I can't remember the last time I wore my sunglasses but it's been over a week now, not something I thought I was signing up for I have to admit! I've even had my jumper on the last two days... I know I shouldn't really complain though, afterall I'm not really in a rush to meet the inevitable heatwave that will arrive sooner than I'm sure I realise!
I'm sitting here now in a combined state of relief and anticipation. With the exception of a couple of air conditioning units, following a trip to Ikea I've now ordered pretty much every essential item of furniture I think I'll need for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately though it won't be here until Saturday evening so I am still bound to my deck chair in amongst the tins of food and bottles of water lining the edge of the floor for now.
The ITC has been almost as mundane as outside of it this last few days. My mentor has been getting quite wound up over the process by which you have to leave the country (though it's more down to his extensive postulating on the matter than any actual problem existing) and has consequently been down to Dharan on two consecutive days to question it leaving me alone to my own devices. I've read through a significant part of the course material I'll be teaching now (which isn't difficult to say the least thankfully!) and now and again get asked by the Senior trainer to babysit classes for odd periods.
Babysitting, I imagine, is worse than actually teaching. At least when trying to teach students they realise they're obliged to pay attention even if they don't. When babysitting then there really is no method to stop them playing on their phones etc, which I don't have a problem with but is technically against the rules, or gathering around one persons desk in a group and having a discussion that gets continuously louder to the point they have to be told to calm down again. In the meantime the only thing I can do once I've checked my e-mails (and I haven't been getting many as the department head had me mixed up with another skills trainer called Chris Allan I found out today) is continue reading through course material on the intranet.
My mentor has been back around today thankfully so before he leaves at the end of the week I've been picking his brains on refinery processes. Having never worked on one the entire process is new to me (although it's not rocket science and pretty logical when you go through it step by step and most of the equipment is the same as I used back home) so I thought it'd be a good idea to get him to take me through it - turns out he was more clueless about it all than I was (he's never worked on one either) but had been teaching it anyway so it really can't be that hard - especially as the intent is to teach the course content parrot fashion anyway...
I managed to escape a bit of the boredom on Monday whilst my mentor was down seeing his contract company by going to open my bank account. Having had my salary and my letter from Al Hoty dropped off by Ricky on Sunday I thought the sooner the better. To be honest apart from mind numbing forms asking for quite a bit of stuff I didn't know (employer address and reference names of 2 people in Saudi etc which I ended up using the name and address of the guy on the letter they gave me) it wasn't too much hassle and only took about 20 minutes so I went to Panda on my way back, bought and oven and took it home just to kill another hour prior to heading back to the ITC for the last couple of hours.
From there I ordered a taxi to pick me up at half 3. When I got in I told him I wanted to go to Dharan which was met with slight suprise and then an 'OK'. Consequently we ended up back at the taxi office in Rahima and I had to wait for someone else to be summoned to take me that far. I'm not sure if it was because that guy wasn't allowed to go there by the taxi company or the fact that there was a good chance his car wouldn't make the journey but either way it delayed me by about half an hour.
I think I'm becoming a lot more accepting of the terrible driving now thankfully. Whereas initially I was in shock and awe at what I was seeing, now I seem to anticipate and accept it. Getting down to Dharan I made my way straight to Applebys for a steak dinner. I ordered exactly the same as my previous visit with John and Serban (whom I still keep in touch with and are doing well if anyone is wondering) and sat eating alone. Being concious of preyer time after I had finished I quickly made my way out and headed into Ikea just opposite. Theres really no difference between this Ikea and the one near home other than everything has two labels - one for Arabic and one in English. The other difference is that during prayer time the staff disappear. This was quite annoying when you needed something and ended up going through the next two section and having to make your way back 20 minutes later (those familiar with the layout of any Ikea store will understand why that is so...). Eventually I made my way around, wrote down what I wanted and deliberately not being tempted to start buying minor furnishings that I didn't absolutely need, got to the collection area where you go find what you want. At this point a Saudi employee asked me if I was OK and if there was anything he could help me with. I asked him where the trolleys were and he asked me for my list. Seeing how many things were on it he suggested I make use of the picking service for $79SAR (£13) and let them go and round everything up for me. Sounded good so I did that. I paid with just a piece of paper and one or two minor items and went to wait to collect it. Following another prayer time (there are two just over an hour apart in the evening at the moment) my items were brought out and I took them over to the TNT desk. I arranged for them to be delievered on Saturday which was the earliest possible time and told them I didn't require the assembly service. This was met with confusion and mild contempt by the TNT assistant though for which I can only assume that my enjoyment of assembling Ikea (it's like a big jigsaw effectively isn't it?) combigned with the fact it was something to do was costing a poor Indian a few hours wages - oh well.
After negotiating the price of a taxi back and having to then get him to turn around just before we got on the freeway (using wild gestures met with ignorant smiles due to a complete lack of English on his part and Arabic on mine - the negotiating had been done by entering figures on my mobile!) because I had realised I'd left my rucksack in the locker as I'd entered the store (something you have to do with any bag in any store over here), I returned home about 9pm in time for bed.
After work last night I had to return to the bank. The assistant had said he would ring me with my account number but hadn't. Thankfully he remembered who I was and after a quick database search against my Iqama number wrote it down on a piece of paper. I thought 'Great, I'll e-mail that to Al Hoty and thats that sorted too now' but no. Apparently I need to give them an IBAN number which is a combination of the acount number, identifier digits, country code and bank number - all in all a 24 digit code. You'd think the guy in the bank would have known that I needed the whole thing and written that down too but no! I'll have to go back again sometime but I'll be back there to pick up my ATM card in about a week and theres almost a whole month before payday yet so no point making another special journey now.
I'd ridden my bike up to the bank and so headed for the commisary on Najma camp afterwards to re-stock. It really is a lot better than Panda which I'm coming to loathe now! I even found protein shakes there, which when your going to go the gym every day for no other reason than just to kill time are almost essential to recover fast enough! I got home fully intending to make myself chilli and rice until I realised I hadn't got kidney beans or tomatoes so ended up taking a walk to Panda anyway... It was worth it in the end but had me annoyed at myself slightly until I asked myself what else I would have been doing anyway, at which point I stopped caring about my mistake.
A new guy turned up today. Craig his name is from Northampton, UK (although he's clearly not from the UK and is actually from Trinidad and Tobago) so at least tomorrow I'll either leave Tony to give him a final day farewell tour and go sit in with a couple of the lessons to get a feel for some teaching methods or help give him a bit of an orientation and at least get him up to speed with where I am so anything from now one I can have someone else to face it with.
Anyway, for now that's about it. Chilli for tea again (leftovers), and then maybe a book or some Arabic to keep me entertained until bed time... The fun never stops!
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