She has visited the country six times since 2016, reporting on the war there between its internationally recognized government, backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and the Houthi militia, a religious and political movement alleged to be receiving military support from Iran.

Recently, Waguih went back again.

She wound her way through both Sunni-dominated government-controlled territories and Shiite-aligned Houthi controlled areas. She arrived in Seiyun, in Yemen’s government-controlled eastern region, on February 25. From Seiyun, she travelled 30 hours by road to Sanaa, Yemen’s traditional capital in the Houthi-controlled north, then to Mocha, where she visited a large camp for internally displaced people, and finally another day’s drive to the government’s entrepot capital, Aden.

Along the way she passed clusters of settlements across Yemen’s mountainous arid terrain, each distinguished by an array of hillside towers, archways, rainbow-colored windows, and earthen walls. Yemen is a landscape of small towns, villages, and a few larger cities, mainly along its coast. Roads across its desert expanses are often unpaved and remote. Waguih travelled in crowded, unreliable mini-buses.

Throughout her journey, she saw the impact of war and the fractured movement of civilians and goods. In much of the country, life carries on—fishermen cast their lines, bookstores sell their tomes, devotees go to mosque. But everything is under threat, anything that still works is fragile. And there are pockets of immense suffering.

Yemen is facing a humanitarian disaster. More than 377,000 deaths are attributed to the conflict, including 150,000 people who died as a direct result of military actions. Yemen’s people are starving. The United Nations is seeking $4.3 billion to stave off hunger and disease for an estimated 23 million people—nearly three-quarters of the population, including 2.2 million acutely malnourished children. Yemen imports nearly all its provisions; Ukraine and Russia supply 40 percent of its wheat. Food prices have risen approximately 150 percent since the invasion of Ukraine, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Despite the staggering scale of the seven-year catastrophe, Western news media describes the conflict (when it describes it at all) as a “forgotten” or an “invisible war,” tropes used to justify Western neglect of complex intrastate or proxy conflicts, particularly in Africa and the Middle East.

So deep are divisions between the warring parties that each runs its own fiscal and administrative systems. Waguih had to carry two sets of Yemeni banknotes, or rials. Older and newer bills have different values, exacerbating runaway inflation.

In Yemen, women are rarely seen in public without a full abaya or burqa. The fact that Waguih is a journalist and an outsider afforded her more freedom than most Yemeni women enjoy. Even still, her movements were always negotiated. In Houthi areas evening trips to convenience stores and restaurants were accompanied by a Houthi agent.

Waguih visited Sanaa’s largest orphanage and hospital, a fuel station, a bank, and other businesses and institutions in the city’s UNESCO World Heritage-listed old city to gauge the war’s impact.

“Yemen is a place where it is very difficult to see actual conflict but impossible not to see its effects everywhere,” she said. “You will see, for example, a building that has been destroyed, and you don’t know how long it has been that way. Maybe it was recently. Maybe it was 10 or 20 years ago.”

There was no difference, she said, between the destruction she saw in government-controlled areas and that in Houthi areas. During her previous trips, she said, violence seemed to be localized around particular areas. Now, due to an estimated 25,000 air raids, Yemen’s ruined infrastructure is highly distributed.

And everywhere, Waguih said, from the streets in Sanaa to Yemen’s squalid camps for the internally displaced, she gazed upon the gaunt face of hunger.

There are some developments toward peace. The internationally-recognized government and the Houthis announced a two-month ceasefire in April, to coincide with the holy month of Ramadan. Many hope the truce will allow all sides to consider proposals for a permanent end to the war.

Nations at war are also nations at work, at school, at play, at rest—at all the places that make up daily life. War often occurs in places with vitality enough to sustain many years of degradation. Waguih’s photos show everyday reality in a nation experiencing one of the world’s longest running wars. The conflict may not be visible in every frame but it infuses all of the images.

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It opens with a small single-story structure made of chain-link fence standing alone in a flat expanse of sand, crowned by a small dome and a gold crescent moon. A minaret rises above one corner of the building, while a semicircular niche in one wall marks the direction of Mecca. When the call to prayer sounds, a group of men and boys enter. They kneel to pray; then stand and line up against one of the chain link walls, grasping it with their hands and facing directly into the camera. Two men in orange jumpsuits sit in a corner of the building as the sun sets. When the “prayer service” is over, the green lights of the minaret flicker off, leaving only the blackness of the desert night.

The video raised many questions for me: Was Gharem equating mosques with prisons? Was he suggesting that conservative forms of Islam like those supported by the Saudi government confined people in cages of hatred and violence? Or, as one Saudi cleric suggested, had he constructed a beautiful, open-air mosque in an act of great piety and devotion?

It is this uncertainty of the art’s meaning that makes it both powerful—and possible.

Saudi Arabia’s vibrant contemporary art scene will surprise many Americans because its very existence contradicts stereotypes of the country as a breeding ground for terrorists and as an ultraconservative theocracy of rich sheikhs in white robes and oppressed women in black veils. A close look at the work of some of the best young Saudi artists provides us with more nuanced and complex images of a country I’ve been fortunate to visit twice in order to conduct research on Saudi art and Saudi culture more generally.

“Modern art is booming here, ” the director of an art gallery in Jeddah told me when I visited that city on the Red Sea coast in 2016. Drawing inspiration from many different sources—Arabic calligraphy, traditional Islamic art, European high art, and American popular culture—Saudi artists are producing street art, pop art, installation art, performance art, and conceptual art. New art galleries have opened in Dhahran, Jeddah, and even in Riyadh, one of the most conservative cities in the kingdom.

Any attempt to understand contemporary Saudi reality must begin by recognizing that it is not the inevitable product of some immutable form of Islam or a timeless version of “Arab culture.” Rather, Saudi Arabia is the result of relatively recent historical and political events. Among these: the development of its vast oil reserves in the 1960s (which produced previously inconceivable wealth); the 1979 Iranian revolution and, in that same year, the violent takeover of the Holy Mosque in Mecca by Wahhabi fundamentalists (which forced the royal family to reverse its policies of cultural liberalization in order to placate conservatives); and the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, and the controversial American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that followed (which posed a challenge to the kingdom’s pro-American foreign policy).

The Saudi government’s response to these challenges—which threatened the regime by destabilizing Saudi society—has been a precarious balancing act. The Saudi royal family seeks to satisfy conservative religious clerics and their followers on the one hand, and more liberal, reform-minded segments of the population, on the other.

Now, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman has emerged as the de facto ruler of the country, the power behind the throne of his father King Salman. He has adopted new and more aggressive domestic programs, with the goal of loosening the grip that conservative Wahhabi Islam has held on the country since 1979. He recently announced new policies that will allow women to play a larger role in society and diversify the economy by reducing the dependence on oil. But in a nod to conservative forces, he has initiated a more belligerent foreign policy by boycotting Qatar, interfering in the internal affairs of Lebanon, and conducting an increasingly violent war in Yemen. (Other components of Mohammad bin Salman’s long-term plan for the transformation of Saudi society can be seen in his ambitious document Saudi 2030.)

Arwa Al Neami’s “Never Never Land” documents “family night” at an amusement park in Abha. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Among the themes being explored by contemporary artists is the role of women in Saudi society, in particular the consequences of the ban on women driving, which is scheduled to be lifted in June 2018. Powerful examples of this work include Arwa Al Neami’s documentary photographs and videos entitled “Never Never Land,” which show Saudi women enjoying “family night” at an amusement park in Abha, a conservative city in the mountainous southwest. The most striking images depict young Saudi women dressed in long black flowing abayas driving brightly colored red, yellow, blue, and green bumper cars a smooth, black floor.

The title, “Never Never Land,” is not just a reference to the fantasy of eternal childhood imagined by J. M. Barrie in Peter Pan. It also refers to the signs at the entrances to the amusement park rides, reminding women that, “it is strictly prohibited to carelessly lift the abaya and expose your trousers, or to scream during the rides.” “Never Never Land” evokes both an imaginary place where dreams come true, and the very real Saudi Arabia, where women are met with constant messages about what they can never, never do: marry or divorce, open a bank account or start a business, attend a university, or travel abroad without the permission of their male guardian.

Al Neami’s portraits of Saudi women enjoying themselves driving even as they conform to the rules of their society evoke a bittersweet combination of humor, irony, and pathos. Al Neami has written that with “Never Never Land” she wanted to take her viewers with her “to live and feel what it is like for women in the theme park with all its fun and its restrictions.” As Al Neami told me, when we spoke in 2016, “Saudi women have a lot of fun, even though they are subject to social control.”

Ahmed Mater’s “Evolution of Man” shows Saudi Arabia’s complex relationship with its national treasure, oil. Image courtesy of the artist and Pharan Studio.

Other Saudi artists have focused on their country’s immense oil wealth, which has made Saudi Arabia one of the world’s richest countries. Ahmed Mater’s “Evolution of Man” explores his country’s complex relationship with this “national treasure” as both a blessing (bringing tremendous affluence) and a curse (contributing to extreme inequality, authoritarian government, and violent conflict).

“Evolution of Man” consists of five jet black rectangular light boxes hanging next to one another. Each displays a slightly different X-ray illuminated from behind by a bright blue light. The X-rays morph from a sharply outlined gasoline pump at one end, to the skeletal image of a man holding a pistol to his head at the other. In the middle three images, the nozzle of the gas pump gradually turns into a human hand holding a pistol, while the body of the gas pump grows progressively more irregular and curved, until it becomes the X-ray of a human head and torso.

Mater, who has called himself “the son of this strange and scary oil civilization,” discussed “Evolution of Man” with me in his studio in Jeddah. Mater recognizes that his work lies on what he calls “the red line of censorship.” And he knows precisely where that red line is and how it moves.

“When I produced [the piece] in 2008 or 9, it wasn’t easy to show it inside Saudi Arabia. Now I can see they like it more; now I can show it. As the era of big oil comes to an end … my message becomes more acceptable. In a post-oil economy, this work is less controversial. I’m talking about how this kind of economy, this oil-dependent life, is becoming very dangerous. Not just in this country; it’s a worldwide message.”

Abdulnasser Gharem’s “Ricochet” combines images of a jet fighter and traditional Islamic architecture. Image courtesy of the artist and Gharem studio.

The impact of war and violence is another area that Saudi artists are exploring. Abdulnasser Gharem, one of his country’s best-known artists, grew up in the southwestern corner of Saudi Arabia near the base used by the Saudi Air Force to launch bombing runs against Houthi rebels in nearby Yemen. He also went to secondary school with two of the Saudis who participated in the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center, and he served for 20 years as an officer in the Saudi army at a post on the Saudi-Yemeni border.

“Ricochet,” one of Gharem’s most powerful works, presents a frightening image of a jet fighter that emerges like an avenging fury from a turbulent cloud—a cloud of swirling turquoise and gold air currents that eerily evoke the small vaults and domes of traditional Islamic architecture.

The precise relationship between the fighter jet and the mosque is ambiguous. Is the mosque being transformed into a jet fighter? Is the jet coming from the mosque? Has it just flown through (and destroyed) the mosque? Standing in front of “Ricochet,” which was on display in an American gallery, a Saudi visitor observed sadly: “Our culture is not producing beautiful mosques anymore; we are producing jet fighters. Instead of spreading religion and peace, we are spreading terror and war.”

With powerful works like these, contemporary Saudi artists are providing a bridge between our world and theirs. As their art becomes accessible to Western viewers at galleries in Venice, London, New York, and Los Angeles, these artists, as individuals with distinct political voices, are able to convey their insider perspectives on a country that has been defined by the stereotypes of outsiders. At its best, this art transcends, without denying, the differences between Saudis and the outside world, and those within Saudi society itself.

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This is how some Saudis refer to the smooth transition of power after our king, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud, died on January 23, 2015. After ruling for 10 years, King Abdullah, 91, was succeeded by his half brother, Crown Prince Salman, 79.

One of us (Talal) remembers seeing discussion of King Abdullah’s death on Twitter, late at night on January 22. The thought made him sad, but Talal consoled himself by remembering that these were just rumors. By the time he woke up the next morning, there had been an official statement, and the breakfast conversation was quiet and serious. To us, Abdullah was a great example of how to uphold tradition while also acknowledging the need to adapt to modern changes.

Abdullah was known in our country as “the humane king” in part because during his reign, which started in 2005, women began to gain some rights. One of his major reforms was the right to work. Before King Abdullah, some women had been able to work in specific jobs as doctors or teachers. Female teachers interacted only with female students, and there was an urgent need for doctors of any kind in the country.

There was a huge controversy in our country over whether or not women should be allowed to have work opportunities in more than the health and education sectors in the years leading up to King Abullah’s decree in 2011. Most of the extreme Islamic sheikhs and religious leaders opposed this reform, claiming that Islam forbids women from interacting with foreign men—that is, men who are not their fathers, husbands, or brothers. They believed that if women were given more job choices, interaction with foreign men would be inevitable. However, this stance was strongly opposed by a more liberal faction, which claimed that Islam does not forbid the adaptation of some of its rules to suit changing circumstances.

We believe King Abdullah was fair in allowing women to work with some restrictions, such as gender separation in workplaces. King Abdullah agreed to the limits in order to suck the anger out of Islamic extremists over women working, and in all likelihood rules mandating workplace gender separation will diminish in coming years. In fact, even though the restrictions are strictly in place in conservative regions such as Riyadh and Al Qasim, this restriction is often ignored by some shops in other areas of the country, like Dammam, Jeddah, and Al Khobar (where we live). We have seen women selling cosmetics at Sephora and ringing up customers as cashiers in big supermarkets without interference.

King Abdullah also allowed women to join the Shura Council, an important government advisory body, for the first time in 2013. It’s interesting to note that 20 percent of the council is now made up of female representatives—exactly the same percentage as the U.S. Senate. Today, the women on the Shura Council are working on creating more equality between women and men in our country. The first regulation they passed, which was agreed upon by the majority of the council, gave women the right to take out loans to buy real estate without the consent of a male guardian.

These actions have changed the prospects for young women. One of our sisters is very talented in mathematics, but in high school was very pessimistic about being allowed to attend college. She wasn’t sure what she would do with her education afterward. But now she is in college studying finance and hoping to be financial planner.

Of course, there remains much more room for change. The whole world knows that Saudi Arabia is the only country where women are not allowed to drive. Staunch conservatives don’t want them to gain this right because they believe it would violate the separation of genders that dates back to Prophet Muhammad’s time. Such extreme thinking is still very much alive in the minds of many of the conservative sheikhs of Saudi Arabia, who can easily mobilize their congregations. And although King Abdullah promised that women would gain the right to drive, he delayed delivering on that vow, probably because he did not want to further alienate the same conservatives who already opposed his push to allow women in the workplace.

Though we do believe women will eventually gain the right to drive, we don’t believe it will happen during King Salman’s reign. Not because he cannot change this law, nor because he does not want to, but because a step this large requires a long-term change in the way we Saudis think. And that requires a change in the way we are educated.

We are taught Islam starting in grade school—and Islam has a great influence on the Saudi people. Parents are usually strict about teaching their children religious rules; shops close when it is time to pray. However, we believe that when religion is misinterpreted, or over-interpreted, the results can be catastrophic. In Islam, we have two prime sources of legislation: the Quran and the Hadith, which is what Prophet Muhammad said in his lifetime. The problem with our Saudi education is that it teaches religion by focusing on the interpretation of scholars who died more than 1,000 years ago, such as Ahmad Bin Hanbal (who lived from 780 to 855 A.D.). Those people lived a life that differs dramatically from ours. In their world, women did not need to work or drive; nor could they, for that matter, access the Internet on their phones.

School textbooks were a particular target of many of King Abdullah’s reforms. For example, we remember that for a religious subject called Tawhid, our books contained an entire chapter on the need for jihad against unbelievers. That chapter did not reflect the true Islam, which encourages those who follow it to promote peace in the world. This chapter has been entirely removed. We hope that during King Salman’s rule, an aspiration for world peace will become a standard part of the curriculum.

King Salman seems to be carrying on some of the changes King Abdullah got rolling. But he faces a difficult path. Saudi Arabia’s future will only be a bright one if our country can adapt to the rapidly changing world without being pulled apart by our internal divisions. And so the only way for our leaders to secure this future is by continuing to change things gradually, step-by-step, advancing our society without getting too far ahead of it.

Saudi Arabia has been criticized for our slow pace of change. But in Saudi Arabia, angering conservative sheikhs has very real consequences, and we have seen what happens when Islamists become dissatisfied. In Egypt, alienating fundamentalist Islamists led to the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and in Iran, the shah’s speed in moving to modernize society triggered an Islamist revolution that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power, and all that followed. These are our cautionary tales.

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Saudi Arabia has strict naturalization laws. Foreign workers are granted iqamas, or residency permits, but these are temporary. Some day, my mother, who is now the nursing supervisor at Prince Naif Security Forces Hospital, must leave Saudi Arabia. (My father must leave, too, but he has been out of contact with the family for several years.) For her, as for her children, this means leaving the place that feels like home.

The idea of Riyadh as home might sound strange to readers in a place like Los Angeles, where I’m living now. Life in Saudi Arabia is often portrayed as disagreeable. In many ways, it is disagreeable. But home is what you know, and you can love it despite its flaws.

I do love home. I love the annual Eid celebrations after Ramadan and all the foods that people prepare, like kapsa, a chicken and rice dish. I love family traditions like ordering from the Chinese restaurant on Christmas. I love the hole-in-the-wall shop that serves foul (fava bean stew) and fresh oven-baked bread. I love the way Saudis within the same sex greet one another with numerous affectionate handshakes and kisses on the cheek, even if they see each other every day. (I hadn’t realized until I took a trip back to Riyadh how much I missed those hugs and greetings. When I recently attended a wedding with my mom and twin sister it took us an age to make the rounds of greetings before we could get to our seats.)

But the heart and the law are different things. My legal home is Ethiopia. That is my father’s country. My alternative–but not legal–home is Eritrea. That is my mother’s country. From 1998 to 2000, Ethiopia and Eritrea had a border war, and the two countries still have a hostile relationship. So the only country where I’m allowed to live permanently is at near-war with the only country in which my mother is allowed to live permanently.

Discovering that I’d eventually have to leave Saudi Arabia was hard. What did it mean for me to be a citizen of Ethiopia, a country I didn’t know? When I was a kid we had a lot of fraught family meetings, but they generally concerned things like chores and curfews. None were about our geographical predicament.

The question of home was made even more complicated by language. My first language is English. It’s what all of us wound up speaking at school, work, and home. My second language is Arabic. Tigrinya, the language of Eritrea, is what I spoke until I was six, but I have forgotten it. I never spoke Amharic, the language of Ethiopia. I’ll have to learn it.

My childhood education was at a private school in Riyadh that followed the British academic system, and my classmates came from all over the world. But we had very little contact with Saudis. I have Saudi friends, but I met them as the children of friends of my mother. As a rule, Saudis get little exposure to the rest of the world. They can attend only government–controlled public schools. All classes are taught in Arabic, and students are segregated by gender. Most learn very little English.

Religion was a persistent complication in the lives of many foreigners. Saudi Arabia is one hundred percent Muslim, mostly Sunni. My mother was brought up Catholic. While she tried to imbue us with some of her faith, it was done quietly, because Saudi Arabia forbids the practice of any religion besides Islam. (One mother of a classmate of mine ran a covert Sunday school that I attended for a summer with about thirty other kids, but eventually the authorities found out and shut it down.) Some foreigners who move to the Kingdom convert to Islam–often opportunistically–but my mother never did. Saudi friends often asked us why.

When I was growing up, my Eritrean grandmother liked to ask me which country I considered home: Ethiopia or Eritrea. I’d tease her by refusing to pick one. But the real answer was that neither was home.

My first visit to Ethiopia was in the summer of 2000, when I was ten. In preparation, my sister and I wrote letters to family members in Ethiopia and practiced Amharic on a tutorial DVD. (It featured creepy talking stick figures that still haunt me.) We toured Addis Ababa, ate at local restaurants, traveled to neighboring villages, and visited landmarks. I enjoyed my trip, but it was like a vacation. Only when we were meeting relatives (with whom we struggled to communicate) did Ethiopia feel like anything but a foreign country. We eventually returned three more times, but only for short trips.

As for Eritrea, it is a place I visited once, when I was four. I remember how fun it was to go to the cinema for the first time and how the air smelled when it rained. Otherwise, the country was just an idea.

When I reached my senior year of high school, my classmates began to apply for universities in Asia, Europe, Australia, and the Americas. Graduation would scatter us across the world.

My twin sister and I wanted to apply for college in the United States. Our older brother had moved to Denver a year earlier, so we had a small foothold in the country. Still, we wanted to live independently of him. Every family member, every family friend–even our dentist!–was telling my mother to send us to a school where our brother would be close by for protection. My mother, who had moved to Sudan on her own at age 18, knew we could take care of ourselves.

In preparing our applications, we relied on a 40-page handbook entitled “What to Expect from America.” It wasn’t that helpful. Strange terms like “room and board,” “credits,” and “2-year institution” were used without explanation. Finally, though, both of us gained admission to Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, California.

I didn’t prepare much for my new life. I’d seen on TV how American men and women interacted with one another, often with sarcasm. “Friends” had taught me everything, surely. Looking back, though, I probably should have kept reading “What to Expect from America.”

I got into trouble quickly. It was the first day of school, in January 2006, and I was trying to get to my sociology class, which, according to my map, was on the other side of Temple Avenue, a six-lane, two-way roadway. I stood at the curb waiting for a break in traffic and took my chance, running into the street and stopping at the center, waiting for the other side to slow down. This is how we cross the street in Riyadh: we just grab our abayas and run. Everyone knows that traffic lights are of no help.

Unlike in Saudi Arabia, though, drivers in California seemed to be slowing down, even stopping, and staring. A law enforcement officer made his way over to me and asked what I was doing. I explained that I was going to class. He looked at me in silence. “You’re not from here are you?” he asked. Then he helped me to the other side.

I missed my family and my life in Riyadh. While other students were trying to figure out how to use a washing machine or balance their checkbooks, I was attempting to grasp the concept of Fahrenheit and Daylight Savings. But I eventually settled in. It was while impatiently standing in line at the local grocery store that I realized that I felt at home. I’d been on autopilot the whole time.

In October 2008, after nearly three years of living in Los Angeles, my sister and I travelled back to Riyadh to visit our family. As we prepared to leave, a rush of nerves overcame me. I was anxious about all the changes that I knew I’d encounter. My cousins were older, and my friends were in other countries. Nothing was going to be the same.

My mother and a male colleague from her hospital came to pick us up at the airport. (All females entering the country must be received by a male relative or male business colleague.) During the car ride home, my eyes were glued to the window. There were new malls, new freeways, and new city limits. The entire skyline was altered.

After a few weeks, I began to recognize that the changes weren’t just physical. People also behaved differently. Young men and women seemed to be taking more liberties.

Saudi Arabia has always been among the strictest theocracies in the world. Men and women who aren’t immediate relatives must be segregated, and enforcing this statute is the dreaded Muttaween (the religious police, run by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vices).

When I was growing up, young people looked for ways around the Muttaween, but they generally confined their efforts to the home. For instance, someone might plan a get-together in her home and ask her brother to invite the guys over.

Now, however, boys and girls would try to mingle in Riyadh’s new shopping malls. Although the malls officially had one shopping time for singles (men) and another shopping time for family (everyone else), many boys and girls would go into malls with their families and split off to meet one another once they got inside. I even witnessed a few guys disguised as girls in abayas in order to get in during family hours. This was dangerous behavior. One day, when I was shopping with some girlfriends, the entire mall was shut down, and cops and Muttaween began to round up a bunch of kids, throwing them into the back of a large vehicle.

There were also subtler things that caught me off guard. I remember meeting up with some old friends from high school and running into Mr. Alia, a Jordanian who’d been our physics teacher. When I reached out my hand, Mr. Alia politely refused to shake it. He’d become more religious, he said. Then he shook the hands of each of my male classmates.

I eventually returned to Los Angeles to complete my degree at UCLA, to which I’d transferred as a junior. In 2010, I graduated with a Bachelor’s in history.

Over the years, Los Angeles has become my new home. It’s where I graduated from college, got my first real job, and figured out how to go about becoming a human rights lawyer. I’ve made friends who’ve become like family–people who’ve helped me adjust to life in the U.S., who’ve opened up their homes to me, and who’ve celebrated numerous milestones with me.

Legally, though, Los Angeles isn’t home to me anymore than Riyadh is. Staying would require me to have a green card, and demand for those is far greater than supply. Still, I have a chance. Even after thirty years of living in Saudi Arabia, my mother has no chance of staying there.

Needless to say, my circumstances are peculiar. I have two countries, Ethiopia and Eritrea, to which I have legal connections but few emotional ties. And I have two countries, Saudi Arabia and the United States, to which I have immense emotional ties but few legal connections. The question of where I’ll get to settle down won’t be quickly answered. But I take comfort in knowing that others are likewise searching for a permanent home. Some day, I hope, we’ll find it.

Sara Mengesha graduated from UCLA in 2010 with a degree in history. She is currently applying to law schools in hopes of pursuing a career in human rights law.

*Photo courtesy of nada abdalla.

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