Corner Store Grocery Guy

The company is kind enough to provide us with 5 local shopping trips every week.  On Monday and Tuesday, we go to a local grocery store about 10-15 minutes drive from our house.  The bus leaves at 4:30 from our apartments, drops you at the store, then leaves to head back to the apartments at 5:30, so you get about 40 minutes to shop, which is enough time provided no prayer times fall within that window of time, and that there are no long lines to check out.  On Thursday they take us to a local mall for three hours later in the evening, from 5:30 to 9:30.  Luckily there is a grocery store next door to the mall.  On Friday they drop us off at a grocery store on the kornich, so you can buy food or walk along the water or enjoy some of the many restaurants, but you better be willing to do it for four hours.  On Saturday they take us to a big mall for another three hours adventure.  I have never been a shopper.  I really hate malls.  Sadly though, when you buy fresh fruit and vegetables, you can't really buy in bulk, or the stuff will go bad.  So, as much as I hate shopping, it seems as though I almost always found myself on one, sometimes two shopping trips each week.  Or at least, I was until I found out there was a tiny corner shop that sells fruit and veg about two blocks away from our apartment.

Just getting there is an adventure.  What does every adventure need?  Companions.  Particularly in our neighborhood, where it isn't advisable to go anywhere alone.  So the first step is convincing one or more of the girls that what they really want to do with their time when they get home from work is to put their abaya back on, go outside in the 109 degree heat, and walk two blocks to buy bananas with you.  Once that mission is accomplished, you start the journey to the store, which involves pretending to be oblivious to all the guys in the cars who pass by honking or shouting things at you as they drive by you as slow as humanly possible.  I can only assume they are taking the opportunity to stare at the abundant folds of your abaya, since it is impossible to discern any kind of body shape.  Some particularly aggressive ones have been known to stop and reverse once they have already passed you, or drive around the block for another go at you.  Usually, all they do is shout obscenities, but occasionally they will also throw a waded up piece of paper at you, which they consider flirting.  The papers contain their phone number, and is your invitation to the underground world of internet/mobile phone courtship in Saudi.

If you manage to survive the walk having received less than two comments, or "slow drive by's"  it's considered a small victory.  But it isn't a success until you actually arrive at the shop and find it open.  The shop keeps no definitive hours, so it's kind of a crap shoot if they will be open or not.  I have seen the lights on sometimes when driving past after 11pm, and sometimes it is locked up tight at three in the afternoon, but just as often, it is the exact opposite.  Even when you are lucky enough to find it open, there is still a chance that today, he will not have the item you need.  The shop is literally on the corner, and when the store is open, the actual door is wide open, with a sheet of plastic hanging down in front to keep in the AC.  Two of the walls have supermarket style refrigerators with the fruit and vegetables pre-packaged in convenient 5 riyal packages (a little under $2).   Sometimes there is lettuce, sometimes only oranges and carrots.  Usually there are tomatoes and potatoes, and on a good day he has mangoes and pomegranates as well.  But you just never know what you are going to get.

The man who owns the store is a perfect caricature of a Saudi man.  He wears the white thobe and the red and white checkered picnic blanket on his head.  He looks to be in his late 50s, and he absolutely loves us.   I have no idea why, but from the first moment we showed up in the shop, he became our "uncle".  He said a few words in English repeatedly, such as "America" and "you" and then launched into a long but presumably beautiful speech in Arabic about how welcome we were.  He insisted on giving us a watermelon for free, and demanded that we come back often.  He also asked me about a large black woman.... at least, I think that is what he was saying...

Since then we have come back often.  Each time, he greets us enthusiastically, helps us pick out the best produce, insists we take more than we need, and then charges us almost nothing for it all.  The first few times this happened, I didn't realize how much of a deal we were getting.  I was still trying to figure out home much things cost, and just trusted him as a business owner to tell me how much to pay.  I few trips to the real supermarket later, I started to realize that I had been paying him less than half of what the food was worth.

On our next visit, I didn't even ask him what it all cost, I just gave him 30 riyals to try to make up for some of the other visits.  He took it without looking at it (I folded it up inside a 1 riyal note) and figured I had made up for it, but he chased after me and insisted I take a big package of dates that was probably worth 15-20 riyals.  So much for that.

The following visit was the last day of Ramadan.  He scolded us for having not been to see him for a few weeks and we protested that it was Ramadan and we didn't know if he was open (and to be fair, we had tried to come before but it was closed).  I asked him to pick me out a good watermelon and decided to grab a bag of potatoes (which I later regretted, I forgot I was going to be carrying them for two blocks).   The other two girls picked out their various purchases and when we were ready to pay, he invited (we think) to join him for Eid the next day.  Eid feast is the first day after Ramadan, and everyone wakes up early to pray and then eat a huge meal with their family.  They then spend the rest of the day going from house to house visiting relatives and friends.  He kept saying something about his shop and his phone and his wife and tomorrow, but that was about all I got.  The other girls clarified that he was inviting us to his house to meet his wife tomorrow.  We thanked him and tried to pay him and this time he refused to take any money at all.  After all, this was Ramadan, and you get double points for good deeds, but only one more day!  I decided to "accidentally" drop some money on his chair by the door as we left.  One good deed deserves another, right?

The next day I tried to rally the troupes.  I was kind of excited to meet our "uncles" wife and see there home, and no doubt eat a lot of dates and Arabic coffee.    There were two problems.  One, we had no idea what time he wanted us to come, and two, neither of the girls wanted to go with me.  I couldn't believe that they weren't as excited about it as I was.  One said she felt it was kind of creepy, although, I didn't feel that way because he wanted us to sit with his wife and not with him... so I felt it was a genuine offer of kindness, and of course, indoctrination, but still a genuine offer.  The other just didn't feel up to the walk, or sitting for who knows how long without understanding anything he or she said to us.  I guess they had fairly valid reasons.  I thought about going alone, but the thought of facing all the harassing guys alone, plus the fact that I had no idea what time to go, and if the man would even be at his shop on such a holiday helped me decide that it was better to stay in.

I was anxious to go back to his shop because I didn't know how to explain why we hadn't accepted his invitation.  The first time we went back after Eid, a younger guy, possible a son or nephew was managing the shop.  He was much more professional than his father and didn't try to talk to us or give us anything for free.  In fact, he overcharged us.  I didn't mind, I feel like it makes up for all the things his dad or uncle keeps giving us for free.  The second time though, he was there.  I smiled a lot and said I was very sorry, but that was all I could really manage with my fledgling Arabic.  After an initial mild berating, he seemed not to mind and launched into a speech that based on hand gestures could have had to do with either something really small or really expensive... a lot of something else, three of another thing, and also the characters Mary and Joseph.  He threw in a few words about Syria and Iraq while he was at it.  I tried to slowly make my way to the door, but he was very into his story now, which seemed to include a midget and something to do with his shoulders.  Finally the other girl I was with, exaggeratedly and suddenly noticed the time.  We tried to hand him some money, but he wouldn't take it, and told me not to leave it on the chair like last time.  He seemed more upset about that then us not coming to meet his wife.    We thanked him again and left the store loaded with lemons and tomatoes and zucchini.

I keep thinking this guy will be perfect for practicing my Arabic with, but then I remember he would probably never let me get a word in edgewise.  Too bad really.  I was thinking I could help repay him with English lessons.  Either way, these trips are shorter (although the last one not so much) than the shopping trips and far more entertaining.  I can't wait until I'm out of cucumbers and carrots so I can go back.  I'm looking forward to trying to figure out what happened to the midget and the three small things.

Working in Ramadan

The entire rhythm of the country changes during Ramadan.  Work stops, or is significantly reduced, and shops and restaurants are closed until after 7pm, but open late into the wee hours.  Saudi's will stay awake all night and then sleep through the day to help ease the stress of fasting.  Our hours were reduced during Ramadan.  We didn't start until 9am and finished at 2pm.  Even then, because there were no summer school classes, we weren't actually doing any work.  The couches on the other hand were overloaded.  I never saw them vacant once during Ramadan. They were full of women napping, exhausted from staying up late to visit and eat.  Even for those of us who weren't fasting, things changed.  It is illegal to be seen eating or drinking in public even if you are not Muslim.  Technically, we could eat at work, we just had to make sure no one saw us, and that whatever food we ate had no smell.  Since all of the stores were closed, our shopping trips were now from 7pm to 11pm instead of the early afternoon. It was weird buying milk and bread after 10pm, and seeing whole families with excited children out this late too.

I fell into a pattern like everyone else, going to sleep late (technically, really really early) then sleeping through the hottest parts of the day.  I managed to avoid eating at work, but ate as soon as I came home from work, I would eat something before falling asleep for a quick 2 hour nap.    After only two or three days, the new schedule seemed normal and I didn't mind not eating.  I did have a problem not drinking though and I often hid in my cubicle chugging water. After all, I've been using my time not teaching to jog around campus every morning.  Not bad getting paid to exercise and not eat, this may be the greatest new diet fad of all time.  Of course, the over indulging in the evenings may sort of cancel that one out.  The dates alone people typically eat to break fast are sugary calorific nightmares, albeit delicious nightmares.  I like the just ripe dates that are still yellow and crunchy.  They are crisp and sweet, but also slightly tart.  After a week or two, they dry into the sweet chewy dates everyone knows and loves.  I find them to be almost too sweet on their own already, but some dates are even packaged with sugar water to make them even sweeter.

These dates are delicious!

One of the other teachers and I passed part of our working days going to the date palms planted out in front of the University.  Even though we were less than 50 feet from the building we were stuck inside 8 hours a day for the last 4 months, it felt like a field trip.  It was a welcome relief for a long day, and as an added bonus, they were low enough to the ground that we could just pick them.  And because no Saudi would ever come outside if they didn't have to, no one was around to see us eating them in public during fasting hours. There were two varieties, yellow dates and red dates.  To me, the yellow dates were better fresh, but the red dates were better dried.

A just ripe fresh date....

We acted like date connoisseurs, even though we knew nothing about dates...  "this one has a decidedly sugar cane flavor..."  "this bunch was grown on the south side of the palm, so it is milder than those on the west side of the trunk."  "You can tell by the bunching pattern that this group will be good for date cakes."  I was so glad I sewed pockets into my abaya, because they made perfect date pouches. I always came back to the office with my abaya dragging on the sides from all the extra weight. It was almost worth having to go to work for.

My favorite part of working during Ramadan though, was the afternoon Quran studies.  A group of teachers and admin ladies would gather around every afternoon, and together they would read the Quran and talk about what they had read.  I never got to take part or listen in, as it was all in Arabic, but it felt good just to see them gathered there.  You could see it in their faces that what they were doing was important to them, and that the support of each other was feeding them in a way that eating normally never could.  After these sessions, the women always seemed more friendly, open, and kind.  Which is another added bonus of Ramadan.  Good deeds count double during this time, so they are always willing to help you and do you favors during this time.  I usually made sure that if I needed anything, I waited until the afternoon to ask about it.  I think I got better results that way.

There was a lot of discussion about Ramadan the way we discuss the commercialization of Christmas. Some people worried that Ramadan had become about the great sales at the grocery stores and malls.  Or that the more spiritual side of Ramadan - the extra prayers and studying of the Quran - that are supposed to be done to fill the hours of fasting.  Instead, most people spend this time sleeping and focus instead on the late night parties to celebrate breaking fast with friends and family.  This "lazy Ramadan" is possible in part because by Saudi law, life during Ramadan has been made as easy as possible.  Unlike Muslims in the rest of the world, who have to continue to work normal hours and be tempted by everyone else who is eating in front of them. Saudi's have reduced or sometimes even cancelled work hours, and it is illegal to be seen eating or drinking in public.  Some of the Muslims here from England claim that Ramadan here is like cheating,  it doesn't mean as much to them because it isn't the same level of sacrifice, which adds even more to the feeling that Ramadan no longer means what it used to.

The Beginning of Ramadan

Last night we went to the beach house again to celebrate the start of Ramadan.  Ramadan is a month long holiday during which Muslims fast during the daylight hours, which means giving up all temptations, not just food or water, but also tobacco and intimate relations.  It seemed to me at first like a bleak sort of holiday.  I mean, what sort of holiday can it be when there is no food and everyone is grumpy because of empty stomachs? 

In fact, most Muslims look forward to it the way we anticipate the holiday season at home.  I have figured out that this is largely because of the evening hours between the fasting.  Breaking the fast is a festive activity where they eat special carb heavy foods to get them through the day.  It is a time to be around family and friends, eat together, pray together, and celebrate the start of a new year. 

So Ramadan would be starting at approximately 3:30am, as soon as the first call to prayer was announced.  the dates of Ramadan change every year and are determined by the spotting of the moon.  Even the time of day prayers (salat) happen change daily by one or two minutes and are determined by the sun's pattern in the sky.  So if you ask, as I did repeatedly for weeks before hand... "When does Ramadan start and end?" you will never get a straight answer.  "We think, between the 28th and 29th...."  or "Probably Monday, but maybe Tuesday."  This might have driven me crazy a few months ago, but now, frankly I would be shocked to receive concrete information about anything.  

In preparation for Ramadan, the boys invited us to eat with them before they would begin fasting.  I was excited to eat anything I hadn't cooked for myself... since what I cook for myself is usually terrible.  So I didn't eat anything after coming home from work, thinking we would eat around 8pm.  But the boys were detained and didn't show up to pick us up until 10pm.  Then they bought a bunch of pre-made shish kebabs from a shop near where we live, and brought them and us to the beach house.  By the time we arrived, it was nearly 11:30pm.  I hadn't realized that I would be fasting before Ramadan even began.  I was already starving and it hadn't even been 12 hours since I had last eaten.  How would I survive Ramadan?

Every Saudi house has a grill, which is actually a small low to the ground rectangular tray which they fill with charcoals.  I wanted to help, but there didn't seem to be much to do.  Once the charcoal was poured into the tray, they lit it on fire and then we just had to wait for the coals to be hot enough.  Unfortunately, the fire kept going out.  So they lit it again.  They tried blowing on it and fanning it, which worked for a while, but would then promptly go out.  I began to suspect that this is what they make trick birthday candles out of.  Finally, one of the guys brought over an industrial strength fan - you know the kind they use to blow up kids bouncy houses - and started using that to fan the flames.  That did the trick.  Soon we had flames higher than I am coming from a  2 foot tray of charcoal a few inches deep.  Everyone cheered, but I wondered a) where did the fan come from and why did they have it, and b) were we going to be cooking the shish kebobs like hot dogs over a campfire?  I only got the answer to one of those questions.  After about ten minutes of bonfire flames, the coals were finally red hot and deemed "ready" and the fire was blown out, so that only the glowing coals remained.  It was nearly 2am and time was becoming crucial.   We laid the shish kebabs across the tray and carefully rotated them every few minutes or so. After one of the guys burnt his hand turning one of the metal sticks, I took over.   I used my headscarf as an oven mitt and carefully rotated each kebab.  The trouble was it was dark and there was a lot of smoke.  I was having a hard time figuring out if the meet was raw, just right, or completely burnt.  I kept turning them anyway, and occasionally I lifted one up and tried to see how it was doing.  There was a lot of guess work involved.  In the end, we had a few kebabs that were thrown to the kittens because they were over or under cooked.  I think they may have eaten as well as we did when it was all said and done.

At a quarter to three, we all sat down to eat.  There was plenty of bread and meat and vegetables.  We stuffed ourselves and the guys all ate as much as they could.  Their eyes were darting back and forth between the food and the clock in a race to finish before the first prayer.  Luckily everyone was more or less completely stuffed by ten after, and we settled onto the couches to enjoy that post thanksgiving feel.  The guys were passing a huge bottle of water between them drinking as much as they could.  At about ten minutes to the first prayer, the guys started chain smoking cigarettes, trying to get every last puff in before the sound of the call to prayer would make sure nothing passed their lips between now and tomorrow (today) at about 7pm.

While we all sat watching the clock and straining for the sounds of the call to prayer, the guys tried to explain to me what all this meant.  They told me about a good angel and a bad angel on each of their shoulders, and they explained that everything, every single act, good or bad, was always written down in the books the angels kept.  They explained that on judgement day, these acts would be weighed against each other and determine your fate.  They explained that during Ramadan, good deeds counted double.  Bad deeds were still just bad deeds, and each bad deed was worth the same as any other bad deed.  I asked if that meant that murdering someone was worth the same amount of negative points as cheating on a test at school.  Well, yes, technically, they said.  I asked if bad deeds counted double too during Ramadan, and they said, not exactly, but it would be really really bad to do anything unholy during Ramadan.  It seemed like a pretty good system to me.  I could rob a bank, but so long as I helped an old lady cross the street while making my get away, I was even steven.  Unless it was during Ramadan, in which case, I would come out ahead since helping the old lady would count twice.  It seemed hard to imagine how anyone could come out bad deed heavy with such a system.  I didn't mention these thoughts to the guys though, because they had already moved on to talking about the other requirements of Ramadan, which involved praying more than the normal five times a day, and reading the Quran a lot.

The closer we got to prayer time, the more giddy the guys got.  It was almost like they were waiting to open presents on Christmas morning.  They seemed very happy and excited, even as they frantically swigged water and puffed away at cigarettes.  Finally we heard it, faint at first because the nearest mosque was far away, but then the cell phones, which come pre-equiped here with an islamic app that announces prayer times automatically (among other useful features, like GPS to the nearest mosque and a searchable Quran both audio and text) started to go off and Ramadan had officially begun.  Cigarettes were extinguished and water bottles closed.  While the guys did their prayers under the earliest signs of a lightening sky, the girls and I cleaned up the mess from dinner and started preparing to leave.

I was extra sad to leave the beach house this time, knowing I was unlikely to see it again for a month or ever (you never really know with these guys).  Starting tonight, people would be breaking fasts together with their families, and then rotating homes each night to celebrate the end of a days fasting with friends and neighbors in turn.  It's a month of basically non-stop visiting, that never starts until after seven and doesn't finish until 3 in the morning.  But for me, it would be a month like any other. And today would just be another day like any other, except, I realized as the sky faded to a soft blue in front of me, that today would be a day with no sleep.  I would have to get on the bus to go to work pretty much as soon as I got home.  I guess I've done my part in giving up something tempting for the start of Ramadan.  So long cozy sheets....

Neverending End of Year Parties

One thing Saudi's are good at is throwing parties.  Last week, the men were treated to a nice dinner by their Dean to celebrate the end of the year.  They got on the bus rubbing their full bellies and bragging about how nice it was.  On the women's side we had a regular work day.  We were so jealous.  I wouldn't have been if I had known how many end of year parties were in store for me in the next few weeks.

We decided that it wasn't right that the men had a party and we didn't.  So we arranged to throw our own party.  We decided we would have a potluck and invite all the women from the other campuses to join us.  We originally scheduled this potluck for Thursday.  Unfortunately, we didn't know that our Dean, not to be outdone by the men's Dean, was also planning to have an end of year party for us, also on Thursday.  So we changed our potluck to Wednesday.  No sooner had it been rescheduled for Wednesday that we had to change it to the following week because there was a chance we might have to proctor exams all day that day.

Luckily, there was no proctoring, but we did end up having a party afterall.  Two of the administration ladies were leaving (one was moving, the other taking maternity leave) so we had a going away party for them.  It was just the women in the English Department, so it wasn't a lot of people, but there was brownies and ice cream.  It was the most delicious thing I have ever tasted.  Of course, I have had brownies and ice cream before, many times.  But it has never been quiet so delicious as it was that day.  I don't know if it was especially good ice cream and brownies, or if it just tasted better because I hadn't had anything that sweet in three months.

The next day we had another party.  This party was from the Dean.  She wanted to treat us all for the hard work we had been doing and also to tell us that she was leaving and we would have a new dean for next year.  She got very emotional and cried a lot.  Her English isn't great, so she was speaking through an interpreter, who was also crying, and so I really didn't catch much of what she was saying.  I didn't get much of the food either since I waited to go at the end and by the time I had made my way through the buffet line, most of the meat and all the samosas were gone.  But there was plenty of rice left, and luckily, I like rice.

Potluck spread of my student's Recipies

I thought two parties in one week was pretty great, but the following week we had four parties!  We had rescheduled our staff party to Tuesday at noon, but then had to change it to Tuesday at 10am so the women at the other campuses could be back in time for their afternoon classes.  Then, at the last minute we had to move it back to noon because, well, i'm not really sure, I stopped trying to keep up with all the changes. I decided I would just show up whenever the food did.  This would have worked out well, if it wasn't a potluck.  I had forgotten to bring a dish with me, and so if I was waiting for the food to show up to start the party, I would be waiting a long time.  Luckily, it just so happened that my students' recipe projects were due that day, and some of the students had done the extra credit and brought in the recipe they wrote about for us to try.  Even more fortunately, there were a lot of leftovers that the student's insisted I take with me.  Wallah, instant potluck.  I was a hero that day.  I brought two salads, a tray full of cookies and two kinds of desserts.  Everyone was so impressed.  If only I could have gotten away with pretending I had made it all, but the students came back in the afternoon to collect their dishes, so I was busted.

Ramadan Spread... Delicious!

Wednesday was the last day of summer school classes, so the students in one of the classes got together for a project and threw a little party for us.  This party was a sort of pre-Ramadan party where we learned a lot about Ramadan.  There were a lot of sweets and dishes designed to fill you up like oatmeals and potato dishes, so that when you eat them you can go all day and not get hungry.  The girls dressed up in traditional costumes and wore chains of gold coins on their heads.  There was a lot of music and dancing, which was confusing since we have been told all along music is haram.  They even sang a couple of chants that the kids traditionally say about halfway through Ramadan, where they go from door to door at night asking for candy.  It's like trick or treating, but without costumes.  It was a nice party, but they kept insisting that I dance with them, which I was horrible at, and felt really strange doing, since technically it was illegal.

Arabic Coffee & Cookies

 I also had to drink like 8 cups of Arabic coffee because each student gave me one thinking that no one else had given me one yet.  Arabic coffee is actually not like coffee at all.  The best way to describe it would be to call it hot spice water.  They put cardamom and other spices in water with no sugar (probably because the arabic cookies they bring you to eat with it are too sweet otherwise).  It's not great the first time around, and by the fifth cup, I was practically gagging.  But the deliciousness of these fried cheese balls someone had made more than made up for it.    I also got a rose from one of my students, and a bracelet that says "KSA" from another student.  I have to admit, I felt a little like a rock star.  Everone, even students that were never in my class, wanted to take their picture with me.  Of course, when I wanted to take a picture with them, they said no because they were afraid I might put it on the internet somewhere or accidentally show it to a guy or something.  Funny, they didn't think it was an issue for me everytime they came over to get a "selfie, teacher, selfie!"  Some of them even had this telescoping device that allows them to hold the camera phone far away before it clicks.  It's like a tripod, but only one leg.  It's really strange.

Bag of Ramadan Trick-o-treat Candy

So party number three was on Thursday morning.  This was another pre-Ramadan party, only this time it was all the summer school students and teachers, instead of just one class.  They had moved all the rugs from all the little corner mosques on each floor of the building and spread them out in this one open area.  They moved all the airport benches into a u-shape and added a lot of leaning pillows.  They hung lanterns on all of the walls and suddenly we weren't in Jeoffrey's cafe anymore, it was like being inside an Arabian tent.  There was more music and more dancing, and more Arabic coffee.  Thankfully, this time, I only had to drink one cup because I had an excuse.  I was substituting for one of the other teachers, so I got to leave early to go to the other building and teach.  By the time I came back, the party was over, but another one was just beginning.

The University was having an official closing ceremony complete with certificates.  To get the teachers to come, they promised us a big buffet meal afterwards.  Since this was for the entire women's campus and not just the English Department, we met in a really large theater room.   I was a little late arriving because I had come straight from teaching, but I needn't have worried about missing anything, they hadn't started yet.  To buy some time, they sent the cleaning ladies around with trays of sweets and, of course, more arabian coffee.   I have to say, by now I had had so much of it, I was starting to like it.  Either that or the sweets were so sweet that I desperately needed anything to wash them down with.  The ceremony opened, as academic ceremonies are want to do, with a trivia game about islam in Arabic.  In fact, the whole ceremony was in Arabic.  We watched an incredibly long video with pictures of events and projects that had happened during the year, which was torture because there was no music and all of the pictures were of inanimate objects, and not even particularly good.  Imagine sitting through someone's vacation photos, if say, they had gone on vacation to a conference room with no one else, and you couldn't understand anything they told you that might have illuminated the importance of, say, the chair with a pepsi can on it.

I was really relieved when the video was over until, I figured out what the next part of the ceremony was.  The names.  So we sat while about 150 names were read, and waited while each woman got up, walked to the stage, collected her certificate, and sat back down.    It took a long, long, long, time.  The English department were the last to receive their certificates.  Listening for our names was a special challenge because the woman reading off the names had never met any of us and wasn't particularly adept at English.  My name was "G-Knee-Fire Kul-ee"  and when I got my certificate, I could understand why she had had such a hard time, since my name was spelled "Jeniiferr Keli"  My name wasn't the only one misspelled.  In fact, not a single name was spelled correctly.  Clearly someone had given them our names in Arabic, and someone had transliterated them back into English.  A lot was lost in translation.  The certificate thanked me for all my hard work throughout the 2013-2014 school "yeer" even though I had actually worked for maybe only 10 days of the official school year.  They also confused the words "academic" and "academy"  It's good to know that no one in the admin department thought to double check the English with say, anyone who worked in the English Department. Still, it is the thought that counts, and a good reminder of why they need us here doing this job in the first place.

Finally, everyone had gotten their certificates and it was time to eat!  But not before they made us all gather for a group picture of the English department.  It was chaos trying to organize it.  Some people walked off to talk on their phones, other people were refusing to stand next to other people, or trying to stand next to the new dean, or trying to stand behind someone so they wouldn't look fat.  Some were trying to hand over their phones to someone to take a picture with their cameras too.  Others were trying to cover their heads or sneak out of the picture altogether.  At no point during the nearly 5 minutes of camera and phone flashes were all of us ever looking in the same direction at the same time, let alone smiling. It was a mess.

By the time we made it to the buffet line, we were nearly last.  Five minutes after standing in line, we were definitely last.  Somehow, the Saudi teachers who were behind us in line, had made their way to the front of the line.  This is the thing about lines here... they do not exist.  I still haven't quite gotten my head around that, so it usually takes me twice as long as everyone else to check out at the grocery store, and in buffet lines, I just can't win.  After ten minutes of waiting in line, the word came that there were no more plates left.  I happened to spot a stack of plates on the opposite end of the buffet by the desserts.  I decided I would be a hero.  I pushed and shoved my way through the line to cross the room and get the plates.  I grabbed a huge stack full and made my way back into the thick of the line.  Here is the thing; I'm obviously struggling with a large stack of plates.  There are no plates left for you to grab.  Still, the Saudi women would not let me through.  I didn't know how much clearer I could make it that I was trying to help them.  They obviously couldn't progress through the buffet without the much needed plates, and yet, they were very very reluctant to let me through to set down the plates.  Were they that concerned with their place in the non-existent line?  I have no idea.  I made three trips with stacks of plates and it never got any easier.  When I had moved all the dishes, one of them asked me for napkins.  Thats when I gave up and rejoined my fellow English teachers at the back of the line.  Let them find their own napkins.  We watched plate after plate leave the buffet, stacked like volcanoes of rice with shrimp and chicken exploding out of them.  After the fifth or sixth such plate, I was literally drooling.  By the time we got to the front, we had to share plates, because there were only a few left.  Which turned out to be fine because there wasn't much food left anyway.  We had some rice and there was a bit of hummus left, and I took the bones of what might have been a small lamb to try to scrape off any meat that might have escaped the vultures, but that was about all.  Even the desserts had been picked clean.  I guess that is what I get for trying to be the nice guy.  I'm sure glad I sat through that whole thing for those few mouthfuls of rice.

In a way, it was a fitting end to a week of year-end parties.  A cosmic sign that I'd had more than my share of parties already, or no one should have this much fun or food at work, or something.