Safa Al Ahmad

I took the train to Hasa today. The station at Dammam, near the Persian Gulf, is clean and spacious. But security dealt with me as though I was getting on a plane to Kandahar. Families with oversized suitcases and a million plastic bags checked in. Big, beautiful copper chandeliers adorned the corridor leading to the trains. Purple flowering shrubs grew beside the track. The train gathered...