Last time I posted I had just discovered the beach. As I said the only problem with it there is not being able to sunbathe. I'm now happy to report that this issue has now been resolved. There are two other trainers who live about a hundred yards away from my building who arrived not long after me. Over the last couple of weeks I've been helping them find their way around and get the basics sorted and last week the investment paid off when one of them who works in a different department found out from some students that us teachers are actually allowed on the Rahdwa campus where the students stay. It's a side-part of the Najma compound and has it's own facilities including six tennis courts, two basketball courts, two full size football pitches and most importantly a heated outdoor swimming pool with changing facilities that rival the best hotels I've stayed in certainly! The best of it is that at the swimming pool you can wear what you want and in fact sit around sunbathing in just your swimming shorts. Neeless to say since finding this out the last few weekends have been spent there...
I'm now playing football twice a week (Saturday and Tuesday evenings) and each time I play the aches and pains the morning after get easier and easier so I'm hoping that this is a sign of me returning to some level of fitness which has long since been lost. No doubt it will take a long while to get back to anything like I used to be but I have plenty of time. The football, coupled with the amount of walking, cycling, tennis, basketball and swimming I'm doing should have me looking like an Adonis in no time (or so I, along with all the others with similiar ideas, like to tell myself!).
I bought another TV the other day. A 50" plasma LG one similar to the one Andy used to have in the flat a few years ago. Knowing what he paid back then for it I can honestly say the £300 I paid was a complete bargain (it was on sale I should point out but in general electronics here are a bit cheaper than back in the UK). I also bought a subscription package to BeIn sports which has all the coverage of the Formula 1, Moto GP (including practices etc), Premier league and World Cup along with all sorts of strange and random sporting events - the other day I watched the finals of the British Triathalon. The vast majority of the channels are in foriegn languages but aside from the sports there are the usual international ones (BBC world, Bloomberg, CNN etc) which are good just to have on in the background of a morning while I'm making my sandwiches.
The current quandry is now about whether or not to lease a car. It's just starting to warm up now having broken the 30 degreeC barrier in the daytime now and no longer dropping below 20 at night so even the 'relatively cool' slow cycle to work can leave you in a sweat. I've had to buy a basket for my bike so I don't have my rucksack pressing on me making it worse. Come a few weeks it will start heading towards the 40's apparently and wont be stopping there so the idea of even walking would be ill advised I'm informed by the guys who've been here a while. The options boil down to either leasing a car on a finance deal similar to home, renting one, or getting taxi's everyday.
Most of the decision lies with how long I expect to be here. It almost certainly isn't worth leasing one if I decide to leave at the end of this 12 month contract. In the opposite sentiment renting one on a long term basis (whist not hugely expensive) would be costly beyond 6 months. Both of these options have the advantage however of being able to return the vehicle to the lease/rental company at any time. This is a valuable condition given that any permanent exit visa will only be issued provided there are no outstanding finanacial obligations against your Iqama (such as car ownership). The final option here, Taxi's everyday, is frought with problems. The most significant one is availability (there are only about 20 taxi's in the town and most of them are booked up for school kids meaning if teachers want one of a morning they have to be picked up at 6am (a time at least one of my neighbouring colleagues who may share the expense is unaware exists!). The other is reliability given their demand and additional dependance on the others your sharing with to drag themselves out of bed on time - something that has already been a minor issue and resulted in two of us leaving at 6:15am for work on our own because the others alarm hasn't gone off yet...
There's a bit of time to continue to mull over the positivies and negatives of each yet anyway and I certainly won't be doing anything prior to my first visit home, by which point when I return I will hopefully have a good idea if I'll be doing a second year.
The last week and next has been teacher training. For the first time in 20 years apparently the course has been brought to the ITC rather than us go down to Dammam in taxi's every day. Last week was Phase 1 which basically involved a presentation using power point to a given format for 15 minutes and being one of only four native English speakers, I'm pleased to say I passed no problem. Next week is a variation on the same theme but requiring a demonstration of a physical item. To be honest it's all just a bit of a tick box exercise and had we actually been properly assessed I doubt half of the guys would have passed. I'm not entirely sure as yet how some of the Romanians are going to get on communicating with the Saudi's who struggle with English but we'll see.
The board on which the trainers names and badges are displayed in the corridor of the ITC was updated last week too and shows that a few of the new hires (two Romanians and one of the British guys) are 'Senior Trainers' a job grade higher than those of us who are just 'Trainers' (including most the guys who've been here a while). Obviously it's just a title and there is no actual difference in job roles but it does mean another 25% of the salary. There's no merit basis to who is and who isn't senior, it's purely down to the fact that these guys were willing to refuse the first offer at the interview and walk away if need be - something which I certainly wouldn't have felt confident enough to do at the time. Thankfully, I don't care and the way I see it if I decide to stay another year and I can prove my abilities are beyond these others then I'll be in a position to negotiate a pay rise to that level (with the 10% pay rise on top that is the norm anyway). There are a couple though who seem to have taken the news in a less positive way (mainly the few that say they only want to do a year here and no more).
So to recap, I now have a relaxed job (which although has challenges unique to it's classroom environment, doesn't compare to the continuous danger of working on what is effectively a controlled bomb), sunshine all-day every-day, cheap costs of living (an 8oz rump steak is about £1.50) and as time goes by more and more of exactly the type of things I like doing to keep me occupied! Bad news for those back home but I'm not exactly dying to get it over and done with in order to head back to the UK...
