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.