In an apartment off Nashville Road, three Saudi Arabian students passed the red hose of an ornate silver hookah.

They reminisced about their first days in America and joked about gifts of spices and socks their mothers hid in their luggage.

Riyadh sophomore Motaz Alsolaim’s mother packed him a pair of black-knit socks with small rubber hearts on the soles.

“I was like, ‘Mom, do you think I’m going to slip or something?’” he said, laughing.

Leaving home thousands of miles away and heading to a country as different as the distance is long certainly comes with countless ways to slip – new languages, religions, social customs and freedoms abound, and family and friends lie an ocean away.

Mom knew what she was doing.

An apartment served as the island this evening, where Dammam graduate student Hamad Alabdulwahed, Dammam junior Ibrahim al Sulaiman and Alsolaim spoke alternately in English and rapidly in Arabic punctuated by English words while they counted smoke rings and sipped scalding, sweet Arabian tea.

“It tastes better when it burns the tongue,” Alabdulwahed said.

“I know – when I go to Java City, I have to say, ‘Excuse me, extra hot please,’” Alsolaim said.

Riyadh senior Bader Nuwisser arrived, and the four men talked about adjusting to the cultural differences between Saudi Arabia and America.

As international students at Western, they try to move seamlessly between two worlds – balancing American culture and experiences with life on their “island.”

The first time former international student adviser Derick Strode heard the word “islands” used to describe cultural grouping, it applied to him and fellow American students bound for a summer in London.

“We’ve got our little American island where everything will be familiar, where everybody’s going through the same situation of culture shock and all the changes that happen whenever you go into a new place,” he said.

Strode sees international students at Western gravitate toward familiarity.

“They have complete freedom to practice religion, to cook together and there’s this understanding that goes on in the group,” he said.

Chief Internationalization Officer Cornell Menking said that living on cultural islands weakens the purpose of studying abroad.

The confines of an island can open the door for prejudice and isolation rather than communication and integration.

Intercultural sharing between islanders and American students offers one of the biggest advantages of international study.

But Menking acknowledges that benefits come with island life.

“It’s a lot easier to survive, psychologically, if you’ve got a place to retreat to that’s familiar,” he said.

Strode said these islands provide a comfort bubble – a place for escape between adventures in a host culture. He recalled a day spent reading “The Canterbury Tales” on a beach in Kent and eating fish and chips in a pub. Later, he retreated to his dorm in Hampstead and went to eat at a diner with fellow American students.

But it seems like his American culinary island in England offered a smaller gap to bridge than Srinivasa Gokarakonda experienced.

Gokarakonda traveled more than 8,600 miles to Bowling Green from Amalapuram, India, in 2006 to pursue a graduate degree in public health. About 100 other Indian students already studied at Western, so his Indian “island” existed already.

When Gokarakonda arrived in Nashville, an Indian student brought him from the airport and gave him a place to stay until he found a house. Gokarakonda and other Indian students continue this tradition, providing newcomers rides from Nashville and a place to crash while they wade through finding a house and exploring Bowling Green. Each September, older students also host a “fresher’s party” for the new students.

“In my one-bedroom house, I gave accommodations for three guys for 10 days,” he said.

Alabdulwahed gained exposure to western culture at the University College of Bahrain, where teachers used English. He grappled with the same responsibilities American students do – fending for himself in a suddenly different world with rent to pay, laundry to do, classes to attend and a language barrier to boot.

“It’s a lot of things to do while thinking about my studies: ‘Am I going to pass?’ or ‘Is my English enough to be a good student in class?’” he said.

After two semesters taking English as a second language classes at Western, Alabdulwahed enrolled in the master’s in business administration program. But the quick, fluid cadence of Arabic seeps into his English.

But language represents only one cultural barrier between the western world and the international islands floating within it.

“When I first got here, there was a guy who thought I’d never seen a car before,” Alabdulwahed said, laughing. “He thought I rode camels. I’ve never even ridden a camel.”

Most of Alabdulwahed’s interactions with American students have been less trying, though.

He joined the International Club to meet Americans and to penetrate the larger international community. He also helped form an international team in Western’s intramural soccer league spring semester.

Alabdulwahed approached his education abroad with a sense of adventure from the beginning.

But almost 7,500 miles away, he missed home.

“Before, college was 30 minutes or one hour away from my home, so I could get there on the weekends, but here, I can’t do it,” Alabdulwahed said.

He misses religious occasions and other celebrations. After sundown during Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, and during Eid, the three-day celebration breaking the fast, his family gathers with relatives and friends to eat traditional foods.

“My mom, she likes to do sweet things, desserts, and she gets kind of creative,” he said. “And I like dessert, by the way, so much. I don’t eat my food until I see the dessert.”

Alabdulwahed can’t find an American dessert that compares with his mother’s, but he created a few of his own.

Alabdulwahed and the other Saudis go to the mosque in Bowling Green on Fridays. During Ramadan, they gathered some evenings to cook and eat after dark.

“They are like my family over here,” he said.

The Saudi community is pretty close-knit, he said. Like the Indian students in Bowling Green, they meet arriving Saudi students and cook for them.

“So, he’s like a kind of guest, when he first gets to this country,” he said.

Alabdulwahed considers himself someone who is outgoing, and while some Saudis choose to spend most of their time with other Saudis, he tries to meet Americans and students from other countries.

“I came here to experience other cultures, other people and to get to meet other people,” he said. “Saudis, whether it’s here or at home, it’s always the same. I know the traditional things. It’s kind of nice to get to know other peoples’ cultures.”

Alsolaim agreed.

“It’s good to keep your culture, but it’s good also to keep an open mind,” he said.

Yes, islanders see the importance of embracing the host culture.

During talk of traditional Saudi foods, Alabdulwahed popped a modified frozen pizza into the oven topped with sausage, green peppers, pineapple, mushrooms and canned corn.

“If he goes to hospital, get him a ranch IV,” Alabdulwahed joked, nodding toward Alsolaim, who got ranch dressing, a rarity in Saudi Arabia, out of the refrigerator.