Willkommen zur Wüste

Living in Saudi Arabia as a white, Western, high school teacher comes, as you might expect, with a few points of interest. In fact, there are so many areas to discuss that it would probably be prudent to break it into categories.

Saudi holds itself to be a very strictly conservative country, and holds to this practice largely, in part, because Mecca and Medina, two of the holiest sites of the Muslim faith, both fall inside its borders. As a result, strict rules are supposed to be (but as anywhere, are not always) obeyed. These rules include:

The Comportment of Women
Women must be "decently" covered at all times when outside of their home or compound. For this, there is a ready supply of abayas, long shapeless black robes that cover to the ankles. Curiously, however, when visiting the malls, you'll find all manner of racy and exotic clothing for women readily for sale. There a number of lingerie stores (all owned and operated by men) and fashionable clothing outlets selling all of the latest in form-fitting and low-cut apparel. I have never seen so much outrageous evening wear on display as I have at the local malls. You'll never know who of the women in the sea of black robes and veiled faces is secretly sporting an outfit that would startle even a liberal Westerner. And you never will. Women are not allowed to be alone in a car with a man who is not her husband, a family member, or a cab driver. The punishments for being caught in such a position are severe. We're talking lashings-in-a-public-square severe.

Compound Living
Saudi Arabians, per capita, are among the richest people in the world. As a result, they have been able to afford to contract in the vast majority of their manual and specialized labour to foreigners. Your cab driver, the guy behind the counter at McDonald's, your doctor, the engineers at the oil refinery, your high school music teacher, they are all expatriates being paid to do the work that the Saudi's can't/won't so they don't have to. All of this labour needs to be housed somewhere and, with the troublesome clash of cultural beliefs and practices, dropping them into everyday society would undoubtedly cause more stir than a self-professedly conservative culture would like. Thus, we have the compounds.

Compounds could more accurately be called "gated communities". They are housing projects, usually consisting of pleasantly sized bungalows with varying levels of available amenities, depending on the size and wealth of the establishment. All of these things are encircled by a wall to prevent unrestricted access from the outside to anyone who doesn't belong there. Inside the compound, the typical rules of dress for women don't apply. They are more or less free to dress as they like (within obvious limits, of course) and associate with whomever they choose however they choose.

Middle/High School Students and their Behaviour
In most schools here, girls and boys past the age of kindergarten must be segregated. Many international schools get around this by registering as community schools through a foreign consulate (Canadian, American, British, etc), or by building their school inside one of the city's many compounds.

Students here at the school all come from a wide variety of countries, including, but not limited to, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, India, Pakistan, Australia, and Korea. There are nearly no students enrolled that have actually been born and raised here in the Kingdom.

There is a certain element of bargaining culture among the students. In Canada, a student might be liable to argue a consequence or question the validity of a mark they received on an assessment, but here a significant number of students will attempt to bargain with the teacher on just about any aspect of the class if they feel that there is an advantage to be gained. If they are unhappy with their grade, or with the turnout of a particular question, they will automatically rush the teacher at the front of the class and press them to adjust their grade favourably. There is rarely a good reason that they give for the desired adjustment, but it seems to be an automatic reaction that occurs every time. Rather aggravating.

There is also a curious absence of understanding regarding the seriousness of cheating and plagiarism on assessments. The incidences of it at the school are astonishing. The same group of students will plagiarize nearly every research assignment they are given and cheat on every test they write. They will be given zero for their efforts every time, parents will be contacted, conversations will be had with said students about the seriousness of the issue and the repercussions come college or university, and then they'll repeat the offense the very next time as though they didn't know.

Finally, while the overall academic abilities of the students average roughly the same as a comparably aged group of students in Canada (though with the very notable absence of some essential work skills, like the aforementioned tendencies towards plagiarism), the level of self-control regarding classroom disruption is much lower. In Canada, there are university-bound classes where, at most, 3-4 students are noisy and disruptive and need addressing. Luckily, due to the overwhelming numbers of the other on-task students, this disruption is discouraged and mitigated and so is much easier for the teacher to address. Here, some of the classes of equivalent students contain 6-10 such characters, all eager to chat the period away and not at all concerned with the fact that the teacher appears to be in the middle of saying something. This, further, means that the normally well-behaved students are outnumbered, and encourages them to join in on the revellry. Much stronger classroom management strategies are required to keep the students on task. Part of this phenomenon is likely due to the fact that there is no streaming occurring in the school. There are no advanced/academic or general/workplace divisions where students can learn at the pace they're best suited for. This way, anyone who can pass the admissions test (not particularly strenuous) and can foot the bill gets in, no matter how they behave or how capable they are, ultimately, at learning and functioning in a school environment.

Given these things, student personalities vary just as much as they do back home. There are little terrors that will leave you ripping out your hair at night, and there are intelligent well-rounded individuals that make you smile and whom you're always happy to have in class.

Romance
I'm personally curious as to how the dating scene works among the students here. In an environment like this one, where everyone lives in a nice private compound and chumming around with an unmarried member of the opposite sex is strictly frowned upon, it's going to be pretty difficult for the girls and boys of middle/high school age to hook up. Since I've been here, I've only been aware of a single relationship amongst the students. I can't imagine how frustrating it must be for the teenagers to be forbidden by family and culture from enjoying the company of 50% of their colleagues outside of school.

In terms of single teachers, the "dating scene", if it can be called that, is almost as grim. It's no more appropriate for unmarried Westerners of the opposite sex to stroll around arm in arm than it is for those of Middle-Eastern descent. I consider myself fortunate that I'm married and have my wife with me here in the country, or things might get a little lonely. Luckily for those Westerners that are well enough connected, there is the occasional party at the American consulate, typically hosted by various divisions of the American armed forces posted out this way. There, you can get your drink on and dance the night away with a limited number of equally lonely female professionals. I'm told, however, that dipping in to this very limited dating pool is not the best idea, since everyone knows everyone else and their business amongst this crowd. Jilt one prospective lover and you're in trouble with most of the rest of them.

This all makes sense to me, too, in terms of personalities and the people I see in the area. The singles crowd, from my observations, doesn't get much younger than 30. The implications of this can be derived from the types of people that would willingly move out to the barren physical and social wasteland that is life in Saudi Arabia. On the one hand, many of the single men who have made the trek out this way have a certain... adventurous quality to them. The feeling I get is that they're here to have fun and do new things, making good money while they're at it. On the other hand, many of the single women here, while also looking for adventure, are well into their 30s or above, which means that if they have any designs at all on getting married and starting a family, they'll be feeling like they need to get started soon. That's not to say that the men won't be feeling the same thing to some degree but, to senselessly generalize these Western men, it's just not as big a priority. In other words, the boys want sex, and the girls want marriage (and sex too, I'm sure). Not a happy combination... at least, not after the first night is finished. It sounds like a microcosm of Western society, and it is, in a way. The major difference is that, because so many people are here on multiple year contracts (myself included), they'll be losing valuable family-generating time if they wait until they get home to get things rolling.

These are some of my experiences thus far. I'll share more as they arise.