I am Employable!

Hey there blog fans, something amazing happened today. I began my employment, which implies that I am employable. Can we say ego boost?

Of course, since this is Saudi Arabia, nothing is simple or to be taken for granted, so of course my first day was full of its own joyful ridiculousness.

They sent me to go get pictures taken and blood drawn. Of course, nobody bothered to tell ME this was where they were sending me - instead, they talked about it in Arabic all around me, so that I vaguely had some idea of what was going on, and then they sent me out with a driver who didn't speak much English, and I guess I was just supposed to assume he knew what he was doing. Luckily, he did. Thank goodness for trustworthy, competent drivers. Where would we be without them?

Not that it was clear to me in the beginning that he was competent or trustworthy. He took me to a supermarket first. "Okay," I think to myself, "he probably has an errand to run or something." But he motions me out of the car. Or, I think he motions me out of the car - it was pretty unclear exactly what he was trying to communicate to me, but I got out of the car anyway and followed him in. We walk towards the fruit. "Ah," I think, "I'm an idiot - he only wanted to buy himself something to eat. I shouldn't have come in." But we move further back, into the vegetable oil section (since it's near Ramadan every single supermarket in the universe is selling vegetable oil by the gallon. I, myself, bought a full 4 litres the other day because it was the SMALLEST QUANTITY AVAILABLE). And then through the vegetable oil section into the non-food section. "Okay..." I think, "We're here to buy.... a microwave. Clothing for his children. A tent for camping...." And then, in the midst of my confusion, we arrive in the back corner of the store where a teeeeeeny tiny little camera shop has been cleverly hidden. And in this teeeeeny tiny little camera shop there is a man who doesn't speak, and his camera and computer and a printer. So he takes a picture of me, downloads it onto his camera and starts... airbrushing my face. "It's okay," I say, "I am just using this for my igama, it's not necessary for you to touch it up." And the picture on the screen is gigantic, you can practically see my pores from where I'm standing all the way across the room, and the driver is standing there, and you can tell that he thinks it's really awkward that this guy is scrutinizing my enormous digital face right in front of me. And I agree. Awkward. The guy finally looks up from my nose and forehead in order to tell me he has to fix my face because of the pimples. Pimples! Well, I'll be. He knows at least one word. And thanks, dude, for talking about my acne (which, by the way, is not that bad, thank you very much) in front of my random driver and... I mean, come on, just print the stupid pictures, I don't want to stand here looking at my giant face any longer!

So, that was a good time.

And then on to the blood-letting. I went to a Bangladeshi clinic where the woman at reception spoke some language which was neither Bengali nor English but some incomprehensible amalgam of the two, and directed me to give her my igama repeatedly, which I repeatedly said I didn't yet have, explaining that this was why i needed the blood tests. And after lots of wrangling I got sent upstairs to room number 8 where my blood was drawn unceremoniously. But I was impressed by the amount I was not afraid of getting random diseases from dirty needles. Everything seemed a lot less sterile than I am used to, but not so much as to be actually dangerous.

SO, yes. All was good on my first day. Of course, not much got actually accomplished, but at least I'm on my way. Striding forward.