We start with Hala, currently living in the US and blogging at HALA_IN_USA, who is giving advice to a single female friend visiting Jeddah for the first time:

Women in Jeddah are dressed in an outside gown called “Abaya”, it supposed to be worn over clothes so dress lightly beneath it especially in the summer. The scarf however, is not a must for a female visitor in Jeddah but a preferred thing to wear (for safety and convenience) in traditional places.

There are a variety of places to see in Jeddah, I would suggest the Balad, the old city of Jeddah, with its historical architecture and old houses, Naseef house is a good example of one. You can purchase traditional goodies from the old shops and enjoy the aroma of Arabic perfumes like Oud and Bukhour, there’s also the traditional handcrafts like the light bulbs or fanoos [lantern], the dates, the sweets and the textiles with various colors.

Then, there’s the famous Jeddah Corniche. I suggest visiting it early in the morning or at 6pm to see the open air sculptures along the sea side, there’s also Jeddah sea-fountain, one of the highest fountains in the world. There is a variety of food choices along the corniche from fancy eating in restaurants to fast food or even small booths for biscuits and chips. The local people would sit for hours by the sea side with their children playing around and watching the passersby.

For more of Hala’s advice of what to see in Jeddah, see here.

Meanwhile American Bedu, an American living in Saudi Arabia, tells us what she thinks of a women-only hotel in Riyadh:

The Al Luthan hotel and spa is the first women only facility of its kind in Riyadh. It is a luxurious hotel and spa for women only. It is a full service hotel and spa offering deluxe, comfortable and safe accommodations. Al Luthan welcomes both Saudi and non-Saudi females. Now some women have spoken out to the media that the opening of Al Luthan is a step backwards. According to these women, they see it as a backwards movement for the Kingdom due to the fact that there is already so much enforced segregation and women not only have few rights but promoting and endorsing a women’s only hotel and spa further diminishes women from receiving rights. Maybe I am in the minority but I take the opposite view. Al Luthan is not unique when compared to the rest of the world. Women hotels or women-only floors are actually common in most major cities (and some not so major) all over the world. Back in earlier times when I was doing a lot of international travel, I enjoyed staying on a women-only floor, especially when in foreign cities which were not as accustomed to business women traveling alone. So to me, I do not see a women’s only hotel as a step backward at all but another nice option to have for women in the Kingdom.

Riyadh blogger Sweet Anger is fed up of foreigners assuming that Saudi women are oppressed, while knowing nothing about their lives or society:

So I was googling one thing or another when I found a post about the abject horror of a reporter in Saudi who was female and was therefore not permitted to stay in the men's section of Starbucks, umm boo hoo hoo. Now what grabbed my attention wasn’t the article itself, but the comments. […] Juuuuuust so we're clear, Saudi is not a bunch of tents stuck together with roaming camels, men in turbans singing “Allah o akbar” raping women cause it’s their right and having a harem of no less then 20. Oh and we don’t circumcise our women, man that’s just nasty and wrong on too many levels. Women are not locked up at home and any who are is a matter of the family culture not the country, still with me? Good. We're not backwards you morons, we're conservative, i.e. if you want to go and mingle with the opposite sex you go to a specific place. […] Now my more important point is, since when do you get off judging people: “Close Starbucks!! They shouldn’t support them by opening families sections” – umm, excuse me? I ain’t complaining, and I need my coffee, so seriously man, GET LOST, I didn’t hire anyone to be my speaker.

For those of you who are still convinced we are an oppressed nation and us poor poor woman need to be taught how to fight back and if not well go ahead and fight for us, let me give you a little review of what a regular day in Riyadh is like. Now yesterday I wake up, make my coffee … get dressed put my abaya on (if it’s too horrific to think about this, think of it as a jacket), pick up my little angel, get in my chauffeured car a.k.a. driver included, drop my girl off, and go to work. By 1:30 I'm having lunch from Subway with the girls, then go back to work and leave at 4:30, go home, relax, take a shower, get dressed, wait for the driver to take me to the Chinese place since I invited the girls out. Get there around 9:45 and leave around 12, get home, get online, check my facebook and hotmail, then hit the sack by 2am. OH MY GOD, WHAT HORROR, HOW CAN I LIVE A LIFE SO OPPRESSED, AAAAHHHHHH!!!! […] My point is, some people have no knowledge about what goes on in our life yet they deem it their right to judge and be almighty. We're different, hell yeah, being different from what you think is right doesn’t make us bad or wrong it makes us us. Deal with it and butt out.

The decision by the Guyanese government to host Carifesta X was controversial. The Bahamas were the original hosts, but the new administration that came to power in that country after elections in 2007 announced, just about a year ahead of the scheduled opening, that it was not prepared for the responsibility. Guyanese president Bharrat Jagdeo then volunteered his country as replacement host, setting off a barrage of criticism by commentators who argued that Guyana could not afford the expense of the massive week-long festival, and a semi-boycott by the opposition People's National Congress party.

In the months before the Carifesta opening, some of Guyana's politics bloggers expressed frequent disdain for the festival organisers and disbelief that the event would proceed successfully. Many took to using the disparaging term "Carifiasco". As usual, Living Guyana was the most prolifically outspoken. "Is this government really serious?" asked Living Guyana's MediaCritic in July:

Sure every country in Caricom has poverty but how could we be proud to invite visitors to this nation when we have hundreds of our fellow countrymen and women who know no home but the pavements and the streets?

How could we invite visitors to this land when poverty, hunger and hopelessness are so pervasive and overwhelming?

Living Guyana also described Carifesta as a "deception masterstroke":

[President Jagdeo] is desperate to leave a positive legacy and his time is quickly running out (his current term is his last and it ends in 2011). He saw this as the perfect opportunity for Guyana to host the region and impress upon them that he has done well for Guyana as president….

But C.D. Valere, a US-based Guyanese literary blogger who posts at Signifyin' Guyana , and returned to Guyana for the festival, disagreed :

Hopefully, Carifesta will be a chance for those who live in the region and those who claim belongingness to the region to (again) enjoy their commonalities and differences in a relatively relaxed and fun atmosphere.

A major planning hitch came two days before the opening ceremony, when the system for distributing free Carifesta tickets to the public broke down, leaving hundreds of people to queue for hours. Living Guyana posted photos of the crowd outside the Carifesta Secretariat. Meanwhile, Nicolette Bethel, a writer and theatre director who serves as director of culture in the Bahamas, reported on her arrival in Guyana and then the frustrating discovery that the Bahamian contingent's entire container of costumes, stage sets, artworks and artifacts had failed to leave the Bahamas. And the night before the opening, Living Guyana posted photos suggesting that construction was still incomplete at one of the main exhibition sites.

The opening ceremony itself, televised live, drew strongly mixed reactions. Living Guyana described it as a "glorious disaster … disjointed and embarrassing". "I'd love to tell you that the opening ceremony … was a show of money well spent," wrote Signifyin' Guyana . " It was not. But I'm having so much fun otherwise, I'd rather not dwell on the negatives right now." Press reports also described the disappointed reactions of the audience to the opening ceremony, and a "negative" story in the Guyana Times , the newest of Guyana's newspapers (launched just a few weeks ago), even got a journalist fired. Living Guyana broke the story :

It is widely known that Guyana Times is owned by the Ramroop family who have very close links to President Bharrat Jagdeo and the newspaper has taken a decidedly pro-government/pro-PPP slant and does not encourage criticisms of the government or its activities to be published.

As Carifesta unfolded over the next few days, bloggers continued to post reports on specific events and general hitches in the programme. SkinUp Guyana noted that heavy weekend rain had produced minor flooding around Georgetown , the Guyanese capital (which lies below sea level and is protected by a series of drainage canals, sluice gates, and dykes). "Didn't the government promise that drainage would be a priority during these periods?" At the same time, there was a shortage of running water at one of the main Carifesta venues, SkinUp said. Signifyin' Guyana , on the other hand, wrote appreciatively of a symposium event featuring a panel of distinguished Caribbean writers, including Nobel laureate Derek Walcott :

It was a well-organized evening of reflection on the topic "Caribbean Culture at The Crossroads," and as expected, the topic generated both bright and gloomy views of the current state of the Caribbean and about its past and future.

SkinUp Guyana , however, complained that the symposium events were poorly attended, and blamed the Carifesta organisers.

Signifyin' Guyana also posted a mini review of a play by the Caymanian writer Frank McField, and an account of an evening of literary readings. Nicolette Bethel described the highlight of her Carifesta trip: a performance of her play The Children's Teeth in the village of Anna Regina, on Guyana's Essequibo coast. And Antilles , the blog of The Caribbean Review of Books , suggested that "the best parts of big arts festivals like this are the encounters that happen informally if not spontaneously on the edges — random meetings, casual conversations, pleasing coincidences." Even MediaCritic at Living Guyana , on visiting the Carifesta "Grand Market", admitted that, despite many flaws in the displays at the venue, it was worth a second visit.

With three days still to go before Carifesta X closes, it's certain that Guyanese blogs will have much more to say about the event. What's less sure is whether the arts festival will make a great enough impact on the wider regional consciousness for other Caribbean bloggers to enter the debates raised by the event.