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....
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