Well, we’re here. A whirlwind summer has bled into a whirlwind transition and settling in process. After we said our goodbyes and ended our summer tour, we finally headed out to Riyadh. It seemed like a long time coming because it was. We made the decision to come to Riyadh on winter break of last year. We’ve been anticipating, thinking about, speculating about, asking questions about, justifying our decisions to everyone, and mentally preparing to go. That is exciting for a while, but after a certain amount of time, it’s time to just go. So while we enjoyed our summer tour, we were ready for routine, normalcy, and for our questions to be answered.
We set off from Orlando with a nice, long 20 hour trip ahead of us. After landing in Frankfurt, we made our way to our connecting gate where we saw a handful of other new teachers that we identified from our introduction newsletter. We made some small talk and exchanged introductions, while groggy and sleep deprived, before making our way to the plane for our final flight.
We arrived in Riyadh at about 11:00pm and found our head of school waiting for us at the baggage
carousel. It was nice to see a familiar face before making our way through to get our many many many bags and heading to our new homes. As we got through customs and immigration, we walked out into the airport itself and we were greeted by no fewer than 25 people in school colors, waving pennants and pom poms cheering. It was quite the welcome. After making a few more friends, I went to the bathroom for a quick stop before taking the bus to the compound. Prior to going in I was warned about the “washing stations” and the bidet hose. Noted. They weren’t playing. Bathrooms here have a full on power washing hose set up in each stall to...clean yourself thoroughly. That was my first observation of cultural difference.
We stepped outside and it hit us. BOOM. That’s what 105 degrees feels like. Well, at least it was dry. Then, we were loaded into buses and taken to the compound. It wasn’t more than a fifteen minute drive to the compound. Upon arrival, I wasn’t sure whether to feel safe or scared at the depth and comprehensive nature of security. The compound itself was surrounded by 25 foot high walls. As in plural. The walls had barbed wire at the top. There are retractable concrete barricades, many many armed guards, and a few other security measures on the way in. One half of my brain immediately went to a state of comfort and safety. The other half wanted to know what they were protecting against. The compound literally has more security measures in place than Jurassic Park. It was impressive.
The bus passed through all of the security measures and dropped us all off at our respective
apartments, villas, houses. The places are huge. We have a huge kitchen, four bathrooms, a big kitchen, two living rooms, and two bedrooms. Each room bigger than the next. The houses are plenty of space to raise a family. We were being provided with everything we needed on a personal level so we could focus our energy on our professional goals. They even loaded us up with starter groceries like bread, milk, eggs, cereal, sugar, etc. It was incredibly thoughtful and made us feel more comfortable with our transition. It was a long journey, compounded by a beastly time change, but we felt very well cared for and prepared for it.
Early the next morning, we took a walking tour around our campus. It is sprawling and state of the art. The school is entering its fourth year in the new campus and it is clear that attention was paid to every detail. The classrooms are spacious and conducive to flexible seating and learning. They are all equipped with tech tools designed to improve instruction. But, probably my favorite thing about the campus is the light. Every building has at least one wall made of glass. The natural light pours in and really brightens up the rooms. Speaking from the perspective of someone who has been in classrooms with no windows, and classrooms with windows that face nothing but a wall, I was appreciative. The campus was super impressive all around. Everything you could think of was built there. The gym has a rock climbing wall. There is a lap pool. The gym is gigantic. There are two library areas, one with a T-Rex skeleton. There are meeting rooms built for small armies. Space is abundant and well planned for.
After the tour of the school, we were taken on a tour of the compound, which was equally impressive.
This addressed one of our main questions. What was compound living going to be like? Would Shannon have to wear her abaya? (No) Would it feel cramped and stuffy? (Confined yes, but not cramped) Would there be options for leisure activities? (Yes, a huge gym, three pools, a basketball court, badminton court, indoor soccer field, indoor track, spa, barber shop, grocery store, movie theater, pool hall, bowling alley, and indoor tennis courts) Would we be able to eat on compound or would we have to venture away? (Yes. There is a grocery store, a coffee shop, ice cream shop, Burger King, Middle Eastern Restaurant, and a big hotel restaurant) As we explored, we got to clarify what life on compound was going to be like. Honestly, it feels like we live in a cross between a movie suburb and a resort. All things considered, not too bad!
After the compound tour, we did a short tour of the city. We took the cars we were given (!!) and
drove around the highways and to the local grocery store off compound. At the grocery store we quickly found that we would be able to get all of the western things that were not available to us in Ecuador. (Kraft Mac & Cheese, Starbucks, Captain Crunch, etc) The school and the compound have really done a nice job of making people feel at home despite physical distance. On the city tour we also discovered that Riyadh has its own set of traffic rules. In most places there are no lanes. People kind of weave in and out of space rather than lines. It’s rather interesting. The way I would describe driving here is...fluid. Traffic flows into and out of the space that is allotted in the roads. It flows around slower cars, or obstacles like water around a rock in a river. We’ve been fortunate in that we haven’t experienced a whole lot of traffic, since we’re still in a time of holiday around here and the city isn’t full yet from people returning from summer trips. The aggressive driving in Quito helped prepare me for anticipating the driving moves of others, so it wasn’t too hard to adjust. The city is pretty easy to get around in. Nearly everything in the city is designed as a grid. Everything is connected by highways and each highway has a designed u-turn area every mile or so. If you screw up, it’s pretty easy to right a mistake.
On the tour we also discovered that as westerners, we don’t stick out as much as expected. We frequently felt like the odd people out in Quito. Depending on where we were and what we were doing, we frequently drew attention simply by being foreigners in Quito. Not in a malicious or ill meaning way, mostly just through looks of kind curiosity. Here, we don’t stand out as much as we expected. We weren’t sure what that dynamic would be like. We theorized that since there are so many social differences between westerners and Arabic social norms, we might stand out a bit more. That hasn’t been the case. While Shannon wears her abaya out in public off the compound, she doesn’t cover her hair or face. We have yet to receive a funny look, hear a complaint of impropriety, or really get any reaction at all. In fact, while many women choose to cover their faces or hair, we were both surprised by the number of women who choose not to and simply wear the abaya, which is a large robe-like cover. I’ll let Shannon talk more about that when she makes her first post since that is more of her experience than mine.
On our first night, we had women knocking on our doors asking us if we wanted help with housekeeping. They sure do find out when people arrive, and they are ready to pounce. In our first three days, we had about 8 or 9 women coming to us looking for work. In addition, there is a similar market for labor jobs for men who offer their gardening services and car wash services. The first man who knocked offering car washing service told me he would wash the inside and outside of the car three times per week. I laughed at the idea of that. Even where labor was cheap in Ecuador, we wouldn’t get our cars washed more than once every two weeks. The man who greeted me that night told me most people do three times per week. I reached an agreement with him and he washed the car. The next day, but noon, the car was covered in sand and dust and desert. It was in that moment that I understood. Three times per week was a necessity if you wanted to be able to see while driving. It was cheap anyway. We agreed to have him come three times per week for 75 SAR per month (about $20). Not too shabby!
Our subsequent days were spent at welcome parties, exploring the city, and making trips out to IKEA to decorate our villa. We got our Iqamas (resident card) and I got my license. The school helped us with both processes which helped quite a bit. Rather than the process in Ecuador, the license process involved the men being taken to their version of the DMV with our US licenses, a passport photo, and our Iqamas. We waited in a waiting room while a school employed expediter helped spoke to the clerks at the office. After about five minutes we were ushered into another waiting room with about 600 other people. Another five minutes went by and we were told that we could leave. Our licenses would be delivered to school later in the day. No written test in the local language. No reaction time tests. No driving test. That’s it. Know the right guy, wait in two waiting rooms, and POOF! We were done.
We have also learned to navigate the world of daily prayer. As many of you know, the Islamic faith requires people to pray five times per day. The prayers are scheduled for specific times and have significant religious meaning. The times change slightly every few weeks to match up with the Islamic calendar. During these prayer times, mosques from around the city send out a call to prayer, which is often sung through loud speakers throughout the city. It is quite beautiful to hear and can be heard almost anywhere in the city from one mosque or another. During these times, business usually close. However, if you are in a store when the call to prayer comes, you do not have to leave. You may not cash out, but you can come and go as you please. So if you get to the grocery store as the prayer time is coming, you may shop through the store and check out as soon as the employees return from their prayer (about 45 minutes). This is a scheduling thing that was tough at first to navigate, but we have adjusted to. For example, we were working our way through the labyrinth that is IKEA when we heard an announcement that prayer was to begin in ten minutes. We needed about a half hour to finish our shopping, so rather than wait a full 45 minutes for the prayer to start and stop, we rushed the rest of our shopping so we could be finished in time. These have been rare, but minor inconveniences but these changes come with the territory of living in another country with another culture. We have both come to appreciate hearing the call to prayer and we’ve only been caught once or twice in situations that made the prayer time inconvenient for us.
That was all in our first week. Since then, we’ve hit the ground running with PD at work that was intense but meaningful. We have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support, friendship, and kindness from everyone here. It has been a truly smooth transition. One of the reasons we came to this school was to be professionally challenged. We have already been challenged quite a bit, but with a guiding hand of support along the way. We’ve spent our time preparing for students (first day is Sept. 11 after the Eid holiday) and settling into our lives. We have been going to the gym a lot, playing basketball, hosting people for dinner, and going out to join others. We’ve had missions around the city to buy things to make our home feel like home. We are trying to balance all of the things that come with moving to a new country, with the things that come with starting a new job, and all of the things that come with making a bunch of new friends. We will be moving into a slightly larger villa in the next few days, so we will really get to feel like our move is permanent. In the meantime, we will keep updating as much as possible. Most public places have signs up frowning on photography, so in respect of that cultural norm, I haven’t been taking so many photos. The blog might contain less than normal for a while. I will post photos when possible. But we will document our transition and our story as it progresses. Things have been busy, and will continue to be as we continue to settle in. However, in closing I will say that we feel safe, happy, challenged, well looked after, and ready for this next adventure.
