Happy New Year!

Like Christmas, Saudies also don't celebrate the New Year, or birthdays.  This is particularly tragic for one of my students who's birthday happens to be New Year's Eve.  She told me excitedly on Wed. that it was her birthday and when I asked her if she had any plans, she told me no, that it was haram or forbidden to celebrate birthdays.  She looked so sad that I decided then and there that I would make her a cake.  I know what you are all thinking, me baking?  I must have burned the house down.  Don't worry, it was from a box, and there was no tragic cooking accident.  Ok, so there might have been a minor  cooking accident, but it wasn't tragic.  I was very carefully following the recipe on the back of the box, which told me to heat the oven to 180.  I remember thinking at the time that 180 seemed kind of low, but I figured I shouldn't try to deviate from the instructions since I only had one chance to make this a good cake.  I set my watch for 25 minutes later and waited.   When I went back to check it, it was still a liquidy mess.   That's when what you've all been thinking this whole time finally dawned on me.  The temperature they gave on the box was in Celsius, and the oven temperature was in Fahrenheit.  I turned up the heat, let it bake for another 20 minutes or so, and all was well. Except that when I got ready to leave for work, I left it on the table.

Luckily, I realized in time to buy some Twinkies at the corner store before I got to class.  When I arrived, she and I were the only two in class so far.  I told her about how I had baked a cake for her, and how I had forgotten it, so I bought a bunch of mini-cakes for everyone instead.  She looked confused.  Why teacher?  For you!  I said.  For your birthday.  She started laughing.  Oh, I forgot is was my birthday.  I told everyone, including you it was my birthday and tried to get them to have a party for me or something, but my husband, my friends, everyone, told me haram so I forgot all about it.  She laughed again and thanked me.  We ate the cakes at the end of class, and even though they were kind of stale, I think we all appreciated having a little something to celebrate.

I went straight from class to the New Zealand Embassy for a New Year's Eve party.  Since I didn't have time to go home and change, I had been wearing my fancy party dress all day, and no one knew any better.  It's times like these when abayas really come in handy.  The party was a masquerade ball, and so I decided to wear my crazy leopard print dress since it matched the gold and black mask I had bought at the shop a few doors down from my work.  I happened to see the party shop on my way to lunch one day and remembered I would need a mask for the party, so I stopped in.  It was a good thing I did too.  They were closing up the shop or moving it to another location or something, and since they were packing everything in boxes, they let me have the mask for super cheap just to save the effort of packing it.

So mask in hand, and pre-dressed, I made my way to the embassy in a taxi.  He was a very confident guy, and when I told him to take the south gate because that was the one I used the last time that was closer to the New Zealand Embassy, he told me the south gate had been closed since 3pm in anticipation of New Year's Parties at the embassies, and because there was increased security now because of ISIS.  He certainly knew his stuff.  Since he knew all that, I assumed he knew where the New Zealand embassy was.  He assumed that I knew where the New Zealand embassy was since I had a ticket to a party there.  Neither of us bothered to check in with the other about this, until after about the 10th roundabout inside the diplomatic quarter, he turned to me to ask where it was.   Luckily, there was an information panel that listed all the embassies, so we found that, and then were able to find the embassy.

Me & the ice-sculpture

It was crowded, maybe 300 people, and at least 3/4 of them had masks on.  It was sort of fun, but also sort of hard to see through the peepholes in the mask, and even harder to dance without it falling off and bouncing everywhere.  Most people gave up on their masks fairly early in the evening.  There was lots of food, and an ice-sculpture that said 2014 that was appropriately melting, though not really fast enough to be gone by midnight.  Someone had gone through the trouble of putting up Christmas lights that spelled out something Happy New Year.  After much debating, about what it might say; what, new, wally, whisper, we're here, a very smooshed 2014... we finaly consulted an embassy staff member who told us they had worked very hard on trying to get it to say "wish u a" Happy New Year, but that it all sort of ran together and the only part you could really read was Happy New Year.

People Watching

 There was lots of dancing, but the DJ was really hit or miss, so most of the time I sat out and enjoyed some quality people watching.   Since it's allowed to sell beverages at the embassies, there was some very entertaining people watching going on. I realized when I kept looking at the clock to see how long before midnight, not because I was excited for it to be midnight, but because I was excited to be going home, that I must be getting very old.  I used to work 12 hour days a lot and it never seemed to phase me.  Now, I just feel tired all the time.  Not even the promise of the next cliff-hanger episode of Breaking Bad appeals to me more than sleep lately.  And the music is really too loud for me.  I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but Saudi has turned me into an old woman.

The ice-sculpture meets an untimely death in the pool.

Which isn't to say I can't still have fun.  The guy who got me the ticket to the party is best friends with the deputy ambassador to New Zealand, so we were invited to the after party.  As tired as I was, the prospect of watching a bunch of diplomats jump into the pool was too promising to pass on.  I had been cold all night, temperatures dipping into the frigid 60s, and since the pool was not heated, this was pretty much equivalent to the polar dip for those of us acclimated to Saudi weather.  About a dozen guys (and me the only girl) stuck around for the after party.  They had all initially agreed to do it, but in the end, only 4 guys jumped in.  They might have changed their minds after the catering staff dumped the ice sculpture into the pool as the quickest and easiest method of getting rid of it.  The guys in the pool invented a new pool game.  Ice-burg tag.  The basic premise being to push the pieces of floating ice away from you and towards anyone else who is in the pool.  As fun as it was, I still had to work the next day, so when the Italian finance officer declared that it was now 2015 in Italy, I decided it was time to be heading home.

So, 2015.  It definitely doesn't feel like I've been here 8 months.  Sometimes it feels like 8 years, other times 8 weeks.   Who knows what's in store for me this year.  I could be heading home in a month or two.  I could make it all the way to the year mark.  I could stay till August.  But I'm making this resolution right now.  I will not be spending New Year's Eve in the Kingdom next year.  Inshalla.

Christmas in the Kingdom

I almost forgot about Christmas this year.  In any other country in the world, this wouldn't have been possible.  Christmas music and lights and decorations are starting earlier and earlier so that by Christmas, you are hard pressed to find anything that doesn't remind you of the holidays.  But here in Saudi, Christmas is more or less forbidden.  In 2012, twelve people were arrested for "plotting to celebrate Christmas".  And while I don't know for sure if there are any actual written laws against Christmas, the religious pressure keeps it pretty much under wraps.  There are no decorations, no holiday jingles on the radio or in the stores (for that matter, there is never any music in stores since listening to music in public is haram) and no lights or candy canes, not to mention the weather hovering in the mid to upper 70s.  I have not seen, heard, tasted, or smelled anything in the entire month of December that gave me any indication of the Holiday Season aside from the calender itself.

So maybe you can understand my surprise when I looked up one night while riding in a taxi and saw the kingdom tower lit up in green and red.  Normally, the lights on the tower change slowly in a rainbow pattern from red to yellow, to green, to turquoise, to blue, to purple and back to red.  But that night, the lights on the sky bridge were green, while the u shape in the middle was red.  I couldn't believe my eyes.   Of course, it could have been a coincidence.  Red and green are complimentary colors, so it could have just been an aesthetic thing, but there is something so fundamentally Christmas-y about red and green together that I couldn't help but think that someone somewhere was using this iconic Riyadh building to secretly wish the whole country Merry Christmas.  If so, it was a very short lived greeting card.  By the next night, the tower lights had been switched back to the regular rotating colors.

Christmas Contraband

Christmas Dinner

That wasn't my only Christmas surprise.  One of the things I've been most grateful for this year, and especially in the last three months since I moved to Riyadh, is the collection of friends I have been able to make.  Collectively, my friends gave me the best gift possible (short of going home), a wonderful Christmas Eve party.  One of them went around to different stores and found a tiny plastic Christmas tree and some ornaments on the black market.  Another friend who works at an embassy procured some candy canes.  Someone else had brought a Santa hat from the UK.  Another friend made tiny delicious quails for dinner, and I attempted to make my brother's famous twice baked potatoes and an apple pie. Together we gathered around that tiny fake tree, ate, talked, played cards and listened to Christmas songs from the internet.

At work the next day, I gathered with my new co-workers around a big traditional Saudi breakfast with humus and beans and bread and falafal.  No one mentioned any reason for the sudden generosity and impromptu get together, but I think we all noticed the calendar said December 25th. When we were finished and everyone was cleaning up and heading back to work, one of the Arabic editors leaned over and whispered a clearly carefully memorized phrase: Merry Christmas.  I gave him a huge smile and he smiled back, proud that he had shared this secret with me.  Later that night after class, one of my students hung around after the others had left and said, teacher, Merry Christmas.  I gave her a hug.  Those two greetings meant more to me than a lifetime of automatic holiday greetings from salesmen and clerks in the US.

It wasn't most the traditional of Christmas's, especially having to work, but I can't complain.  Maybe I missed all the build up to Christmas, the cold weather, the carols, the cards, the annoying advertisements.... but maybe I got something better.  Maybe when you have to look for it, when it isn't on every street corner, when you have to dare to celebrate, and weigh the consequences if you do, you think more about what it really means and what really matters.  Like winning at cards.

30,000 SAR

It had been over a week and I hadn't heard anything from the college about my new three letters.  The new company asked me to go in and ask them why they hadn't pushed the button yet.

So I went in to my evening classes early one day and stopped by HR to ask what was going on with the transfer.  The bald guy told me that they had changed their minds about transferring me.  They said that they were not going to transfer me unless I paid them SR 30,000 (just shy of $8,000).  I laughed at first.  I thought the bald guy was teasing me.  But when he didn't laugh back, I realized he was serious.  I asked why, he told me he didn't know, he was just told not to do anything unless I paid the 30,000.

Since the number was the same as the number Suleiman had thrown out back when I was arguing with him about getting the transfer, I knew who was behind it.  He must have found out that I was transferring from someone at the college, and he must have told them he would not let me be transferred.  I should have known that it was too good to be true.

I went back to the publishing company and told them what happened.  They agreed that it was blackmail, and told me they were going to speak with some lawyers and find out what could be done and not to worry.  Of course, when someone tells you not to worry, it basically requires you to start worrying.

I decided to call Suleiman.  There was a chance he would be reasonable and do the right thing and let me transfer, but there was also a chance that my calling him would make it worse.  He had been so nice to me in the beginning, and if even half of what he had said to me about the charity of Muslims, or helping people in need, or not caring about money was true, then he should be able to listen to reason.  I had given the college a fair chance.  Our teaching styles weren't compatible, and now, he should let me go.  After all, he hadn't upheld his end of the bargain since I most definitely didn't get my iqama within a week, and whether I went home, or went to another company, what did it matter to the college? Either way, they wouldn't have a teacher.  And transferring me would cost them nothing, while sending me home meant they would have to pay for my plane ticket.  I was fairly sure that as a business man, Suleiman would see the logic in these arguments, so  I called him up.

We exchanged the usual pleasantries. I asked him about the money, and he played dumb.  He said he didn't know what was going on.  So I explained the situation.  I told him that I wasn't happy at the college, and they weren't happy with me.  I told him that they had agreed to transfer me, even given me the three letters, and then suddenly changed their minds.  He feigned surprise and offered to call the college.

He called me back about 10 minutes later, which isn't very long, so I suspect he didn't even call anyone.  He told me that they would transfer me, I just had to pay 30,000 riyals.  I asked him why, and he told me that that is what it costs to transfer someone.  I told him that was funny, because on the Ministry of Labor website, the fee is clearly only 2,000 riyals, and in addition, I had already paid the college 3,650 in fees and visa costs that had been accrued by my first company for not issuing the iqama on time and letting my visa expire.  He said that didn't matter, and that I still had to pay 30,000.  I asked him to explain what it was for.  He said it was for the hotel I stayed in when I first came to Riyadh and for the time he spent getting my situation with the first company resolved.  I told him that my second company is responsible for that money, and I had emails from Gemma confirming they would continue to pay for my accommodation until I was able to leave the country, and since I couldn't leave the country until an iqama was issued, what he did or who he bribed to get me an iqama was something he did for the second company anyway so they should pay him for his time.  He didn't really respond to this but instead started in about how ungrateful I was.  I told him I was very grateful, but that I had given it a try, and it didn't work out.

Then he punched me in the gut.  He said he wouldn't have helped me if he had known I was a bad teacher, and since they took my classes from me and fired me from the other place I must have been bad.  I asked him if I was such a bad teacher why they spent days trying to convince me to stay and offering to send me to Jeddah instead, and why students kept finding me in the hallways and telling me they missed me and wished I was still their teacher.  I told him to ask his daughter (who had been in my class) what she thought of my teaching.  I told him to ask his other daughter and two sons whom I had tutored before (and for which he never paid me) what they thought of my teaching.

He told me that didn't matter and that we had a deal, and he told me before he wouldn't let me transfer.  I pointed out that he had also told me that I should transfer to the college and ask them if they would let me transfer, which they agreed to, so it was really only him that was standing in the way.  I asked him if it was really about the 30,000 or if it was just that he wanted to make life difficult for me.  He told me that he really spent 30,000 riyals to get me free from the old company.  I said ok, on what?  Who did you pay it to, what for?  If you can make me an itemized list of what the costs are, I might be able to get my new company to pay it.  He told me no.  I asked why not?  He said he could not.  I told him it was okay if he didn't have official receipts, he could just write down what he spent and why,  that would be enough.  He told me he would not.  I asked him why again, is it because what you did was illegal or because you didn't actually spend anywhere close to 30,000?

At this he became irate.  He started yelling things about ungrateful Americans, and went on for ten minutes yelling about how America was terrible, and about some guy he met like ten years ago who was American and screwed him on a business deal, he yelled about so many unrelated and sometime incomprehensible things, that I honestly had no idea what he was talking about.

Finally he paused for breath.   I told him that I couldn't pay him any money without a bill, so as soon as he produced an itemized bill in writing, I would be happy to try to work out some sort of payment plan or deal.

He hung up the phone.  Merry Christmas to you too.

My (fourth) First Day

I was so excited to start my new job that I left 30 minutes early for work. Unfortunately, the taxi driver I used went through the center of town instead of the ring road, so there was a lot of traffic and I didn't make it into the office until 9am, 30 minutes late.  Turns out, this was no big deal since most of the office still hadn't arrived either.

I went to the women's section first to drop off my bag and found that they had already given me a laptop.  May had said it might take a couple of days, so this was a good sign.  I went to find Nick and see what he wanted me to do.  We sat down and he described for me the projects that were coming up.  He and May were both leaving next week for Christmas holidays, so I had a lot to catch up with quickly.  We basically  had 4 major projects to do in the next two or three months.  The first was an annual report for a mining company.  This was basically 75 pages of  corporate speak and financial charts.  Real exciting stuff.  The second was more exciting, we were doing the PR for an upcoming global conference on something related to economics and technology.  The acronym was GCF, but I never quiet caught what they stood for, and Nick had forgotten himself.  We also had an issue of the Saudi Voyager to put out, and a report on Saudiazation strategies that MacDonald's was publishing.   So, all very exciting.

For now, I was given the opening of the annual report to edit, and then after that, I was going to help Safia, our other English Department person write profiles of all the key note speakers for the GCF.  So I went back to the women's office and opened up my new computer.  It was really brand new, and it had Windows whatever installed, you know, the new one that is great if you have a tablet or a touch screen but completely useless and confusing if you don't.  I spent about 10 minutes just trying to figure out how to open a word document.  I've come to the conclusion that maybe it doesn't even have windows.  I gave up and used Google docs instead.

I started in on the profiles, which basically involved internet stalking the different presenters to find out about their credentials and job history and maybe an interesting tidbit or two.   This wasn't so hard with the foreign speakers, but the Saudi speakers were mostly in their late 60s and didn't have much of an internet presence.   It was actually pretty interesting to learn about all the different speakers, but it was also kind of depressing.  All these people have done so much with their lives and many of them at young ages. I was starting to wonder about what exactly I was doing with my life when Nick called me and told me to get ready, he was going to take me to a meeting with the mining company.  I asked if I needed to bring anything, and he said no, so I grabbed just a pencil and some paper and went to meet him in the lobby.

We took a taxi to the Mining company office in Riyadh, and when we approached the security at the reception I started to get a little worried.  I had been carrying my iqama with me in my abaya pocket, but this morning, I had put it in my bag because I thought I might be taking my abaya off in the women's office and I didn't want it to fall out when I pulled it over my head.  I had forgotten that I did that, and didn't remember until they asked for my iqama at the security desk.  I hadn't brought anything with me.  It was really embarrassing.  May, another co-worker who had arrived separately had to go upstairs and find the email where I had sent her the scans of my iqama, find a color printer, print them out and bring them to the security guard.  Luckily he agreed to let me in.

The meeting was to show the right hand man of the President of the Communications Department the design and layout for this year's annual report.  I was seeing if for the first time, too.  The mining company had wanted to go "more modern" this year than last, and the design featured diagonal cropping of photos and some really bright childlike colors for the section divider.  The right hand man wasn't so sure.  There were certain company branding colors that were allowed, and if it wasn't those two colors (yellow and a dark greenish teal) then he wasn't sure we could use them.  I suggested we still use multiple colors, but maybe choose less vibrant, more earthy tones to reflect the "mining" aspect.  Everyone liked my idea and I felt pretty proud that I had managed to make a valuable contribution on my first day.

By the time we got back to the office, it was l late and I was exhausted.  No more sitting around with nothing to do, I could tell this job was going to keep me busy and engaged.  For the first time since making the decision to take the job, I was 100% sure I had done the right thing.

Three Letters

After my first day, I felt reassured that everything would work out, even if it was going to take some time.  I got the letter requesting a transfer from the publishing company, and even thought it took a whole day of standing around and waiting, I finally got the three letters from Al Farabi that they needed to process my transfer.

Since I was still teaching at Al Farabi at night, and the same building was used for the women during the day and the men at night, I was able to save myself about half a dozen cab trips by stopping in at night after my class instead of during the day.  The bald guy was still there and he still bothered me about my Arabic.  I had new respect for him though, since now I knew that he worked a long shift, he had always been there in the mornings, and now here he was at night too.  I wondered if he at least got to go home in the middle of the day.

So a few nights after receiving the letters, I went in to get my final pay minus the fees from the old company, and the document that said I didn't owe them anything and they didn't owe me anything with my signature and official thumb print and everything.  After we had done all that,  I asked if they had done the electronic transfer yet. He told me that they hadn't done it yet, but they would the next day when the man in charge came back. I thanked them and went home.  Glad to finally have my pay, even if it was about $1500 short of what I should have been paid.  Still, I figured it would be worth it.

The next day, I got a call from HR asking me to bring the letters back.  They said there was some kind of mistake on them and they needed them back.  I told them I had already given them to the new company, and it was too late to get them back.  He thought about that for a while, and then he said okay, and hung up.  At this point I was a little worried.  I told me new company about the phone call, and they looked the letters over, which were in Arabic and they did find a small typo, but they said it wasn't anything serious, and that the letters were fine as is.

The day after that, the old company called the publishing company back and demanded that they return the letters, or they would not "push the button" on the electronic transfer.  So they made copies of the letters, and they told me to take the letters back to the old company.

I went back to the HR office the next evening to give back the letters.  I thought we would do an even exchange, the old letters, for new letters.  The bald guy said they couldn't give me the new letters because the boss wasn't there to sign and stamp them.  He told me he would call me to come pick them up tomorrow or on Sunday. In retrospect, I should have kept the letters, and told him I would give them back when I got the new ones, but I figured, I had copies of them, so if they tried anything funny, I could just use the copies.  Also, I think I wanted to believe that they were honest people who would keep their word.  After all, I had paid them to let me transfer, so what more could they ask for?

Unfortunately, I would soon find out.

Still Transferring...

I talked to the publishing company over the weekend, and while they were willing to pay the fees associated with transferring my iqama to them, understandably, they wouldn't pay any of the previous fees.  They advised me that I could take my first company to court and try to recoup those fees, which is something the bald Egyptian guy also told me I should try to do.

So, I decided that I would go ahead and cough it up and pay the money, knowing full well that it wasn't likely that I would ever see that money again.  To get the reward, you have to be willing to take some risks.  So I went to the college Sunday morning, with some hope that perhaps everything would get completed that day.

I started in HR and told my bald Egyptian friend that I would pay, or more accurately, that they would deduct it from my December salary.  He ignored me and launched into his usual diatribe about why I hadn't learned Arabic and finally, after about 20 minutes he called in Dr. Abdullah who took me to see Dr. Salah for final approval.  He told me that they needed me to rewrite my resignation letter without all of the negative things in it, that just said I was resigning for personal reasons.  Even though all of the things I had said in my previous resignation letter were true, the biggest reason I wanted to leave was more or less personal, because I wanted to take this other job, so I agreed to re-write it.

We found a computer and I typed up a quick resignation, but that computer was not hooked to a printer, so while someone took it on a flash drive to find a printer, I wrote it by hand and we took it to Dr. Salah, who passed it on to Dr. Salem, who sent it back to Dr. Salah.  It seems no one was really sure what the process should be.  Finally, they both signed it and we went back upstairs to the HR office.

The bald Egyptian greeted me again, and even though we had already been through it this morning, proceeded to chastise me because I hadn't managed to learn any Arabic between now and when I had last seen him.  Finally, he checked to see if the man who needed to sign everything and approve this issuance of my check was in.  He was not.  So we waited.

We waited until 3:30 and finally, the bald guy told me he must not be coming in that day.  He told me to bring a request letter from my company the next day and they would finish everything.  Since I was still teaching at night, and had to come to Al Farabi in the evenings anyway, I asked him if I could give it to him tomorrow night instead of during the day.  He said that would be fine, but the man who needed to sign everything wouldn't be there at night.  So I asked him If I needed to be here for him to sign the things, or could they just have him sign the things and issue my final pay, and then I would come pick it up at night.  He seemed to think that could work out, so I left.  Only 6 hours late.  Not so bad for Saudi.

Transfering

After I got the amended offer from May, where the agreed to an increase in salary, I began feeling out if I would be able to transfer or not.

I went to Dr. Salem, with whom I had originally met with to sign the contract, and who had told me to let me know if there was anything I needed.  So I went to him and explained that my classes had been taken from me since the students didn't like how strict I was.  I told him that the final straw for me had been when in the meeting with the man (whom I still do not know his name or title) had basically agreed with me that everything I was asking of the students was correct and best practices and the right thing educationally, but that there bottom line was that they couldn't loose any tuition over it. I told him that he had presented the college to me as a place wanting to change, as an educational institute dedicated to improving educational standards, but that from all of the actions I had seen so far, they were really only dedicated to lining their own pockets. I told him that we had given it a good try, but that it was clear that the college wasn't ready for western staff or western style teaching.  I said that I would like to transfer to another job, away from teaching, to the publishing company.

He expressed great concern over this meeting with this guy.  He wanted to call him in at once and berate him.  I told him I'm sure he was only following orders and repeating what his bosses had told him.  I explained that individually, a lot of people at Al Farabi had helped me out a lot and were very kind, but one of the biggest problems was that everyone was working individually and there was no coherent structure.  I pointed out how I had been at the college for nearly 2 months and had only been introduced to the head of the English Department a week ago.  He asked who that was, and I told him some woman, since I still didn't know her name.  He looked confused and told me that she wasn't the head of the English Department at all and called some other man, Abdullah into the office whom I had never met.  This, he said, is the head of the English department.  Case and point, I said.  I have never met this man, and some woman obviously thinks she is in charge, so no one really knows for sure.

He assured me they would fix everything.  He asked me to write down all the things that I thought were wrong or needed improvement and to bring it to Dr. Abdullah, and then we could talk about this.  I spent the whole afternoon and came up with a four page list of suggestions.  I showed it to Dr. Abdullah, who asked me to show it to another person, the head of academics in general, and they both said that they were all very good recommendations and that they would try to implement them, and I told them I was glad they were willing to try, and I hoped it would work out for them, but that I still wanted to transfer.  So they sent me back to Dr. Salem, who had gone home for the day.

The next day I spoke with him again and he told me, that if I didn't like it here, they could send me to Jeddah.  This was a little bit of a surprise.  In the beginning I had asked about Jeddah because Suleiman told me they needed teachers there too and it seemed like a better place to live than Riyadh.  At the time he said there were no positions open in Jeddah, but now suddenly there were?  Hmmm....
I told him I would think about it.

On the one hand, I really wanted to try something other than teaching.  On the other hand, the pay would be higher if I stuck with teaching and I could still have a change, and see a whole other part of Saudi.  On the other hand, I had no idea what I would do about housing if I transferred and I'm sure they would want me out ASAP after I transferred.  If I went to Jeddah instead, the housing and transportation would be sorted out for me.  On the other hand, I had just started to make friends in Riyadh and I was even doing activities, and I was just settling in.  I would have to start all over again if I went to Jeddah.  It went on and on like this in my head all afternoon.  Every-time I felt like I had made a decision, I would think of something that would push the scales back another way.

That night I consulted some of my new friends in Riyadh.  One of the girls I had met through a friend from Dammam, Alison, offered to let me stay with her until I could find a place of my own close to my new job.  She was planning on going home for a month for Christmas, so the place would be empty in a week or two anyway, and she told me she would rather have someone staying there than let it be empty all the time.  That was the thing I needed to finally push me over the edge.  I committed.  I was really going to do it.

So the next day, I wrote out my letter of resignation, detailing all of the reasons why I didn't want to stay with the college, and asking them to let me transfer to the publishing company.  Dr. Salem didn't want to take it.  He asked me to reconsider and think about it over the weekend.  I told him I had made my decision.  I was sure, and I wanted to start work at the new company on Sunday morning.  He seemed surprised that it would happen so soon.  He told me to take the letter to HR.  In HR, there is a bald Egyptian man, who whenever he sees me yells at me for not knowing arabic.  He likes to brag that he went to America and learned English in a month.  Of course, he has to do his bragging through a translator because he can't say more than about 5 words in English.  It's all good natured teasing, but it means that every interaction I have with him takes 3 times longer than it should because we first have to have this conversation, and then he usually gives me a little mini-lesson in Arabic, sometimes he teaches me numbers (which I already know) or words for objects in the room, like stapler, or stamp.  Normally I would enjoy this kind of thing, but time was slipping away and i wanted to try to clear everything today.

So we waited to see the Head of Finance, and finally we went in to see him, and a third man did some calculations.  He told me I would have to pay 5,650 SAR if I wanted to transfer.  I asked him why, and he told me that the college had just paid 2,000 Riyals to transfer me from my old company, a standard fee, and 2500 Riyals for a work permit, since my initial work permit / visa had expired, 650 in fees for renewing my iqama (strange that there were renewal fees when I had never had one in the first place), and a 500 fine because the old company had not issued the first iqama on time.  I told them that all but the 2,000 should have been paid by the old company.  He agreed, but said that the college had agreed to pay them so that they could facilitate the transfer more quickly.  He said if I just wanted to take a final exit, then I wouldn't have to pay this.  But that if I wanted to transfer, I would have to pay since it had only just paid the fees and now I was leaving.  I could see why they wouldn't want to have to pay this money, but it seemed arbitrary to me that I would only have to pay it to transfer, but not to take a final exit.  After all, they were loosing out on having me as an employee either way...

By now it was almost time to go home.  I told the HR guy I would think about it, 5,650 is nearly half a months salary, so it's not a small amount of money.  I would need to see if Alef would be willing to pay any of it.  So it looked like I wouldn't be able to start Sunday after all, at least not Sunday morning.  At least I would have the weekend to figure it out.

I Finally Got My Iqama!

So, maybe it was my conversation with the old company, or maybe it was my conversation with Suleiman, but whatever it was, Sunday morning first thing, I was called into the HR office and given my iqama.  I felt like crying and dancing all at the same time.  I held it like it was a precious gem.  I put it in my wallet, but found myself taking it out to look at it again every 10 minutes or so just to be sure it was real.

One thing that made me suspicious about the whole thing, is that they got the iqama for me without needing my passport.  My passport has been with me the whole time since I left the old company.   So that means either, a). My old company was lying about needing the passport just so they could keep it under their own control, or b). Suleiman had so much wasta he could get the iqama without my passport (but if this was the case, why didn't he do it sooner.)  Anyway, it didn't really matter anymore. The important thing was I had my iqama.

The first thing I did was call May from the publishing company, and tell her that I had finally gotten my iqama, and that perhaps it was possible to transfer now.  I told her I would feel them out and see if they were open to it and let her know.  She told me she would send me an amended offer after they discussed the finances of my proposal for a higher salary.

I felt so free!  I could finally do things like, open a bank account. And buy a sim card for my phone (even though I already had one). And, best of all leave the country (though I would still have to wait to get an exit re-entry visa for this.  Hm... other than those few things, I guess that is pretty much all that I need my iqama for, that and being here legally.  Kind of anti-climactic really.

There is one thing though, the picture on my iqama is the one they take of you at the airport when you first enter the country.  In it, I look confident but nervous at the same time, and I look about ten years younger than I feel now.  It's hard to imagine this was only 8 months ago.  I feel like I have changed so much since then.  It's weird, staring at myself, so innocent, so unsuspecting, would I still have come if I knew then what I know now?  I think I would have. Maybe it's the bad experiences that we learn the most from.   I don't think I would want to go back to being the girl in the photo, too much has changed for me. But I'm also not sure I like who I am becoming here.  True, I'm more patient, and I've seen a lot of things, and I've learned a lot.  But I also feel myself becoming lazy, starting to mimic the work ethic around me.  I'm starting to let these negative interactions with a few people, like Suleiman, who seemed so generous and kind, but who turned out to be greedy and spiteful, and the man who told me the bottom line for the college was getting the tuition money, not what was best for the students educationally, get to me.  I can feel my frustration and disappointment with these situations coloring my day to day interactions unfairly, and that isn't good.

So I think its time for a change.  Maybe all I need now is to finally take that long hoped for trip to Bahrain and clear my head for a weekend.  Or maybe something more.  Maybe it's time to take a chance on the publishing job, even if the pay is less.  Or maybe it's just time to come home.

The Offer

Now, I know that I shouldn't complain about being paid to sit around and do nothing, but believe me it is less pleasant than you think.  Maybe it is because I can't stand doing nothing, or maybe it because I knew that there was lots of work that should be done, but that would be presumptuous or impossible of me to do, like, make an organizational chart, or establish a consistent policy on lecture times and attendance policy across the board since from what I could tell, everyone was just making it up.  Or or gather resources and make lesson plans for the next semester but since no one could tell me if or what I would be teaching, there wasn't much I could do in those terms.

I occupied my time with catching up on my blog and trying to get back to learning Arabic, but being interrupted periodically by former students coming in to tell me they missed me and wished I was their teacher again.  Either they are very hypocritical, or more likely, the complaints really were all coming from one or two students.  Still, it meant a lot to me that they stopped by to chat.  Maybe I was making small differences after all.

So, I was sitting there trying to remember the word "before" in Arabic when I got a phone call.  It was May, from the publishing company that I interviewed for a month and a half before.  I had forgotten about the  job altogether, but she was calling to make me an offer.

I was excited, after all, what was I doing here at the college?  Certainly not working.  So, why not?  It would be an opportunity to try something new, and to be honest I was feeling like I really needed a break from teaching.  When I got the offer, I was a little disappointed.  It was only about $150 dollars less per month than I was making now, but I would have to find my own accommodation and transportation, which would mean that I would actually be making even less.

I immediately started in on some research to find out how much housing and transportation would cost me and was quickly frustrated and disappointed.  Finding housing was not going to be easy.  Most of the ads were for bachelor men, or strangely, by nationality, Filipino only! or We are looking for Indians!  There were some places that looked promising, but when I called and they found out I was a single American woman, the told me that it wasn't safe for me there.  It was clear that the places in my price range were not meant for single women, but rather for bachelors willing to share apartments, often with up to 4 men sharing one room!  When I narrowed my search to places that would accept single females, prices shot up.  Only compounds were available.  Things weren't looking good for this job.  Unless I could find a female willing to share accommodations, there was no way I could afford to live anywhere near the office, and the further I got from the office, the more I would be spending on transportation, meaning it would be even less affordable.

And of course, there was still the issue of transferring.  It was now nearly two months since I started working for the college and I still didn't have an iqama.  This might be a good thing or a bad thing.  Since technically Education Experts was still my sponsor, I decided to call them and see if they would transfer me to the publishing company instead of the college.  I was shocked when I got a hold of the government relations officer right away.  I asked him about transferring, and he told me he could transfer me to whomever Suleiman wanted them to transfer me to.  I asked them why Suleiman had anything to do with it and he made a sort of general comment referring to the fact that they had made some deal whereby the Suleiman got them out of trouble with the Ministry of Labor in exchange for me.  So he told me to call Suleiman and if Suleiman agreed, he would do it today.

I called Suleiman.  I reminded him of our deal, that I would work for the college if he could get me my iqama in a week.  I pointed out that it was now nearly two months later and still no iqama, so I wanted to transfer to the other company.  He got very upset and told me that if I wanted to do that, I would have to pay Education Experts a lot of money.  I explained to him that in fact, I had just talked to Education Experts and they were fine with it so long as he agreed.  So then he said, that I would have to pay him If I wanted the transfer.  I asked him what for, and he said all the time and effort he put in to get my iqama.  I told him that so far, he hadn't done anything as far as I could see because I still didn't have my iqama.  He got very angry at that and told me that he would tell them to give me a final exit then.  I told him to tell me just how much money we were talking about.  He said 80,000 SR.  I actually laughed out loud.  I couldn't help it.  That's somewhere in the range of $20,000.  That is a ridiculous amount of money.  I told him there was no way a) that was a realistic estimation of the time and effort he put in, and b) that I could ever pay that money.  He said, fine.  Just continue to work at the college then.  I told him that legally,  I couldn't continue to work there since I still wasn't legal and didn't have an iqama.  And reminded him again of our deal, and that he hadn't upheld his end of the bargain.  He said fine, do whatever you want, he didn't care anymore.  I told him that if he didn't care, then why wouldn't he let them transfer me to publishing company.  He said, I cannot.  If you want to get your iqama, I'll get your iqama for the college and then you can ask them to transfer you if you want, but I will not let tell the old company to release you to anyone but the college.

Well, that was discouraging.  But the thing is, I'm a very stubborn person.  And Suleiman telling me I can't, for no reason other than personal greed, just made me want to transfer even more.  I decided to write back to May about the offer.  I told her I really wanted to take the job, but there were two obstacles in the way.  One was the issue with my iqama, which I had told them about in the interview and which still wasn't solved, and the other was the money.  I asked if they could increase the offer since I wasn't having much luck finding anywhere to live in the price range they had allocated to the housing allowance.

So we will see what they say.

Rejected

After my first class, I was taken to meet with a man I had never meant before, by a woman I thought I had never met before.  It wasn't until about half-way through the meeting that it dawned on me that this was the same woman who had told me about the students complaints the other day.  When I met her, we were in the women's section so she had been uncovered.  But since this meeting was with a man, I only had her eyes to recognize her by, since the rest of her face was covered with a niqab. Ever try to recognize someone you only met one time without the benefit of hair, facial features, clothing.... it's pretty nearly impossible to tell from eyes alone.

Anyway, they had called me in to tell me that the complaints from the students had gotten worse.  Basically, the students were very used to getting their way, so when they complained, and I didn't instantly become a teacher who let them get away with everything and only teach for 1 hour, they now felt insulted on top of the initial injustices.  Also, the complaints mattered more now, because they were getting phone calls from their fathers and husbands as well as students, mainly over the whatsapp goup.  Now, remember, this whatsapp group was completely optional, with other ways of earning bonus points / doing the speaking and listening task for homework if they chose not to participate.  It is also worth noting that probably only about 1/4 to 1/3 of the messages sent in the group had anything to do with the English class, let alone were in English, and that most of what went on there was just the girls chatting with each other in Arabic.  He told me that one husband had threatened to destroy his wife's phone because she spent so much time on the Whatsapp group that she was neglecting her children.

I was flabbergasted. Saudi is like this:  you sort of go along, getting used to the small superficial differences like wearing the "ninja uniform" and you get caught up in getting to know your students and co-workers as people instead of stereotypes, and you don't exactly forget that you are living in one of the most oppressive societies for women in the world, but you do kind of get accustomed to it in the same way you get used to it when you sit for a long time in a place with flies constantly buzzing around you.  Then all of the sudden, you get stung by something like this.  A man, who is ostensibly liberal enough to let his wife attend medical school is angry that when she comes home she has the audacity to actually study, and that she spends too much time on her phone, and declares that the problem is clearly this English teacher who is forcing her (through an optional activity) to neglect her children.  Something this ridiculous and absurd, and unfair and just plain crazy happens and you think to yourself,  Where am I? When am I?

I was in 2014, in the office of a Saudi man, who was apparently in charge of something important, though I had no idea what his position was, with a woman who was covered and never said a single word.  He was saying, in stilted English, that while they value their teachers, and especially admire me as a teacher, they also value their students (or at least the money they earn from the students.)  Some of the fathers and husbands had threatened to pull their girls out of the school unless their girls were given another teacher. He showed me a paper which about 20 girls had signed, and which he said was a list of students who wanted to change classes to another teacher who was less strict.  This list bothered me more than anything else, because we had just finished a unit on writing complaint letters, and the girls hadn't even bothered to use this new knowledge to write a legitimate complaint letter, instead, they took the lazy way out again and just wrote their names.  There wasn't even any title or anything at the top of the page of signatures.  It might have all been worth it if only they had written a complaint letter.  At least then I would have known that I had managed to teach them something.

He told me they can't afford to loose any tuition payments, so for now, they would prefer it if I didn't teach any classes until further notice.  There was only a week before revision for exams, and then there would be two weeks for study with no formal classes and only presentations anyway, so they wouldn't be missing much.  I asked him if they had someone to cover the class or if the girls would just not have class, he told me not to worry about it, and I suspected that there wouldn't be any substitute.  What a world, when students who are paying for the privilege of learning, would rather not have a teacher at all than be forced to follow the rules and work hard.  I've never seen any group of people work so hard at not having to work in my life.  I was hurt and felt betrayed by my students, who regularly told me they loved having me as a teacher, that they loved that we played games in class, and how they wish all their teachers were like me.  Apparently the didn't love it enough to give up the luxury of shorter classes and someone who would look the other way when they came late.  I also suspected that there was peer pressure at work here, that one or two girls were more upset than the others (probably the ones who were habitually late) and that they had made the complaints and urged the other girls to follow suit.

I suppose I should have taken the first meeting with the woman who was in charge of the English Department more seriously.  I should have picked up on the cues from her, that if the school didn't care, I shouldn't care.  I should have given up then, and not even bothered to take attendance, and taught only for an hour.  I shouldn't have bothered to spend hours everyday working on lesson plans that were dynamic and engaging since the students didn't care about learning English, only about checking the boxes to get a mark and ultimately a Diploma.  I should have taken it as a sign when I asked them why they wanted to be a doctor and the most common response was "So I can be rich, and not have to work very much." that no one was here to actually learn anything, and that I shouldn't waste my time or energy to try to actually teach them.  I should have let go of my expectations that I could change the system from within and that the girls would rise to the challenge if they were presented with one.  I should have understood from the beginning that reasonable expectations everywhere else in the world are unreasonable here.  I should have, by now, after 8 months of living and teaching here, known enough to let go.

But here is the thing.  Even though I know our expectations are different, even though I know our cultures are different, even though I know that we often value different things, and that I have to respect these differences; I have some fundamental beliefs and values as a teacher, as a person, that I just can't let go of.    If I accept the premise that students are only there to get a diploma, If I accept that the grades are padded, that the rules are only half-halfheartedly applied, and that the goal is not to educate, challenge, and inspire these women, but rather to keep them happy and quiet, then it means that I'm not doing anything at all.  It means that my profession, what a work so hard at every day, doesn't mean anything.  Giving up on trying to reach these girls, using any thing that might inspire them, just a little, to practice more, to work harder, to think smarter, would mean giving up on the whole idea that education can be more than just spoon feeding knowledge to empty receptacles.

I'm not ready to give up.

Crazy Drunk Man with a Gun

So, tonight I was the last to leave the school after my evening class.  Usually there are a few girls still waiting for their drivers, but tonight, they had all left before me.  I was trying to remember how to say "I'm the last one" in Arabic to the guard to let him no it was safe for him to go in the women's section and lock up, so I was deep in concentration and didn't notice the crowds at first.  Then, one of my students who was already outside grabbed me and pulled me over into the crowd.  I saw a bunch of men gathered around one car, it looked like they were trying to calm someone down, but it was mostly just chaos so it is hard to tell.  I could see there was a broken back seat window and glass everywhere, and I thought, oh, big surprise it must have been an accident.

I asked one of my students (I think she was one of mine, it's hard to tell when they are wearing the niqab) if it was a car accident, and she said, no teacher - a gun!  I was so surprised.  For one thing, guns - apart from the ak-47s the guards have in front of compounds - are pretty much unheard of here.  For another, if someone has a gun, why on earth are we all crowded around trying to get closer?!  I didn't get the chance to follow up on that because I was being pulled further into the crowd by what I hoped was another one of my students.  I was close enough now to see that there were no bodies on the ground, so that was a good sign.  Just broken glass and some men shouting.  A woman turned around and asked me what was up in Arabic, and I half panicked.  I thought for a minute they were looking to me as the teacher and supposed authority figure here to do or say something.  I was completely unprepared to react, especially since I really didn't have any idea what was going on.  So I just stood there like an idiot, speechless.

As it turned out, it was just the mother of one of my students.   I can only assume she was in the car with the driver waiting to pick up her daughter when everything happened, and like everyone else, she had gotten out to take a look.  My student must have wanted her to meet me, so when she saw me, she just pulled me in.  It was an odd time to be meeting the parent of one of my students.   On the one hand, I felt I should be professional and friendly, on the other hand, there may or may not be someone with a gun less than ten feet away from me.  It's hard to make small talk in these circumstances.  We shook hands and I said it was a pleasure to meet her, which she didn't hear over the shouting going on around us.  I said it again a little louder and she nodded this time and gave my hand a little extra squeeze.  She may have been about to ask me something or say something else, but I will never know because we were being herded by some men in suits back into the building.  I had to wonder why our security guard, who from what I could tell wasn't doing anything but grandiosely narrating events like a sports caster, hadn't thought it smart to move all the women inside before now.

Inside again I asked the girls what had happened.  From the broken English and confusion, I was able to piece together the following scenario.  There was a small accident.  One of the drivers or a passenger of one of the drivers was drunk (this detail, even more than the gun, was the piece of information my students seemed to relish most in the retelling).  So there was an argument about whose fault the accident was, and suddenly the drunk man had a gun and was waving it around.  So some people who were watching called the police, and when the man heard the police were coming, he locked himself in the car, but oddly enough didn't drive away, he just sat in the back seat with his gun.  When the police came, he refused to get out, so they broke the glass on the window in the back seat and pulled him out and took him away.  This is where I came in.  I saw the broken window, and what I now assume were the other guys in the car with him yelling, and people all around trying to calm them down.  Eventually they all drove off, but I have no idea where they took the man or anything. I thought it was strange that I hadn't seen any police outside, so I asked the students about this.  They said that they weren't real police, just kind of like security guards.  This might help explain why on earth they would break a window and physically grab a guy who had a gun and could have easily shot anyone of them at any time.  I was trying to imagine a scenario where someone would say;
"Hey, that drunk man locked in the car has a gun!"
"Really?  Let's see if we can get the gun from him in the most violent and dangerous way possible!"   "Ok, hmmm.... I know, let's break a window and yank him out!"
"Yeah! He definitely won't try to shoot us if we do that!"
The only thing crazier than this would have to be the inner monologue of the guy with the gun:
"Wow, I really screwed up, I'm drunk, and I have a gun, and it's Saudi Arabia.  I guess I'll just lock myself in this car.  Yup, I'll curl up in the back seat of this car here, and have a good cry.  No point in trying to leave.  I'll just stay here.  In this car.  In the middle of the street.  While tons of people gather to watch these men break in my window... hey..."
I don't know, it doesn't make a ton of sense to me.  And maybe I haven't got all the details quite right, in fact, I'm sure I don't have all the details right.  Still it was an eventful night, and not just because of all the excitement about this man.  It was eventful for me because I could see how far the girls had come in just one month of classes. While we were all gathered in the front entrance of the school, waiting for our drivers to finally make their way to us from this chaos, the girls were all speaking English.  In their rush to be the first one to tell me what happened, they were throwing words around they never even knew they had learned.  They were spouting out irregular past tense verbs like champs.  The same group of women who four weeks ago couldn't even tell me that they had forgotten their book at home without a translator were suddenly giving me a blow by blow breakdown of what happened, and asking me what I thought of the whole thing.  It was amazing.  Sure, they weren't perfect, and sure, I didn't understand all of what they said, but tonight, these girls made the giant leap forward from learning English, to using English.  I couldn't be more proud.
So thank you crazy drunk man with a gun! You made my day.

Dental Health Celebration

Now that I had three less classes to teach, I was in the office more often.  This morning I happened to be around when the other teachers were all headed to a special presentation on dentistry, so they invited me along.

I was expecting a group of girls to present a 5 minute speech on the importance of flossing or something, but I should have known better. If there is anything Saudis do well, it's event planning.  We went to the same hall where we gave exams and the place had been transformed.  There were balloons everywhere, and even a balloon sculpture of a little girl.  There were tables at each end with gift bags for the elementary school students who were seated in rows to listen to the presentation. I wondered if they would be giving out candy in the bags, since there were two big cakes on the table as well.  What kind of message does that send?  Sweets are bad for your teeth!  Want some cake? There were screens projecting a video of a girl singing about wishing someone a happy birthday while backing a cake.  It was on a non-stop loop, and played for about 15 minutes, so I had plenty of time to wonder about how many haram things were in this video, singing, dancing, girls and boys mixing, the celebration of birthdays.... but maybe kids get a free pass on all of this.  Maybe things don't become haram until you hit puberty.

Since we were VIPs,  us teachers were seated in the front row, with little tables with big floral arrangements in front of every third chair or so.  I felt honored to be a VIP, but this meant we blocked the view of the kids, so I found myself sinking down in my chair to try to give them a better view.  After all, the presentation was really for them, and I think we were only there to be able to offer our congratulations and praise of a job well done to the organizers.

The presentation opened with a doctor explaining that we were at a college for medicine and having the students guess how long you had to be in school to become a dentist.  I wondered if she was purposely trying to put them off of this career path.  At the mention of 8 extra years of school, they all groaned.  Then she had some of the kids come to the front and recite something from the Quran.  After that, they showed a little video about how to take care of your teeth, and handed out prizes for correct answers.  Then another woman got up to talk about how to take care of your teeth, but the microphone wasn't really working, so the kids were getting restless.  Someone decided that this would be a good time to hand out hats with the Al Farabi logo on it to all the kids.  I didn't get one. Sigh.

Meanwhile, a teacher from the children's school got up to ask comprehension check questions, but didn't always have the right answers herself.  She was in the middle of demonstrating how to brush your teeth, up then down, not down to up, up to down, when one of the dental students thankfully took over and demonstrated the circular motion mentioned in the video instead. I was embarrassed for her.

It was clear they were stalling for time when they began playing a makeshift quiz game for which they seemed to be making rules as they went.  I soon found out why.  Two of the dental students came in dressed as Minnie Mouse and Spongebob Squarepants.  The little kids loved it and lined up to take turns shaking the characters hands.  The costumes were just off enough to seem sad, and they girls were clearly shy about wearing them and nervous and hot.  By this point, I was board and uncomfortable (it was very cold), and feeling pretty much as miserable as if I was one of the people wearing the character costumes.

I was relieved when someone came in to get me and asked me to go see someone who I had never heard of before, but at least it got me out of the road.  Who knew how much longer this might go on....

Someone's in Charge?!

Nearly a month and a half after starting work at the college, I finally met the head of the English Department.  To be fair, this person didn't actually have the title of Head of the English Department until a few days before I met her, but the fact remains that up until we met, I was under the impression that Dr. Doha, who didn't speak much English was in charge, and that I had already met all of the English teachers.  Turns out, there is a whole other staff room with about 5 more English teachers that I had been blissfully unaware of, stuck as I was in the reject staff room, with the part timers and teachers who taught other subjects in  Arabic.

From the beginning, our meeting was a rocky one.  One of the security guards knocked on my door during class and told me that so-and-so wanted to see me.  I had no idea who so-and-so was, and couldn't imagine anything so serious as it would be necessary to leave my class for, so I told her thank you and that I would see her after class in about 45 minutes.  About 10 minutes later there was another knock on my door.  This time it was so and so herself.  I need to see you she said.  I told her to please wait 5 minutes while I gave the girls something to do in my absence and then stepped out into the hallway with her.  She was incensed.  "Do you know who I am?" she said.  "No." I said.  She seemed shocked.  This seems to be a common reaction.  As the only American on staff, absolutely everyone seems to know who I am, and for some reason, in return, they seem to think that I should know who they are. I do not.  Furthermore, even the ones I have been introduced to, I don't remember their names, and barely recognize their faces.

She explained that she was the Head of the English Department and demanded to know why I didn't come to her as soon as she had asked.  I pointed out that I was in the middle of a lecture, and that I would be happy to meet with her as soon as the class was over.  She seemed surprised to hear that I as teaching, which is a strange thing to not know when you come looking for someone in a classroom.   She asked if she could come in and watch.  I said sure.  She came in and stood in the front for about a minute and a half.  I was getting their attention back after the group activity I had given before I went into the hallway to speak with her, When she interrupted to yell in Arabic at a girl in the back. I wasn't quit sure what the girl had done, but from the voracity of the yelling, it seemed like she must have murdered someone's child or something.  She turned to me to ask If I knew the girls name.  Since I had about 80 names to learn and this was only the second week of classes, I did not.

She made the girls say her name, and then told her to leave, and told me to mark her absent for the day.  Then she stormed out behind the girl and left me to it, telling me to find her when class was over.  The girls and I looked at each other sort of bewildered, and I was glad to see I wasn't the only one caught off guard by what had just happened.

After class, I made inquiries of the other staff, and eventually found her office.  She told me to sit and she gave me a new schedule, which meant that instead of teaching 10 classes a week I was now only going to be teaching 7 because they had hired some new teachers.  This was good news for me.  Then she told me that the girls had been complaining that the classes were too long.  I told her that the classes were supposed to be 2 hours, but that I had already cut off 15 minutes to make them 1 hour and 45 minutes.  She suggested that I give them a break in the middle, and I explained how I had given the students this choice and that they chose not to have a break.  She told me that the students were complaining that I was marking them late.  She told me I should give them 10 minutes leeway at the beginning of class.  I told here I was already doing that.  She told me the students were complaining that they had too much homework and that I shouldn't give them more than three workbook pages per class.  I told her that I usually only gave a page and half.  She told me that I should only use the workbook and not give homework over Whatsapp, and I explained that the whatsapp was optional, for extra points, except for the weekly listening and speaking question, which they could do in person anytime before or after class.  She shrugged and said, well, I'm just telling you what the girls are complaining about.

She called me her sister and assured me that she was very happy with my teaching and she knew I was doing a lot of activities and things with the girls and that they liked this, but they just wanted me to change those few things.  I stuck to my guns.  These girls are going to be doctors.  They need to learn now the importance of being on time, not when they are 30 minutes late for a surgery and the anesthesia is wearing off.  I explained that most of the girls were very behind in terms of language skills, and catering to their weakness by having shorter classes or not giving them homework would only make the problem worse not better.  I stood by my addition of listening and speaking homework to the reading and writing workbook homework by pointing out they would need English to communicate with the mostly foreign nurses and doctors they would someday be working with.  She listened and nodded along with everything I was saying.  "You are right," she said, "but, you know, the girls are paying to attend, so we have to do what they want, which reminds me.  The mid-term scores were all too low.  So we need you to give them a very easy 4 -point quiz, and we will add that score to their mid-term."  She and I looked at each other, and we both silently recognized the absurdity and immorality of arbitrarily adding 4 points to everyone's scores, but neither of us said anything about it. I thanked her for her suggestions, and for finally letting me know that someone was in charge, since I had no idea before.  She told me that she had just been given the role that week or the week before, and to come see her if I ever needed anything and she wished me great success.

Sadly, I'm feeling more and more that success is less and less possible in this environment.

Excuses, Excuses

Well, the first week of classes are behind me, and I have to say, these girls work hard at finding ways not to work hard.  I've dedicated this blog posting to all of the excuses I got in the first week alone.

On being late:

•  "Teacher, my driver was late!" (this excuse was used even during the final period of the day, when the students had already been at school since 8am).
• "Teacher, I had to go to the bathroom." (and didn't have time to do it during the 30 minute break)
• "Teacher, I was with another teacher." (later consultation with said teacher proved this to be false)
• "Teacher, I was eating." (I allow them to eat in the classroom provided they clean up after themselves - but after I made one girl throw away an empty bag of chips she had thrown on the floor, even after she insisted that that was what the maids were for, very few girls brought food in the class).
• "Teacher, I was doing my homework."
• "Teacher, I had to go to my locker."
• "Teacher, I had to get my wifi/phone/charger/book back from my friend."
• "Teacher, I didn't know what time it was."
• "Teacher, I'm only 5 minutes late." (and by this she means 5 minutes late after the 10 min. grace period)
• "Teacher, we were just talking in the hallway, we were just outside class, only 5 meters away! We were almost in the room!"

And by far the most common response when I told a girl she had arrived late:

• "Teacher? Why, teacher?"  followed by; "Please, teacher?" in a pouty voice.

The obsession with not being late (on paper, but not in practice) stems from the requirement that they have a 90% attendance rate or they automatically fail.  Lates = half an absence.  Most girls have this down to a science and are absent /late twice exactly 6 times in a semester (because 7 = automatic fail).  Now, don't be misled, they are actually absent much more frequently, but so long as they provide a doctors note, the absence doesn't count.  These doctors notes are probably only legit about 10 percent of the time, and since they are all in Arabic, and usually use Hijri dates, are basically impossible for me to decipher, so I usually just accept them all regardless.  Occasionally, I will get a doctor's note in English, and my all time favorite excused a girl from three days of classes for "Dizziness & Giddiness."  I wish I could have kept it.  I would have framed it.

On not doing homework:

• "Teacher, I left my book at school."
• "Teacher, I didn't know we had to."
• "Teacher, my book is different." (which is actually true, but only some pages have minor changes - like names, or not mentioning things like bacon or dating)
• "Teacher, the other class didn't have to do it."
• "Teacher, I was late yesterday." (nevermind the homework is written on the board all through class for those who finish classwork early, mentioned allowed at the end of class, and sent to the "whatsapp" group each day.)
• "Teacher, I forgot."
• "Teacher, it was too much." (usually about a workbook page and a half.)
• "Teacher, it was too hard." (completely legit for some of the weaker students, but those were not the ones who used this excuse, and I'm always available by whatsapp for help.
• "Teacher, it was too boring."
• "Teacher, I didn't have a pen."
• "Teacher, there was a good movie on TV last night."
• "Teacher, we had a big project for another class."

The funny thing about homework is, it only counts for 5 percent of their total grade.  Which means students could potentially never even do the homework and still have an A.    Even though the students know this, they are obsessed with points and will go through great lengths to try to hid the fact that they didn't do the homework, such as passing workbooks up or to the side, after I pass by a row, or covering the page with their hand or elbow so that only the one completed exercise shows.  Since some students only have photocopied versions of the book and workbook sometimes they will just photocopy another student's completed workbook page, thinking I won't notice that the answers aren't written in ink or pencil.  Once they got wise to the fact that I was looking that closely, some of them tried the same trick, but traced over the photocopied answers with pen.  This was obvious, but I let them go on thinking I didn't notice because at least then they were tracing English words, which means they were getting some kind of practice in anyway.

On not doing classwork:

• "Teacher, we know it already." (then when given a pop quiz, everyone fails).
• "Teacher, why?"
• "Teacher, we don't want to move." (a favorite excuse for group work)
• "Teacher, let me work with her  / I can't work with her." (usually this is just a very flagrant version of mean girls, but sometimes it has deeper roots, with tribal rivalries or shia / suni conflicts.)
• "Teacher, I'm too tired."
• "Teacher, I don't have a pen / paper / book."
• "Teacher, can I go to the bathroom / cafe / hallway?"
• "Teacher, can I call my mother/father/driver?"
• "Teacher, I'm on my period, I can't."
• "Teacher, I have a headache/backache/toothache."
• "Teacher, I didn't sleep last night."
• "Teacher, It's not in the book."
• "Teacher, class is almost over." (usually when we still have 30 minutes left.)
• "Teacher, I hate this."
• "Teacher, can you do it for me?"
• "Teacher, can we play a game instead? (and then when we play a game - usually if they are on the loosing team...) "Teacher, can we do exercises from the book instead?"

Funny that in all these excuses, I never heard the one that was probably most often true, which was that they didn't understand.  Saudis are very reluctant to admit that they don't know everything, and are not fond of making mistakes, particularly in public.  Since learning a language in a classroom setting pretty much means making mistakes a lot in front of your friends, very few girls enjoy the process, and most say they hate English class. 

I'm doing what I can to make it more fun, and I hope that they will eventually come around and start liking English just a little more...  it's certainly been entertaining for me listening to all their excuses.

WhatsApp

A hilarious, but sadly accurate sample of a Whatsapp conversation.

The most common app in the Kingdom is WhatsApp, a phone app that lets you send free text messages to anyone else with the app.  You can send private messages, or you can establish group chats.  Since my students were more or less constantly using this app in class anyway, I decided to harness the power of this social media for language learning.

I sent around a paper and told the girls I would create a Whatsapp group, and if they wanted to join, they could put their numbers down on the paper.  I told them it was optional, but that I would post the homework assignment each day, so if they were absent or forgot to write it down, they could find it, and that there would be an optional discussion question related to the topics we were discussing in class.  I explained that if they did the optional discussion question, they would get bonus points.  There was only one student who didn't add her whatsapp number to the list.

The group was pretty popular.  I nearly regretted starting when the first night there were over 50 messages.  The first 10 or so were legitimate answers to the discussion question, which asked which area they felt the weakest in in English, speaking, listening, reading, or writing (most said speaking). However it quickly devolved into chatting in Arabic.  Everyday was a battle, I'd remind them that they could chat privately in Arabic, but that this was a place to practice English.  They would speak in English for a while, and then, especially if I wasn't online (the app is sort of creepy in that it shows you when people are online, and when they are reading your messages), they would revert back to Arabic.  I thought about threatening to kick those who used Arabic out of the group, but since I posted the homework there, I didn't want to them to loose access to that information, since it would be just another excuse for them not to do it.  And anyway, there were still some discussions in English happening, so that was good, and any English is better than no English.

A student's version of old and new

A studen't picturing of old and young

The nice thing about the app was that a lot of the students who didn't talk in class were very active and responsive on the app.  They were very curious and liked to ask me questions, some of which I answered, and others which I declined to answer because of the sensitive nature of the topic (remember; dating, politics, religion, music, movies, really anything of interest at all is still technically forbidden).  The most successful questions were those where I asked students to find pictures that illustrated new vocab words, or involved pictures in some way.  I asked them to find pictures of opposites, and some of them were very creative in their choices.  Another time I asked them to find mistakes in Grammar on printed English signs around town.  Most just did an internet search and pulled up mis-spelled road signs, but a few actually found some signs in town and took photos of them.  The daily discussion was going so well on a volunteer basis, that I decided I could make it an actual assignment.

Mistakes in English: Sometimes they seem too good to be true.

When I discovered that there was a voice recording feature on Whatsapp, I figured it was a perfect way to get in some speaking and listening practice.  I told the girls that every Thursday, the daily discussion would be an oral question that I would tell them in class, and also post as a recording to Whatsapp.  They would have until Sunday to respond with an audio recording of their own, which would count as a homework grade.  There was a colossal uproar.  It was haram to record their voices.  I knew it was haram to take pictures of them or video tape them (even though they constantly run around taking selfies), but I figured just audio would be ok.  I had intended for all of them to listen and respond to each others answers, but I could see that would never work.  So I offered two alternatives.  I would still post my audio question and tell them in class what the question was, and they could either send me a private whatsapp audio recording with there answer, which I wold listen to, mark in the grade book and then immediately delete, or they could simply come to me before or after class, or during my office hours, and tell me their answer in person.  This seem to calm everyone's fears.

I thought there would be a rush of girls at the end of class to give me their answers in person, but actually, about 60% of the girls did send me private whatsapp audio messages over the weekend - which was about on par with the general homework completion rate.  No girls ever found me to answer the question in person, and I wasn't about to chase them down, so they just didn't get points for the assignment.

In the group whatsapp, there continued to be some participation in the daily discussion, and the daily battle to stem the tide of constant Arabic chatter in the group.  I had asked one of the other teachers to translate the conversations for me, just because I was curious to know if perhaps they were helping each other understand grammar or something helpful like that.  She told me that most of it was typical teenage girls stuff.  They commented on each others hair, and told silly jokes, and in general said nothing at all of importance.  It was so annoying to be constantly getting notifications of posts in the app, only to find a long discussion in Arabic about nail polish colors (or about something to do with colors, I know the color words now...).  

I suggested they start their own separate group without me in it where they could talk together as a class, but no one volunteered to start the group, so the battle for English in the English class Whatsapp group continues.

 

Students (Finally)

After mid-terms were all over, I finally got a schedule.  It very clearly told me when I would teach, and which groups I would be teaching, but it neglected to say what books I would be teaching and where in the books the students were (or should have been) at this point in the semester.

I was taking over the classes of a woman who had a heart attack, and it was unclear when she would return, so I couldn't ask her.  I asked Dr. Doha, the woman who had given me the schedule and didn't speak much English, but she just told me to ask the other English teachers.  They couldn't tell me much, but I was able to narrow down the books I was using at least.  Finally, after asking three different people, someone finally told me what unit they were on, in the last 5 minutes of the day before the weekend when I was supposed to start teaching on Sunday.

So over the weekend, I carefully planed an opening lesson with ice-breakers and lots of activities for that unit.  I showed up ready to go with markers and an eraser. I had to buy my own since after asking around it became clear that the college did not provide those - but did somehow have it in their budgets to give everyone pleather bound desk calendars and notepads - never-mind that most of the teachers didn't even have desks. (Actually those calendars came in really handy since they included both Gregorian and Hijri dates).  I went to the classroom and wrote my name and some rules on the board, and I waited for students to show up.

I waited for 10 minutes past the start of class, and then thought perhaps they all went to the lab instead of the classroom.  So I went to the lab.  No students.  I wrote a note on the board for them to come to the classroom just in case, and went back to the classroom to wait some more.  After 30 minutes and not a single student.  I gave up and went back to the teachers lounge.

I told Dr. Doha that there were no students and she didn't seem surprised.  The students probably just assumed their teacher was still sick and so they didn't have class. She also told me I probably should have waited a little longer since it was the first class of the morning, and students often came that late to class, but usually not all of them.  I went back to the classroom and sat there for the whole 2 hour class period, just in case.  No students.

They must have gotten the word out to the students somehow that they had classes now because the next day my students did in fact, show up.  One small problem.  The attendance sheet was in Arabic.  Although I can read Arabic, I read it the way a kindergartner reads, sounding out each letter, and just taking a stab at the vowels, since they didn't use any vowel markers in this font.  The girls thought this was hilarious.  The worst was when there were girls with the same first name, because then I also had to sound out the father's name, the family name, and the tribe name.  I think it took about 20 minutes to take attendance that day, which as it turns out was fine with the girls, since many of them were still strolling casually into class at half past.

Anticipating a problem, I told them from the start that anyone coming more than 10 minutes late would be marked late, giving them a 10 minute grace period, and that anyone missing more than half of the class would be considered absent for that day. I also told the girls that class was scheduled for 2 hours, but that actual teaching time would only be 1 hour and 45 minutes. I gave them the choice to either end class 15 minutes before the next hour with no break, or 10 minutes before the next hour with a 5 minute break in the middle.  They unanimously chose to end class 15 minutes before the next hour with no breaks.  I was surprised, but grateful, since I was sure they would be late coming back from break too, which would ultimately make class time even shorter.

This all took much longer than anticipated, and since we had already lost a day, I decided to skip the ice-breakers and go straight on into the material.  This might have been a mistake.  It's always nice to develop a good rapport with your students right away, and ice-breakers or a fun little game in the beginning is a nice way to do that.  Instead, my students first impressions of me were bumbling through the roll, a list of rules, and then straight on into some grammar.  Granted, we did play a few games that class, but the students seemed more confused by it than anything else.  Teacher, you want us to move? We can move the chairs?  We should work in groups?  What do you want us to do teacher, you didn't tell us what page?

When I clarified that what I was asking them to do wasn't from the book, several students looked shocked.  These were the same students that I would realize later had old books from the previous semester's students already filled out.  So when we did exercises in class, mysteriously, many of the girls with the worst English would volunteer to give answers, and usually gave correct ones, since they were simply reading someone else's work.  No wonder they were terrified that first day when I was asking them to use English for communication rather than  copying.

Overall, the students seemed friendly and respectful, I didn't have to shout to get their attention, and they didn't talk over me.  I hope this isn't just first day nervousness and excitement putting them on their best behavior... but we will see.