The intent of today was to go to the Education Zone office, referred to as "the zone" to pick up my letter indicating which school I would be placed in and then make my way to the school for my first day of work.
A friend drove me to the zone and we got there and waited in the lobby, having no more information as to where to go. At some point, someone said that our employer's offices were upstairs on the 3, so we all went up and waited there. After about 20 minutes, someone else said that we were actually supposed to be down in the lobby-so we all went back down. Soon they opened the doors to an office and we all filed in. We were told to sit, so we did. Then we were told we needed to go get a number to be served, so back out to the lobby we went. We waited in line there for a few minutes and then they called all "new teachers" to follow a man to the auditorium. There, they went page by page through a giant stack of about 700 pages, reading out every teachers name to pick up their placement. My name was finally called and I got my paper, only for it to say,
School Name: To be determined.
I was told to sit and wait till they got all the papers out and they would tell me what to do. So I waited, and waited..and went to the bathroom, then waited some more. Finally a representative from my employer told me my school. Excitedly, I left in a cab to go there. As I have mentioned before, streets are not well-marked here and cab drivers often speak very little English. Luckily, I got a very nice cab driver who drove around in circles for about 35 minutes looking for my school. Then, finally! I saw it, coming up, a huge blue building which was....entirely gated off and under construction! Wait, what?!
I got out of the cab apprehensively and the security guard told me that I needed to go to another school. He gave me the name of another school on the other side of town. After another 15 or so minutes of circling around, we found it. This school was very new looking, nice, and very much open. I walked in and got some funny looks by the room of teachers already there (I figured probably because it was 12pm and I was supposed to be there in the morning) and I went to find the principal. She extended her hand with a puzzled look on her face as I introduced myself and told her the school I had been sent from. She kind of laughed and said, "Nice to meet you, but you are in the wrong place, this is a cycle 1 school." Sigh. I am cycle 3- high school. Cycle 1 is elementary. I explained to her that I'd been told to go there and she told me that the high school had been moved to another school and that her school was supposed to now be in the first building I visited, but they got turned away because of the construction too. At this point I started to lose some of my cheery good nature and just sadly asked what I should do. She told me she didn't know, and I should call my principal. I had been given two numbers by the security guard, one of which was the principal I was standing with, the other, someone else. I left her office and called the other principal. I hadn't even finished explaining when she told me she was not my principal since she was also cycle 1, and that she didn't know, and had to go.
I hung up from her, unsure of what to do. I went back to the principal's office, feeling like a tool and asked her if she had the phone number of anyone at the zone I could call. She started to look but then a man came in (who was clearly much more important than me) and she started talking to him. Feeling as though I was intruding, I walked out and asked the Arabic teachers if they knew of a number I could call for our employer. They did not, but told me to wait to speak to the VP, who was in a meeting. Eventually when the Principal was done talking to the man (and had clearly forgotten about me) I crept back in and asked her how I would catch a taxi back to the zone, since we were in a neighbourhood in the middle of nowhere. She said I'd have to walk about 15-20 minutes to the main road and wished me luck. Keep in mind that it was about 45 degrees outside and I was wearing tights, a long skirt, a tank top, a blouse and a black polyester Abaya overtop. I clearly would die if I tried to walk 20 minutes outside. At that moment, someone (Allah perhaps?) pitied me, and a woman in the next room said she had a meeting at the zone and would take me there.
The very nice lady with the very fancy car drove me back to the zone. I got there to find that there were many teachers still waiting to figure out their school placements. After some more waiting, I talked to the man who had sent me on this wild goose (school...) chase and he said that yes, he knew all about it and actually I should be in a different school but he had no idea where it was and to go see his colleague. His colleague, also had no idea where it was. They concluded that I should go home, look it up online and go there tomorrow, or if that failed, go back to the zone.
I left thinking I should use the rest of the day for something productive, so I took a taxi to Etisalat which is the internet provider here. The only way to get internet right now is to go to the main office. Clearly, everyone else knew this, because there were 300 people in line in front of me. At this point I just went home and napped.
Tonight I did find my school online..a similar name to what they gave me, but it is a grade 6-9 school and I was hired for grade 10-11. I guess I will go there tomorrow morning (if I can get a taxi!) and check it out. If it's not built, or not right, back to the zone I go.
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