Myths and misunderstandings about the Middle East are common in the U.S., and after a two-week fellowship in Saudi Arabia, Grand Valley State University student Natalie Klackle is dedicated to fighting such stereotypes.

“I would encourage people to not take what you’ve heard about the Middle East seriously until you’ve been there, because chances are, it’s wrong,” she said.

Klackle was one of 10 women selected from across the country to participate in a student fellowship with the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations. The fellows spent time in Saudia Arabia’s three major cities: Riyahd, Damman and Jeddah. During their time in Saudi Arabia, the women visited universities and secondary schools, met with government officials and visited the country’s major tourist attractions.

After spending time in the country, which is traditionally closed to foreign travelers, Klackle said she plans to share her knowledge of Saudi culture with Arabic and Middle Eastern studies classes across campus.

“I’d like to consider myself fairly educated about the Middle East, and I wasn’t going to buy what MSNBC or FOX News or CNN threw at me about the Middle East, but I didn’t realize the stereotypes that I had played into,” she said. “I think just knowing that these stereotypes are alive, and even an ‘educated’ person about myself had them, is going to set me up to have really productive conversations in the U.S.”

The competitive fellowship program was open to Model Arab League alumni. Klackle, who is studying political science and Middle Eastern studies, became involved with MAL through an Islamic Middle East course she took within the Honors program. Her professors, Majd Al-Mallah and Coeli Fitzpatrick, encouraged her to join GVSU’s MAL delegation and nominated her for the fellowship.

“It’s a great opportunity for our students to be selected for such international opportunities. I know Natalie will represent Grand Valley very well,” Al-Mallah said in a press release.

Klackle represented Saudi Arabia in the Michigan MAL before going on to join the United Arab Emirates delegation at the national competition.

“I’d learned a lot about Saudi Arabia last year in model Arab League and was fascinated by the hybrid of the very ancient and the very modern that they have and that it works for them, but I don’t think I really caught the ‘Saudi bug’ until I got there and saw how beautiful and complex their culture is, and how different it is from ours,” she said.

One of the major differences was prayer time, Klackle said. Fives times a day the stores would shut down briefly so that the shopkeepers could pray before resuming business.

“In the U.S. we really don’t have daily, constant synchronized pauses in our day,” she said. “We just kind of go, go, go, go, go, go, go, whereas there almost everything just comes to a standstill and it’s really beautiful because everyone’s just breathing for 15 minutes and then chaos starts again.”

Klackle plans to attend graduate school for Arab studies before working in international development. She said she is hopeful her work will take her back to the country she fell in love with.

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