Day 1

Today was the first day of the conference. The day began with a walk over to Dubai Women’s College, which is about ten minutes from our hotel. One of the first things I noticed was definitely the heat – even at 9 in the morning it felt like it was already 90 degrees out!

After arriving at the college, we were introduced to our “buddy” for the week. My buddy is Hessa, a second year student studying General Business. Besides both of us being business majors, we have a lot in common and I think we’ll get along great with each other. She is really into photography, so she spent some time showing me some of the pictures she has taken. As we walked around campus throughout the day, she also explained to me the significance of a lot of the pictures that were displayed on walls. It was a great way to begin learning about Dubai and Emirati culture, and I am excited to learn more from her as the week goes on!

The day consisted mainly of orientation activities. Early in the day our buddies gave us a tour of the campus – it is absolutely gorgeous! Everything is super modern and I was very impressed with all of the facilities. Following that, we watched two short movies about Dubai.

We also got to know the people in our smaller groups, which is who we’ll be having all of our group discussions with. My group consists of participants from the U.S., Finland, Latvia, Kenya, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, and the UAE – talk about diversity! It is really interesting to see some of the cultural differences already. A girl from Qatar was talking about how her mom found out that she was staying in a hotel room with complete strangers. Her mom was really uncomfortable with this and was even threatening to make her leave the conference. Similarly, a girl from Pakistan was talking about how it was a big deal for her to be so far from home. This was in contrast to me, the other American girl, and the girl from Finland, who all agreed that being away from home and even living with total strangers was not a huge deal for us because we’ve been through it before when we first went off to college.

The green group - I'm in the blue shirt, while my buddy Hessa is directly to the right of me.



Finally, the day concluded with a barbecue and a cultural quiz. My group managed to win a round and got pretty sweet mini Burj Al Arab statues as prizes!

We have another busy day tomorrow, so that’s all for today!

Greetings from Dubai!

My name is Cara Feighery and I am a senior here at Indiana University. I, along with Salima Lalani (another Kelley student), will be spending the week at Insight Dubai, a conference that focuses on women and empowerment in the Arab world. It consists of 50 women from the Dubai Women's College and 50 women from all around the world. For more information about the conference, feel free to visit its website at: dwc.hct.ac.ae/insight-dubai/home.html

The plane ride here was long, but otherwise uneventful. We had a brief layover in Washington DC, and from there a direct flight to Dubai. It was dark out by the time we left the airport, so other than a brief walk down the street our hotel is on, I haven’t actually seen much of the city itself yet.

Right now I’m relaxing in my hotel room. My roommates are from California, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Kenya, so it will be exciting to get to know everyone as the week goes on.

The conference officially begins tomorrow morning - I can’t wait! We are meeting for breakfast at 8:30 AM, so I’m off to bed.

Good night!