I may have mentioned that the company I work for is, how can I put this..... the least organized most irrational company I have ever come across. I have been looking forward to the upcoming Eid Holiday, which is a National holiday mandated by the Saudi Government. We are being given a paid vacation from the 18th of July to the 2nd of August. That's 16 days of paid leave!
I applied for my leave at the same time as everyone else in the office. We all filled in all the same paperwork on the same day (the first possible day it was allowed). And then we waited. Some for them to issue tickets home if they were renewing their contract, others just for approval, an exit visa, and the return of their passports, which the company keeps with them in Riyadh. One by one, everyone but me received what they needed to go on vacation.
I've been spending my wait time debating how I should spend those two weeks. Part of me wants to come home to see friends and family, bring home things I brought that are useless here, and load my suitcase up for the return trip with more useful supplies. The other side of me has been checking for the cheapest ticket out of Saudi to just about anywhere else. I've always wanted to see Petra in Jordan, or maybe I could go to Sri Lanka, or India, or Ankor Wat in Cambodia... the possibilities are endless. You might be thinking, wow, this vacation is only 11 days away and you haven't yet decided how to spend it? Shouldn't you have made arrangements or booked tickets or something by now? The answer is, yes, I would have loved to have all of this arranged months ago.
The thing is, I've been here long enough to know that you can't make any plans when it comes to this company until you are absolutely sure you will be given written permission to leave from the company, the exit/re-entry visa, and passport that will allow you to do so. And you are never absolutely sure with this company until the last possible minute. I have been doing what I can to encourage the process of getting my iqama and exit visa to move along. I've sent one email a week to all the email addresses I have for anyone in the company for the last month and a half. Of those half dozen or so emails, I finally got one response about two weeks ago saying simply: Someone is working on it. You will have it soon.
You may be wondering what is so very complicated about granting permission to leave and giving me an exit visa and my passport back. The answer is that nothing here isn't complicated. About a week ago, Layla, who arrived in Dammam with me called a friend of hers who works in the office in Riyadh because she had also not heard anything about her leave. Layla had been trying to call the man in charge of vacations for over a week and he never answered or got back to her. Out of desperation, she called her friend, and made her walk with her cell phone up to the third floor to the man's office and forcibly put it to his ear so he would talk to her. This is how we found out that we both needed to resubmit our leave request forms. Turns out, because neither of us were taking any additional days beyond the Eid Holiday, we were confusing payroll. We needed to officially request only one week off, but, would be paid for both weeks, "they promise". And how long had they had this incorrect paperwork? How long had they known, but not told us that we needed to resubmit the documents? Since the day after we initially submitted them on May 28th. So we filled in the paperwork again, this time requesting only one week off, signed the forms and had them sent off to Riyadh. Layla and I crossed our fingers, that this would solve the problem, and we would have our exit visas soon.
Of course, we had only overcome one hurdle. I should have known it wouldn't be that easy. With only three weeks left, I upgraded my email flow to one a day, and obtained several phone numbers for the office in Riyadh, which I called religiously twice a day, with absolutely no answer, and conveniently, no voice mail, either.
Finally, over the weekend, I got a text saying that a new person would be handling my paperwork, and after emailing this new person, I received the good news that they would issue me my exit/rentry visa as soon as I paid the government fees online. I was so excited! There was just one problem... I can't pay for anything online, or be issued an exit/rentry visa, unless I have an iqama.
What does that mean? Well, I entered the country initially on a three months visitor visa, which gives the company time to process my resident permit, called an iqama. I have heard varying reports about how long it takes the government to process an iqama, but the general consensus for people working for other companies seems to be between 3 weeks and 1 month. For our company, it almost always takes the full three months, if not longer in some cases. This iqama is necessary, not only because without it I am technically in the country illegally once it expires on July 23rd, but also because you need it to open a bank account, rent an apartment, send money overseas, pay for things online, and most importantly for me at the moment, be issued an exit / re-entry visa.
Sara, who came to Dammam at the same time as me, but arrived in Riyadh a few weeks before me, is also still waiting for her iqama. Her initial visa expired two weeks ago. Frighteningly, the company either doesn't know (even though she has told the admin ladies here and several people in Riyadh) or doesn't care. I'm not sure which is scarier. In the one email response I received from the company two weeks ago, they had said I would get my iqama "soon". My calls and emails to pin down exactly when "soon" might be, have so far gone unanswered.
Today, one of the admin ladies came in to tell me I could pay for my exit/reentry visa online today and they would issue it to me. I asked her if it was possible to get and use an exit/reentry visa without an iqama, and she looked surprised and said, "You still don't have an iqama?" Which seems like a strange response from someone I have asked every week for the last two months if my iqama has arrived, and who would be the one, if it did arrive, to give it to me. She told me to wait, and not pay or do anything, and she went off to call Faisel, the highest in the chain of command here in Dammam.
A few hours later she came back and told me that perhaps I should start getting use to the idea that I may not be able to go anywhere during the Eid Holiday. She said the company has been having trouble getting iqamas processed. This could either mean the government itself has a backlog, or more likely, the company is being blacklisted by the ministry at the moment because of poor business practices, a lack of bribe payments, an insult to the wrong prince, or possibly all three. I asked if it was possible to get an extension on my original visa, and she said maybe, but didn't seem too hopeful. "Anyway, we still have a little over a week", she said. "Inshallah, you will get what you need."
When I first learned this word, "inshallah" (god willing), I liked the expression. It seemed hopeful. I can now say that I officially hate this word. I hate it because it doesn't seem hopeful anymore. It seems like an excuse for the Laissez-faire attitude that what will happen will happen, and we can do nothing to influence or change that. Here is an extreme example, accidents are frequent and often deadly here, but almost no one wears a seat belt. I asked a Saudi taxi driver about this once when I noticed he wasn't buckled in. "Inshallah," he said, "I won't need it." It is one thing to accept that when things do happen, God has willed it, and he will help you deal with it and get through it. It is another matter entirely to decide not to take any action to effect outcomes before they happen. If you see a train coming straight for you, but don't move, because you think if God wills it he will stop the train for you, and if he doesn't will it, then he wanted you dead, then you are going to be both dead and stupid. I say, the fact that God allowed you to see the train coming is evidence enough that he wanted you to live, but you have to do your part too.
Obviously, nothing that serious is at stake here. There are worse things than being paid for two weeks to not work and stay home in your apartment. But the attitude prevails in everything. For example, I asked one of the students if she thought she did well on her exam, she said, "inshallah, I will pass". Then I asked her if she had studied, and she said "No." I recalled the expression I learned as a child; "God helps those who help themselves", and I had to wonder if she saw the flaw in relying on God to make things happen in your life when you don't take advantage of the chances he throws your way. So, if I don't get to leave Saudi on my vacation, I won't blame God. I'll blame inshallah. And of course, the incompetent disorganized company.
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