The Teacher Diaries-Chapter 12-Ramadan 2003

Ramadan 2003

So the Holy month of Ramadan marks the start of the cleansing of the soul so to speak. The gates of hell is closed, the devil’s tied up, people appear to be spiritually uplifted, and of course the Saudi brain shuts down completely.

Our school day started at 9 am and closed at 1.30 as opposed to the 7 till 3, other times of the year. School was only open for  about three weeks into Ramadan. After that everyone would go on vacation for about two weeks. Our school day was an easy, short one-except the little ones I taught, did not fast. They were too young, and pumped up with the same venomous energy as before. I, on the other hand was weak, as the heat made my first fasting experience in Jeddah, a tiresome one. Although it was natural to experience frustration with them, the limits of patience had to be pushed to the very end. On getting home in the afternoons, one would just crash and burn. Sunset couldn’t come any faster as I would see mirages of luscious waterfalls everywhere. I remember the first night, I broke my fast with a liter of water in one go. Well so it seemed. I just couldn’t stop drinking.

In other countries, especially in Western Countries, Ramadan is seen as extremely spiritual time, so all forms of entertainment seizes. People are pious, even ones that are normally not. After the breaking of the fast, Muslim’s hearts become even more sombre and peaceful. In some case the tv isn’t even turned on, unless it’s to watch some Islamic programming. They then go to mosque to pray the optional prayers for added reward. Later, the streets are quiet and everyone prepares for work the next day, as the status quo remains the same even in Ramadan.

In Jeddah, the opposite happens. Festive lights paved the streets, music blarring out of every car, and shops are open to the wee hours of the morning. Nobody goes to bed before sunrise and traffic is a nightmare.

The funny thing is that the mosques have prayers going on, but most people choose not to go. Instead they hang out with their friends, shopping with their families or partake in some sporting activity or another. Girls are often chased down at the various shopping malls by the young, ambitious and sometimes idiotic Saudi youth, who has absolutely no incling of how a woman should be treated.

These kinds of activities are normally practised other times as well, but it’s magnified ten times during the month of Ramadan. It’s like they come alive at night, with a renewed sense of energy after being woken out of their deep vampirious slumber of the day. They don’t really feel what it is to be poor. They don’t identify what the needy goes through; as this is one of the reasons why we fast during this month. They just sleep it away, and go on normally at night.

As an expatriate Muslim living here, nobody watches you. It’s easy to become enticed and trapped. There’s no one who cares what you do. Society’s expectations of you has no relevance. So the only person who can stop you from participating in this ridiculous and frivolous custom, is you. As a Muslim, you have to be set in your principals and strong in your convictions or you can lose yourself. Ironical isn’t it?

So what happens during the day then? If the locals spend the entire night in coffee shops, playing and partying, what happens during the day at work. Ask anyone who has ever worked in Saudi in Ramadan, will tell you the same thing-‘Nothing happens in Saudi during Ramadan.’ According to an independent survey conducted by a local newspaper, the average Saudi is only productive for about 30 minutes during this holy month. They get to work very late and then continue to sleep once there. Phones gets taken off the hooks and office doors are locked, epecially in government departments. You can forget about visa applications, drivers license or any other government related applications or queries.

Then comes the preceding hour to sunset, when everyone’s rushing to get to the shops to buy food and all kinds of treats to break their fast. To say this is a crazy time, is a complete understatement. The Saudi can’t multi task during Ramadan so how are they really expected to fast and drive at the same time. Without exagerating, these guys are really dangerous on the road. They cannot think straight. They just want to get home and sit at their tables, counting the dire minutes until the call for prayer. The colour in their faces would return and so would their humanity. Well their version of it anyway. Once I counted the amount of fendour benders during this period. It’s  just plain ridiculous. And the anger flarring from the meaningless and unnecessary accidents, is just unfathonable.  When returning home myself, I would just blow a sigh of relief and thank God that I am alive and well. ‘It’s a war out there, and I think just won the battle,’ I would tell my wife countless times.

Later that month in 2003, we were on holiday, and we were getting ready to perform our first pilgrimage. Back in ’96, I spent the whole month between Medina and Mecca. That experience changed my spirituality forever. So in light of that, I was excited and couldn’t wait to relive the experience. By the last ten days of Ramadan, Mecca had already filled up to about two million people. So you can well imagine just being a spec between the multitude of worshippers, was simply inexplicable. It was overwhelming and I was overcome with a mixture of emotions. Nerves were shot, confused with their role in my body, adreline spiralling up and down, and the containment of these feelings were very difficult to say the least. I just couldn’t wait to get there. It was seventy km away, but it might as well have been seven hundred. The roads were packed as a forty-five minute trip took about two hours.

There were five of us-Nizam, Faiq, Rayan, Fadil and myself. Fadil, a paramedic in Jeddah, was our designated driver. He was responsible for us in a sense, so he didn’t perform his pilgrimage at that time. As we were driving, he gave us the low down of what to expect on getting there. Although it wasn’t my first time, I felt in one with the rest of the teachers that night, as it was obviously theirs. They were naturally very nervous. We were donned in our ihram towels placing ourselves in a higher state of spirituality. The tranquility befalling us in the car, was much like the ocean calm at sunset. It was strange but beautiful. Nobody cracked jokes, nobody spoke unecessary, nobody was worried about the next person, except himself. We were in one with our creator, and this if anything gave us a profound purpose to work even harder in achieving our goals both professionally and personally. We were not going to be detered in our work and nobody was going to make our lives miserable. We would just remember this trip and everything would be okay. We considered ourselves to be more than just fortunate.

.......Chapter 13.....Ramadan Part 2 to follow very soon……The Pilgrimage - The Umrah

The Teacher Diaries-Chapter 11-Learners and Parents

So towards the end of October 2003, we had completed all that we needed to. We had all our photos, finished our medicals and had all our certificates translated into Arabic. So the only thing left to do was to wait. The process was a long and tedious one. Technically one could get your Iqama in a day, but hey this was Saudi Arabia. 'Why finish ourr work in a day, where we could take 3 weeks. Ourr tea breaks arrre verry imbortant to us.' 

It was getting close to Ramadan and we were settling in nicely. Students were getting accustomed to us and our style. The first thing management loved about 'The Team' was our impeccable work ethic. We were slave drivers when it came to our learners. Moms especially loved that we bombarded their brats with homework in order to keep them busy at home. The less they actually had to have contact with their children, the better they were off. They could spend their time with a deeper sense of purpose, like shopping or having their nails done. After all the nannies, drivers, personal chefs, maids and of course personal tutors, had to have a full day. About 99% of students here, had tutors at home. So parents loved that we helped justify their positions.  

It was only after a month I discovered I had half of the board of directors' kids in my class. The owner, a multi billionaire without exaggeration, had a grandson sitting right in front of my class, always smiling, taunting me. I imagined daily what was going through his mind, 'Just slip up you bastard, this is my family's school. I can't wait to have you deported,' A tad intimidating, isn't it? This boy's father among others would visit me daily, to ensure that their kids were getting optimum stimulation. They weren't sure if South Africans could actually meet the educational know how of the Irish, Brits and Yankees. These parents are so blinded by skin color and accent, and I am using the present form in that they still think so, that they can't actually identify individual skills or if a person is an effective educator or not.  I'm not racist and I'm not generalizing, I am just stating a mere fact based on experience. I came across many of the above teachers with less qualifications, being treated like kings and earning more money than people with a darker skin tone. Hell even white South Africans, were earning more money than us, but couldn't even keep a sentence together grammatically. They were typically known as the 'exiles of democracy'. I think it was Nizam who said this once in company, and it sort of stuck with me. So you can understand why they had to double check. We were just not white enough. I remember there were times, where AK, the director general would always remind us to keep watching BBC and CNN, and copy accents. We always laughed about it over barbecues, finding it just too ridiculous. However, some of us actually worked on our accents, because we needed to be understood and that was more important than anything else. 

I noticed that most of the Arabic speaking teachers would sugar coat students' abilities and behavior with parents. It was seen as a complete embarrassment if they had told the truth about any problems in the classroom. I decided not to do that. I thought that transparency with parents would be a welcomed change. 

So my comments in the weekly journal were honest, but tactful. I started notarizing certain behavioral patterns in students-whether they were following the rules or not, whether they were doing homework, or whether they were just generally slacking in the classroom. I also took note of emotional changes-when a student suddenly went quiet for no reason, or vice versa. My weekly comments became meaningful and parents started noticing. They soon realized that what I was describing about their kids were exactly what they were like at home. At least this was the feedback I received. I think this was probably the opinion generated by all the caregivers at home besides the actual parents. I then developed a reputation for that. Mr. Joe Mase was the goto guy for effective comments. I even had to post generic comment templates on the school's class server. I didn't perform miracles, though. It was simple. You highlight the positive, then the negative and speak about possible solutions-all in a very delightful way. I just thought this should've been second nature for a preparatory teacher. Nevertheless the only reason why I shone was simply because of the powerful parents I had. It was both a benefit and a curse. Hasan, my colleague who had the same load and doing exactly the same thing, didn't get half of the recognition. His parents were just not powerful enough. This was even more evident at the end of that year when I received a gold plated award, and Hasan just a certificate. It was embarrassing and insulting to say the least. It then became a curse for me. In spite of the fact that things changed-I became section manager, I had multiple loads, I was still forever judged against that high standard of my first year until the very end.  

Twenty-Six October 2003 marked the start of the holy month of Ramadan. The system, and when I say, 'The System,' I mean everything in Saudi Arabia, literally slows down and in many cases even comes to a complete halt. It was concluded from an independent study published in a national newspaper, that during the month of Ramadan, the average Saudi is productive only for 30 minutes. More about this and other events to continue in Chapter 12.

Chapter 12 - Ramadan 2003...........to be continued......

The Teacher Diaries-Chapter 10-The Hospital

'The Team' once again embarked on yet another adventure in unison. This time absorbing yet another weird experience at the hospital that came straight out of 'Pearl Harbor'-the movie that is. I remember the night clearly. I was ill with the flu. A runny nose, headache that just wouldn't quit and of course drowsy. I dozed myself with Flutabs before I left. Anyone who knows about Flutabs will tell you they tend to make you imagine things. So what I'm about to tell you, might just be a figment of my imagination. 

Well, I'll start by saying that the color of the hospital's interior gave me that off-color, sepia feeling, like there was no life in it. 'More like a morgue' I thought. People were sitting in long corridors waiting to be called to their death. Well, so it seemed.  They were so morbid and depressed, it looked like they were all given life threatening news. The hospital itself wasn't a posh place at all. It was a run-down shack located in a hive smack in the center of down town Al Balad. The building  looked like it had a previous identity as well, probably that of a slum lord's apartment. I was wondering once again why our school was so cheap in sending us there. This was when I got to know what a Polyclinic was. 

Anyway the driver, Adel, spoke to whoever inside and made all the necessary arrangements. We were all seen to one by one. Our names were called in a such a threatening tone that made us look at each other in total fear and deniability. I always had a belief that one could get more sick in a hospital than anywhere else in the world. Well, if you there with me that night you would've believed me saying we were surrounded with at least a thousand different foreign diseases. 

The nurses auditioned for a horror movie and got this role instead. It was like some cruel joke. Many times I thought, 'We did nothing wrong, we don't need to be punished.' I mean really picture this, when last did you see a nurse with a little white cap stuck at the back of her head, looking like she belonged in 1944. No smile, no peoples skills and rough as they come. She would stick a tube in your hand and say, 'Stool.' 'What! Do the deed on demand! This isn't happening!' There are things in life that take careful planning and concentration. Like eating bran cereal in the morning and drinking lots of water. 'Listen lady, don't rush me! I'll be ready when I'm ready. It can be in ten minutes or ten days.' 

In the mean time, I was sent over to another room where a male nurse from the Filipines, were seeing to blood tests. I was supposedly being tested for HIV by a guy who looked very Positive about himself, if you know what I mean. I don't mean to be discriminatory, but common he might as well have worn Armani's Fall Collection, parading around like he was on a catwalk instead of a ward. Because we were treated like we belonged on conveyor belts, he stuck me with the needle at least three times before he actually got the vain. He was in such a rush to get done, that he obviously didn't care turning my arm into a tea strainer. Luckily I was drugged and didn't feel much of that. The blue marks however were evident the next morning. 

Back to the toilet-no way in hell was I going to perform that night. The toilet was as filthy as a dumpster behind a club in Shanghai. Ryan was the only one who prepared I suppose, as he completed his mission. The rest of us were given the special luxury of taking the viles home and bringing it back the next day filled. The driver wasn't too impressed with that as it would've been his task to take them back to the hospital, properly labelled of course. 'Please people. First put in not see through bags, and then in plastic bag. Tape it many times. Please,' were his exact words as we were driving home. 

At least being part of Dar Al Fikr had some privileges. 'Ya Right!' 

We got home at around 10 that night. It was a real dreadful experience-one that I never wanted to re-live-thank God I never did. The stool test for South Africans were lifted since then. 

Next Up......Translating our certificates and other legal documents from South Africa, into Arabic. It's amazing the amount of people working in government, who cannot speak, read or write English. A language we take so much for granted. Such a lucrative business for Translators, isn't it? 

This, among other events will have to wait until Chapter 11. 

The Teacher Diaries-Chapter 9

Chapter 9

By the end of the first week of October I pretty much figured out what needed to be done. But like trying to drive a car for the first time, it took practice and more practice to get into a specific routine. That's what took up all our free time during that first month. Hasan and I often stayed late at school, sometimes coming in on the weekend as well, trying to get our admin done. One specific day during October 2003, we decided to stay to 6pm. It was just about an hour to sunset. We had to finish comments in each student's diary and also work on some preparations. By this time, we were teaching already but still under Patrick's supervision. So lesson plans were also focused on during these quiet times. 

That particular day, the maintenance staff, including security, had forgotten about us, and locked all inter-leading doors, including the main outside door. 

'Wat nou-What now?' Hasan looked worried as he turned the handle of the double doors of the elementary corridor. 'Don't worry, we'll make a plan.' Although everyone thought we were a little short of crazy to work so late at school-we just felt we needed more confidence in what we were doing.  Our colleagues use to say things like 'There's no use doing anything extra if no-one sees you doing it.' So I knew we would hear so many 'I told you sos,' the next day. Most teachers in 'The Team' would take their work home, whereas we liked to relax at home. I suppose the day was too long. Our school started at 7am and ended at 3.15pm. So staying another three hours was taxing to say the least but it was worth the sacrifice. 

That's when I realized I had to let someone important know we were there. I called the compound number from an ancient handset in one of the offices and asked for Patrick's extension. Needless to say, Patrick laughed but at the same time knew we were dedicated and hard working. 'Mission accomplished.' He called security who in turn then unlocked the doors to our freedom. It wasn't that dramatic, but it definitely stood out as one of many memories. 

The next day, we were required to go to the local hospital for blood tests, medical exams and stool tests. Hold on, did somebody say stool test? What ancient country are we living in? Who still does stool tests? I mean really. It's humiliating and demoralizing. In this modern day of science and technology, I'm sure we could do without that. My complaints were to no avail, as we were really required to do the deed on demand. 

The school bus collected us at the compound at 5.30 that evening. In case you wondering, these were part of the requirements needed to get a working permit also commonly known as an Iqama. Didn't we complete all these medical tests back home for our visas? Now that we here, its like that never happened. Everything had to be repeated. 

I suppose after all we all came from Africa, didn't we? Popular belief will dictate that we live in bushes or in trees. My principal back at my school in 1995 asked me if I knew where he could purchase a lion. Our medical services in Africa were probably reliant upon witch doctors. The Saudis were really ignorant when it came to us back then. In many ways they still are. 

...to be continued..... 

Chapter 10-The Hospital 

Hi All,

The school featured in 'The Teacher Diaries', is not the last school I attended. I left Dar Al Fikr in 2008 but it left an everlasting mark. It was such a colorful institution that I felt the need to concentrate on this experience only for the time being. That's the reason Chapter 1 starts at a point in 2008 and not 2012. Anyone who ever taught at Dar Al Fikr, can attest to the above statement-whether good or bad, you just cannot forget.  

Joe

The Teacher Diaries-Chapter 8

Back in 1995, on the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia, in a small coastal town of Al Khobar, I was a Grade 1 homeroom teacher for a school called Manarat Al Sharkia. 

I was responsible for English, Math, Science and Social Studies. Inexperienced, young and naive, I really didn't know what I was getting myself into. The students were raw, uninhibited and uncontrollable. They broke me both spiritually and mentally. I think I aged five years in that year. Needless to say it was one of my worst experiences ever and although in my opinion I was really bad at what I did then, the school wanted me back as I was the one who resigned. Never again, were my exact words. Well you know what they say, ‘Never Say Never’. The irony is that because of that experience, I was chosen for Grade 1 once again at this new school in 2003.

I was not going to let my previous experience deter me though, not this time. I had everything to lose-I had to focus-had to keep my eye on the ball-had to make a complete success and reach my ultimate objective. So because I was more matured both as a professional and a person, every part of my being turned into the proverbial sponge. Patrick was going to be my mentor, and I was going to be his prodigy so to speak.

Saturday 27 September 2003, was my first encounter with the super rich-super wealthy six year olds. I was allocated to Grade 1B and 2A and Hasan 1A and 2B. We had an average of about 15 in a class, and I know what you thinking-its piece of cake right? Believe me when I say, it wasn't. The numbers were an illusion of the multiple personalities within each student. They might as well have been 50.

Patrick had been teaching them before our arrival, as we were about three weeks into the academic year. He promised us a series of demo lessons before he let us captain our own ships. Patrick obviously knew what he was doing with ten years experience at this institution. I could see from the offset he had a strategic plan in place. I was truly lucky in the sense that others, who followed, did not receive an orientation of this nature. I really owe my success as an educator in the Middle East, to this guy.

‘Good morning, grade 1,’ Patrick greeted with animation straight out of acting school. I noticed his whole persona changed. He’d taken on a role, hadn’t he? Like those aspiring actors who take part in children’s television series, Patrick sounded as if he was the lead in Barney. I then realized my first task was to lose my Cape colored accent. The learners would definitely not identify with me as an educator, if had to come with say, ‘Take out your books, ne?’ accentuating the r in every word. I had to be an actor first before anything else and develop some kind of sturvy accent. Note to myself-watch Barney.

Patrick controlled these young adults with such finesse and grace that could’ve only come with experience. He was loud and audible, yet subtle in his approach, and he repeated everything. This made me also realize that patience was more than just a virtue. Taking time to know each and every learner was a priority. I found that they needed to love and respect the teacher before they could learn from him. It wasn’t just about teaching.

He also stressed on rules. He repeated them consistently and even had an illustrated chart on the wall, which he would always refer to when teaching. Everything from raising your hand to answer, to no speaking Arabic in the class was illustrated in bright colors. And instead of punishing them, when they didn’t follow, he positively reinforced them. He worked out a reward system where they could benefit at the end of the week. That’s when I understood why Patrick always had sweets in his pocket.

Back in the day when I was in college, we as men weren’t allowed to teach grades 1 to 3. It was said men lack the patience and tolerance for learners that age and a woman naturally can assume the role of generic motherhood in the class. Six year olds are generally closer to their mothers than their fathers, isn’t it? So it’s easier for a child to let go of the apron strings on his first day of school, with a female teacher at the helm.

Anyway, in a society where the mixing of the sexes and coed schools are not allowed both for students and the faculty, we needed the antithesis of that rule. Patrick was just that. 


.......to be continued...Chapter 9....

Hi guys, 

I must apologize for not posting Chapter 8 as promised. I really thought I could finish quickly, but because of relocating I will only be able to do it after the 23 June. My mind is scattered in a million different places right now, so bare with me. The Teacher Diaries will continue-the change of perspective might even improve my writing, who knows. 

Also watch out for details of an e-published book-its near completion. 

Joe