So Long and Thanks for All the Khapsa

It’s been nothing if not an eventful year. I carried on a long distance relationship for seven months only to have it implode upon that distance being closed. I had wild flings in the wake. I’ve seen France, Budapest (twice), Taiwan and Sri Lanka. I reunited with an old friend whom I haven’t seen in over ten years and met his wonderful family. I survived an entire year living in a strict Islamic theocracy, teaching some of the worst students I am ever likely to encounter anywhere. I’ve made new friends. I’ve picked up the basics of another language. I’ve experienced what it is like to be firmly middle-class, and have made enough money to pay off my student loan, at last. 

And now it’s time to go. 

Despite the adventure it is been, I am very happy to be moving on. I am looking forward to enjoying the liberties of my own country and Japan. But there are things I’m going to miss about Saudi Arabia. I’ll miss the evenings, which depending on the time of year, are either warm or cool, but are always good for walking. I’ll miss the cheap goods and services, and having more than enough money to buy whatever I want. I’ll miss the easy-going good-naturedness of Saudis. I’ll miss meeting people from a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds that I usually don’t get to meet in Canada. I’ll miss studying and practicing Arabic. I’ll miss the weekend trips to Jeddah, Yanbu or the Economic City.  Most of all, I’ll miss my friends.

This last month, having the freedom to experience living here without the distraction of work, I think I’ve gotten some real insight into what it means to be Saudi. Although this country is probably the most strictly Theocratic place on Earth, outside of certain parts of Syria and Iraq, let me tell you, it’s only on the face of it. Young people here are just as wild and hungry for experience as young people in other parts of the world. They drink, they do drugs, watch movies and listen to music. They like to party and they have boyfriends and girlfriends. The only difference is that they are covert. It all has to be done carefully, in secret. 

Nor is the piety what you might expect from a county that is, on paper, one hundred per cent Muslim. As far as I can tell most Saudis do not pray five times a day—and some, I am sure, do not pray at all. Like in any country, there are good people there are bad people, and there are every shade of grey. As one might expect, depending on their own religious leanings, piety and quality of character don’t seem to have a direct relationship. There are pious Muslims that are wonderful, lovely people; and there are non-devout Muslims that are also wonderful, lovely people. Similarly, there are both devout and non-devout Muslims who are brutish and nasty.

Western media likes to paint a picture of Muslims in general as violent, irrational, freedom hating people, or at the very least, it focuses entirely on those Muslims that happen to be so. Of course, it’s true that there are these kinds of people all over the world, in every culture, in every religion. Even, as I am loathe to admit, within Buddhism. Of course, whenever a Muslim points out to me that in Myanmar, there are Buddhists, even Buddhist monks murdering Muslims, I am always quick to point out that these cannot be REAL Buddhists: that the first precept, even for lay followers is not to kill. Similarly, when the subject of the Islamic State, comes up in the office, they are always discredited for the same reason: real Muslims do not murder. Verses of the Quran are always cited to support this assertion. 

When crazy people storm into the offices of French cartoonists and shoot everyone inside, they don’t do it because they are “extremists”, they do it because they are crazy. Very, very few people within the Muslim community condone this kind of behaviour. I worked with a guy who, upon our first meeting told me I was going to go to hell for not believing in God and calls non-believers “infidels” behinds their backs. He gets into fights with the other Muslims over small matters of faith, doesn’t get along with anybody, and has threatened violence to several members of the staff. In short, he’s bat-shit crazy, and obsessed with the letter of Islam. But as zealous and mentally unstable as he is, I can’t imagine even him murdering people for his faith. It takes a rare bird indeed.

Saudi Arabia is a country that is changing quickly. Ten years ago people thought that women would never be seen walking around without head scarfs. But I’ve seen in numerous times—in King Abdullah Economic City (owned by Dubai investors), and even in the malls in Jeddah. 

Speaking of his highness, he does not appear to have much more time on this Earth, and his successor is likely to bring in more liberal legislation. Actually, King Abdullah himself has approved legislation that will, for the first time, make tourist visas available in Saudi Arabia. I don’t know, his decision may be motivated by him understanding the need to diversify the Saudi economy more than anything else. And granted: it is already easy to obtain visas for hajj and umrah.  None-the-less, it will open the county up to people of all walks of life, and with them, new perspective and new ideas.

To be perfectly honest, Saudis are in desperate need of a little insight into the way the rest of the world works—especially in the field of education. The quality of education here is shameful. Running a classroom here is a constant battle, and it’s exhausting. Frankly, after a while, you just stop giving a damn. A colleague confided in me today, “I’ve stopped doing all the things I used to try and make this a better place. Now, I do nothing, and nobody has noticed.” I could only nod.  The standards here are shockingly low.

I’m glad for having the experience to teach here, and I’ll be benefiting from the money I made for years, but I think it’s actually made me a worse teacher. Working here has made me complacent and lazy. I got paid very well, but there was zero accountability. Literally none of my students passed this last trimester. I tried. Oh God how I tried. But in the end, the utter incompetence of students who had only gotten to where they are because of cheating, coupled with an out-right refusal to learn on one side, and the incompetence of the administration, who refused to listen to, much less adapt things to instructor feedback made any hope of effectively English next to impossible.   

Which is one very big reason why I have decided to leave and teach in Japan.  I will be teaching adults. Adults who have had a proper education, and actually know how to learn. Gods be praised! Instead of spending classroom time reminding students to put their phones away, get their pens from their lockers, stop chatting while I’m giving instructions et cetera, I’ll be able to teach. I don’t care if I’m taking a fifty per cent pay cut—it’s going to be worth it. Also because I won’t be living in a country that thinks where I put my penis is government business.

So, it’s goodbye sand and palm trees; hello mountains and cherry blossoms. Goodbye camels and sweet dates; hello panda bears and sushi. Goodbye thobes, and shmougs; hello kimonos and baseball caps. Saudi Arabia, it’s been a slice, but it’s time for me to go. So long, and thanks for all the khapsa.

And thanks for all of you who have kept up with my blog this past year. Knowing people have been reading has kept me motivated to write. Doing so has enriched my life, and I hope it has in some way enriched yours.

Peace, Love, and Pizza

Brady  

The Nicest Ghost Town in the World

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit King Abdullah Aziz Economic City; or as I like to call it, "the nicest ghost town in the world".

The towering gate looms in the distance visible to all travelers on their their way south to Jeddah, with disembodied head of King Abullah Aziz smiling benevolently down. I had often wondered what it was like inside this mysterious segregated city, which I was told, was being raised out of the desert according to some mad architect's plan, with the aid of unlimited Saudi oil wealth. What wonders lay beyond that gate? Sadly, there are few...and yet I don't think I will soon forget the experience.

Most Thursdays, some colleagues of mine and I do something after work. In a bid to do something different, I suggested we go to King Abdullah Economic City. You need to have an invitation from someone who lives there, just to get into the city...and I'm told that Saudis aren't even allowed inside. Luckily we knew someone at work who was living there, so we were able to procure an invite.

It took us about half an hour to drive from Rabigh to the gate. Once past, the road continued...for a long time. Thinking it would be just a short drive into a bustling little city, I was amazed to discover that there was a lot of road, but not much city. We drove for about fifteen minutes on beautiful, freshly paved asphalt before we approached anything like civilization. Huge swathes of land on either side of the road had been carefully groomed to lie flat, bereft of vegetation, let alone buildings.

Finally as we approached the coast, the tiny buildings of the horizon grew to full size. Most notably, there was a massive, modern-looking block, shaped building that I imagined was for business. Beyond that, we discovered swaths of handsome sea-side apartments with well-maintained lawns, trees and bushes. In the center of the coastline, was a promenade along the beach. Beyond: more apartments, and an excellent mosque.

After trying to find a downtown that seemed eerily absent. We went back to the promenade, poked our head into the cafe and the restaurants, and gawked at the locals. Women without abayas! I had a moment of astonishment. The female form in jean shorts. Was I still in the Kingdom, or had I been in an auto accident and gone to the afterlife? Also...and there is a good chance I am mistaken, but I thought for a moment, I saw people drinking beer. No. Certainly not in the kingdom.  

Well the beach was fine and well, but Ahmed and I wanted to search for the illusive Hyper Panda (grocery store), which, so we surmised must be in a commercial area, which we must has bypassed. We took the car and the other two stayed at the beach. On our search we picked up a hitch hiker and gave him a ride--an Indian laborer. It took us fifteen minutes to drive him to his barracks, which was out in the middle of nowhere. In return he pointed us to the Hyper Panda, which was also in the middle of nowhere.

The Panda had no obvious signs from the highway, and even the parking lot was hidden. I think we were both surprised to find it open an operating. A fully-stocked, modern grocery store in the middle of a barren plain. A true desert oasis! Inside we met a couple of Somali guys. Ahmed, being half Somali, stuck up a conversation. Apparently, these guys were working in the country illegally. I wondered how in the nine hells they got access to the city, let alone procured employment...although I may be putting the cart before the horse...

Soon after our colleagues at the beach called us. They had had it. They were bored with this most modern of ghost towns. So we picked them up and spend out of there. We ended the night eating student food at a light night restaurant in Rabigh.

I'm sure in a couple of years, the Economic city will be a very different place--a bustling, western-style metropolis. But for now, it's little more than a skeleton, containing the basic infrastructure. Oh, how it will change! I look forward to coming back later and seeing the progress, and writing about it here. Check back next year for part two! 

First Impressions

Saudi Arabia is a big, hot, sandy country. You don't quite appreciate how large it is, until you're driving on the highway between urban areas. There is very little humidity, either, so there isn't much blocking your view. You can stare out at the desert that stretches out hundreds of kilometers out to the horizon. Sometimes the desert is broken in the far off distance be mountain ranges. Sometimes it is not. I was lucky enough to arrive here in the cool season. In the day time, I would not like to be wondering around without shade. Luckily, Saudis seem to feel the same way, and at our campus there are canapes over most of the walkways. There is a perpetual breeze coming off the ocean, which makes the daytime hours tolerable and the evening pleasantly cool. Indoors, it's always cool because there is air conditioning pretty much everywhere.

On the car ride from the airport, I was titillated to see camels grazing near the side of the road. The roads here, as you might imagine are long and straight. Surprisingly, for some reason the turns are not always gradual. In the big cities, there are cameras that will register your license plate number and automatically issue you a ticket if you are driving more than twenty kilometers over the speed limit, but in between metropolitan areas and in smaller cities, like Rabigh, that's not always the case. From the airport to Rabigh my driver was going about 140 km/h most of the the way, and occasionally a vehicle would fly past at mach 10.

There are no women at the school where I teach, but even elsewhere there are far fewer women out and about than men. And yes woman everywhere must wear black robes that cover them from head to toe (abayas), but around these parts, you occasionally see women without a veil. It's a part of the culture that really bothers me. It seems to me that women are treated more like commodities than individuals. Before coming here, I knew that drinking, and drugs were illegal. I knew that there were no cinemas. I knew women had to wear the abaya, and weren't allowed to drive vehicles, but I didn't know that dating wasn't allowed. Marriage must be sanctioned by the woman's family here. I realize that the abaya and arranged marriages are no big problem for many of the women here, but it's a big challenge for my western sensibilities.

Drug trafficking here is a big no-no. On my entry card, it was written in bold, red ink, "Death for Drug Trafficker". Although I obviously didn't have any drugs with me, it was scary to read that. It's nearly incomprehensible to me that someone can be sentenced to death for selling pot, coming from a place where it's nominally legal. Still, I've heard rumors that some of the students like to partake. I could not justify taking that kind of risk. It's just not worth it! There is a long list of capital offenses in Saudi, and foreigners are not exempt. While I have no intention of engaging in any of those illicit activities, the mere knowledge that there are so many thing for which a person could be sentenced to death here is going to take some getting used to.

As for my school, the facility is nice enough. The campus is quite small, and the buildings seem a little old, but well constructed. The staff is pretty good. My colleagues all seem friendly enough, if not a little quirky. Surprisingly to me, perhaps half (maybe more) of the English teachers at my school, though not Saudis nationals, are Muslim. Which is totally fine. They are good people, and they don't treat me with any disrespect for being a non-Muslim. Many of the students have poor study skills, and it is common for them to be playing with their phones in class, or sleeping. These challenges are counterbalanced by the good nature and friendliness exhibited by the majority. Saudi students like to have fun. It's going to be a challenge teaching English here, but I expect I'll be having a good laugh for every moment I want to tear my hair out.