Dir'iyyah - Home of Palaces in the Sand
By Eid Compound
1 Who wants to live in a desert palace made of limestone covered with mud? Why not? It is 1745, and you and your family live in Dir'iyyah. Donkeys bray as they struggle to bring up water from a deep well. You and your friends run happily through the streets dodging the sheep, goats, and camels on your way to market.
2 You and your friends kick off your sandals, plant your feet on the rough bark of a date palm, and scurry up like monkeys. You race one another to reach the top of the tree. Carefully you hang on with one hand and both legs and twist off as many sweet, red, ripe dates as you can. The sun is peeping out from the east, and already the sand is warming up. You gather all the fallen dates and run home. The delicious smell of round, flat bread freshly baked in a mudbrick oven greets your nostrils.
3 This place you call home (Dir'iyyah) will, in a short two hundred years, be an important symbol of a new nation. In 1932 out of your city, Abdul al-Aziz Ibn Saud will rise up and become king of a new country. He will call that country by his own name, Saud. It will be known to the world as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. What a celebration there will be!
