Just Like Home? Desert, Tribes, and Pickup Trucks

In my travels, I met a Yemeni petroleum engineer who had studied in the U.S. He had lived and studied in Tulsa. I don’t know much about Oklahoma as I haven’t been to that state yet. I did add that I have a friend of a friend whose father moved out there to work at the state university. The ‘father-of-a-friend-of-a-friend’ comment was apparently sufficient encouragement for him to keep talking about Oklahoma.


The Yemeni engineer loved his time in Oklahoma. Finally, I asked him why. His response: “It was just like home.” I hope I didn’t look too surprised and I tried to ask him casually how Oklahoma was just like Yemen, an Arab country that seems to be in the news a lot lately! He responded, “Well both have desert areas, tribes, pick-up trucks, and guns.” He felt the only difference was that Yemeni pickup trucks didn’t have gun racks. Uh, ok?!

View of the desert sea shore from the pick-up