Where Do You Belong?

                I have an answer. An Answer to the question you have all been wondering.  Are you a Magdan? Or a Savannite?

                These two accommodations seem to predict the kind of person you are going to be. Recently, we had a new teacher come to the Kingdom and she was trying to decide which accommodation to move into. We had to brainstorm many ways to try and decide this fateful question (sorting hat, tarot card reading). We finally decided on a couple simple multiple questions to ask her. Now you can see for yourself what kind of person you are:

1.) When you ask the doorman to bring the washing machine to your apartment so you can wash your clothes and he doesn't do it for five days, you:

    a) Freak out because there is only one washing machine. When you get it, keep it in your room and pretend you don't have it.

                b) Email the CEO, HR, and your mother all about it. Three times.

                c) Go downstairs and strangle him with his own mullet.

                d) Do your laundry by hand. Like a boss.

2.) When you see cockroaches in your building, you:

                a) Scream. Blame the Kingdom. Deny the existence of cockroaches in your own country.

                b) Email the CEO, HR, and your mother all about it. Three times.

                c) Get a cat.

                d) Kill it and move on with your day.

3.) You cooked too much food and you don't want to deal with leftovers. You:

                a) Throw it out

                b) Email the CEO, HR, and your mother all about it. Three times. Blame the Kingdom. Deny the existence of leftovers in your country.

                c) Call everyone in the building because you know they will descend upon you like locusts.

                d) Pack it up and leave it on someone's doorstep Ding-Dong-Ditch style.

4.) Someone leaves food on your doorstep Ding-Dong-Ditch style. You:

                a) Scream. Blame the Kingdom. Call in sick to work.

                b) Throw it out.

                c) Eat it. Obviously.

                d) Pay it forward Ding-Dong-Ditch style.

5.) When someone sends out an email about a religious event that you don't participate in (Christmas, Eid, etc.), you:

                a) Call a meeting and lecture everyone on religious tolerance.

                b) Track down the person in charge of entire email service and make their lives hell.

                c) Read it and forget about it.

                d) Sign up to participate.

6.) It's raining outside. You:

                a) Make sure all the windows are closed tightly.

                b) Call a meeting and make everyone come. Blame the Kingdom. This never would have happened back home.

                c) Do a rain dance. Obviously.

                d) Call everyone up to stand outside under the gazebo and sing Christmas carols with you until the post-rain sandstorm sweeps in, and then skitter back inside like over-excited kittens.

If you answered mostly C or D, congratulations! You should join us in Magda! If you answered mostly A or B… I'm sure you have many other amazing qualities…

In the end, the new teacher commandeered the bus that was supposed to take us somewhere to unload all of her stuff at Savanna. Instead of going somewhere we had planned on going, she made us wait around until she was done. We decided that Savanna was a good choice for her.

Magda and Savanna

            In the Kingdom, foreign workers typically live in compounds. This was a tradition started by the first generation of American oil workers who came to the Kingdom in the 1930s. They built their accommodations the way they liked it – including the 110 voltage outlets – and basically lived in a Little America. Everyone in the Kingdom was perfectly happy with this arrangement and the practice is still around to this day.

            We are one of the few batches of foreign workers who don't live in a compound. Probably because the company we work for doesn't want to spend the money to build us one.

            On the other hand, the CEO seems very concerned with keeping us happy. Probably because he wants to sleep nights. So, he's been asking us what he can do to make the hotel we live in more suitable. We told him we needed a gym. He said okay. We told him we needed lawn furniture for the roof. He said okay. We told him we needed a lounge. He said okay. We asked for a computer room. He said okay. We asked him for a swimming pool. He said absolutely not.

            But, come on! We had to try.

            I really like where I live, even though I got electrocuted by my own kitchen (see previous post “My Precarious Position as a Cover Teacher”). I love it because the people who live with me are just a blast. There are two accommodations, one called Magda, and one called (let's say) Savanna. In Magda, together, we selected out our gym equipment carefully, we asked for rubber flooring in the gym to do yoga on, and mirrors on the walls. In Savanna, no one is taking responsibility for the gym and so they just have a couple ellipticals in an empty apartment.

            The girls of Magda are all nice and friendly, we band together in the face of adversity. In Savanna, which seems to be made up mostly of older women who complain a lot (note that we have people of all ages in Magda but we have the cool ones). And it's not the kind of 'squeaky wheel' complaining that is more or less necessary in this country, it's the grating, soul-crushing bitching that makes you want to jump out of a moving vehicle just so you don't have to listen to them anymore. Things that no one can do anything about – the weather, the abaya, the hijab, etc.

            We have dinner over at each other's apartments almost every night, and Savana girls go home and don't socialize.

            When I was having the trouble with being electrocuted – and I was complaining about it, like you do – it was suggested that I move to Savanna because they have much nicer apartments that don't have faulty wiring. This was an absolutely repugnant idea and made me think they were just saying that the way you would say 'would you rather jump off a bridge?'. Of course, that wasn't how they meant it, but it made me feel like they thought I was just being difficult. In the end, I got the electric component of my stove replaced – which was what was electrifying my entire kitchen (metal counters, you see).

            In Magda, we've been planning many events (including a Skype party with our cats. Not a joke.) and inshallah, we will have a barbeque on the national holiday coming up on Sunday (we get a four day weekend!) Savanna, well, I don't know what they do with their time. Complain by themselves in their empty rooms?

            Hey, I'm being really culturally accepting here, I have to hate on someone.

Zen and the Art of Traveling

            I was drastically unprepared for my flight yesterday. Usually I have all the stuff I will need for the actual flight – toothbrush, books, eye mask, sleeping pills, mp3 player, etc. - in my purse while the rest of the stuff I'm carrying on – like a change of clothes, etc – is in the overhead bin.

            But for this flight, I had about 24 hours notice, and for most of those 24 hours, I was freaking out about the fact that my real name was not on the ticket . When I called the travel agent his response was – I kid you not - “but, does it really matter?” And this wasn't even the travel agent who bought the ticket in the first place, that guy was on the Umrah, or pilgrimage to Mecca. All I could think when I found that out was 'really? This weekend?'

            After hysterically emailing everyone and their mother in the Kingdom, I finally got an email saying they changed the name. I felt like this email was also saying 'would you chill?'

            On the plane I got my first taste of what being in the Kingdom would be like when the movies on the plane were weirdly censored. This includes blurring out necklines, and omitting a vast array of words such as 'pig', 'kiss', and 'tiller' as in, 'firm hand on the tiller'. No, I don't know why either. Also cut out were scenes where male and female characters were touching. This made even the most obvious plot line a little bit avant garde.

            I wasn't as stressed about this flight as I have been about others. There was a time when an overnight flight would cause me untold amounts of anxiety because I can't sleep on planes. It came to a point, in Turkey, where I made myself so sick I actually threw up because I hadn't slept and I was so anxious.

            Eventually, I realized that the anxiety was making it worse and that not sleeping wasn't the end of the world. So, this time around I had this kind of calm going on and I actually did manage to catch some shut-eye during the flight from D.C. (11 hrs). There was a kind of bliss spill-over when we landed in City1 and had to switch planes for reasons that I'm sure are clear to no one. I was still kind of zen about the whole thing where, in the past, I would be panicking.

            As I looked around, I could easily tell the difference between the people who had traveled a lot and the people who hadn't. The people who had traveled a lot seemed to have this resigned look about them. They knew they would eventually get there and there was no way to speed the process. One pair of travelers very much illustrated two different ways of handling the same problem. As one of them was serenely messing with his smart phone, the other was twitchy and asking a billion questions that no one could possibly have an answer to: 'how long will they make us wait?', 'why did we have to switch planes?', 'where are the other people on the plane? I don't see the other people that were with us!', etc. It was like watching former me badgering future me for information.

            By the time we got to the Capital, I was beyond caring. Even when there was no one there to pick me up (called it) I didn't panic as I usually would. Of course, I panicked a little. It always sucks when you are expecting to be met and no one is there. Usually, I feel like bursting into tears. This time I was a little frazzled because, due to the quick notice of the plane flight, I didn't really have a plan B other than calling people. And they had no payphones at the airport.

            I was about to accost some poor person and ask them to let me use their cell phone, when I saw a guy carrying a sign with the name of the institution I am working for on it. I hadn't seen this when I walked in, and there is a good chance he hadn't been there. He'd been waiting for me for about four hours at that point so I don't really blame him.

            He took me to a place that I first thought was a hotel due to it's opulent lobby. I was kind of annoyed because I was beyond ready to get to my apartment, but as I went up to the third floor, the oddly festive nature of the decorations started to tip me off. There was a whiteboard on one wall with a meaningful 'Who let the dogs out?' penned in the middle. Most telling were the little shiny banners everywhere that, for some reason, said 'Surprise!'

            I got to my apartment and it's pretty nice. The living room is spacious (but has no furniture other than some tables) and the kitchen is at least bigger than the one I had in Seoul. The bathroom smells to high heaven and I can only say that it must be sewer gases coming up from the pipes because it's all clean. I have two wall unit air conditioners which sound like they are going to give out any minute. But so far so good.

            The second I put my stuff down (the literal second) one of my neighbors, who is apparently my supervisor? Invited me over to her place for tea. A quick walk down the hall and I was sipping hibiscus tea with Susan and several other women who live in the building. It was really nice and they were all very sweet. They mostly seem to be British and most of them have just arrived here as well.

            I am currently waiting for my first day of work to start. Waiting being the key word here. More on that later.