Each morning I get up at 5:20am, have a shower, get dressed, make myself either a bowl of cereal or scrambled egg (depending if I've been motivated enough to wash my one bowl and pan the night before) and head out to work at 6am sharp. Once there I'm typically met in the staff room by two of the English trainers and greeted in passing by the rest. After a coffee it's usually time then for everyone else to go to lessons leaving me and my mentor to carry on chatting about anything that pleases us. We check our e-mails (although being relatively new I'm suprised when I get anything and they are often about local events going on in the area sent to everyone) and my time sheet (which my mentor says is the most important part of this job!) and then resume the mission to keep out of the way and look like were being productive. To be fair quite often we are, although informally, with a few new words of wisdom during every conversation from him to me and we both enjoy comparing notes of our experiences over the years of where we worked previously.
We'd been asked by the department head to do some proctoring throughout the week which although is very dull, makes me feel that at least I do have some use at this stage. Prior to our first one however, my mentor was asked to look after a class for one of the other teachers leaving me to go it alone for the first time. I was quite daunted by the idea initially, the thought of actually having to interact with the students of my own accord wasn't something that I was looking forward to at all. Nevertheless I make my way to the test room 10 minutes before the scheduled start and knocked on the door. A test administrator opened it and let me in, handing me a piece of paper with the names, ID numbers and an allocated workstation at which to take the test. When I had signed myself in and was ready he asked me to begin calling them in. Opening the door I was immediately met with over a dozen young faces all impatiently waiting for thei number to be called. Calling the first one a student stepped forward to the front. Holding up his ID I checked the name and number corresponded with that written on the piece of paper and told him his allocated number. After the third or fourth my nerves subsided and my pathological fear of public displays was temporarily overcome - something that I know I need to work on and I hope to make the most of this role to get over.
That evening my mentor and I decided we would meet up for a coffee and doughnut in Crispy Creme in hte middle of town seeing as I was too unwell over the weekend to make it previously. Insisting that it was customary not to buy on the first occasion (though I'm not sure this is such a long standing tradition enough to have developed such guidelines yet) he paid. Really this was no different to what we had spend most the last few days doing anyway. We sat there, eating our two doughnuts and drinking our coffees continuing where we left off as we'd parted ways at work. By now I wonder where we find the subjects for our conversations and beleive it's a miracle we haven't run out of things to say but in a new country so different to what either of us is used to and with so many different customs to highlight it may yet even be some time before the conversation truly comes to an end and in fact is even less liely given that there will be a few new UK guys arriving soon, thus beginning the entire affair again from the beginning, and the fact that my mentor will soon be gone anyway.
On the way home from Crispy Creme I decided to see if I could find the bicycle shop. One of the other trainers has offered to take me there sometime to show me its location and did say it was on one of the tributarys between the two main shopping streets so each time I'm in the area I make a point of trying to locate it. Having not found it following extensive searching I'm starting to wonder if it's not just some back-alley place that only re-sells old rusty ones about 30 years old - not really what I have in mind. Although I couldn't locate the bike shop I did notice a corner shop selling sportswear with a huge 50% discount sign plastered over the outside. I decided to go and have a look at what trainers they had.
I looked them all over one by one and decided on a pair that were less than $100SAR that would do fine. I asked the Indian shopkeeper if he had them in my size, which he did and I tried on. For some reason though they were tiny! The Cat boots I'd bought were only a size 7 and I'd asked the man here for an 8 but in the end after trying on a few pairs it was a 9 1/2 that was the right fit. Unfortunately though there were no pairs of the particular trainer I had singles out in such a size and asking what there was the man said only Addidas. All the Addidas trainers were typically double the price of the cheaper makes but having scoped them out in Dharan they were still cheap. At $250SAR (£40) they were still quite a bargain and I when I tried them on they were justifiably more comfortable than the cheaper make so I decided to go with them. I bought a top and some long shorts along with some sports socks and walked away happy.
There's a gym in the ITC. It's not exclusively for teachers but apparently it's very rare to find a student in there. Because somebody on the local Najima compound gym had a heart attack (I'm not sure if they survived) and was unsupervised Aramco have stated that a gym supervisor must be present at all times and thanks to this the ITC gym is now restricted to opening only after 2pm. Still though, afternoon lessons finish at 2:35pm and the teachers are not supposed to leave befor half 3 so there is an hours windown at the end of every day to spend in the gym being paid! The equipment is all pretty new and top of the range, most of it you'd find at Total fitness back home in fact. Theres changing rooms and showers with lockers and because so few people tend to make use of it (why, god only knows!) you can leave your gym kit there all week and just take it home to be washed at the weekend if you like. The best part about it though is that the other guys using it are teachers and therefore not steroid addicted idiots trying to be the next Mr Universe. There's a small free-weight section with all the dumbbells nicely stacked on the racks perfect for any normal persons requirements. As you can tell I'm made up I've discovered this little gem of a place and makes it all the better that we're actually allowed to do it in works time (not that it wouldn't be nice to have it to kill time outside work too mind...).
So far this week then I've spend the last hour of every day in there. Sadly though I had a baptism of fire on my first visit. I decided to ease myself in on the treadmill, doing 5 minutes at 8km/hr. An American guy in his 50's was on the one next to me and the young Philipino teacher who I had made friends with on my first day was on the third. I had my ipod in so couldn't hear anything going on around me and was in my own oblivious little world plodding along. At the 5 minute mark I increased the speed to 10km/hr and then at the 15 minute mark begain increasing it toward the 15km/hr where I intended to stay for 20 minutes. The next the was the machine lost all power and came to a stop. WOndering what had happened I took my earphones out only to hear the American next to me laughing. Apparently it turns out due to the electrical supply there can't be any manchine going faster than 10km/hr if theres more than one being used at a time! As I had been increasing it I had obviously tripped the breaker. It took about 15 minutes for the gym supervisor to find a building mainenance guy and a further 10 minutes to find the reset, by which time the American had given up and gone home. Although everybody else was laughing about it I have to admit I felt a bit sheepish.
An added bonus (and one that was beginning to be much needed!) of buying my trainers is that I now have a comfortable pair of shoes to walk around in. As I'm typically walking for about 4 hours on average, not including when I'm in work) then it was starting to take its toll on my feel whilst wearing either my safety boots or my flat soled Box-fresh shoes. My mentor had told me about another small supermarket store on the Najima compound. The first time I had gone to find it he hadn't given me specific directions and I had just gone looking. Assuming it would be on the outher edge and that I'd see if from the road I had given up when I couldn't and ended up wasting about an hour walking around. After asking him the next day I had returned following his instructions and managed to locate it no problem. It turned out it was on the compound and just to the side of the main entrance gate there is a pedestrian access through a small gate-house (where apparently there should be a guard but I've yet to meet one) where you show your Aramco ID and you are allowed through. Officially your not allowed onto the compound without an invite and Aramco ID with the exception of this commissary store, however it soon becomes clear that entering via the pedestrian entrace and leaving via the main car park exit would land you on the far side of the camp check point at which point you would be free to go about at your leisure really - not that I have any particular desire to mind.
This commissary store was far more westernised than Panda although sadly no where near as big. It did sell several recognisable brand names though that I hadn't been abe to locate elsewhere (PG tips and Bisto gravy being the main two). I stocked up on a number of things and made my way home again. As it's on the base there is little else between it and my own apartment so the walk always feels longer than that from Panda, along which there are numerous small outlets of all varieties, but when timing it it's actually almost exactly the same distance. The big advantage though will come when I source a bicycle as the roads are quiet down to there and will therefore be a lot safer so if I get a backpack too I can cycle there for my groceries in 5 minutes each way.
Last night (Friday night) my mentor text to invite me to Crispy Creme again. I met them just after the last prayer call at about 7:20pm. We stayed and chatted for about an hour and then went back our seperate ways (Al-Suaidi camp is in the opposite direction so it's a convenient mid-point anyway). I decided to stop in at Panda on the way back as everything is open till 10pm. It was quite busy and is obviosuly a time when families come to do their weekly shop but I intended to buy a small oven as by now I was getting a bit fed up of frying chicken or cooking mince in a pan. In the end I didn't bother with the oven but did pick up a grill toaster (like a George Foreman) along with a measuring jug, drainage board, a few plastic containers for food storage and most importantly deicded to splash out the $37SAR (£6) on a folding chair like you'd find with an OAP sitting in along Blackpool front. After a decent wait in line at the till I eventually paid and walked home carrying my bulky but not heavy items.
The chair has since been the most thankful thing I've bought. After continuously not being able to sit anwhere other than on my mattress with my legs stretched out it's an absolute god-send! All of the items I bought in fact could by that point have been classed as 'critical' despite their usually oblivious nature. Last night, whilst talking on facetime to the family I had the pleasure of making myself some jam on toast with a cup of tea and actually sitting down on my chair to eat it - brilliant!
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