Dammam Community College

One of the worst parts of my day is waking up in the mornings.  It's hard because the call to prayer at around 3am always wakes me up.  It usually takes me about an hour to get back to sleep, and then when I'm finally falling back into a deep sleep, my alarm clock goes off and it is time to catch the bus for the 45 minute drive to campus. Which is just enough time to fall asleep again on the bus, only to be woken up when we arrive, groggy and grumpy.  It's really a terrible system.

This morning I woke up twice as usually and made my way down to the bus, but Chris stopped me before I could get on and told me that today I would be taking the bus to Dammam Community College instead because one of the teachers was out sick and they needed me to help proctor exams.  Our bus left every morning at 6:30, but because their campus is closer, they never leave until 7:30.  So, lucky me, I get an extra hour of sleep, and an extra annoying third wake up.  At least I didn't fall asleep on the bus this time.  The journey was shorter, maybe only 20 minutes, so I didn't have enough time to fall asleep, and besides, this was a new route so there were lots of new things to look at.  It wasn't so much of a highway drive as a drive through neighborhoods of obviously increasing wealth, and then back again to apartments on dirty blocks like the one we live in. It was completely quiet on the bus and no one said anything to each other.  It was an uncomfortable silence, and I wasn't sure if they were always like this or if it was because I was new and they didn't know me.

When we reached the campus, I was surprised to see how clean and new it was.  Our campus at the university is an older collection of buildings re purposed for women.  Even though we have about as many cleaning ladies as teachers, it is somehow never cleaned.  Especially the stairs.  The same coffee stain has been in the stairwell for going on 2 months now.  Here, everything was shiny and even had that "I've been freshly mopped" smell.  There were colorful modern looking couches in semicircles and snake shapes.  I couldn't help but think how much more pleasant to nap on these would be than the airport gate style benches we had in our hallways.

I followed the teachers upstairs and found that at least some things were the same.  There was a fingerprint scanner for punching in identical to the one at the University.  I was the last to fingerprint in, but it didn't work.  I wasn't surprised since when I substituted at Qatif, they had to enter my fingerprint the first time I used it.  I tried twice, but gave up because I figured I would just wait the 30 minutes or so for the admin lady to come in and enter me into the system.

Across from the fingerprinting were some of the teacher's offices.  They had actual offices with actual doors instead of just cubicles.  I was jealous.  One of the teachers hurried off to her office and quickly shut the door.  Two others looked at me and then looked at another teacher and said, you still have that extra chair don't you? You take her.  I haven't felt that left out since picking teams in middle school gym class.  I sat down awkwardly in the little chair shoved way in the corner of this woman's office.  She made a show of being busy shuffling papers.  After a minute, she looked at me and said, you fingerprinted in right?  I explained to her that it hadn't worked, and since I was new they would probably need to program me in first so I wasn't worried.  She said I should worry, and I obviously didn't try very hard.  Sometimes it took her 5 or six tries for the thing to read her fingerprint.   To humor her, and just to get out of the office where I clearly wasn't wanted, I went back and tried again seven times, just to be sure.  Then I went back and told her it hadn't worked, but I would just wait downstairs on those lovely couches for the admin to arrive.

I sat reading down there about thirty minutes and was on the verge of falling asleep again when the lead teacher (a local hire who doesn't ride the bus in with us) arrived and found me there.  She was so friendly, she almost made up for how the others had ignored me.  She was horrified that I'd been down here alone (Saudi women rarely do anything alone), and ushered me upstairs.  She showed me her office and she showed me the teachers lounge, which is really just a room full of sleeping couches, and she showed me the cafeteria and the room I would be giving the exam in and a tiny door onto a small section of roof, which is the only outdoor area at the Dammam Community College.  I was impressed, because the facilities seemed nicer, but I think the lack of a green outdoor area to sit and eat lunch in, sort of outweighed the benefits of having a whole office to yourself.  After all, I definitely couldn't get greenery and outdoors where we lived, but I did have a private apartment alone there, which is better than an office with a door.

By now, I had proctored a number of exams, so I felt like I was pretty much an old hat at it.  Granted, I was usually just the second pair of eyes in the room, and not the actual administrator, but it wasn't that difficult.  Different administrators had different styles.  Some went from student to student during the exam to check IDs and make them sign in, others made the students sign in and check IDs when they submitted their test at the end of the exam.  I decided I liked the second version better since it didn't disturb students during the test.  No one could leave until an hour and a half into the two hour test, and most students ended up using the whole time, so it was usually easier to just check them on their way out.  Usually, we put a giant stopwatch on the screen from the internet, but in this classroom, the projector was broken, so I had to write the new time every 15 minutes or so, but other than that, proctoring a test is about as fun as watching water boil.  Finally, it was time to allow students who were finished to leave.  I made an announcement that they should come up one at a time to avoid chaos and a mass exodus, and asked my Saudi co-procterer to make sure they did.

It all went very smoothly at first, they actually did come up one at a time, and I checked their name and ID number on their student ID's and while they were signing out, I made sure they had correctly filled in the bubbles on the scan tron, and double checked they had written their name and ID number on the actual test for cross checking in case there was a dispute about the scan tron grade.   One girl had forgotten her ID in her purse, which was left in the hallway by regulation, so I let her go out and get it.  When she returned, I was also checking another student, and because they are always in such a hurry to leave once the test was over, and there were so many things to check, I must have forgotten to make one of them sign the attendance sheet.  With about 15 minutes to go, I got bored and decided to count up the tests and the signatures so far, more for something to do than anything else.  It's a good thing I did because that is when I noticed I was one signature short.  I looked through the tests that had already been submitted, and figured out which girl hadn't signed, and I asked the next student who turned in her paper if she knew her, and could she please send her back in to sign the attendance sheet.  The girl left and returned a few minutes later saying the girl had already gone home for the day.

I had been trying to keep this mistake of mine quiet, but by now the Saudi teacher had gotten wise to the fact that there was some problem.  She asked what was wrong and I told her that one girl forgot to sign out.  Now, in my mind, this isn't that big of a deal, but obviously I was mistaken.  Her eyes went wide and she began shaking her head.  She was clearly very concerned.   As the number of students still in the room dwindled, her worry seemed to increase.  She asked me what I was going to do and I told her I would just tell the Dean that I had made a mistake.  No big deal.  She shook her head again and asked if I wanted to loose my job.  I laughed.  They won't fire me for this, I said, and if they did, well, it wouldn't be the worst thing.  She just shook her head some more.  A few minutes later, she said, you can have one of the other students sign for her, she said.  I told her I wouldn't want that student to get in trouble, and since it was my fault, I would take the responsibility for it.  I told her not to worry.  She would not be in trouble.  She told me I should sign it myself then.  I told her I would rather admit I made a mistake than lie about it.  She told me I didn't understand how serious it was.  I told her I was beginning to get that impression, but that I really doubted they would fire me over a signature even if I did work here, and since I was only a substitute, It was really unlikely since I would probably not even be back here anytime soon.  This didn't satisfy her.

She went out of the room (there was only one student still taking the test at this point) and I can only assume she was going somewhere to either proclaim her innocence, or find someone to sign the attendance.  To be honest, any student could have come back and signed it, and I would never know if it was the right girl or not because I didn't remember what she looked like anyway.  But she came back a few minutes later and didn't say anything more. Finally the test was over, and we counted all the exams, sealed them up, and put both our signatures over the seal to be turned in to the dean.  She pleaded with me one more time to just sign the attendance sheet, and I told her that if it mattered that much to her, she could sign it.  Of course she declined and insisted it wouldn't affect her, she was just worried about me.

By this time, I'd gotten a little worried myself.  She made it seem like such a huge deal, I started thinking perhaps it was.  But I had resolved to tell the truth, and couldn't imagine that a student forgetting to sign the attendance sheet could result in being fired.  So I stood in line to turn in my tests and awaited my fate.  Almost all the teachers were ahead of me in line so I watched with trepidation as each one presented stacks of tests which were recounted and double checked.  Each time another teacher signed the final sheet of paper verifying all the tests and signatures were received, my stomach got a little tighter.  I was starting to wonder if principle was worth sticking to in a case like this where something I know isn't such a big, is made into a big deal unnecessarily by regulations.  Would everyone be better off if I just signed it?  I would hate to make that girl come back and retake the test, and I might be getting my co-proctor in trouble, or the Dean in trouble also.  As I was weighing these concerns, a woman came in and asked to see my attendance sheet.  Here we go, I thought, and handed it over.    She left the room with it, and I stood there waiting, not sure if I should follow her or stay in line, but she made no motion for me to follow so I stayed put.  A few minutes later she returned the attendance sheet.  Where the missing signature had been was now a fancy Arabic scribble.  I felt relieved that the decision had been taken out of my hands, but also a little disappointed that everyone was so afraid of the consequences of something I saw as minor, that they were willing to break the rules.  Of course it is possible that the student had returned to school in time to sign the paper, after all, I don't know what happened to it after the woman took it.  I choose to believe that that is, in fact, what happened.

I don't know what would have happened to me if the signature hadn't appeared, but I will tell you one thing, I will be extra careful from now on to be sure I never have to find out.