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.
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