{"id":63594,"date":"2013-03-10T17:01:44","date_gmt":"2013-03-10T21:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=63594"},"modified":"2016-01-14T12:07:08","modified_gmt":"2016-01-14T17:07:08","slug":"bates-in-brief-world-balseviciute-bisaillon-saudi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2013\/03\/10\/bates-in-brief-world-balseviciute-bisaillon-saudi\/","title":{"rendered":"Bates in Brief World: Taking photos in the Saudi desert"},"content":{"rendered":"

What She Saw<\/p>\n

\"Saudi<\/a>

A group of Saudi boys cavort for the camera during a desert outing. Photograph by Gintare Balseviciute ’13<\/p><\/div>\n

The ubiquity of photography, thanks to the digital revolution, hasn\u2019t diminished our curious fascination with one kind of camera: the pro-style, single-lens reflex camera.<\/p>\n

That partly explains the boys\u2019 euphoria in the photo above, taken by Gintare Balseviciute \u201913 last May during a Short Term trip to Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

While other students snapped away unnoticed with their pocket cameras, these boys cavorted, wrestled and posed for Balseviciute\u2019s Canon SLR. \u201cWhen they saw the Canon, it was as if they saw a Lamborghini,\u201d Balseviciute says.<\/p>\n

The trip to Saudi Arabia was led by Dana Professor of Anthropology Loring Danforth and largely facilitated by Leena Nasser \u201912, a politics major from Dhahran.<\/p>\n

\"Photograph<\/a>

A rare hijab-free mingling of the genders on the Saudi plains. Photograph by Ana Bisaillon ’12.<\/p><\/div>\n

One excursion was to a desert farm in the Eastern Province, where the farm\u2019s owner and family feted and entertained Danforth and the 16 Bates students.<\/p>\n

A rare hijab-free mingling of genders on the Saudi plains.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After camel rides, live music and good food, the Bates group headed into the desert in white Toyota Land Cruisers for sand duning, followed by coffee and dates.<\/p>\n

At the gathering, the Bates women got the OK not to wear their abayas, so the photo above, and the image at right by Ana Bisaillon ’12, also show a rare hijab-free mingling of genders on the Saudi plains. \u201cNot only are the kids seeing Americans, they\u2019re seeing female Americans. And they\u2019re seeing female Americans in Western dress,\u201d Danforth says.<\/p>\n

For Nasser, the image conveys other meanings. \u201cTheir clothing and the space may reflect the geography, but their spirits in the picture transcend the individual cultural experience,\u201d she says. \u201cI see hope and potential.\u201d \u2014 HJB<\/p>\n

\n

World Facts<\/h3>\n

Facebook page African Economist by Desmond Mushi \u201913 got 2,000 likes in first month.<\/p>\n

Viewers from 28 countries tuned in for the livestream of President Spencer\u2019s installation.<\/p>\n

Bates publishes a guidebook for students returning from off-campus study.<\/p>\n

2013 Short Term course revisits an oral history initiative with orphans of Rwandan genocide.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnglish, French nor Malagasy can describe my experience studying rare eagles on uninhabited islands.\u201d \u2014 student in Madagascar<\/p>\n

\n

Unusual Fun<\/h3>\n

\u201cMany prestigious independent schools in Britain have internships, usually linked to sport,\u201d says Michael Bettles P\u201913, an administrator at Heathfield Community School, a state secondary school in Taunton, U.K. \u201cI could see the benefits that the interns bring to those institutions, so I thought: Why should they have all the fun?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy should they have all the fun?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thus inspired, Bettles worked with the Bates Career Development Center to grab some of the fun for Bates and his own institution. The result: performing-arts internships at the Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre, affiliated with Heathfield, that were inaugurated last summer by a current Bates student and a 2012 graduate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis partnership is exciting because it provides a paid professional internship abroad in the arts, which is unusual,\u201d says Nancy Gibson of the BCDC.<\/p>\n

\n

Bates Spoken Here<\/h3>\n

Of Bates\u2019 approximately 24,500 alumni, about 580, or 2.4 percent, live outside the U.S. This snapshot taken right before the Mayan end of the world in December shows their numbers and countries.<\/p>\n

79<\/strong>
\nEngland<\/p>\n

67<\/strong>
\nCanada<\/p>\n

49<\/strong>
\nJapan<\/p>\n

23<\/strong>
\nGermany<\/p>\n

22<\/strong>
\nFrance
\nSwitzerland<\/p>\n

21<\/strong>
\nNetherlands<\/p>\n

15<\/strong>
\nChina<\/p>\n

14<\/strong>
\nAustralia
\nBrazil<\/p>\n

13<\/strong>
\nSweden<\/p>\n

11<\/strong>
\nIndia
\nSingapore<\/p>\n

10<\/strong>
\nPakistan<\/p>\n

9<\/strong>
\nGreece
\nNigeria
\nSpain
\nThailand<\/p>\n

8<\/strong>
\nEcuador
\nSouth Korea<\/p>\n

7<\/strong>
\nItaly
\nTurkey<\/p>\n

6<\/strong>
\nHong Kong
\nNew Zealand
\nVietnam<\/p>\n

5<\/strong>
\nCameroon
\nMalaysia<\/p>\n

4<\/strong>
\nAustria
\nBermuda
\nIsrael
\nMauritius
\nNepal
\nNorway
\nRomania
\nScotland
\nZimbabwe<\/p>\n

3<\/strong>
\nBulgaria
\nCzech Republic
\nJamaica
\nMexico
\nSouth Africa
\nSri Lanka
\nUnited Arab Emirates<\/p>\n

2<\/strong>
\nArgentina
\nBangladesh
\nBelgium
\nCosta Rica
\nDenmark
\nEgypt
\nFinland
\nHungary
\nIceland
\nIndonesia
\nIreland
\nKenya
\nMyanmar
\nPeru
\nPhilippines
\nSaudi Arabia
\nSlovakia
\nTrinidad and
\nTobago<\/p>\n

1<\/strong>
\nAlbania
\nBahamas
\nBosnia-Herzegovina
\nBritish Virgin Islands
\nChile
\nEl Salvador
\nFrench Polynesia
\nGeorgia
\nGhana
\nGuatemala
\nJordan
\nKazakhstan
\nLatvia
\nNorth Korea
\nNorthern Ireland
\nPanama
\nPortugal
\nRussia
\nScotland
\nSenegal
\nTaiwan
\nTajikistan
\nTanzania
\nUkraine
\nVenezuela
\nWest Indies
\nWales
\nYugoslavia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bates in Brief World from the Winter 2013 issue of Bates Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":63940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10574,10856,9873],"class_list":["post-63594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-batesnews","tag-bates-in-brief-2","tag-bates-magazine","tag-winter-2013"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63594"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63866,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63594\/revisions\/63866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}