Welcome to another letter of aimless observations and ponderings from here in the middle of the Middle East. My biggest trial at anytime in adding to this post - is trying to bring it up without Arabic Script across the top for instructions. The ridiculous part is that I can never recall how I accomplished it the previous time. But enough of alerting you to my growing dementia ...
We are all looking anxiously forward to next weekend. The Saudi National Day falls on Monday 23 September and as our first day of the working week is Sunday, it is expected that the King will announce that Sunday is a holiday making a long weekend. Virtually everyone in our team has booked and paid for a trip out of the country, including the boss who is travelling with us to Cyprus. The only problem is if the King doesn't announce the holiday. But then he may not make the announcement until the evening before. So after asking many Saudi teachers and Ron (the boss) asking his deputy, we will all be away.
Cyprus will be excellent - weather looking very good with tops of 32 and evenings of 20. Positively mild. We are renting an old farm villa set into the hills overlooking the sea in the south (Greek Cyprus). I've hired a car for the four of us - a 7 seater VW something that isn't a Kombi - and as the booking is in my name, I'm driving. Really looking forward to that simple task. On the way home from work one afternoon this week, our driver pointed out to the car we were passing - a young boy around 10 was driving a large 4 wheel drive (GMC) - his father was proudly sitting beside him. And they don't let women drive!
Ron received a visit from 2 Year 12 boys (brothers) who invited him and the male consultants to dinner at their home. The boys had come to school that day in a red 4 wheel drive Lexus. That afternoon they met the men from our team outside our Compound in a white Maserati. Ron was offered the courtesy of driving it, but refused. The other men weren't offered the privilege. Ron's disappointment though was that he travelled with his own driver (in the his Lexus) to the young boys home which was less than 1km from here.
On arriving they were shown to a very large reception room full of art (paintings and sculptures) and served tea and coffee and dates. Later they moved to another enormous room for dinner - again filled with art, where 2 other brothers joined them. Around 9pm the boys father arrived home and welcomed them to his house. They never met the women in the house - 4 sisters and presumably at least one wife/mother.
This family are seriously rich. The boys travel to Europe independently of the family to ski, dive, swim, sight see and shop. They intend to study overseas next year and are keen to improve their English from competent to that of an academic standard.
The wealth of the families at the school is interesting. All families would be considered wealthy from our perspective, but some of the families (not including the royals) are wealthy beyond my comprehension. The Saudi teachers who work in the school, some who hold senior positions including principal positions, spend huge amounts of money on jewellery, watches, shoes, handbags and travel. It is not unusual to sit with this women over the period of a week, and see several different designer handbags (Channel, Dior, Fendi) all several thousand dollars each, plus shoes to match and different huge diamond rings daily. Whilst there isn't any tax here, the cost of such items is still big. It is the males responsibility to look after his family (or families) and even after divorce, he would be responsible for the children - who often remain with him.
The school work is progressing - slowly. Though when we look at the changes from last year when we commenced, the impact of our work is rewarding. We have commenced work with the new level of leaders - all new positions - which involves building their capacity and understanding of leadership as well as their curriculum and teaching knowledge. It seems that many of these people - women and men - have become intoxicated with their title and barking orders and making demands of others and not actually doing their work. So the next piece of work is to gently remind them that they are not the boss and that they need to stop with the coffee and dates and get out and work.
One of the new leaders - a Syrian English teacher - who I work with in the National HS was telling me that the problem is Saudis. They are lazy and they don't live the life that Mohammed instructed them to do. That is: rise before sunrise and pray, then work hard throughout the day and go to sleep after the final prayer just after sunset. Saudis generally get home from school around 2:30 when they would eat and then sleep for 4 -5 hours (children included) and then do some tasks around the house and go out for dinner around 10pm. They may well stay out until 1am (with children) and then back to home and bed and up for the day around 5am. She said the only time Saudis live as The Prophet instructed was when they were living or holidaying in the West because the shops, businesses and restaurants dictate a different time pattern to their day. It sits with our observations - this country could be a major player in the world if they would just get organised. Some are trying to take the country to the next level of success beyond money, but many aren't coming with them. Many don't need to work because of the wealth from oil. But their hospitality remains their best attribute.
Did I share with you the visit of the rats? We finally think we are rid of all vermin. Last week getting ready to leave for the car to head to work, a look of horror crossed Julie's face and she screamed. I turned to where she was looking fully expecting to see another large adult rat somewhere on the floor in the kitchen, but instead it was a dead baby rat. (Picture below). I put it into TWO plastic bags and took it to the Gatehouse and showed the staff there the photo and then pointed to the bag. The manager came and assured me that all rats would be looked for and removed from our villa. Apparently 4 men were set this task and they didn't find any rats. When we arrived home they had to put the dishwasher back into place. When they were doing this we noticed a hole made into the wall for the hose to the dishwasher. The dishwasher was new for our villa and so was the hole. I grabbed some scourers and cut them up and had the worker stuff them around the hole - much to his amusement. A large rat trap, similar to a possum trap, was left in our kitchen set and ready to catch anything wild. Nothing has appeared and neither have new evidence of rats!!!
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| This is a rat - not a mouse. For those who are interested, note the white banded tail! |
Over the past 3 weeks I have been joining Julie and Ron on their walk around the Diplomatic Quarter (DQ). The walk we do is about 8km and we can now do it in 1:05 with a 5 minute break in the middle. The walk is damn hard of an afternoon, when the temperature maybe about 43. But we finish at Starbucks for a huge freshly squeezed orange juice. The mornings of the weekend are far more pleasant - this morning the temperature being 33. The photos below are around our walking route. Ron's driver, Falah - a beautiful young man from Yemin - walks with us to stop getting fat! I didn't take photographs of the army security stations around the walk as I thought that may be too sensitive. But we pass about 2 locations on the walk where there is a fortified machine gun post and outlook. The DQ is well protected with army on the entrance in and each vehicle checked before entering. A huge wall surrounds the area - not sure how large but probably about 200 acres - and barbed and razor wire above the wall.
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| Almost 1/2 way. the structure to the left is the remains of an old mud fort. |
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| Julie and Falah. Note the tea towels. We wrap them wet around the bottles of water and put them in the freezer for 40 mins. Very welcomed at the break |
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| Prince Salmen's Palace - our Compound (unseen) is to the right. |
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| Edge of the DQ |
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