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.

The Reasons Why

In case you haven't heard the news, I've officially resigned my position here. 

There are a lot of reasons and all of them are personal. It took me a long time to accept the fact that personal/emotional reasons were enough to leave a good job behind.

Reason One, "The Most Important One": 

My mood is so unstable here that it's not good for my emotional health. When I first decided to leave, I was wracked with indecision because one day I was ready to hop on a plane, and the next day, I thought it wouldn't be so bad to stay here a year. The changes were so severe and so unpredictable that I felt like I couldn't plan anything in advance because who knows how I would feel when the actual date rolled around?

Reason Two, "The Official Reason":

 

My Visa. Or lack thereof. When I came here, I was told that I wouldn't be getting a resident's visa or Iqama as it's known in the Arab world. I was fine with that. Iqamas took four weeks to get, you had to go back to your home country to get them, and your employer has the right to keep your passport. I've learned too much about human trafficking to be comfortable with someone taking my passport for safe keeping. 

The visa I came on was a three month, multiple-entry visa that would expire into a single entry visa after three months. Meaning that I could come and go as I pleased the first three months, but after that, if I left, I couldn't get back in. I was told that in January, I could go home and renew this visa in order to travel for another three months in the area. 

The laws of the country have been changing – in the last couple of months, actually – and these visas are no longer available.

I had just bought my plane ticket to go home (after informing my employers this was my intention and receiving positive acknowledgement in return) when I received an email that stated there were no visas, that no one would be able to leave during the school break. I was understandably pissed off. But I didn't cancel my plane flight.

For several days, I sat and stewed. Finally, the CEO came to face us and tell us that, he has Iqamas available, but he wasn't going to give them to us. He said he needed them to bring new teachers in that would replace the teachers who already left. We asked him why he didn't try harder to keep the teachers he already has (i.e.: give us the visas) and he simply shrugged his shoulders. At which point I told him, very calmly, my position: I have paid for a plane flight in January. I will be on that plane, out of the country. If you want me back, then you can get me an Iqama.

I don't think they are going to offer me one, but they may. In which case I would seriously consider coming back.

Reason Three, "The Obvious":

 

Not being able to leave the house by myself is taking a serious toll on my sanity. Left to my own devices, I like to take long walks by myself to just think. In the Kingdom, I have to walk in circles on my roof inside the high walls like a prisoner. All I see every day is the four walls of my apartment, the four walls at the university, and the things I can glance out the tinted windows as we drive to work.

Reason Four, "The Company":

The way the company treats us has been intolerable from the start. Things like telling us to be ready to go shopping at 6:00am, and then phoning us up three hours later to tell us the trip has been canceled. No other explanation. Like it doesn't matter that we've gotten up ridiculously early and been waiting for three hours. This is only one example of many that include safety issues both in transit (they stranded my friend in the middle of the night on the side of the road without explanation), and at home (our accommodation has only one doorman, who is a string bean of a man, and glass doors). Also a problem is their habit of not paying us so that we can access our money in a timely manner, and not allowing the proper amount of sick days (we have been told, several times, that if we are sick, we should just suck it up and go to work).

Reason Five, "My Goals":

 

I had certain goals when I came here. They were, in order of priority – be creative, write, learn Arabic, travel to the nearby countries, explore Kingdom Culture, get university experience, and make money.  Being creative and writing is almost impossible when I never see anything new in my life. I was promised free Arabic lessons which have never materialized. I've honestly learned more Urdu than I have Arabic working here. I would do better with Rosetta Stone. Obviously, the visa situation makes travel impossible and I've been out and about in Kingdom Culture for about four months now.  The experience is great, but now I have a semester, so that goal is more or less accomplished. That leaves making money, and doing this only for money is something I suspect I will regret in the future. 

Therefore, I have nothing left to gain by being here.

            UPDATE: They have offered me an Iqama when it seemed that I was serious about going home. I had a couple hours of indecision about why I was really leaving and would my problems really be fixed with an Iqama. I finally decided that getting the visa didn't really make a difference. I am leaving anyway.

Dealing with Grief in the Kingdom

For those of you who don't know, my grandmother recently passed away. I was very close to my grandmother and it was a really hard time for me, especially because I was constantly doing battle with the administration to get leave to go see her.

When I first heard she was sick, I wasn't too worried, because she's been in the hospital before and, to me, my grandmother has an iron-clad will. In my mind, nothing short of a volcano could alter the fact of her existence on this earth.

When I first understood her condition to be serious, I had a seriously terrible time dealing with it. The first night, after getting the news I went out on the roof of my hotel and sat under the desert moon. I guess I figured if it was my grandmother's last night on earth I would like to see something she could see too.

I wrote a list of everything I was going to miss about her – which was a long list, to be honest – and I ended up sleeping out there because there was a beautiful desert breeze going.

Here is a little excerpt from my ruminations of my Yiayia:

Things I will miss about Yiayia:

- The way she always says 'dearheart', like she had to mash together two different endearments in order to adequately express her true affection

- The way she would forget I don't speak Greek and would tell me things in asides that I'm sure were hilarious.

- The way she had such a tender heart and the suffering of even the most removed person affected her so deeply.

- The way I had to cross out the 'effected' I wrote first instead of 'affected' in the last one because she was an English teacher and she would be appalled at the bad grammar.

- How she used to carry a box of Dunkin' Donuts on her lap, on the plane, all the way to Africa, just because my brother and I were missing them.

- How she kept everything in tiny jars and tins in her pantry and never wasted a scrap of anything useful.

- The way she acted every time I showed her how to use Facebook, like I was the best teacher in the WORLD and she finally understood everything.

- How her love was unconditional and usually came with food.

- The way she loved to read

- The way she loved to paint

- The way she loved everyone.

At about 5am, the sun rose and the call to prayer made it more or less impossible to sleep.

The next couple of days were not easy. I kept on getting updates on my grandmother, nothing good, and I kept on slamming my head against the brick wall of administration to try to get the leave in time to see her. I made regular trips to the prayer room in order to cry in the corner.

Finally, I got the email. The one that said she had taken her leave less than two hours ago.

My first instinct was to go someplace quiet – typically I head for the bathroom. But in general the bathrooms here are too busy to really be a place of solace. So, I headed for the prayer room.

After having a muffled cry in there, I deemed myself fit for the public so I went to the bathroom to wash my face. The second I step out, I run into my friend Mary who asks me, casually, "Are you all right?"

People have taken to asking me that, because everyone on campus seems to know about my grandmother from one avenue or another.

My response, of course, was to burst into tears.

Mary insisted I come to her office for some tea (she's British, it's genetic) and for a talk. But her office, like mine, is also the office of about a dozen other people. So, I found myself in the middle of a room of people, crying my eyes out.

When I first came here, the gender separation thing bothered me. But since then, I've been working in a building with all women and it does something to a person. It's honestly a pleasant atmosphere… most of the time.

So, me, crying in the middle of a group of co-workers not only broke my streak of only crying at work when I work at camp, but also didn't feel so weird. I got a back massage and a lot of candy. I got prayers for my family in three different languages and a lot of dire threats aimed at the administration for keeping me here when I clearly needed to go.

Nancy, a woman from Somalia, told me that in Islam they had a saying – Truly we belong to Allah and to Him we shall always return.

That night, people were constantly coming and going from my room. Everyone wanted to know if I was okay and when my flight home was.

This job is worth doing, I decided, for several reasons. But the most important of which is the people I work with. Or really, the ones I live with. Let's not get too crazy with including the Savanna girls in there.

The Magda girls made me feel like I was with my family and I can't thank them enough for that.

My Precarious Position as a Cover Teacher

            The door to my office, which I share with several other teachers, says 'no students allowed'. I always pause there and I'm like, oh yeah, I'm not in college anymore. It's a weird feeling to be teaching at a University when those years are not that far behind me. Or not teaching, as the case may be.

            My typical day goes like this:

            I get up at about 4:30 am because the bus leaves at about 6:15 and I'm paranoid about being late/missing something. I have to make sure I've got everything I need for the whole day (breakfast, lunch), because the bus arrives back at my 'hotel' at around 5pm. I spend about 11 hours at work. Soon I will have to get on the bus at 5:50 am because I'm supposed to be on the morning shift.

            We spend anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours on a cramped bus, basically waiting in traffic, to get to work.

            When we finally arrive, I sit at my desk. And wait.

            I don't do anything else. Because there are too many teachers, not everyone has classes. We are permanently on cover duty – or “substitute teaching” as we Americans say. This is fine except that people are not often absent. At least not to the point that they require me to teach.

            I've been working here a week and a half and I've only taught one class. I haven't even seen inside any of the course books. I am so very useless.

            There is a rumor circulating that they have over-hired (which is obvious to anyone with general skills of observation) and they are making up a list if people who they will fire (which is obvious to anyone with general skills of deduction). I am, unfortunately, not that secure in my job because, though I was told I only needed one year of teaching experience, since I have arrived, people have made it clear that I actually need two. I have about one and a half years English teaching experience, and two and a half general teaching experience. This may or may not be a problem for me. It’s too soon to tell.

            Either way, it's a great source of anxiety. I'm avoiding doing anything too permanent because I'm pretty much convinced I'll be deported at any second.

            And to think, I could have been at IH Moscow right now.

            Some people are jumping ship, some people (like me) are trying to be useful while just nervously fretting about their jobs. No one is entirely happy.

            So what do I fill my days up with? Well, I chat in the resource room with some of the other teachers, who are a lot of fun. I go for two hour coffee breaks and three hour lunches. We go for walks in the sunshine to get our daily dose of Vitamin D (contrary to popular belief, I am not getting a tan here, because I am always covered. Lack of sun is becoming a real problem). And we plan parties on the roof of our building or shopping trips to a nearby mall. But most of the time, I just sit at my desk and write.

            Even if I did have a class, that would be for about three hours a day. The other five hours would be devoted to sitting. But I would at least have something to work on instead of hoping no one is looking over my shoulder and reading my blog.

            At the end of the day, I get on the bus (4pm sharp or they will drive away without me) and take the one and a half hour drive home.

            When I get back to my apartment, I usually hook my computer up and watch something, or paint, or read, or cook dinner, etc. During the day I am all talked out so I don't really seek the company of my neighbors. But sometimes they come and get me and socializing is unavoidable. In fact, for most of the time I've been here, I've been over at someone's house or another to eat/talk/drink tea.

            My apartment, when I got there, was pretty bare. I had four tables in the living room but nowhere to sit. I thought this was a Kingdom thing and was prepared to accept it. But then the residence coordinator came in and shouted 'Where is all your furniture?!' after which, there was a sofa brought to my room.

            Yesterday, I got a microwave, and there are rumors of them building a gym in one of the empty rooms. Dare I believe we will one day have a washer?

            The other day, I was electrocuted by my own stove top. I had a pot on one of the burners and when I went to take it off, I got a shock. Thinking it was just rather strong static electricity, I touched it again and it was like those joke pens people make you use that give you an electric shock when you try and click it. I turned the stove off and called the doorman (his job has many descriptions) who suggested, quite seriously, that I invest in some rubber shoes.

            EDIT: Since I wrote this, I have been given a class and I definitely feel more secure in my job. This was written in a very dark period. Things are better now! Apparently, there is a list of people to be sent home, but I'm not on it. I am not, in fact, the most unqualified person here for a change. More positive posts to come.

The Gap Day

         

            This is probably a premature judgment but it doesn't seem as bad here as everyone seems to be thinking – it's not really as bad as I was thinking. Of course, I haven't run into the religious police yet, but it is often the case that what the government and the media say, is not always practiced on the everyday-person level.

            In particular, the men seemed more concerned about the state of women than women do. I've seen a woman walk into a restaurant and whip off her headscarf while the waiters all rush to pull down the blinds and set up a screen so no one can see her. It wasn't an 'I expect you to get this done' thing either. It was a 'I don't give a crap' kind of thing.

            From what I've read and what I've observed, a lot goes on here when no one is around to care.

            I'll have an update on this later because I may be getting a false impression.

            Today, I missed the morning bus because no one had told me what I was supposed to be doing. Far from being annoyed, I actually DID wake up on time, I just chose not to be there when the bus arrived because, again, no one had told me what to do. I think I'm getting the hang of this system.

            Later in the day, someone contacted me and asked, among other things, where I was. I told them I was at my apartment and he said 'Oh, have you been to campus yet?'. I told him no and he said I should just relax for today. He did not mention tomorrow.

            But I really couldn't stand another day cooped up in my apartment so I asked specifically: 'So I should be on the bus tomorrow morning?' to which his answer was a resounding 'sure'. I mean, they've already given me an advance, so it's no skin off my nose if I'm not working.

            This is a very interesting place.