The Aramco flight from New York bounced to a halt on the Dhahran airstrip. Nancy Gray joined the press of bleary-eyed passengers struggling down the ramp toward the arrivals hall. Gasping for breath in the 122-degree heat and blinded by the glare of the sun on the desert sands, she wondered why she'd accepted employment in Saudi Arabia in the first place.

The chance to explore the "storied" Middle East and the promise of a fat paychecck to finance her ambitious travel agenda had won her over. Her contract guaranteed her salary, but her rosy vision of a Middle East decorated with well-mannered camels, Moorish palaces, and swaying palm trees required a reset even before she cleared Immigration and Customs.

Meanwhile, beneath a paper-thin layer of surface calm, Saudi Arabia and it neighbors were navigating through turning points in their own history. Traditional versus modern lifestyles, religious/ethnic tensions, unresolved refugee problems, the role of foreign business interests in the Middle East, and post-colonial issues in the region were becoming as divisive then as they are now.

Intent on absorbing as much as she could about current issues in the region and their historical roots, and armed only with a smattering of mostly self-taught Arabic, Nancy Gray took advantage of every spare moment for travel, while keeping up with her Aramco job, teaching piano, and operating a catering business. Follow her as she visits sites of historical interest, learns the unique features of oil-camp-expat life, teaches Arab women to operate treadle sewing machines, makes Arab friends, interviews and learns from refugees, bargains in the suqs, and even figures out how to make flambe dishes in bone-dry Saudi Arabia.