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.