Al Farabi, Once Again

Now that the GCF was over, there was no need for me to be at the SAGIA offices.   But my boss was still worried about my return to our offices, just in case immigration wanted to pass by.  So instead of going into work Thursday morning, I went to the SAGIA offices.

Amazingly, Dr. Salem was in.  I went to see him.  I asked him why they were asking me for money for the transfer when I had already paid.  He told me Suleiman needed the 30,000 riyals because that is what he had paid to bring me from America.  I explained to him that Suleiman paid nothing to bring me from America, and that in fact, Suleiman had nothing to do with anything since I had never worked for Suleiman at all, but only for Education Experts and Al Farabi.  He shrugged and told me I would have to work it out with Suleiman.  I asked him if Suleiman would make him pay the money if I simply left on final exit.  He told me, no, they wouldn't pay him anything either way.  I asked him how that seemed fair, since either way, they wouldn't have a teacher.  He just shrugged again.  He told me they would be happy to give me the final exit and my ticket home.  I told him I also wanted my 5,650 SAR back that I had paid to be able to transfer.  He said he would see what he could do but didn't think I would get that back.  I asked him why he didn't just transfer me and be done with it, but not tell Suleiman about it.  Suleiman would never know.  He told me he couldn't do that because he was a man of his word.  I told him that obviously he wasn't because he told me I could transfer and now he was saying that I couldn't.  Not the most tactful approach, I'll admit, but I had really just about had it with Suleiman.   He told me again that I would have to take it up with Suleiman.  I thanked him for his time, and left.

We went back upstairs to HR to arrange the final exit and the checks.  They agreed that they would give me back 2,000 of the 5,650, and of course, to pay me for the additional hours I had since worked in the evening teaching.  I waited about 30 minutes for them to process my checks, and while I was waiting, my bald friend told me I should make a case at the ministry of labor to try to get all of the 5,650 SAR back instead of just 2,000.  He also told me that once they issued the final exit, I would be in danger of not having time to make the case at the labor office, because technically, if they wanted to be really mean, they could send my case to deportation immediately and they would find me and send me off on the next plane.  This seemed fantastical, but I did take his advice on making a case with the labor office.  After all, even if I didn't win, it would at least buy me time.  When it became clear that they wouldn't be able to process my checks that day, I told him I would be back on Sunday to collect my money, and left to make a case at the Ministry of Labor.

Luckily, a friend who had driven me to Al Farabi, was kind enough to drive me to the Ministry of Labor and give me translation help so I could fill out the necessary forms in Arabic.  Since this was my second trip to the Ministry of Labor, I was pretty used to the system and it was relatively painless. I knew where the women's section was now and only had to go back out once to the men's side to have my friend help me translate an additional piece of paperwork.  The whole thing only took about an hour.  The ladies inside were friendly and sympathetic.  Unfortunately, it didn't buy me as much time as I had hoped it would. Usually, they don't schedule an appointment with a Ministry of Labor mediator for several weeks, but this time they made an appointment for a week from today.  Maybe there aren't as many cases for women, or maybe they aren't that busy this time of year.  Either way, it was sooner than I hoped, but it still bought me a week.

We will see what happens next.

Starting at the Institute

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.