I met a person yesterday -a very kindly Dutch lady who had migrated here twenty years ago. We were at a meeting of "brigebuilders'-an organisation run by a Norwegian couple for recently arrived migrants.
We were actually playing cricket on a school Oval.
We were comparing migration experiences.
When she was last in Holland she said someone asked her if she would do it all over again and she said "No"
I agree.
If I had a choice I woudn't do it again. This is in fact our third attempt to settle in Australia-and it has been by far the most difficult.
There are no choices.
The fact is once you have a family, unless you have money in the family, or from other sources there are no choices in Australia -or in life in general for that matter.
You make 'choices' as economic circumstances dictate.
In Australia, you take the lowest paid job, and do the jobs the homelanders won't do.
Not many to give you a leg up here.
In Australia my qualifications count for nothing. They actually hinder me getting interviews.
Similarly, in Ireland and England my overseas experiences counted for nothing.
And when we go back to Ireland we are strangers.
People don't want to know outsiders-they don't want to let outsiders into their lives -it upsets their comfortable routine too much.
It is the nature of the beast.
The only places where I have felt really welcome in my life were Mexico , Colombia and Africa.
In these places people come and visit us.
If I had the money I would live there - definitely.
In twelve or so years living in Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide I can not remember ever being visited informally in my home by anyone.
Not even once.
So, no, I wouldn't come to Australia again if I had the choice.
Retirement, Kota Kinabalu
This is where I would like to be after I have robbed the bank
Winners and Losers
Debate 2008 Winners and Losers Editor at left.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Adelaide April 2009 the Royal Adelaide Hospital
Adelaide hospital
I was becoming breathless. It was painful to breathe…
“Alicia- do you think you could take me to the hospital? I’m having trouble breathing.”
In casualty they tried to send me away with panadene.
I wasn’t having that. “No, I’ve been on that all day and I’m finished with that stuff.”
“I’ll give you something stronger then…”
Back to Alicia’s house.
I got worse suddenly.
Gasping : “Alicia, can’t breathe”.
“Kenny will take you back to the hospital .”
Kenny and Maria delivered me to casualty..
“Do you want me to do this or will you do it?” The nurse said
I grasped the huge pear-shaped tablet and inspected it closely. I intuited that it was a suppository. I had heard other people talking about them. I’d never done this before . A suppository was supposed to block you up and prevent diarrhoea –wasn’t it?
I looked at it again and hesitated.
The nurse repeated “Are you going to do this or am I?
She was humourless and solemn.
“I’ll do it myself.” I said.
It was quite easy really.
I thought to myself: “ Here I am in agony. Can’t breathe, and all they are worried about is me shitting on the floor!”
Maria later told me that this was wrong. My knowledge of the functions of a suppository was inaccurate.. According to her they ‘dissolve’ and are absorbed and can be used for many ailments. I thought they were just used to constipate one’s colon so that one didn’t...you know ..
“Hello, Mr Nixon this Dr X”
I could dimly see above me a catscan of my lungs.
“ Mr. Nixon, you are in Casualty at the RAH and you have had a pulmonary embolism, in fact several. Can you see them?”
He looked like a teddy bear and sounded like ‘Big Brother’ in George Orwell’s “1984”
Like everyone else around me The Doctor looked about the same age as my sons.
I groaned. I could see the embolisms in my lungs. What did he want me to do- introduce myself and talk to the bloody things or what?
“We are going to admit you now..”
Have your bowels moved at all?
The bloke opposite me had had a major operation to remove his lymph nodes under his arm. He was drugged, groggy, but good-humoured in spite of the pain. .
He paused “Not for a few days” he said innocently.
The nurse seemed happy at this news. “Oh well, I think we’ll have to give you an enema, then” she said cheerily.
“Would you like one?”
He realized his mistake but continued to be amiable-like all Aussies males are expected to do in such circumstances.
“Well, no I think not” he said casually, “ I’m just nervous and I haven’t eaten for a few days. I think that’s why”
She went away to check with the Doctor..
I took careful note of this conversation
When she came to me she said
“Mr Nixon? Date of birth?
“14/07/1952”
I was waiting for her to ask me for the number of my mobile. How presumptious! Some people don’t have mobiles. I’d be offended if I were one of them.
But she didn’t ask me for my mobile number. Instead, she said
“And have you moved your bowels today?”
Yes, I lied . Twice.
“Good”
I was in hospital for ten days and only did a dump once.
As my good friend Len used to say. ‘ Sometimes in life you will need guile, Don’
“Good morning Petuh,.” Said a polite voice with a foreign accent on skype.
“G’day Charles” drawled Peter. “Yeyess, I can do that.
“. Yeyess…Charles, I can get you the stuff for twenty million. But I need two weeks –is that ok?”
“Yeyess Charles . No problem I need two weeks . Is that ok?’
It was the middle of the night in the Royal Adelaide Hospital Thorax ward.
I had been admitted two nights previously with breathlessness.
The previous night Peter in the opposite corner of the little ward had been stretchered in from Emergency with some balance disorder which was causing him to throw up violently.
“Yeyess Charles.” Petuh repeated evenly.” I need two weeks to get you the twenty million.”
At this time of the night? Drugs? Arms deal? I pretended to be asleep.
“Well, Charles, Pete drawled in his gravelly voice, I’m in an awkward place at the minute. You see, I have no income. But if you give me two weeks I will have the twenty million for you.”
I was concerned that Charles’ ‘Muscle’ was going to arrive in the ward at any moment and I was going to be part of the collateral damage. There would be no witnesses. They were all asleep
I went back to sleep.
The next night Robert Semmens was stretchered in to the bed beside me . He’d had a stroke while visiting his G.P.
I could hear a young woman’s voice whispering urgently to him..
“What is your name? “Where are we Robert? Do you know the name of the Australian Priminister?
What silly questions? Was I cracking up? Or was this some sort of game show? The voice sounded just like my own daughter’s! My daughter had been having some adjustment problems recently and had been behaving strangely. I was convinced she was in the next cubicle with Robert.
“Nurse, Nurse,” I said
Yeah? Said a male nurse.
Can you just check if my daughter is next door. I think she may have come to visit me and gone to the wrong cubicle?
“What is your name? Who is the Priminister of this country?”
My daughter had been telling me how well she had done recently in her Australian studies.
I thought she had flipped and was entertaining Robert in the next cubicle.
“Nurse, Nurse!”
“No, I’ve already checked –it is one of our staff. It is not your daughter.
“But nurse, please can you check just once more. I am sure I heard her voice”
“Now look, mate,” said the nurse. He was irritated , angry even, “ I’m beginning to get worried about you. You’ve got a lot of narcotics in you mate. Your daughter is not next door!”
A few moments later a female nurse came to see me. She was about forty. She smiled.
“It was me who was next door! Routine procedure for a new arrival”
Next morning ‘Petuh’ looked a mess. He was washed out and exhausted. Completely dishevelled. He was the speaker of the South Australian Parliament.
Robert was an ‘old money liberal’ from a well-heeled Adelaide family. He told me his life story later. It wasn’t particularly interesting. Full of the usual good luck stories told by Aussie males to each other. About how people had been queueing up to offer him a job when he left school and then when he left university. etc. They made me sick: I’d heard them so many times before. Not what I wanted to hear when the only queue I was in was for the dole.
He’d had a dissolute but very enjoyable life, and I reckon Robert hadn’t done a day’s real work in his life. A former politician, he was now a government accountant.
The two of them knew each other and they were old political rivals. Peter Lewis was Labour and Robert a Liberal.. Together, they were hilarious. Aussies are so verbally articulate and witty. The two of them were a real laugh:
My landlady’s boyfriend is called Kenny. I don’t know what he does apart from servicing Alicia from time to time. He speaks no English. He is outside at the moment using a pneumatic drill at present –laying down some tiles on Alicia’s patio..
They had one spectacular row-but Kenny came running back like “Tuya” the desexed dog. Actually ‘Tuya’ is in the doghouse at present. He’s been blamed for poohing in the shower and has been sent back to puppy school for retraining..Poor tuya!. There’ll be a lot of CONMFK at puppy dog retraining school. Maybe CONMFK* for dogs is not so bad as I think it is for humans. Alicia told me she thinks it is ‘chile’ the Chiuahua who is the real culprit. This could be the beginning of the end for my Lesbian friends. Alicia is a formidable lady-but she smiles and is polite. And she doesn’t wear black. I could never imagine her in black. That’s the thing about Asian females. They don’t wear black.
“STIP” Stay in the present, I read somewhere. Damn good advice. That is how I survived Brunei for nine years. ‘Stay in the Present’ I would say to myself the night before term started as I went to sleep after taking my sleeping tablet..
“It worked. I survived didn’t ?”
What has Kenny got to do with all this? I don’t know. I like it when they argue away in Chinese and I don’t understand a word they are saying. Maybe Kenny feels like Tuya. I mean that Alicia is a formidable lady. But no, I don’t think so. Alicia often has a big smile on her face.
The noisy night is over and the morning arrives. Hospital wards are active at night. People constantly need painkillers and drugs.
“Have you heard the news? Says Robert animatedly? The rising intonation is correct. We perk up expectantly.
“ I went back to bloody sleep!” He said with perfect falling intonation.
Peter Lewis began to chuckle. He had a slow gravelly voice.
“You know the liberal party needs someone with a lime (lame) leftwing”–he drawled. He was referring to Robert’s left arm which had been paralised with the stroke.
I laughed out loud and hurt my lungs.
God! they were funny those two.
The first night I awoke at three am in agony. The painkillers had worn off. I couldn’t breathe. I stood up. No good. I sat down again . No good. Then I crouched on the bed –supporting myself by holding the bed with one arm. This was the only painfree position I could adopt.
“Please Nurse!”
Can I have painkillers?
How many have you had?
“I dunno.You should know” I thought to myself. “You’ve written them down.”
“ Give me the strong ones”, I squeaked “oxycodons.”
There was to and fro-ing with charts and confusion. They didn’t know what I’d had.
“Sit on the bed” with falling intonation, said the nurse-like the matron in Fawlty towers.
I couldn’t move as I was in the only pain free position on the entire planet.
I can’t!
“Sit on the bed” she repeated!
“I can’t. I’m in pain… duuh!”.
Saying “Duuh” required an exhalation of breath- which hurt me even more. But it was worth it.
“No need to be rude. I’m only a student” She flounced off back to her den. She was wearing black.
They gave me Panadene and left me standing there clutching the bed. I was glued to the bed like ‘Dante’s thinker’ for half an hour until the painkiller took effect.
The next night I was confused again.
I heard Robert next door in real distress. He was throwing up all over the place. From what I could hear he was on the floor with his head on the ground. The hospital staff wanted him to get back into bed but he knew if he lifted his head he would throw up.
“WE need you to get back into bed so we can inject you?”
“I can’t, I can’t” he groaned. I’ll throw up!
“No , you won’t you’ll feel better!”
“No, I won’t I’ll bloody throw up . How the hell would you know anyway you’re not the one who’s bloody sick?”
“I need you to give me the back of your hand!”
The Speaker of the house groaned, wretched, , and threw up violently.
Next morning. I glanced to my left. Robert was fine? But Peter, in the opposite corner looked like death warmed up.
It was Peter who had been sick in the night. He had been able to crawl across the floor almost as far as my bed before the nurses intercepted him.
Not very dignified for the speaker of the house.
Not to worry. I think Peter’s reputation will remain intact as I’m the only one who’ll ever remember the incident.
Unless somebody reads this some day and then meets Peter Lewis.
Sheilas
“Here comes one” I said to myself
What is it with Aussie women?
What’s your beef ladies?
Is it the history?
Is it your men?
Or is it you?
“What do you mean what do I mean?”
“I mean can there be any excuse for just how rude and overbearing you are?”
“Your intonation is appalling”
“You speak to strangers like they’re dogs.!”
Have you seen the matron in the Fawlty towers episode where she ‘shoes’ Basil out of the hospital ward when he is visiting his wife Sybil?
“You are like the Matron, ladies!”
“Number ten’ says the tall and lithe vampire at the IMVS.
“How can I help you then?” Her barely disguised contempt is betrayed by the inappropriately falling , not rising, intonation.
They all wear black. It makes them look even more vampirish.. For God’s sake any colour is more feminine than black. The SS wore black, girls. Anything but black!
I showed her my piece of paper from my GP for the blood test.
I had been fasting and come by bicycle and was feeling dizzy. I had just come out of hospital a few days ago and felt woozy..
There was a notice which said : “If you are fasting or feeling unwell please tell the nurse”
“You do realise that you have to wait here for two hours” said Denise. Her tone of voice was like the one I would have imagined that guard at Auschwitz ( Irma Grease?) used.
“No, my GP didn’t say”
“Well, she said without the slightest hint of sympathy . Do you want to reschedule or will you come through?”
“What?” I said irritably,
“What?” She said back irritably,
“Life is difficult” I grinned inanely at her.
“Only if you make it so” retorted Denise.
“Uh?” I said. Was this Sheila having a go at me?
“When you get over 50” I said, life is more difficult. You have to have things repeated to you”
“ Well then, are you coming through? If so, you can’t leave the building for two hours, you know.”
I was damned if I was going away because she wanted me to.
We sat in sulky, dismal silence for ten minutes while she took two blood samples.
I was dizzy and semi-conscious.
I resumed hostilities:
“I can do without the home-spun philosophy” I said
“What?” She said.
I don’t expect to receive your philosophial views on life in this context?
What?
“You implied life was only difficult if you make it difficult for yourself.” I said “meaning that you think I am making life difficult for myself”
“I didn’t mean that” she said.
“Well why did you say it then?” I thought to myself
“Which arm do you want me to use?”
Again, the falling intonation. Appalling. So rude.
My right arm was bruised and ugly from the warfarin and the clumsy blood tests of a Junior Doctor in the hospital.
“Well obviously not that one” I drawled, showing her my arm.
She was spitting chips.
She yanked my arm into place and took the blood sample.
I was going to have to wait for two hours after drinking some glucose.
Stony silence.
Can I post a letter?
“Nao”
Again, the falling intonation.
This one was rude. She was asking for it.
“Naow you wite for two hours and you can sit over there”
There were three rows of chairs sitting along the walls –just like a Doctor’s surgery.
There was nothing on the walls –not a poster or photograph nor a soft chair in the room.
No newspaper. I couldn’t even see any magazines. The room was completely empty.
Just the two of us. An occasional “customer” came and went. She was ever so polite to them.
We continued to sit in silence studiously ignoring each other and avoiding eye –contact. I was seething.
After half an hour I said
“Can I suggest you have a soft chair and some newspapers put in here for people like me?”
“What? We’re new here.” I have a newspaper ordered. She said dismissively.
Again the intonation was wrong.
Many Aussie females speak like they have had ‘assertiveness training ’. It’s not natural. There is no humility. They speak like they’re selling you something. They don’t make requests. They ‘command’ you to do things by the tone of their voice.
I find it intimidating. I suppose that’s why they do it.
That’s a bad sign. I have it on good authority that the ESL “industry’ in Adelaide is run by women.
I don’t think I could work with them again.
Girls, I think all this ‘assertiveness’ is affected and learned. It could be changed.
Now, I think I understand why my landlady’s dog is so popular with the girls in my house. He is a lovely spaniel who just rolls over when you go near him and invites you to scratch him.
He’s been desexed.
“You’ll be over 50 some day too, you bitch” I thought to myself.
I feel weak –maybe it’s the post hospital malaise. Like I’m in second gear climbing a steep hill. My feet are leaden. No appetite.
I’m off to the city (Adelaide) on my bicycle.
I’m going to buy Gogol’s “Diary of a Madman” or “Dead souls’.
No particular reason. I think I just like the titles.
* for the uninitiated CONMFK is the acronym for “Corporate, Orwellian, New Millenium Fuckspeak”
I was becoming breathless. It was painful to breathe…
“Alicia- do you think you could take me to the hospital? I’m having trouble breathing.”
In casualty they tried to send me away with panadene.
I wasn’t having that. “No, I’ve been on that all day and I’m finished with that stuff.”
“I’ll give you something stronger then…”
Back to Alicia’s house.
I got worse suddenly.
Gasping : “Alicia, can’t breathe”.
“Kenny will take you back to the hospital .”
Kenny and Maria delivered me to casualty..
“Do you want me to do this or will you do it?” The nurse said
I grasped the huge pear-shaped tablet and inspected it closely. I intuited that it was a suppository. I had heard other people talking about them. I’d never done this before . A suppository was supposed to block you up and prevent diarrhoea –wasn’t it?
I looked at it again and hesitated.
The nurse repeated “Are you going to do this or am I?
She was humourless and solemn.
“I’ll do it myself.” I said.
It was quite easy really.
I thought to myself: “ Here I am in agony. Can’t breathe, and all they are worried about is me shitting on the floor!”
Maria later told me that this was wrong. My knowledge of the functions of a suppository was inaccurate.. According to her they ‘dissolve’ and are absorbed and can be used for many ailments. I thought they were just used to constipate one’s colon so that one didn’t...you know ..
“Hello, Mr Nixon this Dr X”
I could dimly see above me a catscan of my lungs.
“ Mr. Nixon, you are in Casualty at the RAH and you have had a pulmonary embolism, in fact several. Can you see them?”
He looked like a teddy bear and sounded like ‘Big Brother’ in George Orwell’s “1984”
Like everyone else around me The Doctor looked about the same age as my sons.
I groaned. I could see the embolisms in my lungs. What did he want me to do- introduce myself and talk to the bloody things or what?
“We are going to admit you now..”
Have your bowels moved at all?
The bloke opposite me had had a major operation to remove his lymph nodes under his arm. He was drugged, groggy, but good-humoured in spite of the pain. .
He paused “Not for a few days” he said innocently.
The nurse seemed happy at this news. “Oh well, I think we’ll have to give you an enema, then” she said cheerily.
“Would you like one?”
He realized his mistake but continued to be amiable-like all Aussies males are expected to do in such circumstances.
“Well, no I think not” he said casually, “ I’m just nervous and I haven’t eaten for a few days. I think that’s why”
She went away to check with the Doctor..
I took careful note of this conversation
When she came to me she said
“Mr Nixon? Date of birth?
“14/07/1952”
I was waiting for her to ask me for the number of my mobile. How presumptious! Some people don’t have mobiles. I’d be offended if I were one of them.
But she didn’t ask me for my mobile number. Instead, she said
“And have you moved your bowels today?”
Yes, I lied . Twice.
“Good”
I was in hospital for ten days and only did a dump once.
As my good friend Len used to say. ‘ Sometimes in life you will need guile, Don’
“Good morning Petuh,.” Said a polite voice with a foreign accent on skype.
“G’day Charles” drawled Peter. “Yeyess, I can do that.
“. Yeyess…Charles, I can get you the stuff for twenty million. But I need two weeks –is that ok?”
“Yeyess Charles . No problem I need two weeks . Is that ok?’
It was the middle of the night in the Royal Adelaide Hospital Thorax ward.
I had been admitted two nights previously with breathlessness.
The previous night Peter in the opposite corner of the little ward had been stretchered in from Emergency with some balance disorder which was causing him to throw up violently.
“Yeyess Charles.” Petuh repeated evenly.” I need two weeks to get you the twenty million.”
At this time of the night? Drugs? Arms deal? I pretended to be asleep.
“Well, Charles, Pete drawled in his gravelly voice, I’m in an awkward place at the minute. You see, I have no income. But if you give me two weeks I will have the twenty million for you.”
I was concerned that Charles’ ‘Muscle’ was going to arrive in the ward at any moment and I was going to be part of the collateral damage. There would be no witnesses. They were all asleep
I went back to sleep.
The next night Robert Semmens was stretchered in to the bed beside me . He’d had a stroke while visiting his G.P.
I could hear a young woman’s voice whispering urgently to him..
“What is your name? “Where are we Robert? Do you know the name of the Australian Priminister?
What silly questions? Was I cracking up? Or was this some sort of game show? The voice sounded just like my own daughter’s! My daughter had been having some adjustment problems recently and had been behaving strangely. I was convinced she was in the next cubicle with Robert.
“Nurse, Nurse,” I said
Yeah? Said a male nurse.
Can you just check if my daughter is next door. I think she may have come to visit me and gone to the wrong cubicle?
“What is your name? Who is the Priminister of this country?”
My daughter had been telling me how well she had done recently in her Australian studies.
I thought she had flipped and was entertaining Robert in the next cubicle.
“Nurse, Nurse!”
“No, I’ve already checked –it is one of our staff. It is not your daughter.
“But nurse, please can you check just once more. I am sure I heard her voice”
“Now look, mate,” said the nurse. He was irritated , angry even, “ I’m beginning to get worried about you. You’ve got a lot of narcotics in you mate. Your daughter is not next door!”
A few moments later a female nurse came to see me. She was about forty. She smiled.
“It was me who was next door! Routine procedure for a new arrival”
Next morning ‘Petuh’ looked a mess. He was washed out and exhausted. Completely dishevelled. He was the speaker of the South Australian Parliament.
Robert was an ‘old money liberal’ from a well-heeled Adelaide family. He told me his life story later. It wasn’t particularly interesting. Full of the usual good luck stories told by Aussie males to each other. About how people had been queueing up to offer him a job when he left school and then when he left university. etc. They made me sick: I’d heard them so many times before. Not what I wanted to hear when the only queue I was in was for the dole.
He’d had a dissolute but very enjoyable life, and I reckon Robert hadn’t done a day’s real work in his life. A former politician, he was now a government accountant.
The two of them knew each other and they were old political rivals. Peter Lewis was Labour and Robert a Liberal.. Together, they were hilarious. Aussies are so verbally articulate and witty. The two of them were a real laugh:
My landlady’s boyfriend is called Kenny. I don’t know what he does apart from servicing Alicia from time to time. He speaks no English. He is outside at the moment using a pneumatic drill at present –laying down some tiles on Alicia’s patio..
They had one spectacular row-but Kenny came running back like “Tuya” the desexed dog. Actually ‘Tuya’ is in the doghouse at present. He’s been blamed for poohing in the shower and has been sent back to puppy school for retraining..Poor tuya!. There’ll be a lot of CONMFK at puppy dog retraining school. Maybe CONMFK* for dogs is not so bad as I think it is for humans. Alicia told me she thinks it is ‘chile’ the Chiuahua who is the real culprit. This could be the beginning of the end for my Lesbian friends. Alicia is a formidable lady-but she smiles and is polite. And she doesn’t wear black. I could never imagine her in black. That’s the thing about Asian females. They don’t wear black.
“STIP” Stay in the present, I read somewhere. Damn good advice. That is how I survived Brunei for nine years. ‘Stay in the Present’ I would say to myself the night before term started as I went to sleep after taking my sleeping tablet..
“It worked. I survived didn’t ?”
What has Kenny got to do with all this? I don’t know. I like it when they argue away in Chinese and I don’t understand a word they are saying. Maybe Kenny feels like Tuya. I mean that Alicia is a formidable lady. But no, I don’t think so. Alicia often has a big smile on her face.
The noisy night is over and the morning arrives. Hospital wards are active at night. People constantly need painkillers and drugs.
“Have you heard the news? Says Robert animatedly? The rising intonation is correct. We perk up expectantly.
“ I went back to bloody sleep!” He said with perfect falling intonation.
Peter Lewis began to chuckle. He had a slow gravelly voice.
“You know the liberal party needs someone with a lime (lame) leftwing”–he drawled. He was referring to Robert’s left arm which had been paralised with the stroke.
I laughed out loud and hurt my lungs.
God! they were funny those two.
The first night I awoke at three am in agony. The painkillers had worn off. I couldn’t breathe. I stood up. No good. I sat down again . No good. Then I crouched on the bed –supporting myself by holding the bed with one arm. This was the only painfree position I could adopt.
“Please Nurse!”
Can I have painkillers?
How many have you had?
“I dunno.You should know” I thought to myself. “You’ve written them down.”
“ Give me the strong ones”, I squeaked “oxycodons.”
There was to and fro-ing with charts and confusion. They didn’t know what I’d had.
“Sit on the bed” with falling intonation, said the nurse-like the matron in Fawlty towers.
I couldn’t move as I was in the only pain free position on the entire planet.
I can’t!
“Sit on the bed” she repeated!
“I can’t. I’m in pain… duuh!”.
Saying “Duuh” required an exhalation of breath- which hurt me even more. But it was worth it.
“No need to be rude. I’m only a student” She flounced off back to her den. She was wearing black.
They gave me Panadene and left me standing there clutching the bed. I was glued to the bed like ‘Dante’s thinker’ for half an hour until the painkiller took effect.
The next night I was confused again.
I heard Robert next door in real distress. He was throwing up all over the place. From what I could hear he was on the floor with his head on the ground. The hospital staff wanted him to get back into bed but he knew if he lifted his head he would throw up.
“WE need you to get back into bed so we can inject you?”
“I can’t, I can’t” he groaned. I’ll throw up!
“No , you won’t you’ll feel better!”
“No, I won’t I’ll bloody throw up . How the hell would you know anyway you’re not the one who’s bloody sick?”
“I need you to give me the back of your hand!”
The Speaker of the house groaned, wretched, , and threw up violently.
Next morning. I glanced to my left. Robert was fine? But Peter, in the opposite corner looked like death warmed up.
It was Peter who had been sick in the night. He had been able to crawl across the floor almost as far as my bed before the nurses intercepted him.
Not very dignified for the speaker of the house.
Not to worry. I think Peter’s reputation will remain intact as I’m the only one who’ll ever remember the incident.
Unless somebody reads this some day and then meets Peter Lewis.
Sheilas
“Here comes one” I said to myself
What is it with Aussie women?
What’s your beef ladies?
Is it the history?
Is it your men?
Or is it you?
“What do you mean what do I mean?”
“I mean can there be any excuse for just how rude and overbearing you are?”
“Your intonation is appalling”
“You speak to strangers like they’re dogs.!”
Have you seen the matron in the Fawlty towers episode where she ‘shoes’ Basil out of the hospital ward when he is visiting his wife Sybil?
“You are like the Matron, ladies!”
“Number ten’ says the tall and lithe vampire at the IMVS.
“How can I help you then?” Her barely disguised contempt is betrayed by the inappropriately falling , not rising, intonation.
They all wear black. It makes them look even more vampirish.. For God’s sake any colour is more feminine than black. The SS wore black, girls. Anything but black!
I showed her my piece of paper from my GP for the blood test.
I had been fasting and come by bicycle and was feeling dizzy. I had just come out of hospital a few days ago and felt woozy..
There was a notice which said : “If you are fasting or feeling unwell please tell the nurse”
“You do realise that you have to wait here for two hours” said Denise. Her tone of voice was like the one I would have imagined that guard at Auschwitz ( Irma Grease?) used.
“No, my GP didn’t say”
“Well, she said without the slightest hint of sympathy . Do you want to reschedule or will you come through?”
“What?” I said irritably,
“What?” She said back irritably,
“Life is difficult” I grinned inanely at her.
“Only if you make it so” retorted Denise.
“Uh?” I said. Was this Sheila having a go at me?
“When you get over 50” I said, life is more difficult. You have to have things repeated to you”
“ Well then, are you coming through? If so, you can’t leave the building for two hours, you know.”
I was damned if I was going away because she wanted me to.
We sat in sulky, dismal silence for ten minutes while she took two blood samples.
I was dizzy and semi-conscious.
I resumed hostilities:
“I can do without the home-spun philosophy” I said
“What?” She said.
I don’t expect to receive your philosophial views on life in this context?
What?
“You implied life was only difficult if you make it difficult for yourself.” I said “meaning that you think I am making life difficult for myself”
“I didn’t mean that” she said.
“Well why did you say it then?” I thought to myself
“Which arm do you want me to use?”
Again, the falling intonation. Appalling. So rude.
My right arm was bruised and ugly from the warfarin and the clumsy blood tests of a Junior Doctor in the hospital.
“Well obviously not that one” I drawled, showing her my arm.
She was spitting chips.
She yanked my arm into place and took the blood sample.
I was going to have to wait for two hours after drinking some glucose.
Stony silence.
Can I post a letter?
“Nao”
Again, the falling intonation.
This one was rude. She was asking for it.
“Naow you wite for two hours and you can sit over there”
There were three rows of chairs sitting along the walls –just like a Doctor’s surgery.
There was nothing on the walls –not a poster or photograph nor a soft chair in the room.
No newspaper. I couldn’t even see any magazines. The room was completely empty.
Just the two of us. An occasional “customer” came and went. She was ever so polite to them.
We continued to sit in silence studiously ignoring each other and avoiding eye –contact. I was seething.
After half an hour I said
“Can I suggest you have a soft chair and some newspapers put in here for people like me?”
“What? We’re new here.” I have a newspaper ordered. She said dismissively.
Again the intonation was wrong.
Many Aussie females speak like they have had ‘assertiveness training ’. It’s not natural. There is no humility. They speak like they’re selling you something. They don’t make requests. They ‘command’ you to do things by the tone of their voice.
I find it intimidating. I suppose that’s why they do it.
That’s a bad sign. I have it on good authority that the ESL “industry’ in Adelaide is run by women.
I don’t think I could work with them again.
Girls, I think all this ‘assertiveness’ is affected and learned. It could be changed.
Now, I think I understand why my landlady’s dog is so popular with the girls in my house. He is a lovely spaniel who just rolls over when you go near him and invites you to scratch him.
He’s been desexed.
“You’ll be over 50 some day too, you bitch” I thought to myself.
I feel weak –maybe it’s the post hospital malaise. Like I’m in second gear climbing a steep hill. My feet are leaden. No appetite.
I’m off to the city (Adelaide) on my bicycle.
I’m going to buy Gogol’s “Diary of a Madman” or “Dead souls’.
No particular reason. I think I just like the titles.
* for the uninitiated CONMFK is the acronym for “Corporate, Orwellian, New Millenium Fuckspeak”
2009 Abu Dhabi 3 Interlude in Ireland back to Madinat Zayed
Madinat Zayed Part 4.
“C______”, I said at Belfast airport
“N_______” said C
“This is a tough one”
I got in his car and while driving to Lurgan I told him all about it.
at a sligh ttangent: The Australian Psychological Association recommends that a counsellor charge me 200 dollars per hour for a counselling service to help me deal with my family’s adjustment problems . My wife gets paid 16 dollars an hour . She has a degree and a Post Graduate degree from an Australian University. Although she is a teacher she is working as a child care worker at present at a Montessori school.
John Howard’s Australia…
I called one of these counselling Sheilas before I went into hospital. She was ok and when the hour was up she dutifully extended her hand for the 150 dollars.
“Will you be coming back next time?”
“ Yes, I think so. If I get re-registered with medicare.”
“Well, you’ll get 115 back then next time”
I was due to meet with her the day after I was taken into hospital. From my hospital bed I summoned the Doctor and asked him to postpone the appointment.
When I got out of hospital I phoned to make another appointment with her. The receptionist said she would call back to me. That was a week ago.
Now that is what gets me. I could be dead for all that Sheila counselor for the Australian Psycological Assocation knows or cares!
Is it any wonder people are shooting each other randomly? I could shoot a few myself.
I phoned a few others today-names given to me by my G.P. Not one of them spoke to me or called me back. Probably all having a ball with the recession exploiting everyone’s extra stress.
Two hundred dollars an hour? Medicare pays only 115. So that would be 85 a week. The dole is about 230 a week.
Actually, John Hunt did ring me back a couple of days later-twice in fact.
I explained what I was looking for.
“ Well I may be able to help but I don’t have anything until May.” said John amiably.
It was the beginning of April.
“Oh” , I said, “I might be dead by then”..
‘What?’ He said
“Well, I said, things seem to me to be a bit laid back in counselling in South Australia”
“I’m not laid back- I’m busy!”
Oh! lucky you, I thought to myself.
Ok , ‘No worries’ he said, and put the phone down
“Yeah, no worries for you mate’ I thought.
You’d think it was a barbecue we were organising.
Later that afternoon he called again. “Actually , Don we do have a practice in Gawler place which might be able to help you”
“Thanks for that” I said.
“Don’t worry, John” I thought to myself. “I’m not going to top myself.”
Cover that ass, John!
I’ll ask Centrelink for a counsellor when I claim the dole next week.
Ireland was good. I had a chance to re-establish relationships with my brothers and Mum. Mum was very healthy. My brothers and I had not seen each other for very many years and we had drifted far apart. P had had a health scare and had re-established contact recently. I was keen to reciprocate the interest.
I could talk to DC. He never judged me. Just listened.
A plan began to form in my mind. It went something like this..
I had to keep earning money so I had have to go back to Abu Dhabi.
M and the teenagers would get a bigger house.
M would come and visit me in MZ within a few weeks in order to prevent me from going nuts. This plan also would also encourage the kids to be more independent. While she was away they would have to fend for themselves.
We would all live happily ever after.
But I had an attack of phlebitis on the penultimate day of my week in Ireland. I was hobbling around Hillsborough looking for drugs at a Chemist. I decided to call up an old friend from my school days in Belfast.
She had married a top Ulster Surgeon at the Royal Victoria Hospital and that was that. Just as well for her I think.
We blarneyed for a while on the phone.
“What about the legs D__-’, I said. I’m supposed to be flying tomorrow back to Abu Dhabi.
“You shouldn’t fly, D____” she said.
Maybe my wife is right. She says I don’t listen to anybody’s advice.
Meanwhile I visited Mum and the conversation was good. She gets really confused but she enjoys conversation . DC came with me on two occasions.
And where are you living now?
“In Abu Dhabi Mum”.
And you are P___?
No, I’m D____, Mum.
“And P___ is in Adelaide?”
“No, Mum, I___ live in Adelaide.”
‘Are you married yet?”
The brothers N___ went on a pilgrimage to Enniskillen. This was where my Dad’s sister-Aunt Marjorie used to live.
Marjorie was a stalwart Methodist and sacrificed her life to look after her mother. She never married and died at the age of 65.she wsthe happist Nixon I have known.
The brothers N____ went to her grave to remember the good old days at Easter when we used to visit Marjorie and Granma N____.
P___ was ill but he thought he was beating it and he was in pretty good form.
I was very pleased at the rapprochement. It was worth the trip for that alone.
I flew back to Abu Dhabi and stayed the night with my CEO. Next day I returned to MZ.
After one week I had come back to the United Arab Emirates refreshed, but it took me some time to get on top of things again.
Apparently M_____ had chucked a spasm on being asked to deputise in my absence for the week. I don’t blame him. He refused and Mr. E____ had had to do the job. I think this pissed him off. I don’t blame him. His head looked even more oblong than usual. Mr. E____ was a yuppy with a head that reminded me of a horse.
Within a week I had forgotten many things I had learned in the first two weeks. A couple of days were spent in Abu Dhabi doing management training courses.
Anyway, I resettled in as best I could and tried to get on with things. Meanwhile , things back in Adelaide seemed to be wobbly again. I got the impression M____ didn’t really want to come to the desert for a month to settle me down and have a holiday.
I could feel the panic rising and I became depressed.
At school, Mr. E____ started to put on the pressure. In my absence a ‘restructuring’ had been announced which meant my whole team were having to basically re-apply for their jobs. One or possibly two might not be offered a new contract.
I was asked by Mr.E____ to do their performance reviews and interview for the new positions.
I wasn’t enthusiastic because I didn’t know them. I told this to Mr. E____. Mr. E___ didn’t like my lack of enthusiasm.
I counted the days I had been at school-thirteen in all since my arrival. How could I do a performance review over six months –let alone interview my team for a new restructured job after such a short space of time?
It seemed like the restructuring idea was designed to buy time. All it did was create uncertainty and anxiety. Typical mad scheme coming out of HR.
HR was full of yuppies half my age who had never lived overseas. It was ridiculous.
If Mr. E____ and his buddies didn’t want to renew the contracts of a couple of my team why not simply tell them their contract was not going to be renewed.?
Making everyone reapply for new jobs with me carrying the can seemed like a neat trick of Mr’ E to get rid of M__ and N___ whom he disliked. But I knew who would cop the responsibility for it if I did the interviews!
I could feel the panic rising.
I liked my team. I thought they were doing a good job. R_____ was an asshole but if he was kicked into line now and again he was salvageable.
M___ was a pain but was very strong in some areas and potentially a very useful team member.
The others were excellent. Why were they being asked to reapply for their jobs? I didn’t see the problem.
The next day was another training day in Abu Dhabi. This time it was for Principals only.
I was travelling from MZ with one of the other Principals and on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi my phone rang.
“Hello D___, this is Y_________ here from MZ.
“PENTA have arrived!”
PENTA were the monitoring agency employed by the Government to assess our progress in the schools.
Yikes!
“They want to know where the files are:”
The files were the ringbinders M_____ had thrown at me on day one.
“Oh!... eh… well they are on the floor beside my desk” I said
“No problem D____” said Yahaya, “Everything is under control”
I was proud of Y____ . I was proud of the team.
But Mr. E____ had a different reaction..
I arrived in Abu Dhabi and detected a certain chill in the atmosphere around Mr. E____.
I could see him walking around the hallways with his phone stuck to his ear, speaking in an unnecessarily loud voice in that self-important way which annoyed me.
He was wearing his usual pea soup coloured suit. I didn’t like it.
Aussies are uncomfortable about receiving gifts .At least from me anyway. I’ve just tried to give my two lesbian friends some chocolates and almost had to force them down their throats.
Why are they like this? Is it just me?
Mr. E_____ was a star performer in the Principals training day program. He was busy and came over to me.
“PENTA have arrived. I think we’d better meet over lunch.”
I gulped.
What was Mr. E_____ worried about? He seemed tense. Things were ok in MZ. with PENTA.
We met at lunch and Mr. E_____ went through a series of documents which he felt PENTA would want to see and interrogate in the next twenty four hours.
Mostly it was CONMFK.
It was restating the bleeding obvious in CONMFK.
There were several documents and plans and I had of course only a rudimentary grasp of them at that stage
One of them had silly things like
“By the end of June 2009, (after 12 months of the project) 50 percent of all classes will be taught through English”
By Palestinians and Syrians!
Duuh!
Maybe by the end of 2050!
Mr E_____ was going through these documents and wanting to know where we ‘were’ in relation to the ‘Key performance indicators’.
I thought to myself. Well you should know –you were the Principal last year before I came?
But I didn’t say that.
He wanted to know what had I done since the last visit in November? The answer was very little because of exams and the short time I had been on site –thirteen days..
“Well what have you been doing for the past two months D____?,” he said
I could feel the panic rising…
Well I said, first of all I have been organizing a place to live for at least half of my time since my arrival…...
“Same for all of us” , he interrupted..
No, it wasn’t. He was put up in the Liwa hotel for six months.
‘Second I have only been on site for thirteen working days. How can you expect me to be familiar with these things in such a short time? My task has been to get to know ‘Jihad” my local Principal, my team of CFBT teachers, and my local teachers. I have not had nearly enough time to familiarize myself with all of this paperwork. ”
M______ had told me that he and Mr. E_______ had spent about six months doing nothing else except getting to know staff when they had first arrived in MZ arrived eighteen months ago.
The bare facts were:
Mr. E____________ was the Principal of my school before being promoted to Cluster Director. I was his successor.
He was worried about the school and PENTA
I was worried about him.
I wasn’t eating much of my lunch. He was eating like a horse.
I could feel the panic rise. I made a decision.
“Well. I think I should go back to MZ and prepare some stuff for PENTA tomorrow.” I lied.
“Yes , I think that is a good idea.” It also meant I would miss Mr. E______’s afternoon presentation in Abu Dhabi which suited me just fine.
I got a taxi and went back to MZ quicksharp. My mind was racing the whole time.
When I got back I visited M_______ in his pigeon loft across he road. I had never been in it before.
He was opening up. The PENTA visit had gone well. We went through some stuff.
I told him Mr; E-____ was up my ass about PENTA
“I feel like going to the airport”
“I’ll take you” –he joked-half seriously.
I left him and crossed back to my own pigeon loft and started to pack.
It was four O’clock. I had time to get a taxi to Abu Dhabi and fly to Australia that evening.
I called the CEO
“Look, it seems Mr. E______ is not satisfied with the way I’m doing things?”
“I think he just wants you to produce a weekly plan of what you are doing.”
The ‘M’ word had finally reared it’s ugly head. ‘Micromanagement’.
I started packing.
“Calm down” I said to myself.
I had three Amstel beers.
But the panic was still there.
I got on my orange bicycle and headed for the taxi rank in town.
“You go Abu Dhabi airport now how much?’
“400 dirham”
“OK.”
We drove to my house and I finished the packing I had started earlier in the afternoon.
I never saw my orange bicycle again.
It was left at the taxi stand.
My legs were hurting again with the phlebitis.
But I didn’t care. I was going home to Adelaide.
I was relieved .
I think.
“C______”, I said at Belfast airport
“N_______” said C
“This is a tough one”
I got in his car and while driving to Lurgan I told him all about it.
at a sligh ttangent: The Australian Psychological Association recommends that a counsellor charge me 200 dollars per hour for a counselling service to help me deal with my family’s adjustment problems . My wife gets paid 16 dollars an hour . She has a degree and a Post Graduate degree from an Australian University. Although she is a teacher she is working as a child care worker at present at a Montessori school.
John Howard’s Australia…
I called one of these counselling Sheilas before I went into hospital. She was ok and when the hour was up she dutifully extended her hand for the 150 dollars.
“Will you be coming back next time?”
“ Yes, I think so. If I get re-registered with medicare.”
“Well, you’ll get 115 back then next time”
I was due to meet with her the day after I was taken into hospital. From my hospital bed I summoned the Doctor and asked him to postpone the appointment.
When I got out of hospital I phoned to make another appointment with her. The receptionist said she would call back to me. That was a week ago.
Now that is what gets me. I could be dead for all that Sheila counselor for the Australian Psycological Assocation knows or cares!
Is it any wonder people are shooting each other randomly? I could shoot a few myself.
I phoned a few others today-names given to me by my G.P. Not one of them spoke to me or called me back. Probably all having a ball with the recession exploiting everyone’s extra stress.
Two hundred dollars an hour? Medicare pays only 115. So that would be 85 a week. The dole is about 230 a week.
Actually, John Hunt did ring me back a couple of days later-twice in fact.
I explained what I was looking for.
“ Well I may be able to help but I don’t have anything until May.” said John amiably.
It was the beginning of April.
“Oh” , I said, “I might be dead by then”..
‘What?’ He said
“Well, I said, things seem to me to be a bit laid back in counselling in South Australia”
“I’m not laid back- I’m busy!”
Oh! lucky you, I thought to myself.
Ok , ‘No worries’ he said, and put the phone down
“Yeah, no worries for you mate’ I thought.
You’d think it was a barbecue we were organising.
Later that afternoon he called again. “Actually , Don we do have a practice in Gawler place which might be able to help you”
“Thanks for that” I said.
“Don’t worry, John” I thought to myself. “I’m not going to top myself.”
Cover that ass, John!
I’ll ask Centrelink for a counsellor when I claim the dole next week.
Ireland was good. I had a chance to re-establish relationships with my brothers and Mum. Mum was very healthy. My brothers and I had not seen each other for very many years and we had drifted far apart. P had had a health scare and had re-established contact recently. I was keen to reciprocate the interest.
I could talk to DC. He never judged me. Just listened.
A plan began to form in my mind. It went something like this..
I had to keep earning money so I had have to go back to Abu Dhabi.
M and the teenagers would get a bigger house.
M would come and visit me in MZ within a few weeks in order to prevent me from going nuts. This plan also would also encourage the kids to be more independent. While she was away they would have to fend for themselves.
We would all live happily ever after.
But I had an attack of phlebitis on the penultimate day of my week in Ireland. I was hobbling around Hillsborough looking for drugs at a Chemist. I decided to call up an old friend from my school days in Belfast.
She had married a top Ulster Surgeon at the Royal Victoria Hospital and that was that. Just as well for her I think.
We blarneyed for a while on the phone.
“What about the legs D__-’, I said. I’m supposed to be flying tomorrow back to Abu Dhabi.
“You shouldn’t fly, D____” she said.
Maybe my wife is right. She says I don’t listen to anybody’s advice.
Meanwhile I visited Mum and the conversation was good. She gets really confused but she enjoys conversation . DC came with me on two occasions.
And where are you living now?
“In Abu Dhabi Mum”.
And you are P___?
No, I’m D____, Mum.
“And P___ is in Adelaide?”
“No, Mum, I___ live in Adelaide.”
‘Are you married yet?”
The brothers N___ went on a pilgrimage to Enniskillen. This was where my Dad’s sister-Aunt Marjorie used to live.
Marjorie was a stalwart Methodist and sacrificed her life to look after her mother. She never married and died at the age of 65.she wsthe happist Nixon I have known.
The brothers N____ went to her grave to remember the good old days at Easter when we used to visit Marjorie and Granma N____.
P___ was ill but he thought he was beating it and he was in pretty good form.
I was very pleased at the rapprochement. It was worth the trip for that alone.
I flew back to Abu Dhabi and stayed the night with my CEO. Next day I returned to MZ.
After one week I had come back to the United Arab Emirates refreshed, but it took me some time to get on top of things again.
Apparently M_____ had chucked a spasm on being asked to deputise in my absence for the week. I don’t blame him. He refused and Mr. E____ had had to do the job. I think this pissed him off. I don’t blame him. His head looked even more oblong than usual. Mr. E____ was a yuppy with a head that reminded me of a horse.
Within a week I had forgotten many things I had learned in the first two weeks. A couple of days were spent in Abu Dhabi doing management training courses.
Anyway, I resettled in as best I could and tried to get on with things. Meanwhile , things back in Adelaide seemed to be wobbly again. I got the impression M____ didn’t really want to come to the desert for a month to settle me down and have a holiday.
I could feel the panic rising and I became depressed.
At school, Mr. E____ started to put on the pressure. In my absence a ‘restructuring’ had been announced which meant my whole team were having to basically re-apply for their jobs. One or possibly two might not be offered a new contract.
I was asked by Mr.E____ to do their performance reviews and interview for the new positions.
I wasn’t enthusiastic because I didn’t know them. I told this to Mr. E____. Mr. E___ didn’t like my lack of enthusiasm.
I counted the days I had been at school-thirteen in all since my arrival. How could I do a performance review over six months –let alone interview my team for a new restructured job after such a short space of time?
It seemed like the restructuring idea was designed to buy time. All it did was create uncertainty and anxiety. Typical mad scheme coming out of HR.
HR was full of yuppies half my age who had never lived overseas. It was ridiculous.
If Mr. E____ and his buddies didn’t want to renew the contracts of a couple of my team why not simply tell them their contract was not going to be renewed.?
Making everyone reapply for new jobs with me carrying the can seemed like a neat trick of Mr’ E to get rid of M__ and N___ whom he disliked. But I knew who would cop the responsibility for it if I did the interviews!
I could feel the panic rising.
I liked my team. I thought they were doing a good job. R_____ was an asshole but if he was kicked into line now and again he was salvageable.
M___ was a pain but was very strong in some areas and potentially a very useful team member.
The others were excellent. Why were they being asked to reapply for their jobs? I didn’t see the problem.
The next day was another training day in Abu Dhabi. This time it was for Principals only.
I was travelling from MZ with one of the other Principals and on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi my phone rang.
“Hello D___, this is Y_________ here from MZ.
“PENTA have arrived!”
PENTA were the monitoring agency employed by the Government to assess our progress in the schools.
Yikes!
“They want to know where the files are:”
The files were the ringbinders M_____ had thrown at me on day one.
“Oh!... eh… well they are on the floor beside my desk” I said
“No problem D____” said Yahaya, “Everything is under control”
I was proud of Y____ . I was proud of the team.
But Mr. E____ had a different reaction..
I arrived in Abu Dhabi and detected a certain chill in the atmosphere around Mr. E____.
I could see him walking around the hallways with his phone stuck to his ear, speaking in an unnecessarily loud voice in that self-important way which annoyed me.
He was wearing his usual pea soup coloured suit. I didn’t like it.
Aussies are uncomfortable about receiving gifts .At least from me anyway. I’ve just tried to give my two lesbian friends some chocolates and almost had to force them down their throats.
Why are they like this? Is it just me?
Mr. E_____ was a star performer in the Principals training day program. He was busy and came over to me.
“PENTA have arrived. I think we’d better meet over lunch.”
I gulped.
What was Mr. E_____ worried about? He seemed tense. Things were ok in MZ. with PENTA.
We met at lunch and Mr. E_____ went through a series of documents which he felt PENTA would want to see and interrogate in the next twenty four hours.
Mostly it was CONMFK.
It was restating the bleeding obvious in CONMFK.
There were several documents and plans and I had of course only a rudimentary grasp of them at that stage
One of them had silly things like
“By the end of June 2009, (after 12 months of the project) 50 percent of all classes will be taught through English”
By Palestinians and Syrians!
Duuh!
Maybe by the end of 2050!
Mr E_____ was going through these documents and wanting to know where we ‘were’ in relation to the ‘Key performance indicators’.
I thought to myself. Well you should know –you were the Principal last year before I came?
But I didn’t say that.
He wanted to know what had I done since the last visit in November? The answer was very little because of exams and the short time I had been on site –thirteen days..
“Well what have you been doing for the past two months D____?,” he said
I could feel the panic rising…
Well I said, first of all I have been organizing a place to live for at least half of my time since my arrival…...
“Same for all of us” , he interrupted..
No, it wasn’t. He was put up in the Liwa hotel for six months.
‘Second I have only been on site for thirteen working days. How can you expect me to be familiar with these things in such a short time? My task has been to get to know ‘Jihad” my local Principal, my team of CFBT teachers, and my local teachers. I have not had nearly enough time to familiarize myself with all of this paperwork. ”
M______ had told me that he and Mr. E_______ had spent about six months doing nothing else except getting to know staff when they had first arrived in MZ arrived eighteen months ago.
The bare facts were:
Mr. E____________ was the Principal of my school before being promoted to Cluster Director. I was his successor.
He was worried about the school and PENTA
I was worried about him.
I wasn’t eating much of my lunch. He was eating like a horse.
I could feel the panic rise. I made a decision.
“Well. I think I should go back to MZ and prepare some stuff for PENTA tomorrow.” I lied.
“Yes , I think that is a good idea.” It also meant I would miss Mr. E______’s afternoon presentation in Abu Dhabi which suited me just fine.
I got a taxi and went back to MZ quicksharp. My mind was racing the whole time.
When I got back I visited M_______ in his pigeon loft across he road. I had never been in it before.
He was opening up. The PENTA visit had gone well. We went through some stuff.
I told him Mr; E-____ was up my ass about PENTA
“I feel like going to the airport”
“I’ll take you” –he joked-half seriously.
I left him and crossed back to my own pigeon loft and started to pack.
It was four O’clock. I had time to get a taxi to Abu Dhabi and fly to Australia that evening.
I called the CEO
“Look, it seems Mr. E______ is not satisfied with the way I’m doing things?”
“I think he just wants you to produce a weekly plan of what you are doing.”
The ‘M’ word had finally reared it’s ugly head. ‘Micromanagement’.
I started packing.
“Calm down” I said to myself.
I had three Amstel beers.
But the panic was still there.
I got on my orange bicycle and headed for the taxi rank in town.
“You go Abu Dhabi airport now how much?’
“400 dirham”
“OK.”
We drove to my house and I finished the packing I had started earlier in the afternoon.
I never saw my orange bicycle again.
It was left at the taxi stand.
My legs were hurting again with the phlebitis.
But I didn’t care. I was going home to Adelaide.
I was relieved .
I think.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Abu Dhabi (3) 2009 Madinat Zayed (2)
Part 3
So, the next day I did exactly the opposite of what I resolved and waded through the files.
What a load of crap!
This was the business model gone stark, staring, crazy in an educational setting.
It was full of corporate Orwellian new millenium f**kspeak” (C.O.N.M. F.K.) for short). Riddled with words and phrases such as ‘benchmarks’, 'performance indicators’ and, ‘measurable targets’
( ‘Marks?” maybe, but I thought benches had been thrown out of schools in the early twentieth century.)
‘Outcomes’ and ‘Skills”. All this CONMF is designed to persuade the unsuspecting reader that the author knows what he is talking about when quite clearly he does not. We simply cannot know the unknowable by measuring the unmeasurable and designing the undesignable : “Instruments”, “Tools” and “Levers.” with which to “impact” outcomes. No matter how hard we try we cannot practically quantify or measure these things. I am prepared to concede that CONMF may be relevant in in an engineering context, or in sex therapy sessions. Both are indeed concerned with short term concrete, tangible products such as making spanners or orgasms-but not in an educational setting PLEASE!
In the educational world we are concerned with noble, abstract, long–term, undefinable and unmeasurable entities such as ‘critical thinking’, ‘problem solving’ and ‘values’. I say these are ‘entities’-not skills. A ‘skill’, like welding or masturbation is something that can be taught by demonstration and repetition. A beetle could learn to weld if it had the correct genitalia. I am mixing my metaphors but critical thinking and problem solving are clearly not ‘skills’;. If so, I would have solved all the world’s problems by the time I was fifteen.
By the end of the first day I was ready to throw up. The sheer arrogance of the claims of “the provider’ ( CFBT-the company I worked for) was staggering. They claimed that within eighteen months of starting the “New Curriculum” Arab Egyptian, Syrian , Palestinnian teachers in High schools who knew virtually little or no English would be teaching fifty percent of their classes through English!!
It was brilliant! In the U.S. this would be like asking an English–speaking American teacher to TEACH English speaking kids (with no Spanish) math and science THROUGH SPANISH after the teacher had taken eighteen months of learning Spanish say two times a week.
One good thing seemed to happen on that day. Ali , a quite charming accomodation officer from Sudan phoned me to say that there had been no progress on the accommodation front.
“Oh!” I said, hiding my disappointment, “Thanks for telling me that anyway. Where are you?”
“I’m in MZ,” he said
“In MZ!” I said , astonished.
“Yes, I am getting ID cards for CfBT company drivers”
I thought to myself “No wonder there has been ‘no progress’ on the accomodation front”
Seizing the opportunity I said “I come meet you now?”
I insisted. I was going to brook no resistance.
An hour later Ali had told me he had a ‘Villa” available and that I could have it if I liked it.
I didn’t realise it at the time but it was actually a pigeon loft. Close inspection of the windowsills, balconies and doorsteps would reveal vast quantities of eggs and pigeon dung.
Otherwise, it was very nice. It was a huge, recently renovated, empty villa with nothing in it except the pigeons –not so much as a stove..
I looked at it and made yet another brilliant decision: I decided . “Yes, this is better than upsetting Mr Ed by overstaying in his home as an unwanted guest.”
“This good one, I taking” I mouthed enthusiastically to Ali.
The deal was done.
Why Ali had never mentioned this villa to me in the phone call earlier in the morning is a mystery which may remain unsolved forever.
Anyway, I was later to be told directly by many in MZ, that I had been allocated the pigeon loft ‘out of turn’ –as it had been promised to a kiwi teacher (Jo), who was in fact in New Zealand for the holiday. (which is of course precisely the reason she was not allocated it). In a third world context if you are out of sight –you are often out of mind. I was also told that Stevie ‘wonderboy’ from ‘ull’ or some such place north of the Watford Gap , Ali’s boss, was furious when he came back form his holiday and heard that I had been allocated it!
Later on I would apologise to Jo and offered her the house. She declined and blamed wonderboy-not me.
I was also told that on my arrival, nobody had volunteered to share with me when Mr. Ed suggested it in an e-mail. He was thus obliged to put me up himself.
What a burden that must have been for Mr. Ed. I was beginning to get the vibes.
Anyway, this was all in the future. For the moment I was happy. I had an enormous, partially renovated, entirely empty, villa. I didn’t realise at the time but it was actually a pigeon loft.
I do remember Ali briefly pointing out the five centimeter layer of Pigeon guana on the windowsills with a dismissive wave of the hand.
‘This problem everywhere MZ’ he said nonchalantly.
As Ali was undeniably a knowledgeable person in this area (Pigeon droppings) and I was a newbie, who was I to challenge him?
It turned out that the other teachers in the street had ordered netting from the US to cover the entire house to stop the bloody pigeons from laying their eggs and Guarana on the windowsills.
They were like something out of a Hitchcock movie.
I netted the house with a green netting until it looked like a British Army outpost in Northern Ireland –or a fortress on the Gaza frontier.
They kept coming back to the sills. Teachers killed the pigeons with sticks and compared ‘kill counts’ at work in the mornings.
Anyway, first things first, I had other things on my mind. I determined to delay my battle with the pigeons , rather than exterminate them.
A couple of days later I went up to Abu Dhabi, bought a bicycle, and did the IKEA thing. Something I had never before done in my life. I purchased everything from knives and forks to beds and fridges. The whole deal.
I felt sweaty and nervous afterwards. I had never spent as much money in one day in my life.
But I was determined to make the pigeon loft comfortable and get out of Mr.Ed’s way –and his house - and then get on with my job.
Back in MZ , pigeons aside, life was quiet –to put it mildly. Everyone had in fact vanished!
I pedalled up and down the mainstreet of MZ on my orange bicycle looking for people or something to do.
There was one supermarket and three tiny street restaurants. The rest appeared to be mobile phone shops, hairdressers, grocery shops, or mosques.
There were Mosques everywhere-wired up with loudspeakers to make sure you got up and prayed five times a day-even at 5.30 in the morning.
No women on the streets until dusk-then they appeared like wraiths black and masked from head to toe, following their ‘Masters’ apparently docile. But their gait was not without menace.
I walked the one main street, with my bicycle, and entered each little hardware shop or Barbers shop and introduced myself personally.
‘Nice to meet you .I coming live MZ long time” I would say shaking their hands.
In the next two months no-one subsequently ever showed any sign of remembering me.
Eamon and I saw each other from time to time but he felt guilty (as indeed he should have) about having manoeuvered me out of the apartment into Mr Ed’s place–and ultimately the pigeon loft. This was all so he could pocket his housing allowance. So I think he was avoiding me a bit. But this was hard to do as we were the only two westerners in MZ for those two weeks.
In Adelaide, Maria says of some friends....
‘Its ok for them they have roots here –they have a life’.
Meaning of course that she doesn’t have a life.
And she’s right.
She sounds resentful. Wouldn’t you be? Was it not having a home or was it the unhappy teenagers-or was it just me? Probably all three.
She certainly blames me. In a way she is right, I am to blame. I’ve lead her a merry dance all these years and she has followed me loyally and what has she got in return?
The teenagers are depressed and take advantage of her: they won’t even wash their own dishes, let alone clean the house, cook or buy food. They just seem to sleep, eat, and get sick.
Whose fault is it? Well …I don’t really like to say –but it is at least partially hers aswell. Why?
She runs around cleaning up after them and feeding them until they’re ready either to sleep, crap or vomit.
When they ask for a lift she stops what she’s doing and takes them in the car to a place they could easily go to by bus –or bicycle.
So, she has created a rod for her own back and become exhausted.
But when I try to intervene to help her she takes their side!
That’s why I’m better off over here with my Taiwanese landlady, two Chinese girls, two Aussie lesbian cricket fanatics, and the two desexed dogs. There’s not much sex in our house but it’s still more fun than being in my own family house.
My Taiwanese landlady has a rota of domestic duties for us-and I’ve showed it to my wife so that she can see what can be done with a bit of Anglo-Celtic organization.
By the way , have you heard?
The following are the new rules for job interviews in the educational sector in South Australia:
The following words or phrases must no longer be used by an interviewer:
Should any of these words or phrases be used by an interviewer for a Government job, a buzzer sounds and the interviewee has three choices: He or she can decide to exit the interview and claim the job without any further questions, activate an electrical prod which he or she can place on any part the anatomy of the interviewer. Or, he or she can decide to tell the interviewer to go and stuff their job up their…a**es
An xxxx indicates there is no appropriate term in CONMFK, has become redundant in CONMFK or that there is no alternative acceptable form
I have put many CONMFK words and phrases with their acceptable forms in a table below for clarity.
Corporate Orwellian New Millenium F**kspeak (CONMFK) Alternative acceptable form
Goal aim
Target aim
Objective aim
Benchmark level
Performance indicator Test result /observation
evaluate measure
assess measure
lever change
impact change
driver cause
accountability responsibility
empower help
enhance improve
specifications details
Build capacity strengthen
Will have…… xxxxx
Will be able to… xxxxx
flexibile reasonable
What are your strengths and weaknesses? What are you good at?
xxxx What do you like doing?
What can you offer that others can’t Any special talents?
Why should we offer you this job Can I thank you for taking the time to make an application and coming to speak with us?
The Commissioner has deemed that the following phraseology or something similar is appropriate for terminating the interview.
“ If we are fortunate enough to receive an offer of your services, we hope we will be able to offer you here a stimulating and supportive professional environment where you will be given the autonomy to enjoy your work”
Signed,
Dr Don Nixon
CEO Educational Warcrimes and Truth Commissioner
Adelaide.
Fourth of April 2009
Employers and interviewers who continue to use CONMFK or do not admit to having done so in the past can not be granted amnesty by the Educational Truth Commissioner.
They will run the risk of being used as target practice by the Special Air Forces-or secretly rendered to the U.S. and placed in school yards so they can be randomly murdered by sad and lonely gunmen.
CONMFK started in the Thatcher years in the corporate business world of the UK. Reagan copied it in the U.S. . Howard finally brought it to Australia,
The cancerous CONMFK has spread like a melanoma form the business world into the educational world and even now the world of medical health. (Sorry, the ‘Health Industry”) Even politicians are infected now.
“I’d lack to see Barack Obama have some benchmarks for our strategy in Afghanistan” drawls the Republican Rotweiler on CNN.
Back in MZ, for my IKEA trip, I decided to take a punt and call the CEO in Abu Dhabi.
The CEO was a personable chap who had in fact been my boss in Brunei.
I liked him. In my nine years in Brunei we had had one or two brief encounters and overall I had come away with the impression that he was unusual in that he tried to be fair, gave considered responses to queries, and remained personable in a difficult environment where a lot of his employees were under stress.
CfBT Brunei had a very difficult job keeping the Ministry of Education happy as a client. I got the impression that CfBT were often asked to do the dirty work for the Ministry. Some expatriates positively enjoyed that role-in fact that is why some of them became expatriates. They loved the power and would have been nobody in Australia or UK.
But my CEO was not one of these people.
I admired the way he remained calm and considered in difficult circumstances and didn’t allow his code of personal and professional ethics to desert him as so many CEO’s do in such circumstances.
Not that I agreed with all his strategies at all. I didn’t . But the core of the man himself was sound.
His wife was a charming lady who had met my wife in Brunei on a transatlantic flight quite by chance and I think they both came away with a favourable impression of each other, although we never socialized with them in Brunei.
Let’s face it. I was bored and lonely in MZ. I was getting worried about my family: I was receiving alarming messages on my mobile from my wife in Adelaide.
Moreover, I was concerned about my own physical health. My bloody legs kept hurting with attacks of phlebitis every few days which although not debilitating were, nevertheless a cause for concern.
I needed to see a familiar face badly.
For the IKEA trip, I had no wheels and nowhere to stay in Abu Dhabi, so I called my CEO.
Maybe he would rather now that I hadn’t. I haven’t dared ask him.
‘Sure come and stay with us’ he said. Typical of him.
And I did, and they were most helpful and hospitable and understanding about my situation. I think if it hadn’t been for my CEO and his wife I would have gone back to Australia within a couple of weeks of my arrival.
Over the next few weeks I was to stay with them several times. They were very kind to me without having the slightest ulterior motive for doing so. That impressed me.
Back in MZ school started again and I started to get stuck in to the job.
M, my American predecessor began to open up a bit. I began to like him in spite of his abrasiveness.
Rid was still a pain in the ass and he had to be put in his place quite rightly by Mr.Ed after writing a couple of blunt letters to the accommodation office. But he was going to be manageable. I was confident I could reel him in slowly
The others on the team were all a pleasure to work with. N and Y from England, and R from South Africa. All had their beefs and moans about their employer but it never prevented them being professional and hardworking in my opinion.
I saw my job as building a relationship with the Principal (J) and slowly gaining his confidence. I also had to get to know my team. And, I had to get to know my local teachers.
Then there were the ringbinders full of files.
Unfortunately –none of this really got off the ground.
In the holidays, I was told of a new arrival for my team from Holland called Roe___. He had no experience overseas and I was worried he would be lonely on his arrival in MZ during the holidays. In fact Roe____ adapted easily, I needn’t have worried. He was happy to be in the Liwa hotel which was thirty minutes away form MZ. I had never been given this option as it was ‘full’.
It would greatly have assisted me if Mr. Ed (Do you keep thinking of a horse when you read his name? I do, and I don’t know why. Maybe it was the oblong face?) He had not taken the time to sit down with me and explain the basic structure of the progam and what the f**k we were doing. Instead of that he chose to throw me in at the deep end with a bunch of papers and sit back and watch me struggle so he could take my measure. It is the oldest trick in the book used by anyone who has power over someone else. I continued to tip-toe around his house walking on eggshells. My intuition told me not to upset him..
After the second week of the new school year facing another weekend in MZ on my bicycle eating at the same restaurants and hobbling around on my gammy legs I realised that I didn’t even know if I was covered by medical insurance –or if there was a reputable doctor in town!
Because I was Co- Principal of the school I had to maintain a certain distance from my own team. This was hard to do as they had their own pigeon lofts in the very same street. The other twenty expats all knew each other and didn’t visit me. I spent a lot of time looking for an excuse to visit them and establish relationships-but I inevitably felt I was imposing by ending up asking for a ride somewhere as I had no car. I even had to get to and from school with the help of colleagues. I could not stay on late after school because I had no ride home.
On Thursdsay afternoon at the end of week two I had a panic attack.
I looked at the four walls.
Roe____, the affable Dutchman, had just left in his hired car for the Liwa hotel.
I faced another weekend on my own.
The pigeons circled the house attempting to breach the netting . They flapped and wretched in the background. It sounded like they were trying to throw up but couldn’t.
“I don’t think I can do this anymore” Maria had messaged me.
What did that mean? What was she doing now?
I felt the panic rise and reached for the phone to my friend D C in Ireland.
“DC, This is MZ. I think we have a problem”
“O.K, Go ahead M.Z.”
“I don’t think I can do this anymore”
Oh…No?
“No” I said.
A long pause…..
I explained.
‘Well, you can’t continue to do what you are doing if you are so unhappy.”
Later he called back to suggest I go to Ireland for a while until I decided what to do.
I picked up my phone to my CEO and Mr. Ed to explain that my mother in Ireland was ill and I was requesting leave to go back to Ireland to visit her.
The next day, I went to Abu Dhabi and stayed with the CEO.
That night I flew from Abu Dhabi to London.
It was the probably the end of the beginning, and definitely the beginning of the end.
So, the next day I did exactly the opposite of what I resolved and waded through the files.
What a load of crap!
This was the business model gone stark, staring, crazy in an educational setting.
It was full of corporate Orwellian new millenium f**kspeak” (C.O.N.M. F.K.) for short). Riddled with words and phrases such as ‘benchmarks’, 'performance indicators’ and, ‘measurable targets’
( ‘Marks?” maybe, but I thought benches had been thrown out of schools in the early twentieth century.)
‘Outcomes’ and ‘Skills”. All this CONMF is designed to persuade the unsuspecting reader that the author knows what he is talking about when quite clearly he does not. We simply cannot know the unknowable by measuring the unmeasurable and designing the undesignable : “Instruments”, “Tools” and “Levers.” with which to “impact” outcomes. No matter how hard we try we cannot practically quantify or measure these things. I am prepared to concede that CONMF may be relevant in in an engineering context, or in sex therapy sessions. Both are indeed concerned with short term concrete, tangible products such as making spanners or orgasms-but not in an educational setting PLEASE!
In the educational world we are concerned with noble, abstract, long–term, undefinable and unmeasurable entities such as ‘critical thinking’, ‘problem solving’ and ‘values’. I say these are ‘entities’-not skills. A ‘skill’, like welding or masturbation is something that can be taught by demonstration and repetition. A beetle could learn to weld if it had the correct genitalia. I am mixing my metaphors but critical thinking and problem solving are clearly not ‘skills’;. If so, I would have solved all the world’s problems by the time I was fifteen.
By the end of the first day I was ready to throw up. The sheer arrogance of the claims of “the provider’ ( CFBT-the company I worked for) was staggering. They claimed that within eighteen months of starting the “New Curriculum” Arab Egyptian, Syrian , Palestinnian teachers in High schools who knew virtually little or no English would be teaching fifty percent of their classes through English!!
It was brilliant! In the U.S. this would be like asking an English–speaking American teacher to TEACH English speaking kids (with no Spanish) math and science THROUGH SPANISH after the teacher had taken eighteen months of learning Spanish say two times a week.
One good thing seemed to happen on that day. Ali , a quite charming accomodation officer from Sudan phoned me to say that there had been no progress on the accommodation front.
“Oh!” I said, hiding my disappointment, “Thanks for telling me that anyway. Where are you?”
“I’m in MZ,” he said
“In MZ!” I said , astonished.
“Yes, I am getting ID cards for CfBT company drivers”
I thought to myself “No wonder there has been ‘no progress’ on the accomodation front”
Seizing the opportunity I said “I come meet you now?”
I insisted. I was going to brook no resistance.
An hour later Ali had told me he had a ‘Villa” available and that I could have it if I liked it.
I didn’t realise it at the time but it was actually a pigeon loft. Close inspection of the windowsills, balconies and doorsteps would reveal vast quantities of eggs and pigeon dung.
Otherwise, it was very nice. It was a huge, recently renovated, empty villa with nothing in it except the pigeons –not so much as a stove..
I looked at it and made yet another brilliant decision: I decided . “Yes, this is better than upsetting Mr Ed by overstaying in his home as an unwanted guest.”
“This good one, I taking” I mouthed enthusiastically to Ali.
The deal was done.
Why Ali had never mentioned this villa to me in the phone call earlier in the morning is a mystery which may remain unsolved forever.
Anyway, I was later to be told directly by many in MZ, that I had been allocated the pigeon loft ‘out of turn’ –as it had been promised to a kiwi teacher (Jo), who was in fact in New Zealand for the holiday. (which is of course precisely the reason she was not allocated it). In a third world context if you are out of sight –you are often out of mind. I was also told that Stevie ‘wonderboy’ from ‘ull’ or some such place north of the Watford Gap , Ali’s boss, was furious when he came back form his holiday and heard that I had been allocated it!
Later on I would apologise to Jo and offered her the house. She declined and blamed wonderboy-not me.
I was also told that on my arrival, nobody had volunteered to share with me when Mr. Ed suggested it in an e-mail. He was thus obliged to put me up himself.
What a burden that must have been for Mr. Ed. I was beginning to get the vibes.
Anyway, this was all in the future. For the moment I was happy. I had an enormous, partially renovated, entirely empty, villa. I didn’t realise at the time but it was actually a pigeon loft.
I do remember Ali briefly pointing out the five centimeter layer of Pigeon guana on the windowsills with a dismissive wave of the hand.
‘This problem everywhere MZ’ he said nonchalantly.
As Ali was undeniably a knowledgeable person in this area (Pigeon droppings) and I was a newbie, who was I to challenge him?
It turned out that the other teachers in the street had ordered netting from the US to cover the entire house to stop the bloody pigeons from laying their eggs and Guarana on the windowsills.
They were like something out of a Hitchcock movie.
I netted the house with a green netting until it looked like a British Army outpost in Northern Ireland –or a fortress on the Gaza frontier.
They kept coming back to the sills. Teachers killed the pigeons with sticks and compared ‘kill counts’ at work in the mornings.
Anyway, first things first, I had other things on my mind. I determined to delay my battle with the pigeons , rather than exterminate them.
A couple of days later I went up to Abu Dhabi, bought a bicycle, and did the IKEA thing. Something I had never before done in my life. I purchased everything from knives and forks to beds and fridges. The whole deal.
I felt sweaty and nervous afterwards. I had never spent as much money in one day in my life.
But I was determined to make the pigeon loft comfortable and get out of Mr.Ed’s way –and his house - and then get on with my job.
Back in MZ , pigeons aside, life was quiet –to put it mildly. Everyone had in fact vanished!
I pedalled up and down the mainstreet of MZ on my orange bicycle looking for people or something to do.
There was one supermarket and three tiny street restaurants. The rest appeared to be mobile phone shops, hairdressers, grocery shops, or mosques.
There were Mosques everywhere-wired up with loudspeakers to make sure you got up and prayed five times a day-even at 5.30 in the morning.
No women on the streets until dusk-then they appeared like wraiths black and masked from head to toe, following their ‘Masters’ apparently docile. But their gait was not without menace.
I walked the one main street, with my bicycle, and entered each little hardware shop or Barbers shop and introduced myself personally.
‘Nice to meet you .I coming live MZ long time” I would say shaking their hands.
In the next two months no-one subsequently ever showed any sign of remembering me.
Eamon and I saw each other from time to time but he felt guilty (as indeed he should have) about having manoeuvered me out of the apartment into Mr Ed’s place–and ultimately the pigeon loft. This was all so he could pocket his housing allowance. So I think he was avoiding me a bit. But this was hard to do as we were the only two westerners in MZ for those two weeks.
In Adelaide, Maria says of some friends....
‘Its ok for them they have roots here –they have a life’.
Meaning of course that she doesn’t have a life.
And she’s right.
She sounds resentful. Wouldn’t you be? Was it not having a home or was it the unhappy teenagers-or was it just me? Probably all three.
She certainly blames me. In a way she is right, I am to blame. I’ve lead her a merry dance all these years and she has followed me loyally and what has she got in return?
The teenagers are depressed and take advantage of her: they won’t even wash their own dishes, let alone clean the house, cook or buy food. They just seem to sleep, eat, and get sick.
Whose fault is it? Well …I don’t really like to say –but it is at least partially hers aswell. Why?
She runs around cleaning up after them and feeding them until they’re ready either to sleep, crap or vomit.
When they ask for a lift she stops what she’s doing and takes them in the car to a place they could easily go to by bus –or bicycle.
So, she has created a rod for her own back and become exhausted.
But when I try to intervene to help her she takes their side!
That’s why I’m better off over here with my Taiwanese landlady, two Chinese girls, two Aussie lesbian cricket fanatics, and the two desexed dogs. There’s not much sex in our house but it’s still more fun than being in my own family house.
My Taiwanese landlady has a rota of domestic duties for us-and I’ve showed it to my wife so that she can see what can be done with a bit of Anglo-Celtic organization.
By the way , have you heard?
The following are the new rules for job interviews in the educational sector in South Australia:
The following words or phrases must no longer be used by an interviewer:
Should any of these words or phrases be used by an interviewer for a Government job, a buzzer sounds and the interviewee has three choices: He or she can decide to exit the interview and claim the job without any further questions, activate an electrical prod which he or she can place on any part the anatomy of the interviewer. Or, he or she can decide to tell the interviewer to go and stuff their job up their…a**es
An xxxx indicates there is no appropriate term in CONMFK, has become redundant in CONMFK or that there is no alternative acceptable form
I have put many CONMFK words and phrases with their acceptable forms in a table below for clarity.
Corporate Orwellian New Millenium F**kspeak (CONMFK) Alternative acceptable form
Goal aim
Target aim
Objective aim
Benchmark level
Performance indicator Test result /observation
evaluate measure
assess measure
lever change
impact change
driver cause
accountability responsibility
empower help
enhance improve
specifications details
Build capacity strengthen
Will have…… xxxxx
Will be able to… xxxxx
flexibile reasonable
What are your strengths and weaknesses? What are you good at?
xxxx What do you like doing?
What can you offer that others can’t Any special talents?
Why should we offer you this job Can I thank you for taking the time to make an application and coming to speak with us?
The Commissioner has deemed that the following phraseology or something similar is appropriate for terminating the interview.
“ If we are fortunate enough to receive an offer of your services, we hope we will be able to offer you here a stimulating and supportive professional environment where you will be given the autonomy to enjoy your work”
Signed,
Dr Don Nixon
CEO Educational Warcrimes and Truth Commissioner
Adelaide.
Fourth of April 2009
Employers and interviewers who continue to use CONMFK or do not admit to having done so in the past can not be granted amnesty by the Educational Truth Commissioner.
They will run the risk of being used as target practice by the Special Air Forces-or secretly rendered to the U.S. and placed in school yards so they can be randomly murdered by sad and lonely gunmen.
CONMFK started in the Thatcher years in the corporate business world of the UK. Reagan copied it in the U.S. . Howard finally brought it to Australia,
The cancerous CONMFK has spread like a melanoma form the business world into the educational world and even now the world of medical health. (Sorry, the ‘Health Industry”) Even politicians are infected now.
“I’d lack to see Barack Obama have some benchmarks for our strategy in Afghanistan” drawls the Republican Rotweiler on CNN.
Back in MZ, for my IKEA trip, I decided to take a punt and call the CEO in Abu Dhabi.
The CEO was a personable chap who had in fact been my boss in Brunei.
I liked him. In my nine years in Brunei we had had one or two brief encounters and overall I had come away with the impression that he was unusual in that he tried to be fair, gave considered responses to queries, and remained personable in a difficult environment where a lot of his employees were under stress.
CfBT Brunei had a very difficult job keeping the Ministry of Education happy as a client. I got the impression that CfBT were often asked to do the dirty work for the Ministry. Some expatriates positively enjoyed that role-in fact that is why some of them became expatriates. They loved the power and would have been nobody in Australia or UK.
But my CEO was not one of these people.
I admired the way he remained calm and considered in difficult circumstances and didn’t allow his code of personal and professional ethics to desert him as so many CEO’s do in such circumstances.
Not that I agreed with all his strategies at all. I didn’t . But the core of the man himself was sound.
His wife was a charming lady who had met my wife in Brunei on a transatlantic flight quite by chance and I think they both came away with a favourable impression of each other, although we never socialized with them in Brunei.
Let’s face it. I was bored and lonely in MZ. I was getting worried about my family: I was receiving alarming messages on my mobile from my wife in Adelaide.
Moreover, I was concerned about my own physical health. My bloody legs kept hurting with attacks of phlebitis every few days which although not debilitating were, nevertheless a cause for concern.
I needed to see a familiar face badly.
For the IKEA trip, I had no wheels and nowhere to stay in Abu Dhabi, so I called my CEO.
Maybe he would rather now that I hadn’t. I haven’t dared ask him.
‘Sure come and stay with us’ he said. Typical of him.
And I did, and they were most helpful and hospitable and understanding about my situation. I think if it hadn’t been for my CEO and his wife I would have gone back to Australia within a couple of weeks of my arrival.
Over the next few weeks I was to stay with them several times. They were very kind to me without having the slightest ulterior motive for doing so. That impressed me.
Back in MZ school started again and I started to get stuck in to the job.
M, my American predecessor began to open up a bit. I began to like him in spite of his abrasiveness.
Rid was still a pain in the ass and he had to be put in his place quite rightly by Mr.Ed after writing a couple of blunt letters to the accommodation office. But he was going to be manageable. I was confident I could reel him in slowly
The others on the team were all a pleasure to work with. N and Y from England, and R from South Africa. All had their beefs and moans about their employer but it never prevented them being professional and hardworking in my opinion.
I saw my job as building a relationship with the Principal (J) and slowly gaining his confidence. I also had to get to know my team. And, I had to get to know my local teachers.
Then there were the ringbinders full of files.
Unfortunately –none of this really got off the ground.
In the holidays, I was told of a new arrival for my team from Holland called Roe___. He had no experience overseas and I was worried he would be lonely on his arrival in MZ during the holidays. In fact Roe____ adapted easily, I needn’t have worried. He was happy to be in the Liwa hotel which was thirty minutes away form MZ. I had never been given this option as it was ‘full’.
It would greatly have assisted me if Mr. Ed (Do you keep thinking of a horse when you read his name? I do, and I don’t know why. Maybe it was the oblong face?) He had not taken the time to sit down with me and explain the basic structure of the progam and what the f**k we were doing. Instead of that he chose to throw me in at the deep end with a bunch of papers and sit back and watch me struggle so he could take my measure. It is the oldest trick in the book used by anyone who has power over someone else. I continued to tip-toe around his house walking on eggshells. My intuition told me not to upset him..
After the second week of the new school year facing another weekend in MZ on my bicycle eating at the same restaurants and hobbling around on my gammy legs I realised that I didn’t even know if I was covered by medical insurance –or if there was a reputable doctor in town!
Because I was Co- Principal of the school I had to maintain a certain distance from my own team. This was hard to do as they had their own pigeon lofts in the very same street. The other twenty expats all knew each other and didn’t visit me. I spent a lot of time looking for an excuse to visit them and establish relationships-but I inevitably felt I was imposing by ending up asking for a ride somewhere as I had no car. I even had to get to and from school with the help of colleagues. I could not stay on late after school because I had no ride home.
On Thursdsay afternoon at the end of week two I had a panic attack.
I looked at the four walls.
Roe____, the affable Dutchman, had just left in his hired car for the Liwa hotel.
I faced another weekend on my own.
The pigeons circled the house attempting to breach the netting . They flapped and wretched in the background. It sounded like they were trying to throw up but couldn’t.
“I don’t think I can do this anymore” Maria had messaged me.
What did that mean? What was she doing now?
I felt the panic rise and reached for the phone to my friend D C in Ireland.
“DC, This is MZ. I think we have a problem”
“O.K, Go ahead M.Z.”
“I don’t think I can do this anymore”
Oh…No?
“No” I said.
A long pause…..
I explained.
‘Well, you can’t continue to do what you are doing if you are so unhappy.”
Later he called back to suggest I go to Ireland for a while until I decided what to do.
I picked up my phone to my CEO and Mr. Ed to explain that my mother in Ireland was ill and I was requesting leave to go back to Ireland to visit her.
The next day, I went to Abu Dhabi and stayed with the CEO.
That night I flew from Abu Dhabi to London.
It was the probably the end of the beginning, and definitely the beginning of the end.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Doctoral degrees and Australia
It is harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for an Australian to give anyone credit for doing a PHD.
This must say something either about Australians or PHDs.
Possibly both.
Why do they hate them so much?
We must not speak about them.
Most people have no idea what is involved in doing one of these things
Even when you like doing it as I did when I did mine.
Is the latest renovation to our bloody house more important?
or the footy results?
This must say something either about Australians or PHDs.
Possibly both.
Why do they hate them so much?
We must not speak about them.
Most people have no idea what is involved in doing one of these things
Even when you like doing it as I did when I did mine.
Is the latest renovation to our bloody house more important?
or the footy results?
Friday, October 23, 2009
The Abu Dhabi experience (2): Madinat Zayed (1)
Madinat Zayed
Continued.....
I am still in Abu Dhabi-but not for long.
The next day, I waited at the reception of my hotel for the promised taxi to arrive at noon.
My intuition told me that the taxi wouldn’t arrive at all –let alone on time.
I was right.
At 12.30 I called S.
Is the driver on the way S?
‘Uhhh.’. ...silence …
“Get back to yuh in two minutes, D___”
Ten minutes later…
‘Ullo D___ –driver will be with you in alf an hower!’
“No worries S___" I said with a lame attempt at an Aussie accent.
I was trying to sound obliging and laid back like an Aussie. It really is an effort for me to do this. More to the point- why was I doing this? Maybe it was something subconscious -to do with the fact that S was so obviously a bloody useless Pom? And I just didn’t want him to think I was Irish.
The driver arrived. He was a pleasant Philipino but a useless conversationalist. He knew nothing about cricket.
All the cars in the UAE have a continuous bleeping sound which can not be turned off when you exceed the speed limit. The result is stressful to someone unaccustomed to it. It sounds like your mobile phone continually bleeping. Doesn’t seem to bother anybody else- but it bothered me.
We travelled out of Abu Dhabi through an Orwellian landscape of desolation.. It was like a construction site that had been hit with a nuclear bomb and then recolonised by cockroaches and metal giants, humans and electric pylons respectively). It wasn’t clear who the slaves were and who were the masters in this surreal scenario from a novel of H.G. Wells.
It was grotesque.
I was taking all this in when I got a text message form my line manager “Mr. E” in Madinat Zayed, who had been pretty quiet up until now.
I could tell he was a plummy pommy from north London or Essex, or some such place south of the Watford Gap, anyway.
‘ETA Don?’
‘Bout four pm, E’ quickly switching to my international accent. I didn’t want to sound like an Aussie or an Irishman to Mr. E.
And then, in jest.
“I hope R___ and Ea. (my two colleagues in MZ) know I’m coming.....-heh!..heh!" I said nervously!”
Reply on SMS from Mr. E.
‘They do now’
I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this. Was this Mr. E’s sense of humor? Could Ea and R___, mature gentlemen and professional educational consultants like myself, really not be aware of my impending arrival?
I had one or two pretty uncharitable thoughts about S-but banished them. I determined to be positive- think like an Aussie even if I spoke like an international nerd.
I reassured myself with ‘It must be Mr. E’s sense of humor’.
I began to relax and enjoy the passing pylons, concrete mixers and cement lorries. It seemed to somewhow match the beeping in the car.
My Philipino driver seemed oblivious.
I was wrong about one thing right from the start. Mr. E turned out not to have a sense of humor at all.
As we approached MZ the desolate landscape began to change for the better. Slowly, but surely, dunes began to appear. By the time we reached MZ it was the true Arabian desert with dunes all round. I was relieved and my spirits lifted.
We drew up beside a three storey block of flats –quite conspicuous looking-because there was absolutely nothing else around it –just sand.
As I got out of the car I was approached by an elderly white male with a brown cowboy hat, a sauntering gait and a limp-wristed handshake. He seemed to have a permanent superficial grin with a supercilious look. He didn’t have to open his mouth. It was obviously an Aussie.
It was R___.
‘You must be D’ he grinned.
‘Yeah G'day mate! I said enthusiastically taking his hand, pleased to meet you.’ In words and body language, I was using both Aussie and Pommy persona for R__ –to keep him guessing until I had got his measure.
Now R___ I didn’t know - but I knew of him. He had been in Brunei and we had had a mutual friend in Brunei who had told me a fair bit about him. Not all of it was positive so I was determined to be cautious and get on his right side as I knew I was going to be the bugger’s boss.
Later events proved me absolutely right to be cautious.
R___ was an asshole.
I don’t really understand why Johnson doesn’t get more wickets against the South Africans. There is something about his action that isn’t right. It’s too round arm.
Why do I keep looking up to Johnson? He’s half my age. A few years ago he would have been abusing me in the classroom. And I look up to him? He’s the same age as my son. Who said human behavior was rational?
My second son, (only four years younger than Johnson) told me yesterday that I shouldn’t be seeking reality all the time. He accused me of being like my eldest son (who is the same age as Johnson).
‘No–its not reality –its sincerity I look for” –I protested happily as we happened to be sharing a glass of Coopers Sparkling Ale.
‘And, since you know it all (I thought to myself) why are Aussies so reserved and closed. Why don’t they talk? Why are they so bloody suspicious’ I say to him.
My son says “You just have to accept that they are closed and then they will become friends”
What had he been reading then? He is such a talented young man –and wasted on some of the mirthless morons around him at the University.
Talk? Aussies?....No
but bullshit? For sure!.
Australia is grite mite –yeah.! You’ll get a job in any school - any Government school!
“Sure mate, and why is that then? Because nobody else will to teach the cheeky bastards of course
The outskirts of Abu Dhabi were a mirthless, Orwellian wasteland inhabited by drones who have no time to interact because they are ‘busy’- just like Adelaide.
Not much difference really. Just more sand in the former.
I only feel good when I am cycling, writing, or watching cricket.
Nobody wants to read what I write and I have nowhere to cycle either-but I do both because they give me pleasure and I’m not trying to please anybody else. Writing, in particular, has become a compulsion –an addiction –like everything else in my life.
Actually I do have an audience of about six people. I’m not very demanding but I wouldn’t mind an Oscar or standing ovation from time to time,
If no-one else will talk to me then I’ll talk to myself - by writing.
Why is everybody so damn busy?
What are they doing? Nobody has time to talk to each other – what’s wrong with them? Is anything more important than talking?
It’s a western disease-this ‘busyness’ inability to make time to speak and communicate.
It is a monstrous cancer which metastasized in the sixties in the “West” and has spread into the other continents now. It is now out of control.
Our culture is dying: look at our addictions. We have created a soulless, alienated world which, naturally, we are obsessed with distracting ourselves from. With TV, internet, alcohol, sex, drugs or most commonly - work. I don’t mean just work –I mean ‘busyness’anything will do-as long as it distracts us from ourselves and the nightmare around us..
Nobody reads anything, talks to each other …no time.
Everything is drudgery and meaningless. Bits of paper here for this and that.
‘I need you to fill in this form please’
“Excuse me are you asking me? Or you are commanding me to do it?
There is a big difference. One is polite and the other is rude,
Do you mind showing me your bag please?
Can I ask to you for some ID please?
Have you got your mobile number please?
“I need you to provide evidence that you intend to live permanently in Australia”
She said “I need you to convince me that you are going to stay in Australia”
When did you migrate to Australia, bitch?
“I give up! I can’t remember. “Up yours! Who cares? When did you fucking migrate to Australia?”
Flashing lights…
“Pull over sir!” Can you tell me why you’re not wearing your helmet sir? Says the blue eyed Adonis.
Oh sorry, you see, I’ve just come back form Abu Dhabi and I’m not very familiar with… I’m fifty-six you fuckwit!
Got any identification?
Fumble, fumble, a passport and a couple of hundred tumbles out of my breast pocket.
Can you tell me sir says the blueheeler, femnazi, sidekick why you have so much cash on you?
“Yes, I brought it with me from Abu Dhabi so that Centrelink can’t trace it to my account and won’t know about it and then deny me my claim for unemployment benefit you fuckwit!
I thought. Hasn’t this femnazi or her assanine colleague ever lived in the desert? They are surrounded by one.”
I had an instant vision of her eating a burger with tomato sauce drooling down her chin-Yuck!
What sort of mentality names a desert after a member of the British Royal family? The ‘Simpson’ desert-Jesus Christ!
To be fair, maybe ‘Simpson’ was the former captain of the Aussie cricket team. It would make more sense.
It must have been obvious that I was a little merry because I’d had some Coopers.
“Sir, I’m just gawiin to geev ya a wawnin sir!”
Oh! Good onya matey! Says I, a little too merrily
‘Yew mobile number? Sir, ‘oil ave to ask you to woke yaw baicycle home cause you’ve nao ‘elmet”
“Oh no worries matey! Good onya! No worries…”
So I pedal off feeling bad about initially thinking such uncharitable thoughts about the Adonis and his sidekick. Just blueheelers doing their job.
Can I join the DVD club?
Drivers license mate?
‘Sorry just got a bicycle’ will a bankcard do?
‘Sorry mite need photo ID.’
Out on to the road again –it’s like the Grand prix-whizz! Wang! Rubber on tarmac. The cars swish past with murderous disregard for anyone near them. One false move and I’m history.
Queues here, there and everywhere- for everything. Why don’t they pay people in the service industry so we don’t have to queue for everything? From one shop to the next its one queue to the next.
For a cyclist, the speed of the traffic and the shouts of abuse are alarming.
‘OK buddy whasup? Roars one irate driver at another stepping out of his car ’
What’s wrong with these people? They have freedom, wealth? Why do they shout at each other?
Why do they shout at me out of the windows of their cars?
‘Bloody idiot!’
What are they shouting about? There must be something wrong with them.
Maybe there’s something wrong with me.
Why do they play poker on a Sunday night in the Glynde hotel? They must be bored out of their tiny minds. Their lives are empty.
Why do they look so serious when they play poker? Is this how they get their rush – is Poker their cricket and their coopers sparking ale?
But Africans have nothing and they don’t shout at each other on the street because of some minor irritation. They don’t do road rage.
And yet all the young Aussies in the Adelaide service industry are so polite and positive.
‘G’day, how are you goin’ today? Says the shop assistant-or the receptionist. What can I do for you today?
Will that be all today sir?
I feel obliged to be polite back to them
Eh, can I have a bag?
‘Yep? Too easy!’
‘Anything else I can do for you today?’
How can these young people be so positive in such an Orwellian nightmare?
What are they on?
What am I on?
Should I be on what they’re on?
Should I be on something else?
I want to be on what they’re on.
They must have been to some politeness training school. The young people don’t grunt at the customer like they used to when I was young.
Yes, in Madinat zayed R___ is the classic Aussie bullshitter:
“Oh, he says in a mocking, disrespectful voice”
“So you are my new boss –poor you....poor, poor you.”
‘Oh fuck–what an asshole’ I think to myself.
I have to write or I will die. I have to keep writing. Even if no-one reads it I don’t care. I have to keep writing or I will die. Only the six matter.(the audience)
Why are people surprised at schoolyard killings? I’m surprised there aren’t more of them.
People are lonely. That’s why they kill.
Simple as that. No need for doctoral theses.
People don’t send me E-mails or messages. What is wrong with me?
Don’t they think about me like I think about them?
My friends are scattered around the world?
One in Ireland, one in Turkey, two in Brunei, one in the UAE, one in England, one in the next suburb. That’s about it really.
Non-communication is the default position for all human beings-teenagers especially.
Ned Kelly was right..
‘Such is life’
R___ leads me into his/our apartment.
The apartment is large and spacious. Three bedrooms.
The lounge appears empty-no curtains, coffee tables, side tables, lamps, lampshades, carpets, mats.
Nothing.
There was nothing except two lounge beds which could be flattened out and used as beds but could not be used to sit on –because the flat area was too wide.
Both of them were parallel to each other and to the walls. When I entered E was sitting on one of them facing me, his back unsupported...
R sat down on the other beside me and looked stupidly at me waiting for me to say something.
‘Well...is this it? I said
Silence…yeah, said Ea with a slightly sheepish look.
They took me into the kitchen–a stove with no gas. There was a fridge. Basic crockery.
We had an amiable chat in which I recounted the amusing story of how I’d been nearly knocked out at HQ in Abu Dhabi twice within ten minutes of my arrival.
I searched their faces for a response -humour, something positive, hope-anything to reassure me that this was not ‘it’.
‘Would yuh loike a cup o’ tea? Said Ea-deciding I was worth persevering with for the moment. (Ea was pure Irish-not a half-breed like myself)
‘Sure thanks!’
Mat and W arrived.
“Goin fur a wawk then –oop the town?” Said M_________
“R u cumin D___?” He was from Liverpool.
W was more refined-obviously from the south of England.
“Yeah great!” I said.
Things were looking up. People were talking to me and inviting me to do things with them.
Off we went walking up the town.
I was on a high. We walked for two miles and then sat down and they smoked one of those ridiculous Arab pipes through which the smoke bubbles...
I felt old. Like I was about fifty-six.
I am fifty six.
But people were talking to me. This was good.
Back to meet Mr. E in his villa.
Ea and M___ came with me.
Ea wanted something. After a while he said –is it ok if you stay with Mr. E (my boss) for a few days?
‘Sure’, I said
After a few days it will be school holidays and you will have Mr. E’s house to yourself.
Mr. E agreed smoothly
“As long as you don’t mind moving in with E when I come back from the holiday.” Mr. E said.
No, of course not, I said, relieved not to have to sleep in a tent for the foreseeable future.
What else could I say?
Later I was to realize that Ea wanted the apartment for himself. It was a semi furnished apartment and he could pocket the 15 grand housing allowance. R___, the stroppy bastard, was poised to move out of the apartment in a few days.
I’d been outmaneuvered as usual –but sure what the f**k? What else is new?
Next couple of days –brilliant. People were hospitable, happy, invited me to eat etc.
It was like being a VSO again. Everyone was so young –except R and myself_____.
I was Co-Principal of the school.
Work was good. My expat team were all there in a room. Exams were on and no work was being done by us or the teachers we were training.
I hadn’t a clue what was going on and just tried to get to know the Principal. And the teachers. They were all lovely people. The Principal himself (“Jihad”) was from Gaza-and the teachers were Egyptians, Syrians and Palestinians.
The students were a revelation –much better than expected. In the UAE in the eighties I had taught disgustingly spoiled students at an elite school. They were mostly royals and revolting.
These students were rough and undisciplined but they were desert bedouins and really quite approachable in the main. Mind you I was glad and I didn’t have to teach the buggers.
On the first day the American guy, M, my predecessor who had been passed over-and his job given to me did two noteworthy things. First, a student approached me and mumbled something. It turned out he had been beaten by the Arabic teacher with a stick. Beating with a stick was one of the things we were trying to discourage. It was tricky because the beaten boy was the son of another teacher.
Anyway, M saw what was happening and said to me.
“This is your first problem and yours to deal with-and walked away”.
Hmmm...
The second thing was to fling about six ring binders on my desk and say
“Now that’s your second problem”
Hmmmm...
The rest of the day went well. I was living with my boss Mr. E__ in a room with no curtains, carpets bedside tables.
Downstairs Mr. E tapped away in silence on his P.C.
I had a brief but abortive attempt to induce him to converse on several occasions but like most Englishmen he quickly let me know that he found ‘chat’ boring.
Mr. E was a clean-cut, smooth talker. His head was shaped like a horse... so I'll refer to him as 'Eddie the Horse' from now on. He seemed very nice. I will try to be positive and objective about him but it is very difficult for me. I suppose what got me most about him was that all the girls seemed to love him even though he was plainly a boring fuckwit. I can never understand this. I mean I may be lots of other things but I am not boring!
Perhaps it was the suits he wore. I never saw him wear anything else. Perhaps it was the plummy accent, or maybe the boyish good looks. He looked younger than his age. I think he was about 35. (He looked like a Boy Scout leader) I dunno. But it was something. The girls loved him and even some of the least sus and consequently more testosterone driven guys like the compulsive marathon runner, Mat, also liked him. So, he must have had something that made them like him. Maybe it was the fact that he smoked a cigarette only in the mornings before breakfast like he needed oxygen to save his life.
But the strange thing was it was the only one I ever saw him smoke.
It was freezing –but it didn’t really bother me too much at first.
Two days later suddenly everything changed…
School holidays!
Suddenly, everybody vanished.
With no driving license I panicked and quickly texted L –who was my ‘Official Buddy” She was also the 'Co-Principal' of another school.
“L, can you buy me a carton of Amstel beer when next in Abu Dhabi?”
“Well, yes D___ but it will have to be when we come back in February. We’re in Cape Town!”
February? That was fucking two weeks away. How was I going to survive two weeks in MZ without Amstel?
Leslie was a worldly bird with a history who had shacked up with a pleasant, South African who was out of work called G. She was devoted to him. I couldn’t understand it. What do women want?
I couldn’t understand G either-he let her treat him like a dog
She was the English equivalent of the Aussie femnazi.
I could understand why people hated her.
Everyone had disappeared without saying goodbye to me. I was wheeless.
I made a decision: I was going to get my myself and my accommodation sorted before I tried to get on top of the job.
In any case there was no-one- in MZ form whom I might get any info about the job from for the next two weeks...
During the holidays, I would try and get myself sorted with somewhere to live until Eddie the horse came back from his skiing trip in Italy……
Continued.....
I am still in Abu Dhabi-but not for long.
The next day, I waited at the reception of my hotel for the promised taxi to arrive at noon.
My intuition told me that the taxi wouldn’t arrive at all –let alone on time.
I was right.
At 12.30 I called S.
Is the driver on the way S?
‘Uhhh.’. ...silence …
“Get back to yuh in two minutes, D___”
Ten minutes later…
‘Ullo D___ –driver will be with you in alf an hower!’
“No worries S___" I said with a lame attempt at an Aussie accent.
I was trying to sound obliging and laid back like an Aussie. It really is an effort for me to do this. More to the point- why was I doing this? Maybe it was something subconscious -to do with the fact that S was so obviously a bloody useless Pom? And I just didn’t want him to think I was Irish.
The driver arrived. He was a pleasant Philipino but a useless conversationalist. He knew nothing about cricket.
All the cars in the UAE have a continuous bleeping sound which can not be turned off when you exceed the speed limit. The result is stressful to someone unaccustomed to it. It sounds like your mobile phone continually bleeping. Doesn’t seem to bother anybody else- but it bothered me.
We travelled out of Abu Dhabi through an Orwellian landscape of desolation.. It was like a construction site that had been hit with a nuclear bomb and then recolonised by cockroaches and metal giants, humans and electric pylons respectively). It wasn’t clear who the slaves were and who were the masters in this surreal scenario from a novel of H.G. Wells.
It was grotesque.
I was taking all this in when I got a text message form my line manager “Mr. E” in Madinat Zayed, who had been pretty quiet up until now.
I could tell he was a plummy pommy from north London or Essex, or some such place south of the Watford Gap, anyway.
‘ETA Don?’
‘Bout four pm, E’ quickly switching to my international accent. I didn’t want to sound like an Aussie or an Irishman to Mr. E.
And then, in jest.
“I hope R___ and Ea. (my two colleagues in MZ) know I’m coming.....-heh!..heh!" I said nervously!”
Reply on SMS from Mr. E.
‘They do now’
I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this. Was this Mr. E’s sense of humor? Could Ea and R___, mature gentlemen and professional educational consultants like myself, really not be aware of my impending arrival?
I had one or two pretty uncharitable thoughts about S-but banished them. I determined to be positive- think like an Aussie even if I spoke like an international nerd.
I reassured myself with ‘It must be Mr. E’s sense of humor’.
I began to relax and enjoy the passing pylons, concrete mixers and cement lorries. It seemed to somewhow match the beeping in the car.
My Philipino driver seemed oblivious.
I was wrong about one thing right from the start. Mr. E turned out not to have a sense of humor at all.
As we approached MZ the desolate landscape began to change for the better. Slowly, but surely, dunes began to appear. By the time we reached MZ it was the true Arabian desert with dunes all round. I was relieved and my spirits lifted.
We drew up beside a three storey block of flats –quite conspicuous looking-because there was absolutely nothing else around it –just sand.
As I got out of the car I was approached by an elderly white male with a brown cowboy hat, a sauntering gait and a limp-wristed handshake. He seemed to have a permanent superficial grin with a supercilious look. He didn’t have to open his mouth. It was obviously an Aussie.
It was R___.
‘You must be D’ he grinned.
‘Yeah G'day mate! I said enthusiastically taking his hand, pleased to meet you.’ In words and body language, I was using both Aussie and Pommy persona for R__ –to keep him guessing until I had got his measure.
Now R___ I didn’t know - but I knew of him. He had been in Brunei and we had had a mutual friend in Brunei who had told me a fair bit about him. Not all of it was positive so I was determined to be cautious and get on his right side as I knew I was going to be the bugger’s boss.
Later events proved me absolutely right to be cautious.
R___ was an asshole.
I don’t really understand why Johnson doesn’t get more wickets against the South Africans. There is something about his action that isn’t right. It’s too round arm.
Why do I keep looking up to Johnson? He’s half my age. A few years ago he would have been abusing me in the classroom. And I look up to him? He’s the same age as my son. Who said human behavior was rational?
My second son, (only four years younger than Johnson) told me yesterday that I shouldn’t be seeking reality all the time. He accused me of being like my eldest son (who is the same age as Johnson).
‘No–its not reality –its sincerity I look for” –I protested happily as we happened to be sharing a glass of Coopers Sparkling Ale.
‘And, since you know it all (I thought to myself) why are Aussies so reserved and closed. Why don’t they talk? Why are they so bloody suspicious’ I say to him.
My son says “You just have to accept that they are closed and then they will become friends”
What had he been reading then? He is such a talented young man –and wasted on some of the mirthless morons around him at the University.
Talk? Aussies?....No
but bullshit? For sure!.
Australia is grite mite –yeah.! You’ll get a job in any school - any Government school!
“Sure mate, and why is that then? Because nobody else will to teach the cheeky bastards of course
The outskirts of Abu Dhabi were a mirthless, Orwellian wasteland inhabited by drones who have no time to interact because they are ‘busy’- just like Adelaide.
Not much difference really. Just more sand in the former.
I only feel good when I am cycling, writing, or watching cricket.
Nobody wants to read what I write and I have nowhere to cycle either-but I do both because they give me pleasure and I’m not trying to please anybody else. Writing, in particular, has become a compulsion –an addiction –like everything else in my life.
Actually I do have an audience of about six people. I’m not very demanding but I wouldn’t mind an Oscar or standing ovation from time to time,
If no-one else will talk to me then I’ll talk to myself - by writing.
Why is everybody so damn busy?
What are they doing? Nobody has time to talk to each other – what’s wrong with them? Is anything more important than talking?
It’s a western disease-this ‘busyness’ inability to make time to speak and communicate.
It is a monstrous cancer which metastasized in the sixties in the “West” and has spread into the other continents now. It is now out of control.
Our culture is dying: look at our addictions. We have created a soulless, alienated world which, naturally, we are obsessed with distracting ourselves from. With TV, internet, alcohol, sex, drugs or most commonly - work. I don’t mean just work –I mean ‘busyness’anything will do-as long as it distracts us from ourselves and the nightmare around us..
Nobody reads anything, talks to each other …no time.
Everything is drudgery and meaningless. Bits of paper here for this and that.
‘I need you to fill in this form please’
“Excuse me are you asking me? Or you are commanding me to do it?
There is a big difference. One is polite and the other is rude,
Do you mind showing me your bag please?
Can I ask to you for some ID please?
Have you got your mobile number please?
“I need you to provide evidence that you intend to live permanently in Australia”
She said “I need you to convince me that you are going to stay in Australia”
When did you migrate to Australia, bitch?
“I give up! I can’t remember. “Up yours! Who cares? When did you fucking migrate to Australia?”
Flashing lights…
“Pull over sir!” Can you tell me why you’re not wearing your helmet sir? Says the blue eyed Adonis.
Oh sorry, you see, I’ve just come back form Abu Dhabi and I’m not very familiar with… I’m fifty-six you fuckwit!
Got any identification?
Fumble, fumble, a passport and a couple of hundred tumbles out of my breast pocket.
Can you tell me sir says the blueheeler, femnazi, sidekick why you have so much cash on you?
“Yes, I brought it with me from Abu Dhabi so that Centrelink can’t trace it to my account and won’t know about it and then deny me my claim for unemployment benefit you fuckwit!
I thought. Hasn’t this femnazi or her assanine colleague ever lived in the desert? They are surrounded by one.”
I had an instant vision of her eating a burger with tomato sauce drooling down her chin-Yuck!
What sort of mentality names a desert after a member of the British Royal family? The ‘Simpson’ desert-Jesus Christ!
To be fair, maybe ‘Simpson’ was the former captain of the Aussie cricket team. It would make more sense.
It must have been obvious that I was a little merry because I’d had some Coopers.
“Sir, I’m just gawiin to geev ya a wawnin sir!”
Oh! Good onya matey! Says I, a little too merrily
‘Yew mobile number? Sir, ‘oil ave to ask you to woke yaw baicycle home cause you’ve nao ‘elmet”
“Oh no worries matey! Good onya! No worries…”
So I pedal off feeling bad about initially thinking such uncharitable thoughts about the Adonis and his sidekick. Just blueheelers doing their job.
Can I join the DVD club?
Drivers license mate?
‘Sorry just got a bicycle’ will a bankcard do?
‘Sorry mite need photo ID.’
Out on to the road again –it’s like the Grand prix-whizz! Wang! Rubber on tarmac. The cars swish past with murderous disregard for anyone near them. One false move and I’m history.
Queues here, there and everywhere- for everything. Why don’t they pay people in the service industry so we don’t have to queue for everything? From one shop to the next its one queue to the next.
For a cyclist, the speed of the traffic and the shouts of abuse are alarming.
‘OK buddy whasup? Roars one irate driver at another stepping out of his car ’
What’s wrong with these people? They have freedom, wealth? Why do they shout at each other?
Why do they shout at me out of the windows of their cars?
‘Bloody idiot!’
What are they shouting about? There must be something wrong with them.
Maybe there’s something wrong with me.
Why do they play poker on a Sunday night in the Glynde hotel? They must be bored out of their tiny minds. Their lives are empty.
Why do they look so serious when they play poker? Is this how they get their rush – is Poker their cricket and their coopers sparking ale?
But Africans have nothing and they don’t shout at each other on the street because of some minor irritation. They don’t do road rage.
And yet all the young Aussies in the Adelaide service industry are so polite and positive.
‘G’day, how are you goin’ today? Says the shop assistant-or the receptionist. What can I do for you today?
Will that be all today sir?
I feel obliged to be polite back to them
Eh, can I have a bag?
‘Yep? Too easy!’
‘Anything else I can do for you today?’
How can these young people be so positive in such an Orwellian nightmare?
What are they on?
What am I on?
Should I be on what they’re on?
Should I be on something else?
I want to be on what they’re on.
They must have been to some politeness training school. The young people don’t grunt at the customer like they used to when I was young.
Yes, in Madinat zayed R___ is the classic Aussie bullshitter:
“Oh, he says in a mocking, disrespectful voice”
“So you are my new boss –poor you....poor, poor you.”
‘Oh fuck–what an asshole’ I think to myself.
I have to write or I will die. I have to keep writing. Even if no-one reads it I don’t care. I have to keep writing or I will die. Only the six matter.(the audience)
Why are people surprised at schoolyard killings? I’m surprised there aren’t more of them.
People are lonely. That’s why they kill.
Simple as that. No need for doctoral theses.
People don’t send me E-mails or messages. What is wrong with me?
Don’t they think about me like I think about them?
My friends are scattered around the world?
One in Ireland, one in Turkey, two in Brunei, one in the UAE, one in England, one in the next suburb. That’s about it really.
Non-communication is the default position for all human beings-teenagers especially.
Ned Kelly was right..
‘Such is life’
R___ leads me into his/our apartment.
The apartment is large and spacious. Three bedrooms.
The lounge appears empty-no curtains, coffee tables, side tables, lamps, lampshades, carpets, mats.
Nothing.
There was nothing except two lounge beds which could be flattened out and used as beds but could not be used to sit on –because the flat area was too wide.
Both of them were parallel to each other and to the walls. When I entered E was sitting on one of them facing me, his back unsupported...
R sat down on the other beside me and looked stupidly at me waiting for me to say something.
‘Well...is this it? I said
Silence…yeah, said Ea with a slightly sheepish look.
They took me into the kitchen–a stove with no gas. There was a fridge. Basic crockery.
We had an amiable chat in which I recounted the amusing story of how I’d been nearly knocked out at HQ in Abu Dhabi twice within ten minutes of my arrival.
I searched their faces for a response -humour, something positive, hope-anything to reassure me that this was not ‘it’.
‘Would yuh loike a cup o’ tea? Said Ea-deciding I was worth persevering with for the moment. (Ea was pure Irish-not a half-breed like myself)
‘Sure thanks!’
Mat and W arrived.
“Goin fur a wawk then –oop the town?” Said M_________
“R u cumin D___?” He was from Liverpool.
W was more refined-obviously from the south of England.
“Yeah great!” I said.
Things were looking up. People were talking to me and inviting me to do things with them.
Off we went walking up the town.
I was on a high. We walked for two miles and then sat down and they smoked one of those ridiculous Arab pipes through which the smoke bubbles...
I felt old. Like I was about fifty-six.
I am fifty six.
But people were talking to me. This was good.
Back to meet Mr. E in his villa.
Ea and M___ came with me.
Ea wanted something. After a while he said –is it ok if you stay with Mr. E (my boss) for a few days?
‘Sure’, I said
After a few days it will be school holidays and you will have Mr. E’s house to yourself.
Mr. E agreed smoothly
“As long as you don’t mind moving in with E when I come back from the holiday.” Mr. E said.
No, of course not, I said, relieved not to have to sleep in a tent for the foreseeable future.
What else could I say?
Later I was to realize that Ea wanted the apartment for himself. It was a semi furnished apartment and he could pocket the 15 grand housing allowance. R___, the stroppy bastard, was poised to move out of the apartment in a few days.
I’d been outmaneuvered as usual –but sure what the f**k? What else is new?
Next couple of days –brilliant. People were hospitable, happy, invited me to eat etc.
It was like being a VSO again. Everyone was so young –except R and myself_____.
I was Co-Principal of the school.
Work was good. My expat team were all there in a room. Exams were on and no work was being done by us or the teachers we were training.
I hadn’t a clue what was going on and just tried to get to know the Principal. And the teachers. They were all lovely people. The Principal himself (“Jihad”) was from Gaza-and the teachers were Egyptians, Syrians and Palestinians.
The students were a revelation –much better than expected. In the UAE in the eighties I had taught disgustingly spoiled students at an elite school. They were mostly royals and revolting.
These students were rough and undisciplined but they were desert bedouins and really quite approachable in the main. Mind you I was glad and I didn’t have to teach the buggers.
On the first day the American guy, M, my predecessor who had been passed over-and his job given to me did two noteworthy things. First, a student approached me and mumbled something. It turned out he had been beaten by the Arabic teacher with a stick. Beating with a stick was one of the things we were trying to discourage. It was tricky because the beaten boy was the son of another teacher.
Anyway, M saw what was happening and said to me.
“This is your first problem and yours to deal with-and walked away”.
Hmmm...
The second thing was to fling about six ring binders on my desk and say
“Now that’s your second problem”
Hmmmm...
The rest of the day went well. I was living with my boss Mr. E__ in a room with no curtains, carpets bedside tables.
Downstairs Mr. E tapped away in silence on his P.C.
I had a brief but abortive attempt to induce him to converse on several occasions but like most Englishmen he quickly let me know that he found ‘chat’ boring.
Mr. E was a clean-cut, smooth talker. His head was shaped like a horse... so I'll refer to him as 'Eddie the Horse' from now on. He seemed very nice. I will try to be positive and objective about him but it is very difficult for me. I suppose what got me most about him was that all the girls seemed to love him even though he was plainly a boring fuckwit. I can never understand this. I mean I may be lots of other things but I am not boring!
Perhaps it was the suits he wore. I never saw him wear anything else. Perhaps it was the plummy accent, or maybe the boyish good looks. He looked younger than his age. I think he was about 35. (He looked like a Boy Scout leader) I dunno. But it was something. The girls loved him and even some of the least sus and consequently more testosterone driven guys like the compulsive marathon runner, Mat, also liked him. So, he must have had something that made them like him. Maybe it was the fact that he smoked a cigarette only in the mornings before breakfast like he needed oxygen to save his life.
But the strange thing was it was the only one I ever saw him smoke.
It was freezing –but it didn’t really bother me too much at first.
Two days later suddenly everything changed…
School holidays!
Suddenly, everybody vanished.
With no driving license I panicked and quickly texted L –who was my ‘Official Buddy” She was also the 'Co-Principal' of another school.
“L, can you buy me a carton of Amstel beer when next in Abu Dhabi?”
“Well, yes D___ but it will have to be when we come back in February. We’re in Cape Town!”
February? That was fucking two weeks away. How was I going to survive two weeks in MZ without Amstel?
Leslie was a worldly bird with a history who had shacked up with a pleasant, South African who was out of work called G. She was devoted to him. I couldn’t understand it. What do women want?
I couldn’t understand G either-he let her treat him like a dog
She was the English equivalent of the Aussie femnazi.
I could understand why people hated her.
Everyone had disappeared without saying goodbye to me. I was wheeless.
I made a decision: I was going to get my myself and my accommodation sorted before I tried to get on top of the job.
In any case there was no-one- in MZ form whom I might get any info about the job from for the next two weeks...
During the holidays, I would try and get myself sorted with somewhere to live until Eddie the horse came back from his skiing trip in Italy……
Saturday, October 17, 2009
The Abu Dhabi Experience Arrival January 2009
This next section of my memoirs deals with an attempt to earn petrodollars as a consultant for the Centre for British Teachers (CFBT) in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates in 2009....
Arrival in the Desert.
Yes it was… It was bloody freezing in the desert in the mornings in Madinat Zayed. (referred to as ‘MZ’ for brevity thenceforth) - with ‘peasoup’ fogs most days!
Can you believe it? In the middle of the desert.
Most mornings I was woken woke up at 5.30 am by the Imam in the mosque ‘calling’ everyone to prayer.
‘Calling’? More like ‘bellowing’ like a cow demanding to be milked.
“Allahu Akbar” he wailed. Although the mosque was a hundred metres away-his voice was actually relayed through a loudspeaker to within about ten metres of every house in the block –including the one where I was staying. There was no escaping it.
This was the signal to pull myself out of bed, put my feet on the freezing bare stone floor and skip to the emersion heater like a wallaby in the pitch dark. This heated up the water in the shower by about six. The bedroom of the home of 'Eddie the horse' (my boss) was matless, rugless, carpetless, lightless and tabless. In fact it was curtainless and almost entirely furnitureless apart from the bed itself.
As it turned out the room had all been rather hastily arranged – but more of that later. I mustn’t get ahead of myself, but yes, there was a thick dense fog on those freezing early mornings in the dark.
It was the fourth of January 2009 and the journey from Adelaide was marked by the first panic attack about fifteen minutes into the air.
Because of family commitments in Adelaide I had not yet really started to think about where I was going.
On reflection, I think it was probably more than just the family commitments in Adelaide. I was really apprehensive about the whole project. That was another reason I hadn’t thought about my destination –Madinat Zayed.
‘Madinat Zayed’ I mused to myself - was it a little town or a village? Perhaps two hours into the desert into the empty quarter of Arabia. Close to the Saudi border. One supermarket. Google Earth didn’t show much else.
Hmmm…I thought to myself perhaps naturally following my train of thought ‘What will my apartment be like?” At interview they had said it would be a two or three - bedroomed apartment-and furnished of course I assumed. Sounded nice….
Thinking about it a bit more I thought “How and when will I be able to get out of this place?‘ Will I buy a car or rent one?’
Then it struck me - where is my international driving license?’
HQ Abu Dhabi had told me to bring one-and I had gone to some trouble to get one in Brunei as I knew the UAE would not accept a Bruneian license.
‘Ah yes, I reassured myself, it must be in my hand luggage with all my other important papers. It must be there.’ I tried to remember when I had last seen it. I was pretty sure I had seen it in Adelaide.
So I spent the next seven hours to Kuala Lumpur worrying about it. But when I came to think of it, I really couldn’t remember when I had last seen the damn thing. Was it in Brunei or in Adelaide?
Disembarking in transit at KL I frantically emptied out the contents of my hand luggage on to a table in the airport lounge-to a bemused audience of other passengers. I searched in vain- the license was nowhere to be found..
That was going to be a problem….
I arrived into Dubai in the middle of the night feeling slightly nostalgic about it all –I could remember vividly my arrival twenty years ago. The Dubai of the late eighties was a fine place to live –a mixture of the old and the new. Dubai was expanding-but still manageable in size.
I joined the queue for a visitors visa –as instructed in my ‘mobilisation pack’ sent electronically from HQ Abu Dhabi months ago to me when I was still in Brunei. I hadn’t heard much from HQ since I’d received the mobilization pack. Come to think of it I hadn’t heard anything from HQ in months.
I thought to myself ‘Am I really in the right queue here?’
I soon found out.
‘You come UAE worok or jus vist?’
drawled the dashing, but unsmiling Arab slavemaster who seemed little older than a schoolboy to me This immigration official seemed weary after processing fifty or sixty Africans in front of me in the queue. I felt sorry for him having to process all these slaves.
The scene was like a set from the Pirates of the Caribbean with the sound on mute. There were queues everywhere with people of every shape, colour and size imaginable-but-and this was remarkable under the circumstances- they were quiet and orderly.
No-on reflection-maybe it was more like the train platform at Auschwitz with Mengele making the selections.
I didn’t like the atmosphere at all.
‘ Emm? I said. ‘I come here work but company tell me first enter visit visa’
He scrutinized me more closely.
‘You come worok or visit?’
‘I doing both.. I…...’
‘You go that one’ he interrupted and waved me away with his hand to the ‘worok’ visa counter.
Amazingly, this was the only part of the airport where there was no queue. And even more amazingly there was indeed a 'worok' visa waiting for me!
Well done HQ! Credit where credit is due. But they might have told me to pick up the visa at the airport so I didn’t have to face the Mengele selections.
First stuff-up from HQ.
Outside, I was met by an Indian taxi driver with a placard with my name mispelt on it as usual ‘Mr Dixon’.
“Hello’ he said shaking his head as if he was unhappy..
“Mr Dixon.You go Abu Dhabi?”
“Yes” , I said, ‘I going Abu Dhabi’ and hoping to please him ‘You play cricket?’
“No’ he said
“Oh! India good cricket’ I insisted.
I was deflated. He was not interested in cricket. I foresaw a boring drive ahead to Abu Dhabi.
Why arrive in Dubai and not Abu Dhabi? Good question!
MZ was on the other side of Abu Dhabi and nowhere near Dubai-in fact you had to go through Abu Dhabi –a three hour journey from Dubai airport to get to MZ.
This was probably because it suited HQ for some reason, or more likely, for no reason at all.
Second stuff-up by HQ.
It certainly didn’t suit me. Because my taxi driver wasn’t interested in cricket we didn’t have much to say. He did point out various landmarks dimly visible on the night drive to Abu Dhabi.
‘Dis one bigges’ in dee world!’ –he pointed enthusiastically at a slim black pinnacle above us as if he had designed it personally and been the guest of honour cutting the tape at the opening ceremony.
The night time urban landscape of Dubai passed by and somehow reminded me of that place where the orks lived in Mordor in ‘Lord of the Rings’
But my taxi driver liked it.
‘Oh yes, Thank you, very big one.’ We smiled happily together–pretending to be happy.
We were easily pleased in the dark night.
I thought to myself ‘Size really does matter! He was so excited he could have been talking about his penis.Why are human beings always so impressed by size?'
We continued on in silence mostly because he wasn’t interested in cricket. The journey became duller as we left Mordor and headed in to open desert.
I returned to my thoughts about my driving license-where the hell could it be?
At one point we turned into a petrol station and stopped –but not at the petrol pump for some reason. It was surprising for a taxi to go to a petrol station in the first place.
I was puzzled. The driver leaned over and said
‘Only five minute–private thing’
‘Oh no problem’ I lied. I was puzzled-even alarmed..
What could he mean? He didn’t go into the petrol station –he went around it and disappeared behind it into the desert. Was he taking a pee? –Why didn’t he go inside like everyone else then? Was he meeting someone? A girlfriend? If so, for him or for me?
Maybe he had picked up the wrong person? Maybe there was a ‘Mr Dixon’
A drug deal perhaps? A robbery? kidnapping? A people smuggling racket?.
I got out of the car and peered round the corner of the petrol station. Everything else seemed normal-people were coming in and out of the petrol station. I felt reassured.
Fifteen minutes passed- but where the hell was he? My taxi driver. It was bloody cold and I got back into the car. I didn’t want to spend the first week of my new experience sniffling and snorting with a cold.
Eventually, he appeared beside me shaking his head waving from side to side in apology..
‘Sully, sully sir, said the smiling driver I eat bad restaurant last night. Vely sully!’
For the remainder of the journey we didn’t say much.
Jet-lagged, I was in somber mood. And he didn’t like cricket.
I checked in to the hotel in the middle of the night and immediately broke my new years resolution not to fight with petty officials and bureaucrats.
A brief altercation with a stroppy East European receptionist ensued who tried to make me pay four hundred dollars for the night.
She deserved it.
‘Now, you pay now one thousand dirham’ She said with the inappropriate falling intonation which made her sound like an SS guard.
Jet-lagged as I was , and licenseless, I was not going to be intimidated.
‘No way’, I retorted “company already pay-la’ with my Malay colloquial use of ‘la’. (I was confused –and was still mentally in Borneo, but not confused enough to give in to this rude little hussy half my age. She should have shown me some respect. I was a consultant now-not a bloody teacher.)
There then followed a discussion behind the reception area and the boss came out and booked me in. They claimed they hadn’t been expecting me.
Third stuff up by HQ.
The room was lovely and I immediately searched through all my things for my international driving license. The more I looked the more I realised there were other things missing too–mostly papers of no use to anyone but me-such as the original of my medical examination and my police clearance certificate. Where the hell were they?
It was a mystery that I was never to solve.
Next morning I had breakfast –really good – obseqious slave workers from India, Sri Lanka and the Philipines attended to my every whim and they were all scared shitless of me. I began to feel comfortable again. Yes.. after all, this was the life –and I deserved it .
I was an educational consultant.
After breakfast I tried to catch a taxi to HQ for my nine o’clock ‘induction’ meeting. Surprisingly, this turned out to be a problem - it was damn nigh impossible to get a taxi in Abu Dhabi even from this lovely hotel! There were limousines available –but they were very expensive.
Anyway, I eventually made it to HQ in a regular taxi after managing to get all the security and ancillary staff at the hotel on to the case.
I was a few minutes late and introduced myself in a rush at reception to a very pleasant, but as it turned out totally inefficient Egyptian girl called R.
HQ were not quite ready for me, so I had to wait for ten minutes during which time I somehow managed to crack my head on a slanting wall in the seating area. Unfortunate maybe-and definitely unusual to do it twice within two minutes! .
After the first knock R didn’t know whether to laugh or send me to hospital. She was both amused and concerned and asked me to sit down again whereupon I proceeded to do exactly the same thing –the second time breaking the skin on my skull and causing quite a bruise to rise on my head. Blood was flowing!
I was spotted by people entering and leaving the building.I was clutching my head.
By now I seemed to be well known at HQ- the rumour had spread quickly that there was a semi- concussed Irishman holding his head in the reception area.
Things were not going to plan.
I made light of it all. What else could I do? But my head hurt like hell. Most of the Anglo Saxon mandarins ignored me. But one Indian driver noticed I was in pain and soon all the Indian drivers poured out of the kitchen in sympathy , and urged me, after careful inspection of my head to go to the hospital.
But I wasn’t going to do that –at least not before I had met the head of HR for my orientation. By the time she arrived the whole office seemed to be talking about the dramatic circumstances surrounding my arrival in the building.
J W from HR (just over half my age) woffled on about policies and procedures. I wasn’t paying too much attention. I was fingering my bruise. After a polite pause I proceeded to announce to her that I had lost my international license and my original medical certificate and my police clearance certificate etc on the journey.
To my surprise, I was a little non-plused – she seemed completely unconcerned about any of these things. I asked myself if they weren’t so important then why had I busted my ass trying to get them all in Brunei in the first place? Anyway, I suppose she had her own driving license so what did she care?.
J droned on reading out what was obviously a powerpoint presentation without the projector. She seemed interested in talking to me about the various ways the company could sack me in the next few months or ‘performance management’ as she euphemistically referred to it.
Curiously, ‘Performance management’ seemed to involve traffic lights.
It took me sometime to work out the connection between traffic lights and performance management – but in the end I got it. ‘Probation’ lasted six months and you could be sacked without any reason during this period. After ‘probation’, you were assessed every six months : ‘Green’ was ok , ‘Amber’ was a warning and ‘Red’ was danger.
I was fascinated by it all because J was, like everyone else, half my age, and like most of them at HQ straight out of UK with little or no experience of living overseas.
She was a bloody Homelander!
I was also fascinated because I knew there was no need for the traffic lights. Everyone knows that overseas the contract means nothing. Are you going to sue your employer? Well, if the Sheik or one of his down- line lackeys –including J –wanted to get rid of me all they had to do was say the word. She knew it and so did I.
Or maybe J didn’t know it yet. So who was inducting who?
Anyway as she finished her speal on traffic lights I scratched my head again wondering if I had some mild concussion from the second knock on the head. I continued to make self deprecating jokes to J and anyone else who would listen to my misfortunes. I tried to be funny so people would forget me at HQ-or at least remember me for the right reasons.
I learned this at school when I was a teenager in the sixth form, and unable to compete with the Rugby players or Oxbridge candidates for kudos. I could avoid criticism-and get kudos - by making people laugh.
I’ve been doing it ever since. But it is so exhausting sometimes.
Seeing my eyes glaze over with jetlag and concussion, I think Jackie eventually lost interest and told me to go and have a coffee before I met the next person in the orientation team –S!
S
S was one of those straight up English blokes who was the salt of the earth. He talked straight to you in a heavy northern accent that reassured those who needed reassuring. He was the sort of bloke who you would like to read a bedtime story to your grandchild or who would have done well convincing people to take off their clothes to have a shower before they went into the gas chamber.
S was personable, appallingly incompetent , but above all else, plausible.
‘Ullo’; he said.
‘Am S the assets and fucilities manejuh. O course, you do knaw that we ‘ave a problem with comodation in MZ? daunt yuh?
‘Eh…well, no actually, I don’t’ , said I ‘but I suppose it is not the worst thing that could happen” I lied desperately... (Why did I lie –why did I say that?).
What’s the problem? I enquired politely feigning disinterest and concealing sheer panic.
Steve paused and bowed his head. In retrospect , I often wondered whether it was in shame , or just to gather himself for what was to come. Probably both.
“Who interviewed you, Donald?” I felt a pang of dislike rise in me. I didn’t like being called ‘Donald’. I much preferred the less formal ‘Don’
“Eh, R and yourself, actually I think, S.” ( to be fair it was six months ago on the phone form Brunei)
Silence….
‘Ok, Donald, ere’s what were goin’ to ask you to do’.
‘Were goin to ask you to share an apartment in MZ with a compatriot of yours called Ea’
The fact that Ea was also Irish was apparently supposed to reassure me. S, being English probably didn’t realize that E probably kicked with the other foot.
I gulped and smiled and said
Yes?
‘And uh yes’ , said S, shuffling some papers in a rudimentary displacement activity,
‘R is in there at the moment as well.’
I thought I was beginning to get the picture now..-a three–bedroomed apartment for three grown men over fifty years of age who had never met each other. Hmmm...
‘Dawnt’t wurry’ , said S –It’s all kitted out with what you need-beds etc..
For some reason, I wasn’t entirely reassured. But before I could ask anything S went on..
“ Now Donald , S said, ‘I ‘af to tell yuh that if summit goes wrong with the apartment don’t put an ‘ole in the bloody wall or you’ll have to pay for it-you af to get approval to do things like that.”
‘Oh! yes of course’ I said.
S seemed satisfied. The induction was over.
‘Now, all you need to do now is get your AIDS blood test in central hospital so you can get your residency visa. And then you can go to MZ tomorrow.
‘Oh good’ I said without much conviction.
Then J came in and said – there’s a list of hospitals to go to have the AIDS test.
Grabbing the moment I said, “Eh Jackie, I’m a bit concerned about my driving license?
‘Oh’ she said, ‘The international license is no good anyway after you get your residency visa’
I was stunned.
This was surely not true. My mobilsation instructions had said nothing about this.
I started to feel apprehensive-but before I could reply she was talking about the AIDS test again..
‘They’re changing the rules I think. Now only government hospitals can do the Aids test –not private hospitals”
‘OK Don , said S – best you go off to the central hospital then immediately.
I knew the central hospital was a government hospital but I didn’t say anything.
When I arrived there it was like the MCG on the final day of an Ashes test. One o’clock and they had stopped serving tickets. Because of the new regulations all new arrivals to the UAE had to go to the government hospitals as the private hospitals were deemed to be too corrupt to issue certificates.
I came back to HQ and told S.
S hung his head and thought for a moment…
“Well” , he said, ‘what you can do is get up early to marraw-about 5 am, and then go to the hospital and wait till it opens at 8 am. That way you will only have to queue for three hours’
At that moment I think I gawped at S like one of those deep sea fish.
Someone interrupted the conversation.
I had managed to pick up from someone else in the three hours I’d been at HQ that there was indeed a government hospital in MZ.
I decided S was a bullshitter.
“Maybe I could do the AIDS test in MZ Steve?
‘Naw-there’s no guvernment hospital in MZ.
‘Oh!’ I said.
Ten minutes later S had been persuaded by someone other than myself that there was indeed a Government hospital in MZ.
‘ OK, Saw, noon tomorraw Don sumone’ll pick you up at ‘otel and take you to MZ. You can do blud test here!’
‘Ok , fine!’ , I said I was desperate to get away from S and HQ to the hotel in order to watch the cricket.
I needed something familiar to reassure me.
But I’d forgotten about orientation by the Admin. dept…
I needn’t have worried. When I got back from the hospital there was a pamphlet entitled ‘Handbook of policies and procedures for new arrivals to CFBT employees’.
It had been left sitting on top of my laptop. The trip to the hospital had meant I’d missed this particular part of my orientation.
It was one o’clock and time for my IT Induction session.
I was starving and hadn’t eaten since eight in the morning.
Setting aside my hunger pangs, I entered the IT room to see L rise and cut me off with..
‘Very pleased to meet you. Mr. Don, please don’t worry about your laptop, I will send it to you tomorrow in MZ.’
Something about him made me think that I wouldn’t see my laptop for two weeks.
I didn’t see my work laptop for two weeks.
‘No worries, Thanks’ I said, as he sauntered off for his lunch. I wore my Aussie hat and was determined to be like an Aussie- unruffled by anything.
I understood my orientation by CfBT now to be complete, and went back to watch the cricket.
The Aussies were losing, but it didn’t matter matter-I was happy.
The next day my adventures really began.
Arrival in the Desert.
Yes it was… It was bloody freezing in the desert in the mornings in Madinat Zayed. (referred to as ‘MZ’ for brevity thenceforth) - with ‘peasoup’ fogs most days!
Can you believe it? In the middle of the desert.
Most mornings I was woken woke up at 5.30 am by the Imam in the mosque ‘calling’ everyone to prayer.
‘Calling’? More like ‘bellowing’ like a cow demanding to be milked.
“Allahu Akbar” he wailed. Although the mosque was a hundred metres away-his voice was actually relayed through a loudspeaker to within about ten metres of every house in the block –including the one where I was staying. There was no escaping it.
This was the signal to pull myself out of bed, put my feet on the freezing bare stone floor and skip to the emersion heater like a wallaby in the pitch dark. This heated up the water in the shower by about six. The bedroom of the home of 'Eddie the horse' (my boss) was matless, rugless, carpetless, lightless and tabless. In fact it was curtainless and almost entirely furnitureless apart from the bed itself.
As it turned out the room had all been rather hastily arranged – but more of that later. I mustn’t get ahead of myself, but yes, there was a thick dense fog on those freezing early mornings in the dark.
It was the fourth of January 2009 and the journey from Adelaide was marked by the first panic attack about fifteen minutes into the air.
Because of family commitments in Adelaide I had not yet really started to think about where I was going.
On reflection, I think it was probably more than just the family commitments in Adelaide. I was really apprehensive about the whole project. That was another reason I hadn’t thought about my destination –Madinat Zayed.
‘Madinat Zayed’ I mused to myself - was it a little town or a village? Perhaps two hours into the desert into the empty quarter of Arabia. Close to the Saudi border. One supermarket. Google Earth didn’t show much else.
Hmmm…I thought to myself perhaps naturally following my train of thought ‘What will my apartment be like?” At interview they had said it would be a two or three - bedroomed apartment-and furnished of course I assumed. Sounded nice….
Thinking about it a bit more I thought “How and when will I be able to get out of this place?‘ Will I buy a car or rent one?’
Then it struck me - where is my international driving license?’
HQ Abu Dhabi had told me to bring one-and I had gone to some trouble to get one in Brunei as I knew the UAE would not accept a Bruneian license.
‘Ah yes, I reassured myself, it must be in my hand luggage with all my other important papers. It must be there.’ I tried to remember when I had last seen it. I was pretty sure I had seen it in Adelaide.
So I spent the next seven hours to Kuala Lumpur worrying about it. But when I came to think of it, I really couldn’t remember when I had last seen the damn thing. Was it in Brunei or in Adelaide?
Disembarking in transit at KL I frantically emptied out the contents of my hand luggage on to a table in the airport lounge-to a bemused audience of other passengers. I searched in vain- the license was nowhere to be found..
That was going to be a problem….
I arrived into Dubai in the middle of the night feeling slightly nostalgic about it all –I could remember vividly my arrival twenty years ago. The Dubai of the late eighties was a fine place to live –a mixture of the old and the new. Dubai was expanding-but still manageable in size.
I joined the queue for a visitors visa –as instructed in my ‘mobilisation pack’ sent electronically from HQ Abu Dhabi months ago to me when I was still in Brunei. I hadn’t heard much from HQ since I’d received the mobilization pack. Come to think of it I hadn’t heard anything from HQ in months.
I thought to myself ‘Am I really in the right queue here?’
I soon found out.
‘You come UAE worok or jus vist?’
drawled the dashing, but unsmiling Arab slavemaster who seemed little older than a schoolboy to me This immigration official seemed weary after processing fifty or sixty Africans in front of me in the queue. I felt sorry for him having to process all these slaves.
The scene was like a set from the Pirates of the Caribbean with the sound on mute. There were queues everywhere with people of every shape, colour and size imaginable-but-and this was remarkable under the circumstances- they were quiet and orderly.
No-on reflection-maybe it was more like the train platform at Auschwitz with Mengele making the selections.
I didn’t like the atmosphere at all.
‘ Emm? I said. ‘I come here work but company tell me first enter visit visa’
He scrutinized me more closely.
‘You come worok or visit?’
‘I doing both.. I…...’
‘You go that one’ he interrupted and waved me away with his hand to the ‘worok’ visa counter.
Amazingly, this was the only part of the airport where there was no queue. And even more amazingly there was indeed a 'worok' visa waiting for me!
Well done HQ! Credit where credit is due. But they might have told me to pick up the visa at the airport so I didn’t have to face the Mengele selections.
First stuff-up from HQ.
Outside, I was met by an Indian taxi driver with a placard with my name mispelt on it as usual ‘Mr Dixon’.
“Hello’ he said shaking his head as if he was unhappy..
“Mr Dixon.You go Abu Dhabi?”
“Yes” , I said, ‘I going Abu Dhabi’ and hoping to please him ‘You play cricket?’
“No’ he said
“Oh! India good cricket’ I insisted.
I was deflated. He was not interested in cricket. I foresaw a boring drive ahead to Abu Dhabi.
Why arrive in Dubai and not Abu Dhabi? Good question!
MZ was on the other side of Abu Dhabi and nowhere near Dubai-in fact you had to go through Abu Dhabi –a three hour journey from Dubai airport to get to MZ.
This was probably because it suited HQ for some reason, or more likely, for no reason at all.
Second stuff-up by HQ.
It certainly didn’t suit me. Because my taxi driver wasn’t interested in cricket we didn’t have much to say. He did point out various landmarks dimly visible on the night drive to Abu Dhabi.
‘Dis one bigges’ in dee world!’ –he pointed enthusiastically at a slim black pinnacle above us as if he had designed it personally and been the guest of honour cutting the tape at the opening ceremony.
The night time urban landscape of Dubai passed by and somehow reminded me of that place where the orks lived in Mordor in ‘Lord of the Rings’
But my taxi driver liked it.
‘Oh yes, Thank you, very big one.’ We smiled happily together–pretending to be happy.
We were easily pleased in the dark night.
I thought to myself ‘Size really does matter! He was so excited he could have been talking about his penis.Why are human beings always so impressed by size?'
We continued on in silence mostly because he wasn’t interested in cricket. The journey became duller as we left Mordor and headed in to open desert.
I returned to my thoughts about my driving license-where the hell could it be?
At one point we turned into a petrol station and stopped –but not at the petrol pump for some reason. It was surprising for a taxi to go to a petrol station in the first place.
I was puzzled. The driver leaned over and said
‘Only five minute–private thing’
‘Oh no problem’ I lied. I was puzzled-even alarmed..
What could he mean? He didn’t go into the petrol station –he went around it and disappeared behind it into the desert. Was he taking a pee? –Why didn’t he go inside like everyone else then? Was he meeting someone? A girlfriend? If so, for him or for me?
Maybe he had picked up the wrong person? Maybe there was a ‘Mr Dixon’
A drug deal perhaps? A robbery? kidnapping? A people smuggling racket?.
I got out of the car and peered round the corner of the petrol station. Everything else seemed normal-people were coming in and out of the petrol station. I felt reassured.
Fifteen minutes passed- but where the hell was he? My taxi driver. It was bloody cold and I got back into the car. I didn’t want to spend the first week of my new experience sniffling and snorting with a cold.
Eventually, he appeared beside me shaking his head waving from side to side in apology..
‘Sully, sully sir, said the smiling driver I eat bad restaurant last night. Vely sully!’
For the remainder of the journey we didn’t say much.
Jet-lagged, I was in somber mood. And he didn’t like cricket.
I checked in to the hotel in the middle of the night and immediately broke my new years resolution not to fight with petty officials and bureaucrats.
A brief altercation with a stroppy East European receptionist ensued who tried to make me pay four hundred dollars for the night.
She deserved it.
‘Now, you pay now one thousand dirham’ She said with the inappropriate falling intonation which made her sound like an SS guard.
Jet-lagged as I was , and licenseless, I was not going to be intimidated.
‘No way’, I retorted “company already pay-la’ with my Malay colloquial use of ‘la’. (I was confused –and was still mentally in Borneo, but not confused enough to give in to this rude little hussy half my age. She should have shown me some respect. I was a consultant now-not a bloody teacher.)
There then followed a discussion behind the reception area and the boss came out and booked me in. They claimed they hadn’t been expecting me.
Third stuff up by HQ.
The room was lovely and I immediately searched through all my things for my international driving license. The more I looked the more I realised there were other things missing too–mostly papers of no use to anyone but me-such as the original of my medical examination and my police clearance certificate. Where the hell were they?
It was a mystery that I was never to solve.
Next morning I had breakfast –really good – obseqious slave workers from India, Sri Lanka and the Philipines attended to my every whim and they were all scared shitless of me. I began to feel comfortable again. Yes.. after all, this was the life –and I deserved it .
I was an educational consultant.
After breakfast I tried to catch a taxi to HQ for my nine o’clock ‘induction’ meeting. Surprisingly, this turned out to be a problem - it was damn nigh impossible to get a taxi in Abu Dhabi even from this lovely hotel! There were limousines available –but they were very expensive.
Anyway, I eventually made it to HQ in a regular taxi after managing to get all the security and ancillary staff at the hotel on to the case.
I was a few minutes late and introduced myself in a rush at reception to a very pleasant, but as it turned out totally inefficient Egyptian girl called R.
HQ were not quite ready for me, so I had to wait for ten minutes during which time I somehow managed to crack my head on a slanting wall in the seating area. Unfortunate maybe-and definitely unusual to do it twice within two minutes! .
After the first knock R didn’t know whether to laugh or send me to hospital. She was both amused and concerned and asked me to sit down again whereupon I proceeded to do exactly the same thing –the second time breaking the skin on my skull and causing quite a bruise to rise on my head. Blood was flowing!
I was spotted by people entering and leaving the building.I was clutching my head.
By now I seemed to be well known at HQ- the rumour had spread quickly that there was a semi- concussed Irishman holding his head in the reception area.
Things were not going to plan.
I made light of it all. What else could I do? But my head hurt like hell. Most of the Anglo Saxon mandarins ignored me. But one Indian driver noticed I was in pain and soon all the Indian drivers poured out of the kitchen in sympathy , and urged me, after careful inspection of my head to go to the hospital.
But I wasn’t going to do that –at least not before I had met the head of HR for my orientation. By the time she arrived the whole office seemed to be talking about the dramatic circumstances surrounding my arrival in the building.
J W from HR (just over half my age) woffled on about policies and procedures. I wasn’t paying too much attention. I was fingering my bruise. After a polite pause I proceeded to announce to her that I had lost my international license and my original medical certificate and my police clearance certificate etc on the journey.
To my surprise, I was a little non-plused – she seemed completely unconcerned about any of these things. I asked myself if they weren’t so important then why had I busted my ass trying to get them all in Brunei in the first place? Anyway, I suppose she had her own driving license so what did she care?.
J droned on reading out what was obviously a powerpoint presentation without the projector. She seemed interested in talking to me about the various ways the company could sack me in the next few months or ‘performance management’ as she euphemistically referred to it.
Curiously, ‘Performance management’ seemed to involve traffic lights.
It took me sometime to work out the connection between traffic lights and performance management – but in the end I got it. ‘Probation’ lasted six months and you could be sacked without any reason during this period. After ‘probation’, you were assessed every six months : ‘Green’ was ok , ‘Amber’ was a warning and ‘Red’ was danger.
I was fascinated by it all because J was, like everyone else, half my age, and like most of them at HQ straight out of UK with little or no experience of living overseas.
She was a bloody Homelander!
I was also fascinated because I knew there was no need for the traffic lights. Everyone knows that overseas the contract means nothing. Are you going to sue your employer? Well, if the Sheik or one of his down- line lackeys –including J –wanted to get rid of me all they had to do was say the word. She knew it and so did I.
Or maybe J didn’t know it yet. So who was inducting who?
Anyway as she finished her speal on traffic lights I scratched my head again wondering if I had some mild concussion from the second knock on the head. I continued to make self deprecating jokes to J and anyone else who would listen to my misfortunes. I tried to be funny so people would forget me at HQ-or at least remember me for the right reasons.
I learned this at school when I was a teenager in the sixth form, and unable to compete with the Rugby players or Oxbridge candidates for kudos. I could avoid criticism-and get kudos - by making people laugh.
I’ve been doing it ever since. But it is so exhausting sometimes.
Seeing my eyes glaze over with jetlag and concussion, I think Jackie eventually lost interest and told me to go and have a coffee before I met the next person in the orientation team –S!
S
S was one of those straight up English blokes who was the salt of the earth. He talked straight to you in a heavy northern accent that reassured those who needed reassuring. He was the sort of bloke who you would like to read a bedtime story to your grandchild or who would have done well convincing people to take off their clothes to have a shower before they went into the gas chamber.
S was personable, appallingly incompetent , but above all else, plausible.
‘Ullo’; he said.
‘Am S the assets and fucilities manejuh. O course, you do knaw that we ‘ave a problem with comodation in MZ? daunt yuh?
‘Eh…well, no actually, I don’t’ , said I ‘but I suppose it is not the worst thing that could happen” I lied desperately... (Why did I lie –why did I say that?).
What’s the problem? I enquired politely feigning disinterest and concealing sheer panic.
Steve paused and bowed his head. In retrospect , I often wondered whether it was in shame , or just to gather himself for what was to come. Probably both.
“Who interviewed you, Donald?” I felt a pang of dislike rise in me. I didn’t like being called ‘Donald’. I much preferred the less formal ‘Don’
“Eh, R and yourself, actually I think, S.” ( to be fair it was six months ago on the phone form Brunei)
Silence….
‘Ok, Donald, ere’s what were goin’ to ask you to do’.
‘Were goin to ask you to share an apartment in MZ with a compatriot of yours called Ea’
The fact that Ea was also Irish was apparently supposed to reassure me. S, being English probably didn’t realize that E probably kicked with the other foot.
I gulped and smiled and said
Yes?
‘And uh yes’ , said S, shuffling some papers in a rudimentary displacement activity,
‘R is in there at the moment as well.’
I thought I was beginning to get the picture now..-a three–bedroomed apartment for three grown men over fifty years of age who had never met each other. Hmmm...
‘Dawnt’t wurry’ , said S –It’s all kitted out with what you need-beds etc..
For some reason, I wasn’t entirely reassured. But before I could ask anything S went on..
“ Now Donald , S said, ‘I ‘af to tell yuh that if summit goes wrong with the apartment don’t put an ‘ole in the bloody wall or you’ll have to pay for it-you af to get approval to do things like that.”
‘Oh! yes of course’ I said.
S seemed satisfied. The induction was over.
‘Now, all you need to do now is get your AIDS blood test in central hospital so you can get your residency visa. And then you can go to MZ tomorrow.
‘Oh good’ I said without much conviction.
Then J came in and said – there’s a list of hospitals to go to have the AIDS test.
Grabbing the moment I said, “Eh Jackie, I’m a bit concerned about my driving license?
‘Oh’ she said, ‘The international license is no good anyway after you get your residency visa’
I was stunned.
This was surely not true. My mobilsation instructions had said nothing about this.
I started to feel apprehensive-but before I could reply she was talking about the AIDS test again..
‘They’re changing the rules I think. Now only government hospitals can do the Aids test –not private hospitals”
‘OK Don , said S – best you go off to the central hospital then immediately.
I knew the central hospital was a government hospital but I didn’t say anything.
When I arrived there it was like the MCG on the final day of an Ashes test. One o’clock and they had stopped serving tickets. Because of the new regulations all new arrivals to the UAE had to go to the government hospitals as the private hospitals were deemed to be too corrupt to issue certificates.
I came back to HQ and told S.
S hung his head and thought for a moment…
“Well” , he said, ‘what you can do is get up early to marraw-about 5 am, and then go to the hospital and wait till it opens at 8 am. That way you will only have to queue for three hours’
At that moment I think I gawped at S like one of those deep sea fish.
Someone interrupted the conversation.
I had managed to pick up from someone else in the three hours I’d been at HQ that there was indeed a government hospital in MZ.
I decided S was a bullshitter.
“Maybe I could do the AIDS test in MZ Steve?
‘Naw-there’s no guvernment hospital in MZ.
‘Oh!’ I said.
Ten minutes later S had been persuaded by someone other than myself that there was indeed a Government hospital in MZ.
‘ OK, Saw, noon tomorraw Don sumone’ll pick you up at ‘otel and take you to MZ. You can do blud test here!’
‘Ok , fine!’ , I said I was desperate to get away from S and HQ to the hotel in order to watch the cricket.
I needed something familiar to reassure me.
But I’d forgotten about orientation by the Admin. dept…
I needn’t have worried. When I got back from the hospital there was a pamphlet entitled ‘Handbook of policies and procedures for new arrivals to CFBT employees’.
It had been left sitting on top of my laptop. The trip to the hospital had meant I’d missed this particular part of my orientation.
It was one o’clock and time for my IT Induction session.
I was starving and hadn’t eaten since eight in the morning.
Setting aside my hunger pangs, I entered the IT room to see L rise and cut me off with..
‘Very pleased to meet you. Mr. Don, please don’t worry about your laptop, I will send it to you tomorrow in MZ.’
Something about him made me think that I wouldn’t see my laptop for two weeks.
I didn’t see my work laptop for two weeks.
‘No worries, Thanks’ I said, as he sauntered off for his lunch. I wore my Aussie hat and was determined to be like an Aussie- unruffled by anything.
I understood my orientation by CfBT now to be complete, and went back to watch the cricket.
The Aussies were losing, but it didn’t matter matter-I was happy.
The next day my adventures really began.
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