Your man in the Middle East is going home. Firstly to England, for Mike and Kate’s wedding, then Christmas and New Year with the fam and Isabela. After that I’m really going home, back to the best city in the world, Rio de Janeiro, on February 2nd.
Tô animado pra caralho, mais que você pode imaginar!
I still have almost three months to complete here in Saudi, so I’ve still got a long time left, but the flights are booked and I’ll be back in England on December 22nd.
I’ve been enjoying Saudi recently, the work is better, the weather is nicer, and most importantly the new recruits are cool, and that’s what makes the biggest difference. In some ways I’ll miss this place – the easy hours, having no pressure, no targets, the great pay, the students, the pool volleyball and the little infidel community we’ve created. However, when I consider what I’m going back to, and what I have ahead of me, it would be impossible to feel sad.
When I handed in my letter of resignation last week I was able to tell the truth. I let my boss know that I’m not resigning because I have a problem with Saudi Arabia, with my job, my colleagues, or the lifestyle here. I’ve enjoyed myself here, and I’m still enjoying myself now. I’ve seen and learnt things I definitely wouldn’t have been able to anywhere else in the world, and I’ve made great friends, both Arabic and Western. I’m leaving a month before my contract ends because an opportunity to work in Brazil has arisen that is too good to turn down, and because I’ll need a few weeks in England to see friends and family before I leave.
In other, more Arabic news, we’ve just completed the first exams of the new term, and my students came out top of the year! Obviously this has everything to do with my teaching, and not the fact they could all speak English well before they’d even had a lesson with me. It is nice having a class you can talk to, instead of having a staring contest with cross-eyed Arabs that can’t even spell their own name (as was the case last term). The only thing I need to worry about now is if the students know their English grammar better than me.
The football tournament has started, and our team (the English department) won last night, in the opening game of the Al Jouf University cup. We beat the I.T. department 3-1 in a frantic game. I scored 2 goals in what one of my students described as a “selfish” performance. “If you don’t shoot you don’t score”, I replied; advice that doesn’t just apply to football, or indeed, sport. The next game is on Thursday (i.e. Arabic Saturday), which couldn’t be worse timing for a team with a penchant for joy juice. However, the show must go on, we need to avenge last term’s defeat in the final at the hands of the infamous Communication Studies department and their bearded superstar (best footballer with a big beard I’ve ever seen).
Due to my schedule and the wild Al Jouf social scene I’ve had to limit my blog to the occasional picture or music video recently, but I’m sure I’ll be able to write again soon as the Hajj holiday is coming up, and I’m going to try and brave the solitude of the compound to save a few Riyals.
Until then, البقاء مع الله
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