KST went to get the Chinese embassy to get a visa to go and see his sick wife. They couldn’t do it, so he arranged to fly to London today, and get his visa at the embassy there. But when he tried to leave today, he was unable to. I haven’t seen him since he got back to get the full story, but this is all rather worrisome: is our status in this country so fucked up that they won’t actually let us leave? TOHH, thank God! managed to go.

The new classroom block is taking shape. We moved into the new staffroom today – very pleasant. It makes the temporary-temporary staff room look like a cave. The main corridor looks the part now, with decent Italian manufactured benches dotted along its length. DoS handed me a price list for snacks which will be available in th teaching blockl from Sunday – which is great news, there are no shops or cafes within easy reach of the college, and I’m getting bored with my constant succession of cheese- egg-tuna sandwiches. Really, it’s all coming together.

The internal politics become more involved. Together with details about beefburgers and fizz drinks, DoS handed me a note inviting me to comment on Johnny-Go-Between’s “performance” at the meeting the other day. It’s true that he was nervous and put up a poor show generally. I’ve warmed to him, though, because, as promised he came up with details of playgroups which make the longer term prospect of my wife and daughter coming out for an extended period much more realistic.

Nobody else came away with a favourable impression, however. And it seems a bit odd to invite junior staff to comment on the presentation and preparation skills of a manager... I won’t get involved. If management have the knives out for him, that’s their business, but I won’t sharpen them.

Also, it’s becoming clear that HD is a wee shite. Well, I realised that months ago, back in Blighty. He seems to drop LM in it at every turn. At least, I’m told, as he escorted TOHH to the airport on Tuesday he got a taste of her madness.

And this PTI is becoming a pain in the arse. Twice today, in the minibus going to work and again coming home, he’s butted in to conversations I’ve been having – first with IT Bloke and then with LM. I had to bite my tongue to prevent me snapping at him to be quiet when grownups were talking.

The first conversation with IT Bloke was about the internet connexion, and the advisability of changing it for an unknown quantity. At least now, I suggested, it works most of the time... Better the devil you know and all that. When from the back of the van PTI piped up with “If you want to pay 800 dinars a month...” I told him rather abruptly that I wasn’t paying a penny for it. I wouldn’t have minded a contribution, mind, it’s just that he was interrupting for the sake of it.

And then this afternoon I was talking to LM about the Laptop Fiasco. What that is, we all get laptops when we start with this company, but they are incompatible with the network in the new building so we’re to get new ones. Well, that wouldn’t matter, except that management is going to enforce company policy about what you download onto them, and you actually won’t be able to run exe files without admin (ITB) authority.

That may or may not fly at work, but most of us use them at The Bungalows, too, and have downloaded free programs like Skype. I was speculating that I would in that case offer to buy my existing laptop from the company and keep it for personal use only. And then PTI butted in to say that the policy about downloads had to be something for management, that it couldn’t be left in the hands of one person, (I think he meant ITB, but he had told me earlier that the new no-download malarkey was the idea of management, not him). PTI seems to have formed a dislike for ITB, (who I find rather likeable) and butted into the conversation to air that.

Nevertheless. PTI is a mosquito, and one has to live with mosquitoes in these parts. Whereas TOHH was a rampaging hippo of despair, and now she’s gone like a bad dream. All things considered, it’s not so bad here.

Perspective and Pep Talks

It's been a remarkable day.

To everyone's surprise, the "temporary" classrooms were in good enough order to permit three class to take progress tests in the morning and a class in the afternoon. It all went very well. The Addams Family, (I feel a bit of a heel calling them that now, I'm becoming quite fond of them), did reasonably well in their progress test - I'll write more about that later when I've looked at the test data more closely. And in the afternoon I took Brokeback Mountain for "study skills", which will actually focus on writing and nut-and-bolts like spelling. It all went so well I did actually wonder if I was dreaming.

As we waited for the minibus to fill up, LM gave me, T3 and TOHH new job descriptions. Well, they were new only in as much as our job titles have been changed from "Project Lead Tutor" to "English Teacher", the rest is the same. The good bit came when TOHH initially refused to take hers from LM because "I'm leaving". I've not got the gen on this yet, but apparently - I gather from a couple of truncated conversations with LM - she's (at least) threatened to resign. T4 is on her way from Turkey (she has been in the recruitment pipeline since August, apparently - put the Company together with Turkish and HUDC bureaucracy and see what happens...) So, if TOHH does indeed go the distance, her classes will be covered and I for one will have a song in my heart.

We got back to The Bungalows to get an induction talk from Johnny, the Company's "go between" as HD described him, but he corrected that to say he was the local manager. Whatever. He was very nervous, and gave information about what not to wear, the local archaelogical society... It was all balls, really. PTI, however was incredibly rude to him, cross examining him in effect and demanding to know why we hadn't been given this information at the start, and why The Company was building a local admin office next door to the bungalows... DoS was there, too, and looked nervous - I was sitting next to him and his hands were shaking when he was talking about the piss poor internet connexion here.

There's been a change of regime in the management of the workmen at the site, with the slightly unhinged pain-in-the-arse "Ahmed" sacked.

If PTI was behaving badly to the point of weirdness, it all got stranger thereafter. LM told me that HD had had a word with him about my demeanour - apparently it's not deferential enough to HD. Ha ha. It'll stay that way, too. What can he do? My actual work is way beyond reproach. We're subject to UK labour law and it would take some doing to base a verbal warning on person's manner when addressing management.

Poor KST has had bad personal news: his wife's from China and is living there at the moment. She's been taken ill and is in hospital, and his Chinese isn't up to getting information about what is actually wrong with her. So he's flying to China as soon as he can sort out a visa. I'll miss him, he's a nice bloke, whose only fault was to form an alliance with TOHH - he's such a nice bloke he would hardly notice she had a few tiles off.

KST2 arrived from the airport in the middle of the meeting, God bless her: what she made of that I can't think.

And what she made of the cherry on the weirdness cake is even less fathomable. I'd gone into the city centre to attend church and run a few unimportant errands, and got a 'phone call from LM, who'd had a phone call from HD, who'd had a phone call from Johnny-Go-Between to say that there was trouble brewing in a flare up of the Danish cartoons continuing sore-point, and we were to stay indoors and not leave The Bungalows. I should therefore return immediately. The city centre was its usual chaotic, happy, carefree self, so I said that I wouldn't - and actually ended up staying longer than intended. There was no trouble. On the way home with our usual taxi driver, who is both devout and has an ear to the ground, I asked him if there was any trouble in town, and he was completely flummoxed by the idea.

So, either Johnny-Go-Between got the wrong end of the stick, or he was sincerely passing on duff information, or there actually was an anti-Danish protest which passed me and the taxi driver by... OR, (and this is the bookies' favourite), it was a load of old toot passed on for unknowable but probably Machiavellian reasons.

When I got back I had a chat over a pipe with LM and KST. LM told me that he questioned the gravity of the situation with HD, who'd said that he had to take his word because "I've been in trouble spots, under fire!" He was an NCO in the RAF - I suspect any fire he took came from his own side, given his breath-taking sense of self importance and utter lack of leadership ability.

Perhaps the writing's on the wall for him. I understand that recruitment makes a significant hole in The Company's budget, and if he loses KST and TOHH in the same week it won't look too good - these blokes get high salaries but they get the drop with ruthlessness if they aren't paying their way.

Weird. I wonder if any wheels are coming off? It's fun to sit back and watch it.

Or maybe the whole day really has been a dream?

Hell is Other People

A topsy turvey kind of a day. No teaching. We got to the college to find that TOHH, who, charged with keeping the staff room, had mislaid it. It was an hour before college workmen were able to break in to the place.

Then we had a faculty meeting, addressed initially by DoS, who gave us some of the Big Picture – the best detail was that Big Cheese had presented a portfolio about what was what at the college, and that this had been okayed by the Minister. He’d said something along the way about resources, and at the end asked if there were any questions. TOHH asked if we could have a scanner in the staffroom.

He buggered off and then HD gave us the Medium Picture. This took several hours and I can’t remember very much about it now. There was nothing new, mostly speculation about when we’ll get out of the temporary-temporary classrooms and into the temporary ones – at least a couple of weeks. During a coffee break, KST teacher informed all present of the joke I’d made this morning about my home-made wine turning to vinegar. I wish he’d kept his mouth shut. This led to HD telling a story about some oil worker who’d gone on holiday and his cleaning lady had been alarmed by the sound of his fermenting alcohol (eh? Yes, I know), she’d called the police who’d broken down the door and subsequently arrested yer man and left him for two days in a hole in the ground. I said in light of his anecdote and the impossibility of making wine with all these vinegar flies around, I wouldn’t be bothering in the future.

KST had complained earlier this morning about coming home to find bulbs changed in his bungalow, and we agreed that it wasn’t a good thing to have workmen coming in whilst we weren’t there. Anyway, after the meeting I saw R., the Mr Fix It, and mentioned this to him on KST’s behalf (he wasn’t there at the time), and wished I hadn’t bothered because I got a long bad-tempered diatribe about how he and he alone had changed the lightbulbs and blah di fucking blah.

LM asked me to lead a meeting about the placement test, which needs to be refined, and suggested the three teachers take one or two bits of it each to work on. I told him that TOHH was unlikely to be co-operative. He said he wasn’t setting anyone up, but... He had to go to a meeting and could I deal with it? And so I suggested we work on the placement test, and TOHH of course refused point blank claiming to be “snowed under”. I felt very unhappy and uncomfortable with the whole situation. Trying to do anything with TOHH’s co-operation is just downright impossible.

She wasn’t done yet, announcing as the working day drew to a close that she hadn’t any money, and when would HD be here with our local currency advances. The arrangement is, we put in expenses claims at the end of the week and get the cash at the start of the next week. And we put in requests for advances at the start of the week, and get them at the end, on the Thursday. I asked her if she’d put in a request and she admitted that she hadn’t. So I don’t know how she expected to get money now. LM appeared and she asked for an advance. DoS wasn’t around, the safe was locked. LM did a fair bit of running around and eventually got cash from HD’s own pocket for her, which was accepted without a thank you and with very bad grace.

The tonight I was having a non-alcoholic beer and kebab with LM and he dropped the bombshell that TOHH has alleged that he’s been bullying her. He had a shouting match with HD about this today. Something about an investigation. He’s so pissed off, he’s thinking of resigning.

Now this is all like some bizarre game of chess. It’s extremely difficult, if not impossible, for me to work with TOHH. She must be impossible to manage. I feel that we’re in a situation here which cannot continue. TOHH has certainly turned against LM big time, and is prepared to lie to get him into trouble; I can’t accept allegations of bullying, which he says stem from his telling her that her teamwork was unsatisfactory, which led to her walking out - turning-on-her-heel indeed, - from her five-week staff appraisal with LM. I can say that TOHH gives me the heeby geebies.

So during the last twenty four hours I’ve had to face the likelihood that I won’t be here much longer, especially if LM goes. I got caught in the crossfire today with the placement test – he cannot work with TOHH and tried to get me to fill in for him over that. If I’ve got any criticism of LM, it’s for putting me in that difficult situation, one I’m not being paid for – though I understand the circumstances that led to the situation. The atmosphere is poisoned. It’s not a pleasant workplace, on top of the isolation and separation from family.

And it’s that which is making it unbearable. My wife emails me and tells me how unhappy she is, missing me as she does, and worn out having to cope with a two year old on her own, and the two year old is herself missing me too. Of course, I’m pining for the pair of them.

I could cope with the family separation anxiety, and I could cope with the poison antics of TOHH. Coping with both is rather too much at the moment. But I’ll hang on – things have gone from cheerful to dark in a night and a day, and can swing around again. A coping strategy I’m working on with my class is to imagine it’s all a PC strategy game: Can I get them to Expert level? And with the LM v TOHH debacle, I’ll try to keep out of it as much as possible, and pretend I’m watching a soap opera unfold. Or something.

Hubbly Bubbly

The minibus which takes us to work is now full with eight of us. LM, T2 and 3, KST, IT Bloke, and two leadership and management teachers, who I’ll call Paul and Shelley, and me. The driver’s a charming young man called Zaid. Shelly is from Teeside, which is near enough to my home. Paul’s a gobshite, on first impression, but at least he’s a serious photographer, and Nikon user like me.

T3 arrived from Egypt late last night, but went into work this morning. She seems very pleasant.

Tonight I had a pipe on the communal grass area with KST. T2 joined us for a while. The dynamics have all changed with the new arrivals, and we feel less isolated. T2 even seems bearable.

Less pleasing is the internet connexion which comes and goes every few minutes, making communication with home impossible – indeed any meaningful use of the internet is out of the question.

Also, there’s ill feeling on the horizon with the utility bills. There’s only one meter, and the bills are to be shared. This is unfair to the frugal. And it’s unfair to everyone because the site’s many lights are blazing all night long, and it seems wrong that we should have to pay for that.

There Will Be Blood

Today was an admin and prep day. We had training for the Hitachi interactive boards this morning. Actually, it was more like a sales pitch, but quite impressive as such. Like everything with PCs just now, we need a patch to be able to use them with Vista. (“Oh! I fucking hate Vista!” KST exclaimed later this morning; every PC user this year will have some sympathy with him.)

Then I was to liase with T2 about next week’s lessons, and the approach we’re going to take to assignments as evidence for the portfolio. Unfortunately, the conversation got bogged down in complaints about the curriculum and the book she’s using. The phrase “I can’t take any more of her” crossed my mind several times. So that was inconclusive. She later had a pow-wow with LM, and seemed to have her mind set at rest about the curriculum and the books at least.

Then with her and Reza to a government laboratory to get the blood tests which should be the final act in our getting residency. He told us that government buildings here change hands every few years, but that this one had remained the same since he was a little child, and he could vividly remember going there as a kindergarten pupil, as all children were obliged to, for bloodtests. He told us later that now, to get a marriage licence here, you need to get these blood tests with particular reference to AIDS/HIV and TB.

We waited an hour or so in a dusty courtyard. There’s a desperately cold wind her these last few days. And then forms, queues, bureaucrats quarrelling with each other over incomprehensible aspects of the forms, and then a sour faced nurse who took a blood sample with no pain whatsoever. And then back to work.

I spent the next couple of hours working out how I’ll present the curriculum to the learners next week. T3 is now due to arrive Monday, and we teach Sunday to Tuesday, (the past week was skewed by the Republic Day holiday: we should fall into a regular schedule now), so I’ll have the two classes next week again, and can hand over one of them to her the following week, or maybe next Tuesday).

Before we finished for the day, we set about re-arranging the furniture in the staff room. T2 managed to make this a source of resentment, querying the need for it, asking if she couldn’t stay where she was... It’s much better now. I’ve got my desk, an extension lead I share with KST, a stapler, a CD player for the class, one of those desk tidy thingies, board pens, class files. That ‘s me, I’m sorted.

Chest X-Ray and a Shisha Pipe

A much better day.

First thing, to a hospital in the city to get chest x-rays for our residence permits. We were met there by, (I'll call him) Reza, our local admin person. (I called him Mr Fix-It the other day, but that's probably a trifle patronising - he seems to know his onions.)

Reza took in the paperwork to the hospital reception, and then we had to wait outside where the x-rays were being conducted in a big old van - the sort that used to go around the UK in the 60s, like on Alfie. The two women (T2 and DoS's wife) went off to a different place for theirs. There was a bit of a melee. There was a group of what looked like Philippinos, who all went together, a handful of black Africans, a troupe of boiler-suited Chinese workers and the rest were Arabs. Somebody in the van would shout out names, and you'd ascend a short metal staircase into the van. We waited less than an hour. It was all over in seconds, no nonsense about taking off jewellery or changing into a humiliating wee tie-up-the-back gown. In, clunk, out.

Whilst we were there a little old local was shouting at one of the Chinese. I wish I'd known what for, what he was saying. There's still active talk of Arabic lessons, and it would be great not to feel dumbstruck.

Then we went shopping in town, and KST and I searched first the Old City, and then a main street for Shisha pipes. Something in my subconscious must have eventually guided us to a shop in a side street, perhaps I'd been there on my earlier trip. Anyway, it was perfect. Two friendly, helpful old guys, gave us all the gen on a good pipe: the clue is in the weight of the metal part - pay a little bit more and it's twice as heavy. We ended up paying the equivalent of about £12 per pipe with all the trimmings. Most excellent.

Then we met up with LM and T2 at a restaurant near the main square. Ages to get the waiters' attention, perhaps because the place was swamped by posh sounding British tourists (there are a lot of them here).

Taxi home, and some constructive lesson planning for next week. (We're to get a day in lieu because we've given up a Saturday for the x-rays and the planning). T2 far less weird. I'm to teach two classes next week, which we're calling "Induction Week", pending the arrival of T3 in a week's time (visa permitting). It sounds good. Getting to know the students (who are all teachers in their own right), getting their feedback on the placement test, and negotiating with them on the course of their learning over the next few weeks.

But tomorrow's a holiday. We were to go and see a major Roman site, but we've put it off until T3 arrives. Anyway, I plan to go to Church - for all the usual reasons, of course, but it will be pleasant to get away from everyone for a couple of hours.

Contagious Negativity

Back to drafting offline. The internet connexion is flakey, at best. Some sites open, others don’t. When blogspot does, I suspect that’s because most of the page is in the cache anyway. Sometimes, the page loads, but not the sign-in dialogue box...

Anyhow. Yesterday should have been a success, but turned out to be very disappointing. It started unpropitiously when it emerged during a conversation in the van on the way to college about air-conditioning, that we are liable for utility bills – gas bottles and electricity. KST went off it, with a tirade against “them” for putting us out in “the middle of nowhere and refusing to pay for our fucking electricity”. It was on the cusp between embarrassing and entertaining.

T2 and I finished the speaking tests. LM had stayed behind last night and finished the marking. I totalled up the all the placement test scores and crunched them in a spreadsheet. LM, who has taught these students in the past, looked at the scores and was pleased. And then it all started to unravel.

T2 said that she didn’t trust the speaking test criteria. I don’t know why she didn’t say this before spending two days working with them. She expressed reservations about the test validity in general, but couldn’t say what the reservations were.

To some extent, though, even if her concerns were justified, they are irrelevant because the ranking of the students is about right based on previous IELTS results and LM’s knowledge of them.

The big question now is, what level do we teach them at? I was for a small Advanced group, and two Upper Int groups, with the understanding that one of those groups will require more work, and will proceed more slowly.

T2 said that she thought these students were Intermediate, that we couldn’t teach them as Upper Int. LM said that they had been Intermediate for more than a year, that they would suffer colossal lack of face and a subsequent blow to confidence if the carried on as such...

The compromise he suggested was to use next week to do in-class assessment. That’s what we agreed to do.

I’ve come the conclusion that T2 is an idiot. Even if she does have genuine reservations about the test validity, then she needs to have reasons. Ditto the students’ levels. Sentences beginning with “I don’t feel that...” won’t wash.

Now, I can see why it could be objected that I’m feeling a personal affront because someone has slagged off my baby, “my” placement test. Actually, I’d be delighted to have anyone pick holes in it, because it’s still at the development stage, but say “I don’t think this is valid, because...” Subjectivity is out of place.

And anyway, this is criticism from someone who claims to have spent years in Spain and Mexico, and yet can’t tell a mosquito from a fruit fly.

The bottom line is, KST and T2 have got a very nasty dose of negativity and it can be contagious.

This morning we went straight into town to buy stationery. We were joined by the DoS, and a local Mr Fix It, and went on with them to get SIM cards for telephones. I’d already got one a few days ago, but management believes that ones you can buy over the counter are dodgy – the ones we got today needed the production of a passport, a form, and of course, a photo.

Back at the college, we had a pow-wow with HD and DoS. The latter is a small unassuming bloke, but carries some indefinable air of authority and meaning business.

He gave us some background. This college is part of a big picture of modernisation here. Millions of immigrant workers have been lately expelled. Quarter of a million civil servants have been made redundant. The idea now is, to retrain the workforce to deal with the rest of the world.

The current educational system is acknowledged to be woefully inadequate, and has no FE system. Our college will address that, giving training in key skills, business, management, and engineering. Crucially, all of this will be done in English. So our department, whilst fundamental, is not the rationale. In other words, it’s and English-medium FE college, which naturally entails English teaching: it’s NOT a school of English.

Despite the cynicism which is the stock in trade of an experienced EFL teacher, I felt rather buoyed up by my role in giving this place a leg-up to the 21^st century.

Then we got down to the nitty-gritty. Our lack of internet connexion at the accommodation is being addressed as a matter of urgency.

The current site manager, I’ll call him Ahmed, is on his way out. He’s worked in England for several years, he says, and indeed has good idiomatic control of the language. But he’s full of shit. He keeps on about the internet connexion, and how he chases the people responsible – whereas we’ve learned it’s nothing to do with him.

The security situation has also been lamentable. Somebody locks the gate in the early evening, and then goes off to one of the apartments to sleep until nearly eight the next morning. No amount of shouting will wake him. Two nights running, T2 and KST have gone out for a stroll and been unable to get back in through the gate – KST climbed in through a gap in the fence.

We’re to get either a van or a car, and the services of a driver. I asked about driving it ourselves, and the legal situation is to be looked in to.

The site’s “guard dog” has its days numbered. It’s actually just a stray who Ahmed’s befriended, and that would be ok if the bastard didn’t bark nonstop all night. LM was assured that he’d go to some friends of Ahmed’s “who have a nice big farm”. Yeah, right. Ahmed should seek some work there too.

Tellies and more furniture are subject to some kind of budget review in the UK. I said nowt, but I can live without the box for now.

LM had wondered whether it was ok for me to start a wee garden at the back of our house. I was assured today that I should go ahead. This has cheered me immensely.

After the meeting there was a bit of frantic activity to make sure we were ready to actually do some English-teaching related stuff tomorrow – placement tests – at last. It’ll be good to get them done, and then get some structure into the day when we start teaching next week.

When we got back a grim, silent, fat, mirror-glasses wearing African was introduced by Ahmed as Sinousi. He’s to do with the Internet. Maybe he looked so grim because Ahmed was getting on his nerves. Anyhow, still no internet tonight. There are guards on the gate though. And no sound of a dog barking.

Unpacked and Eating Out

Four of us came out together on Wednesday. (It was only Wednesday...) That’s me, another EFL teacher I’ll call her Teacher Two (as I was the first), or “T2” for short, LM, and a Key Skills Teacher, let’s call him KST. Four of the houses in The Camp are finished, and we have one each.

I’ve spent this morning airing the place, putting on the AC at 30°C and opening windows: the place had a cold, clammy feel – perhaps moisture from the new plaster.

I’ve rearranged the furniture. There’s a three piece suite, a rug, a table and four chairs. Their placement in the large sitting room is a conundrum based around the lopsided placement of electrical sockets, the absence of a telly, and the fact that I need to use the table as a desk for now.

I tidied up the files on the laptop, too, ready to start work on Sunday morning.

Last night we four went to a restaurant in the one posh suburb of the capital, with three middle managers and one of their wives. As we were leaving I asked MM about tellies. There’s a dispute over who should provide them apparently...

It wasn’t a sparkling affair, and I was relieved when the meal finished. I confessed as much to T2 and she laughed and agreed.

Perhaps I didn’t enjoy the meal much because of tiredness. I slept very well with detailed dreams about Amy Winehouse and a complex media scam. It ended with a Scandinavian woman supervising me as a I climbed across a tree, from one branch to another.

We did some shopping yesterday but I didn’t get anything that really needed. I’ll go out again tonight, or more likely tomorrow, with a list this time.

The internet connexion requires only a man with a key to a box which contains the “on” switch. But the man isn’t answering his mobile. Speaking of which, I got my own mobile yesterday – a 2^nd hand one, because the Company has promised us new ones in due course. It appears to be a fairly cheap way to phone home, and it eases the loneliness.