One of Suleiman's selling points for taking the job at the medical school over fate college was the ability to earn extra cash in the evenings by working at the "institute" a private language school next door to the college, owned by the same people as the college, but somehow different from the college.
They called me at the end of my second week of work to officially recruit me for the evening classes. They initially wanted me to work from 4pm - 8pm everyday. After my last experience working non-stop at my old company and tutoring, I wasn't sure I wanted to jump into a 12 hour work day. Even though I didn't really do anything yet at work, I was sure I would start doing something eventually, and then an hour break between the college and the institute definitely wouldn't be enough. I told them I could do two hours, but not four. Then we spent some time negotiating pay. As bored as I was, I wasn't sure I really wanted to give up my evenings watching The Wonder Years and experimenting with cooking in my hallway kitchen for mere peanuts. Still, given the whole point of staying in Saudi was to make money, I figured I should take every opportunity I had to do just that, so I agreed to start.
I went to the institute the next day during normal work hours (since I was so busy doing nothing there) and met with all the men in charge. We did some paperwork to finalize everything and he showed me where the women's section was (a separate building entirely, closer to the college). We did not go with me inside however, since only women were allowed inside.
They wanted me to start that afternoon so I arranged for the driver to come back and pick me up a few minutes before 4pm and head over the institute. I arrived and went inside and looked around for someone in charge. There was a woman behind the large desk who seemed very confused when I approached her. Apparently, no one had bothered to tell her that I was coming, or that I would be teaching. I'd like to blame it on the gender divide, that because men aren't allowed in the women's section they weren't able to tell the women about me, but I have a sneaking suspicion that even if I was a man joining the men's campus, communication wouldn't be great either. So that first day was a very short 10 minutes. She told me she would call me back when there was a class ready to start.
Two days later, she called me and told me to come from 6pm to 8pm. I came and so did 5 students. There were officially 12 on the roster. Eventually, there would be 15 on the roster and only about 7 showing up regularly, which was crazy to me since they were paying to take the course. The girls were a mix of mostly older married women looking to advance their careers (or get one in the first place) and high school girls with parents who wanted them to have as much exposure to English as possible. It seemed to me that none of them really knew each other, but after a while I discovered that for most of them this was their second class together, they just didn't really interact much. I was really surprised by that, but I guess I shouldn't have been, since Saudis are generally quite formal and distant with me, why wouldn't they be with each other?
The class went well and they all seemed keen to learn, so I had the feeling it was going to be an easy and rewarding 2 hours 5 times a week. We will see.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
The DQ
Since I had an appointment at the Embassy for Wednesday afternoon, I figured why not visit Caroline in the Diplomatic Quarter afterwards? The diplomatic quarter or DQ, for short (this always makes me want ice-cream) is a huge tract of land where all the embassies for all the countries who have embassies in Saudi are. Surrounding the embassies are residential areas where lucky expats live. The security is extremely tight, but the environment is incredible. There are fountains and palm trees and green things everywhere. There are recreational facilities and even a small shopping area. The place is huge and getting in isn't easy. There are only two gates, and so there is always a line of cars waiting to get in. Guards walked around our cars with mirrors to check the underside and trunk, and we had to drive past two giant tanks, with guys carrying machine guns at the ready, and that was just to get through the first check point.
At the next point I had to show my passport and a printout of my appointment. My taxi driver had been to the DQ before, but never to the US embassy. Neither had I. We both kept our eyes out for signs and directions. We passed the Iranian embassy, the Nigerian embassy, the Swiss embassy and the "equestrian training park". We saw signs for the Egyptian embassy, the Irish Embassy, and the United Nations office, but still no sign of the US embassy. We stopped and asked at the United Nations building, and a guard pointed to a deserted looking corner of the parking lot. My driver took me over and stopped another man gathering trash. He told the driver that this was as close as he could get by car, and offered to walk me in the right direction. There still hadn't been any signs. I was beginning to wonder if perhaps there was no signs on purpose, as a sort of security measure.
I paid the driver and got out and followed the garbage man across a few concrete barriers. Eventually we rounded a corner and there is was, a covered walkway with misters going leading to the entrance of the consular section of the United States Embassy. I went through the gates and metal detectors and left my cell phone at the front in a little box and got a number in exchange to reclaim it when I came out. I went through another metal detector and then out a door into a really nice outdoor area with a fountain and some chairs and cafe tables. It struck me as odd to have a little cafe inside of such a restricted area, but I guess even the consulate officers need a place to take a break from work.
The consulate area was guarded by another set of guards who led me to the american citizen services section. It wasn't that crowded and It only took about 10 minutes to see a consular. He said basically the same thing the other guy said. He would call them and ask them what was taking so long. He said that was about all they could do. He told me about another case with the same company where a woman had waited over a year for her exit visa and had camped out in front of the embassy for weeks and still there was nothing they could do. I suppose he was saying this to assure me that they were doing all they could do, but it just made everything seem more hopeless than ever. I asked him if he thought I should submit the case to the ministry of labour. He advised against it. He explained that it would probably make the whole process take even longer. Anytime the ministry is involved, it adds a month or two to the whole process he told me. I thanked him, discouraged, and headed back outside.
The whole meeting had taken less than 15 minutes and I now had about 2 hours to kill before I met Caroline. I was pretty hungry, and I had forgotten to eat lunch. I didn't want to eat too much because Caroline was going to make dinner, but I figured I would need something to hold me over. So I set off in search of two things, Caroline's place, and the little shop for groceries she told me was near her house. It was a hot day so I decided to take off my hijab. After all, this was the DQ, I could have even taken off my abaya if I wanted to! I was nervous to go that far because there were a lot of men in thobes around, but man was it nice to feel the wind in my hair. It's funny how you forget about small joys like this so easily.
I meandered past a number of buildings including one for the ministry of tourism and culture in Saudi, which supposedly had a museum. I thought about trying to go in, but my growling stomach urged me on. I walked past a sign that said British Embassy and pointed, and I remembered that she lived very near the British Embassy because she had talked about a recent party with an Indian theme she had attended there and walked home from. So I turned and walked into a little covered walkway. There were a lot of business offices in this strip mall sort of area, there was a sign for IBM, Tyson, and The British Council. I realized I must have seen the sign for the British Council and not the British Embassy, but it was a good detour because I found a little shop like a 7-11. I bought some interesting looking vegetable chips, and almost bought some other candy and nuts, but I didn't want to spoil my appetite, so I stuck with the vegetable chips. While I was waiting to pay I overheard a little scuffle between the cashier and a customer, He was claiming discrimination. It wasn't clear what it was he wanted, but it was clear that he felt if he wasn't Saudi, the shop owner would have let him have it. He stormed out of the store, and I looked around at the faces of some of the other customers for some clue as to what had just happened, but they were all extremely busy avoiding looking anyone in the eyes. I paid and left to ponder the mysteries of the situation outdoors in the garden area.
I found a nice shady spot and sat down to read my book and finish my veggie chips in the great outdoors. It felt wonderful. The chips weren't terrible, but they also weren't great, kind of like eating those packing chips from the 80s that dissolved a little when you got them wet, seasoned with the packets from Raman noodles. It was enough to hold me over. I continued walking hoping I would eventually spot something familiar, or that Caroline would call. I walked past half a dozen more Embassies and the little shopping mall type area, but that seemed closed so I kept walking. I was just getting ready to ask someone for directions to the British Embassy when Caroline called. She was finished with work and was just waiting on the driver. She told me to head for roundabout 11 and told me the name of the neighbourhood she lived in. I told her I would start walking in that direction and we would probably both arrive around the same time.
Luckily, I could see round about 10 to my right, so I took a chance and figured roundabout 11 would be the next one on the left. I was right. Sure enough, in front of Roundabout 11 was a sign for the neighbourhood she lived in. I was a lot closer than I thought. So when I saw a path on the other side of roundabout 11 leading to the top of a hill, I figured I had time for a small detour. It was a steep climb, but it had been paved with little stone steps so it was pretty easy climbing. There were some bushes overgrown on the path and I thought about what a shame it was that this cool path clearly went unused. If I lived in the DQ, I would run this trail every morning and when I got to the top I would jump up and down like Rocky. Since I was walking and not running, I decided to forgo the celebration When I got to the top. On one side I could see the financial district of Riyadh in the distance. All of those skyscrapers had been built within the last 3 years. It was kind of amazing to think about really. Construction happened around the clock and 60 story buildings were finished in 6 months or less. On the other side, I could look out over the greenery of the DQ. It was like looking at two completely different geographies. On the one side, brown flat and concrete, on the other, hills and palm trees everywhere. I kept going on the path past the overlook and on the other side of the hill was a really cute little hidden picnic area. There was a spot for a camp fire and a stone picnic table that looked like something they would slay Aslan from the Chronicles of Narnia on. It was great. There were dead leaves and overgrown plants everywhere, but it would make a great spot to hang out in the evening and roast marshmallows and tell ghost stories. I was really mad that the Embassy had such strict rules about bringing things in. I didn't have my camera or my tablet or anything to take pictures with.
I would have stayed longer, but I figured I had better find Caroline's place. I went back down the hill and followed the sign to her neighbourhood. I walked past the Swiss Embassy and a small elementary school that had already let out for the day. I remembered Caroline saying that her place was next to a garden so I went into the garden next to the school. There was a nice small fountain in the middle of the garden and there were these little secluded bench areas like mini gazebos all around the fountain. there were climbing plants growing around all of the structures and the whole thing was lovely and shaded and beautiful. If you kept walking to the right, there was a small playground, and after that a fenced in tennis court. The path kept going, but it didn't look like there were any houses that way so I turned back. On the way out I saw a map and quickly realized why the garden wasn't helping me find the place. There were over 50 gardens in the DQ of various sizes. I had obviously not found the one near her house.
Caroline called again and let me know that she was home. I told her I was still on the way. Unlike the rest of Saudi, the DQ actually has street names, so I was able to tell her where I was. Unfortunately, that didn't really help her much since she didn't recognize the street name. I told her I would keep walking following the signs for her neighbourhood and I would arrive soon. I did keep going, and about 45 minutes and three wrong turns later, I finally found her place. Maybe I was secretly getting lost on purpose, just to keep enjoying the sunlight and being outside near green things.
Caroline made a nice dinner for us and we chatted about our work. Both of us were the kind of people who didn't really like sitting around doing nothing, but somehow, that's the situation we were both finding ourselves in at our various jobs. The owner of FATE's wife had had her baby, and so they had more or less taken the week off. Caroline was excited for them but was getting anxious sitting in an empty college waiting for students to arrive, and it wasn't much better at home. Her apartment was almost like a cave these days since all but one of the light-bulbs had burnt out. The ceilings were tall and she couldn't simply replace them herself. She had been waiting for them to fix it for going on two weeks now. There was always something. She told me she was seriously considering quitting if things didn't get moving soon. I told here that they hadn't (surprise, surprise) gotten me the iqama yet, so I was beginning the process of fighting for a final exit. She told me she knew the HR guy at the British School in Bahrain and happened to know they were looking for an English/Theater teacher for their lower school. She said she remembered from my CV I had some theatre experience and she could put me in touch with them if I wanted. I told her that would be great.
After dinner, we went for a walk, sans abaya. There is a 40 km long track around the whole perimeter of the DQ and people can bike jog or walk along it. She told me that strangely, she never really saw anyone else walking around. Occasionally she saw someone walking a dog or pushing a stroller, but other than that, it was pretty empty. I thought what a shame it was that so many people tried so hard to get a place here for all the amenities it offered, and then they never even used them. I'd like to think I would be out walking everyday if I was here, but to be honest, I'm just not sure that I would. Maybe I would get complacent like everyone else and end up spending my nights binge watching The Wonder Years. Who knows. We walked along the path for a while, and there were a lot of places like the one I had found at the top of the hill. There were out of the way secluded fire pits and picnic tables, and sometimes just little benches built into the side of the path. Caroline and joked that it seemed ironic that someone had basically built a serious of hidden make-out spots all over this walking path. I think in reality they were made so families could have barbecues, and the women could uncover and enjoy their time with the family feeling secure that no one would see her out in the open. Still, if you were a teenager, you couldn't ask for a better make out spot.
When it got dark we turned back, I'm sure we had only seen a fraction of what the DQ had to offer, but I was definitely jealous. I kept thinking, this could be mine, could have been mine, if only the complicated Saudi labour laws didn't get in the way. I figured I would get back home so that I could go and not work the next day, but Caroline suggested we watch a movie or a TV show or something, and I realized that despite our very different living situations, Caroline was just as lonely as I was.
We spent the rest of the evening watching the first episode of the Walking Dead and I was really glad to have her company for that. I wanted to keep watching the series on my own, but doubted I would ever do it alone or at night. e joked about how if you stand in the center of a mall and watch all the abaya clad figures shuffling past, they were pretty much just like the walking dead.
When it started to get late I called a few taxi drivers I knew, but not many of them answered and the ones who did didn't want to come to the DQ. She called her driver and he wasn't around. We tried looking up some cab companies on the internet but had very little success. I was surprised that a system like uber taxi hadn't taken hold here. I mean, after all, everyone has a cell phone, and half the population pretty much always takes taxis. Caroline pointed out that it would never work for Saudi's who were very mistrustful of drivers and liked to stick with just one. I teased her because she is the same way. I told her it was probably because the system already works pretty well. I've never waited longer than 5 minutes for a taxi by just standing outside on the corner and waiting. So that is what we finally did.
She walked me to the gate and we stood there, me in my abaya, here without anything, waiting for a taxi to drive by. I felt uncomfortable this close to the outside world and Caroline without her abaya. She felt uncomfortable being practically naked compared to me all bundled up. We had to wait a few minutes, but eventually a driver came by. He didn't have an official taxi sign on the roof, but he did have a meter, and Caroline very studiously took down his plate number just in case. I promised to call her as soon as I got home and we parted ways. Not a bad way to spend a Wednesday night.
At the next point I had to show my passport and a printout of my appointment. My taxi driver had been to the DQ before, but never to the US embassy. Neither had I. We both kept our eyes out for signs and directions. We passed the Iranian embassy, the Nigerian embassy, the Swiss embassy and the "equestrian training park". We saw signs for the Egyptian embassy, the Irish Embassy, and the United Nations office, but still no sign of the US embassy. We stopped and asked at the United Nations building, and a guard pointed to a deserted looking corner of the parking lot. My driver took me over and stopped another man gathering trash. He told the driver that this was as close as he could get by car, and offered to walk me in the right direction. There still hadn't been any signs. I was beginning to wonder if perhaps there was no signs on purpose, as a sort of security measure.
I paid the driver and got out and followed the garbage man across a few concrete barriers. Eventually we rounded a corner and there is was, a covered walkway with misters going leading to the entrance of the consular section of the United States Embassy. I went through the gates and metal detectors and left my cell phone at the front in a little box and got a number in exchange to reclaim it when I came out. I went through another metal detector and then out a door into a really nice outdoor area with a fountain and some chairs and cafe tables. It struck me as odd to have a little cafe inside of such a restricted area, but I guess even the consulate officers need a place to take a break from work.
The consulate area was guarded by another set of guards who led me to the american citizen services section. It wasn't that crowded and It only took about 10 minutes to see a consular. He said basically the same thing the other guy said. He would call them and ask them what was taking so long. He said that was about all they could do. He told me about another case with the same company where a woman had waited over a year for her exit visa and had camped out in front of the embassy for weeks and still there was nothing they could do. I suppose he was saying this to assure me that they were doing all they could do, but it just made everything seem more hopeless than ever. I asked him if he thought I should submit the case to the ministry of labour. He advised against it. He explained that it would probably make the whole process take even longer. Anytime the ministry is involved, it adds a month or two to the whole process he told me. I thanked him, discouraged, and headed back outside.
The whole meeting had taken less than 15 minutes and I now had about 2 hours to kill before I met Caroline. I was pretty hungry, and I had forgotten to eat lunch. I didn't want to eat too much because Caroline was going to make dinner, but I figured I would need something to hold me over. So I set off in search of two things, Caroline's place, and the little shop for groceries she told me was near her house. It was a hot day so I decided to take off my hijab. After all, this was the DQ, I could have even taken off my abaya if I wanted to! I was nervous to go that far because there were a lot of men in thobes around, but man was it nice to feel the wind in my hair. It's funny how you forget about small joys like this so easily.
I meandered past a number of buildings including one for the ministry of tourism and culture in Saudi, which supposedly had a museum. I thought about trying to go in, but my growling stomach urged me on. I walked past a sign that said British Embassy and pointed, and I remembered that she lived very near the British Embassy because she had talked about a recent party with an Indian theme she had attended there and walked home from. So I turned and walked into a little covered walkway. There were a lot of business offices in this strip mall sort of area, there was a sign for IBM, Tyson, and The British Council. I realized I must have seen the sign for the British Council and not the British Embassy, but it was a good detour because I found a little shop like a 7-11. I bought some interesting looking vegetable chips, and almost bought some other candy and nuts, but I didn't want to spoil my appetite, so I stuck with the vegetable chips. While I was waiting to pay I overheard a little scuffle between the cashier and a customer, He was claiming discrimination. It wasn't clear what it was he wanted, but it was clear that he felt if he wasn't Saudi, the shop owner would have let him have it. He stormed out of the store, and I looked around at the faces of some of the other customers for some clue as to what had just happened, but they were all extremely busy avoiding looking anyone in the eyes. I paid and left to ponder the mysteries of the situation outdoors in the garden area.
I found a nice shady spot and sat down to read my book and finish my veggie chips in the great outdoors. It felt wonderful. The chips weren't terrible, but they also weren't great, kind of like eating those packing chips from the 80s that dissolved a little when you got them wet, seasoned with the packets from Raman noodles. It was enough to hold me over. I continued walking hoping I would eventually spot something familiar, or that Caroline would call. I walked past half a dozen more Embassies and the little shopping mall type area, but that seemed closed so I kept walking. I was just getting ready to ask someone for directions to the British Embassy when Caroline called. She was finished with work and was just waiting on the driver. She told me to head for roundabout 11 and told me the name of the neighbourhood she lived in. I told her I would start walking in that direction and we would probably both arrive around the same time.
Luckily, I could see round about 10 to my right, so I took a chance and figured roundabout 11 would be the next one on the left. I was right. Sure enough, in front of Roundabout 11 was a sign for the neighbourhood she lived in. I was a lot closer than I thought. So when I saw a path on the other side of roundabout 11 leading to the top of a hill, I figured I had time for a small detour. It was a steep climb, but it had been paved with little stone steps so it was pretty easy climbing. There were some bushes overgrown on the path and I thought about what a shame it was that this cool path clearly went unused. If I lived in the DQ, I would run this trail every morning and when I got to the top I would jump up and down like Rocky. Since I was walking and not running, I decided to forgo the celebration When I got to the top. On one side I could see the financial district of Riyadh in the distance. All of those skyscrapers had been built within the last 3 years. It was kind of amazing to think about really. Construction happened around the clock and 60 story buildings were finished in 6 months or less. On the other side, I could look out over the greenery of the DQ. It was like looking at two completely different geographies. On the one side, brown flat and concrete, on the other, hills and palm trees everywhere. I kept going on the path past the overlook and on the other side of the hill was a really cute little hidden picnic area. There was a spot for a camp fire and a stone picnic table that looked like something they would slay Aslan from the Chronicles of Narnia on. It was great. There were dead leaves and overgrown plants everywhere, but it would make a great spot to hang out in the evening and roast marshmallows and tell ghost stories. I was really mad that the Embassy had such strict rules about bringing things in. I didn't have my camera or my tablet or anything to take pictures with.
I would have stayed longer, but I figured I had better find Caroline's place. I went back down the hill and followed the sign to her neighbourhood. I walked past the Swiss Embassy and a small elementary school that had already let out for the day. I remembered Caroline saying that her place was next to a garden so I went into the garden next to the school. There was a nice small fountain in the middle of the garden and there were these little secluded bench areas like mini gazebos all around the fountain. there were climbing plants growing around all of the structures and the whole thing was lovely and shaded and beautiful. If you kept walking to the right, there was a small playground, and after that a fenced in tennis court. The path kept going, but it didn't look like there were any houses that way so I turned back. On the way out I saw a map and quickly realized why the garden wasn't helping me find the place. There were over 50 gardens in the DQ of various sizes. I had obviously not found the one near her house.
Caroline called again and let me know that she was home. I told her I was still on the way. Unlike the rest of Saudi, the DQ actually has street names, so I was able to tell her where I was. Unfortunately, that didn't really help her much since she didn't recognize the street name. I told her I would keep walking following the signs for her neighbourhood and I would arrive soon. I did keep going, and about 45 minutes and three wrong turns later, I finally found her place. Maybe I was secretly getting lost on purpose, just to keep enjoying the sunlight and being outside near green things.
Caroline made a nice dinner for us and we chatted about our work. Both of us were the kind of people who didn't really like sitting around doing nothing, but somehow, that's the situation we were both finding ourselves in at our various jobs. The owner of FATE's wife had had her baby, and so they had more or less taken the week off. Caroline was excited for them but was getting anxious sitting in an empty college waiting for students to arrive, and it wasn't much better at home. Her apartment was almost like a cave these days since all but one of the light-bulbs had burnt out. The ceilings were tall and she couldn't simply replace them herself. She had been waiting for them to fix it for going on two weeks now. There was always something. She told me she was seriously considering quitting if things didn't get moving soon. I told here that they hadn't (surprise, surprise) gotten me the iqama yet, so I was beginning the process of fighting for a final exit. She told me she knew the HR guy at the British School in Bahrain and happened to know they were looking for an English/Theater teacher for their lower school. She said she remembered from my CV I had some theatre experience and she could put me in touch with them if I wanted. I told her that would be great.
After dinner, we went for a walk, sans abaya. There is a 40 km long track around the whole perimeter of the DQ and people can bike jog or walk along it. She told me that strangely, she never really saw anyone else walking around. Occasionally she saw someone walking a dog or pushing a stroller, but other than that, it was pretty empty. I thought what a shame it was that so many people tried so hard to get a place here for all the amenities it offered, and then they never even used them. I'd like to think I would be out walking everyday if I was here, but to be honest, I'm just not sure that I would. Maybe I would get complacent like everyone else and end up spending my nights binge watching The Wonder Years. Who knows. We walked along the path for a while, and there were a lot of places like the one I had found at the top of the hill. There were out of the way secluded fire pits and picnic tables, and sometimes just little benches built into the side of the path. Caroline and joked that it seemed ironic that someone had basically built a serious of hidden make-out spots all over this walking path. I think in reality they were made so families could have barbecues, and the women could uncover and enjoy their time with the family feeling secure that no one would see her out in the open. Still, if you were a teenager, you couldn't ask for a better make out spot.
When it got dark we turned back, I'm sure we had only seen a fraction of what the DQ had to offer, but I was definitely jealous. I kept thinking, this could be mine, could have been mine, if only the complicated Saudi labour laws didn't get in the way. I figured I would get back home so that I could go and not work the next day, but Caroline suggested we watch a movie or a TV show or something, and I realized that despite our very different living situations, Caroline was just as lonely as I was.
We spent the rest of the evening watching the first episode of the Walking Dead and I was really glad to have her company for that. I wanted to keep watching the series on my own, but doubted I would ever do it alone or at night. e joked about how if you stand in the center of a mall and watch all the abaya clad figures shuffling past, they were pretty much just like the walking dead.
When it started to get late I called a few taxi drivers I knew, but not many of them answered and the ones who did didn't want to come to the DQ. She called her driver and he wasn't around. We tried looking up some cab companies on the internet but had very little success. I was surprised that a system like uber taxi hadn't taken hold here. I mean, after all, everyone has a cell phone, and half the population pretty much always takes taxis. Caroline pointed out that it would never work for Saudi's who were very mistrustful of drivers and liked to stick with just one. I teased her because she is the same way. I told her it was probably because the system already works pretty well. I've never waited longer than 5 minutes for a taxi by just standing outside on the corner and waiting. So that is what we finally did.
She walked me to the gate and we stood there, me in my abaya, here without anything, waiting for a taxi to drive by. I felt uncomfortable this close to the outside world and Caroline without her abaya. She felt uncomfortable being practically naked compared to me all bundled up. We had to wait a few minutes, but eventually a driver came by. He didn't have an official taxi sign on the roof, but he did have a meter, and Caroline very studiously took down his plate number just in case. I promised to call her as soon as I got home and we parted ways. Not a bad way to spend a Wednesday night.
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Still No Iqama
Tuesday came and went, and big surprise. No iqama. So I started to take steps toward the long process of getting out. I called Suleiman and reminded him that he had broken his promise, that there was no iqama, so now I just wanted to leave. I wanted to get my final exit and go. Suleiman insisted it wasn't his fault and that the problem was with my old company and that I needed to talk to them. It was a familiar story. He insisted that if they couldn't make the transfer, they also couldn't make the final exit, so I might as well stay and get paid in the meantime. He makes a good point.
I still called the old company anyway. They told me next Sunday they should be able to do something for sure, but at the moment they couldn't do anything.
I decided I would visit my old friends at the US embassy and see if anything could be done. After all, I had officially resigned from this company in August. It was now mid -October. Surely there was a way to get me out by now. So I made an appointment to see them on Wednesday. Still, I didn't have much faith that they would be able to do anything. After all, they had already told me once before that basically, all the could do was call and nag the company. I was hoping though that since my contract had been over so long ago, they might take my complaint more seriously now.
Luckily, I wasn't teaching yet, so I didn't feel guilty about leaving work early to go to the ministry of labour and start the paperwork for a final exit complaint. By now I was an old pro at getting taxi's and navigating through the lines of Philippine workers to get to the women's office. The woman recognized me and welcomed me back. I get the feeling a lot of people spend months coming and going from this office to get what they need from their employers. She handed me the forms I would need to fill out, which were all in Arabic, and she told me they would need to be filled out in Arabic. She told me they weren't allowed to help translate the paperwork or to fill it out for us. I thanked her and told her I would bring it back filled out tomorrow, inshallah.
By the time I got back to the college, it was nearly time to go, so I couldn't find any of the other English Teachers to help me translate the forms. I figured that I could do my best with Google translate at home, and have them help me fix everything the next day. I made two copies of each form so I could scribble all over one of them and make a rough draft of another and save the original for the final copy. Turns out, most of it was pretty simple to translate. Name, name of company, iqama number, address.... Turns out the hardest part of the form was actually figuring out what it said, but finding the information to make it complete. Addresses here are pretty much non-existent, so I didn't exactly know what to put for the company, let alone my own address. It was pretty frustrating. I also had no iqama, and therefore no iqama number. Crazy. There was a box to list your demands. A teacher from my new now old company who had been through it all before had advised me that I should not only ask for an exit visa, but also a ticket home and payment for the time since August I had been waiting. I thought that was kind of extreme especially since I had been working in the meantime, though they didn't know that. She explained that it gave you bargaining room. In the end I would probably only get the ticket and the final exit, but that way they would feel like they still came out ahead, and I would get a ticket home. Sounded like good advice.
The next day was Wednesday and the women at work were impressed with my Arabic writing. I was sure it wasn't any better than the average first graders, but I was still flattered. They helped me reword a few things, and told me the name of the road I lived on so I could add that to my address. By the time I copied it in pen to the original, I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing. I decided that I should probably wait until after I spoke with the embassy to submit the paperwork in case they had a faster route. The woman had told me it would probably take about a month to assign a court date for my complaint. I figured there wasn't much difference if I submitted the paperwork on Wed. or on Thursday. No matter what, it looked like I was in for a battle, and probably not a short one.
I still called the old company anyway. They told me next Sunday they should be able to do something for sure, but at the moment they couldn't do anything.
I decided I would visit my old friends at the US embassy and see if anything could be done. After all, I had officially resigned from this company in August. It was now mid -October. Surely there was a way to get me out by now. So I made an appointment to see them on Wednesday. Still, I didn't have much faith that they would be able to do anything. After all, they had already told me once before that basically, all the could do was call and nag the company. I was hoping though that since my contract had been over so long ago, they might take my complaint more seriously now.
Luckily, I wasn't teaching yet, so I didn't feel guilty about leaving work early to go to the ministry of labour and start the paperwork for a final exit complaint. By now I was an old pro at getting taxi's and navigating through the lines of Philippine workers to get to the women's office. The woman recognized me and welcomed me back. I get the feeling a lot of people spend months coming and going from this office to get what they need from their employers. She handed me the forms I would need to fill out, which were all in Arabic, and she told me they would need to be filled out in Arabic. She told me they weren't allowed to help translate the paperwork or to fill it out for us. I thanked her and told her I would bring it back filled out tomorrow, inshallah.
By the time I got back to the college, it was nearly time to go, so I couldn't find any of the other English Teachers to help me translate the forms. I figured that I could do my best with Google translate at home, and have them help me fix everything the next day. I made two copies of each form so I could scribble all over one of them and make a rough draft of another and save the original for the final copy. Turns out, most of it was pretty simple to translate. Name, name of company, iqama number, address.... Turns out the hardest part of the form was actually figuring out what it said, but finding the information to make it complete. Addresses here are pretty much non-existent, so I didn't exactly know what to put for the company, let alone my own address. It was pretty frustrating. I also had no iqama, and therefore no iqama number. Crazy. There was a box to list your demands. A teacher from my new now old company who had been through it all before had advised me that I should not only ask for an exit visa, but also a ticket home and payment for the time since August I had been waiting. I thought that was kind of extreme especially since I had been working in the meantime, though they didn't know that. She explained that it gave you bargaining room. In the end I would probably only get the ticket and the final exit, but that way they would feel like they still came out ahead, and I would get a ticket home. Sounded like good advice.
The next day was Wednesday and the women at work were impressed with my Arabic writing. I was sure it wasn't any better than the average first graders, but I was still flattered. They helped me reword a few things, and told me the name of the road I lived on so I could add that to my address. By the time I copied it in pen to the original, I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing. I decided that I should probably wait until after I spoke with the embassy to submit the paperwork in case they had a faster route. The woman had told me it would probably take about a month to assign a court date for my complaint. I figured there wasn't much difference if I submitted the paperwork on Wed. or on Thursday. No matter what, it looked like I was in for a battle, and probably not a short one.
Friday, October 17, 2014
Cafés, Cables, and Caroline
Even though I didn't end up taking the FATE job, Caroline, the British woman who initially interviewed me kept in touch. We were both westerners new to Riyadh, and it's nice to be able to talk to someone who is in the same boat as you are.
We decided to meet up on Friday for lunch. Even though this sounds like a simple thing, it actually requires a lot of planning. We both have to secure a driver. Then we have to find a place with a family section so that we can eat there. We settled on a mall near the Diplomatic Quarter where she lived, there was a nice Café she knew of there, and since I didn't know anywhere to go, I deferred to her judgement.
A series of unfortunate events guaranteed that our day wouldn't go as planed. One of the problems was that I had asked them to install internet in the housing. Actually this was a point of contention, since in the initial interview and a few times after that, they told me that internet would be included in the housing, and then when I pointed out that there wasn't any internet, they told me that I would have to pay for it. When I pointed out that it was in the contract, they begrudgingly relented. So initially they told me that they would come to install it Thursday night. Thursday came and went and they didn't come. Friday morning I went to ask about it, and they told me they would come after prayer around 1:30pm. This was unfortunate, since Caroline and I had agreed to meet at 12pm, and it was probably 30 or 40 minutes away from my house, making lunch a tight squeeze.
I called Caroline to see if she wanted to reschedule, but since she had already booked a driver, we decided to just go for it. After all, what were the chances that they would come at all, let alone come on time? We figured we could chance it.
I hoped in a taxi and told him the name of the mall. When we arrived, the place was deserted. He asked me if I was sure, and I wasn't, but I paid him and went in anyway. Friday mornings in Saudi are the quietest part of the week because Friday is the day of worship, so most people stay home with their families or go to the mosque to worship. No one really goes out until after 4pm. We sort of forgot to take this into account when we made our plans.
So I walked into the mall and it was completely empty and all the stores were closed. I felt like I had just walked into an apocalypse movie. I resisted the urge to call out, Hello? Is anybody there? I walked toward the escalator since Caroline had told me the Café was on the second floor. I was walking slowly and cautiously, expecting someone to come out and tell me the mall was closed and I needed to leave. It was eerily quiet. Suddenly I heard a noise and I jumped three feet into the air. It was just a man at the other end of the mall clearing his throat. He was the only other living thing in the place, or so it seemed, and I didn't want to stick around to see if he was coming closer. I took the escalator steps two at a time. Going up an escalator when it's off is a weird enough experience on its own, but taking them two at a time with the feeling that someone is after you is really strange. Logically, I knew I was being silly. But you walk around a deserted mall alone and see if it doesn't jangle your nerves.
When I got to the second floor I relaxed a little. Caroline would be there waiting for me at a Café and then it wouldn't be so strange. The mall wasn't that big, just a long skinny rectangle. I made my way to the far end to what looked like a coffee shop but turned out to sell candy. When I made it all the way to one end with no Café and no Caroline, I started to worry again. I headed to the other end of the floor, hoping there was a Café there. It didn't take long to realize there wasn't at least not anything that was open. I called Caroline. She insisted she was there on the second floor waiting for me. I told her I was on the second floor and didn't see her anywhere. Now, this was extra strange since there was literally no one around. I suddenly got the feeling maybe I had gone to the wrong mall. I confirmed with Caroline, "You are at the Granada Mall, right?" "Yup, she said. Second floor. I'm near a cafe with a green and white logo... I should be able to see you...." Having already walked the whole length of the second floor, I knew there was no cafe with a green and white logo. Something was wrong. Suddenly, It came to me. "Wait, you must mean the British second floor, right?, cause I'm on the American second floor. I'll be right up." I can't believe that I forgot the British have the strange habit of calling the first floor the ground floor, and the first floor the second floor and so on. So Caroline had been waiting for me on the third floor the whole time. Silly Brits.
Turns out, there wasn't really any rush. The cafe was closed and wouldn't open until 2pm. We decided we could hang around in the mall for a little while, then head back to my place just in case the internet installers showed up. I had some pasta I could make, or there was a shawarma place near my house. I had never actually been there, but I figured it couldn't be so bad. Besides, Caroline wanted to see how the other half lived, those of us not lucky enough to be in the Diplomatic Quarter.
When I showed her my apartment, she was quiet taken aback by my digs. I could tell she was secretly jealous of my amazing furniture. Before she could get over her initial shock, there was a knock on the door. They had come to install the internet, and they were more or less on time. We were both amazed. We put our abayas back on and stood back to watch. Three guys came in with a long spool of blue cable and a handful of tools. This seemed much more complicated than was strictly necessary. The quickest and probably cheapest internet solution was to buy a wireless router like they had installed at my old company. Caroline and I speculated that they needed the cable because they were splicing in on someone else's internet.
They came into the room and spent a lot of time speculating on the best way to run the cable. First they tried to snake it through the air conditioning unit itself into the outside. Thankfully one of them had the sense to point out that it wasn't safe. So instead, they pulled back the trim around the AC unit and threaded it through the considerable gap there. Then one of them opened the window and leaned half way out feeding cable outside. The third man ran downstairs to catch the cable from the outside and connect it to, who knows where. All this went pretty smoothly, until they took the router out of the box and tried to actually connect it.
For reasons unknown, Saudi outlets are consistently inconsistent. Sometimes they are the large three pin plugs common in the rest of the Middle East, sometimes they are the two-pin European style, and other times they use American plugs. The basic rule to follow seems to be that whatever plug style the thing you want to plug in is, the outlet will be incompatible. I offered up my small stash of adapters. I had a European to US, a US to Middle East, but not what we actually needed which was Middle East to European. The three men looked at the plug situation and did what all men faced with an obstacle do. They thought of the most difficult, complicated solution possible and decided to try it. They were on the verge of cutting off one of the pins on the plug so that it would fit into another adapter which they would then fit into a third, and then finally plug it into the wall, when thankfully, one of the men stopped the guy. He said some things in Arabic, and then left, presumably to buy the correct adaptor.
The two men and Caroline and I sat and stared at each other in uncomfortable silence for a while while we waited for the guy to return. It didn't take long. He brought the longest extension cord / power socket known to man, and thankfully, It had all three plug styles built in so it was guaranteed to work. With everything finally plugged in, it was time for the moment of truth. We powered up my laptop and he typed in the password and just like that, I finally had internet! Woo Hoo!
The guys tacked the trim around the AC unit back into place using the side of a wrench as a hammer. Then they piled up all the extra cables and wires in a corner in an attempt to tidy up and left.
Caroline and I just looked at each other and laughed. "Thank you for giving me a truly Saudi Experience." she said. "When you live in the DQ with Embassy parties every weekend, you can forget." I nodded. "You'll have to invite me to one so I can see what it's like." Sure thing, she said. And we left to eat our long delayed meal at a Moraccan Restaurant with a nice view of the Kingdom tower.
When we parted ways, her climbing into her trusted drivers van, and me waiting for a random taxi to swing by, she told me how much she enjoyed seeing my neck of the woods. And I'm sure she had. But I'm also sure that the unspoken end of that sentence was, "but I'm happy they aren't my woods."
We decided to meet up on Friday for lunch. Even though this sounds like a simple thing, it actually requires a lot of planning. We both have to secure a driver. Then we have to find a place with a family section so that we can eat there. We settled on a mall near the Diplomatic Quarter where she lived, there was a nice Café she knew of there, and since I didn't know anywhere to go, I deferred to her judgement.
A series of unfortunate events guaranteed that our day wouldn't go as planed. One of the problems was that I had asked them to install internet in the housing. Actually this was a point of contention, since in the initial interview and a few times after that, they told me that internet would be included in the housing, and then when I pointed out that there wasn't any internet, they told me that I would have to pay for it. When I pointed out that it was in the contract, they begrudgingly relented. So initially they told me that they would come to install it Thursday night. Thursday came and went and they didn't come. Friday morning I went to ask about it, and they told me they would come after prayer around 1:30pm. This was unfortunate, since Caroline and I had agreed to meet at 12pm, and it was probably 30 or 40 minutes away from my house, making lunch a tight squeeze.
I called Caroline to see if she wanted to reschedule, but since she had already booked a driver, we decided to just go for it. After all, what were the chances that they would come at all, let alone come on time? We figured we could chance it.
I hoped in a taxi and told him the name of the mall. When we arrived, the place was deserted. He asked me if I was sure, and I wasn't, but I paid him and went in anyway. Friday mornings in Saudi are the quietest part of the week because Friday is the day of worship, so most people stay home with their families or go to the mosque to worship. No one really goes out until after 4pm. We sort of forgot to take this into account when we made our plans.
So I walked into the mall and it was completely empty and all the stores were closed. I felt like I had just walked into an apocalypse movie. I resisted the urge to call out, Hello? Is anybody there? I walked toward the escalator since Caroline had told me the Café was on the second floor. I was walking slowly and cautiously, expecting someone to come out and tell me the mall was closed and I needed to leave. It was eerily quiet. Suddenly I heard a noise and I jumped three feet into the air. It was just a man at the other end of the mall clearing his throat. He was the only other living thing in the place, or so it seemed, and I didn't want to stick around to see if he was coming closer. I took the escalator steps two at a time. Going up an escalator when it's off is a weird enough experience on its own, but taking them two at a time with the feeling that someone is after you is really strange. Logically, I knew I was being silly. But you walk around a deserted mall alone and see if it doesn't jangle your nerves.
When I got to the second floor I relaxed a little. Caroline would be there waiting for me at a Café and then it wouldn't be so strange. The mall wasn't that big, just a long skinny rectangle. I made my way to the far end to what looked like a coffee shop but turned out to sell candy. When I made it all the way to one end with no Café and no Caroline, I started to worry again. I headed to the other end of the floor, hoping there was a Café there. It didn't take long to realize there wasn't at least not anything that was open. I called Caroline. She insisted she was there on the second floor waiting for me. I told her I was on the second floor and didn't see her anywhere. Now, this was extra strange since there was literally no one around. I suddenly got the feeling maybe I had gone to the wrong mall. I confirmed with Caroline, "You are at the Granada Mall, right?" "Yup, she said. Second floor. I'm near a cafe with a green and white logo... I should be able to see you...." Having already walked the whole length of the second floor, I knew there was no cafe with a green and white logo. Something was wrong. Suddenly, It came to me. "Wait, you must mean the British second floor, right?, cause I'm on the American second floor. I'll be right up." I can't believe that I forgot the British have the strange habit of calling the first floor the ground floor, and the first floor the second floor and so on. So Caroline had been waiting for me on the third floor the whole time. Silly Brits.
Turns out, there wasn't really any rush. The cafe was closed and wouldn't open until 2pm. We decided we could hang around in the mall for a little while, then head back to my place just in case the internet installers showed up. I had some pasta I could make, or there was a shawarma place near my house. I had never actually been there, but I figured it couldn't be so bad. Besides, Caroline wanted to see how the other half lived, those of us not lucky enough to be in the Diplomatic Quarter.
When I showed her my apartment, she was quiet taken aback by my digs. I could tell she was secretly jealous of my amazing furniture. Before she could get over her initial shock, there was a knock on the door. They had come to install the internet, and they were more or less on time. We were both amazed. We put our abayas back on and stood back to watch. Three guys came in with a long spool of blue cable and a handful of tools. This seemed much more complicated than was strictly necessary. The quickest and probably cheapest internet solution was to buy a wireless router like they had installed at my old company. Caroline and I speculated that they needed the cable because they were splicing in on someone else's internet.
They came into the room and spent a lot of time speculating on the best way to run the cable. First they tried to snake it through the air conditioning unit itself into the outside. Thankfully one of them had the sense to point out that it wasn't safe. So instead, they pulled back the trim around the AC unit and threaded it through the considerable gap there. Then one of them opened the window and leaned half way out feeding cable outside. The third man ran downstairs to catch the cable from the outside and connect it to, who knows where. All this went pretty smoothly, until they took the router out of the box and tried to actually connect it.
For reasons unknown, Saudi outlets are consistently inconsistent. Sometimes they are the large three pin plugs common in the rest of the Middle East, sometimes they are the two-pin European style, and other times they use American plugs. The basic rule to follow seems to be that whatever plug style the thing you want to plug in is, the outlet will be incompatible. I offered up my small stash of adapters. I had a European to US, a US to Middle East, but not what we actually needed which was Middle East to European. The three men looked at the plug situation and did what all men faced with an obstacle do. They thought of the most difficult, complicated solution possible and decided to try it. They were on the verge of cutting off one of the pins on the plug so that it would fit into another adapter which they would then fit into a third, and then finally plug it into the wall, when thankfully, one of the men stopped the guy. He said some things in Arabic, and then left, presumably to buy the correct adaptor.
The two men and Caroline and I sat and stared at each other in uncomfortable silence for a while while we waited for the guy to return. It didn't take long. He brought the longest extension cord / power socket known to man, and thankfully, It had all three plug styles built in so it was guaranteed to work. With everything finally plugged in, it was time for the moment of truth. We powered up my laptop and he typed in the password and just like that, I finally had internet! Woo Hoo!
The guys tacked the trim around the AC unit back into place using the side of a wrench as a hammer. Then they piled up all the extra cables and wires in a corner in an attempt to tidy up and left.
Caroline and I just looked at each other and laughed. "Thank you for giving me a truly Saudi Experience." she said. "When you live in the DQ with Embassy parties every weekend, you can forget." I nodded. "You'll have to invite me to one so I can see what it's like." Sure thing, she said. And we left to eat our long delayed meal at a Moraccan Restaurant with a nice view of the Kingdom tower.
When we parted ways, her climbing into her trusted drivers van, and me waiting for a random taxi to swing by, she told me how much she enjoyed seeing my neck of the woods. And I'm sure she had. But I'm also sure that the unspoken end of that sentence was, "but I'm happy they aren't my woods."
Thursday, October 16, 2014
The Waiting Game
Everyday I went into work and sat and waited for something to happen. At first I tried asking if there was anything I could do, plan lessons, take over classes, or grade papers or anything, but everyone just shrugged. From what I could tell, everyone was more or less doing the same thing as me: nothing. Of course, every once in a while they would leave to go teach a lecture, but they were always back in an hour or so. This was kind of strange because when I asked about the teaching load, and how many classes everyone taught, they all insisted they were very busy. Still, we all spent a lot of time sitting in the office talking and drinking coffee, and I never saw them do anything but just sit around, playing on their phones or looking around.
About three of the ten women in the office seemed to speak some English, and at first I was really confused by this because I thought they were all English teachers. As it turns out, there were only three English teachers were in this office, the rest taught something related to dentistry or nursing or medicine. Apparently somewhere there was another office with other English teachers, but I never found it and no one ever offered to show it to me, or introduce me to the rest of the English department staff. I had a sneaking suspicion that they may not know themselves. One of the women spent at least an hour every morning straightening her hair. The funny thing about that was that her hair was beautiful all wavy and curly, and when she straightened it she looked so much more plain and dull. I hopped she was doing it more out of sheer boredom than any real belief that she was improving her looks.
The two part-time English Teachers got to leave everyday more or less by noon, but the full timers like me were all stuck in the office until 3pm everyday. I started bringing my laptop into work everyday and that wasn't so bad. It got even better when they came to give me the log in and password to the wireless internet. I spent most mornings checking email, practising Arabic, and sorting out all the files on my computer that I have collected over the years. Whenever I needed to stretch my legs I would walk over to Zaineb's office and ask if my housing was ready yet. "Not yet." was always her standard answer. As the days passed, my visions of exactly what they were doing to improve the place grew. My expectations had been low at first. I thought they would probably clean it, and that was all. On day two I thought they might be getting new furniture or something. By day three, a combination of being bored in the office, and the fact that hope springs eternal, had me picturing new paint on the walls and actual cabinets in the "kitchen/closet/hallway".
So when they told me the place was ready to move into on Thursday just before the weekend, I was feeling pretty excited. They took me to see it first and give it the okay before we went to get all my stuff from the hotel. I was disappointed to find out that "fixing" up the place meant that they had bought a refrigerator, a water dispenser and a "new" rug that came pre-stained so I wouldn't have to feel bad if I got I spilled anything on it. There was also a box with an assortment of random kitchen supplies. A new knife and cutting board, a few chipped mugs. One cracked pitcher, and a single fork inside a 12 pack of spoons. What I was going to do with 12 spoons and only one fork, I wasn't quiet sure.
I had more or less left everything in the suitcase during the two weeks that I was at the hotel, so packing up and moving to the new place was pretty easy. Of course, I did have the help of the hotel doorman and the taxi driver, so maybe I'm underestimating how difficult it was. I thought about not unpacking at my new place in case they didn't get my iqama by Tuesday. but part of me knew that even if they didn't have it, I would still have to fight to get the exit visa, so I wasn't going to be leaving any time soon.
I have to say that after a few hours of cleaning, and another few hours of re-arranging, and another hour or so of unpacking, it was starting to feel a little like home.
About three of the ten women in the office seemed to speak some English, and at first I was really confused by this because I thought they were all English teachers. As it turns out, there were only three English teachers were in this office, the rest taught something related to dentistry or nursing or medicine. Apparently somewhere there was another office with other English teachers, but I never found it and no one ever offered to show it to me, or introduce me to the rest of the English department staff. I had a sneaking suspicion that they may not know themselves. One of the women spent at least an hour every morning straightening her hair. The funny thing about that was that her hair was beautiful all wavy and curly, and when she straightened it she looked so much more plain and dull. I hopped she was doing it more out of sheer boredom than any real belief that she was improving her looks.
The two part-time English Teachers got to leave everyday more or less by noon, but the full timers like me were all stuck in the office until 3pm everyday. I started bringing my laptop into work everyday and that wasn't so bad. It got even better when they came to give me the log in and password to the wireless internet. I spent most mornings checking email, practising Arabic, and sorting out all the files on my computer that I have collected over the years. Whenever I needed to stretch my legs I would walk over to Zaineb's office and ask if my housing was ready yet. "Not yet." was always her standard answer. As the days passed, my visions of exactly what they were doing to improve the place grew. My expectations had been low at first. I thought they would probably clean it, and that was all. On day two I thought they might be getting new furniture or something. By day three, a combination of being bored in the office, and the fact that hope springs eternal, had me picturing new paint on the walls and actual cabinets in the "kitchen/closet/hallway".
So when they told me the place was ready to move into on Thursday just before the weekend, I was feeling pretty excited. They took me to see it first and give it the okay before we went to get all my stuff from the hotel. I was disappointed to find out that "fixing" up the place meant that they had bought a refrigerator, a water dispenser and a "new" rug that came pre-stained so I wouldn't have to feel bad if I got I spilled anything on it. There was also a box with an assortment of random kitchen supplies. A new knife and cutting board, a few chipped mugs. One cracked pitcher, and a single fork inside a 12 pack of spoons. What I was going to do with 12 spoons and only one fork, I wasn't quiet sure.
I had more or less left everything in the suitcase during the two weeks that I was at the hotel, so packing up and moving to the new place was pretty easy. Of course, I did have the help of the hotel doorman and the taxi driver, so maybe I'm underestimating how difficult it was. I thought about not unpacking at my new place in case they didn't get my iqama by Tuesday. but part of me knew that even if they didn't have it, I would still have to fight to get the exit visa, so I wasn't going to be leaving any time soon.
I have to say that after a few hours of cleaning, and another few hours of re-arranging, and another hour or so of unpacking, it was starting to feel a little like home.
The Interview
One of the jobs I had applied for during my crazy spree of applications during the Eid Holiday was for an English language writer for a local publishing company. It was one of those long shot things, I don't really have any professional writing experience, but it's something I enjoy doing and have always thought about doing, so I figured, why not apply? When I didn't hear anything back, I more or less forgot that I had ever applied. Then, on Sunday, they called out of the blue to have an interview on Thursday.
So Thursday afternoon, I left work a little early, which was no big deal since I wasn't doing anything anyway. I got a taxi to take me to the office which was in the downtown area of Riyadh. I left an hour early for the interview in case the taxi driver didn't know where it was and we got lost trying to find it. Turns out, whenever you leave early in case the worst should happen, the worst never happens. The driver knew exactly where to go and we had almost no traffic. I found myself in front of the office building 45 minutes early.
I tried to kill some time by checking out the shops on the ground floor of the office building, but since one was a wool cloth wholeseller and the other sold thobes (men's robes) there was only so much window shopping I could do. Finally, I figured that 15 minutes early was a reasonable amount of earliness, so I went upstairs the the publishing company's office.
There were two doors, and I wasn't sure which one I should enter. Turns out both doors were locked. I looked around and saw what looked like the old-school drive through window speakers. I pushed the button and could hear a buzzing inside the office. I figured that meant that someone would come soon to open the door. I waited. It's a funny thing about waiting. I told myself I would wait 5 minutes. But standing in a hallway in a deserted looking office building is a surprisingly long 5 minutes. I think I only lasted 3 before I decided to ring it again. Finally, someone came to the door and let me in.
I sat in the small waiting area and picked up one of the magazines they published. The issue was all about traveling in the southern part of Saudi. I was amazed. It was beautiful. All I had ever seen of Saudi was concete jungle. I had no idea the desert could be so beautiful. The magazine made it seem like there was actually the possibility of real tourism here. I was impressed. I figured I should probably read some of the stories as well and not just look at the pictures. I was about a page into an article on historic Jeddah when May came out to let me know they were finishing up a birthday party for a colleague and they would be ready soon.
May came and brought me to the conference room and she asked me about my iqama right away and I started in on the whole story. I was just about finished when the head of the company cam in and I had to start the whole thing again. I was only about half way through this time when the third interviewer, Nick, head of the English department came in and I had to start again for the third time. By now I had whittled the story down to the bare bones. The company that brought me did something illegal with my paperwork, and because of this I was in a sort of limbo. I couldn't be transfered or given a final exit or anything really for reasons that no one fully understands, aside from its a sort of Catch 22 situation.
Formalities asid, we got into the interview portion, which was pretty standard. Then, after the head of the company left, I was left with Nick and May. They seemed to get along really well together and had a nice raport. Nick seemed sort of lost and confesed he hadn't really ever been in charge of hiring before and so didn't really no what to do next and wasn't sure what questions to ask. He ended up asking me what kind of questions I would ask if I were the interviewer, which turned out to be a kind of brilliant question. If I'm ever in a postition to interview someone I will ask them this question because I think it revealed to them a lot about what the job was and what kind of work enviorment was important to me.
The last task was to take home some of their publications, read them, and then over the weekend to write two sample pieces. I was pretty excited to do it and got started right away. I read through the Saudi Voyager magazine, which was sort of two magazines in one; the front half was an industry specific magazine announcing awards in the tourism industry, and the second was geared toward expats who would want to travel in the kingdom. The first assignment was to take a 3 page press release about a new initiative to get young Saudi's more interested in thier heritage by taking them to various local historical sites on school trips and rewrite it down to 100 words. Since a good portion of the press release was repetitive praise of the Prince in charge of the project, it was pretty easy to cut it down. What was hard was trying to find any of the facts that would normally seem like the most important part of the article. There was no mention of the age group of the students, when the program would start, where they would take them, or hhow much it would cost and who was paying. So basically, there was a name for the project and that was about all. If these were the kinds of press releases we usually got, I could see how producing good journalism here would be very difficult.
The second piece was a travel journalism sort of story, and I chose to write about the salt flats since that was fresh in my mind. It was a little cheesy but I think it was still okay. I threw in some pictures I took to help make a good impression.
Nick told me they had a few other candidates to interview, and since I couldln't really be transfered anyway and had already started with the medical and dental school technically, I figured it was unlikely anything would come of it. But it was still a really fun experience. And hey, I got a free magazine out of it, so that's something.
So Thursday afternoon, I left work a little early, which was no big deal since I wasn't doing anything anyway. I got a taxi to take me to the office which was in the downtown area of Riyadh. I left an hour early for the interview in case the taxi driver didn't know where it was and we got lost trying to find it. Turns out, whenever you leave early in case the worst should happen, the worst never happens. The driver knew exactly where to go and we had almost no traffic. I found myself in front of the office building 45 minutes early.
I tried to kill some time by checking out the shops on the ground floor of the office building, but since one was a wool cloth wholeseller and the other sold thobes (men's robes) there was only so much window shopping I could do. Finally, I figured that 15 minutes early was a reasonable amount of earliness, so I went upstairs the the publishing company's office.
There were two doors, and I wasn't sure which one I should enter. Turns out both doors were locked. I looked around and saw what looked like the old-school drive through window speakers. I pushed the button and could hear a buzzing inside the office. I figured that meant that someone would come soon to open the door. I waited. It's a funny thing about waiting. I told myself I would wait 5 minutes. But standing in a hallway in a deserted looking office building is a surprisingly long 5 minutes. I think I only lasted 3 before I decided to ring it again. Finally, someone came to the door and let me in.
I sat in the small waiting area and picked up one of the magazines they published. The issue was all about traveling in the southern part of Saudi. I was amazed. It was beautiful. All I had ever seen of Saudi was concete jungle. I had no idea the desert could be so beautiful. The magazine made it seem like there was actually the possibility of real tourism here. I was impressed. I figured I should probably read some of the stories as well and not just look at the pictures. I was about a page into an article on historic Jeddah when May came out to let me know they were finishing up a birthday party for a colleague and they would be ready soon.
May came and brought me to the conference room and she asked me about my iqama right away and I started in on the whole story. I was just about finished when the head of the company cam in and I had to start the whole thing again. I was only about half way through this time when the third interviewer, Nick, head of the English department came in and I had to start again for the third time. By now I had whittled the story down to the bare bones. The company that brought me did something illegal with my paperwork, and because of this I was in a sort of limbo. I couldn't be transfered or given a final exit or anything really for reasons that no one fully understands, aside from its a sort of Catch 22 situation.
Formalities asid, we got into the interview portion, which was pretty standard. Then, after the head of the company left, I was left with Nick and May. They seemed to get along really well together and had a nice raport. Nick seemed sort of lost and confesed he hadn't really ever been in charge of hiring before and so didn't really no what to do next and wasn't sure what questions to ask. He ended up asking me what kind of questions I would ask if I were the interviewer, which turned out to be a kind of brilliant question. If I'm ever in a postition to interview someone I will ask them this question because I think it revealed to them a lot about what the job was and what kind of work enviorment was important to me.
The last task was to take home some of their publications, read them, and then over the weekend to write two sample pieces. I was pretty excited to do it and got started right away. I read through the Saudi Voyager magazine, which was sort of two magazines in one; the front half was an industry specific magazine announcing awards in the tourism industry, and the second was geared toward expats who would want to travel in the kingdom. The first assignment was to take a 3 page press release about a new initiative to get young Saudi's more interested in thier heritage by taking them to various local historical sites on school trips and rewrite it down to 100 words. Since a good portion of the press release was repetitive praise of the Prince in charge of the project, it was pretty easy to cut it down. What was hard was trying to find any of the facts that would normally seem like the most important part of the article. There was no mention of the age group of the students, when the program would start, where they would take them, or hhow much it would cost and who was paying. So basically, there was a name for the project and that was about all. If these were the kinds of press releases we usually got, I could see how producing good journalism here would be very difficult.
The second piece was a travel journalism sort of story, and I chose to write about the salt flats since that was fresh in my mind. It was a little cheesy but I think it was still okay. I threw in some pictures I took to help make a good impression.
Nick told me they had a few other candidates to interview, and since I couldln't really be transfered anyway and had already started with the medical and dental school technically, I figured it was unlikely anything would come of it. But it was still a really fun experience. And hey, I got a free magazine out of it, so that's something.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Accommodations
In some ways, I was in a hurry to sign the contract because I wouldn't start being paid until it was signed. In other ways, I was in no hurry, since signing it effectively re-trapped me in the country. One thing I knew for sure, I was definitely not going to sign until I had seen the accommodations.
The second day at work, they took me to see an apartment. The driver picked me up in a van and we were off. We made three u-turns and then he stopped in front of an apartment building. Because of the way Saudi roads are constructed, it had taken us about 10 minutes to get there, but I could literally still see the college. I figured it would take me about the same time to walk, since on foot, I wouldn't need to make so many u-turns. Sitting in front of the building, he honked until a guy came out. He had clearly been napping and he was wearing a thobe. He asked me a question in Arabic and I shrugged and told him I didn't know. He asked the driver something, who said something while pointing at me and pointing at the building. Then told me to get out and go with the man and he drove off. Okay.... so I followed the man as he led me down the hall and opened the door to a two bedroom apartment. It was big, and seemed even bigger because there was absolutely nothing in it. I mean, nothing. There was no bed, no couch, no tables, no chairs, there wasn't even a sink in the kitchen, there wasn't even any cabinets on the walls. There were exposed wires everywhere where there used to be hot water heaters and air conditioning units, but other than one sad little cloth someone was using as a rug to wipe your feet on when you came in, there was absolutely nothing. I looked into each room, all of them empty, and then looked at the man. I wasn't sure what to do next. Ok? he said. Ok, I said, and walked outside. I looked for the driver, but he wasn't there. I stood for a minute trying to decide If I should start walking back to the college or if I should wait for the driver to come back. Luckily, he pulled up just as I was making my mind up to walk.
He took me back to the college and I went to look for Dr. Salem, who had interviewed me, to tell him that there was nothing, absolutely nothing in the apartment. He wasn't there, so I went upstairs to look for any other familiar face. I saw Dr. Mohammed, who had also interviewed me, and I told him about the housing. He took me to Zaineb, who was a lovely but very busy woman who seemed to be involved with HR somehow. She told me I should make a list of everything that was missing from the house and they would provide it for me. I told here there was nothing, literally nothing in the house. She didn't seem to grasp the fullness of what I was saying until I started making the list. Then she was like... Oh, nothing? I nodded. She asked me where the driver had taken me and I told her I didn't really know but it was very close by. She walked me over to an impressive looking office with glass walls and told me that he was in charge of all the housing. I greeted him and she said some things rapidly in Arabic. He nodded and then called someone on the phone. A nervous looking man in a suit came in. They all talked for a moment and then Zaineb said that the driver must have taken me to the wrong place and could I please go with this other man to see the real place?
I breathed a sigh of relief but wasn't holding my breath that the new place would be any different. So off we were again, making three or four u-turns. At first I thought we were going to the same apartment building, but maybe a different room, but he past the first location and kept going. I started making calculations in my head, if he turns here it will still be close enough to walk... still close, still close, hmm... getting further... yes, he is turning, must be close now... I think I could still walk, even now, and finally he parked in front of another building. Good. It was further than before, maybe a 15 or 20 minute walk, but it was till close. He knocked at the building door and a small little Indian man opened the door. He got some keys, and we got in the elevator. We went up one whole floor and then got out. I hoped he had chosen to take the elevator in deference to me and not because he actually didn't want to walk up one flight of stairs.
The Indian man unlocked a door labeled #7, which was curiously also the number of the door on the other side of the hallway. We shuffled into a hallway type room. We barely fit, to our right was a door to another room, to the left, behind the door was a skinny hallway with a sink and a bathroom off to the right. To get to the sink you had to squeeze past a portable washing machine. Straight ahead there was a cabinet blocking another door, and in front of that, a gas stove.
We quickly moved to the other room out of a shared sense of claustrophobia. The other room was actually pretty big. There was a table with a TV on it (still on) and in the corner behind the door was a small twin bed, and up against the bed were two wardrobes Someone had clearly tried to block it off to make it a separate bedroom. In the other corner was a much larger king size bed, with a headboard of pink pleather, still wrapped in the plastic it came in. In the middle was the piece de resistance. A chaise lounge and two armchairs, upholstered in three different and completely unrelated colours of crushed velvet. The whole place was clearly recently abandoned and had not been cleaned. There was a certain smell to the place that made simultaneously hungry and nauseas at the same time, if that is even possible.
The funny thing was, as bad as the place seemed, I could already tell that it had potential. In my head I was already moving furniture around and getting things settled. Funny how you do that. The men were both looking at me and since I had seen it I gave a sort of nod and walked out. The man who brought me said some things to the Indian man, which were probably something along the lines of clean this place up! And we returned to the college. The man brought me back to Zaineb who listened to what the man had to say and then told me that they would need a couple of days to fix it up. They were going to put in a refrigerator and some other things, and asked me if it was ok. I told her that at least it had furniture, sort of. She laughed and told me that hopefully by the end of the week I would be able to move in. I thanked her and returned to Dr. Salem to sign the contract and hammer out a few other small details.
I have to say, as much as I wasn't really looking forward to living in my new place, since it was kind of a mess. I was looking forward to being able to unpack and put all of my stuff away and have a place I could officially call mine. After three weeks of uncertainty about where I was going and what I was doing, it would be nice to finally be settled.
The second day at work, they took me to see an apartment. The driver picked me up in a van and we were off. We made three u-turns and then he stopped in front of an apartment building. Because of the way Saudi roads are constructed, it had taken us about 10 minutes to get there, but I could literally still see the college. I figured it would take me about the same time to walk, since on foot, I wouldn't need to make so many u-turns. Sitting in front of the building, he honked until a guy came out. He had clearly been napping and he was wearing a thobe. He asked me a question in Arabic and I shrugged and told him I didn't know. He asked the driver something, who said something while pointing at me and pointing at the building. Then told me to get out and go with the man and he drove off. Okay.... so I followed the man as he led me down the hall and opened the door to a two bedroom apartment. It was big, and seemed even bigger because there was absolutely nothing in it. I mean, nothing. There was no bed, no couch, no tables, no chairs, there wasn't even a sink in the kitchen, there wasn't even any cabinets on the walls. There were exposed wires everywhere where there used to be hot water heaters and air conditioning units, but other than one sad little cloth someone was using as a rug to wipe your feet on when you came in, there was absolutely nothing. I looked into each room, all of them empty, and then looked at the man. I wasn't sure what to do next. Ok? he said. Ok, I said, and walked outside. I looked for the driver, but he wasn't there. I stood for a minute trying to decide If I should start walking back to the college or if I should wait for the driver to come back. Luckily, he pulled up just as I was making my mind up to walk.
He took me back to the college and I went to look for Dr. Salem, who had interviewed me, to tell him that there was nothing, absolutely nothing in the apartment. He wasn't there, so I went upstairs to look for any other familiar face. I saw Dr. Mohammed, who had also interviewed me, and I told him about the housing. He took me to Zaineb, who was a lovely but very busy woman who seemed to be involved with HR somehow. She told me I should make a list of everything that was missing from the house and they would provide it for me. I told here there was nothing, literally nothing in the house. She didn't seem to grasp the fullness of what I was saying until I started making the list. Then she was like... Oh, nothing? I nodded. She asked me where the driver had taken me and I told her I didn't really know but it was very close by. She walked me over to an impressive looking office with glass walls and told me that he was in charge of all the housing. I greeted him and she said some things rapidly in Arabic. He nodded and then called someone on the phone. A nervous looking man in a suit came in. They all talked for a moment and then Zaineb said that the driver must have taken me to the wrong place and could I please go with this other man to see the real place?
I breathed a sigh of relief but wasn't holding my breath that the new place would be any different. So off we were again, making three or four u-turns. At first I thought we were going to the same apartment building, but maybe a different room, but he past the first location and kept going. I started making calculations in my head, if he turns here it will still be close enough to walk... still close, still close, hmm... getting further... yes, he is turning, must be close now... I think I could still walk, even now, and finally he parked in front of another building. Good. It was further than before, maybe a 15 or 20 minute walk, but it was till close. He knocked at the building door and a small little Indian man opened the door. He got some keys, and we got in the elevator. We went up one whole floor and then got out. I hoped he had chosen to take the elevator in deference to me and not because he actually didn't want to walk up one flight of stairs.
 |
| The kitchen / hallway |
 |
| The living room corner |
 |
| The bedroom corner |
The funny thing was, as bad as the place seemed, I could already tell that it had potential. In my head I was already moving furniture around and getting things settled. Funny how you do that. The men were both looking at me and since I had seen it I gave a sort of nod and walked out. The man who brought me said some things to the Indian man, which were probably something along the lines of clean this place up! And we returned to the college. The man brought me back to Zaineb who listened to what the man had to say and then told me that they would need a couple of days to fix it up. They were going to put in a refrigerator and some other things, and asked me if it was ok. I told her that at least it had furniture, sort of. She laughed and told me that hopefully by the end of the week I would be able to move in. I thanked her and returned to Dr. Salem to sign the contract and hammer out a few other small details.
I have to say, as much as I wasn't really looking forward to living in my new place, since it was kind of a mess. I was looking forward to being able to unpack and put all of my stuff away and have a place I could officially call mine. After three weeks of uncertainty about where I was going and what I was doing, it would be nice to finally be settled.
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
First Day at the Dental & Nursing School
I felt pretty good about my decision after I had made it,
until I showed up to work. Then I
started second guessing my decision. It
wasn’t that anything went wrong exactly; it was just the realization of what my
daily reality would be.
My first stop was to finalize the contract. Of course, being in administration, and being
a Saudi man, he wouldn’t be at work until 10am at the earliest. So I went on upstairs to the women’s section
and presented myself to the head of the English department for women. She is clearly an intelligent and well
organized woman, but she also clearly dislikes talking in English. She can speak English, as we have had
conversations in English together, but she tries to get away with not speaking
it whenever possible. Every conversation
we have begins in Arabic. She only
switches to English when it becomes clear that I don’t understand. Then, once she has made herself clear, she
reverts back to Arabic until my face shows that I’m clearly lost again. As you can imagine, this makes for some
interesting conversations.
Her: Something in Arabic
Me: uhh….. Yes?
Her: Something cheerful in Arabic
Me: hmm…. Thank you?
Her: A question in Arabic
Me: ah… five?
Her: Ok.
English. Will you start today?
I told her the story of how I would start conditionally, and
that if they didn’t give me my iqama by Tuesday, I would leave and go
home. She decided that it would be best
then to leave me as a cover teacher for now, so that if I did leave, it
wouldn’t disrupt the schedules. There
was a mid-term coming up, so she would make the changes after the mid-term if I
was still here. This made good sense to
me, and as an added bonus, meant I would sort of be sitting around waiting most
of the time unless someone was sick.
She then told me something in Arabic, and I smiled politely and
answered, “Tuesday.” From her quizzical
look, I’m guessing she didn’t ask me anything related to the days of the week.
The teachers’ room is a typical room, sort of dingy walls,
tiles on the ceiling that are stained and broken. But it is furnished with these very fancy
wood and leather desks that look like they belong in an executive’s
office. Not surprisingly, there are not
enough desks for all the teachers, so the part time teachers share one between
them. There is a copy machine that
actually works, and even a water dispenser that also works. It will put out hot and cold water. I see a lot of tea drinking in my future.
I had only brought one book with me, and I had finished it
before the end of the first hour. I was
so bored I picked up a book called “Guidelines for Raising Children” which was
a manual for Muslim parents about raising their child to be Islamic. Here are some of the highlights:
·
Every infant is naturally
born as a Muslim, but it is his parents who turn him into a Jew, a Christian,
or a Magian.
·
Slaughter two lambs for a
boy and one for a girl.
·
The rights of nature are 5;
circumcision, shaving off pubic hair, trimming mustaches, clipping fingernails,
and plucking armpit hairs.
·
No human infant is born,
but is goaded by Satan and screams as a result - except Mary and her son,
Jesus.
·
A woman is sought for
marriage for four reasons: for her wealth, lineage, beauty and faith. Win the woman of faith, may poverty be your
lot.
·
O young people, whoever of you
can afford it, let him get married. It
helps restrain the eyes and preserve the private parts. But if he cannot afford it, let him fast, for
it works as a preventative.
·
Order your children to
perform salat (prayer) when they are 7 years old, and beat them for it
when they are 10 years old, and separate them in beds.
·
He who protects what is
between his jaws and what is in between his thighs, I guarantee Jannah
(heaven) for him.
·
He who has three daughters
and three sisters, or two daughters and two sisters and teaches them good
manners and treats them kindly and gives them in marriage, his reward will be
heaven. (only 2 or 3, huh?)
·
When you hear the rooster’s
crow, ask Allah to grant from His bounty, for they have seen an
angel. But when you hear a donkey’s
braying, then ask Allah’s protection for it has seen Satan.
·
When man dies, no good dead
will be added on his record except for three: continuous charity, beneficial
knowledge, or a pious son who supplicates for him.
·
The profit cursed men who
copy women and women who copy men.
·
The sound of Satan is music
and singing.
Don’t get me wrong, there was some good stuff in there too;
teach your children manners, education is important, be fair and treat them
equally, turn the other cheek, stay away from bad influences and all of
that. I would say that it was a pretty
entertaining use of about an hour. But I
still had about 6 hours to go.
I went down to sign the final contract, and this time,
thankfully, everything was correct. I
had some more Arabic tea with the man, and we chatted for a while about various
things; which city in the US is best, the problem with London (expensive, too
many Saudi’s), and the stress of running a college. He needed to have the contracts signed by the
owner of the company, so he couldn’t give them to me now.
I went back upstairs and sat around some more. I borrowed the books from one of the
teachers, just to have something to look over while I was here. After about a half hour, the head of the
woman’s English department came to tell me that Dr. Sala wanted to see me. I had no idea who Dr. Sala was but I thought
it might be the same guy I had signed the contract with. I knew his name started with an S, though I
had never quit gotten it the few times I had heard him or other people say
it. She told me to go downstairs, which
is where his office was, so I figured that was the one. I went to his office, and he told me the
contract wasn’t ready yet, and seemed surprised to see me. I asked if he had sent for me. He told me no. I figured maybe she had wanted me to go see
him about the contract but since I had already gone down to him earlier, she
may have just gotten the message earlier and only just now given it to me so I
went back upstairs.
About 10 minutes later she came to get me again and I told
her I just went down and he didn’t ask for me.
It turns out, I had gone to Dr. Salam, not Dr. Sala (easy mistake –
especially since I didn’t know anyone’s name).
So, she took me to the right person and he took me to Dr. Sala, and all
three of us left in Dr. Sala’s brand new car (I didn’t feel as sympathetic
about the stresses of running a college after seeing his car) to go meet the
owner of the college. We literally drove
one block over to a walled and gated home.
It’s comical how adamant Saudi’s are about not walking anywhere. Anyway, we arrived at our destination after
about 30 seconds in the car and waited for the gate to open. Inside there was a green area, and workers
constructing an outdoor tent area, and to the right were two smaller
buildings. I was told to wait in the car
a moment. I felt a little like I was
being prepared to meet the Godfather or something. The two men went in first, and then a little
later they called me over. The owner
extended his hand to greet me and I was glad because I wouldn’t have known if
it was okay to shake his hand or not until then. He invited us inside, and I followed the
men’s lead and took off my shoes. Inside
was a 52 inch TV screen and really nice carpets and several couches. In one corner, a man was giving an
enthusiastic presentation in English about an architectural design to an older
gentleman who looked like he was struggling to keep up with the English. He was looking intently at the pictures and
occasionally would nod or look over at the other man, who might have been the
translator. There was Arabic coffee and
dates everywhere, but no one offered me any.
The owner joined us a few minutes later and gave me the
welcome speech, followed by the plea to forward the resumes of any friends I
had that might want to work here. He
also told me that there was a separate language institute next door to the
college and he told me I would be welcome to earn extra money by working there
in the afternoons. I thanked him, and
told him I would consider it, depending on how much extra money they were
offering. He talked with the other two
for a while in Arabic, then asked a driver to take me back to the college and
the other two stayed I suppose for a discussion.
When I got back to the college I was surprised to find that
the whole meeting hadn’t eaten up more than 30 minutes. I felt like 3:00 would never come. I spent another hour trying to entertain
myself by borrowing some of the text books to flip through. Since I didn’t know what level I would be
teaching, it seemed a little pointless to get too involved in covering any one
book. So I skimmed them all, which was
about as exciting as watching paint dry.
On several occasions I may have fell asleep a little bit. Toward the end of the day, only three
teachers were left. They all came over
to sit near me, and I knew my napping was over for the day. Even though they were all English teachers,
they spoke only in Arabic. I tried to
jump in a few times, and for about a minute they would switch to English for
me, but they always fell back into Arabic before too long. Yup, if I wanted to get better at Arabic, at
least I was in the right place for it.
They offered me dates and some sweets that were white
chocolate hearts with sesame seeds in honey on top. It was pretty good, but I think I preferred
the date encrusted with sesame. They
were doing such a good job distracting me with candy that I forgot I was supposed
to go back to Dr. Sala to get the signed contract, and to ask if they would
give me transportation back to the hotel, since, technically they were supposed
to provide transportation. By the time I
realized what time it was it was already 2:15.
I went downstairs, but Dr. Sala had already left for the day, being a
Saudi man in administration and all.
Dang. That meant I would be
paying for two more taxi rides, one home, and another back the next
morning. At least by now, I knew how to
get there. This was good since I had
left the business card of the hotel at home.
Overall, not a bad first day. If signing with this company
ends up being a mistake, it probably won’t be the worst mistake I have ever
made.
Monday, October 13, 2014
Driving Around Riyadh
When I woke up from a crazy dream about locking some evil man to a chain link fence and leaving him there to watch helplessly as his pet gerbil whom we left in a cage marked with a swastica was captured and tortured by the Nazi's, I still hadn't made up my mind about which offer to take. I think its safe to assume the dream was some kind of indication of the stress and pressure I was feeling about making a decision.
I called Suleiman first. He was understandably frustrated and upset that I hadn't made a decision yet. After all, he had done a lot for me and had helped me out considerably, for example, he was paying for the accommodation I was staying in right now. He proceeded to tell me that If I didn't sign with the dental college, that I would have to pay for said housing and that he would tell the new company not to pay for my ticket home either, and since he was in charge of all their finances at the moment he could do that. I pointed out that the new now old company was obligated to pay for my housing and ticket until I could leave the country. He pointed out that normally, this is true, but that the contract I had signed with the new old company was with London, and because we had not yet signed a contract in Saudi since they have no business license in Saudi, then I had no case. If I went to the ministry of labor, they would tell me that there was no such company, and that the contract I signed with London was not valid here in Saudi. If this phone call was a tennis game, he had just served match point. He told me I had until noon today to make a decision.
I called the second company next. I told him that I would be kicked out of my housing today, and that they would not agree to transfer the iqama. He said there was a plan B, which would be if I were to get the final exit and then go home and go through the whole visa process again. This could take months, and there was no real guarantee that I could get a second visa. He told me first I should try to stick to plan A, go to the Ministry of Labor, tell them the situation and try to see if they could help. I knew it was a hail mary, but I also figured I would regret not trying it if I didn't give it a shot.
I hailed a taxi (I was getting pretty good at it), and asked him to go to the Ministry of Labor and haggled our way to a fare of 30 SAR ($10). He assured me he knew where it was and off we went. There was a lot of traffic so it took a while to get to the street where all the Ministry buildings were located. The problem was, the Ministry of Labor is not on the same street as all the other ministries. For some reason, it is located about 10 blocks away. Unfortunately, neither I nor the taxi driver knew this. After we drove up and down the street looking for it a few times, I finally called the second company out of desperation and asked him to help direct the taxi driver. About 20 minutes we pulled up to a building with a discouragingly long line of men out front. I paid the driver and walked up to the building, trying to figure out which of the three entrances I should go in. I opted for the one with all the filipinos lining up in front of it, figuring that they probably have the most to complain about. I stood in line for a while but I quickly noticed that the guards were not letting anyone in, and I knew there must be a women's branch somewhere and there were only men in this line, so I abandoned it in favor of another door.
There was no wait at this door, and there were only Saudi men sitting around waiting, but there was a friendly looking guy at the front desk who wasn't already busy helping anyone so I took a chance and asked for the women's branch. He shrugged and told me he didn't speak English, and I said the world girl in arabic with a question mark sound to it. I was trying to use the limited Arabic I knew to ask about the ladies branch for complaints, but from the expression on his face he either thought I was not sure of my gender or of his. He called over another guy. I tried to ask about the ladies branch from him too. He smiled and kind of laughed, then called over a third guy, who also didn't seem to understand. A forth guy came over to join in, and now I realized I was completely surrounded. Luckily, this forth guy actually did speak some English so I asked for the ladies branch, but he wanted to know instead if I had a problem and what it was, so I figured, why not, and I gave him a brief history of my employment disasters. He listened sympathetically, then conferred in Arabic with the group of now 7-10 curious Saudi men before finally telling me that, surely, they can help, but that I will need to go to the Ladies branch to get help. So, armed with directions told to me once in arabic, and then again in English, I headed off to find building number 5.
I passed the long line of filipinos and rounded the corner, but there were no other buildings, just this large one, so building 5 had to be inside somewhere. I went up to a security guard and asked about building 5 and he pointed to the next door. I went to that guard and asked about building 5. He nodded, but pointed back toward the line of Filipinos. I pointed to my headscarf and said, women. It was as if someone had turned on a light bulb, "oh, your a woman!" so he let me come in and pointed me down a hallway which led to.... the inside of the doors all the Filipinos were waiting outside of. I asked again and they pointed me to another set of doors, which I went through. I spotted another woman, a Filipino with her husband so I followed them to a door marked "Ladies only" and as the three of us walked in I was thinking that there must be a joke in this somewhere about being a woman but no lady, or the husband being let in because he was very feminine, or something, but my joke search was interrupted by the shouts of an angry Saudi man who was evidently very upset that the husband had tried to enter the ladies section. While they were shouting, I slipped in so I could get in line ahead of that woman and her husband.
I needn't have worried. There were only about 3 women in the tiny waiting room. I asked the receptionist who directed me right away to a woman who spoke English. I explained my situation and she asked if I had any dispute about salary or payment. I told her, no, it's really just about getting a transfer or final exit. She told me she couldn't help me here. She told me I needed to go to the transfer office downtown. She said if I wanted to complain about money or housing, I could do it here, but transferring was all with a different office. Not wanting to repeat the same taxi game, I asked her to write down the name and address of the new building in Arabic so I could show the taxi driver.
I got into another taxi, showed him the paper and for 20 riyals we were off. He took me to an area of down town that I had never been before. We drove under the intersection of two huge overpasses both streets were full of small vendors pushing carts of oranges, and socks and phone chargers. It was busy and exciting and not a mall! I wished I wasn't on a deadline before noon, or I might have asked him to stop so I could have a look around, although I didn't see any women there. After another few minutes he pulled up in front of a strip mall and indicated that this was the place. I did a double take. It seemed like just some shops and a parking garage that was guarded by two men with guns. He motioned that I should walk through the parking garage. I handed over the money, and cautiously stepped out. I showed the paper to one of the guards, who told me to go straight through the parking lot and then go left. At least, I think that is what he was saying. Thank goodness hand signals are more or less universal.
Not at all sure of myself, I made my way to the back of the parking garage. There behind this strip mall were the corners of what must have once been a really cool old fortress. To the right was a non-descript building, but there were two women walking that way toward a door on the side, so I followed them. There wasn't much of a side-walk because the area to the right of the building was all under construction. There was a guard gate about two thirds of the way down, and that guard told me to go inside a door that was unmarked, but big and heavy and made of wood. There was a symbol on the front, but it wasn't the same as the Ministry of Labour's seal, so I was sceptical. Inside there was a whole waiting room full of women. There was a reception desk so I made my way over there. There was a woman who seemed to be talking to three people at once. She did a lot of wild gesturing and the other women did a lot of pleading, and eventually, she let one of them go into a door to see someone. Finally it was my turn. I asked if she spoke English and was relieved to find that she did. Until I explained my situation and she looked completely blank. I realized she spoke English the way most taxi drivers here spoke English, they knew only enough to do exactly their job and thats it. I simplified and said I wanted to make a complaint to be transferred and she told me that I would need to write my complaint in Arabic. I asked her if there was anyone who could translate it for me, and she told me there was no one. Another woman who was waiting with two briefcases full of papers chimed in. She said, "I've just paid 8,000 Riyals to have all of these translated to Arabic," I've been fighting this case for nearly 9 months now." She hefted the bags of documents she was carrying. "It's literally been my baby." We exchanged looks of mutual frustration.
I asked the woman if there was a way to send it by mail or email so I wouldn't have to come back here once I had it translated. She told me the governor didn't give out his email, but she thought maybe I could send a telegram. A telegram? Do they still do that? I asked her where I was exactly, who I would be sending a telegram to, and she said, "In the office of the Governor of Riyadh, didn't you know?" I told her I didn't, and thought I was in the Ministry of the Interior because I thought that was who handled transfer cases. She insisted I was in the right place. I asked her how I could go about sending a telegram. She told me to go to the post office. I asked her where I could find a post office. She told me there was one very near by and I could just take a taxi. I could tell by now she was getting very frustrated and impatient, there were a lot of women behind me waiting to speak with her.
I nodded and left the desk. I called the owner of the second company to give him the update. He told me that there was a post office near where I was and to call again if I had any trouble finding it. He said to call him when I reached the post office and he would dictate the telegram in Arabic for me. I asked about needing an address or something to send the telegram to, and he told me that they would know the address of the Governor so it shouldn't be a problem. I wasn't so sure, but the receptionist had disappeared behind the door already, so I just left her a sticky note to thank her for all her help.
I negotiated 10 riyals for the 4 block trip to the post office. It actually took me longer to find the door to the post office than the entire cab trip. Turns out, there was an escalator to a basement floor and inside was the post office. I went inside, and then nearly turned around again. There were only men, and I wondered if perhaps there was a women's section that I should be in because every eye in the place was on me. I cautiously walked up to a "take a number" consul which fortunately had an English language option. Unfortunately, it didn't have a send a telegram option. So I chose customer service instead. My number was 362. The number in the now serving window was 27. I waited a few minutes to observe, and quickly realized everyone was just wandering up to random counters. So I went for the shortest line and stood behind a short Filipino man who was clearly sending a package home. Finally it was my turn. I asked if the sent telegrams. He looked confused. I asked if he spoke English, and he called over another employee. I asked him about telegrams and he looked just as confused. We don't send telegrams any more. He said. I nodded in agreement. It was a rather quaint form of communication. I asked what they suggested to get a message to the Governer's office. He told me I should write a letter and send it in the mail. He said they usually got mail to important people like that within a week. I didn't really want to leave, but I couldn't think of anything else to ask. I had been chasing a wild goose all morning, and was no closer to making a decision. It was however, much closer to the noon deadline. 11:50 to be exact, and the post office was closing for prayer.
I sat down to wait for prayer to finish and to think. I knew that I could probably get transferred eventually If I went through all of these channels and spent weeks or even months going from ministry to ministry. I also knew that I would have no where to live until it got sorted out. I also knew that I wouldn't be being paid the whole time it was being sorted, and there could be no guarantee how long that would take. Even though I resented Suleiman for making me feel trapped into taking the job at the medical school, I told myself it wouldn't be so bad. After all, it was about even with FATE on the chart, and it was only my gut decision that was pushing me to go with FATE. After a day of running around Riyadh, getting into all kinds of confusing and new situations and seeing that there might be more to Riyadh than malls, I felt better about staying. And I felt a renewed sense of challenge about working in a place where everyday would be like this, working with people who mostly couldn't understand me, and who I mostly couldn't understand. Maybe working at the medical college, I would finally make middle eastern friends instead of spending all of my time with ex-pats. I figured, I could give it a try, I could go ahead and start with the medical college, just to have some place to live and some income. Meanwhile, I could file a case with all the Ministries and see where that got me.
Dejected and resigned, I called Suleiman and told him I had made my decision. I would begin work with the medical school the next day, but I had one condition. I asked him how long he thought it would take for them to transfer my iqama. He told me it would be fast, two days maybe. I told him I would give him a whole week, and that if they didn't have the iqama by then, I wanted out. He told not to worry, that I was finally talking sense and had made the right decision. I told him that I hoped so and made my way back outside into down town Riyadh, my new home.
I called Suleiman first. He was understandably frustrated and upset that I hadn't made a decision yet. After all, he had done a lot for me and had helped me out considerably, for example, he was paying for the accommodation I was staying in right now. He proceeded to tell me that If I didn't sign with the dental college, that I would have to pay for said housing and that he would tell the new company not to pay for my ticket home either, and since he was in charge of all their finances at the moment he could do that. I pointed out that the new now old company was obligated to pay for my housing and ticket until I could leave the country. He pointed out that normally, this is true, but that the contract I had signed with the new old company was with London, and because we had not yet signed a contract in Saudi since they have no business license in Saudi, then I had no case. If I went to the ministry of labor, they would tell me that there was no such company, and that the contract I signed with London was not valid here in Saudi. If this phone call was a tennis game, he had just served match point. He told me I had until noon today to make a decision.
I called the second company next. I told him that I would be kicked out of my housing today, and that they would not agree to transfer the iqama. He said there was a plan B, which would be if I were to get the final exit and then go home and go through the whole visa process again. This could take months, and there was no real guarantee that I could get a second visa. He told me first I should try to stick to plan A, go to the Ministry of Labor, tell them the situation and try to see if they could help. I knew it was a hail mary, but I also figured I would regret not trying it if I didn't give it a shot.
I hailed a taxi (I was getting pretty good at it), and asked him to go to the Ministry of Labor and haggled our way to a fare of 30 SAR ($10). He assured me he knew where it was and off we went. There was a lot of traffic so it took a while to get to the street where all the Ministry buildings were located. The problem was, the Ministry of Labor is not on the same street as all the other ministries. For some reason, it is located about 10 blocks away. Unfortunately, neither I nor the taxi driver knew this. After we drove up and down the street looking for it a few times, I finally called the second company out of desperation and asked him to help direct the taxi driver. About 20 minutes we pulled up to a building with a discouragingly long line of men out front. I paid the driver and walked up to the building, trying to figure out which of the three entrances I should go in. I opted for the one with all the filipinos lining up in front of it, figuring that they probably have the most to complain about. I stood in line for a while but I quickly noticed that the guards were not letting anyone in, and I knew there must be a women's branch somewhere and there were only men in this line, so I abandoned it in favor of another door.
There was no wait at this door, and there were only Saudi men sitting around waiting, but there was a friendly looking guy at the front desk who wasn't already busy helping anyone so I took a chance and asked for the women's branch. He shrugged and told me he didn't speak English, and I said the world girl in arabic with a question mark sound to it. I was trying to use the limited Arabic I knew to ask about the ladies branch for complaints, but from the expression on his face he either thought I was not sure of my gender or of his. He called over another guy. I tried to ask about the ladies branch from him too. He smiled and kind of laughed, then called over a third guy, who also didn't seem to understand. A forth guy came over to join in, and now I realized I was completely surrounded. Luckily, this forth guy actually did speak some English so I asked for the ladies branch, but he wanted to know instead if I had a problem and what it was, so I figured, why not, and I gave him a brief history of my employment disasters. He listened sympathetically, then conferred in Arabic with the group of now 7-10 curious Saudi men before finally telling me that, surely, they can help, but that I will need to go to the Ladies branch to get help. So, armed with directions told to me once in arabic, and then again in English, I headed off to find building number 5.
I passed the long line of filipinos and rounded the corner, but there were no other buildings, just this large one, so building 5 had to be inside somewhere. I went up to a security guard and asked about building 5 and he pointed to the next door. I went to that guard and asked about building 5. He nodded, but pointed back toward the line of Filipinos. I pointed to my headscarf and said, women. It was as if someone had turned on a light bulb, "oh, your a woman!" so he let me come in and pointed me down a hallway which led to.... the inside of the doors all the Filipinos were waiting outside of. I asked again and they pointed me to another set of doors, which I went through. I spotted another woman, a Filipino with her husband so I followed them to a door marked "Ladies only" and as the three of us walked in I was thinking that there must be a joke in this somewhere about being a woman but no lady, or the husband being let in because he was very feminine, or something, but my joke search was interrupted by the shouts of an angry Saudi man who was evidently very upset that the husband had tried to enter the ladies section. While they were shouting, I slipped in so I could get in line ahead of that woman and her husband.
I needn't have worried. There were only about 3 women in the tiny waiting room. I asked the receptionist who directed me right away to a woman who spoke English. I explained my situation and she asked if I had any dispute about salary or payment. I told her, no, it's really just about getting a transfer or final exit. She told me she couldn't help me here. She told me I needed to go to the transfer office downtown. She said if I wanted to complain about money or housing, I could do it here, but transferring was all with a different office. Not wanting to repeat the same taxi game, I asked her to write down the name and address of the new building in Arabic so I could show the taxi driver.
I got into another taxi, showed him the paper and for 20 riyals we were off. He took me to an area of down town that I had never been before. We drove under the intersection of two huge overpasses both streets were full of small vendors pushing carts of oranges, and socks and phone chargers. It was busy and exciting and not a mall! I wished I wasn't on a deadline before noon, or I might have asked him to stop so I could have a look around, although I didn't see any women there. After another few minutes he pulled up in front of a strip mall and indicated that this was the place. I did a double take. It seemed like just some shops and a parking garage that was guarded by two men with guns. He motioned that I should walk through the parking garage. I handed over the money, and cautiously stepped out. I showed the paper to one of the guards, who told me to go straight through the parking lot and then go left. At least, I think that is what he was saying. Thank goodness hand signals are more or less universal.
Not at all sure of myself, I made my way to the back of the parking garage. There behind this strip mall were the corners of what must have once been a really cool old fortress. To the right was a non-descript building, but there were two women walking that way toward a door on the side, so I followed them. There wasn't much of a side-walk because the area to the right of the building was all under construction. There was a guard gate about two thirds of the way down, and that guard told me to go inside a door that was unmarked, but big and heavy and made of wood. There was a symbol on the front, but it wasn't the same as the Ministry of Labour's seal, so I was sceptical. Inside there was a whole waiting room full of women. There was a reception desk so I made my way over there. There was a woman who seemed to be talking to three people at once. She did a lot of wild gesturing and the other women did a lot of pleading, and eventually, she let one of them go into a door to see someone. Finally it was my turn. I asked if she spoke English and was relieved to find that she did. Until I explained my situation and she looked completely blank. I realized she spoke English the way most taxi drivers here spoke English, they knew only enough to do exactly their job and thats it. I simplified and said I wanted to make a complaint to be transferred and she told me that I would need to write my complaint in Arabic. I asked her if there was anyone who could translate it for me, and she told me there was no one. Another woman who was waiting with two briefcases full of papers chimed in. She said, "I've just paid 8,000 Riyals to have all of these translated to Arabic," I've been fighting this case for nearly 9 months now." She hefted the bags of documents she was carrying. "It's literally been my baby." We exchanged looks of mutual frustration.
I asked the woman if there was a way to send it by mail or email so I wouldn't have to come back here once I had it translated. She told me the governor didn't give out his email, but she thought maybe I could send a telegram. A telegram? Do they still do that? I asked her where I was exactly, who I would be sending a telegram to, and she said, "In the office of the Governor of Riyadh, didn't you know?" I told her I didn't, and thought I was in the Ministry of the Interior because I thought that was who handled transfer cases. She insisted I was in the right place. I asked her how I could go about sending a telegram. She told me to go to the post office. I asked her where I could find a post office. She told me there was one very near by and I could just take a taxi. I could tell by now she was getting very frustrated and impatient, there were a lot of women behind me waiting to speak with her.
I nodded and left the desk. I called the owner of the second company to give him the update. He told me that there was a post office near where I was and to call again if I had any trouble finding it. He said to call him when I reached the post office and he would dictate the telegram in Arabic for me. I asked about needing an address or something to send the telegram to, and he told me that they would know the address of the Governor so it shouldn't be a problem. I wasn't so sure, but the receptionist had disappeared behind the door already, so I just left her a sticky note to thank her for all her help.
I negotiated 10 riyals for the 4 block trip to the post office. It actually took me longer to find the door to the post office than the entire cab trip. Turns out, there was an escalator to a basement floor and inside was the post office. I went inside, and then nearly turned around again. There were only men, and I wondered if perhaps there was a women's section that I should be in because every eye in the place was on me. I cautiously walked up to a "take a number" consul which fortunately had an English language option. Unfortunately, it didn't have a send a telegram option. So I chose customer service instead. My number was 362. The number in the now serving window was 27. I waited a few minutes to observe, and quickly realized everyone was just wandering up to random counters. So I went for the shortest line and stood behind a short Filipino man who was clearly sending a package home. Finally it was my turn. I asked if the sent telegrams. He looked confused. I asked if he spoke English, and he called over another employee. I asked him about telegrams and he looked just as confused. We don't send telegrams any more. He said. I nodded in agreement. It was a rather quaint form of communication. I asked what they suggested to get a message to the Governer's office. He told me I should write a letter and send it in the mail. He said they usually got mail to important people like that within a week. I didn't really want to leave, but I couldn't think of anything else to ask. I had been chasing a wild goose all morning, and was no closer to making a decision. It was however, much closer to the noon deadline. 11:50 to be exact, and the post office was closing for prayer.
I sat down to wait for prayer to finish and to think. I knew that I could probably get transferred eventually If I went through all of these channels and spent weeks or even months going from ministry to ministry. I also knew that I would have no where to live until it got sorted out. I also knew that I wouldn't be being paid the whole time it was being sorted, and there could be no guarantee how long that would take. Even though I resented Suleiman for making me feel trapped into taking the job at the medical school, I told myself it wouldn't be so bad. After all, it was about even with FATE on the chart, and it was only my gut decision that was pushing me to go with FATE. After a day of running around Riyadh, getting into all kinds of confusing and new situations and seeing that there might be more to Riyadh than malls, I felt better about staying. And I felt a renewed sense of challenge about working in a place where everyday would be like this, working with people who mostly couldn't understand me, and who I mostly couldn't understand. Maybe working at the medical college, I would finally make middle eastern friends instead of spending all of my time with ex-pats. I figured, I could give it a try, I could go ahead and start with the medical college, just to have some place to live and some income. Meanwhile, I could file a case with all the Ministries and see where that got me.
Dejected and resigned, I called Suleiman and told him I had made my decision. I would begin work with the medical school the next day, but I had one condition. I asked him how long he thought it would take for them to transfer my iqama. He told me it would be fast, two days maybe. I told him I would give him a whole week, and that if they didn't have the iqama by then, I wanted out. He told not to worry, that I was finally talking sense and had made the right decision. I told him that I hoped so and made my way back outside into down town Riyadh, my new home.
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Decisions, Decisions
So, now I had some decisions to make. Like most people faced with a big life changing decision, I spent a lot of time pacing the apartment and talking to myself. Eventually I got tired of mumbling things like, "on the other hand..." and "but if I...." and I made a chart.
Funny thing about charts, even with everything all laid out in front of you like that, it didn't really get me any closer to making a decision. So, I decided to call my buddy Suleiman to ask him for some advice and to see what he thought. I knew he would of course be pulling for the medical and dental school that he had put me in touch with, but by now, I also kind of thought of him as a farther type figure and thought maybe he could tell me objectively what he thought.
So I called him and told him about the other offer and asked him what he thought. He started off being pretty nice about it. He listened to me explain the new company and asked about the owner and a few other questions about the set up etc... Then he told me that based on the last name of the Owner of the company, I should not work there. I asked him why and he said that the man was not really Saudi, that that family name is Egyptian. I asked how he knew and he told me that family only came to Saudi two or three hundred years ago. Since they were originally Eqyptian, they couldn't be trusted. I laughed a little at this until I realized that he was serious.
I told him they had accommodations in the DQ, and pointed out that I had gotten to see the school and the apartment, but that I still had never seen where I would live or teach at the medical or dental school. He told me they would give me a furnished apartment much like the one I was staying in now. He also told me that if I wanted to be in a compound, Al Farabi would move me into a compound as soon as they hired a few more western teachers. I was thinking to myself that I would believe it when it actually happened. I asked him again if maybe they could show me the housing the next day and he told me he would try to arrange it. I pointed out that I had been asking to see the housing and the classrooms for two weeks, and they hadn't gotten back to me and that this didn't bode well for the organizational skills. I also hadn't gotten a written offer yet, only verbal offers. He assured me that that two could be taken care of tomorrow.
When I told him I thought the teaching would be better, 15 students per class instead of 40 and that I think I could do more good at that school, I could see his patience was wearing thin. He told me that they clearly needed teachers at the medical college since they had such big classes, and the classes would be smaller when they split them up to divide them among the new teachers.
I told him I would think about everything he said, but that I still couldn't make a decision. I needed to see the school and the written offer first. He told me that I was being very ungrateful after all the work he had done to get me the interview and bring me to Riyadh. I thanked him, but reminded him that I never said for sure I would take the job, only that I would go to the interview, and that if it hadn't worked out I would just go home. I reminded him that I would never have needed to apply for other jobs if the medical and dental school had sent me a written offer. But it had been 2 weeks now and I had to do something to fill my time. It wasn't that I was ungrateful, but I was used to taking care of myself and working to solve my own problems, so I had learned how important it was to have more than one plan.
He told me I was ungrateful. I told him I was very grateful, but I had to think about what was best for me. Then he told me that he would tell education experts not to transfer me to them since he had done all that work to get them out of the trouble they were in over my visa. He told me that essentially, he was my sponsor now and basically, he wouldn't allow me to transfer to anyone other than the medical school.
This made me angry, mostly because I had thought Suleiman was helping me because he was a nice guy and genuinely wanted to help, but now it became clear that all along, he was really thinking of lining his pockets. My old company had paid him for his help in clearing me and the five other girls who had the same visa issues, and now, I was sure the medical college was going to give him some kind of recruitment fee. I was disappointed, hurt, and frustrated. His attitude was just one more negative in the medical college chart.
I told him again that I was grateful for all his help and told him I would call him tomorrow and let him know my decision. Then I spent all night making, unmaking, and remaking my decision, until, eventually, still undecided, I went to sleep.
Funny thing about charts, even with everything all laid out in front of you like that, it didn't really get me any closer to making a decision. So, I decided to call my buddy Suleiman to ask him for some advice and to see what he thought. I knew he would of course be pulling for the medical and dental school that he had put me in touch with, but by now, I also kind of thought of him as a farther type figure and thought maybe he could tell me objectively what he thought.
So I called him and told him about the other offer and asked him what he thought. He started off being pretty nice about it. He listened to me explain the new company and asked about the owner and a few other questions about the set up etc... Then he told me that based on the last name of the Owner of the company, I should not work there. I asked him why and he said that the man was not really Saudi, that that family name is Egyptian. I asked how he knew and he told me that family only came to Saudi two or three hundred years ago. Since they were originally Eqyptian, they couldn't be trusted. I laughed a little at this until I realized that he was serious.
I told him they had accommodations in the DQ, and pointed out that I had gotten to see the school and the apartment, but that I still had never seen where I would live or teach at the medical or dental school. He told me they would give me a furnished apartment much like the one I was staying in now. He also told me that if I wanted to be in a compound, Al Farabi would move me into a compound as soon as they hired a few more western teachers. I was thinking to myself that I would believe it when it actually happened. I asked him again if maybe they could show me the housing the next day and he told me he would try to arrange it. I pointed out that I had been asking to see the housing and the classrooms for two weeks, and they hadn't gotten back to me and that this didn't bode well for the organizational skills. I also hadn't gotten a written offer yet, only verbal offers. He assured me that that two could be taken care of tomorrow.
When I told him I thought the teaching would be better, 15 students per class instead of 40 and that I think I could do more good at that school, I could see his patience was wearing thin. He told me that they clearly needed teachers at the medical college since they had such big classes, and the classes would be smaller when they split them up to divide them among the new teachers.
I told him I would think about everything he said, but that I still couldn't make a decision. I needed to see the school and the written offer first. He told me that I was being very ungrateful after all the work he had done to get me the interview and bring me to Riyadh. I thanked him, but reminded him that I never said for sure I would take the job, only that I would go to the interview, and that if it hadn't worked out I would just go home. I reminded him that I would never have needed to apply for other jobs if the medical and dental school had sent me a written offer. But it had been 2 weeks now and I had to do something to fill my time. It wasn't that I was ungrateful, but I was used to taking care of myself and working to solve my own problems, so I had learned how important it was to have more than one plan.
He told me I was ungrateful. I told him I was very grateful, but I had to think about what was best for me. Then he told me that he would tell education experts not to transfer me to them since he had done all that work to get them out of the trouble they were in over my visa. He told me that essentially, he was my sponsor now and basically, he wouldn't allow me to transfer to anyone other than the medical school.
This made me angry, mostly because I had thought Suleiman was helping me because he was a nice guy and genuinely wanted to help, but now it became clear that all along, he was really thinking of lining his pockets. My old company had paid him for his help in clearing me and the five other girls who had the same visa issues, and now, I was sure the medical college was going to give him some kind of recruitment fee. I was disappointed, hurt, and frustrated. His attitude was just one more negative in the medical college chart.
I told him again that I was grateful for all his help and told him I would call him tomorrow and let him know my decision. Then I spent all night making, unmaking, and remaking my decision, until, eventually, still undecided, I went to sleep.
Saturday, October 11, 2014
Visiting FATE
During one of my many bored days of waiting around during the Eid Holiday, I had applied to a new women's college in Riyadh called FATE (Future Academic Training and Education), cute, huh? I had one interview over skype with a woman named Caroline who was the head teacher. She had been teaching in the middle east for going on 12 years now and she told me all about the company. It was a small family run business. The wife had attended various language schools over the years to improve her English and often complained about the calibre of the programs. They had initially wanted to move abroad to live and work, but life happens and they had their fifth child on the way and he was now a successful businessman in Saudi so there was no chance they would leave Saudi like he had promised when they were first married. To make it up to her, he promised that he would build a school for her that would fix all of the complaints she had had over the years in the other language schools, and thus, the idea for FATE was born.
Three years later, their dreams were becoming a reality. From what Caroline was telling me, things really did seem to be different. The school would offer flexible scheduling to accommodate women, as well as providing a day car facility so they could bring their children to school with them. They were also offering training programs with local businesses who wanted to hire Saudi women, but needed them to have more office based skills, like using computers, basic accounting, and secretarial skills. It seemed like they were really trying to think ahead to all the pitfalls and head them off before they started. It seemed like a project I could get behind.
After the first interview, I had a second interview with the owner of the company. We spent an hour or so lamenting the state of affairs of women's education in Saudi, and trading ideas for solutions. He asked a lot of really good difficult questions about the intersection of theory and practice, and what happens when reality challenges ideals. It was a great interview because it felt like a real conversation instead of an interrogation. At the end of it, he thanked me and told me that there was one final step. They wanted me to take some aptitude and work preferences tests and speak with a workplace consultant from Holland. He explained that this test would confirm if I was the kind of employee that would fit in well with the company, or not. I was both impressed and surprised. Most interviews for teaching positions in Saudi involve an inspection of your passport and a brief look at your resume and that is it. I was impressed that this company was being more careful and selective with who it hired, but I was also a little jaded now about the idea that a company could hire and fire using the "you are very good at your job and highly qualified, but you are just not a good fit" excuse. After all, what should matter most is performance in the classroom, and I think a better test would have been to give a sample lesson. Not that getting along in the workplace isn't important, it's just that 90% of your time is in class, and the other 10% is planning and grading, so it doesn't leave a lot of room for interacting with other staff.
A few days later, I took a series of on-line tests. The first test required you to read a report and pick out the important details. The second test involved reading charts and data. The third and forth tests were pattern finding and problem solving tests. These were actually kind of fun. The next three tests were all Myers-Brigg style personality questions that asked you to choose words that described you or your work habits from a set list of adjectives. I always hate theses since it often depends so much on the situation. I always find myself wishing I could add explanations and qualifiers. At the end of these tests, I had a final one hour skype interview with a Dutch woman from this workplace consulting firm. Mostly we talked about what my test results meant... mainly I was extremely adaptable and independent, maybe even too independent at times. She said she didn't see any red flags and would recommend that they make me an offer. I was excited and thanked her.
Sure enough, on Friday night, the owner called me to arrange a visit to the campus and the housing on Saturday evening. He said If I like what I saw then, he would give me a written offer at the end of the night.
Saturday, they arrived about 15 minutes late, but he had called me to let me know he was running late beforehand (how unSaudi-like!). His driver, himself and his wife, who was 8 months pregnant, were all in the van waiting for me and as we drove off toward the college, we talked about their children and the decisions that led them to want to open the college and what some of their plans were. When we arrived at the building, the owner pointed out some changes that were being made at the request of the Mattawa (religious police) to accommodate women students. The college was actually the top floor of a 3 story building. The bottom floor was a furniture store, the middle floor was empty aside from one lawyers office, and the third floor was for the college. They were in the process of building a privacy wall along the side walk that led to the back of the building where the women's only entrance was located. Once inside the building, the elevator and stairs were completely separate from the rest of the building and only went to the third floor, but this wasn't enough for the Mattawa. They wanted it so that no one could see the women even approaching the door.
The wife and I rode the elevator up together, and then her husband followed on the next lift so we wouldn't be in an enclosed space together. Not that we would have fit. This woman was clearly very very pregnant. Though she was smiling and talking, I could see that she was very tired. I worried about here keeping up as we got the grand tour. There was a lobby with two desk for "administration". There was a computer lab that was clearly being wired for internet as we spoke. There were three or four very small classroom that could hold no more than 20 chairs tops. Some of the rooms had white boards and projectors, but others had only chairs. The "kresh" or kindergarten area was full of bright colours and fun carpet. There were tiny colourful tables and chairs and a whole cabinet of toys and other kid-supplies, including a pint sized restroom. There was even a cafeteria with big glass windows looking out on a patio. He explained that eventually this would be a garden area and there would be a door, but the main goal now was to get the classes ready.
I have to admit I found myself rushing the tour, just because I could see that the wife was really dragging. There were some chairs in the lobby so we sat around and let her rest while discussing ministry requirements and when the college planned to officially open (end of October) and how they would structure the schedules (would depend on student availability) and how they were going to recruit the students and other teachers (don't worry about that). I got the impression that they were only slightly more prepared than the other college had been to open. Fortunately, since the scale of this opening was much smaller than the other college, the road bumps wouldn't be nearly as bad.
After the tour of the college, we headed to the diplomatic quarter. He was especially proud of the accommodations they had secured. The waiting list for a place in the "DQ" can be as long as three years. He said, even though it is very expensive, they know the importance of home life for teacher's happiness, so they decided it was worth it. The security is excellent, and it is a place where you can walk outside without your abaya. There are also lots of activities that you can attend, a sports and recreation centre, two grocery stores, and even a little mall. It was everything you could want, so that you would never even need to leave this little island of non-Saudiness.
They showed me Caroline's apartment, which had 3 bedrooms around a shared kitchen and living room. Each room had it's own bathroom, so that was nice. It was smallish, but standard. It seemed a little empty, but the essentials were all there, table chairs, couch, tv, refrigerator, and yes, washing machine! Caroline wasn't what I expected. She was much younger looking than I thought, and she was very jolly and friendly. She had been much more business like during the interview. We stayed about ten minutes and exchanged pleasantries, then headed out again, I could see that the wife was grateful to have reached the end of the evening.
When we pulled up to my place, he gave me the offer in a neat little presentation binder. He told me he was really excited to offer me the position and that he hoped I would find the offer satisfactory and reminded me of the perks, living in the DQ, insurance, free local flights to Dubai or Bahrain every three months or so, end of year bonuses, etc... All this mention of benefits was making me nervous, it made me feel like the actual salary might be pretty low. He didn't help matters by explaining they arrived at the salary by looking at what competitors were paying and that the offer was not open to negotiation. By this time it was taking all my concentration to pay attention to what he was saying and not look at the offer.
He told me to take it home, look it over and let him know. I thanked him, said goodnight to his wife and practically ran inside so I could get to my room and look at the offer. It was a little less than what the medical and dental college was offering... so now I had to make a decision.
He told me to take it home, look it over and let him know. I thanked him, said goodnight to his wife and practically ran inside so I could get to my room and look at the offer. It was a little less than what the medical and dental college was offering... so now I had to make a decision.
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