This is the END!! Good-Byee to KSA!

Saturday 20th February 2010
Let's start with a quotation today - “It's weird...you know the end of something great is coming, but you want to hold on, just for one more second … just so it can hurt a little more." (author unknown). To qualify this a little, let's say that the meaning of “great” that is best here is “large and/or imposing”.

I think this sums up a large part of how I feel today, Saturday 20th February 2010 – the day on which (at around 2am tomorrow morning) my plane will leave the ground and take me out of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the last time.

So … this is IT!

The day I have waited for, the day I have needed to come for ohh so long now.

At around 9pm tonight the transportation boys will come and take me, my two large cases and backpack to Dammam Airport, will then drop me off, probably shake hands and then say goodbyes.

What about THAT! I will be saying goodbye to people I have never met before and THESE people will be the last people from within the walls of this compound that will see me off back to the UK. An anonymous farewell!

Appropriate in a way I suppose, and maybe it is better this way. I arrived anonymous back in mid-March 2009 and I will leave that way too. And I am not one for long goodbyes. Keep em short and sweet otherwise they will never end and you will feel you can't break away after all.

And after all, I AM returning to anonymity since I will be starting again sometime, I suppose, in autumn 2010 in, quite possibly, a new country, new life and new experiences to come. Anonymity will follow me from Dammam Airport right up to wherever I happen to end up.

“Even though its anonymous, it's still ominous,” - Daniel Solove, a professor of law at George Washington University Law School, USA said once. He is, you can note, not a well-known person and yet he makes an excellent point on this topic. Being anonymous is NOT such a great thing since as well as being alone, you have nobody who knows what you can do or what you are capable of. When I get back to London early next morning, that is as good as it will be. Yes, I know a few people by sight around where my mother lives but it is not a place I am in regularly. Few people, I can be sure, know who I am and know where I have been this last year, and why should they even CARE about it? Well, no reason of course. I will not be around there long enough for it to matter and I definitely have no plans to return to live and work in London or indeed ANY part of the UK. It WILL be another overseas “adventure”, though DEFINITELY not as far as Saudi Arabia again. I'll be keeping to mainland Europe thank you very much!

Catherine Deneuve, famous French actress, said once, “I like being famous when it's convenient for me and completely anonymous when it's not”. In my line of work, English teaching, being “famous” refers to the classroom and to the students who know you and know what you do there. Yes, you may also meet and socialise with them outside, but when you step outside your classroom and your place of work and move on to another place, you really ARE the second of those. Perhaps American actress, Alison Lohman said it better - “Obviously you don't want to be anonymous, but you don't want everyone to know your life. ”

What, I ask myself, have I actually achieved this year in the desert? Have I advanced and/or developed as a person, as a human being? Am I a better person than I was one year ago?

And what IS success or failure anyway?? I'm sure I don't know, but Bill Cosby, famous American actor said, "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody". Well, I don't try and do THAT – as a teacher it is as good as impossible ESPECIALLY when your class is 30 students in number as it was at the end. And I did not try to please them all anyway. Teaching does not have to ”please” people to help them learn. Thee are those who enjoy what you do and those who are 50-50 and those who do not. For the first of those groups you can say you HAVE achieved success, for the middle group it is “could be better”, and the last group probably gave up on the whole learning thing long ago anyway. There ARE those in TEFL circles who say you SHOULD be able to involve and inspire EVERY learner in your classroom. And theory is a wonderful thing, isn't it?

Ach anyway – today is the day I cease to be a teacher and return to being a “nobody” as far as job status goes. That will not last long and I am sure I will be back in the swing of things come September 2010 or earlier.

Beginnings … they are always hard and this is one thing that REALLY bugs me about this job I do. We, as TEFL teachers are always moving on, always saying goodbye, never in one place for long enough to call it “home”. Whereas some years ago this did not matter much, it is something now that REALLY unsettles me. I don't like endings and I ESPECIALLY don't like new beginnings with all that there is as far as re-establishing yourself in the English language learning community I find myself in. Oh yes, there are many positives too – you get to meet a whole lot of new people and there are new experiences a-plenty. And that is a GOOD thing, a VERY good thing!


"The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy." - so said English novelist and playwright, John Galsworthy. Ohh, how right he was! When he says “untidy”, perhaps he means more emotionally so than in any other way because that is the hardest thing especially if the “endings” are done in a hurry or earlier than you'd like. That was how it was when moving on from my previous teaching job in Krakow, Poland to here in Saudi Arabia.

I do look back and wonder what would have been if I HAD stayed there after all. One thing IS for sure – I would STILL be in the financial problem area that existed back then. Nothing HUGE you understand, but big enough to be a burden that would have NOT gone away if I'd not come here. So for THAT, I AM glad I came to this country. I had a problem, and now that problem is solved leaving me a nice “breathing space” and room to move again.

But of course, money is not the whole of life and nor is work. What about THIS quote from Jim Rohn, American entrepreneur - “Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time”. VERY much applies to me here. Yes, I have had the benefit of the money, but I feel MORE that time has been lost and that a year of my life has drifted by without achieving anything else. One of the reasons why I would not stay here any longer – I am simply NOT prepared to put my life on hold life this just for the sake of an enhanced bank balance. No, I am not old, but I am not so young either and there is more I want to do than just EARN.


OK, I have just come back after lunch. The LAST lunchtime, of course, that I will spend in that hospital canteen / cafeteria. Today I had the beef with lots of cucumber slices, tomato slices and green pepper slices on top. And a couple of bottles of that nice Danone yoghurt-milk drink (not, NOT laban this time).

So … back to my “Leaving Speech”. Well, as I was saying before lunch, I am glad that I will be returning to what I am “used to”. This is not the same thing as “home” for THAT is another thing whose definition is hard to put my finger on.

Home is, as many people say, where the heart is. Or it is “wherever I lay my hat”, or other such things. German author and poet, Christian Morganstern, said, “Home is not where you live, but where they understand you”. And THAT is a tricky one to pinpoint. One thing is for sure though – with THAT definition of 'home', I KNOW it is not HERE in this country and could NEVER BE! Trouble is, WHERE IS IT? I also do not think my 'home' these days is back in the UK since I have been away from it as a regular resident since 1995 now and both it and I have changed much and, I often feel, grown apart. So that leaves Poland which HAS been my home and workplace for just about all of these fifteen years. However, there are even problems THERE these days (but those are not the subject of this blog). So being “released” from here does not necessarily mean I am going “home” but just back to somewhere more familiar. Lois McMaster Bujold, an American sci-fi and fantasy author said about home, “My home is not a place, it is people.” and I have to agree with her. In England are parents and in London my son, and they ARE people I want to be with, but in addition there are those there I do NOT wish to be with. In Poland there is the house, but again I am not sure about the people who live around it. Doesn't leave much, does it?

Yeah, a complex thing is “home”. But not half as complex as WORK. Ohh, check out this BRILLIANT quote from William Faulkner, Nobel-Prize winning American author - “It's a shame that the only thing a man can do for eight hours a day is work. He can't eat for eight hours; he can't drink for eight hours; he can't make love for eight hours. The only thing a man can do for eight hours is work”. I just LOVE that! Well, I've known a good few men who actually COULD drink for eight hours in a day, and perhaps there are some people out HERE who could eat for that long. But the idea of it is GREAT! Just how DO we endure this thing called “work” for so long every day? Well, “Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction”, so said Anne Frank, that famous WW2 diarist.

Yes, she is right – work SHOULD be satisfying or else why do it? And I DO find teaching, on the whole, a very satisfying job to do because when you work with PEOPLE as opposed to machines, you see HUMAN reward and not just an error-free run. And after all, “Nothing will work unless you do”, according to Maya Angelou, American writer and poet.

As enjoyable as teaching is, it IS only work and it is NOT life. “The man who does not work for the love of work but only for money is not likely to make money nor find much fun in life”, so said Charles Schwab, leading American businessman. Well, I do not have the wealth that HE does and never will, so in a way this is a rather ironic quote from such a wealthy man. But taken in isolation, it makes a very good point.

I asked the question earlier – how has being out here for the year helped me in my working life? I mean, from a career point of view and/or for what it does to my CV. Well, at the start of the year I thought it would serve me very WELL being out here in a different work environment teaching a different type of student for a while. Would look really GOOD on my CV, I thought, for any future employer to see that I Had been out here.

Now I am not so sure. I have seen the type of teachers who come out here, and of course I know only too WELL the type of students here and, sadly, the kind of institution they come to for their learning. While it will be, no doubt, a nice talking point on my CV for any future workplace, I really don't know what being here has added to my skills and knowledge “tool bag”. Was I able to try out new ideas? Not really. Did I do something different here that I hadn't done before? Well, YES I did actually – I had to make up a whole 18-week English course as I went along with the soldier boys since there was no credible coursebook and certainly NO resource materials I could refer to. All I had was my colleague, the DutchBrit who was doing HIS class in a similar way and the few “hints and tips” given along the way every now and then by other teaching colleagues who took an interest. And then, as we ALL KNOW, it was all for NOTHING at the end so whether ANY of it was of ANY VALUE at ALL is debatable.

What I fear is the reputation of places like this being a kind of “teachers' graveyard” - the place all good teachers go to when nobody else will take them on. Well, don't be so cynical now! I am, at age 42, the YOUNGEST of the teachers in the English department. What does THAT say?? Exactly! I think you see my point. The others have been here for MANY more years and they seem content or happy to continue here. Do they actually LIKE it here? I think with them it is not a question of liking the job or not but more a case that it is EASIER to stay than to go.

Yes, if you are able to keep your head down, if you can shut off the absurdity of it all, if you can just come in, do the job and go home without troubling your conscience, then for SURE you can make it out here. Everyone needs a Survival Strategy here, and you have to develop one. For one colleague, it is to always be planning and thinking about his next holiday. It works for him, but in my opinion is NO WAY to live your life! A couple of other older colleagues have only a year or two to retirement age so they are content to stick it out till then because, for them, it “isn't that long” to go. Well, what's a couple of years when you're in your 60's, eh!

But there ARE stories of teachers who have NOT bee able to cope. The most famous of these (true or not I don't know) is the story of one guy who totally FLIPPED one day, chopped up all the furniture in his room with an axe or something and then, so the story goes, ran out and ran down the road totally NAKED! And I mentioned the guy who TWICE ran away down the Causeway to Bahrain only to be “lured back” as his skills and knowledge were in need. There is also a story about a teacher not long ago, in his late 60's I think, who HATED the students so much that he got into a shouting and swearing fit one day in class with them. Unfortunately for him, one student recorded the whole thing on his mobile phone and he was dismissed from the job shortly afterwards. And there are odd little stories you hear of minor things that didn't actually get a teacher sacked but COULD have caused him more trouble had he been staying longer. AmericanMan himself somehow was lured into doing some kind of “mock prayer” in the classroom and THAT got reported. Ahh, and what about the teacher I referred to before as “pervert man” who, for some reason did a kind of dance in front of the class and – yes, somebody videoed him on their mobile phone and it was reported to the bosses upstairs!

Make no mistake – you HAVE to have your wits about you here at all times. If you let your guard slip, and say or do something that you SHOUDLN'T, then just HOPE nobody dislikes you enough to make a big deal of it! I myself let a few unguarded comments out at times only to realise what I'd said too late. Luckily nothing came of them as far as I know.

Whatever anyone else may say, it IS a hard place to live and it IS a hard place to work. If, as a teacher, you have any principles on HOW teaching should be and WHAT you should do in class and not do, then FORGET IT! Working here is unlike ANY OTHER teaching experience you will ever be in! OK, it is not ALL doom and gloom, and along the way you WILL have successes and some high points. But they will be few and far between and, in any case, there will be so much SHIT in between that you will hardly notice them. In my case, the first half of my time here was a complete NIGHTMARE and the second half MUCH better though still with many frustrations and annoyances. Thankfully that second half WAS a great improvement on the first, but by the time it arrived I had had MORE than enough and the Exit Plan was already in mind. The soldier boy experience was SO BAD that I even considered for a moment NOT coming back at ALL. But I realised that if I did THAT, then it would leave a BIG hole in the CV which would need explaining for years to come. And I would not have the money benefit that I HAVE had. Endurance was the key there.

“Come what may, all bad fortune is to be conquered by endurance”, Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil), a classical Roman poet said many, many years ago.

Well, I think I have done that! So … what is next?

Oh I forgot to Tell You! Check THIS out ...

Friday 19th February 2010
Now then – there are one or two things I'd like to put in this blog today. And these are things that, for some reason or other, I forgot to put in earlier editions. Call it forgetfulness, call it what you like but anyway HERE are a few things that, on this penultimate day here in Saudi Arabia, I REALLY should put down in writing.

The first of these will make you laugh. Well, I wasn't laughing too much MYSELF at the time, but if you had witnessed it as my DutchBrit colleague did then it is not something you can forget.

It involves a drink they call here “laban”. And what IS this, “laban”, I hear you ask. Well it is basically a soured yoghurt-milk drink. Do you know what the “Activia” yoghurt-milk drink is? Well, laban is a bit like that. You don't pour it on your cereal and you certainly DON'T put it in your cup of tea or coffee. It is for drinking only. I suppose there could be fruity versions if you don't like the taste of the stuff on its own. Oh, and it comes in rather small bottles. The basic recipe is surprisingly basic and you can see it here http://www.answers.com/topic/laban-drink

I had never tried it much before here, but now I really like it. But there is something to know about it – the way to open it. What you need to do is (1) give the bottle a shake, (2) unscrew the lid, and (3) peel off the silver foil lid. (1), (2) and (3) in THAT order – got it?

Now you're scratching your head and wondering what on earth I'm doing reminding you of something you may never have had in your life. Well, it was on this day, shortly before the summer holidays last year, when I myself got the sequence hopelessly wrong with disastrous and comical results.

How or why I did it I will never know. There I was. It was just after lunchtime and always at lunchtime in the hospital cafeteria I got two bottles of laban – one for lunchtime itself and the second one for later. I had this second bottle now.

I had to prepare a bit because I had this summer course class to do one lesson for. It wasn't originally my class, but the teacher who WAS supposed to do it had wimped off with the pathetic excuse of having a stomach bug through some dodgy meal last night out on the town. Total rubbish if you ask me – he just couldn't be bothered to do this class today. So I was sitting at my desk thinking what to do and shuffling a few papers round getting things together. Hmm, I thought, let's have that laban now. So I got it, shook the bottle, unscrewed the lid and peeled off the foil lid.

Then for some reason I put that bottle down on the desk to my right without drinking it. Perhaps I'd had a flash of inspiration or got distracted or something – I don't remember. And then in another moment later I decided I wanted to drink it. I picked up the bottle and gave it a GOOD SHAKE.

NO LID!! The stuff went ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE – mostly all over me. Ohh, it was all over my glasses and face and I had well-splattered myself all down my grey shirt. Some had gone on my bag and some on the floor and some splats had even gone behind me and onto the floor behind me!!

Oh My GOD, I thought, and sat there for a moment. What the HELL did I just do? There was laughter from behind me, and the DutchBrit who was acting Head of Department during that summer period had seen it all. He had looked up JUST at the very moment I had shaken this stuff all over myself.

SHIT! I had this lesson in about 20 minutes time! Had to try clean myself up. I had tissues from somewhere and began the mopping-up process. Cleaned face and glasses first. Didn't bother about the floor. Dabbed the splats off my bag. Some laban had splatted over some grammar books and resource material folders that were open on my desk and so I made sure to clean those up too. Hoped it wouldn't end up too sticky.

Now to my shirt. It was THIS that had suffered the most, and the shirt in question was NOT a cotton shirt which was easily cleanable. Even when I tried to wipe up and soak up the blobs and splats of laban with copious amounts of tissue, the fatty stains were STILL THERE.

I was not doing well. Time was ticking away to the start of the lesson upstairs. Would I be able to go up there and stand there with a shirt with laban splat marks all over it. Well, the whiteness of the laban had gone but the dark marks were all over me. I did not much know what to do.

Well, I had to go do the lesson. The department secretary suggested I go borrow a jacket to cover this. It was either this or send the other available colleague up in my place. First I thought THAT was what I had to do, and he didn't look pleased.

Then he suggested I borrow his denim shirt-jacket. YES! I was SAVED! It just about fitted me, so on it went and I collected my pens, books and papers and up to the lesson I went. The shirt was covered up and I was REPRIEVED!

The students asked me why I was wearing this jacket and I did tell them. Not sure if they understood.

Now I make GOOD SURE that when I SHAKE a bottle of ANYTHING that I have one finger over the lid JUST IN CASE …

OK, that is the first thing to tell you. The second thing happened, I think, just before Christmas. Or maybe just after – I don't remember for sure, but it was when I had to go down to the Rashid Mall once again to the boys at Mobily to pay for another internet month (or maybe to pay AGAIN cos I'd run out or something).

I suppose I'd finished in Mobily because I was upstairs in the coffee bar I always go to there. It is called, “Seattle's Best”, in the Rashid Mall by the way. Nice coffee and I used to enjoy the caramel cakes till they stopped having them. Anyway, they have nice coffee and some nice and VERY comfortable chairs in the corner which are PERFECT for lazing around in for a while.

Prayer time came around. What normally happens during prayer times here is that you cannot buy anything but they don't normally insist you get out. You CAN stay sitting there. So although nobody is there working and serving customers, if you are already INSIDE, you can STAY INSIDE. If you want to leave, you can also do so or in shops and supermarkets you have to wait until they open up again, ie, a lock-in situation. It varies slightly from place to place but this is generally the way here.

Anyway, prayer time was here, the usual wailing sounds of the Call To Prayer filled the shopping mall and the lights went off in this coffee bar. I remained sitting there as I always do as did a number of other Saudis. I was sitting in the back of the coffee bar but there were many Saudis sitting together talking and drinking in the chairs at the front.

As I was sitting there minding my own business and watching people go by, I saw one or two Saudi policemen going by. Funny, I thought, what are THEY doing here?

Now, I had heard that in Rashid Mall there ARE often 'muttawah' who roam around at prayer times making sure places are closed and that Muslims get off their behinds and get IN to the mosques and PRAY! Yes, shock, horror, probe! Even HERE they do not RUSH into the mosque at the moment of the Call! I do not know how it works at prayer times – maybe they do not have to go EXACTLY at Prayer Time moment but can go a little while later. Well, you do not EVER see them rushing en-masse to the mosques so maybe there is some 'leeway' involved. But they DO have to go sometime though it can be a matter of group or peer pressure at times.

So there were policemen going around which I thought strange. And then to my right and outside the coffee bar a red-checked “ghutra” wearing man came by. He didn't have a particularly long beard. He stopped by the first two Saudis sitting there, spoke to them a bit and then they got up to go. He then moved on down to the second table and spoke to the second lot of Saudis there. THAT discussion proved to be longer and they needed much more “persuasion” but eventually then went too.

So only I was left it seemed – sitting there, lights out drinking my coffee and wondering what was to happen next. And then at the entrance to this coffee bar I saw a policeman come and stand there looking in my direction. I did not catch his eye though I knew he was there and I did not move either. And then the muttawah man came in.

Now, I have heard much of these muttawah and how nasty they are. There are stories galore online about them in years gone by of how they go about with their bamboo canes beating women in the streets for showing “too much”. Our HoD told a story once of a time 30 years ago (I think he said) when an American couple he knew were out and about in town in the marketplace somewhere and how, at prayer time, they had been chased out by a mutawah who followed them whipping their heels with his bamboo cane as they went.

So there I am sitting there and in comes the mutawah. “Hello, how are you?”, he started. “What nationality are you?”, to which I replied I was an Englishman. He then went on to explain that at prayer times people are not permitted to sit in or wait in coffee bars or shops because that was “the Saudi culture”.

Well, obviously he wanted me to leave, and so I duly went out with my unfinished coffee and went to sit on the benches outside the coffee bar to drink up. Another mutawah man was still arguing with one more Saudi pair who were still sitting inside. Eventually they DID leave and I saw their rather sheepish faces as they came out “defeated”.

“In days gone by you'd have had a bamboo cane in your face!”, I was told later back at college by more knowledgeable colleagues. Well, I was quite glad of that!

So what and who are the mutawah? Well, basically they are the “religious police” here. Officially they are the “Department of Vice and Virtue ” and so their task is to make sure people are “doing the right thing” I suppose.

They are not “police” as such and do not have the power of arrest by themselves. This is why they always go around WITH the Saudi police. But here's the thing – the police are only necessary for FOREIGNERS because the Saudis themselves treat them with great respect. And the fact that FIRST they clear out the Saudis, then they go away and come BACK with the police for the foreigners just shows you what little they can do.

As I said, they used to be REALLY nasty pieces of work. But recently, I am told, they have been told that they have to “be nice to people”. Maybe the Saudi hierarchy are aware that their reputation is not a good one and want to do something about it. Or maybe, more truthfully, the days of the mutawah are numbered in Saudi Arabia.

I do not think they have mutawah in other Arab countries though I may be wrong. On this website http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Mutawa they define mutawah as those whose job it is to keep people to a “strict code of conduct” which, of course, means in accordance with Islamic law.

However – here's a strange thing – in the soldier boy class days, they used the word 'mutawah' in a different way. One man in the other military class was termed a 'mutawah' although clearly he was not one though did have some kind of authoritative presence. And indeed, one way to describe another DIFFERENT student was to call HIM a 'mutawah' because he was bearded (though not a long beard at all!). So perhaps the term, “muttawah”, means something along the lines of “the pure one” since it is definitely encouraged for Muslims to grow beards. Some kind of sign of 'manliness' I think.

So THAT was my one and only encounter with mutawa in Saudi Arabia. Well, you see around many long straggly-bearded men who may or may not be genuine mutawah. Around the compound there WERE some once, and on that day the hospital cafeteria cash tills “magically” had signs directing men to Till A and women to Till B. But the signs disappeared a few days later.

Their strictness has been tempered these days. It may turn out to be, in many MANY years in the future, that there will NOT BE mutawah in this country any more. Or maybe only in the bigger cities like Riyadh or Jeddah. What authority do they have these days? Well, THAT is unclear, though what IS clear is that they are not what they used to be. And that is ONLY a good thing!

OK, that's the end of that. Well, I just wanted to tell you about those two incidents. Two things I felt could NOT be left out of the blog since they are important.

Oh, one more thing on the mutawah day. I came of the Rashid Mall with my shopping to the place where I normally wait for the taxi. And something new HERE! The POLICE were here! Yes, a police car drew up and shooed away all the taxis that were waiting there. Well, strictly speaking that spot is not for taxis or, indeed, for ANY cars to be waiting in. I was a little nervous that I wouldn't be able to take my taxi or that I would be reprimanded for waiting here for a taxi or even that the taxi driver would have problems. Ah, but LUCKILY as my taxi came, the police were a little way further up hassling a taxi driver there. So I quickly got in and we drove off before they could see us!

Two things in ONE DAY I'd not seen before – mutawah AND police!

Procedure Procedure this is your Exit Time

Tuesday 16th February 2010
PHEW!! That was an ANGRY ending to yesterday's blog post. And quite right too since it REALLY did get to me and doesn't matter if last day or not it is still just WRONG what they are allowed to get away with. But I'll say no more now cos I think you got the picture.

Ahh onto more peaceful things. Ohh, and how could I NOT mention up until now the nice “goodbye” food made for us by “the ladies” of our department. They are so good at doing that kind of thing, and they excelled themselves last Tuesday morning when it was laid on. Well, we had already been told to be in the office for 11am as there was this happening.

I was there first. Kind of loitered for a bit till they saw me and then the other two came – AmericanMan and DutchBrit. Into the office of the one woman who doesn't share since there is more space there. And WHAT A NICE spread there was!

So what was there food-wise? Well now – I don't know the names of all these food things since I am not well up on Arabic food names. However, I have found a few sources on this online and some things that I THINK you will know are Hummus, Shawirma (gyro), stuffed vine leaves (dolmas), Baklava, Falafel, Taboula, and Cuscus.

Well, not all these were there. Of those that I know, there were houmous (maybe spelled hummus), the stuffed vine leaves and some kind of pastries which looked a bit like sausage rolls (but with other things in the middle). Oh, and there were larger, flat, rounded pastries which also had fillings.

Well, these are nice and tasty, they are not that spicy though maybe they could be. And one thing you can be SURE of is that they were in PLENTIFUL SUPPLY. One definitely POSITIVE thing to say about Arab eating is that they don't do things by halves and there is always food to excess.

Ah, and the last thing there was was cake. It seemed to be a kind of sponge cake with poppy-seeds in the middle though not too much. You COULD compare it with the poppy-seed cake that they make in Poland (the name of which is “makowiec”) but there is MUCH less poppyseed in the Arabic version (good because I don't like its taste!).

Well, this was all very nice. Ahh but they had a card and a present for the three of us too. It was a nice Goodbye Card with messages from the three ladies inside and good luck messages and email addresses. And then there was the present. Quite a lot of wrapping paper – three layers I counted and the last layer was crepe paper.

What was the present? Well, unfortunately I have to admit that although the thought was a nice one, it did not appeal to me. Basically it was a small, framed and crafted insignia of the Saudi Arabian palm tree and cross-swords. The first thing I noticed was that that it was not straight in the frame – the swords were wonky. Typical, I thought, they can't even get THAT right. I did not mean the ladies – I simply meant the people who made the insignia.

Obviously we all thanked them for all these things. But secretly I knew then that I would not be taking this home to England with me. Did I need any more reminders of my time here than I already had? For sure NOT! Even though it has only been a year, it is not one I shall forget in a hurry!

Well, we all sat there and ate and talked for a while. It was nearing lunchtime. I was still sure I was going to go to lunch despite all the food here (though I didn't need to).

One thing which happened was when we somehow got talking on the subject of the year that had gone by. And for some reason, DutchBrit decided to have a go at AmericanMan because of the fact that in semester one he had rarely been in his office when he was not teaching and, technically speaking, when he “should have been” there.

Almost NONE of the teachers are around in the staffroom when they are not teaching even though, according to the contract, we all SHOULD be there every day till 4pm. And why WOULD you be there just to sit on your behind doing nothing for the rest of the day?

Anyway, it was rather uncalled for this “rebuke” especially from the guy who had been very late back from his holiday THREE TIMES in a row causing disruption to HIS classes. And AmericanMan said so back to him, and quite rightly too. It passed long ago that DutchBrit had any “ammunition” to preach about OTHER PEOPLE'S so-called “violations” of contract. And YET he still feels he has the right to bring THIS topic up!

Well the argument didn't go very far as AmericanMan played it down and said we didn't really need to go on about this NOW on this occasion. And that was as far as it got.

It seems that the college still values his opinion. Apparently the Dean upstairs suggested he could make a list of Things To Improve Around Here, which he was happy to go and do. You know, I STILL can't make this guy out. The walls of his credibility are breaking down and STILL he feels he can make a contribution here. He is leaving a few weeks after myself and AmericanMan and on his grumpy days it is like he holds that against us.

I went in today to the college to hand in my ID card. And there he was moaning about how there was “no teamwork” around the English department and how nobody would take responsibility for anything. Huh! So what's NEW, matey! Was he surprised by this? Was it something NEW that had happened? Absolutely NOT, and yet he still grumbles and moans about it like it matters any more.

WHO THE HELL CARES I say!! yes, we know WELL what the faults and bad things are about this college we are in. But to HELL with it! We are LEAVING and as far as I'm concerned they can all drown together in their own “lakes” of inefficiency and chaos!

Ach enough of THAT. Anyway it was a nice last day and a very nice gesture from the ladies. I do hope they can make changes, though I very much doubt it. Actually I think there is more chance of a Saudi skier winning the Men's Downhill at the Winter Olympics right now in Vancouver, Canada! But there you go!

So anyway – all need to go into the college has gone. I have been quietly getting on with the business of my Exit Plan. All has gone smoothly, all signatures have been collected. Basically, so long as one keeps a cool head and doesn't let the nonsense of the bureaucratic process get to you, it is a simple process. All you have to do is “follow the yellow brick road” and do as the instructions say you need to. It is just a matter of signing out what the college may have given to you for the job (mostly nothing), getting the housing checked, getting your flight ticket, arranging your flight and Exit Visa, handing in ID badge and keys and stuff and arranging transportation to the airport on the day.

Packing too hasn't been too much of a burden. I have two nice big suitcases and a backpack for the laptop. Well, a few things I will not be able to take with me, but those you already know about – coffee maker, juicer, voltage transformer, kettle, three boxes of tissues and a few odd food items from the fridge. No big deal. Just a case of cramming it all in and making sure you can zip it up without too much risk of that zip breaking.

I feel sure I will be well over the 30kg that Saudi Arabia Airlines (Saudia) allows me to have. And then I am not sure WHAT happens. Will I have to pay a big, fat excess or not? I guess I'll find out on the day.

If I DO, then it will have to go on the credit card since I now have almost no Saudi riyals left. I HAVE now received my last pay cheque and yesterday afternoon I took it down to the bank. What I wanted to do was (1) pay it in, (2) get some British pounds for when I arrive in London and until I get my new ATM card, and (3) transfer the WHOLE of what is in my SABB account to the UK.

All was done! Took quite a long time, but got it all done. The only thing that bothered me as that I was trying to do this with only a copy of my Iqama and a copy of my passport handy. I had to go in to see the Operations Manager of the bank, and it was all OK as he pointed out that on the Temporary Iqama it was written (in Arabic) that all was OK and I was a fully “legit” kind of guy.

So no problem. Hmm – had I known THIS, I would not have bothered to go down the previous month to do the bank transfer. But I wanted to be safe, not sorry. If it had turned out that they would NOT allow a bank transfer, then I suppose I would have had to withdraw it ALL in cash and have the stress of carrying THAT all the way to London.

One slight thing that worried me for a while was that I would be rather short of money to last me my last few days here. As I wrote the bank transfer form, I realised that all I had was all that was in my wallet, and it wasn't a lot. With five days still to go, and with the need to eat, I could have had a problem.

Ahh, but thanks to the bank teller, I was able to have my last 70 riyals in cash. A slight miscalculation on HIS part meant that I could do that. We had to keep re-doing forms and there was the matter of the 70 riyal fee for doing the bank transfer which was forgotten about and then remembered and then … well anyway, I got those last 70 riyals as cash and WILL survive.

I am assuming that there is nothing else to be paid for between now and the airport. Nothing big anyway. There was a 50 riyal “airport tax” which I paid in the Finance Department. Some countries do have a kind of Departure Tax levied at airports which can catch you out if you are not aware of it, and I got caught a bit like that when leaving Thailand some years ago (luckily I had enough money on me!).

Thee is nothing else really to talk about. The only slight problem I have had with this signature-collecting was two days ago when the man in Human Resources was not there just before lunchtime to sign. I was told to go to the COLLEGE Personnel Department and look for this other man. He was not around - “on vacation” they said and gave me the name of ANOTHER man downstairs to go and see. THIS man, in turn, did not want to sign and his reason was unclear but I think it was just he did not quite know the process. Being given the runaround there, I gave in, but was told helpfully back in college that if I went back in the afternoon to HR near prayer time, then the man I was looking for in the FIRST PLACE would be there. And indeed he WAS, so problem solved!

All I have to do now is phone transportation to check that my Transportation Request HAS been received and they DO know I exist. I have also been advised to get my passport BEFORE I get to the airport, and this IS a good idea. If you remember, the procedure is that THEY meet you AT THE AIRPORT and only at THAT point do you receive the passport in your hand. However, ANYTHING could happen. Road traffic delays, an accident, the guy to meet me could get ill etc. etc. and then NO PASSPORT! Best to have it in YOUR hand BEFORE going there. Well, it is said they WILL give it to you if they trust you. So … would YOU trust this man not to run away and not to sneak back into the country for another job?

I'll leave THAT to your own initiative to answer … I'm SURE I know the answer already.

Not many more blogs to go. Not many more days. If I feel the need, I will write on Saturday morning which then WILL be the last in the series. There are a few things I'd like to close with. And a few “loose ends” that need tying ...

See you then!

Ohh those Cheating Arab Students!!

Monday 15th February 2010
Well, here I am with only five days left in this country. Blog time is running out, and now THIS entry will seem MUCH too late. But hey – I've been busy with my “Clearance” which involved running around coordinating, getting signatures and more. But more on that in a later blog. Right now, I am here to tell you all about the very last day of work in the college.

Well, it was the last of the exam invigilation sessions. The others had gone smooth as silk with no trouble and no noticeable cheating of any kind. THAT, in itself, was quite remarkable and, I suppose, meant that all the very “best” was yet to come.

And so it proved to be …

Up I went to the classroom where the exam was to be. A few students were milling around so I hung around outside until the guy who I supposed was the chief invigilator came along. Went in with him, introduced myself and we chatted briefly for a while. Seemed a friendly sort of chap – I think the first who actually WANTED to talk to me out of those I'd been in the exam with. I noticed that the third invigilator wasn't here. Well, I thought, it is a small classroom and I am sure we will cope on this, the last day …

The students came in slowly. Had to get a few more chairs. The type of chairs are those which have the “mini desk” tacked on the side and they flip up to let you in and out. I think that kind is a nice and practical kind of desk, though others don't like them. One problem is that they DO easily break and it DOES mean you can't spread all your books, pens etc. around too much since you only have space for your writing pad and maybe one book which you read from. Yes, space IS an issue with them, but I still like them. Sometimes they come in left-hand versions but when I have tried to bring them in for student exam use, they have been rejected - “because they are left-handed”. Well, Saudis have a thing about the left hand being “unclean” and so maybe a left-handed desk is also this way. No consideration for the many left-handed students around though who WOULD find such a thing useful. Anyway …

OK, it seemed we had three classes in together and apparently they were all doing the same exam even though one of those was a diploma-level class. Doesn't make much sense, but then in the words of our departed Head of Department, “WHERE ARE YOU??”. Knowing THAT makes EVERYTHING perfectly sensible of course.

So the students were seated. I took my invigilation seat. There was one guy sitting in the centre of the room and he had VERY suspicious eyes. He was sitting there and turning around EVEN NOW to see where his friends were and, in addition, was keeping an eye on me as if to “stare me out” or something.

I KNEW there and then that HE was going to be a troublemaker. And indeed I was right, though he was not alone.

The exam started quietly enough and the first half hour was trouble-free. But this guy in the centre was looking behind him, and to THAT I hissed at him and shook my head to let him know I saw this. He gestured as if to say, “What, ME? What am I doing?”, but was clearly NOT innocent. It had begun …

Soon the examiner came in. To my surprise, the examiner was a woman. Well the examiner/teacher I mean as she was, I suppose, their class teacher. A middle-aged African woman she was and she wore the statutory head covering that women of ANY kind here are required to. Foreign women do not cover their faces as Saudi women do, but they do need to have this long black cloak.

OK, a side-step for a moment. I know I have gone through this before, but mentioning face coverings and such made me go look at what these things are and to get their names right. This website, http://www.insidesaudi.com/saudiwomen.html has all the information you need about the Saudi abaya and hijab. As you will see, the 'abaya' is the “large, loose-fitting cloak-like garment worn over their clothes”, and the 'hijab' is basically the headscarf plus face covering. The appearance and colour of these varies around the region, but in Saudi Arabia both of these are generally black (though many do have patterns of some kind).

Back to the exam. So this woman was here and went around helping “her” students. If you ask me, she was helping too much. And if you ask me twice, I wouldn't have ANY kind of help at ALL on exam day. In my opinion, the teacher's role ends on exam day and it is up to the students. Well, you could argue that if they don't understand the question then they DO need help, but then that is a matter for the people who WRITE the exams to MAKE the questions understandable. And I have written about THAT before in the case of the English department and ITS exams.

So, she finished her “helping” and off she went. It was after, I think, the first hour (of two) that the trouble started.

The way it went was like this – whenever the chief invigilator stepped outside the room, somebody or MORE than one person would start the whispering. I WAS sitting there of COURSE and did not move the whole time. I saw this, hissed at them, shook my head and yet it carried on.

I do not remember why it was the chief invigilator had to go out. Well, he was not COMPLETELY out the classroom, but it was when students said they wanted to go to the toilet and he stood at the door making sure they came back. EVERY TIME he did THAT, the whisperings started.

Now, I use the word “whisperings” here, but I am understating the case. What went on in that exam was a total DISGRACE! There is subtle cheating and there is downright, blatant and BRAZEN DISREGARD for the presence of the invigilator. No no – of course they didn't do it when the CHIEF INVIGILATOR was in the room. He is a Saudi man you see, and I am but a “humble foreigner” who deigns to sit in their “mighty presence”.

They acted as if I was not there at ALL!

Well, I did what I could do. When the chief invigilator came back, I told him about this person or those people who had been communicating. He moved THREE PEOPLE in total. TOTALLY USELES Since they just “re-established the network” again and carried on as before. The first person he moved up to the front which worked for a while. But then he moved ANOTHER guy ALSO to the front a few chairs along to his right and so THEY STARTED their communicating. The “centre guy” was, indeed, in the thick of it and he was the WORST OF ALL! With his friend behind him and others around him he was turning round to them and looking. Oh, and GET THIS – TWICE he actually SHOWED HIS EXAM PAPER to his friends behind him. And I DON'T mean in a subtle way. I mean that right in front of ME he held his paper up just so his friends behind him could see it. I don't mean above his head, but I mean that he held it in such a way that anyone behind him could see it. Either THAT, or he moved aside so that his friend behind him could have a good look, which he certainly DID.

In all we are talking about five or six people who were blatantly and obviously communicating and cheating. And what did our chief invigilator do about it? Well, he moved two or three around the room and he spoke to some of them to, I suppose, tell them to stop. But this was UTTERLY USELESS!!

WHY DID HE NOT KICK THEM RIGHT OUT OF THE EXAM??

I was SO ANNOYED by the end of this exam. Yes we know that students do cheat at times. But mostly these are subtle whispers that you hear but cannot quite determine where they come from, and anyway are infrequent enough to ignore. THIS, however, was the most atrocious display of in-your-face cheating that I have EVER SEEN in my whole 15 years of teaching. I have not seen much I must tell you. And there are a few stories to tell about it, though not here. But NEVER as flagrant a breach of exam conditions as I saw on this day!!

At the end of the exam when all students had gone, I went to the chief invigilator. I said to him this - “If I had been in your position, there would have been two or three of those students OUT OF THE ROOM with their exams over!”.

To THAT he did not have much of a reply.

This is, sadly, the way here. Saudi teachers want to keep their jobs. If they act in such a way that somebody gets kicked out of an exam, then the problem will come back to THEM! These are people with families and children. They do not want to cause trouble for themselves and don't want anyone from on-high coming down on them. For if a student WAS to be kicked out, then he would complain and then that invigilator would have to justify his actions. The student would always win because they would have what they call here, “wasta”.

What is '”wasta”? Well, in its simplest form it means “connections”, or, “influence”, if not through themselves then through their parents or some high-up connection. It is, as we would say, all about, “who you know” and what influence they could have on things. Check the Wikipedia on 'wasta' at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasta for more info.

And THAT is what REALLY annoys me the MOST! I tell you, I lay in bed fuming about what I had seen this day, and I really could NOT get to sleep for one or two nights.

Yes, you may say, “So why should you care? You are leaving!”. Well, sorry, but it DOES bother me the attitude of students like this … AND the attitudes of the TEACHERS TOO!

If they do NOTHING, they NOTHING will change! And so that is the way it works here.

Cheating is a way of life. It starts at school and goes unchecked and not stamped on. It then continues throughout their academic life and they probably get much of what they achieve through the same.

Yes, it goes on. I KNOW it does. And I am not going to stamp it out. But I tell you – I for ONE am NOT going to TOLERATE IT! Oh, I don't just mean the odd whispered cheat here and there, but I mean the kind of thing I was witness to on this exam day.

Even NOW, five whole days after the event, this exam day will live with me for as long as I am a teacher. It was blatant disrespect for me as a foreign teacher. What I SHOULD have done was walk right OUT of that exam and left that chief invigilator to deal with those fuckers by himself. But I didn't because I suppose I just wanted to “do my duty” this one last time and get the whole stupid thing over with and get out of here.

And in five days and an hour and a half from now as I sit writing this, I will be doing just THAT. Goodbye and FUCK OFF you cheating bastards, ALL OF YOU!!