New Years Update

So it's the start of the new year. Things haven't changed much here. We still haven't been given internet. I went out and got my own connection. It is a bit expensive, but at least I have something to do now. The Wi-fi address I was picking up was becoming increasingly sporadic and I wanted to be able to keep in touch with those back home.

The P.O. box thing has also yet to materialize. I have come to the conclusion that this company, IGIT, promises a lot and delivers nothing. We still do not have a business center, to plan our classes or print off materials . It is just frustrating. So I have decided to look for employment elsewhere. Below is some emails that I have sent and received from my boss here is Jeddah. This is part of the reason why I am looking elsewhere. The communication between management and staff has a lot to be desired.

Ramia-
Here is a copy of the information that you requested at the meeting.
I hope this is everything you need.
(my C.V. and scans of my documents)
I also stopped by the post office and got the forms for the post
office boxes for mail.

Tim

(I received no response from this email. When I saw Ramia a few days later, I asked her about the post office box again. She said that she didn't need to respond to me because, I didn't say hi in my email. Something that is important as a mailing address deserves a response. It is the holidays, and people have been asking myself and other teachers here for our mailing address to send us cards, presents, or just mail in general. I have a 92 year old grandma, who can not write an email and sends me letters on a regular basis. It is difficult to speak with her on the phone, so I have been basically out of touch with her since coming here. A mailing address is extremely important for me in this manner. I am also continuing my degree by distance education. I have not been able to order my text books and materials needed because of having no mailing address.)

To: ramia.midani@igitgroup.org
Subject: Passport

Hello Ramia-

I was wondering when we will be getting our Icoma cards. Sorry about
the spelling there. Or if you have our passports still. I am going
to need to send money home soon and I gave out my last copy of my
passport and visa when I got my internet. So thus I was wondering
about the cards, and if you still have the passports. If you still
have the passports, could you please give me a copy of the photo page
and the visa page?

I was also wondering what is happening with the Post Office Box thing?
Has any movement been done on that?

Have a good weekend
Tim

Hello Tim,

I do appreciate the fact that you have finally understood that it is always
better in life to build Respectful
Relations with people around you . That is a great respect for your own self
in the first place .Your passport
has been sent to Riyadh so as to start iqama processes.I shall try to ask
for a copy of your passport to be sent
by e-mail from the main office in Riyadh but I cant promise you this because
your passport must be already sent
for iquama governmental offices.I surely hope that they have a copy of it
that they can send because its always
much better if you keep those with you. Concerning sending money home you
may send it in Wasels name because he
is the only person who has got iqama(I always do that myself).The last time
I sent money I sent it in the name
of the guy who works at western union and it was convenient enough.
As for the post office thing would it not be much nicer if u had said
.Please Ramia it would be nice of
You if u may have a look at the post office format ,as it would be more
convenient for all of us in case we have
One??I do not suppose that manners is something bad in life, and it is
always important to use the word please and thank
you ,and I am positive that the word manners is not strange for Westerns.
Actually I do use these words all the
time ,and I have always been respected for that ,and trust me Tim .You are
going to have a long career life and
respecting people around you would always reflect positively on you. You are
a teacher.I mean that it ought to be
the first lesson to teach to your students

Take care Tim
Regards
Ramia

Enough with the negativity. I am working now, or was working. I was substitute teaching for one of the teachers, who went back to the States for a couple of weeks to see his sick father. I was teaching level 3 students. The students are fun. They are good kids. Level 3 students are able to communicate and a have a decent grasp on English. That made the classes easy and fun to teach. But as of today, that is finished. Wendell, came back. That is the man that I was substituting for. So now, I am back to not working. Actually, I am waiting to hear what I will be doing next. There are about 2 weeks left in the semester of actual classes, so it might be a bit before I find out. I hope to find out something in the next couple of days.

I got paid this week. It was only 3 days late this time. So I went shopping. I bought myself a hooka, or shisha as it is called here. I have quit smoking cigarettes again. So this is my replacement for it. I was given 2 different types of tobacco with it, ice cream and I think blueberry. The blueberry flavor, I am just guessing on. That is sort of what it tastes like. The ice cream one is just weird. It tastes like vanilla ice cream. It is just a strange, strange taste. I don't know if I like it not.

Yesterday, I also purchased some sandals. They are the traditional style here and are actually quite nice looking. They cost me about $10. Not a bad price. They are comfortable. Today I went out and got fitted for a thobe. I don't know if that is the right spelling or not, but it is the traditional Saudi robe. It will be finished in about a week. I doubt I will wear it much, but it is a souvenir.

Some observations on Saudi dress. There a ton of ball gown shops here. I guess the women wear them to parties and weddings and the like. They are always busy. So there must be a lot of parties and weddings for the women to wear them at. It also could be that Saudis have more money than they know what to do with. Manual labor is not done by Saudis. They bring in people from other countries to do that work for them. Cabbies tend to be from Egypt or Pakistan. Cleaning people from Bangladesh and the Philippines. The shop keepers are Indian and Pakistanis. Most work here is done by males. The women that do work, usually only work with women. So I don't see them much. Actually the only women that I did see working was in the hospital, when I went in for my testing for my residency permit.

Christmas was spent at a Phillepeano restaurant. We ended up crashing their party. They were happy to have us and the food was good. Not the American traditional Christmas food. To me, it was just strange to eat for the holiday. I did end up winning a clock, which I have since given away. But it was nice to unwrap something for Christmas. New Years was spent with some of the teachers here. We just went to a Moroccan shisha place. Smoked some shisha and drank some tea. A relaxing new year. I was able to have a tasty beverage as well. A friend of mine, hooked me up with a little something something.
That is about all I have for now. Happy Holidays everyone!!!

Meeting and Work update

Had a meeting today. Things were getting a little heated at first. It was just the teachers talking about things not getting done and then about 45 minutes into the meeting, Ramia, showed up. She is the lady who is in charge. Things started getting settled then. We are going to get internet in the next couple of days. They will be paying the installation fees and we will be paying the monthly bills. That is fine with me. I would like to have reliable internet. But I will believe that once I actually get it.

I also found out about mailing addresses. It took a little while to get that all sorted out. Well for her to understand me. I am going to run to the post office tomorrow and get the forms for P.O. Boxes. Apparently we can have up to 11 people per box. So the forms need to be filled out, with the peoples names and home addresses before we can actually get the boxes. So hopefully soon, I will have an address.

I also found out that I got hired. Yay me!! I don't know when I start. Ramia, told me to go to the Uni tomorrow and ask when I start. I told her to give me the number and I would call to find out, but I am not going to show up at the guy's office, who I may or may not have met and demand to know when I start. That is not my responsibility. They hired me, they can tell me when to start. Or I can call him to find out that info. It seems rude for me to show up, uninvited and ask those questions. So out of the 20 or so of us here, 5 have jobs, and 3 more got hired. Mark, some girl and myself are the ones that just got hired. The others, didn't. Most have interview and didn't get the job, so from what I understand, they will next be shipped off to Medina to interview and if they don't get hired there, of to Ryshia. Sucks to be them. They should have told us, before we came, that we didn't have jobs and that we would have to interview for them.

So things are looking up for me at least. Feel sorry for the people, who now have to pack up and move again. But hey, at least they get to see another city. Medina is not a place I would want to live. Jeddah is the most liberal city in Saudi, Medina is the second holiest city in Saudi and very conservative. It's the burial place of Mohammad. Which would be cool to see, but I think you need to be Muslim to go and see it. Plus I get to be next to the Red Sea and do some diving and beach type stuff.

Work

So I have been here for a little over 3 weeks. I still have yet to work a day here. Hell I don't even know if I have a job yet. I was told that I had a job when I came over here, but once I arrived in country, I found out that I had to interview for the job.

I had the interview about 2 or 3 days ago. It was one of the strangest interviews I have had. It took about 5 minutes. The questions had almost nothing to do with teaching, or classroom management. The sort of questions one would expect for a teaching job. The questions were, what is the difference between TEFL and TESL. Not a real whole lot of difference in the two term. They followed that up, by asking which was taught in Saudi. Then they asked me what linguistics was. I answered that. The last question was, did I think my month long course in CELTA in March qualified me to teach in Saudi. I said yes, with the four years of ESL teaching that I do have. So yes I do believe that I am qualified to teach here. Hell, I am more qualified than the majority of teachers that interviewed on the same day as I did. I have the most experience teaching.

So I am still waiting to hear the outcome of the interview. On a positive note. I am getting paid today!!! I am getting paid for the time I have been here. Not too bad considering I have not done jack since arriving in country.

My Apartment

Just some photos of my apartment.

Off to Saudi

This post is just a recap of my first week in Saudi and the trip to here.

It started off with a two month process. When I first took the job here, I was debating between Kazakhstan and here. I did some research on the Kazakh company and decided to come to Saudi. I was originally supposed to leave on September 25th. Well that didn't happen. It keep getting delayed. I waited and waited for a departure date. I was tired of not working and not having an income. 2 months later, I am told that I would leave on the weekend.

They booked me a ticket out of Chicago and I tell them that it is a no go. Chicago is too far of a drive for me to take, when I could leave out of Minneapolis. So they told me that they were going to try and change my ticket. This is on a Wednesday. Thursday, I hear nothing, Friday, I hear nothing, Saturday morning about 9:30 in the morning I receive a call saying my flight is Sunday at 10:20 in the morning. Nothing like 25 hours notice, before flying halfway across the world.
Laurel and I headed down to Josh's house that night so it would be easier to catch my flight and to see my bro before I took off for a year.

We get to the airport and I am having a hell of a time, just checking in. I was flying on Delta to D.C. and Saudi Arabian Airlines to Jeddah. First of all, I had 2 tickets booked in my name, which was causing part of the problems, and Delta couldn't bring up my Saudi ticket, thus making it difficult to transfer my bags over to the Saudi airplane. So the lady made some calls and i waited and waited and waited. About 45 min. later, I get called back up to the counter and it is done. I check my bags and head off to security and say my goodbyes to Laurel . This was probably my most difficult leave. I have left the States, or other places I have lived many times over the past couple of years. It is always emotional, but not too bad. This one hit harder.

Anyway I get through security and stop by a store and buy a new Packer hat. I forgot my other cap at Josh's house and I wasn't about to head to a sunny sunny country without a cap. I put the cap on my head and head off to my gate, to arrive just in time for boarding and fly to D.C.
Flowing a 4 hour layover in which I watched football, I jumped on my plane to Saudi and fell asleep. Waking periodically and falling right back asleep. I was awoken an hour before landing and told to eat my food as we were landing soon. I look around in my sleepy haze and realize that I missed breakfast. Most everyone had already eaten and been cleaned up. I ate my food and read my book till landing.

Upon landing I was to call Wassel, the dude that was picking me up. I give him a call and proceed to look for him. He was supposed to be at the gate with a sign with my name on it. He wasn't. So I told him what I was wearing so he could also look for me. I wonder around looking for him and not finding him, after about 10 minutes of wondering around, he comes up to me with a sign that has my name on it, that he pulled out of his pocket.

I am delivered to my apartment and left alone. I am thirsty and hungry. I don't know if I should go out and find something to eat and drink, because I was told that someone would be coming to my door later. So 4 1/2 hours later, I get a knock on my door. There's a meeting. Finally something is happening. I wish I would have known it was going to take so long. Anyway the meeting goes on and I find out that I won't be teaching for a little while, till at least the 5th of December. And that is about all that is accomplished at the meeting.

Since I have gotten here, I still don't know when I will start teaching, or much of anything. I have gotten to know some of the other teachers who will be working for I.G.I.T. I've wondered around, been out to eat a couple of places and done a whole lot of nothing. That is about all that has happened in my first week in Saudi. Oh and on my second night here, we had a rain storm. From what I hear, the first in almost 2 years. The rain caused floods in part of the city and the road to Mecca flooded destroying many cars and killing over 1oo people.

My first impressions of Saudi Arabia so far aren't bad. It is dirtier than I expected. There is more plant life; a surprising amount of trees. Most are palm trees, but also trees with a thick waxy leaves. Everything is the same color. Most of the buildings are a light sandy color, so everything blends in. Signs with bad English abound, but then again, I haven't been to a none English speaking country where it hasn't. Everything get done it it's own time. Food is hella cheap and the people are friendly.

A walk to the shore

I'm a sweaty mess. I went for a walk this evening. I think I started around 3:30 and just got back. It is 7 now. So not to bad of a walk. I need to learn how to control my stride. I walk to fast for the heat. It isn't even that hot out. ok so maybe I was wrong. I just checked the weather and it is 82 but it feels like 87. If that is the temp at 7 at night, I wonder what it was like during the day. That could explain the sweat.

So anyway I found the American Embassy. It is just down the street from me. Maybe a mile or two. It sort of snuck up on me and it's a huge complex. Not that that is of any importance to this, but good to know where it is.

So I put on my lungi, that purplish sarong thing I got in India, grabbed my camera bag, and put on my head phones and walked out the door. I then took a left and walked straight and kept walking straight until I could walk no more. I was at the shore. I passed a lot of western chain restaurants, B.K., Krispy Kream, McD's, Chilli's to name but a few. Once I hit the shore, I turned and headed toward the beach. It was a bit of a hike from when I first hit the water front. The beach is more like a car park of compacted dirt, with a little bit of soft sand right before the water.

There were a few Saudi families enjoying the weather and relaxing waterside. Some were flying kites, a lot of men were fishing from the beach. Nobody was swimming. I don't know if Saudis don't swim or the shear amount of fishing poles and lines discourages people from swimming. Several people were going into the water about knee deep. Two old men were playing soccer on a run down pitch. And there were hoards of people on 4 wheelers, just tooling around. One kid about 9 years of age flipped his. I laughed to myself. He was alright, if you were wondering. I went to a Mosque at the end of the beach and sat behind it and read my book and people watched whilst waiting for the sunset. The sunset was disappointing. The cloud cover on the horizon was too thick and blocked it out. I'll have to try another day.

While people watching, there were several people fishing in front of me. Several men moved to the shore to take a picture and BAM, one of them gets hit in the head with a fish that one of the fishermen caught. It was some funny shit. Shortly after that I decided to head back home and stop off at the pier before I take my turn back home. At the pier, there is a huge jet of water that shoots up into the air, I don't know how high, but it is high. Took a few pictures of that and headed back home.
That was pretty much my day.