Liberation at the Post Office

Yesterday, I arranged for a taxi to pick me up when we finished work at three, and take me to the post office, to get a PO Box and connect myself with the outside world. It was great to be away from the lower middle class banter in the minibus one endures each working morning and afternoon. And getting the PO box was a big step - I was going to ask for the Company to organise it, but instead decided to give it a go myself. It took two visits, and the box is too small to receive anything but letters and small packages (that is, not books - a great pity).

The Addams Family are presenting a splendid personal, professional and academic challenge. Otherwise, I think they'd reduce me to tears.

HD came into the staffroom today and told us we're to get a few hundred pounds towards furnishings. And he hinted that moves were afoot to get a much better package. We shall see. It'll be nice to have a telly. The main thing though is to get the second bedroom furnished for my daughter to come out in due course.

The Only Significant Problem continues to be T2. Ceaseless complaints. LM confided in me tonight about his near despair. She banged on his door last Friday, with a litany of complaints and demands, saying that she couldn't stand it any more, and then characteristically turning on her heel when he began to reply. (Whenever you ask her a question, like, "Did you turn the projector off?" She'll say "What?" and turn and walk away. She's a fucking nut-job, no question. In fact, I'm hereon going to name her TOHH, turns-on-her-heel. )

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.

Teaching At Last

That’s two days actual teaching behind us now.

Until the arrival of T3, next week, perhaps, inshallah, whenever, I’ve got two classes, three hours from 8.30am, and then a break, and then another class 12 – 3pm.

The first class are nine in number, and the placement test and my observations over the next few days suggest that they’re Upper Int. The only problem is the Brokeback Mountain factor: two students who keep writing little notes on their jotters to each other, and whispering and giggling; this morning, I saw one of them remove a stray hair from his friend’s face, as a wife or lover would to a man. Nothing wrong with any of that, per se, except that they’re a pair of religious bigots, and a complaining pair of bastards to boot. I think I’ve managed to curtail the pillow talk, for now anyways.

The other class are more difficult. They have bees in their bonnets about being the only afternoon class. This has led them to be annoyed about every aspect of the course. I had a difficult hour or two today. One of them was raising his voice, and this led me to do the same. This would be totally unacceptable in England, no doubt, but shouting is the way of expressing dissatisfaction here.

By the end of the lesson, we were all on terms, and I shook hands with the shouter after he apologised for losing his temper. I privately restored my good humour by naming them The Addams Family – it’s a small class, some of them are a bit odd, and frankly their cussedness spooked me.

They do have several legitimate grievances – some bureaucratic nightmare regarding their wages in particular, I’m told – and it’s natural if unreasonable that I should get caught in the crossfire.

T2 has her own class, and is out of the road for now. Mostly she’s ok, but other times she’s just weird. Like yesterday, the first day of teaching in a new place for everyone, and I said to her, “Which classroom would you like?” And she said, “Why?”

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.

"I can cope with disappointment: it's the hope I find unbearable."

Placement tests today. Twenty three students, and we split them into three groups. My group complained straightaway, with some justification, about the quality of the sound recording on the listening test. We’ll have to put that right.

We’d arrived early – and couldn’t get into the temporary-temporary teaching block. Standing in the sunshine (the climate’s really lovely at this time of year), LM mentioned something he’d picked up from the DoS’s pep talk yesterday, which I’d missed: it’s envisaged that there’ll be 600 students in due course – but that only one in ten of applicants will meet the English language criteria. So that means, six thousand people doing “my” placement test.

So it’s in the light of this that T2 went from seeming a bit eccentric to acting downright weird later this morning. After the first testing session, (the listening, then grammar, reading and writing), we were in the temporary-temporary staff room and she said that she thought the first writing question – which simply requires the students to copy out some text in their own handwriting – was “patronising”. LM said that he had thought it was too simplistic until I’d explained it to him, and I was genuinely curious as to why she thought it was patronising, and was starting to say I was looking forward to discussing the test when she just walked out of the room.

LM looked at me in perplexity and said, “This is becoming a problem.” Indeed, she’s done this several times: for example, we’re having an on-the-hoof discussion about the best kind of folders to provide the students with, when she just walks away whilst LM is in mid-sentence.

Anyway, I didn’t respond to LM’s observation. It’s a management thing. Time will tell. Maybe she’s just ignorant, being from Manchester.

Back at the ranch, and two identically dressed skinny blokes get us connected to the Wi-Fi router, and thence to the Internet. Hooray! Except that the connexion’s so slow as to be next to useless. Bah! We’re promised that we’ve got 256mb, but that’s temporary, it’ll go up to a gig tomorrow. As someone once said (I wish I could remember who), I can cope with disappointment: it’s the hope I find unbearable.

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.

First Day at Work

Our first day at the college. When it’s finished, it’s going to be very impressive. Perhaps it will be finished before my two year contract is up. The English and Key Skills temporary building will be more than adequate, with the big classrooms you get here. They should be ready by the end of March. For now, we’re in temporary-temporary classrooms. I don’t know when it’s anticipated that we move into permanent classrooms, or where they are.

The admin staff have inputted a password to enable us to connect to the college’s Wi-Fi network, but it’s obviously overloaded – I was able to have a look at my email account, but it froze me out before I could send anything much.

Still no Internet at The Houses. (We had a conversation today about what we should call it. There was no definite answer. When I was talking to Engineer Whatsisname in the the corner shop the other day, he asked if I was living “in this village”. I confirmed that I was, but like a bloody fool never asked him what this village was called.)

There’s a big fuck-off gate, which is locked at night. There was no one around at 7.30 this morning, so I couldn’t get out to get bread. Likewise, tonight, T2 had to ring me because she’d popped out to the shop and couldn’t get back in. We’re promised a full time gate-keeper in due course.

No telly either. The upside of that is, I’m listening to the local radio on FM a lot. The Arabic pop music is cheery enough, and some of the more serious music is ace. I just wish I could ascertain who the artists were. Another incentive for learning Arabic.

The no-internet, no-telly situation is the result of politicking between our management and the locals, and also internal bickering. So far as one can tell.

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.