Sunday 29th March 2009
So then .... this will probably be the last entry for Month 1 in Saudi Arabia. Well, it was only half a month but still it counts.
Should be getting paid soon. But, as always, the process of getting my hands on the cheque (which is how I'll be paid for this month and the next two) is not so simple.
So, not to go too much into the procedure, what I had to do is “simply” to go over to the Finance Department where the cheque would be waiting. Sounded simple, didn't it? So that's what I did and found the desk of the guy whose job it was to hand these things out. And sure enough he had a big wad of cheques in his hand for distribution. Asked for my Employee Number and I gave it. Flick Flick Search Search .... no, sorry, go see the guy over there cos you're a new employee. Did that. He had a smaller wad of cheques. But no. Nothing. Somebody, somewhere hadn't signed it or authorised it yet. Ah well, we could come back later .... did that and the same result. Don't worry, they said, we will phone your office when we have it ready. Well, I had hoped to get the cheque and then go downtown to cash it – same situation for me and the other new guy. Anyway, even when we went back after lunch to try to get it there was STILL no cheque and it STILL hadn't been authorised/written/stamped/signed/sealed/..... yet.
Anyway, this was only today. Actually today the weather was much more humid than normal and made things more difficult like getting around the compound. Temperatures which previously were OK were TODAY a bigger problem. I think I started to see today what the summer is likely to be like. Not too much humidity please!
Let's go back to yesterday. Woke up Saturday morning with the left-ear blockage which I've had every now and then for the past few years. Actually it started the night before. Mysterious because I don't think I'd had much water in my ears which is usually the cause. Trouble is, when I get this I put my finger(s) in my ear to try to open it up to clear the blockage and wiggling fingers about inside ear for a time only makes it worse. But I dso it because usually it clears quickly. Not today though!
Fortunately I work here in a hospital compound so help was not far away. Went to the office to sign in and asked if I could go to the medical centre to get it sorted, and it was OK to go. Now, if you've never had this kind of thing before, then let me tell you what it is like. Half your head is missing and your world retreats into the other half. There is no world outside that environment because all you can hear is what your right ear tells you about which is all unreal anyway because it doesn't feel right. If this carries on the whole day then a big, nasty headache is the result by the end of the day. And if, by chance, you have to teach or communicate with many people as part of your day ..... then your day is a wasted and very stressful and headache-ridden one. THAT is what it is like!
Fortunately (and this is the ONLY time I was glad NOT to have classes) I was class-free still. I had been informed that my one three-times-a-week-and-five-days-a-week class of soldier boys was now really not going to start for another TWO WEEKS (did I tell you this already?). So .... two more weeks of sitting on ass with books, drinking tea and generally doing nothing! Is this going to turn out to be the least active year of my life? Looks that way!
OK, so after I had been in with the doctor and he had had a look in my ear (apparently I have a very interesting inner left ear, but he didn't say why!), he just gave me a prescription for some pills. “Probably this is because of your flight and the blockage that this sometimes causes in people”, he declared. Hmmm, OK ..... but that was TWO WEEKS AGO! Ah well, no ear-syringe or ear-waxing was going to get done here. So he gave me a prescription which I had to take to the hospital pharmacy.
Oh, and my White Card was needed. This is the thing I need to produce to show I work here in order to get medical help here. All I've had till now was my White Piece-of-Paper with health details on because the Medical Centre hadn't been able to make me a White Card when I first went there. So I had to go see Personnel / go see Hospital Admin / go see .... somebody else in some other office. Well I have looked for this office for two days now with no joy. I just can't be bothered to waste my time wandering around finding the place. Yup, another lot of wandering around looking for the needle in the haystack.
My mood the last two days has darkened again. I guess because of my ear problem combined with the humidity combined with the extra boredom of an extra two-week wait for it all to begin. At the end of last week I thought I had a strategy worked out for survival but this 'plan' just wasn't working out today or yesterday.
So after two days I and the other new guy decided to go over check out the Recreation Centre. From the outside it doesn't look much, and I'd had a look inside before and it didn't seem to have much in it. A restaurant/bar which never opened, swimming pool next door and that is all I saw before. Ah but THIS TIME we saw the whole thing. And it really is GOOD! Two weights rooms, a four-lane ten-pin bowling alley, a small cafe-bar. DEFINITELY ways to spend time after work and at weekends. And it is free to join – one form to fill in and I guess I'd better get a timetable of when the various parts of it are open to us men. And indeed the general opening and closing hours. It is looking like a place where I could well be spending a fair bit of my leisure time over the next months.
There is another gym but it is only a sports hall and so not much use to me. It is the one which is just over the road from my block. The one I saw on Day 1.
OK, well not much to write about today – just about my ear troubles, money-getting annoyances and yes – I HAVE ended on some positivity with the Rec Centre and what it has.
Hopefully tomorrow we can get our cheques and then go into town, cash them and then have a bit of time down there away from the dullness of the office.
Catch you soon/next month!
Monday, 30 March 2009
Saturday, 28 March 2009
So now I'm here in Saudi Arabia .... and here's what's going on so far ....
Sunday 22nd March 2009
It's just after the beginning of Week 2 here. THIS time I'm going to try to do this regularly as I can. Well, plenty of time in the evenings likely with little to do so may as well make the most of it! In this diary entry I'm going to write about what I did in Week 1 and add my initial thoughts about “the show so far” at the end.
So, first thing is Week 1 and what it was like – my first week of work in a REALLY foreign country.
Well actually not much work at all. Doesn't matter pay-wise as I'm not hourly paid a-la-Poland but paid a proper salary. So I don't have to count every hour as it comes to me. Is that better? Yes in that lack of students/classes is not YOUR fault as a teacher. I always resented the fact that class sizes and the absence/presence of your classes and holiday days AND, on occasions, cancellations and the like were counted against your hours as a teacher. Yes, I'm thinking of York but not only. In the last few years of teaching where I was trying to do it more in Psz. I had very few hours ANYWHERE and therefore struggled to live properly. At the time it didn't seem to matter much as I was trying to do teaching plus internet-related activities (which ultimately was a failure). And I'd had a rough time in teaching in the years at P.L. and L. schools which really demotivated me. NOT helpful. Even the break from teaching in London didn't help much. London wasn't a place I wanted to live in anyway and so I never wanted to find anything to keep me there. Well, London was a disaster and wasn't meant to happen the way it did. But I'm glad I decided to go back into teaching again. Yes, my time in Krakow was rather money-stressed but student-wise it WAS good and I did get a lot out of it.
Anyway, I seem to be waffling. What I was trying to say was that NOW I am on a salary and so not being in the classroom doesn't count against me money-wise. I AM glad I wasn't THRUST into the classroom from Day 1 because (1) I wasn't capable after the airport nonsense, and (2) I wouldn't have had much idea of how to go about it.
There wasn't any teaching in Week 1. In fact, even NOW my hours and class haven't been 100% confirmed yet. And, as I well know by now, I do NOT count the chickens until they're hatched. But it seems likely that my ONE class that I've been told I'll be having will be five days a week and three lots of 50-minutes a day (mornings until lunch). It is not on-site in the English department building but a short ride away in the other building we teach in with some kind of class of soldier boys who either want or have to learn English. Many classes out here are with this kind of students and I've encountered them before in Bournemouth mixed in with other nationalities. Not the best kind of students but then their motivation to learn English is low. “Like a class of little kids in adult bodies”, is what I've been told. Sounds like a class that I will not be getting on with then. But we'll see.
So what did I do in Week 1 then? Well, for the first few days – actually for MOST of that week – there were bits of admin that needed doing and procedures that needed following.
On the first day, the Sunday 15th March I was picked up outside the block here and taken to the Personnel building. Seemed to be a fairly short ride, but on that first day I knew nothing except the inside of that block and the little bit outside – well, not even that as I'd arrived there after the Airport Night needing only to sleep. Had a list of documents to take there and got them into my bag – nothing difficult to find as I had them all ready.
Went there, and in I went to Personnel. Normal kind of building. BUT as I went in, the first of my Saudi stereotypes was broken at ONCE. Yes, there WERE men there in the expected Saudi white 'smock' and red checked headgear. BUT .... two women (later found out they were Filipino) dressed normally with no head covering of any kind. WOMEN at work!! WOMEN not covered up!!! Tear out that page RIGHT AWAY!
The main personnel man was also Filipino. Well, the only thing I didn't have were photos. And no, the TWELVE photos was not a misprint and they had NOT inserted a '1' in front of the '2'. They really DID want twelve photos of passport size. Didn't have them as hadn't been told to bring 'em. BUT OMG – TWELVE PHOTOS!!?? What on EARTH could they need THAT NUMBER for?? Just how many people wanted a photo of me and for what?? I couldn't conceive WHO would want these. Anyway, I didn't have them so would have to get them later – as it was the HoD took me into the nearest town, Khobar a few days later to a photo shop to do that. And VERY CHEAP they were too! I got thirty-two passport size photos for the equivalent of a little less than 10 pounds (UK)! WOW!!
All I had to do in Personnel was fill in and sign various things like Contract (again!) and a kind of non-disclosure form which told me all the things I wasn't allowed to do either in the compound or in the country. I wondered about the “Don't take photos” item and about whether my mobile phone might be frowned on, but it wasn't a problem.
While I was there a couple of other people came and went who were, I think, Sri Lankan and maybe Indian in origin. NOT teachers for sure but maybe they were there to be hospital workers or something.
Once I was done there I had to go to Security and this was for my temporary ID badge. Yup, another form to fill in and yet more waiting. Waiting, Waiting, Waiting seems to be the mantra to chant round here and I sure spent an awful lot of those first few days just sitting and waiting for people to deal with me. Didn't matter since I was feeling pretty rough still from the flight and Airport Experience. The less I had to do, the better. The early part of the morning was going to and from there up and down stairs and in and out of doors, It was pretty hot that day too, and I caught sight of the compound thermometer which said it was around 35deg. C – not quite the hottest I've been in but close. BUT the strange thing is that it didn't seem that hot. I mean, you get that temperature in Britain or Poland and you're dying a hot death. Maybe it was that I was mostly in air-con buildings or maybe just that it is a dry sort of heat here.
Well, nothing much exciting to write about that morning and then lunch time came at 11.30am. Too early? Didn't matter much to me – it was another new part of the college to see (and to remember!) and so I went along to lunch with some other teachers. A confusing maze of corridors and signs to follow which I KNEW I would have difficulty finding alone later especially in my tired state.
A good lunch and a reasonable canteen. Good selection of food items and some NICE COFFEE (which I'm told is only Nescafe but tastes v different!). Portions not huge but adequate considering you don't want to eat much when it's hot. Also bought some more bottles of water for later – water obviously being something I should keep to hand at all times.
Oh, forgot to mention. Discovered that one of the other teachers knew Slough, had encountered Polish people before AND most of all ..... had also been to the same college of FE I was in a few years after me!! Small world or WHAT!!
After lunch more to-ing and fro-ing to complete more parts of the bureaucratic process of “joining” the college as a “fully paid member”. Ah, and there was this medical to do. Yes, ANOTHER one to my amazement. WHY on earth for?? Seems they like to do it at both ends. Same kind of thing as in Harley Street except here they did a few more things such as a urine drug test, more blood tests and they required a urine AND stool sample. I can't tell you HOW LONG it took me to produce that 'stool' but it wasn't immediate! In fact, was only on the third day that FINALLY I had it at night. Hmm .... WHY was the urine test container smaller than the one to deposit my 'stool' into?? I'll never know. Phew – I'll never be a doctor – who on earth would be interested by a piece of shit stuffed into a plastic jar?? I guess to them it's just a thing to test.
All in all the medical took three days to fully complete (mainly due to my inability to produce my 'stool' sample!). But once done, it was another hurdle overcome. These things can easily irritate if you let them but I just them do whatever they got to do and give them whatever they need from me. No point in jumping up and down in the frustration of YET AGAIN giving those SAME details you've already given multiple times already. Better things to waste your energy on. And anyway – it's all for that pot of gold so I guess it's worth it!
That was pretty much Day 1. Day 2 was similar except for meeting more of the teachers .... INCLUDING the three WOMEN TEACHERS they have here. Yes, I DID say WOMEN TEACHERS! In SAUDI ARABIA!! Well, I had read this eastern province was more “progressive” than others and it seems so! NEVER would I have expected this in Riyadh – to have seen women WORKING was one big surprise but as TEACHERS .... well!! And a very nice threesome they were too! Well, there I was sitting in there office drinking tea, eating cake and biscuits and talking. Just like that!! So that is THREE stereotypes torn up in under three days! Mind you, as I was told, such behaviour would be frowned on by the 'religious police' who sometimes do the rounds here and who, I was told, came round recently asking questions and checking things out. Sometimes they come round the accommodation blocks apparently. I wonder what rank they have compared to the actual police and the army, and who answers to who here.
Those first two days I found VERY difficult. Tiredness/jet lag compounded by just TOO MUCH information and different things to try to take in. Not to mention finding my way around a whole new place which I knew I'd have difficulty in doing. Without a map my sense of direction is not the best! But not likely to get a map around here for security reasons, and that's fair enough.
You know, we English teachers are a pretty odd bunch. I had wondered about what kinds of people I would be meeting out here and supposed that anybody who comes out here has to be maybe a few marbles short at LEAST. Yup, certainly are a few, let's say, colourful characters here. As expected, they're all in the older age range, which makes me one of the youngest for a nice change!! Doesn't happen often where I teach! Most of them really have been here a long while and the minimum seems to be about five years. I can't IMAGINE spending THAT amount of time out here but it goes up to thirty-PLUS years that our HoD has spent in the Middle East. Maybe people would find it strange that I've spent 12 years in Poland – a country which only NOW do people know more about due to the amount of them in London and beyond. Each to their own. But here is SO different that my early impressions are that you have to be some special kind of person to get along here. Is it a different temperament? Resistance to the summer heat? The feeling that you're staying here to build up some nice money? The last one is surely the lure to GET people here but why do they stay here so long? This is something I suppose I will work out as I go. Some, I have heard are married here – not sure to which nationality of wife but it is a thing to keep a person in a place for a time for sure. Kept me in Poland – although would I have lasted so long there if I hadn't been married? Who knows!
The other teachers seemed to have developed their own ways of getting by/surviving. These range from TV and internet to the need to get away when they can to doing things like swimming, going to the gym and cycling. Some go further. In fact, many say that you HAVE TO do something. The compound is pretty far from even the nearest town and so to just get away is a hassle. This does bother me and could turn out to be the one thing that gets me the most. The things I like about being in a new place – getting out and about, food, coffee shops, browsing the town, seeing the locals in their environment. Oh, and you can forget about taking photos! OK, in the compound obviously not due to the nature of the place. But even in town it is really NOT allowed and, if seen, the police will likely arrest you and confiscate your camera and maybe take you to jail. Yes, NO PHOTOS!! And there is SO MUCH I'd really LIKE to take! So much that people back home would LOVE to see and that I'd LOVE to show them.
What I'm realising is this: Saudi Arabia must be regarded as a place of work and no more. There is little chance of getting to know anybody here outside the compound. For SURE, VERY little chance of getting to know anybody else other than those I work with. And even LESS chance of having a good time. There is another compound around Dhahran called 'Aramco' which is an American-run oil workers compound. A “Little America” if what I've heard is to be believed. Going there has been suggested as a way to get to know more people and widen a very small social circle. But it is SO far that going there is really an expedition that CAN'T be worth it! Especially since compound rules state that everyone must be inside the compound at night (for security reasons). Now yes, one may choose to defy that. And that is, for some, a matter of personal choice. But for me it is not worth the risk. This is the Golden Goose and I am not going to be risking anything like THAT! Just imagine getting caught – no, better NOT imagine! So even though it might SEEM a good idea, I am sure I WON'T be doing it.
So what WILL I be doing here when I'm not in the classroom? Good question ..... and as I sit here I have no idea at all. I just can't imagine. Once I get my internet set up on my laptop then THAT will really help me NOT to feel so isolated as I'm beginning to already. You might say, “Oh no! You CAN'T sit in your room all the time!”, and in some way you'd be right. But my options are limited. Yes, I feel I will have to take up quite a few things that I've never done before or not done in way-too-many years. Among those are swimming, jogging, going to the gym and cycling. I thought about jogging and the gym but did not bring either shorts or trainers for space and weight reasons (but I needn't have worried as it turns out due to the 30kg baggage limit!). Should I get those when I go home in August? I guess so. But what to do until then? Hmm .... good question AGAIN!!
I find that, when I come back to the room in the evening that I'm in one of two frames of mind. At the start of last week I felt really bad, but probably that was due to the tiredness/jet lag thing. But yesterday and today I have come back feeling a kind of “OMG What am I doing here? HELP!”, kind of feeling and a feeling that it's going to be a long, hard year which I don't KNOW how I'm going to get through. People keep asking me how long I intend to stay and I simply DON'T KNOW and can't give an answer.
Also, my feeling at the end of the day depends who I've spoken to during the day and what they've told me. And, as in any workplace, there those you learn you HAVE TO avoid if you want to try to keep positive and sane. You know the ones – those people who never have a good word to say or who THINK they're giving you good “advice” which only makes you feel worse and more desperate. And those who just drive you mad whenever they open their mouths. Yes, there ARE things I need to know, but I DON'T want to hear all the time the difficulties I might have and things to beware of. If I am to survive this Saudi experience, then I have to keep POSITIVE. Sure – things will happen which will be weird and which may well freak me out. But I'd like to experience those for myself. I think I can quite well enough manage MYSELF to get through it and so long as a few basic principles and Do's/Dont's are followed then things should settle into a reasonable pattern. I don't mean getting into a “routine” but just feeling comfortable in how I do things and how I can get by and not feeling that this is all a complete nightmare. I think it WILL be OK here so long as I find MY WAY to get through it. Sure there will be difficult and sad times. Last night and Friday night were difficult. Friday evening I phoned my mother and spoke to her and to my son. It was nice to speak to them but you're all too aware just how far away they are. And until I have internet properly set up and can do things like Skype then all my friends and family will be too distant.
Ah, speaking of internet and Skype .... I just CAN'T work out how to get it properly working on my phone. Although the signal my phone shows is strong enough, I just can NOT get connected. For Skype, I managed to SOMEHOW on my first evening here and by chance in the morning today it connected me. But most of the time my phone refuses to connect me. For some reason I cannot activate the service on my phone. And since the phone-up instructions are mostly in Arabic, I have no idea what I am doing wrong. As far as I know, the simcard IS active since I can make and receive calls and can send SMS messages. And I have time and time again sent SMS messages with the activation code the website for SMC Telecom tells me to send but NOTHING happens. Is it that my phone is blocked inside the compound? Is the simcard not a proper one? Did I mess around with the settings (I don't think I did)? Or is the signal just too weak to get through to the internet? It IS true that you do not always get a good signal here – it comes and goes from strong to almost zero. So maybe the signal cannot be maintained at a good enough level. Whatever it is, it is DRIVING ME CRAZY especially since I managed to Skype on the first day and thought all was well. Oh, and I got Skype-connected this morning but was in the office so couldn't use it. Ah, AND I got my emails to download too! But just once – other times it refuses to connect.
It all frustrated me and only adds to the feeling of isolation which I have felt these last few days. This just HAS TO pass because if not then I don't know what it will do to me. Yes, there are options to get around that but none of them appeal much. It's likely to be a case of biting the bullet and doing what I would otherwise NOT do.
Tuesday 24th March 2009 – 7.10pm
I was alright until about an hour ago.
There I was sitting with my really-really-exciting “dinner” of bread rolls and cheese spread. Had the train game on and BBC World was on TV with the news. Next thing I know? Flick-Flick-Splutter-Splutter-Flicker-Flicker .... BBC World is gone to be replaced by .... RADIO ARMENIA!!!
I'd even had a good last part of day. Some nice chillin-out green tea had gone down real nicely. I'd got my rolls and milk. Wasn't going to be an active evening – just a normal one. But I'd had a bitch of a day coupled with a HUGE headache yesterday evening and had woken up with it this morning too. Was definitely in a really NON tolerant mood where everything WAS going to annoy me today no matter what it was. Ohh, and it DID too. STILL no firm news about when this 15-hours a week one-and-only class of mine was to start. If anything, the news about it today was NOT positive. The word was that the soldier-boy students in question were in Riyadh just now. According to the HoD this meant that, to him, the chance of them being back for a start on Saturday was slim and now it was looking at a midweek or, worse STILL, a start delayed for ONE MORE WEEK!
Now, you may be saying, “Why does it matter as you're still paid whatever happens?”. It DOES matter. Having sat for three months in LONDON doing nothing and getting very wound up not knowing what was happening in Riyadh, Oman or ANYWHERE at all, I certainly do NOT want to continue the do-nothing thing here paid or NOT! Ad it is only marginally better that the difference between here and London is that here I AM getting paid for doing nothing. Pay is not the issue in this for me. Maybe that 'session' in London has affected me more than I know, but for SURE I am NOT about to be sitting about doing nothing AGAIN. Doing nothing all day and evening does things to a guy's mind. I need to get started, I need to be doing something, I NEED TO BE USEFUL. And most of all, I NEED TO KNOW THAT I HAVE DONE THE RIGHT THING by quitting Poland to come here for this year or so.
I have not been convinced that I have done the right thing in leaving Krakow. Yes, i had my reasons for doing so and they are still valid in that I DO still have this money problem which I MUST address. That IS why I'm here in Saudi Arabia now and that fact doesn't change. Without the money that will come from my time in this job, I will have achieved nothing except yet another SPECTACULAR FAILURE in my recent life.
I HAVE to achieve something worthwhile and I have to succeed in something. Even though it is nearly two years since THAT day on August 15th 2007 when my whole world fell into the chasm – and MORE than two years since leaving the house and all in it in Pszczyna – I have done almost NOTHING which really builds up my self-confidence again. The Anti-Midas touch – everything I touch turns to MOULD.
One of the worst things you can do in life is look back thinking, “If only I had/n't done this, that and the other”. Pointless! You cannot change what you did or what happened and time machines only exist in sci-fi and HG Wells. So it helps NOTHING to say such things. Nobody can know what the decisions they make can do to them in the future. We try to do the best for ourselves but it doesn't always work out. I could look back and say, “Oh, I shouldn't have quit Krakow so easily because things could have been better now”. In some ways that is true. I am STILL getting email enquiries from people wanting to have English lessons. So THAT, together with my hours that DID increase in the end, would have put me in a better position now. But at that time my thinking was that I had to break the continual cycle of not having money and forever depending on the job I was doing to live on AND then having to borrow from my Dad all the time. Financial Independence – yes, we all want it. And I, at age 41, felt I HAD TO do something about it since I am NOT at the start of my working life but in the middle. Or maybe beyond that. And with no savings and very little in the bank and with my only asset being the Pszczyna house (which there is STILL a cloud over), I felt then that I had to do something to break the cycle happening again and again. So here I came.
BUT .... with the exception of two or three days last week I have come home every day with either a BIG headache or feeling very down or even more unsettled about it all. Every morning I seem to wake up OK. Two mornings ago I had a beautifully Utopian dream about me in a no-money-worries kind of place and everything was beautiful and just right. So THAT morning I woke up feeling happy and quite cheerful .... only to return home that evening feeling really bad and not able to sleep.
What is it that is stressing me out? Well, first of all I think I am feeling things in a more extreme way than I should. Small things feel bigger than they perhaps are. Irritations become problems, small annoyances become hair-pullers and so on. No doubt the last three months has done me no good at ALL mentally – NOT KNOWING what was happening, WHERE I was going and IF I had done the right/wrong thing in coming to England so early REALLY HASN'T done me ANY GOOD at all! And I'm going to break the rule I talked about a few paragraphs ago and say ..... I WISH I had a time machine now so I could go back in time and tell myself, “STAY IN KRAKOW! DON'T QUIT!!”. I was having a stressful time, yes. But I was somewhere I WANTED to be with people I WANTED to be with establishing a nice routine and a nice life for myself in a VERY nice place for ANYONE to be. But see what I said about the need to break the no-money cycle.
But also, it is just that I'm in a strange environment in a strange land and TOO FAR AWAY from WHERE I want to be and too far away from WHO I want to be with. And right now I have no easy access to those places or people. And there is also this awful feeling of being trapped here in this compound and having to depend too much on others to have a normal life. If I want to go into town, I can't because it is too far and anyway I wouldn't do it alone. Food shopping too is a problem. There is a shop on this compound but it doesn't have much that is really any good. The bread is awful, the rolls artificial, the fruit and veg not worth looking at and NONE of the food here is cheap. Spent a LOT last week on food. OK, a few other things too like those plug adaptors and that stupid pillow (which will sit on that table now like a white elephant to haunt me till I leave here!). Another thing that worries me is what others have said about times when the shop has been CLOSED. WHAT THEN?? OK, there is the canteen for weekdays but maybe I don't WANT to eat there all the time. And it is AGAIN this thing of never being able to get free of the place if I have only that canteen as my source of food. Yes, maybe there IS this bus from outside our block that goes into town and brings us back. But it's hardly a walk down the road, IS IT?? More like day-release from a prison!
Anyway, in the end after this year is gone I will be thankful for the money I will have accumulated and will be able to return to my nice life in Krakow WITHOUT the money worries that plagued my life there. I WILL be able to take the risks I'd thought of like only working part-time at a language school and picking and choosing private students to suit me when and where I wanted and therefore getting known as a good native speaker in that city which people could recommend to others. THAT is something I DO plan to return to and I WILL start up that process again. But I HAVE TO go through this shit I'm enduring here to get to that point. No two ways about it – it HAS to be done.
I was thinking today about August which will be holiday when I will briefly go back to England and then go onto Poland for my holiday proper with my son. And I was thinking .... “Maybe that should be IT and I should NOT return here”. I may yet return to this thought over and over over the next few months. But I must try NOT to do such a foolish thing. How would it look? My CV would, once again, have this odd bit of teaching on which I'd have to explain why it only lasted a few months. I would make myself even LESS employable, and I cannot forget the comments made by that DoS at that other school in Krakow who said Yes, she respects that I have a lot of experience but she cannot take on someone like me who cannot stay in one job for more than a few months. NO employer likes anyone like that – not in Poland, not ANYWHERE! So it is simply NOT worth doing EVEN IF I can't stand it here.
Hmm – tell that to yourself in a few months when things might be a lot worse and your headaches might be bigger and REALLY won't go away!
No, I have to consider the so-called Bigger Picture and keep reminding myself WHY I am here and WHY I came here and WHAT it is all for. Because the answers to THOSE questions cannot be challenged. PERIOD!!
I was also thinking today about Krakow and how I managed to get by when things were really bad. And one of the most important things was that I had SOMETHING ELSE TO DO, ie, my websites. A nice diversion between morning and evening classes and an EXCELLENT way to keep myself busy and not keep an idle mind. And that was combined, later on, with my nice little phone calls and my, err, “social life” (ahh, dream, dream, .....). And I was ALSO kept busy organising myself to get from one class to another or from class to private student or to home or to the library. So I was rarely idle. Question is .... HOW to do something like that HERE? No town centre, no private students, DEFINITELY no “social life of THAT kind. Just the compound and a half hour journey by road to the nearest point of 'civilisation' (which is only a shopping mall or two anyway!). Almost no social life with other teachers, for SURE none will happen with the STUDENTS here, and there are severe penalties for any kind of other 'fun' which would be considered “normal” back home. The “delights” of compound life only extend to the swimming pool, the gym, the cafe, the exhibition downstairs from our English Department (probably only a 5-minute job!), the possibility of getting a bike and cycling round the compound area and roads. And .... err .... oh, when I get it, my internet access on my PC. Oh, and the two ..... sorry, ONE useful TV channel that I have. Well, OK, some new things to take up maybe and I might be forced to JUST to get through the day!
Speaking of my day now, it currently goes like this: wake up, shower, breakfast, walk to dept., go on internet for emails at 8am, try to find out YET AGAIN what my mobile phone settings should be on this Al Jawal (without success of course!), try and AGAIN FAIL to access my emails and Skype on my phone, back to my desk, lots of tea, think AGAIN about what to do with this class when it starts, write some poetry (NEW today!), go for more tea, walk around, (eventually) go for lunch (the real HIGHLIGHT of the day – no joke! The canteen food is really GOOD!), sit at lunch and listen to others interjecting when I can or sometimes even have a conversation myself, back from lunch and then so on and so forth with the tea, internet, talks and walks.
.... and get paid for it of course! Would YOU do a job like THIS? Well, I don't feel I AM doing a job and don't feel very useful or positive.
Nothing else much interesting to write about so I'll end here.
Friday 27th March 2009
So .... another weekend is over (well, the second proper one since arrival), and on to another week at this workplace.
I use “work”place in its loosest sense since I'm yet to do anything that resembles work and CERTAINLY nothing teaching-related. Ah, not quite true – I have received the coursebook I am to use with the soldier boys until mid-August when Ramadan arrives. And this is no joke – the book in question is called “Up And Away Book 1” and it is intended for CHILDREN of about 7 or 8 years.
The philosophy behind this is two-fold by the HoD. Firstly, the basis of the course is that these soldiers or cadets or whatever they are are supposed to be the LOWEST of the low in language levels. REAL beginners as I'm led to believe. And without motivation too, it seems. The HoD has said he expects nothing from them and fully expects a dramatic failure of the course and that NONE of them will successfully learn anything. “So nothing is expected of you and it will not reflect on you if they fail!”, he says.
I have NEVER heard such a thing before from any HoD or DoS and never expect to. His strategy seems to be to put the military people off holding any such courses again. After all, the main aim of what we do here is to teach the medics-to-be and not be pushed sideways into a different kind of course.
I can see it both ways. Firstly, why would the soldiers NOT be learning English? It is an international language and since they are likely to encounter Americans and the like in the field of operation, then they surely need the basics at least. But, on the other hand, it is also a case of “jobs for the boys” as the HoD calls it. In other words, we as teachers are “babysitting” and it is merely something for bored soldiers to do during their day.
Anyway, this aside, there is STILL no firm information as to WHEN this is to begin. The latest “rumour” is Tuesday this week. And, in Saudi terms that is the equivalent of beginning on a Thursday. But that might not happen and it may well go into the week after.
This has been frustrating. I am here and yet I have nothing to do. Paid or not, I don't like to be bored.
A new teacher arrived last week. He and I are due to have these soldier boys from whenever it is. He seems like a good bloke, and it is good to FINALLY have someone in the same boat to me – here doing nothing. A fairly laid-back character he is. At first, it irritated me since I just wanted to get going and all he could say was, “Never mind, just relax!”, which I couldn't do. But he is alright. A friendly, affable sort of chap, and in fact he and I went into the local town, Khobar, yesterday and it was a good day I'd say. Well, that is if you think that spending your time in and around one of many shopping malls that are about ALL there is to do here at leisure time. Yes, here I am enjoying my weekend time looking at laptops and exploring the “delights” of the first of quite a few local shopping malls here. Sad, isn't it! What would YOU be doing? Well, no doubt your weekends have been spent out with friends, down the local market, having coffee and cakes in your town centre ..... and just doing the normal things that I WISH I WAS DOING!!
Anyway, in the context of what we have here, Thursday was a good day. Of course, being so far out, it was necessary to take a taxi into town. So myself and the new guy did just that. Got there around mid-morning. I had my 'shopping list' and he wanted to look at laptops which apparently were at good prices in this particular shopping mall in Khobar. Well, it was something to do! Also in that hypermarket were a number of other electrical items for kitchen etc. so it was useful to see what they had and compare prices to the UK. The only thing that I saw of interest was a sandwich toaster. But as the bread here is not good, I don't think I'll bother.
Looked at the laptops. A couple of them were at pretty good prices considering the spec they had. Quite an eye opener actually! I had been thinking that I would buy my next one back in the UK, but now I'm not sure. Well, they all had Windows Vista and English/Arabic keyboards. Maybe, maybe not.
Decided to get food later. Went out to the coffee shop for a nice ice latte. Were sitting down enjoying it. Now, here in Saudi you have to plan what you do by prayer times lest you should get caught in 'mid-shop' and quite possibly be locked in. Now, I had thought that today's prayer time was around 11.15am but nothing happened to my surprise. Maybe they don't do it in these larger shopping malls. Well that unfortunately was not the case! There we were sitting with our drinks in nice, comfy armchairs when .... yes, you've guessed it .... 11.45 came and the Call To Prayer rang out on the loudspeakers. That was it, the shutters were coming down on the coffee shop and OUT we had to go! Ah well, was a comfortable 10 minutes I guess!
The whole place seemed to empty as if it were 7pm on a weekday in a UK shopping centre. All we could do was find some place to sit and talk for a while. The main shopping mall doors were not locked but all shops WERE closed. Well, they might as well have locked it all up except that there were a few guys left sweeping up and a couple of guys were drilling at something nearby.
One guy seemed not to be sweeping up much. More often than not he seemed to be skulking around quietly and more than a few times was stood behind us most likely listening in. We were just talking – about Poland (he'd been in and around Warsaw in 1991 and had a few tales to tell!) and about assorted other things. Nothing dangerous, nothing inflamatory, nothing to bring down a nation. But here you can't be sure who people are and what they hear and don't hear.
OK, after an hour or so things started opening up again. By now it was around 1pm. We found a toilet (and they had some squat toilets together with normal ones) and then went back to the hypermarket before (the one with the laptops). BUT, to our dismay, they were due to close at 2pm and then reopen at around 4pm. So all we could do was buzz round doing our shopping for the week and then go back in the taxi home.
Although it was good to get out of the compound, looking back it wasn't much of an 'outing'. A couple of hours downtown and that was it. To be fair, I did enjoy it. Just to see a bit of new scenery. Believe me, it counts a LOT here in “compound land”. The thing is, you HAVE to take these chances to get out and do something – otherwise you rot away in your room.
I made one useful purchase – another flash drive. A very good price too. I will use it from now on for school use AND, more importantly, I will NOW be able to transfer all this (my diary) from here in my laptop to my blog. Cos I'm not just writing to myself here! REALLY I'm not!
The rest of that Thursday was spent in my room and in the canteen for lunch/dinner. Again I have to say how much I enjoy the meals here. Weekends are more of an 'a la carte' affair – you go in, there is a “weekend menu”, you choose what you want, pay, and it comes to you a bit later. And very nice it is too! Who says hospital food is bad!
SURVIVAL – that's the name of the game here. Weekday survival will revolve around drinking lots of that very nice tea I was given by one of our female teaching colleagues. That together with some poetry writing I've got done. And as many chats as possible. Oh, and many visits to the “internet computer” for email, news, surf and whatever I can think of. On Wednesday I had a look at 'Gumtree Krakow' to see if there were many ads wanting native speaker teachers. And indeed there WERE! VERY encouraging. More encouraging were the accommodation rent prices that I saw on the Polish website which is the equivalent of EasyRoomMate.com, and looking at those made me think ahead to my eventual 'release' from here and what I will return to AND how I will better plan things BEFORE I get to Krakow next time. Because I can see now that, with advance planning, it for sure IS possible to get a nice set of private students by advertising myself in advance of being there. In other words, not just go there “cold” and try to start from scratch.
The question of just HOW long I will stay here is one that will follow me all the way to the end. One important feeling is that I DO want to resume my “life interrupted” in Krakow. Being here is a means to an end and there is a financial goal to my Saudi time. But HOW LONG would be a good amount of time to stay? And would I be able to come back again later either to this place I'm in now or to some other place in the Middle East. And, indeed, would I WANT TO come back for “second helpings”? For this is not the way I want to live out here. Yes, being here is for work purposes only, but I cannot stop time and cannot resume what has been too long ago. In a place like Krakow, it is important to get a 'foothold' on the place so that you get known and so, by word of mouth, you can get that nice set of private students and therefore be comfortable and not dependent too much on any language school. My idea would be to have a number of “core hours” of language school work together with my own private students. And with the Saudi money it would not be a big stress if I was down with not as much work as I wanted. Yes, that was a big problem there – not having any kind of “backup money” meant that if I didn't have the students then I didn't have the money. And then that would stress me out and I simply couldn't enjoy my time there and couldn't, for example, go to the cinema and have any kind of social and normal life.
Being here is, in my opinion, what you do when you have little else to go back for. THEN, yes, you COULD easily spend the five or ten years here that many of these guys have done and it would make more sense. And then it wouldn't matter so much if you had little to do because your one and only aim was to make money either for retirement or for a nice little nest-egg to have a comfy life.
Well .... it seems to be a feature of this 'diary' so far that I write little about what I am doing and more about what I am thinking. But isn't that what a diary/blog is? I will look back on this in months to come and see how things progress. For now, it's goodbye, good night, and here comes another week of ..... ?? Can you wait?
It's just after the beginning of Week 2 here. THIS time I'm going to try to do this regularly as I can. Well, plenty of time in the evenings likely with little to do so may as well make the most of it! In this diary entry I'm going to write about what I did in Week 1 and add my initial thoughts about “the show so far” at the end.
So, first thing is Week 1 and what it was like – my first week of work in a REALLY foreign country.
Well actually not much work at all. Doesn't matter pay-wise as I'm not hourly paid a-la-Poland but paid a proper salary. So I don't have to count every hour as it comes to me. Is that better? Yes in that lack of students/classes is not YOUR fault as a teacher. I always resented the fact that class sizes and the absence/presence of your classes and holiday days AND, on occasions, cancellations and the like were counted against your hours as a teacher. Yes, I'm thinking of York but not only. In the last few years of teaching where I was trying to do it more in Psz. I had very few hours ANYWHERE and therefore struggled to live properly. At the time it didn't seem to matter much as I was trying to do teaching plus internet-related activities (which ultimately was a failure). And I'd had a rough time in teaching in the years at P.L. and L. schools which really demotivated me. NOT helpful. Even the break from teaching in London didn't help much. London wasn't a place I wanted to live in anyway and so I never wanted to find anything to keep me there. Well, London was a disaster and wasn't meant to happen the way it did. But I'm glad I decided to go back into teaching again. Yes, my time in Krakow was rather money-stressed but student-wise it WAS good and I did get a lot out of it.
Anyway, I seem to be waffling. What I was trying to say was that NOW I am on a salary and so not being in the classroom doesn't count against me money-wise. I AM glad I wasn't THRUST into the classroom from Day 1 because (1) I wasn't capable after the airport nonsense, and (2) I wouldn't have had much idea of how to go about it.
There wasn't any teaching in Week 1. In fact, even NOW my hours and class haven't been 100% confirmed yet. And, as I well know by now, I do NOT count the chickens until they're hatched. But it seems likely that my ONE class that I've been told I'll be having will be five days a week and three lots of 50-minutes a day (mornings until lunch). It is not on-site in the English department building but a short ride away in the other building we teach in with some kind of class of soldier boys who either want or have to learn English. Many classes out here are with this kind of students and I've encountered them before in Bournemouth mixed in with other nationalities. Not the best kind of students but then their motivation to learn English is low. “Like a class of little kids in adult bodies”, is what I've been told. Sounds like a class that I will not be getting on with then. But we'll see.
So what did I do in Week 1 then? Well, for the first few days – actually for MOST of that week – there were bits of admin that needed doing and procedures that needed following.
On the first day, the Sunday 15th March I was picked up outside the block here and taken to the Personnel building. Seemed to be a fairly short ride, but on that first day I knew nothing except the inside of that block and the little bit outside – well, not even that as I'd arrived there after the Airport Night needing only to sleep. Had a list of documents to take there and got them into my bag – nothing difficult to find as I had them all ready.
Went there, and in I went to Personnel. Normal kind of building. BUT as I went in, the first of my Saudi stereotypes was broken at ONCE. Yes, there WERE men there in the expected Saudi white 'smock' and red checked headgear. BUT .... two women (later found out they were Filipino) dressed normally with no head covering of any kind. WOMEN at work!! WOMEN not covered up!!! Tear out that page RIGHT AWAY!
The main personnel man was also Filipino. Well, the only thing I didn't have were photos. And no, the TWELVE photos was not a misprint and they had NOT inserted a '1' in front of the '2'. They really DID want twelve photos of passport size. Didn't have them as hadn't been told to bring 'em. BUT OMG – TWELVE PHOTOS!!?? What on EARTH could they need THAT NUMBER for?? Just how many people wanted a photo of me and for what?? I couldn't conceive WHO would want these. Anyway, I didn't have them so would have to get them later – as it was the HoD took me into the nearest town, Khobar a few days later to a photo shop to do that. And VERY CHEAP they were too! I got thirty-two passport size photos for the equivalent of a little less than 10 pounds (UK)! WOW!!
All I had to do in Personnel was fill in and sign various things like Contract (again!) and a kind of non-disclosure form which told me all the things I wasn't allowed to do either in the compound or in the country. I wondered about the “Don't take photos” item and about whether my mobile phone might be frowned on, but it wasn't a problem.
While I was there a couple of other people came and went who were, I think, Sri Lankan and maybe Indian in origin. NOT teachers for sure but maybe they were there to be hospital workers or something.
Once I was done there I had to go to Security and this was for my temporary ID badge. Yup, another form to fill in and yet more waiting. Waiting, Waiting, Waiting seems to be the mantra to chant round here and I sure spent an awful lot of those first few days just sitting and waiting for people to deal with me. Didn't matter since I was feeling pretty rough still from the flight and Airport Experience. The less I had to do, the better. The early part of the morning was going to and from there up and down stairs and in and out of doors, It was pretty hot that day too, and I caught sight of the compound thermometer which said it was around 35deg. C – not quite the hottest I've been in but close. BUT the strange thing is that it didn't seem that hot. I mean, you get that temperature in Britain or Poland and you're dying a hot death. Maybe it was that I was mostly in air-con buildings or maybe just that it is a dry sort of heat here.
Well, nothing much exciting to write about that morning and then lunch time came at 11.30am. Too early? Didn't matter much to me – it was another new part of the college to see (and to remember!) and so I went along to lunch with some other teachers. A confusing maze of corridors and signs to follow which I KNEW I would have difficulty finding alone later especially in my tired state.
A good lunch and a reasonable canteen. Good selection of food items and some NICE COFFEE (which I'm told is only Nescafe but tastes v different!). Portions not huge but adequate considering you don't want to eat much when it's hot. Also bought some more bottles of water for later – water obviously being something I should keep to hand at all times.
Oh, forgot to mention. Discovered that one of the other teachers knew Slough, had encountered Polish people before AND most of all ..... had also been to the same college of FE I was in a few years after me!! Small world or WHAT!!
After lunch more to-ing and fro-ing to complete more parts of the bureaucratic process of “joining” the college as a “fully paid member”. Ah, and there was this medical to do. Yes, ANOTHER one to my amazement. WHY on earth for?? Seems they like to do it at both ends. Same kind of thing as in Harley Street except here they did a few more things such as a urine drug test, more blood tests and they required a urine AND stool sample. I can't tell you HOW LONG it took me to produce that 'stool' but it wasn't immediate! In fact, was only on the third day that FINALLY I had it at night. Hmm .... WHY was the urine test container smaller than the one to deposit my 'stool' into?? I'll never know. Phew – I'll never be a doctor – who on earth would be interested by a piece of shit stuffed into a plastic jar?? I guess to them it's just a thing to test.
All in all the medical took three days to fully complete (mainly due to my inability to produce my 'stool' sample!). But once done, it was another hurdle overcome. These things can easily irritate if you let them but I just them do whatever they got to do and give them whatever they need from me. No point in jumping up and down in the frustration of YET AGAIN giving those SAME details you've already given multiple times already. Better things to waste your energy on. And anyway – it's all for that pot of gold so I guess it's worth it!
That was pretty much Day 1. Day 2 was similar except for meeting more of the teachers .... INCLUDING the three WOMEN TEACHERS they have here. Yes, I DID say WOMEN TEACHERS! In SAUDI ARABIA!! Well, I had read this eastern province was more “progressive” than others and it seems so! NEVER would I have expected this in Riyadh – to have seen women WORKING was one big surprise but as TEACHERS .... well!! And a very nice threesome they were too! Well, there I was sitting in there office drinking tea, eating cake and biscuits and talking. Just like that!! So that is THREE stereotypes torn up in under three days! Mind you, as I was told, such behaviour would be frowned on by the 'religious police' who sometimes do the rounds here and who, I was told, came round recently asking questions and checking things out. Sometimes they come round the accommodation blocks apparently. I wonder what rank they have compared to the actual police and the army, and who answers to who here.
Those first two days I found VERY difficult. Tiredness/jet lag compounded by just TOO MUCH information and different things to try to take in. Not to mention finding my way around a whole new place which I knew I'd have difficulty in doing. Without a map my sense of direction is not the best! But not likely to get a map around here for security reasons, and that's fair enough.
You know, we English teachers are a pretty odd bunch. I had wondered about what kinds of people I would be meeting out here and supposed that anybody who comes out here has to be maybe a few marbles short at LEAST. Yup, certainly are a few, let's say, colourful characters here. As expected, they're all in the older age range, which makes me one of the youngest for a nice change!! Doesn't happen often where I teach! Most of them really have been here a long while and the minimum seems to be about five years. I can't IMAGINE spending THAT amount of time out here but it goes up to thirty-PLUS years that our HoD has spent in the Middle East. Maybe people would find it strange that I've spent 12 years in Poland – a country which only NOW do people know more about due to the amount of them in London and beyond. Each to their own. But here is SO different that my early impressions are that you have to be some special kind of person to get along here. Is it a different temperament? Resistance to the summer heat? The feeling that you're staying here to build up some nice money? The last one is surely the lure to GET people here but why do they stay here so long? This is something I suppose I will work out as I go. Some, I have heard are married here – not sure to which nationality of wife but it is a thing to keep a person in a place for a time for sure. Kept me in Poland – although would I have lasted so long there if I hadn't been married? Who knows!
The other teachers seemed to have developed their own ways of getting by/surviving. These range from TV and internet to the need to get away when they can to doing things like swimming, going to the gym and cycling. Some go further. In fact, many say that you HAVE TO do something. The compound is pretty far from even the nearest town and so to just get away is a hassle. This does bother me and could turn out to be the one thing that gets me the most. The things I like about being in a new place – getting out and about, food, coffee shops, browsing the town, seeing the locals in their environment. Oh, and you can forget about taking photos! OK, in the compound obviously not due to the nature of the place. But even in town it is really NOT allowed and, if seen, the police will likely arrest you and confiscate your camera and maybe take you to jail. Yes, NO PHOTOS!! And there is SO MUCH I'd really LIKE to take! So much that people back home would LOVE to see and that I'd LOVE to show them.
What I'm realising is this: Saudi Arabia must be regarded as a place of work and no more. There is little chance of getting to know anybody here outside the compound. For SURE, VERY little chance of getting to know anybody else other than those I work with. And even LESS chance of having a good time. There is another compound around Dhahran called 'Aramco' which is an American-run oil workers compound. A “Little America” if what I've heard is to be believed. Going there has been suggested as a way to get to know more people and widen a very small social circle. But it is SO far that going there is really an expedition that CAN'T be worth it! Especially since compound rules state that everyone must be inside the compound at night (for security reasons). Now yes, one may choose to defy that. And that is, for some, a matter of personal choice. But for me it is not worth the risk. This is the Golden Goose and I am not going to be risking anything like THAT! Just imagine getting caught – no, better NOT imagine! So even though it might SEEM a good idea, I am sure I WON'T be doing it.
So what WILL I be doing here when I'm not in the classroom? Good question ..... and as I sit here I have no idea at all. I just can't imagine. Once I get my internet set up on my laptop then THAT will really help me NOT to feel so isolated as I'm beginning to already. You might say, “Oh no! You CAN'T sit in your room all the time!”, and in some way you'd be right. But my options are limited. Yes, I feel I will have to take up quite a few things that I've never done before or not done in way-too-many years. Among those are swimming, jogging, going to the gym and cycling. I thought about jogging and the gym but did not bring either shorts or trainers for space and weight reasons (but I needn't have worried as it turns out due to the 30kg baggage limit!). Should I get those when I go home in August? I guess so. But what to do until then? Hmm .... good question AGAIN!!
I find that, when I come back to the room in the evening that I'm in one of two frames of mind. At the start of last week I felt really bad, but probably that was due to the tiredness/jet lag thing. But yesterday and today I have come back feeling a kind of “OMG What am I doing here? HELP!”, kind of feeling and a feeling that it's going to be a long, hard year which I don't KNOW how I'm going to get through. People keep asking me how long I intend to stay and I simply DON'T KNOW and can't give an answer.
Also, my feeling at the end of the day depends who I've spoken to during the day and what they've told me. And, as in any workplace, there those you learn you HAVE TO avoid if you want to try to keep positive and sane. You know the ones – those people who never have a good word to say or who THINK they're giving you good “advice” which only makes you feel worse and more desperate. And those who just drive you mad whenever they open their mouths. Yes, there ARE things I need to know, but I DON'T want to hear all the time the difficulties I might have and things to beware of. If I am to survive this Saudi experience, then I have to keep POSITIVE. Sure – things will happen which will be weird and which may well freak me out. But I'd like to experience those for myself. I think I can quite well enough manage MYSELF to get through it and so long as a few basic principles and Do's/Dont's are followed then things should settle into a reasonable pattern. I don't mean getting into a “routine” but just feeling comfortable in how I do things and how I can get by and not feeling that this is all a complete nightmare. I think it WILL be OK here so long as I find MY WAY to get through it. Sure there will be difficult and sad times. Last night and Friday night were difficult. Friday evening I phoned my mother and spoke to her and to my son. It was nice to speak to them but you're all too aware just how far away they are. And until I have internet properly set up and can do things like Skype then all my friends and family will be too distant.
Ah, speaking of internet and Skype .... I just CAN'T work out how to get it properly working on my phone. Although the signal my phone shows is strong enough, I just can NOT get connected. For Skype, I managed to SOMEHOW on my first evening here and by chance in the morning today it connected me. But most of the time my phone refuses to connect me. For some reason I cannot activate the service on my phone. And since the phone-up instructions are mostly in Arabic, I have no idea what I am doing wrong. As far as I know, the simcard IS active since I can make and receive calls and can send SMS messages. And I have time and time again sent SMS messages with the activation code the website for SMC Telecom tells me to send but NOTHING happens. Is it that my phone is blocked inside the compound? Is the simcard not a proper one? Did I mess around with the settings (I don't think I did)? Or is the signal just too weak to get through to the internet? It IS true that you do not always get a good signal here – it comes and goes from strong to almost zero. So maybe the signal cannot be maintained at a good enough level. Whatever it is, it is DRIVING ME CRAZY especially since I managed to Skype on the first day and thought all was well. Oh, and I got Skype-connected this morning but was in the office so couldn't use it. Ah, AND I got my emails to download too! But just once – other times it refuses to connect.
It all frustrated me and only adds to the feeling of isolation which I have felt these last few days. This just HAS TO pass because if not then I don't know what it will do to me. Yes, there are options to get around that but none of them appeal much. It's likely to be a case of biting the bullet and doing what I would otherwise NOT do.
Tuesday 24th March 2009 – 7.10pm
I was alright until about an hour ago.
There I was sitting with my really-really-exciting “dinner” of bread rolls and cheese spread. Had the train game on and BBC World was on TV with the news. Next thing I know? Flick-Flick-Splutter-Splutter-Flicker-Flicker .... BBC World is gone to be replaced by .... RADIO ARMENIA!!!
I'd even had a good last part of day. Some nice chillin-out green tea had gone down real nicely. I'd got my rolls and milk. Wasn't going to be an active evening – just a normal one. But I'd had a bitch of a day coupled with a HUGE headache yesterday evening and had woken up with it this morning too. Was definitely in a really NON tolerant mood where everything WAS going to annoy me today no matter what it was. Ohh, and it DID too. STILL no firm news about when this 15-hours a week one-and-only class of mine was to start. If anything, the news about it today was NOT positive. The word was that the soldier-boy students in question were in Riyadh just now. According to the HoD this meant that, to him, the chance of them being back for a start on Saturday was slim and now it was looking at a midweek or, worse STILL, a start delayed for ONE MORE WEEK!
Now, you may be saying, “Why does it matter as you're still paid whatever happens?”. It DOES matter. Having sat for three months in LONDON doing nothing and getting very wound up not knowing what was happening in Riyadh, Oman or ANYWHERE at all, I certainly do NOT want to continue the do-nothing thing here paid or NOT! Ad it is only marginally better that the difference between here and London is that here I AM getting paid for doing nothing. Pay is not the issue in this for me. Maybe that 'session' in London has affected me more than I know, but for SURE I am NOT about to be sitting about doing nothing AGAIN. Doing nothing all day and evening does things to a guy's mind. I need to get started, I need to be doing something, I NEED TO BE USEFUL. And most of all, I NEED TO KNOW THAT I HAVE DONE THE RIGHT THING by quitting Poland to come here for this year or so.
I have not been convinced that I have done the right thing in leaving Krakow. Yes, i had my reasons for doing so and they are still valid in that I DO still have this money problem which I MUST address. That IS why I'm here in Saudi Arabia now and that fact doesn't change. Without the money that will come from my time in this job, I will have achieved nothing except yet another SPECTACULAR FAILURE in my recent life.
I HAVE to achieve something worthwhile and I have to succeed in something. Even though it is nearly two years since THAT day on August 15th 2007 when my whole world fell into the chasm – and MORE than two years since leaving the house and all in it in Pszczyna – I have done almost NOTHING which really builds up my self-confidence again. The Anti-Midas touch – everything I touch turns to MOULD.
One of the worst things you can do in life is look back thinking, “If only I had/n't done this, that and the other”. Pointless! You cannot change what you did or what happened and time machines only exist in sci-fi and HG Wells. So it helps NOTHING to say such things. Nobody can know what the decisions they make can do to them in the future. We try to do the best for ourselves but it doesn't always work out. I could look back and say, “Oh, I shouldn't have quit Krakow so easily because things could have been better now”. In some ways that is true. I am STILL getting email enquiries from people wanting to have English lessons. So THAT, together with my hours that DID increase in the end, would have put me in a better position now. But at that time my thinking was that I had to break the continual cycle of not having money and forever depending on the job I was doing to live on AND then having to borrow from my Dad all the time. Financial Independence – yes, we all want it. And I, at age 41, felt I HAD TO do something about it since I am NOT at the start of my working life but in the middle. Or maybe beyond that. And with no savings and very little in the bank and with my only asset being the Pszczyna house (which there is STILL a cloud over), I felt then that I had to do something to break the cycle happening again and again. So here I came.
BUT .... with the exception of two or three days last week I have come home every day with either a BIG headache or feeling very down or even more unsettled about it all. Every morning I seem to wake up OK. Two mornings ago I had a beautifully Utopian dream about me in a no-money-worries kind of place and everything was beautiful and just right. So THAT morning I woke up feeling happy and quite cheerful .... only to return home that evening feeling really bad and not able to sleep.
What is it that is stressing me out? Well, first of all I think I am feeling things in a more extreme way than I should. Small things feel bigger than they perhaps are. Irritations become problems, small annoyances become hair-pullers and so on. No doubt the last three months has done me no good at ALL mentally – NOT KNOWING what was happening, WHERE I was going and IF I had done the right/wrong thing in coming to England so early REALLY HASN'T done me ANY GOOD at all! And I'm going to break the rule I talked about a few paragraphs ago and say ..... I WISH I had a time machine now so I could go back in time and tell myself, “STAY IN KRAKOW! DON'T QUIT!!”. I was having a stressful time, yes. But I was somewhere I WANTED to be with people I WANTED to be with establishing a nice routine and a nice life for myself in a VERY nice place for ANYONE to be. But see what I said about the need to break the no-money cycle.
But also, it is just that I'm in a strange environment in a strange land and TOO FAR AWAY from WHERE I want to be and too far away from WHO I want to be with. And right now I have no easy access to those places or people. And there is also this awful feeling of being trapped here in this compound and having to depend too much on others to have a normal life. If I want to go into town, I can't because it is too far and anyway I wouldn't do it alone. Food shopping too is a problem. There is a shop on this compound but it doesn't have much that is really any good. The bread is awful, the rolls artificial, the fruit and veg not worth looking at and NONE of the food here is cheap. Spent a LOT last week on food. OK, a few other things too like those plug adaptors and that stupid pillow (which will sit on that table now like a white elephant to haunt me till I leave here!). Another thing that worries me is what others have said about times when the shop has been CLOSED. WHAT THEN?? OK, there is the canteen for weekdays but maybe I don't WANT to eat there all the time. And it is AGAIN this thing of never being able to get free of the place if I have only that canteen as my source of food. Yes, maybe there IS this bus from outside our block that goes into town and brings us back. But it's hardly a walk down the road, IS IT?? More like day-release from a prison!
Anyway, in the end after this year is gone I will be thankful for the money I will have accumulated and will be able to return to my nice life in Krakow WITHOUT the money worries that plagued my life there. I WILL be able to take the risks I'd thought of like only working part-time at a language school and picking and choosing private students to suit me when and where I wanted and therefore getting known as a good native speaker in that city which people could recommend to others. THAT is something I DO plan to return to and I WILL start up that process again. But I HAVE TO go through this shit I'm enduring here to get to that point. No two ways about it – it HAS to be done.
I was thinking today about August which will be holiday when I will briefly go back to England and then go onto Poland for my holiday proper with my son. And I was thinking .... “Maybe that should be IT and I should NOT return here”. I may yet return to this thought over and over over the next few months. But I must try NOT to do such a foolish thing. How would it look? My CV would, once again, have this odd bit of teaching on which I'd have to explain why it only lasted a few months. I would make myself even LESS employable, and I cannot forget the comments made by that DoS at that other school in Krakow who said Yes, she respects that I have a lot of experience but she cannot take on someone like me who cannot stay in one job for more than a few months. NO employer likes anyone like that – not in Poland, not ANYWHERE! So it is simply NOT worth doing EVEN IF I can't stand it here.
Hmm – tell that to yourself in a few months when things might be a lot worse and your headaches might be bigger and REALLY won't go away!
No, I have to consider the so-called Bigger Picture and keep reminding myself WHY I am here and WHY I came here and WHAT it is all for. Because the answers to THOSE questions cannot be challenged. PERIOD!!
I was also thinking today about Krakow and how I managed to get by when things were really bad. And one of the most important things was that I had SOMETHING ELSE TO DO, ie, my websites. A nice diversion between morning and evening classes and an EXCELLENT way to keep myself busy and not keep an idle mind. And that was combined, later on, with my nice little phone calls and my, err, “social life” (ahh, dream, dream, .....). And I was ALSO kept busy organising myself to get from one class to another or from class to private student or to home or to the library. So I was rarely idle. Question is .... HOW to do something like that HERE? No town centre, no private students, DEFINITELY no “social life of THAT kind. Just the compound and a half hour journey by road to the nearest point of 'civilisation' (which is only a shopping mall or two anyway!). Almost no social life with other teachers, for SURE none will happen with the STUDENTS here, and there are severe penalties for any kind of other 'fun' which would be considered “normal” back home. The “delights” of compound life only extend to the swimming pool, the gym, the cafe, the exhibition downstairs from our English Department (probably only a 5-minute job!), the possibility of getting a bike and cycling round the compound area and roads. And .... err .... oh, when I get it, my internet access on my PC. Oh, and the two ..... sorry, ONE useful TV channel that I have. Well, OK, some new things to take up maybe and I might be forced to JUST to get through the day!
Speaking of my day now, it currently goes like this: wake up, shower, breakfast, walk to dept., go on internet for emails at 8am, try to find out YET AGAIN what my mobile phone settings should be on this Al Jawal (without success of course!), try and AGAIN FAIL to access my emails and Skype on my phone, back to my desk, lots of tea, think AGAIN about what to do with this class when it starts, write some poetry (NEW today!), go for more tea, walk around, (eventually) go for lunch (the real HIGHLIGHT of the day – no joke! The canteen food is really GOOD!), sit at lunch and listen to others interjecting when I can or sometimes even have a conversation myself, back from lunch and then so on and so forth with the tea, internet, talks and walks.
.... and get paid for it of course! Would YOU do a job like THIS? Well, I don't feel I AM doing a job and don't feel very useful or positive.
Nothing else much interesting to write about so I'll end here.
Friday 27th March 2009
So .... another weekend is over (well, the second proper one since arrival), and on to another week at this workplace.
I use “work”place in its loosest sense since I'm yet to do anything that resembles work and CERTAINLY nothing teaching-related. Ah, not quite true – I have received the coursebook I am to use with the soldier boys until mid-August when Ramadan arrives. And this is no joke – the book in question is called “Up And Away Book 1” and it is intended for CHILDREN of about 7 or 8 years.
The philosophy behind this is two-fold by the HoD. Firstly, the basis of the course is that these soldiers or cadets or whatever they are are supposed to be the LOWEST of the low in language levels. REAL beginners as I'm led to believe. And without motivation too, it seems. The HoD has said he expects nothing from them and fully expects a dramatic failure of the course and that NONE of them will successfully learn anything. “So nothing is expected of you and it will not reflect on you if they fail!”, he says.
I have NEVER heard such a thing before from any HoD or DoS and never expect to. His strategy seems to be to put the military people off holding any such courses again. After all, the main aim of what we do here is to teach the medics-to-be and not be pushed sideways into a different kind of course.
I can see it both ways. Firstly, why would the soldiers NOT be learning English? It is an international language and since they are likely to encounter Americans and the like in the field of operation, then they surely need the basics at least. But, on the other hand, it is also a case of “jobs for the boys” as the HoD calls it. In other words, we as teachers are “babysitting” and it is merely something for bored soldiers to do during their day.
Anyway, this aside, there is STILL no firm information as to WHEN this is to begin. The latest “rumour” is Tuesday this week. And, in Saudi terms that is the equivalent of beginning on a Thursday. But that might not happen and it may well go into the week after.
This has been frustrating. I am here and yet I have nothing to do. Paid or not, I don't like to be bored.
A new teacher arrived last week. He and I are due to have these soldier boys from whenever it is. He seems like a good bloke, and it is good to FINALLY have someone in the same boat to me – here doing nothing. A fairly laid-back character he is. At first, it irritated me since I just wanted to get going and all he could say was, “Never mind, just relax!”, which I couldn't do. But he is alright. A friendly, affable sort of chap, and in fact he and I went into the local town, Khobar, yesterday and it was a good day I'd say. Well, that is if you think that spending your time in and around one of many shopping malls that are about ALL there is to do here at leisure time. Yes, here I am enjoying my weekend time looking at laptops and exploring the “delights” of the first of quite a few local shopping malls here. Sad, isn't it! What would YOU be doing? Well, no doubt your weekends have been spent out with friends, down the local market, having coffee and cakes in your town centre ..... and just doing the normal things that I WISH I WAS DOING!!
Anyway, in the context of what we have here, Thursday was a good day. Of course, being so far out, it was necessary to take a taxi into town. So myself and the new guy did just that. Got there around mid-morning. I had my 'shopping list' and he wanted to look at laptops which apparently were at good prices in this particular shopping mall in Khobar. Well, it was something to do! Also in that hypermarket were a number of other electrical items for kitchen etc. so it was useful to see what they had and compare prices to the UK. The only thing that I saw of interest was a sandwich toaster. But as the bread here is not good, I don't think I'll bother.
Looked at the laptops. A couple of them were at pretty good prices considering the spec they had. Quite an eye opener actually! I had been thinking that I would buy my next one back in the UK, but now I'm not sure. Well, they all had Windows Vista and English/Arabic keyboards. Maybe, maybe not.
Decided to get food later. Went out to the coffee shop for a nice ice latte. Were sitting down enjoying it. Now, here in Saudi you have to plan what you do by prayer times lest you should get caught in 'mid-shop' and quite possibly be locked in. Now, I had thought that today's prayer time was around 11.15am but nothing happened to my surprise. Maybe they don't do it in these larger shopping malls. Well that unfortunately was not the case! There we were sitting with our drinks in nice, comfy armchairs when .... yes, you've guessed it .... 11.45 came and the Call To Prayer rang out on the loudspeakers. That was it, the shutters were coming down on the coffee shop and OUT we had to go! Ah well, was a comfortable 10 minutes I guess!
The whole place seemed to empty as if it were 7pm on a weekday in a UK shopping centre. All we could do was find some place to sit and talk for a while. The main shopping mall doors were not locked but all shops WERE closed. Well, they might as well have locked it all up except that there were a few guys left sweeping up and a couple of guys were drilling at something nearby.
One guy seemed not to be sweeping up much. More often than not he seemed to be skulking around quietly and more than a few times was stood behind us most likely listening in. We were just talking – about Poland (he'd been in and around Warsaw in 1991 and had a few tales to tell!) and about assorted other things. Nothing dangerous, nothing inflamatory, nothing to bring down a nation. But here you can't be sure who people are and what they hear and don't hear.
OK, after an hour or so things started opening up again. By now it was around 1pm. We found a toilet (and they had some squat toilets together with normal ones) and then went back to the hypermarket before (the one with the laptops). BUT, to our dismay, they were due to close at 2pm and then reopen at around 4pm. So all we could do was buzz round doing our shopping for the week and then go back in the taxi home.
Although it was good to get out of the compound, looking back it wasn't much of an 'outing'. A couple of hours downtown and that was it. To be fair, I did enjoy it. Just to see a bit of new scenery. Believe me, it counts a LOT here in “compound land”. The thing is, you HAVE to take these chances to get out and do something – otherwise you rot away in your room.
I made one useful purchase – another flash drive. A very good price too. I will use it from now on for school use AND, more importantly, I will NOW be able to transfer all this (my diary) from here in my laptop to my blog. Cos I'm not just writing to myself here! REALLY I'm not!
The rest of that Thursday was spent in my room and in the canteen for lunch/dinner. Again I have to say how much I enjoy the meals here. Weekends are more of an 'a la carte' affair – you go in, there is a “weekend menu”, you choose what you want, pay, and it comes to you a bit later. And very nice it is too! Who says hospital food is bad!
SURVIVAL – that's the name of the game here. Weekday survival will revolve around drinking lots of that very nice tea I was given by one of our female teaching colleagues. That together with some poetry writing I've got done. And as many chats as possible. Oh, and many visits to the “internet computer” for email, news, surf and whatever I can think of. On Wednesday I had a look at 'Gumtree Krakow' to see if there were many ads wanting native speaker teachers. And indeed there WERE! VERY encouraging. More encouraging were the accommodation rent prices that I saw on the Polish website which is the equivalent of EasyRoomMate.com, and looking at those made me think ahead to my eventual 'release' from here and what I will return to AND how I will better plan things BEFORE I get to Krakow next time. Because I can see now that, with advance planning, it for sure IS possible to get a nice set of private students by advertising myself in advance of being there. In other words, not just go there “cold” and try to start from scratch.
The question of just HOW long I will stay here is one that will follow me all the way to the end. One important feeling is that I DO want to resume my “life interrupted” in Krakow. Being here is a means to an end and there is a financial goal to my Saudi time. But HOW LONG would be a good amount of time to stay? And would I be able to come back again later either to this place I'm in now or to some other place in the Middle East. And, indeed, would I WANT TO come back for “second helpings”? For this is not the way I want to live out here. Yes, being here is for work purposes only, but I cannot stop time and cannot resume what has been too long ago. In a place like Krakow, it is important to get a 'foothold' on the place so that you get known and so, by word of mouth, you can get that nice set of private students and therefore be comfortable and not dependent too much on any language school. My idea would be to have a number of “core hours” of language school work together with my own private students. And with the Saudi money it would not be a big stress if I was down with not as much work as I wanted. Yes, that was a big problem there – not having any kind of “backup money” meant that if I didn't have the students then I didn't have the money. And then that would stress me out and I simply couldn't enjoy my time there and couldn't, for example, go to the cinema and have any kind of social and normal life.
Being here is, in my opinion, what you do when you have little else to go back for. THEN, yes, you COULD easily spend the five or ten years here that many of these guys have done and it would make more sense. And then it wouldn't matter so much if you had little to do because your one and only aim was to make money either for retirement or for a nice little nest-egg to have a comfy life.
Well .... it seems to be a feature of this 'diary' so far that I write little about what I am doing and more about what I am thinking. But isn't that what a diary/blog is? I will look back on this in months to come and see how things progress. For now, it's goodbye, good night, and here comes another week of ..... ?? Can you wait?
OK - I'm here now - and here's how I got here
Friday 13th March 2009
So .... as I write this it was two weeks ago today that I'd seen the school assembly and I had just got in the car with Mum on the first leg of my journey to HERE where I am now.
Let's start with that initial journey in the car .... actually let's skip forward to being at Heathrow terminal 3. Well, what the hell is there to write about the Bounds Green to Heathrow T3 journey? Nothing much – lots of sitting there with crowds in cent. London which died down as we moved outwards. All I had to worry about was – Was my case with wheels going to wheel about when the train stopped suddenly? Well it didn't. Anyway, arrived at T3 in very good time, up the escalator, man with luggage trolleys which I got one of, and in I went.
Smaller than I thought was T3 and really quite pleasant outside. Not like the bodies of Heathrow I'd imagined (thankfully!). First thing I needed was suitcase padlocks. Don't normally use them but figured I should for where I was going. Easily enough there was an 'Excess Baggage' stand which had suitcase wrap-ups and associated stuff ... AND padlocks. They looked to be too fat but tried one and was OK so got a pack of two for 4pounds. Seemed a reasonable price. Job done!
So .... to find Saudi Arabian airlines check-in was my next target. Well it wasn't even 11 o'clock so I was ridiculously early. Found it anyway and NO QUEUES! Looked for where I was supposed to go as many check-in desks were marked. A security guard (or something) asked me what I wanted (strange?!) and I said I was looking for the Riyadh/Dammam check-in. He checked my passport (also a strange thing to do in THIS part of the airport but maybe extra security for THIS destination and all associated places close by) and then directed me to Check-In Desk 31. Again no queue. One WOMAN there to do it (NOT a man and NOT in one of those Gulf Air-style head-dresses!). Usual procedure here. Told her I knew I was going to be too heavy in luggage, put the cases on and came around to learn how much excess I'd be paying.
Well, the answer to THAT was ZERO! Was it my nice-looking jacket, the fact I was the first in the queue (which was zero size anyway!) or was it that, unknown to me, my ticket was actually NOT economy class as I'd assumed? Even NOW I don't know the answer, but the answer from check-in girl was that my cases were OK because my luggage limit was 30 KILOS!! Pfffff and that meant I was 4 kilos UNDERWEIGHT!! All that time worrying and stuffing trousers into my hand luggage and rearranging and I could have ADDED 4 more kilos!! Ah well, all to the good.
So things were off to a very good start. So I now had around two hours to kill. Better than being late I suppose. So I alternated between walking around, browsing and going up and downstairs. Oh, and I went to the Am Ex currency exchange to get my first wedge of Saudi riyals with the money Dad had given me. Ex rate not so good but I didn't want to mess around with this first one. Got them, and they were rather long, thin notes .... rather like US dollars. Seems they are linked in more than just one way!
Anyway, time was passing and wondered where Dad was as he said he was going to meet me. Eventually my phone rang and he was there (downstairs at check-in). So up he came. Wasn't so long to go but we went for something to eat. And, as has often happened recently, I was served by a Polish woman (with surname Grabowska, Dad noted!) and the guy who came to take our trays away was a Pole too. Just to remind me what I was getting away from/going back to next.
Had a good chat and eat and then it was time to ..... Go Through!! The thing I'd been least looking forward to because then it was Goodbye Britain And Europe And Everybody I Know. A big moment.
Even THAT went smoothly enough. Procedure a bit different to what I've been used to in that the Shoes Off thing came further down the line. A slight hold-up at the last line before going to the gate as they wanted to check my laptop. But only the inside of the case – no need to turn it on.
It does seem that wearing this nice jacket helped me through all much more easily. Interesting they should judge me based on that fact, but after all that WAS part of why I got it!
So .... in around 5 and a half hours I would be in Riyadh and then, as I was told, all I had to do then was stay on the plane for about an hour and then a short hour flight from Riyadh to Dammam would finish it off. A short wait in the dep. Lounge and then on I went. STILL I was wondering WHERE my seat would actually be. Had I been elevated to First Class due to early check-in? And was that due to my nice jacket? (thank YOU Oxfam, Islington!!)
OK, time to go on. The moment of truth! In the plane door, to the left, and THROUGH .... the nice, wide First Class seats. OK, so THAT wasn't happening! BUT .... still nice! A TV screen in the headrest of my seat! Headphones plug-in socket! Plus the usual aircraft mag, sick bag etc etc. and leg room not bad either. BUT my footrest didn't stay up. A minor thing. Oh, I opened one overhead storage to put my bags into but it was full – VERY full! Was worried that all its contents would fall out onto the man sitting below but managed with left arm to push it up closed again and opened the one opposite which was more empty. Didn't get my book out as there was a man waiting so just put my bags in it and went to sit down. Hmmm .... no book for nearly 6 hours in the air AND I had the window seat with the one man to climb over. Obviously no reading was going to be done THIS flight! But with this TV screen facing me now maybe I'd be OK. I thought only First Class bods had stuff like that. Or maybe Saudi Arabian Airlines are just that bit better ....
For now, the only thing I could see on the screen was a very blurred view of the outside. A cockpit camera! What was the use of that? Erm .... well, not a lot if truth be told and even LESS useful when we'd be in the air. But something novel maybe.
Tried to get something else but nothing was coming yet. The big screen was showing the usual seat belt/life jacket/oxygen mask stuff as was my headrest screen. Ohhh ..... you mean we don't get to see the Saudi flight attendants doing it? Nope.
NOW .... speaking of flight attendants .... YES, they WERE women with those Gulf Air-style head-dresses so that hair is covered loosely but not face. WOMEN flight attendants on a Saudi plane!! One page of the Saudi stereotypes book to be ripped out then – I assumed they'd all be men! AND all the other Saudi women passengers were dressed fairly normally (but covered up as Riyadh approached including one VERY attractive woman in the front row who had beautiful long dark hair and a lovely face). I suppose that being in London they didn't feel the pressure or obligation to cover up and weren't coerced to do so by their husbands.
The flight itself was long and just about bearable. The last time I had such a long flight was my round-the-world stuff so that's nearly 14 years .... and one older body .... later. The flight started with the flight attendants bringing around face wipes. Funny time to bring them I thought! I looked around for the headphones. But how to hear from the TV? Was it one connection for the radio and another for the TV? TWO sets of headphones? Nope – headphones appeared a little while later and plugged into the seat armrest and THIS gave me sound from the TV. Technology eh! So what we got on this TV thing? Well, there were movies (Hollywood, Asian and Islamic), TV/shorts, radio, airshow camera (for view of outside – mostly useless!), games (?!), other music (Hooverphonic were pictured but the album didn't actually exist as another had been duplicated in its place), something called 'radio' (which was actually a pre-recorded 60 or 90 minute show of a variety of genres from pop to classical to asian to islamic) and a few other minor things too.
Movies!! Nice!! Well, I thought so but only the 'Hollywood' ones were in English. And NOW the Saudi stereotypes book could be added to ....
Yes, they WERE real Hollywood films. BUT, as each one announced at the beginning, the film would be cropped for the screen size AND would have its content EDITED. Ah HAH, I thought, now we'll see what Saudi is all about.
OK, so I chose the Will Smith film, HANCOCK, to watch. Overall summary of it? Pretty boring. BUT there WAS a lot of very amusing editing. Any time there was a bottle of alcoholic drink, a religious symbol (mostly crosses), women's KNEES and some amount of women's chest/cleavage line showing, then this was BLURRED OUT. Yup, blurred out. Oh, and the scene on the beach where Will Smith throws the big whale back in the sea – ALL other people on that beach were COMPLETELY blurred out! And there was much editing too. Of WHAT I'm not sure because I haven't seen that film before. But when I got to the end, the film didn't make sense. The things which had been edited out were, I THINK, scenes of violence, kissing and other related scenes of affection, and various swear words had been over-dubbed with other milder words (for example, the word ASSHOLE had been much-changed to PSYCHO .... BUT I think the editing had been done at the Hollywood end rather than the Saudi end because the accent was the same!). Well, many countries do have their standards of course, but what had been edited out made the film not make sense in my view. I also watched the X-Files movie (a new one, it seems) and it too was subject to editing and didn't make much sense. Or perhaps it was my tired state of mind that wasn't following it all. Anyway, going back to the blur-outs, it was only the close-up 'chests' that were blurred out and only those from front-on. And some had been overlooked! Oh, and ONLY women were blurred upon. Men baring their chests were all OK so the scene where David Duchovny is full chest-on was not edited at all. Women-only editing, eh??!! Too exciting!!??
Wasn't much to see really on this headrest TV thing. The blur-outs annoyed me after a while so I didn't bother with any more and that rather limited what I could do with the TV and therefore limited its use.
Didn't mention the airline meal. Was OK – I had the chicken dinner and it was nice and a few new things in it for me. Rice wrapped in a kind of vine leaf with lemon or maybe some other pickle-tasting thing. Other things fairly standard. No wine of course. All OK.
Just about everyone got off in Riyadh. Women had, by then, all got covered up in traditional and expected Saudi attire. Didn't notice the men changed much but maybe I didn't look. Well I was looking but not looking if you get my meaning. Cos it's not good to stare at burka'd women. Anyway, there were a few expats and a handful of Arabs left on. Expats mentioned how uncomfortable the seats were and I had to agree with them. They were obviously old-hands of the Saudi scene as they were discussing things like whether there were less seats on the plane than there used to be. Not a lot really. So take-off time came again and away we went. This time the TV system was off but no big loss really.
Forgot to mention the view from Riyadh airport. Well coming in couldn't see as was v cloudy. And all I could see out the small plane window was the imposing dome of the mosque outside Riyadh airport. Nothing else distinctive. Even less to see at Dammam airport.
So almost two hours after landing at Riyadh we were in Dammam airport. The Big Moment!! Actually when I went to get off I saw there were more people getting off than I thought were still on the plane. Got my stuff and off I went feeling just a bit pensive at what was to happen next. Had been expecting this, the Saudi customs part, to be the worst of the whole journey.
Wandered through. Décor reminded me INSTANTLY of a 70's Polish-style hotel. The walls, the ceiling, the feel of the place. But no Polish female lovelies there to greet me unfortunately. A small expat crowd including a family with a young daughter of about 10 years old. Wondered what they were doing here – surely THAT little girl didn't call a place like THIS her home!? So I joined a passport control queue and waited my turn. All seemed very orderly and normal and without hassle. Noticed the customs soldier boys had digital cameras on tripods which they were taking photos of the expats who passed through. Standard procedure probably. Also noticed they were putting their fingers into something which I discovered later was to take fingerprints. Full security stuff! But as expected.
OK, my turn came and all was fine until the customs guy asked me where my ..... (something) was. I thought he meant my boarding card but it wasn't that and instead was the Landing Card I should have filled in. Well, I haven't done such a thing for so long that I didn't think to look for it. So was directed back to a desk where such cards were, though not with any hostility or nastiness. Got it and – well, I was pretty tired by now so was probably writing rather slowly. In the end I had filled in the first side and that was the main bit. They called me back to go through again. All was OK – did the photo and fingerprints thing (though had to do the photo twice as the first one I'd had my eyes closed! Too tired!). Noticed that some of the expats seemed to be waiting – for me? Maybe it was just in case I got any trouble rather than them going through and leaving me to fend for myself versus Saudi customs. Was a nice gesture.
Anyway, all that was completed. I'd imagined being hauled into a room for an hour and all that stuff. Nothing of the sort! So down the stairs now to the baggage reclaim.
A man in green was there to greet me with a luggage trolley and although I didn't need it, I accepted his help and he put my bags on the trolley and wheeled me off to baggage reclaim. Was a little nervous about a strange guy in control of my trolley but was OK and we got to the baggage conveyor belt where my bags had already been taken off. Fetched them, onto the trolley and then out the final door.
Nope, not yet. Was another stage to go through as all the bags were put through ANOTHER X-ray machine. Ohhh it's rather a lot to go through when it's after 2am local time and you just want to get through, find the guy waiting for you with his sign and then get in the car and be off.
Didn't need this porter man as I said but he seemed determined to help and I didn't mind. Through the final set of doors, people were there waiting and .... NO SIGN with my name on. The time was 2.45am.
“Won't be long”, I thought. After all, they said this wouldn't be a problem with someone waiting and anyway I had the phone number if he wasn't.
The next FOUR (or was it five) hours passed very slowly. Nobody came. Now, I have to say I am having trouble remembering EXACTLY how I passed the time. But I think it went like this: first I sat at a table at the airport cafe with my orange juice drink waiting and watching others around me (of which there weren't many). Again more 70's Polish hotel décor ESPECIALLY in the ceiling above the cafe (hard to describe, but lots of wood and wood effect everywhere). A few Saudis sitting around – one with red checked head thing on his laptop one moment and a little while later with head on the table asleep. Were a couple of expat guys around – one had a very small laptop which he obviously WAS on the internet with. No blocking THERE then! Eventually a Saudi guy came for them – I moved my trolley towards that group but was waved away. Wondered for ages if that HAD been my group – after all, can't be THAT many expats coming to this town to work. Taxi drivers were around constantly. Mostly it was obvious what they were, but there was a new “trick” here. One would stand at the door out and beckon me over. Ah hah, I would think, here's my lift in the car. So over I would go and ask him. He would ask me where I was going or I would ask him. He would babble something incomprehensible. It would then become evident he WASN'T the guy sent to pick me up and I would turn round and go back in to the table of before.
Decided I had to try get a simcard and then I could phone this number. Another nice little airport rip-off thing with guys in shops beckoning to their mates sitting there who would then come and try to sell me something which was most likely well overpriced. Eventually I found the so-called Business Center where there was a landline phone so I called the number of Transportation. Yes, they said, they'd send someone over. But nobody came and that was about 4am. After waiting a long time, I went upstairs to the Business Center again to phone again, but it was SHUT! So, as I saw it, I couldn't phone and couldn't buy a simcard and therefore I was STUCK until the morning light! Bloody HELL!
Waited, waited, and had to do something. Went to ask the guy in the shop downstairs if there was a phone in the airport somewhere. He said no and then asked if I wanted a simcard. I said Yes so he got one of his friends over and I DID get a simcard. But all was done properly – I was allowed to try it first. Was OK so then I could call. Realised I had to get the local area code in front of the phone number I had, but did so. Phoned finally with my mobile, but was only an answerphone message. So THAT TOO was a dead loss and it was about 5am.
Went to sit down again with nothing left that I could do except wait to the morning and 7am when I knew for SURE they'd be in and I could phone. A lot of time to wait.
Eventually the trolley guy appeared again. I don't know WHAT the time was. Time was all relative there and I can't quite work out how it all passed and what I did and when. Anyway, he offered to phone this number for me, which he did. I thought he was then going to ask for more money. Ah, I didn't say earlier that I had given him some money for helping me with my luggage trolley. Well, I gave him 50 Riyals – on reflection way too much but never mind. He did help in the end. So he phoned the number, someone answered and they too said they would come to get me. I was without hope by now but all I could do was sit there and wait.
Had some coffee about an hour before ..... yes FINALLY someone DID appear, said my name and said the name of the place I was going to. This WAS clearly the guy and not a taxi tout. FINALLY my wait was over! But don't ask me what time that was!!
Was it four, five or six hours waiting in Dammam airport? All too many whatever it was!! Absolutely SCANDALOUS that I, a new teacher and new guy in a new and VERY foreign country should have been abandoned like that. But I was too tired to care now as I had my bags in the car and was heading down the road AWAY from Dammam airport finally to the compound which will be my home for the next year.
My impression of the journey from the airport to the compound? Lots of sand for sure plus occasional green tufts by the roadside. Other cars on the road were tooted at to let them know we were behind them. I said nothing the whole journey and neither did the driver – a Saudi man with a limp who was obviously known by all there. At the entrance he took my passport to the guards. I wondered if I would get it back but he returned WITH it and with an envelope which contained my key and some other thing to read. Didn't bother reading it until I got there.
Got to my block and two Chinese-looking guys there were called over to help with my bags. So I and they went in and into the lift and up to floor 3. Then to MY ROOM!
My first impression was just how ordinary it was although plenty big enough in size. Certainly bigger than I'd had in Krakow but not looking like it had been decorated that recently. All that mattered was the bed right now. The time was something after 8am but it cold have been anything. Decided to unpack then. Ten minutes after I was there, the phone rang and it was the Head of Department. Yes, i had only just got there and yes, I HAD been waiting all night. Said he was going to complain, which was good as it was well justified. But I was too tired to feel anything by now.
My last action of the 'day' was to unpack, put things away roughly and get into bed. Well, I knew it was likely to be a long day but I didn't expect to have added the WHOLE night to it as well. WHAT A TOTAL NIGHTMARE!!
So .... as I write this it was two weeks ago today that I'd seen the school assembly and I had just got in the car with Mum on the first leg of my journey to HERE where I am now.
Let's start with that initial journey in the car .... actually let's skip forward to being at Heathrow terminal 3. Well, what the hell is there to write about the Bounds Green to Heathrow T3 journey? Nothing much – lots of sitting there with crowds in cent. London which died down as we moved outwards. All I had to worry about was – Was my case with wheels going to wheel about when the train stopped suddenly? Well it didn't. Anyway, arrived at T3 in very good time, up the escalator, man with luggage trolleys which I got one of, and in I went.
Smaller than I thought was T3 and really quite pleasant outside. Not like the bodies of Heathrow I'd imagined (thankfully!). First thing I needed was suitcase padlocks. Don't normally use them but figured I should for where I was going. Easily enough there was an 'Excess Baggage' stand which had suitcase wrap-ups and associated stuff ... AND padlocks. They looked to be too fat but tried one and was OK so got a pack of two for 4pounds. Seemed a reasonable price. Job done!
So .... to find Saudi Arabian airlines check-in was my next target. Well it wasn't even 11 o'clock so I was ridiculously early. Found it anyway and NO QUEUES! Looked for where I was supposed to go as many check-in desks were marked. A security guard (or something) asked me what I wanted (strange?!) and I said I was looking for the Riyadh/Dammam check-in. He checked my passport (also a strange thing to do in THIS part of the airport but maybe extra security for THIS destination and all associated places close by) and then directed me to Check-In Desk 31. Again no queue. One WOMAN there to do it (NOT a man and NOT in one of those Gulf Air-style head-dresses!). Usual procedure here. Told her I knew I was going to be too heavy in luggage, put the cases on and came around to learn how much excess I'd be paying.
Well, the answer to THAT was ZERO! Was it my nice-looking jacket, the fact I was the first in the queue (which was zero size anyway!) or was it that, unknown to me, my ticket was actually NOT economy class as I'd assumed? Even NOW I don't know the answer, but the answer from check-in girl was that my cases were OK because my luggage limit was 30 KILOS!! Pfffff and that meant I was 4 kilos UNDERWEIGHT!! All that time worrying and stuffing trousers into my hand luggage and rearranging and I could have ADDED 4 more kilos!! Ah well, all to the good.
So things were off to a very good start. So I now had around two hours to kill. Better than being late I suppose. So I alternated between walking around, browsing and going up and downstairs. Oh, and I went to the Am Ex currency exchange to get my first wedge of Saudi riyals with the money Dad had given me. Ex rate not so good but I didn't want to mess around with this first one. Got them, and they were rather long, thin notes .... rather like US dollars. Seems they are linked in more than just one way!
Anyway, time was passing and wondered where Dad was as he said he was going to meet me. Eventually my phone rang and he was there (downstairs at check-in). So up he came. Wasn't so long to go but we went for something to eat. And, as has often happened recently, I was served by a Polish woman (with surname Grabowska, Dad noted!) and the guy who came to take our trays away was a Pole too. Just to remind me what I was getting away from/going back to next.
Had a good chat and eat and then it was time to ..... Go Through!! The thing I'd been least looking forward to because then it was Goodbye Britain And Europe And Everybody I Know. A big moment.
Even THAT went smoothly enough. Procedure a bit different to what I've been used to in that the Shoes Off thing came further down the line. A slight hold-up at the last line before going to the gate as they wanted to check my laptop. But only the inside of the case – no need to turn it on.
It does seem that wearing this nice jacket helped me through all much more easily. Interesting they should judge me based on that fact, but after all that WAS part of why I got it!
So .... in around 5 and a half hours I would be in Riyadh and then, as I was told, all I had to do then was stay on the plane for about an hour and then a short hour flight from Riyadh to Dammam would finish it off. A short wait in the dep. Lounge and then on I went. STILL I was wondering WHERE my seat would actually be. Had I been elevated to First Class due to early check-in? And was that due to my nice jacket? (thank YOU Oxfam, Islington!!)
OK, time to go on. The moment of truth! In the plane door, to the left, and THROUGH .... the nice, wide First Class seats. OK, so THAT wasn't happening! BUT .... still nice! A TV screen in the headrest of my seat! Headphones plug-in socket! Plus the usual aircraft mag, sick bag etc etc. and leg room not bad either. BUT my footrest didn't stay up. A minor thing. Oh, I opened one overhead storage to put my bags into but it was full – VERY full! Was worried that all its contents would fall out onto the man sitting below but managed with left arm to push it up closed again and opened the one opposite which was more empty. Didn't get my book out as there was a man waiting so just put my bags in it and went to sit down. Hmmm .... no book for nearly 6 hours in the air AND I had the window seat with the one man to climb over. Obviously no reading was going to be done THIS flight! But with this TV screen facing me now maybe I'd be OK. I thought only First Class bods had stuff like that. Or maybe Saudi Arabian Airlines are just that bit better ....
For now, the only thing I could see on the screen was a very blurred view of the outside. A cockpit camera! What was the use of that? Erm .... well, not a lot if truth be told and even LESS useful when we'd be in the air. But something novel maybe.
Tried to get something else but nothing was coming yet. The big screen was showing the usual seat belt/life jacket/oxygen mask stuff as was my headrest screen. Ohhh ..... you mean we don't get to see the Saudi flight attendants doing it? Nope.
NOW .... speaking of flight attendants .... YES, they WERE women with those Gulf Air-style head-dresses so that hair is covered loosely but not face. WOMEN flight attendants on a Saudi plane!! One page of the Saudi stereotypes book to be ripped out then – I assumed they'd all be men! AND all the other Saudi women passengers were dressed fairly normally (but covered up as Riyadh approached including one VERY attractive woman in the front row who had beautiful long dark hair and a lovely face). I suppose that being in London they didn't feel the pressure or obligation to cover up and weren't coerced to do so by their husbands.
The flight itself was long and just about bearable. The last time I had such a long flight was my round-the-world stuff so that's nearly 14 years .... and one older body .... later. The flight started with the flight attendants bringing around face wipes. Funny time to bring them I thought! I looked around for the headphones. But how to hear from the TV? Was it one connection for the radio and another for the TV? TWO sets of headphones? Nope – headphones appeared a little while later and plugged into the seat armrest and THIS gave me sound from the TV. Technology eh! So what we got on this TV thing? Well, there were movies (Hollywood, Asian and Islamic), TV/shorts, radio, airshow camera (for view of outside – mostly useless!), games (?!), other music (Hooverphonic were pictured but the album didn't actually exist as another had been duplicated in its place), something called 'radio' (which was actually a pre-recorded 60 or 90 minute show of a variety of genres from pop to classical to asian to islamic) and a few other minor things too.
Movies!! Nice!! Well, I thought so but only the 'Hollywood' ones were in English. And NOW the Saudi stereotypes book could be added to ....
Yes, they WERE real Hollywood films. BUT, as each one announced at the beginning, the film would be cropped for the screen size AND would have its content EDITED. Ah HAH, I thought, now we'll see what Saudi is all about.
OK, so I chose the Will Smith film, HANCOCK, to watch. Overall summary of it? Pretty boring. BUT there WAS a lot of very amusing editing. Any time there was a bottle of alcoholic drink, a religious symbol (mostly crosses), women's KNEES and some amount of women's chest/cleavage line showing, then this was BLURRED OUT. Yup, blurred out. Oh, and the scene on the beach where Will Smith throws the big whale back in the sea – ALL other people on that beach were COMPLETELY blurred out! And there was much editing too. Of WHAT I'm not sure because I haven't seen that film before. But when I got to the end, the film didn't make sense. The things which had been edited out were, I THINK, scenes of violence, kissing and other related scenes of affection, and various swear words had been over-dubbed with other milder words (for example, the word ASSHOLE had been much-changed to PSYCHO .... BUT I think the editing had been done at the Hollywood end rather than the Saudi end because the accent was the same!). Well, many countries do have their standards of course, but what had been edited out made the film not make sense in my view. I also watched the X-Files movie (a new one, it seems) and it too was subject to editing and didn't make much sense. Or perhaps it was my tired state of mind that wasn't following it all. Anyway, going back to the blur-outs, it was only the close-up 'chests' that were blurred out and only those from front-on. And some had been overlooked! Oh, and ONLY women were blurred upon. Men baring their chests were all OK so the scene where David Duchovny is full chest-on was not edited at all. Women-only editing, eh??!! Too exciting!!??
Wasn't much to see really on this headrest TV thing. The blur-outs annoyed me after a while so I didn't bother with any more and that rather limited what I could do with the TV and therefore limited its use.
Didn't mention the airline meal. Was OK – I had the chicken dinner and it was nice and a few new things in it for me. Rice wrapped in a kind of vine leaf with lemon or maybe some other pickle-tasting thing. Other things fairly standard. No wine of course. All OK.
Just about everyone got off in Riyadh. Women had, by then, all got covered up in traditional and expected Saudi attire. Didn't notice the men changed much but maybe I didn't look. Well I was looking but not looking if you get my meaning. Cos it's not good to stare at burka'd women. Anyway, there were a few expats and a handful of Arabs left on. Expats mentioned how uncomfortable the seats were and I had to agree with them. They were obviously old-hands of the Saudi scene as they were discussing things like whether there were less seats on the plane than there used to be. Not a lot really. So take-off time came again and away we went. This time the TV system was off but no big loss really.
Forgot to mention the view from Riyadh airport. Well coming in couldn't see as was v cloudy. And all I could see out the small plane window was the imposing dome of the mosque outside Riyadh airport. Nothing else distinctive. Even less to see at Dammam airport.
So almost two hours after landing at Riyadh we were in Dammam airport. The Big Moment!! Actually when I went to get off I saw there were more people getting off than I thought were still on the plane. Got my stuff and off I went feeling just a bit pensive at what was to happen next. Had been expecting this, the Saudi customs part, to be the worst of the whole journey.
Wandered through. Décor reminded me INSTANTLY of a 70's Polish-style hotel. The walls, the ceiling, the feel of the place. But no Polish female lovelies there to greet me unfortunately. A small expat crowd including a family with a young daughter of about 10 years old. Wondered what they were doing here – surely THAT little girl didn't call a place like THIS her home!? So I joined a passport control queue and waited my turn. All seemed very orderly and normal and without hassle. Noticed the customs soldier boys had digital cameras on tripods which they were taking photos of the expats who passed through. Standard procedure probably. Also noticed they were putting their fingers into something which I discovered later was to take fingerprints. Full security stuff! But as expected.
OK, my turn came and all was fine until the customs guy asked me where my ..... (something) was. I thought he meant my boarding card but it wasn't that and instead was the Landing Card I should have filled in. Well, I haven't done such a thing for so long that I didn't think to look for it. So was directed back to a desk where such cards were, though not with any hostility or nastiness. Got it and – well, I was pretty tired by now so was probably writing rather slowly. In the end I had filled in the first side and that was the main bit. They called me back to go through again. All was OK – did the photo and fingerprints thing (though had to do the photo twice as the first one I'd had my eyes closed! Too tired!). Noticed that some of the expats seemed to be waiting – for me? Maybe it was just in case I got any trouble rather than them going through and leaving me to fend for myself versus Saudi customs. Was a nice gesture.
Anyway, all that was completed. I'd imagined being hauled into a room for an hour and all that stuff. Nothing of the sort! So down the stairs now to the baggage reclaim.
A man in green was there to greet me with a luggage trolley and although I didn't need it, I accepted his help and he put my bags on the trolley and wheeled me off to baggage reclaim. Was a little nervous about a strange guy in control of my trolley but was OK and we got to the baggage conveyor belt where my bags had already been taken off. Fetched them, onto the trolley and then out the final door.
Nope, not yet. Was another stage to go through as all the bags were put through ANOTHER X-ray machine. Ohhh it's rather a lot to go through when it's after 2am local time and you just want to get through, find the guy waiting for you with his sign and then get in the car and be off.
Didn't need this porter man as I said but he seemed determined to help and I didn't mind. Through the final set of doors, people were there waiting and .... NO SIGN with my name on. The time was 2.45am.
“Won't be long”, I thought. After all, they said this wouldn't be a problem with someone waiting and anyway I had the phone number if he wasn't.
The next FOUR (or was it five) hours passed very slowly. Nobody came. Now, I have to say I am having trouble remembering EXACTLY how I passed the time. But I think it went like this: first I sat at a table at the airport cafe with my orange juice drink waiting and watching others around me (of which there weren't many). Again more 70's Polish hotel décor ESPECIALLY in the ceiling above the cafe (hard to describe, but lots of wood and wood effect everywhere). A few Saudis sitting around – one with red checked head thing on his laptop one moment and a little while later with head on the table asleep. Were a couple of expat guys around – one had a very small laptop which he obviously WAS on the internet with. No blocking THERE then! Eventually a Saudi guy came for them – I moved my trolley towards that group but was waved away. Wondered for ages if that HAD been my group – after all, can't be THAT many expats coming to this town to work. Taxi drivers were around constantly. Mostly it was obvious what they were, but there was a new “trick” here. One would stand at the door out and beckon me over. Ah hah, I would think, here's my lift in the car. So over I would go and ask him. He would ask me where I was going or I would ask him. He would babble something incomprehensible. It would then become evident he WASN'T the guy sent to pick me up and I would turn round and go back in to the table of before.
Decided I had to try get a simcard and then I could phone this number. Another nice little airport rip-off thing with guys in shops beckoning to their mates sitting there who would then come and try to sell me something which was most likely well overpriced. Eventually I found the so-called Business Center where there was a landline phone so I called the number of Transportation. Yes, they said, they'd send someone over. But nobody came and that was about 4am. After waiting a long time, I went upstairs to the Business Center again to phone again, but it was SHUT! So, as I saw it, I couldn't phone and couldn't buy a simcard and therefore I was STUCK until the morning light! Bloody HELL!
Waited, waited, and had to do something. Went to ask the guy in the shop downstairs if there was a phone in the airport somewhere. He said no and then asked if I wanted a simcard. I said Yes so he got one of his friends over and I DID get a simcard. But all was done properly – I was allowed to try it first. Was OK so then I could call. Realised I had to get the local area code in front of the phone number I had, but did so. Phoned finally with my mobile, but was only an answerphone message. So THAT TOO was a dead loss and it was about 5am.
Went to sit down again with nothing left that I could do except wait to the morning and 7am when I knew for SURE they'd be in and I could phone. A lot of time to wait.
Eventually the trolley guy appeared again. I don't know WHAT the time was. Time was all relative there and I can't quite work out how it all passed and what I did and when. Anyway, he offered to phone this number for me, which he did. I thought he was then going to ask for more money. Ah, I didn't say earlier that I had given him some money for helping me with my luggage trolley. Well, I gave him 50 Riyals – on reflection way too much but never mind. He did help in the end. So he phoned the number, someone answered and they too said they would come to get me. I was without hope by now but all I could do was sit there and wait.
Had some coffee about an hour before ..... yes FINALLY someone DID appear, said my name and said the name of the place I was going to. This WAS clearly the guy and not a taxi tout. FINALLY my wait was over! But don't ask me what time that was!!
Was it four, five or six hours waiting in Dammam airport? All too many whatever it was!! Absolutely SCANDALOUS that I, a new teacher and new guy in a new and VERY foreign country should have been abandoned like that. But I was too tired to care now as I had my bags in the car and was heading down the road AWAY from Dammam airport finally to the compound which will be my home for the next year.
My impression of the journey from the airport to the compound? Lots of sand for sure plus occasional green tufts by the roadside. Other cars on the road were tooted at to let them know we were behind them. I said nothing the whole journey and neither did the driver – a Saudi man with a limp who was obviously known by all there. At the entrance he took my passport to the guards. I wondered if I would get it back but he returned WITH it and with an envelope which contained my key and some other thing to read. Didn't bother reading it until I got there.
Got to my block and two Chinese-looking guys there were called over to help with my bags. So I and they went in and into the lift and up to floor 3. Then to MY ROOM!
My first impression was just how ordinary it was although plenty big enough in size. Certainly bigger than I'd had in Krakow but not looking like it had been decorated that recently. All that mattered was the bed right now. The time was something after 8am but it cold have been anything. Decided to unpack then. Ten minutes after I was there, the phone rang and it was the Head of Department. Yes, i had only just got there and yes, I HAD been waiting all night. Said he was going to complain, which was good as it was well justified. But I was too tired to feel anything by now.
My last action of the 'day' was to unpack, put things away roughly and get into bed. Well, I knew it was likely to be a long day but I didn't expect to have added the WHOLE night to it as well. WHAT A TOTAL NIGHTMARE!!
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