It’s been a month since I last posted. I’m sorry, I realise this has put the vast popularity of my blog into jeopardy (the dizzy heights of 7 hits a day have long gone). However, seeing as I only have three weeks left in Saudi Arabia, I’ve decided to blog again. What caused the hiatus? Instead of admitting it was a chronic case of laziness, in addition to an increased focus on my Portuguese studying, I’ll explain it this way: Every Arab needs to go into hiding once in a while. Sadaam did his stint in a hole with a mars bar; Osama took refuge in a Pakistani compound with a couple of porn magazines. As for me, I have been evading the temptations of the lucrative blog world with only a few bottles of joy juice and the company of some fantastic infidels to assist me. However, the hedonistic mayhem of Sakaka can only be enjoyed for so long, and I’m back to put pen to paper and tell you what I’ve been up to.
There has been no shortage of incident in the past month. The teachers were all shocked to find out that one of the female teachers who used to work at the University, had died as soon as she got back to America. In the same week we found this out, I received news that one of my students had died. He was an intelligent and popular young guy, who was in the top English class, and looking forward to going on to study engineering next year. Both of these cases were a real shame, and pretty close to home for the people that work and study here. Both cases were also completely out of the blue.
In other, more mundane but happier news, the social side of compound life keeps improving. For those of you who can’t sense sarcasm, Al Jouf is North-eastern Saudi Arabia is anything but the “hedonistic mayhem” I described it as earlier. However, there is a really good group of people here now, and while I’ll be excited to move on with my life and get back to England and Brazil, I’ll definitely miss some of my colleagues from Al Jouf. They are the ones that make working in an oppressive environment a lot more enjoyable. They are also the reason that term time is much more fun than summer school. Despite the weather being a lot nicer and not working nearly as much during summer school, you get a sense of solitary confinement, and any semblance of a social scene completely evaporates as most of the teachers leave.
I’ll also miss my students. That’s something I thought I wouldn’t say a few months ago, but I’ve been blessed with great classes this semester. I missed one day of work and the next day they brought in chocolates and coffee with a Welcome back Ben note attached. My other group left a message on the white board saying Teacher Ben, the best in Al Jouf. They were also entertaining during the speaking exam:
“I have 3 sister, 8 father”, “I was porn in Jeddah”, “I like listening to pussy”
That last statement really upset our rhythm (Dan and I). We had to tell the student to leave as we couldn’t control our laughter (strange for two such professionals). Perhaps the student was talking about the Pussycat Dolls? We’ll never know.
Since I last spoke to you we’ve had a Halloween party, been quad biking, had the third compound pub crawl, and as the swimming pool volleyball season has come to an end, the land volleyball season has commenced. I’ll post some pictures from the Halloween party and the quad biking below. Unfortunately my camera broke when I fell off the quad bike, down a hill, and the quad bike proceeded to land on me. Fortunately I didn’t break my neck, but it was a bit sore. The third compound pub crawl was a trip through the decades. Darren and Carlin hosted the ‘60s, Rob and Nigel the ‘70s, Richard and Chris the ‘80s, Bill and James the ‘90s, and we finished off at my place where the decades, like the vision of most of the guests at the time, were blurred. This Thursday we will have the Al Jouf Winter Olympics. Here’s a recap of how the summer Olympics went, The Rest of the World want revenge.
I'll leave you with these, and until next time, fica com Deus مع الحب من الصحراء
Halloween
Arabic gardener, Irish magician
Hairy Jordanian
iStomper
Thief
A common sight
ATVing
Alhamdulillah ya Saudia
