Final Visit to my old Company

The next day I went to my old company's office for two things.  First, I wanted to see if what Suleiman was telling me was true, that they still couldn't issue a final exit, or if he was just saying that because he wanted me to stay.  Second, I wanted to see if perhaps they would give me my old job back, but with a raise, and allow me to live out of the accommodations.

So I flagged down a taxi and we headed for the office. We had the usual trouble finding it, since, between exits 1 & 2 isn't really enough information for anyone.... but after a few wrong turns I finally recognized where we were and could tell him how to get there.  It's pretty sad that I had spent so much time at this place I finally knew the way.

It being the first week of Eid, a lot of the employees weren't around, even thought they wouldn't officially close until the following week.  If things were impossible to get done before, they were even worse now with fewer staff.  It seemed like the key person you needed to see was never there.  I went in and asked Mohammed if he could give me a final exit.  He told me I needed to go see Saed in the government affairs office.

I went upstairs and after waiting the usual obligatory 10 minutes, he called me in.  I asked him about my iqama, and he told me it was all in Suleiman's hands now.  I asked him If I had an iqama number, which Suleiman had told me I now had.  He said he didn't know and I should ask Suleiman.  I asked him if he had any papers or records showing that my case had been transferred to Suleiman, or any records of the iqama number, and again, he told me no. I was incredulous.  You keep no paperwork indicating that it is no longer in your hands?  Isn't that a bit foolish business wise?  He just looked at me blankly and told me I should go, there was nothing he could do for me.  Even though I didn't really believe that that was true, I left.  It was clear he wasn't going to give me anything.

My favorite piece of promotional
material from my old company.

I wandered downstairs again to speak with Osama, and while I was waiting I saw a lot of familiar faces.  Mohammed and I chatted a little about his favorite topic, his car.  Some of the girls I had met the last time I was in the office were still there, waiting to be sent to Dammam or Al Jouf or to stay in Riyadh.  After a few hours, Osama finally had time to talk to him.  I asked him If I could come back, and he said, yes, of course, we always want you.  Then I asked him If I could live out of the accommodations, and he told me that no, it wasn't a possibility anymore since they had turned down a lot of other teachers who had asked recently and it wasn't fair.  I asked if they could match the salary I had been given at the new place, and he told me that no, because I didn't have a masters degree, they couldn't give me any more money. I think because he knew I had lost my new job, he thought I was desperate and would take anything.  I thanked him and told him that it just wasn't a good enough offer and wished him the best.  He told me wait and offered a few hundred more riyals a month, which was really just peanuts.  I told him I was sorry but I would rather just go home.

The old company's office and van.  Notice the glaring error
 "How is my Drive" on the back of the van?   

I asked Mohammed one more time about a final exit, figuring he would give me a straight answer, he said that even if I didn't have the iqama card, if  a number had been issued, he could give me a final exit. I asked him if he was sure, and he said, he thought so, but that it would still need to be signed by Saed, and that saed wouldn't want to sign it because of whatever deal Suleiman had made with them to get me into the new, now old job.

I thanked him for his candor, and asked if I could have a ride back to my hotel.  I figured that they owed me at least that small bit of kindness.  I said goodbye to everyone who I'd come to know so well over the last few months of frustrating exchanges... and hoped, really hoped, that I would never see this place again.

The Dental and Nursing College

Sure enough, Suleiman arrived promptly at 7:30am to bring me coffee and some breakfast.  It was very nice of him.  We sat down to eat together at my very small table in the hotel.  He told me more about the dental and nursing school that he would take me to later for an interview.  He was part owner of this college as well, and his cousin held some sort of leadership position with the college though it wasn't exactly clear what that position was.  As I'm a very slow eater, he finished long before I did and said goodbye.  He told me he would send a driver to take me to the college around 10am since no one important gets to work before that time.  I thanked him again and said goodbye, thinking to myself that I would have probably enjoyed sleeping in a bit more than breakfast, but se la vi.

The In Hummer Cafe: Surprisingly tasty coffee

Around 10:15 Suleiman called to let me know that the driver was downstairs.  I went down and he drove me to the college which was about 20 minutes away.  There was a lot of construction on the road in front of the college, so it sort of surprised me when we arrived.  He pulled up in front of the concrete barriers and I hopped out to avoid having to go around all the construction and pull into the parking area properly.  Walking up to the college I noticed one, extra special feature.  Just outside the main entrance was an "In Hummer Cafe", which is exactly what it sounds like.  Someone had gotten the idea that people would love to have their coffee served out of the side of a Hummer, which has been permanently fixed to the site and outfitted with all the necessary kitchen stuff to make coffee and sandwiches. I laughed at first, but it's surprisingly lucrative.

Even though Suleiman had assured me that they were expecting me, I felt nervous and suspicious walking up to the college.  The lobby was nice, but I could see only men.  I asked the first person I came to to direct me to Dr. Sulam's office, and sure enough, I was ushered into a back office where a secretary checked in on another office, and advised me to wait.  After about 30 minutes, the secretary indicated that I could go in, so I went and spoke with Dr. Sulam.  He was nice and his English was tolerable.  He asked me a few questions and offered me dates and arabic coffee.  He looked at my CV and my qualifications and then told me I should meet with Dr. Mohammed who was the head of the English Language Department.

So his secretary took me across the lobby to the another office.  This happened to be the office of the Head of curriculum or something.  His English was not as good as Dr. Sulams, but he dutifully asked me some typical interview questions, and as I answered I realized he was probably only understanding about 30% of my answers.  He kept looking nervously at the door, until finally, Dr. Mohammed arrived and I could see relief wash over him.  The rest of the interview was conducted by Dr. Mohammed which the other man busied himself with stapling various bits of paper together to seem busy.  Dr. Mohammed asked some good questions and seemed to be really interested in my ideas about teaching methods, not only for the sake of the interview, but also because it seemed he was genuinely hearing many of these ideas for the first time.  He seemed excited, but sceptical.  After about 45 minutes, he told me he would take me in to see another Dr. (and by this time I was loosing track of their names), who was the English program coordinator or something like that.

We waited a little while for him to be free, and in the meantime, a very jolly robust man offered us more Arabic Coffee.  I wasn't formally introduced to him, but his desk was a prominent one between a group of three offices and he seemed very friendly, and was probably a good person to know, so I smiled and drank more coffee, telling him it was very nice.  The next Dr. I met with had the best English of all.  He actually used to work for my old company as a program coordinator for one of the largest universities in Riyadh on the men's side.  We commiserated on the decline of the company for a few minutes before he launched into his vision for this college.  Currently, English was a small part of the student curriculum that took place mainly in the first and second year.  They had a variety of full and part-time English teachers from around the middle east, mostly Syria and Egypt, but they had no native English speakers or westerners.  The students were not making much progress in English, so they hoped to change all that by hiring more Native speaking western teachers and creating a full year of preparatory English before they began any nursing or dentistry courses.  I was to be the first step in this project.  They had plans for hiring more teachers from England in the near future, but for now, it was only me.  He told me he would like for me to take on a sort of leadership roll and help with teacher training and selecting course books etc....  That sounded great and interesting, but I wondered how much they were actually willing to change, and also how the other teachers would react to some foreigner coming in and shaking things up.  My experiences in Dammam had made me nervous about trying anything truly revolutionary, a) because just doing the bare minimum seemed like such a challenge administratively, and b) most talk of reform seemed to be about lip service.  No one really wanted change anyway.  Still... there is always a chance.

He thanked me and told me they would have an offer to me by the end of the week.  I asked if it would be possible to see the classrooms, maybe meet some of the current teachers, and see the accommodations.  Dr. Mohammed tried to find a woman who could take me up and show me the women's section since he is not allowed to go up there, but we weren't having much luck.  Suleiman's driver was still waiting for me and since it had been over two  hours now, Dr. Mohammed suggested that maybe it would be better if I came back another day to see all of those things.  I could see the driver pacing the lobby waiting for me so I agreed and we headed back to the apartment.

I called Suleiman to tell him how it went, and he let me know that they would send me an offer soon, and not to worry about anything.  He told me that if Gemma called, just to tell her that Suleiman was working on it, and not to mention that he had helped me get the interview.  He told me just to relax and not worry about anything.  The more he told me not to worry, the more I wondered if there was in fact something to be worried about.  At least now I had an option if I wanted to stay in Saudi.  

Leaving Dammam

I was in a weird state of limbo on Sunday.  I didn't really want to stick around, having been fired, but I also didn't want to leave without some guarantee that I had a place to stay or that I would be able to leave the country.  So I waited to hear from Gemma or Suleiman.  Suleiman called first.  He asked me what was happening and I told him I wasn't sure.  He said that I should come to Riyadh, he would give me a place to stay, and then on Monday, I could interview with the college he told me about in Riyadh.  I thanked him, but told him I didn't know how I would get to Riyadh.  I had all my stuff and everything.  He told me he would book a flight for me, but for one thing, I wasn't finished sewing up my suitcase, let alone packing.  For another, a friend of mine was going to Riyadh for work on Monday or Tuesday and had offered to give me a ride.  That would obviously be ideal, for one thing, it would be cheaper, and for another, it would be easier to take all my stuff in a car.

I told Suleiman this plan, and he would have none of it.  It wasn't safe for me to go in this car with a man I didn't really know.  I told him that it was fine, that I did know him, but there is no use arguing with Suleiman once he has made up his mind about something.  I told him I would take the train, but I would have to wait and take the early morning train, since it was the only one that allowed you to bring large luggage.  He didn't like that plan either.  He told me he would book a flight for me.  I told him the train was better because it was cheaper and closer to where I was.  He told me not to worry, that is was all nonsense, and the plane was no problem.  He would buy the ticket and pick me up at the airport.  I told him really, it was no problem for me to take the train, but he insisted, and before I knew it, he had sent me the details for a flight booking at 7pm.  Call me if you have any problems, he told me.

By now, it was already almost 2pm, and it would take at least an hour to get to the airport, and since I had to be there an hour early, I would need to leave in about 2 and a half hours.  The rest of the afternoon was a flurry of packing and calling around to different taxi's.  I was so angry that the cheapest price I could get was 150 riyals.  The train would have cost me 60, and maybe 20 for the cab to the train station.  So this free plane ticket was actually costing me about 70 riyals more than if I had paid for the train myself.

By the time I arrived at the airport I was tired, frustrated, and sad.  I hadn't had the time to say proper goodbyes to anyone, and I had no idea if I would be coming back to see them ever again or not.  It didn't help that the airport was busy, crowded and confusing.  I finally found the correct line to stand in and made my way to the front, but there was a problem.  I still didn't have my passport.  They weren't going to accept my photocopy at first, but after explaining the whole situation, they seemed sympathetic and willing to accept the color copy.  Then we had our second problem, which was that my bag was about 20kg too heavy.   They recommended that I go buy a second bag, because I could have two bags,  only there wasn't a bag shop in the airport and there was now only 20 minutes before my flight boarded and so there really wasn't time.  I took out what I could and added it to the giant sack of groceries that I had, and put more into my backpack, but it was still too heavy.  Even if I paid for an extra bag, it wouldn't work because there was a weight limit that any single bag couldn't exceed.  This was a nightmare. Finally, I called Suleiman.  Of course, he didn't answer right away.  There was a huge line behind me, so they pulled me aside and I waited for Suleiman to call me back.  I called him every five minutes or so for about 15 minutes.

Finally, he called me back.  As usual, there was "no problem."  He told me to give him about 10 minutes and he would call some guy he knew at the airline.  So I waited some more.  By now, the flight was already boarding and I was thinking about what I would do if I couldn't get on this flight.  I had gotten all the way up to a plan 'D' before Suleiman called me back.  He said that any minute I should be given the go ahead.  Sure enough, about 2 minutes later, they took my bag and handed me my boarding pass.  I rushed to the gate, with a really heavy backpack, my mini-guitar and a huge shopping bag with what felt like 10 pounds of stuff from my other bag.  I was sure they would never let me take three carry ons, especially because they were so large and heavy, but I figured I would deal with that problem as it happened.

I arrived just in time to get on the plane.  I did have to give my backpack to them to put under the plane, which I normally would have been ok with, except, I happened to have six months worth of salary in the bag, since I still didn't have a Saudi bank account (you need an iqama for that) and so had been taking my pay in cash.  There was no time for me to take the money out, and to be honest, I didn't really want to pull out a fat wad of bills in front of the airport people and other passengers anyway, so I decided to just hope for the best.  The plane ride itself was only about 45 minutes long, and I was in a mild state of panic for every one of those minutes.  But eventually we did land, and after taking ages for our bags to come up on the carousel, I did get all of my bags and the money was still safe and sound where I had left it.

I called Suleiman to let him know I had arrived, and sure enough he and his driver were there to pick me up.   They drove me to a place called the 24karat Hotel Apartments, which happened to be owned by a friend of his and were also only a few blocks from his house.  He made sure everything was ok and that I had everything I needed, and then he told me he would be by in the morning to bring me breakfast and coffee.  I thanked him and said goodnight.

The place was small, but sufficient with a combined living room / kitchen and separate bedroom much like my old place in Dammam.  The only difference being that the bedroom walls were pink on two sides and purple on  the other two.  The bedding was white, with a fancy gold embroidered slip across the foot of the bed.  There was even a cute little travel case for toiletries, also gold.  Not bad.  Exhausted, I went to bed.  I didn't even bother to try to make sense of the mess of a packing job I'd had to do at the airport. After all, who knew how long I would be in this place anyway.

The Rainbow Roundabout

Gemma and I spent my last weekend in Dammam trying to do all the things that we always said we would do but never got around to doing.  The Rainbow Roundabout was one of those things.  Very near my new accommodations is a roundabout with a giant rainbow colored sculpture in the middle.  We always joke about it being the Saudi tribute to gay rights, but it is probably just something some prince wanted put up.  A few blocks down the road is another equally strange sculpture that reminds some people of lady parts, but I don't see it.  Maybe they wanted it to match the cultural center that is still under construction, but already looks very phallic. Maybe people are just trying to be innovative and modern with the architecture, but I can't help but think that many of the ideas for these designs stem from the repressed sexuality inherent in a closed society.

In a car, the Rainbow Roundabout seems really close to my place.  It's about 2 min. away.  So I figured it wouldn't be too hard to walk there.  The thing you always forget when walking anywhere in Saudi Arabia, is that A.  It is really hot, and B. There is scary traffic.  

Gemma and I started off early to avoid the hottest part of the day.  At least, that was the original plan.  Of course, it was the weekend, and after a late night of playing card games, we ended up sleeping in, so it was after 10 before we actually left.  We were doing pretty well in the beginning and made our way through some side streets to avoid the traffic of the main highway and because I had seen from the main road that there was a sort of park somewhere around, I just couldn't tell where exactly.  Turns out, we had turned in one block too soon, so when we turned again to head back toward the main road we could see it, now one block back in the other direction.  Neither of us wanted to head back that way, so we decided we would look for it on the way back instead.

Even though we hadn't gone very far yet, we were both already pretty hot, so when we arrived back at the main road, the decision to take a break by going inside an air-conditioned store was unanimous.  It was a store called "Nice" which seemed to be a Bed Bath and Beyond type store.  We took our time smelling candles and touching soft towels.  We even went to the upper level which sold bedspreads and vacuum cleaners and suitcases.  I checked out the suitcases since mine could only be sewed up so many times, but they were very expensive.

Walking into oncoming traffic to reach the illusive Rainbow Roundabout

Once we were thoroughly chilled, we headed back outside.  Since no one ever walks anywhere here, there are no sidewalks, except right in front of stores.  It wasn't long before we ran out of stores.  Soon it was just us walking on the shoulder of a big highway against traffic.  Luckily, it's never that busy in the morning on a weekend, so there weren't a lot of cars. Still, there were enough cars to make us slightly fear for our lives.  To get to the roundabout, we first had to cross to the median, then cross onto the circle in the center.  I would put it at about a level 5 in the Frogger game.  It was not as bad as it seemed.  We made it across to the median with only one near miss, and the cross to the circle in the middle of the roundabout was actually pretty easy.

Me in front of the the Rainbow Roundabout

The minute we stepped onto the grass in that central circle it was like Heaven. I took my sandles off to feel the green grass between my toes. The sprinklers were on, so Gemma ran just out of reach of the spray trying to time it so that she always followed a rotation instead of being hit by it.  I guess she wasn't quite done playing frogger yet.  I didn't mind it and found myself purposely jumping into range.  I haven't run through the sprinklers since I was a kid, and frankly, I needed to feel a little like a kid again for a while. We walked around the sculpture and I took pictures from all different angles.  Then I tried to climb up onto it.  Unfortunately, the wall was too high and too slippery to climb, especially in wet flip-flops.

Rainbow Roundabout at Night

So we contented ourselves with pictures from afar.  It definitely looked better from far away anyway, since all the paint was peeling.  It looked even better at night when it was all lit up with the colors changing every minute or so.  It was even lit in all green lights for National Day.

I'm sure we were quite a spectacle for all the cars passing by on the roundabout, and more than a few cars took multiple loops around, probably trying to figure out what those crazy foreigners were doing out there. But we didn't care.  The walk home wasn't nearly as bad as the walk there either since we were soaking wet by the time we left. It didn't take long to dry though.  We decided to walk home on the opposite side of the street, and by the time we reached the halfway point, we were practically dry.

Gemma with S&M pillows

Advertisment with blurred faces

We decided we might as well stop in at another giant store and check out the AC in this one.  This place was more like a department store.  We thought we would check for luggage here too, but we had no such luck.  We did find S&M pillows though, which is extra bizarre in such a conservative society.  I mean, how can you have S&M themed pillows in the same store that blurs out the faces of women and young girls in its advertising?  I still haven't gotten used to seeing those kind of ads.  I mean, wouldn't you be better off just not featuring women or girls in your ads in the first place?

By the time we got back to my house, we were feeling pretty tired.  We had somehow managed to pass about four hours outside in the hottest part of the day.  We didn't mind though.  After all, for a few more days anyway, we still had a pool we could jump in, and AC that didn't cause electrical fires.  I was really going to miss this place, and the good friends I had made in it.  Whatever happens, I'm glad I got to have these experiences.  

Packing Up

I wish I could say that I felt better the next morning, but the truth is, not much.  I called my wasta guy Suleiman and told him what happened.  He was also really surprised.  He told me not to worry though because he had a job for me in Riyadh. He told me to come to Riyadh on Sunday and he would take me to the college so I could have an interview and not to worry about anything.  It was nice to know I would have a job waiting for me, but I wasn't really sure that a job is what I wanted.  I asked him if they could issue me a final exit visa, and he told me that he didn't think so, which complicated matters even further.  I was being kicked out, but I also couldn't leave...

I called Gemma again, and explained what Suleiman had told me about not being able to get a final exit still, and she told me I could stay in the accommodations for now and that she would check on whether or not they would give me a flight home.  She thought they wouldn't, but the Principal had told me they would when she fired me.  Gemma explained she would have to check on that so there wasn't really anything anyone could do until the weekend was over, so I should just stay put for now, and she would let me know on Sunday what was going to happen.

With these things not really cleared up yet, I concentrated on packing up everything I had.  It was difficult to do for several reasons. The first being that my suitcase was falling apart and probably wouldn't survive another trip.  I had already ducktaped it together for the move from my crappy housing to my new place, and it barely survived the 40 minute drive.  This time, it would have to survive a train trip. So I decided I should sew it, and duck tape it for extra measure.  Suitcase problem solved, I moved on to the problem of deciding what to pack.  If I was packing to go back to the United States, well, then I would pack a lot differently than if I was packing to move to Riyadh.  For one thing, I had been gifted a lot of clothes, mostly long skirts and dresses which I would never wear in the US, but which I would have to wear if I got another teaching job.  For another thing, I had bought a lot of kitchen supplies, frying pan, pot, cutting board, blender, rice cooker etc...  Obviously, these things would be useful if I moved to Riyadh and had to furnish a new place, but not worth bringing if I was headed home.  There was also a ton of food since I had just been grocery shopping. I would have to try to eat it all quickly.

For this, I called in reinforcements.  I wanted to spend my last weekend in Dammam with friends, so I called Gemma to come over and help me pack / eat food.  Fozia and most of the other girls were all off on vacation somewhere since it was Eid vacation, so unfortunately, not many people were around.  On the flip side, we did have the pool and the apartment to ourselves since my roommates had also left for some adventures during Eid vacation.

After a weekend of binge eating and giving Gemma a lot of my stuff, I still had a huge suitcase and two boxes worth of kitchen/food stuff.  How in the world did I manage to collect so much stuff in just six months?  Crazy.  I didn't know what I would do with all of it, but I figured, worst come to worst, I could leave the boxes, and just come back for the kitchen stuff later if I found out I needed it.  It seemed like a pretty good plan considering I didn't have any idea what was going to happen.

Getting Fired

The night before our last day of work before our 2 week paid Eid Vacation, I got an email from the principal telling me she would like to see me tomorrow at 10:30 and that they would arrange for someone to take my class. It sounded kind of ominous, but my roommates and I joked about it.  The principal had a habit of sending ominous sounding emails. 

Ex:  “The Colleges of Excellence inspectors came by today and they were very impressed with us so far.  This is just the beginning…..”

So I wasn’t really worried, but in retrospect, I should have been.  The day was going by pretty quickly.  The girls were all tired and excited for the break, they were having a really hard time concentrating.  10:30 happened to be my project based learning class, and they were supposed to be working on recording conversations they had written, along with finishing the website about National Day we had been working on all week.  Since they were all doing group work, it was a pretty good time to have a substitute come in.  I left her with my winter coat since it was so cold in the room. 

I went to the main office, but since I had never been to the principal’s office, and in fact, had only really spoken to her once during the interview, and in passing a few times in the morning, I didn’t know where to go.  Someone told me upstairs in the room with the green carpet and purple couches. And sure enough, there really was a room with lime green carpet and deep purple couches.  I opened the door and saw a door to the left, which I went in and found completely empty.  There was no one around.  So I went down the hall and checked the next door, and then next, until I had made a complete circle of the upstairs hallway.  There was no one around.  I went back downstairs and asked someone else.  I told her that I was looking for the principal, and she told me she thought she was in a meeting, and I told her that I think I was supposed to be in that meeting, and she said, huh.  And she isn’t upstairs? And I told her I had looked but didn’t see her.  She went up with me and when we got to the room with the couches, she opened the door then looked to the right, sure enough, in the corner behind the door we just opened was a door that I had overlooked before.  She knocked and the principal said, “Come in.” and I thanked the lady and apologized that I couldn’t find her before, and tried to explain my adventure of exploring the entire second floor, but cut it short because she didn’t seem interested.

She asked me to sit down and told me she was sure I knew why I was there.  I told her that actually, I didn’t know.  She told me that she had complete faith in my teaching abilities and qualifications, and that she had heard nothing but good things about my teaching abilities, but that she just felt that it wasn’t the right fit, and that they would be letting me go.  I was shocked.  I asked her to explain what I had done that made her feel that I wasn’t the right fit, and she told me there wasn’t really any one thing, it just seemed like I wasn’t happy, and that the company needed a different kind of personality.  I told her that I was happy, that sure, there were things that frustrated me, but they were the same things that all the other teachers were also struggling with.  I told her I really didn’t understand what the problem was, and she told me that she didn’t want to discuss it further.  I told her I felt I deserved the chance to improve, that they should be clear about the things I was doing wrong and that they should give me a probationary period to give me chance to fix whatever it was they were unhappy about. She told me that I was in a probationary period already.  All contracts had a 90 day trial period, and they could let anyone go within those 90 days without needing to give any reasons.  She said she had been teaching in the Middle East for over 30 years, and she just didn’t think I was going to work out.  She wouldn’t say anymore. She told me I could take a minute, or as long as I needed, and called in someone from Human Relations who would walk me through the next steps, such as booking my flight home and settling the final salary.  I think I was still in shock, but I was also thinking about the last two classes of the day, and I told her I would appreciate it if I could finish teaching my last two classes and then meet with the human relations person at the end of the day.  She thanked me and said that pointed to what a professional I was, and how much I clearly cared about my students, which was confusing coming from someone who had just fired me.

I walked back to my classroom and realized that it was actually my lunch break, and I was a little relieved because I wasn’t sure I was ready to face my students just yet.  So I took my lunch and went outside where it wasn’t subzero temperatures and tried to eat my lunch but ended up crying instead.  Sometimes you just need a good cry. I wanted to call my mommy.  Isn’t it funny how no matter how old you get, when something bad happens to you, you want to call your mommy? I really didn’t get it.  I was still shocked.   I racked my brain for things I might have done, or people I might have pissed off.  I was pretty sure this had something to do with the bus incident.  But I also wondered why they hadn’t bothered to mention that they weren’t happy with me at the time of the bus incident?  I tried to think of other things, and I wondered if my trip to Riyadh to try to sort out the visa, or in fact, if the whole issue with the visa could be what this was really about.  Maybe they had discovered that they couldn’t get the visa problem sorted out and just decided to cut their ties.  But if that was it, why wouldn’t they have just said that?

Too soon it was time for my last two classes and I went back inside to teach.  I’m pretty proud of myself.  I managed to keep it together in class.  I had planned on giving them a test over the material we had covered in the last two weeks, but I didn’t want to anymore.  For one thing, I was definitely not going to spend my time grading it now.  Also, I didn’t want their last memory of me to be giving them a test, so we played games instead.  I debated whether or not to tell the students what had happened, but I decided against it. I knew if I did I would definitely cry.

In the final class, I was interrupted by Jude, who needed my help with the spreadsheets for sorting the students into classes. The Vice Pincipal had suddenly decided that they needed to be split by today, even though before she had told her they didn’t need it until after Eid.  I gave the girls a game to play, and then helped Jude.  Then we continued on with our class.  A little later, my team leader stopped in to say that we were having a team meeting after the last class.  I told her that the Principal had asked me to see an HR lady after class, so I wouldn’t be able to make it.  With so many interruption, before I know it the class was over.  The girls said goodbye, and several of them stayed behind to wish me a Happy Eid and tell me they would miss me during the two weeks.  I thanked them and gave them each a quick hug but pushed them out the door before the dam broke and the flood of tears started.

I gathered up my stuff, and collected myself and headed upstairs to the Vice Principal’s office to drop off my books.  I had never really liked the Vice Principal, mostly because I had the impression that she didn’t really like me, but we had never really spoken much and there hadn’t ever been any words between us or anything.  Thankfully there were other people in the room, so even though I knew she knew, neither of us had to acknowledge anything.  I handed in my books, and asked here where I should take my laptop.  She told me to bring it to the IT office, so I headed there next.

From the first day, I had really liked the IT girls.  The head IT woman was from Bahrain and she was very capable, competent and fast.  The other girl Sheima was from Saudi and traveled about an hour and a half to get to work each day.  I really liked her too.  She was calm and friendly and always very helpful, and I had needed her help a lot since my trip to Riyadh had put me behind the curve for connections to the network and printers.  When I brought her my laptop and told her I was fired, she looked stricken.  I couldn’t help it.  I started to cry again and she hugged me.  She didn’t say anything, just hugged me and let me cry in her arms for a minute.  She told me she was shocked and she didn’t understand why, and I told her neither did I, and we both just stood there.  She handed me a tissue, and I collected myself again, and went in search of the HR lady I was supposed to meet with.

She had already left for the day, but by now it was nearly time to leave.  I saw the car pull up and decided I really wanted to be on it.  I didn’t want to have to sit on the bus with everyone and risk losing it and having to tell the whole story.  As I was walking out the door, Gemma, the HR lady called.  She asked me how I was and I told her I was still pretty much in shock.  She asked me what I was going to do, and I thought it was kind of a weird question since I hadn’t even thought about it yet, I hadn’t had time.  I told her as much.  She said that they would arrange for a hotel for me until they could give me a flight out and could I have my stuff out of the accommodation by tonight?  I was flabbergasted.  I told her I couldn’t and that I would rather just stay in the accommodation until the flight since then I would only have to pack up once instead of two times. She told me that was ok and that she would give me some time to think about it.  During this entire conversation, I was getting in the car with 4 other teachers and they were listening to every word and I was trying not to say anything that would give it away.  I really just didn’t want anyone to know yet.  I couldn’t face it and knew I would end up crying again.  Luckily, when I got off the phone, it didn’t seem like anyone had heard and luckily the conversation centered on how bad it was that we were leaving early, and would we get in trouble, and should we wait to leave until the bus left.  I told them I didn’t care at all, but that if they were at all even a little worried about it we should wait.  Of the other four, only one was for staying, and so we left early.  When we got home, one of the girls didn’t have her key and would have to wait for her roommate who was on the bus to come home to let her in.  So she hung around in our apartment.

I did laundry.  I figured that was the first step to packing and wasn’t sure how long I would have access to the washing machine.   Also, it was a good way to stay busy and not have to tell anyone.  I waited until our guest left and my other roommate got home.  Then I called them both into the living room and told them what happened.  They were both shocked and Princess was mad.  She was really angry and scared.  If they can fire you, then they can fire anyone.  She called her team leader, who I really liked.  I had often talked with Princess about how I wished I had a team leader like hers.  She came up and told me she was surprised and angry and would write an email on my behalf.  She told me she was pretty sure it was politics.  She said it was so frustrating to watch the administration make one bad decision after another.  I thanked her but didn’t think there was any chance they would reconsider.  I told her I had already asked for the chance to stay on as probation and that she had refused.  She told me that was crazy since they had already apparently fired one woman, who had gone nuts and yelled and screamed when she found out she was fired and was really threatening, so they gave her a week probation instead (this was when I was in Riyadh, so I hadn’t heard about it).  I just shook my head.  There had to be something more to this firing.  She told me she figured, they were so upset about the bus incident where we all voted to leave at the normal time, that they wanted to make sure it never happened again, and that the best way to do that was to fire someone, and scare everyone else into keeping their mouths shut for fear of being fired.  This made sense.  She also told me that I should go to my lead teacher and talk to her about it.  Maybe she would also send an email on my behalf.  I told her that I doubted it.  I had mostly only spoken to my group leader by email, and only saw her occasionally in the hallway.  It wasn’t at all like her team which was very close.  She told me I should go up and see her anyway.  She said, try to ask her candidly what her opinion is on all of this.  I have a suspicion it is a political move… maybe she can give you more insight.

So, I made my way upstairs to talk with her.  As a pretext, I brought the two books I had left at home that I needed to turn in.  I apologized for not being at the meeting but explained that I had been fired and that’s why I couldn’t make it.  She was also surprised and told me she didn’t know.   I also told her they wouldn’t tell me why and asked her what she thought the reason was.  She shrugged and said that I was never in the staff room.  I told her that I hadn’t really had any time to be there.  Our staff room was on the 3^rd floor, and my classroom was on the ground floor.  Since we only had 5 minutes between classes, one 15 minute break, a 30 minute lunch, and then 40 minutes at the end of the day, I had been spending my break time in my classroom, or outside where it was above freezing.  I had thought about going up a few times at the end of the day, but by the time all the girls had left the classroom, I straightened the chairs, erased the board, and packed up all my stuff to go, there was only 20 minutes left, and since everyone usually headed out to the bus 10 minutes early, that left only 10 minutes.  By the time I climbed 4 flights of stairs and unpacked my stuff to have anything to work on, it would have been time pack up and leave.  So I just figured I would maximize the little time I had and just stay put.  She listened to my explanation but then told me that everyone else had made time to come to the staff room.  I told her that I didn’t know that.  Whenever I walked past other classrooms, I usually saw the teachers working away at their desks, so I had assumed that everyone stayed in their classroom.  I asked her why she had never told me that she wanted me to spend my free time in the staff room.  She told me that we were adults and she shouldn’t have to tell me.  I told her being an adult didn’t have anything to do with reading minds.  I told her that if I had ever thought that anyone cared one way or another if I was in the staff room, I would have been there.  She told me cavalierly that she didn’t care, but that the Principal and the Vice Principal come around to the staff rooms and they take note of who is there and who isn’t.  I apologized again, but pointed out that where you did your work didn’t matter as much as doing your work and doing it well.  I asked if I had ever not turned in a lesson plan or turned in a bad lesson plan, or done anything to offend her or anyone else.  She told me no, you always do your work.  As for the second part, I don’t know you well enough to say.  She told me that in the future I should make more of an effort to be part of the team.  I thanked her for the advice, and told her that in the future, she should make more of an effort to tell her team what she wants from them instead of assuming that they already know.  She told me that this was a good example of how I needed to learn how to say things more tactfully, and I conceded the point.  I never have been good with tact.  I thanked her again, and left.

I felt worse than ever.  I had no idea my team leader didn’t like me until just now.  I thought about it and realized that I really only talked to two of my team members, and that was because they were in the classrooms next to and adjacent to me.  We got along really well, but I hadn’t really even spoken to the other two.  I think their classrooms were on a different floor.  I wondered if it was possible that I was being fired for not being social enough.  Still, on the bus, I always spoke to whoever was next to me, and even though there wasn’t time during the school day, I felt I was friendly enough whenever I saw anyone in the compound, or when we were waiting for the bus in the mornings, and my roommates and I were certainly getting along really well.  I couldn’t believe that simply not spending enough time socializing would be a reason for getting fired.

I went back to my roommates and told them what she had said.  They told me they had never once seen the vice principal or the principal in any of the staff rooms, and so clearly my team leader had been lying.  The only way they would have known I wasn’t spending time in the staff rooms was if she had told them.  Clearly, she hadn’t liked me, and I was becoming more and more convinced that this firing was politically motivated.  Or a combination of things,  I remember having happened to see one of the other girl’s contracts and noticing that she was being paid significantly less than me. Perhaps they realized they could hire someone else for a lot less, and given my visa problems, and the bus incident, they figured they would make an example of me in the process.  My roommates agreed.  If there was a top ten list of teachers who would/should be fired, I wouldn’t make the list.  We couldn’t think of any reason why they would fire me, of all the teachers, unless it was this perfect storm of reasons.  It made me feel just a little better to know that they felt this way, but at the same time, it made it harder to leave.  Twice now, I had been lucky in making good friends with the people I worked with.

It had been a long day, and I started the process of packing up, but I had a pretty bad headache, so after a while, I just decided to go to bed early.  I would figure out what I was going to do about all of this tomorrow.

National Day

The equivalent of our Fourth of July for Saudi's is National Day on September 23rd.   This year, that fell on a Tuesday.  Which meant we were all looking forward to a day off in the middle of the week.  Sometimes, the King is even known to be extra generous and declare additional days off as part of the National Holiday to continue the celebration longer.  Since there were only two work days left before the Eid Holiday, which this year fell conveniently close to National Day, we were all hoping to get those days off too and extend our upcoming two week holiday by a couple of days.   No such luck this year.

The previous Thursday, one of the admin ladies had come around to tell the classes that on Tuesday, the day before National Day, we would have a 2 hour celebration in the morning and they should wear their traditional clothing or green (the color of the flag).  We got no other information about it until Monday night, when we received an email saying that actually the celebration would be during lunch, and only 10 minutes and that we would get more information about it in the morning (we didn't).

In the middle of the first class, the Vice Principal came by to count heads and do her usual panic about attendance.  I asked her about the National Day party, and where it would be and what time exactly.  She was very flustered and said she didn't have time at the moment and would come back before the end of class to let us know.  Sure enough, 2 minutes before the class ended, she came back in.  I thought she was going to tell us about the celebration, but instead she started in on the students for wearing jeans and tennis shoes (against the dress code) and at me for allowing them to wear jeans and tennis shoes.  The idea behind the dress code was that we should be training the students now to dress like professionals so that when the got to the workplace, they would know how to dress.  This is a fine idea, that in general I agree with.  However, when the classrooms are this cold, I don't begrudge anyone for wearing pants instead of skirts, or tennis shoes instead of sandals.  Also, I wasn't clear why she was upset with me for what the students were wearing.  It wasn't as if I had dressed them that morning.  I also thought it was a strange day to choose to focus on wardrobe compliance since the girls had been encouraged to wear green and traditional clothes that day, making it something of an exceptional clothing day.  

I let her rant for a while, but when class time ended I gently interrupted her to remind her that class was now over, and I needed to let them go so they could get to their next class on time, and could she please tell us where and when the celebration would be?  She told me they would stay put as long as she wanted them to. I leaned in and told her quietly that if she expected them to respect our time, we needed to respect theirs and give them the breaks they deserved when they deserved them.  She shot me a look of death, and I stepped back and let her go on. After a few more minutes of criticizing wardrobe choices she told us that we would need to meet back here at 11:30 and I would take them up to the library.  I pointed out that this was in the middle of our lunch break and we didn't have class then (all the classes had lunch at different times), so it would be better if the students just made their way to the library on their own instead of wasting time coming back here, besides, I had no idea where the library was (I had been in Riyadh when they gave tours of the building). She glared at me again and reiterated the time and the place and very grandiosely, dismissed the students on my behalf.

At lunch time, none of my students returned.  I waited a few minutes and then assumed that they must have found their way up there on their own.  Another teacher and I who had the same lunch period went up together and found the library, which was above the space designated as the mosque.  I wouldn't really call it a library exactly, since as of yet, there were no books.  It would make a nice library eventually though, it was round and there were a lot of windows and a skylight in the ceiling and columns in the center that had more famous quotes on them. In the middle of all this there was a giant cake with the King's face on it.  I think the piece I got was part of his shoulder.  Girls were clumped together all around the room eating cake and laughing, some had dressed up for the promised contest for who had the best traditional dress.  Unfortunately, my girls who had dressed up (and were, unbiasedly the best) had arrived late since they were doing their make-up and so weren't able to enter the competition.  The biggest clump of girls was huddled around a tiny set of speakers in the back of the room.  A few brave girls were even dancing to the music, even though dancing, and even music is technically haram or not allowed.  Whoever thought that getting about 700 girls into one space, giving them all cake, having a contest and then returning them to their rooms would only last 10 minutes was crazy.  I hung around for about 15 minutes then made my way back to class so I would be there when the students started filtering back down.  Sure enough, the students did eventually make their way back down, and we managed to have half of an hour long class at least.  The rest of the day went by quickly and was very uneventful.

That afternoon I went to tutor Joury as usual.  The hot topic that day was how excited she was for the family's National Day celebration that evening.  I was confused and asked why they weren't going to do it tomorrow on the actual National Day.  She explained that you couldn't go out anywhere on National Day, it wasn't safe.  I asked why, and got a sort of confused answer about stores being looted and drunk men in the streets.  Her older sister filled me in.  Women and children usually celebrated separately the day before.  They would dress up, and dance with swords (the women and children danced with swords?!) and have pretend bedouin wedding celebrations.  The men usually spent National Day in Bahrain or Dubai (the irony of spending a day designed to celebrate your nation, enjoying the freedoms of another seemed lost on them).  The ones who couldn't get away often found ways to get drunk and drive down to the cornish to drive up and down waving flags and bursting out in sporadic dancing, yelling, and occasional getting out of control enough to loot stores.  Apparently, they usually limited their looting to stores owned by non-Saudi's.  I wondered how much of this was true, and how much of this was just the exaggerated fear of  conservative Saudi families.

When tutoring ended, instead of taking just me home, Joury, her sister and her Mom were going to join me in the car and get dropped off at her Aunts house for the party.  It was the first time since our original meeting in the mall that I had seen Jude and her mother fully cloaked and it was jarring.  Inside their home, it was easy to forget where I was because it was just like spending time with any other family.  With only women and close male relatives around, they were free to wear whatever they wanted.  Now I was seeing just their eyes, and it was like arriving at a halloween party and not recognizing any of your friends because they were wearing masks.  I got in next to Jude and Joury while we waited for her mom to lock up.  Joury told me to slide over and I was confused.  I thought her mom would sit in the front seat next to the driver.  Then I realized that she wouldn't.  After all, this driver was not her husband.  So I slid over, and Joury sat halfway on her mom's lap and halfway on mine for the short trip to her Aunts house.  I wished them a happy National Day as they got out, and half hoped they would invite me to join them.  I would have loved to see dancing with swords, but to be honest, I was just as relieved to be heading home and was looking forward to sleeping in the next day.

View of National Day from my roof

I did sleep in, and was tempted to try to go to the cornish to see all the "looting" action.  Unfortunately, the roads had all been blocked off, possibly to help with crowd control.  I had heard there would be fireworks around 10pm that night, so Princess and I took some plyers and managed to open the door to the roof, which wasn't locked, but didn't have a handle, so it was a challenge turning the mechanism and getting it open.  We waited a while, and got to see all the buildings lit up in green for the occasion, but that was about all.  There didn't even seem to be too much traffic.  Granted, we were pretty far from the Cornish, but still, I was a little disappointed.  A friend of ours sent us a video later of the traffic at the cornish, and it was pretty tame, and to be honest kind of lame.  I had expected more.  

If you want more, you can read what my students wrote about National Day at this website:


https://sites.google.com/site/saudinationaldayesg/

The Bus

In addition to more students, a few teachers were still straggling in as well.  Some had been held up by visa issues, others had just been hired.  Each day the bus that took us to and from the accommodation got a little bit fuller.  At first it was no big deal because there were little fold out jump seats to fill in the aisles.  But soon, those too were full.  There was also a seat next to the driver that no one had been brave enough to sit in until now. The next day, someone had to also occupy the hump seat, which wasn't really a seat at all, just the middle space between the driver and the drivers side passenger.  Sitting in that spot required creative positioning of ones legs, and the ability to move out of the way whenever the driver needed to change gears.  This job usually fell to whoever was unfortunate enough to arrive last, but if this person was older or larger, might be passed off to one of the smaller teachers in exchange for a coffee.   We knew there were still two more teachers coming in the next few days, so we all started to wonder what they would do.  Would there be another bus?  Would they hire a car to handle the overflow?

Everyday for a week, Lisa, one of the lead teachers had told the vice principal that there were no extra seats on the bus, and that in fact someone was having to ride in that "hump" seat which was not only uncomfortable but also unsafe, and everyday, the vice principal told her not to worry, they would take care of it, until finally, after four days of reminders, the VP snapped at her and said, "Stop bringing it up!  Mind your own business, you just take care of your team and we will take care of logistics."  So Lisa didn't mention it anymore after that.

I think it was two days after that that the bus finally reached capacity.  I'm usually on time in the mornings, but that morning, I couldn't find my key, so I was the last one to arrive.  Only there were no seats left.  Thankfully, one of the girls offered to slide over and we both managed to have about half a but cheek on the chair.  I sort of propped myself up by wedging my foot on the bottom step of the exit door and bracing my arm against the door handles.  How I wished we had a shorter commute.  It was at least 30 minutes and usually closer to 40 with the morning traffic.

By the time we arrived, I had pins and needles in one leg and had to limp my way into the college.  I told the Vice Principal that I had no seat on the bus that morning and would they please make arrangements for another vehicle since tomorrow there would be another teacher arriving.  She said they were handling it and seemed annoyed that yet another person had come to her with this problem.
I expected that there would be a car that afternoon to take the overflow from the bus home, but when there was still no additional car five minutes before the bus was supposed to leave I went to go remind the Vice Principal that she had promised to "handle it".  She told me that I should just get on the bus today and tomorrow they would have a car.  I asked her where she wanted me to sit.  She said I had managed on the way here, so I could manage on the way home.

Of course, this little conversation made me the last person on the bus yet again.  This time, the girl in the seat closest to the door was larger, and only got about half her asscheeks on the seat under normal conditions, so there was no possibility of sharing.  So we worked it out so I sat on the floor in front of her, and she sat sideways so her feet were dangling in the doorway.  This was more comfortable than the ride to work, but since the engine on this bus was more or less directly below me, the floor was very hot.  Luckily I had my winter coat and two sweaters with me, so I put those under my but as cushioning and to keep from scorching my kiester.

Collectively, we resolved that tomorrow we would not play this game.  If there was no car, then those of us who didn't fit in real honest to god seats would just not get on the bus.  We would call them and tell them we couldn't get to work until they sent someone to get us.  Sure enough, that is exactly what happened.  Not to me, I was one of the first people on the bus the next morning.  No way I was going to go without a seat again.  But Lisa, a new teacher, and someone else all waited for them to send a car.  Sure enough, eventually, a few hours later, they did send a car.

 After that, there was a car everyday, and a fight for who got to take the car.  Since there were only four seats in the car, the first four people to get in would go, arriving at work earlier than the rest of us, with time to make copies and coffee and set up before students arrived.  At the end of the day, the first four people in the car would head off for home.  Everyday, this got a little bit earlier until the car was leaving a full half hour before the bus.  Some of the teachers were really upset by this, and complained that it wasn't fair, especially since it seemed to be the same teachers leaving early every day.  True, it wasn't fair, but I didn't mind.  I was happy to have any seat at all.

Democracy in Action

On Saturday night, about 10 hours before we would start teaching on Sunday, we got an email from the teacher who was coordinating the assessments.  She let us know that we would be giving the grammar portion of the assessment test first thing in the morning.  She let us all know we would need to put the chairs in rows (or have students without chairs sit far enough apart not to cheat) and that we should give them an hour to finish the test.  She would give us the tests and some acetate sheets to use for checking the answers when we arrived at school.  Later in the week we would give the listening test if we could round up enough speakers.  Since it was really important that we get these tests graded and entered, she wanted us all to stay an extra hour after school to finish grading the tests.  She had asked the bus to pick us up later.

I was upset for a few reasons.  One, this was not enough notice, how would I get in touch with the family I tutored to tell the driver not to pick me up until later?  Two, who was she, just another teacher, to extend our work hours?  I know she really wanted this done, but why did we have to stay late?  Couldn't we use our admittedly short planning time to grade them?  And even if we didn't finish in one day, we wouldn't do the listening test until later that week. We needed all the scores to make any adjustments to classes, so having one set of scores without all of them wouldn't really help. So actually, so long as they were all graded by the time we did the listening test, it would be fine.

My roommates and I discussed it at length.   We were all pretty upset by it, and Princess said she wanted to do something about it.  I suggested that we bring it up on the bus tomorrow and decide what to do as a group.  At my old company, we often had bus meetings to discuss time changes in bus coming and going times, and other work issues.  Princess said she had sent the woman and email, and also sent complaints to the vice principal and principal about it, but that it was a good idea to talk as a group.  She said she didn't want to be the only one, and I told her not to worry, I would back her up.

It just so happened that on the bus the next morning, Princess was sitting next to Jude, and I was sitting right in front of both of them.  I heard Princess bring up the testing to Jude, and since I didn't want Princess to feel abandoned, I turned around and started talking with her as well.  I asked if she thought it was possible that we could finish grading the tests during our breaks and planning time.  She said she guessed it would take about 1 minute per test to grade, and since most of us had around 40 students, that it would be possible if we used our 40 minute planning at the end of the day and our 15 minute break.  Maybe some people depending on how fast they were would also need to use their lunch period, but she figured it was possible.  I asked her about weather or not it was really necessary to have the scores finished today, since we still had the listening to do later that week anyway.  She told me that as long as the scores were in by Tuesday, there shouldn't be a problem (this was Sunday).  I asked her if we all agreed to have everything graded and turned into her by the end of the day on Monday if that would be ok?  She said she didn't see why not.

So I put it to the whole group.  Would you guys rather work hard today and tomorrow during your breaks to get this done, or do you want to stay after school today and finish it?  It was unanimous, everyone wanted to go home today at the normal time, and agreed to have the tests scored and submitted by the end of the school day tomorrow.  We told the driver to change the pick up back to the normal time, and headed off to give the test, which, it turns out, there were not enough copies of (big surprise).  I was one of the first classes to get the test so luckily, I did not have to wait for copies to be made.

The test was fairly difficult.  Most of the students finished early.  It was multiple choice so I got the feeling most of them were just guessing.  A lot of girls were finished before time was up, and I started grading those right away.  A few girls were still working when time was up.  I asked if the class if they thought it was hard or easy and a few said easy, some just shrugged, and the rest appeared to still be asleep.  Turns out, no one got more than 60% right, so it was very hard.  The grading was faster than I thought, particularly when I started marking only the ones they got right instead of the ones they got wrong.  Usually there were only about 5 right per page.  I managed to finish grading all the tests with about 20 minutes to spare at the end of the day.  I felt pretty good about it and took them to the assessment lady who thanked me.  She said only two of us had finished grading so far.  I said I could help grade some more right now, since we still had some time before the end of the day, she said that would be great, except most of the teachers still had their tests. so she didn't have any extras at the moment to grade.  I told her to let me know if she needed any help later.

So I went back to my room and got about halfway through a lesson plan and made my way back to sign out at the normal time.  Almost everyone was already on the bus.  I asked how many had finished grading.  Only a few were done, but most had finished more than half of theirs.  It looks like we would all make the deadline with no problem.

After work I went to tutor as usual, so I didn't get the chance to check my email until around 7:30 that night.  When I did, I found the Principal had sent us all an email at 2:30pm (half an hour before the bus normally comes) saying that she approved us staying late today, and that in exchange, we could be paid overtime one hour or leave 40 minutes early on Thursday.  Since there is still no email at the college, no one at the school had gotten this email until we were already home.  I felt a little guilty now.  It was one thing to change the time when one of the other teachers was one of the people requesting the change, but now that I knew it was "approved" by the principal, I figured we might be in trouble for changing the time back to our normal working hours.  It was too late now though, the damage was done.

The Straw Tower

One of the classes I was most excited about teaching was one called "Project Based Learning".  The idea behind it is that you learn best when what you are learning can be used immediately on a real world problem.  For example, you may not really spend that much time learning how to introduce yourself if it is just a chapter out of the book you are reading.   If, however, I tell you you will have to introduce yourself to, let's just say, an admissions officer at a college in the UK via skype - well, chances are you will be a lot more motivated to practice this particular language skill.

In training we had been told that the curriculum and lesson plans for this had already been created.  However, as with most things so far with this new company, we discovered that this was only sort of true.  On the shared drive, we found the project based learning curriculum file, but it was incomplete.  There was a general outline of the first project - to build a tower out of straws, but the timeline was unclear.  Was this something we were supposed to spend one 2 hour class on, or was this assignment supposed to last all week?  Initially, I think they had only planned on having project based learning once a week, instead of every day, so that might explain why in the project outline, it was supposed to take place over two weeks, and then later, it was supposed to be finished within the first week.  I opened the first lesson plan, which was written for students who had much more advanced language than my girls, so it would need major re-working.  Out of curiosity, I opened the lesson plan for the second day, and discovered that it was actually exactly the same as Day 1.  Apparently, no one had gotten around to writing any other plans beyond the first day, because every lesson plan for the week was identically to day 1's plan.

I realized I would need to really bulk out the lesson plan if I was going to make building this straw tower project last all week.  Besides, we hadn't even been given the straws and other supplies yet.  So I decided that we would do a lot of team building exercises to bulk out the plan.  The original plan called for group discussions of team work, but without the language necessary to talk about it, I figured why not demonstrate through activity some of the keys to teamwork (communication, roll definition, leadership, cooperation etc...).  Since most of the teambuilding activities I knew about required lots of movement, and because it was getting colder by the day in the classrooms, we went outside.  My girls and I were deep in an activity where they had to call out directions to a blindfolded teammate to get them from one side of the courtyard to the other without running into any other girls or trees or benches.  We had covered all of the commands in English, "go, stop, forward, back, step up, step down, left, right etc.."  but with about 40 students, it was hard to make sure they were all in fact using English and not peeking, but I was doing my best.

The vice principal happened to come around and wanted to know what I was doing.  I explained the team building activity to her.  She told me she didn't remember seeing this particular activity on the syllabus, by which, she meant, she hadn't seen any other teachers doing this particular activity.  I explained that the project based learning lesson plan only included one lesson plan, Which I had already done of the first day, so we needed to fill it out with other activities.   Besides, we can't do the straw tower activity until we get straws.  She informed me that there would be straws the next day, and that in the future, I should stick with what is in the syllabus.  I asked her if that meant she wanted me to deliver that same lesson everyday this week, since strictly speaking, that is exactly what was in the syllabus.  She stared me down for a minute. We both knew that she had never bothered to look at the lesson plans herself, or she would have realized how incomplete they were.  Finally she said, "You know what I mean.  Get these girls inside."

I gathered up my girls, and for the first time was truly disappointed in the new company.  I could understand and forgive all of the delays, and logistical problems of not having everything needed right away or completely ready, after all, this is Saudi.  This was different.  In the interview, the new company had talked a lot about wanting to change the existing model.  They pushed dynamic interactive teaching as a must, and made it clear that they weren't interested in lecture style teachers.  Now here I was, being chastised for exactly the kind of teaching they had claimed to want.  Suddenly, what I had begun to suspect from all the training focused on attendance numbers, and the haphazard way the books were chosen and curriculum developed (or not), became crystal clear.  All the talk of building a new model for Saudi women, of revolutionizing how English is taught in the region, was lip service.  They weren't committed to real change after all, only to profits.  Doing what was best for the students was fine, only so long as it was convenient for management.

The first attempts at Straw Towers, each group had 10 straws and 2 feet of tape.

Sure enough, the next day, the vice principal made a point of bringing me straws and tape.  I was the first to receive them, and as it turns out, one of the few who did.  Whoever had purchased the straws hadn't bought enough, so only about half the teachers got them.  The other half either bought their own or asked the students to bring them.  It was chaos to say the least.  Some of the students had towers with glitter and spray paint and used 50+ straws (which is what our syllabus recommended).  Other students had only 10 straws per group.  Every teacher had a different take on the assignment, and different ways of filling the rest of the time, though none were quite as visible as my courtyard teamwork activity.  One teacher had them design a dream home instead since there were no straws.  Another had them research towers around the world first so they could plan more structurally sound towers.  Another had them pre-design the towers and present their ideas and then vote as a group on a final design before building it. We made our towers on the third day of the week.  I was impressed with what the girls had created, but not exactly sure what I would do with the class for the rest of the week.  After all, according to the syllabus, we were doing straw towers all week.  I decided that we would spend the next days talking about what went well, what didn't and giving them the opportunity to design a second improved tower.  Partially because about 10 students had  joined the class who hadn't done any tower yet at all, and partially because I was afraid to really do anything else after my little run in with the Vice Principal.  This time, I told them they would also need to give a presentation to their class, explaining what materials they used, why they chose the design, and giving the tower a name.  Most wanted to do a powerpoint, and I encouraged them to try using a stop motion video app while they were building their second towers to add to their presentation.  I wanted to introduce them to new kinds of technology so they didn't always jump to powerpoint as the best or only means of presenting something (and because it would take a lot more time to build the tower that way).

Second Towers, each group had 50 straws, plus poster board, construction paper and 2 feet of tape.

I just so happened that the Vice Principal had come to my class while they were in the middle of this group work to try to sort out the attendance problems.  While we were comparing my attendance records with the official register (which was missing the 10 new students) and counting bodies to be sure we hadn't missed any, she noticed the girls using their cell phones (the stop motion app).  "Why does she have a cell phone out?  You need to tell her off."  I tried to explain why they were using the phones, but she cut me off.  "Do it. Tell her off.  The policy is no cell phones, and I don't want you to come crying to me and complaining later that you can't get the girls to put away the phones."  I wanted to assure her that I would never in a million years complain to her about anything related to  my student's behavior since classroom management was after all, my job, and that I especially would never complain about the students using cell phones since I used them a lot in lesson plans, for pop quizzes where they text in answers, for on the spot translations, for voice recordings, for any number of things, and that sure, they were bound to occasionally be using them for non-academic purposes, and I would as she said "tell them off" in those cases, but as a whole, the educational benefits to using the phones in class far outweighed the risks of having them around.  I decided against saying all this, figuring I was already not her favorite person, and so the best course of action was probably put up and shut up.  Luckily, the students, who had been listening to her rant, had quickly put away their phones, so when she insisted again that I tell them off, there was no one with a cell phone to tell off, and after a prolonged glare at me, she returned her attention to the attendance.

There was also another small crises.  One of the students who had the leadership roll for her group, mostly because she had the best English in her group, had taken the plans home with her the night before we started building because she was going to add them to the powerpoint that they had started.  Only, she didn't end up doing the powerpoint and left the plans at home.  Her solution to this problem, was to simply not show up to class at all.  In fact, she was so nervous about coming to class with nothing, she convinced her friend, also in the group, to hide out in the cafeteria with her.  The other two girls in her group were understandably very angry with her.  They asked if they could leave too, and I told them the had to do what they could for now, and then at the break (there was a ten minute break in this class) they could go find them.  After the break, they came back, but wouldn't come into class.  They were afraid of what I would do to them, so they wanted to speak to me in the hallway.  She explained that she had been up late the night before visiting her husbands mother who was ill.  I asked her why she was explaining and apologizing to me, when it was her group members who were suffering, not me.  She seemed confused.  You aren't going to yell at me?  I told her I was not, but that her group mates probably would, and should.  I told her that I would grade her based on her participation, and asked her if she thought she deserved high marks.  She shook her head no.  I told her she had also hurt her team, and that their grades would suffer too, but not as much as hers.  I told her that the worst thing she had done was not forgetting the plan or the powerpoint, but that the worst thing was that she hadn't taken responsibility for it, had made her friend miss class with her, and left her team to deal with it alone.  I asked if she thought that is what a leader would do.  She shook her head again.  I asked her what she thought she should do now as a leader.  She said finish the project.  I told her she had better hurry.  In the 20 or so minutes they had left before the presentations were do, that team actually pulled together a rather remarkable design, and a fairly decent presentation.  It's amazing what you can accomplish under pressure.

By the end of the week, my students had built 2 towers and done a presentation for their classmates on these towers.  They were sick to death of towers.  They made me promise we would be doing something else next week.  I wanted to move on as badly as they did and hoped that before next week, someone in admin would have sorted out the obvious lack of content in the project based learning curriculum and done something to fix it.  In the meantime, I was proud of what my students had accomplished, and looked forward to what they would be able to do by the end of the year.  Check out one of the videos they put together below.

Enrollment

Every day so far, we had been getting new students.  I'm not sure if it was because the college had delayed openings so many times that the students were confused about when it actually started, and enrolled students were just now hearing from friends that is was now open, or if they were just adding  new students who wondered it, or what.  Initially we were told there would be no more than 25 girls in each class, but each day I took attendance, my rolls grew, and by the end of the first week I had 32 girls in one class, 38 in another, and 42 in my project based learning class.

The most obvious problem with this was chairs.  I was one of the lucky ones and had 30 chairs in my room (31 if you counted my own).  Most teachers had only 25.  There were no extra chairs anywhere in the college because they hadn't been ordered or hadn't cleared customs, or something.  So everyday, there was a scramble for any available chairs, and inevitably, students would still end up standing, sitting in each other's laps (literally) or on the floor.  On the up side, students were better at being on time.  The later they arrived the less likely they were to have a chair.

If sheer numbers weren't daunting enough, the new students were added haphazardly, with no regard to level of English.  In my advanced class, three of the new students couldn't answer the question "What is your name?" without a translation.  As you can imagine, this presented a pretty big challenge for us teachers.  Suddenly we had to teach multi-level classes in refrigerators, without enough chairs.  I was one of the luckier teachers.  At least I had a white board.  Some teachers still didn't even have that and were using windows and flip chart paper in the meantime.

Something had to be done.  Part of the problem was that no one in administration seemed to be sure of who was registered and who wasn't, or even who was in each class.  I was glad I had decided from the beginning to keep track of my own attendance because each day, if we were lucky enough to get a register at all, it was almost completely different than the day before.  Part of the problem was that we weren't able to take attendance online as originally planned, since the college still didn't have internet.  Another problem was that none of the admin staff had been trained to use the software they chose to track attendance, or even excel for that matter.

While admin struggled with those problems, one of the teachers was put in charge of assessment.  She had been hired with the idea in mind that all she would be doing was assessment and resource development and she had come prepared.  She had developed a quick 5 minute assessment tool for placement and had requested permission to give this assessment during student orientation week so that students could be placed in classes based on levels from the beginning. They rejected her assessment and decided to use a standardized one from Cambridge that had four parts, listening, speaking, grammar, and writing.  While the cambridge assessment would give us a better idea of where they were, and was better in the sense that the same assessment could be given at the end of the year to measure improvement, it would also require roughly 3 hours of testing from every student, and then would require a lot of time for grading, input, and then arrangement into classes.  So basically, we would end up having to shuffle students around after the Eid break to get them into the correct levels.  Obviously this wasn't the best case scenario, but it was what we had.

The first week we stole time during group work, or writing assignments to take the students into the hallway one by one to administer the speaking test.  I managed to get through all of my homeroom students in just two class periods, but a few teachers still hadn't finished by the end of the week.  We also gave a writing test on Wednesday morning.  The instructions were to write between 150-200 words about your friends, family, school, the future, or anything you want.  One of my girls was confused by this wording and wrote a list of words that had to do with school.  She wasn't the only one, at least three girls in other classes did the same.  Most managed to write some semblance of a paragraph, or at least a sentence or two.    Luckily, we didn't have to grade the writing ourselves, the assessment teacher did that for us.

Each time we felt like we had finished the assessments, a new student arrived and we would have to catch them up and add them to the register.  It wasn't complete chaos, but it was pretty close.  Strange how quickly even ridiculous situations begin to feel normal isn't it?  I got to the point where I was surprised if we didn't have new students.  We were all sure that at some point it would all settle down and things would work out, it just seemed so far in the future that it wasn't worth thinking about. We all needed all our brainpower just to get through the here and now.

Tinted Windows

One of the highlights of our day as teachers is the bus ride home in the afternoon.  Everyone is in a good mood because finally, the day is over.  No more students, no more administrative frustrations, just 30 to 40 minutes of time to relax, chat with each other and plan what we will do when we get home.

Some people listen to music or read books, some nap, or stare out the window (although this is risky because you may accidently end up staring inadvertently at a Saudi guy who is driving and gets the wrong idea if he sees you looking at him), or chat with whoever they are sitting next to.  I like to eavesdrop.  It's less pressure than carrying on a conversation, but you get many of the same benefits.  This particular day I was overhearing a conversation about a recent trip to the mall, which wasn't too thrilling, until this happened.

"Hey, isn't that the same white Mercedes that was behind us on the highway?"
"Weird, it's almost like he is following us."
Cue the bus turning at the Rainbow Roundabout onto the road before our turnoff, and the Mercedes making the same turn.
"Oh, he is following us."
"Oh, come on, you are being paranoid.  He's not following us."
The bus turns into the street with the HyperPanda right next to our place... and white Mercedes follows.
"Really?  How do you explain that then.  He is clearly following us."
"Maybe he is just going to the HyperPanda."
By this time, other teachers have joined the conversation.
"No way, he is definitely following us."
"It's because of Katie's beautiful blonde hair."
"Yeah, thanks, Katie.  He saw your beautiful hair through the window and he can't resist."
"Well, if they tinted the windows or put up curtains like they were supposed to, this wouldn't be a problem."
"Come on guys it's not a problem, he isn't really following us, watch..."
The bus continues down this dirt road filled with construction that no one would need to go on unless they were headed to our accommodation, and the white Mercedes.... follows us.  By now the whole bus is involved and a collective sound of surprise, laughter, concern and absurdity fills the bus.
It appears this guy really is following us home.  And now, we are home, and we have to get out of the bus, and walk inside our compound with this guy parked outside and staring.  Luckily, it isn't too far.

Most of us have forgotten about the incident by the next day, but sure enough, as we round a corner not far from home the same white Mercedes is back.  He follows us back to our compound and parks less than ten feet away.  This time he has come prepared.  In his window is a big sign with his phone number written on it.  He is grinning and waving, and I can't help but laugh. The lengths people go to here to have contact with the opposite sex is ridiculous and often unbelievable.  There is definitely an element of creepy here too, and this disturbed some of the teachers.  After all, this guy now knew where we lived.  He never got out of the car, but whose to say another guy wouldn't?  Apparently it bothered them enough to complain to management, who had been saying all along that they would get curtains or tinted windows for the bus, but like so many other things they had promised, hadn't happened yet.

The very next afternoon, the bus's windows were tinted, and we never saw that white Mercedes again.