By: Wafa AlNaimi
Location: Asir, Southern Saudi Arabia
I arrived in Asir on a small local flight, carrying nothing but my camera, a brown leather notebook, and a curiosity that felt like a child’s thirst for discovering a forgotten secret.
My assignment was to write a story about the old mud homes that were once built by women across southern Arabia — homes now slowly vanishing under concrete, resorts, and time. I was looking not for walls, but for the woman still inside them.
They told me about Noura, an older woman living alone in a small village called Rijal Alma‘a. She had never left her ancestral mud home — not for modernity, not for luxury.
We drove through winding green mountains, where the clouds kissed the earth, hiding truth behind every curve. Her house stood at the edge of the village, modest but alive — breathing. The scent of clay, firewood, and something older lingered in the air. The wooden door creaked open like a voice from the past.
Noura greeted me with a smile carrying years of silent grace. She was in her sixties, dressed in a black abaya embroidered by hand. She spoke little, yet her eyes carried entire generations. I entered her home with her daughter, and we sat cross-legged on soft, warm mud flooring. The house didn’t just shelter — it embraced.
I asked, “Why do you still live here?”
She smiled and said:
“This house knows me better than I know myself.”
We laughed, but then she went quiet again. So did I.
When I reached for my camera, she looked at me gently and said:
“You can photograph the walls… but not my heart.”
In that moment, I froze.
Did she mean her actual heart? Her story? Her face?
Was she refusing the photo or refusing to become a symbol?
What is the line between documentation and intrusion?
I am a journalist — but also a woman who understands privacy, reverence, and
the quiet sacredness of memory.
That night, I returned to the guesthouse and reviewed my photos.
I had taken dozens of shots: the walls, the textures, the angles…
But not one image showed her face. Only shadows. A flicker of her hand. A corner of her black garment. A teacup she had held.
I wrote in my notebook:
“Can a story be true… without showing its heroine?”
I decided to visit her again the next morning.
This time, I brought a printed photo of her home’s interior. On the back, I wrote:
“From a home that feels like your heart — to the memory of the world.”
She smiled when I gave it to her. She didn’t ask about the article, the camera,
or where it would be published.
She only said:
“Write about the mud. Not about me. I am part of the earth.”
Final Reflection:
I returned from Asir carrying one of the most humbling lessons of my journalism journey:
Not every story wants to be captured by a lens.
Noura wasn’t refusing to be documented.
She was refusing to be reduced — to a photo, a headline, a pretty frame in a foreign magazine.
She chose to stay a presence, not a picture.
A voice behind a wall. A woman who never left the house — because the house never left her.
I wrote my piece titled:
“A House That Never Lost Its Light”
It was about the memory in mud, the tenderness of heritage, and the dignity of choosing to remain — when everyone else moves on.
I didn’t mention Noura’s name.
She never asked to be known.
She only asked that the house be understood.
This article is part of the practical work carried out by the students of the Master’s in Travel Journalism.
