The Cake Incident

This morning is an exemplary illustration of the kind of unnecessary office drama that goes on at the university. The only way to keep your sanity in this job is to avoid office politics as much as possible. Since we are cooped up here all day, unable to leave, with nothing to do now that the students are gone, it's gotten much worse.

All morning I've been hearing whispered arguments out in the hallway, which are not out of the ordinary and which I have decided to ignore due to the fact that I don't give a crap anymore.

After being at work for about two hours, my co-teacher, Carol, came over to me with a soft "can I talk to you about something?" This is the kind of thing she said when one of our student was reporting us to the higher-ups, which is a serious, job-ending thing, and I suspect the same voice she'd use in case of alien invasion or global apocalypse, so I was immediately on my guard. What could have possibly gone wrong now that we don't even have class anymore? Was this the end times?

Turns out the whispered arguments that have been escalating in the hallway all morning were all about – wait for it – me.

Specifically the fact that I didn't get any cake on Saturday.

Seriously.

On Saturday, the first day of the week, we had a party for our coordinator, complete with cake and a gift. I, like everyone else, contributed monetarily to the celebration before hand, but was sick the day of.

Now, two days later, someone has taken it upon themselves to be outraged on my behalf that no one saved me a piece of cake.

I am not making this up.

This argument has been brewing ALL MORNING.  Someone was almost in tears.

Because I didn't get a piece of cake.

I didn't even remember there was supposed to be cake at the party, and no part of me ever had the expectation that someone would save a piece for me. I had no idea where this came from, but it certainly hadn't been from me.

People are so bored they are starting shit just for the hell of it.

Someone please give us something to do.

Happy Feet in the Desert

Even though in the Capitol things like dancing are frowned upon (especially in public), I have been attending more dance lessons than I ever have in my life. Before coming here, the closest I'd ever come to a dance class was watching Center Stage over and over again for a year in University.

But here, I have four dance classes a week. Four.

On Monday, the middle of the week, we start off with Tango. This is a small class held in a room in the basement of what I guess is a compound rec center. This is taught by Hamdi who is known for shouting things like "Give her gancho!" ('gancho' apparently being the little leg flick you do in tango) and "Control the Women!"

The last time he shouted this, my partner, an Australian man who was new, shouted back: "I can't, I think this one's American!" 

The American Bashing never really stops over here, but it's mostly good-natured. It's because Kingdomites like us better. And we're just plain cooler.

A wide variety of people attend, and friend Shelly and I gossip about the people and their dancing abilities. The one we talk about most is this guy who is terrible at dancing, but thinks he's awesome. In fact, he's so sure he's awesome, if he makes a mistake; it's obviously your fault.

Just to be clear, it's never the woman's fault in tango. Tango is all male directed. All the woman has to do is follow what the man does. This dude will stop dancing just to tell you sorrowfully: "you really don't get it, do you?" He'll ask the instructor to come and observe his partner, just to make sure she's doing it right, and Hamdi will inevitably tell him something harsh in Arabic and dude will say nothing else to you about it.

On Tuesday, there's Salsa. Salsa was the first class I took in Riyadh and it got me to thinking I wasn't as bad at dancing as I thought I was. For anyone who has always wanted to try a dance class, but thinks they will make a fool of themselves, I tell you this: It is not as hard as you think it is. For women especially, it's easier than it looks. The first day I was doing twirls and whirls that made it look like I knew what I was doing. Like in Tango, it's all in the partner.

This is a big class with about sixty, seventy people, held in an aerobics room on another compound farther away. There are several teachers there: a severe New Zealander (I didn't know they came in severe), a large Lebanese fellow, and some other various people – most of whom come to Tango.

A couple weeks ago we had a visit from a Lebanese woman who was a professional salsa dancer. She gave some lessons that were fantastic - she made us look like professionals. Even though I am still a beginner, it was easy to follow.

As an interesting side note, that weekend, we went camping with the Hash House Harriers (more on them later) and all of the people who were in charge of salsa showed up with strobe lights and Lebanese music, turning our camp into a raving party spot.

It made me think there was about three foreigners in the Kingdom and I knew them all.

Finally, on Friday and Wednesday I have Belly Dancing, taught by one of my co-workers, Natalie, in the play room at our accommodation. (Yes, we have a playroom).

This is a lot of fun in general even when Mary – who was barred from the class because she is what us teachers call a 'behavior problem' – comes into the back of the class and starts hip thrusting wildly in every direction.

Going to and from these classes requires being secretive about our destination when it comes to our doorman and I occasionally feel like I live in Footloose. Maybe we should find somewhere to play chicken with some tractors. Except that women on tractors would be HARAM.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today's my birthday, guys! Happy birthday to me!

I always strive to do something interesting on my birthday since arranging parties always seemed a little too self-congratulatory for me.

One year I went with one of the professors from my school and caught turtles in the Itchetuknee River; another I went SCUBA diving with some sharks in an aquarium in Busan. This year I'm not doing anything as interesting, unless you count being in Istanbul interesting, which, I guess, it is. I was considering having another massage or going to the baths again, but, in all honesty, I would rather not spend the money.

Maybe I'll go to the Bazaar and buy something crazy for myself. Last time I was there I bought what I thought was a Ukulele, which turned out to just be a tiny guitar (Ukuleles have four strings, guitars have six). Which I suppose is for the best because I know kind of how to play the guitar, but not the Ukulele.

I could go get a haircut – wild and crazy person that I am. Or just spend the day around town sketching architecture. I guess I am just glad to have some relaxing time to myself after the craziness of the past couple of months.

All in all, I consider relaxing an adequate thing to do on my birthday, though I would rather be surrounded by family and friends. o_O

UPDATE:

What I ended up doing was just relaxing. I've come to the point in my vacation where I would rather be home. Not because the Kingdom is so hopping or anything. But because I miss being able to sleep in a room alone or sit on my bed all day without getting judgey looks from my roommates.

I went to the baths again with my new friend Janet. I bought a bunch of crazy jewelry from some stores, and had the best kebab in all of Turkey from the stand down the street.

I have one more day left in Turkey and I intend to spend it straight up chilling.

National Day

 It's National Day in the Kingdom and everyone is decked out in green and white, the national colors. The cafes all have strobing green light-saber like devices in all the windows and on all the shelves. Everyone is in their festive finest and I am wearing a heart-shaped pin with the face of a very happy looking King on it.

This weekend we had four days off – Thursday through Sunday. Thursday and Friday being the regular weekend, Sunday being National Day and Saturday being the day we got off at the last minute because it was too much work to come into school on the day.

Spending four days off made me long for work. To tell you the truth, there is NOTHING to do here. I sat in my room and painted, and wrote, and watched TV and I was bored out of my mind. Really, having a holiday is not the best thing here because it means you have nothing to do.

Now, in the future, if I know I have these kinds of holidays, and I have been paid, and I have enough notice, then I would make the trip to a nearby county. There are some lovely ruins in the north I would like to see, and I've heard City 2 is a happenin' town. But I didn't have time to plan, I didn't have money, and all I did was sit around.

We did, however, have a barbeque on the roof. Complete with music, belly-dancing, and lounging area done Arabian Style. We all donated our rugs and couch pillows and invited some girls from work to hang. It was a little bit tense at first, because we ended up inviting the women from HR who are more of less in charge of our jobs and we were worried about doing something to get us all fired.

But the second the ladies of HR took off their abayas, we could see this wasn't going to be a problem. They were all dressed to the nines complete with mini dresses and high heels. Since it was on the roof with no men allowed, no one bothered that we were all being crazy western females.

After stressing for days about how we weren't going to have enough meat for everyone, we ended up with enough to feed a village. We had to have a barbeque part 2 the next day just so the food wouldn't go to waste.

I made my famous chili (which is really Hard Times Chili) and got many compliments on it – as I always do. I bought some Budweiser non-alcoholic beer to put in the chili, but after just one sip of it (required) I couldn't subject anyone to it. I am not a beer fanatic (obviously, since I bought Budweiser) but it tasted like... I don't know. Nastiness. Typically it's just like beer flavored water, but this was actively offensive to my taste buds.

Today, I will have my first class with actual people in it. Probably. Maybe. Inshallah.

I've been productive this morning and only gone for one half-an-hour coffee break and talked to various people about how I don't have: A) a book for class; B) pages in my passport; C) information on the DELTA which I, unfortunately, can't take.

The DELTA is like getting your masters in teaching ESOL and I was excited about being able to take it. I am going to try and take it anyway, but typically you have to have two years post-certification teaching to apply. Maybe they won't notice? If it was run by Kingdomites, I would say it's a possibility. But it's run by IH London and they aren't likely to overlook something so obvious.

Le sigh.