we worked hard, and after six months with the help of very experienced microscopists in the KAUST core lab, we had good results. We wrote a manuscript, and I tried to ask permission to submit the paper.  I wrote “tried” because I was told, “submit it if you think the paper is good. It is your responsibility.” I enjoyed this new autonomy, which I missed in my previous job. And about one year after we arrived in Saudi Arabia, we had our first KAUST publication.

My Team

I was happy, and as a Fats Domino fan, I sometimes felt like the "the Sheikh of Araby." Besides the freedom of publication, we enjoyed the privilege of travel, the freedom to present our scientific findings at international conferences. The photo below shows me with three of my PhD-students and one postdoc at one of the largest conferences in our field (ICOM 2017, San Francisco), where we all five gave well-attended lectures. Look at their happy faces; the only seriously-looking guy is me in the middle.

Faheem, Francisco, Tiefan, myself, Sayali, Rahul at ICOM 2017, San Francisco (photo: S. Nunes)

 But believe it or not, I also had fun times. One photo below shows me casting a membrane and catching a fish on a SUP board in the Red Sea.

KAUST South Beach research (photo: P. Neelakanda)

My research team in 2017 (photo: KAUST)

 And I felt thrilled to have such a friendly and creative group of Ph.D.students, 

researchers and postdocs. It s not easy to select just one example for a very simple but creative experiment. The photo below shows Suzana, myself, and two postdocs from China celebrating this experiment. Huizhou and Xiaoyan designed a procedure where they sprinkled a polymer powder into a mixture of solvents, and tiny microspheres with uniform pores and an unbelievable high internal surface self-assembled just like magic. 

Celebrating a surprising experiment (photo: KAUST)

I was always as excited as my students when they finally received their Ph.D. certificates at the celebratory commencement.

Eva and Jamaliah, two freshly minted Doctores (photo: N. Metge)

Maybe some of you are reading this blog; thank you all for making my life exciting!

Setting the Right Path

We are now in the year 2022, and when I look back, I am convinced that most students, researchers and faculty members enjoyed their work and life at KAUST. And because they like what they do, they are successful. KAUST now has close to 200 faculty members, and for a few years now, the university is worldwide at the top when we look at citations per faculty. At the end of their Ph.D., students often have five or more publications in top scientific journals. Of course, there are critical voices, and there is always room for improvement. But the current status of the university proves that the founding leadership set the right path for the future. Building a modern university in an absolute monarchy, where the constitution is based on the Quran and Sunnah, is challenging. It takes time to convince conservative citizens outside KAUST that teaching female and male students in one classroom means no danger. 

Fit for KAUST

There is no need to say that the KAUST faculty is carefully selected, but the same is true for the students. KAUST is a graduate university, and students need a high GPA from their previous university. They must pass a scientific interview, and some are invited to a “Fit for KAUST” interview. I was a member of this interview team for a while, and I learned a lot. The difficult task was to select the open-minded students who could live in close contact with people from different cultures and with different religious beliefs. I know that not everyone liked this committee, but I think they did a good job.

New School, New Fun

I mentioned above our son Viktor, who was 13 when we arrived in Saudi Arabia. I felt sorry for him because he had to leave his friends, school, and the town, where he grew up. But the adaption to the new life was easier for him than I had feared. I noticed that he liked the KAUST school more than the traditional German “Otto Hahn Gymnasium.” Most of the KAUST teachers had worked in different countries all over the world, they could tell fascinating stories, and they managed to lead exciting debates. Imagine the challenge to teach philosophy or biological evolution in a mixed class of Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and more. But among the best things for Viktor was that he did not have to share one computer with 20 classmates like at the Otto-Hahn-Gymnasium; he received his private school laptop. 

Learning from the Boy Scouts

Another kid’s activity surprised me: KAUST had a boy scout group. Viktor joined this group. I had a big car, and when help was needed, I drove a group of boys to remote places where the scoutmasters organized overnight camping. The photo below shows Viktor with his tent in a rock cave.

A Boy Scouts campsite (photo: unknown, call me if you are the photographer)

Jump of the brave ones (photo: K.-V. Peinemann)

Another time we found an oasis in the desert, and the brave ones jumped into the water.  For me, these trips were a unique experience. With my 60 years, I learned from the boy scouts. It is never too late! I was often shocked when we arrived at a remote Red Sea beach, and one could see all kinds of plastic trash, bottles, bags, shoes, and much more. Before departing from a camping site, the boys and the two scoutmasters collected all garbage, and the beach was much cleaner than before our arrival. This impressed me, and when I walk at a beach today and notice old plastic bottles, I think of the KAUST boy scouts and collect the bottles for disposal. Another boy scout adventure: we drove home cross country through the desert one day, and two of my car tires burst nearly simultaneously. The other cars stopped, and I feared angry comments from the scoutmaster, but no, he called all the boys and said smiling, “look what happened, how can we solve this problem?” Everyone did his best without grumbling, and after 45 minutes of changing tires under the burning sun, we could drive home. 

Under Water

My son’s boy scout time is now a long time ago. He left KAUST to receive his bachelor’s degree at UCLA in Los Angeles. But he is back at KAUST now doing his Ph.D. Viktor’s passion is scuba diving; sometimes, I have the feeling he is more under water than in fresh air. Look at some of the photos he shot in the Saudi Arabian Red Sea. I learned from my son to see the beauty of the Red Sea around KAUST. 

Photos (4): V. Nunes Peinemann

In Fresh Air

Besides swimming, running is another of my free-time activities, but I must admit I am one of the slowest runners. Last year I joined the KAUST running group for the beach to beacon run. 

The KAUST running group, spring 2021 (photo: L. Sublett)

My main goal was not to be the last one. However, I was proud to finish the 5 km run in exactly 35 min. You runners laugh, but my first 5 km run at KAUST in 2010 took me 45 min, more walking out of breath than running. Roughly every year, I became faster one minute, no joke. The reason for this progress? For sure, the healthy lifestyle at KAUST, I had to waive my evening beers or my gin tonic, go bowling instead, play table tennis or prepare my class presentation for the next day. 

Outside KAUST

I spent most of my time on the KAUST campus, but it was exciting to explore the country from time to time. When you walk through big cities in the world, be it Hamburg, Cairo, San Francisco, or Rio de Janeiro, you are often approached by people asking for money or offering something you do not want. The next big city close to KAUST is Jeddah, and in ten years, it happened only once in Jeddah that someone asked me for money, which was not a Saudi. More than once, I was ashamed of my mistrust. On one of my first trips to Jeddah, I walked along the city beachfront promenade late Friday afternoon. Saudi families like to sit or walk there to enjoy the sunset.

Friends from the US with me at the Jeddah Corniche (photo: S. Nunes)

A young girl, maybe eight years old, stopped me and spoke to me. First, I tried to ignore her but then I looked again. She pointed at a family sitting on a blanket not far away. I learned these were her parents and her sister. The father offered me a cup of tea and told me that his daughter had recognized me as a tourist, and she was curious and was proud to practice her English. I think this was my first private, non-professional contact with Saudi citizens. This was a friendly start, and since then, I have never had an unfriendly encounter with Saudis during my trips in the country. I traveled a lot in my life, and for me, the kindness of most Saudi people is truly remarkable. 

Freedom

I mentioned at the beginning critical remarks from friends in Germany when they learned about my plan to work in Saudi Arabia. Yes, Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy; it is not at all a democratic state. But with my work here, I am not supporting undemocratic activities or structures. I am grateful to Saudi Arabia and KAUST that I have the chance to live and work here. Saudi Arabia opens up. Since June 2018, women have been allowed to drive. 

The first group of KAUST women celebrating their Saudi driving license (photo:  M. Bakhdar)

In 2019 Saudi Arabia launched the tourist visa and is now open for tourists from many countries globally. These are only two examples of recent changes in Saudi Arabia. KAUST is part of this transformation. As professors, we are doing our best to educate a new generation of open-minded female and male Saudi engineers, researchers and scientists who will serve Saudi Arabia and the world; this was the vision of King Abdullah, the founder of KAUST.

For me, my stay at KAUST changed a lot. I can now run 5 km in 35 minutes, I can survive at least three months without an alcoholic drink, I can cast a membrane on a stand-up paddleboard floating in the Red Sea, I can derive the Boltzmann energy distribution equation, and I finally understand the deep meaning of entropy, I found several good friends. And outing me again as a Fats Domino fan, I found my freedom not on Blueberry Hills but at KAUST in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Weaver on banana blossom (photo: S. Nunes)

Our villa in 2022 (photo: K.-V. Peinemann)