Sunday at Work

On Thursday, I finally met Gemma, the HR woman I had been coordinating with for help with transferring my visa.  I told her that I had my passport with me now, and asked what progress was being made on transferring my visa.  She didn't seem to know.  I asked if I should be doing anything, or if I should just wait and let them handle it.  She told me I should probably go to my old company and try to get the final exit.  I was a little surprised and reminded her that before she had advised me to just get the passport back and they would handle the rest.  She said, well, it's best if you can get the exit visa.

I knew that next week we would have orientation week for the students, and that we wouldn't actually start classes until the following week, so If I was going to get this done, it would have to be next week or never.  I figured I would try on Sunday to call my old company and attempt to get answers without having to miss any work.  If I didn't get any help that way (which was very likely) I would go in person.  Better to miss orientation than actual classes.

So on Sunday, I went to work as usual.  First thing in the morning we were showed up to our staff rooms.  Our team was on the third floor.  There was furniture in the room.  Bookshelves lined the walls, but stood about a foot away from them.  I assumed it was because they hadn't plugged anything in yet.  We all had desks that were arranged in rows with one teacher desk up front.  It felt like a classroom, just with bigger desks.  The chairs were fancy looking, with a very sleek modern design and touches of neon green and purple.  I figured they might be ergonomic or something, but when we all sat down in them to try them out, they were anything but comfortable.  We all sat for a moment trying to adjust them and taking in the space.  Well, I said, guess it won't matter much if they are comfortable.  Not like we will be spending much time here anyway, since we only have 40 minutes of planning a day.  Everyone chuckled and nodded in agreement and we wondered back downstairs to await the training they had planned for us that day.

I was anxiously watching the clock waiting for 9am to roll around so that I could call the office and see what I could find out.  Finally, and frustratingly at the same time, it was 9am and our 8 am presenter arrived.  Luckily, they needed to set up a tiny portable projector, so I had enough time to step out and call the office.  I was not surprised when no one answered.

For reasons no one really understood, they set the projector up in the room with the loudest and coldest air conditioning on the entire floor.  We all sat teeth chattering while the man in charge of curriculum development gave a powerpoint that more or less took us through the whole theory of standards based curriculum.  He dropped so many names of renowned educational theorists that I was worried we would need an industrial size broom to sweep them all up.  I kept waiting for the part where he would tell us why it all mattered specifically to us.  I was waiting to hear practical things, like, what books we would use, or what standards we would go by.  Instead, we got more theory, and a song about No Child Left Behind, which was strange not only because it was irrelevant to Saudi, but also because there were only 3 Americans in the room, so the other 24 teachers were more or less lost during the whole thing..  Meanwhile, it was getting colder and colder in the room.  I'm convinced that in a time lapse photo of the training, you would see sweaters being put on, scarfs pulled over ears and chairs moving slowly together so that we could share in each others body heat.  We opened the windows to try to feel the heat from the sun, but even the Saudi heat wasn't enough to penetrate the arctic tundra being created by this loud AC.  Eventually, I actually crawled up into the window to sit halfway outside.  My fingers and lips had actually turned blue.   Finally, at the end of his two-hour tour of educational theory, we were allowed to ask questions.  As much as we all wanted real answers about what exactly we were going to teach starting next week, and how much progress we would have to make with these students, I couldn't stand being in the room any longer.  I figured I would ask the other teachers to fill me in on his answers later, someplace warmer.

I also took the opportunity to call my old company again.  This time, someone answered, but he didn't know what was happening with the iqama so he told me he would ask someone else and then call me back.  So I went back in, and thankfully, they had decided to switch rooms for the second presentation.  This guy was going to talk to us about the project based learning curriculum.  The girls would be getting about 6 hours of language class every day, which would be divided into three classes.  First they would do General English, then they would do English for Academic Purposes, then they would do project based learning.  This guy at least had obviously been in a classroom in the Middle East, which is more than I can say about anyone else I had met from the company so far.  The trouble was, he had only been in a men's classroom.  He talked a lot about why project based learning was useful and important, which, as teachers, we all already knew.  What he conveniently left out were any details about which projects they were going to have us do, and in what time frames they were going to do it.  He kept saying it was all on the company shared drive and we could look at it later.  During the Q&A, he mentioned a few examples of what we would do, for example, they would make a virtual tour of the college for next years prospective students.  When we pointed out that while that would be great for men, Saudi women can't be photographed, video taped, or, in some cases of very conservative parents, even have their voice recorded.

Sometime in the middle of this discussion about what women could and couldn't do and how that would affect the kinds of projects we would be doing, my phone rang.  I quickly ran out of the room to take it, knowing it would be my old company and the chances of connecting with them again if I didn't take the call were slim.  To be more accurate, I sort of shuffled out.  See, the thing is, I had  bought a new pair of shoes for 5 SAR or about $1.50, at the hyperpanda the day before.  They were kids shoes, and while they fit just fine, like all new shoes, they needed breaking in.  Also, I hadn't warn socks.  So I was developing blisters.  I had taken my feet out of the shoes during the lecture to give them a little time away from the chafing and just had my feet resting on top of them, which obviously mashed down the shoes.  When the phone rang, I didn't want to take the time to re-insert my feet into the now crushed shoe, so I just sort of shuffled out, and then mid-way across the room, I lost one of the shoes and had to go back for it.  In retrospect, it would have probably been less disturbing to take the time to put the shoes on properly, but live and learn.  To be honest, the presentation needed a little comic relief.

The answer I got on the phone was not really an answer.  I basically needed to come to Riyadh again, since I still had my passport and they actually couldn't issue the iqama without it, so I was stuck.  I would have to go to Riyadh again, and chances are, I would be there all week.  I was sorry that I would miss out on the orientation week, but thankful in a way that I wouldn't be around to deal with all the last minute issues of trying to get the place open, for instance, still not having any chairs in the classrooms, no whiteboards or projectors yet, and having to develop a curriculum from scratch among other things.  I hoped that by the time I got back, all of that would be sorted out.