School Registration Insanity Continues!

Life here is going ok. The kids are happy, but I am going a little crazy for the moment! To be quite honest, I feel like I am on another planet that is far far away! "The glam of Saudi Arabia is gone and reality is kicking in," as my husband says. In spite of all the backwards things I see here, I am determined to be a super-hero, with God as my strength! 

Part 1 Summary -- In my last post, I wrote about how difficult it was to find a school and then register my children here in Saudi Arabia. You may have even felt a little sorry for me when I wrote about the process of having my children tested to be admitted to a school and then having to wait until the next day to see if they “passed”. Well, the story doesn’t end there.

Part 2

I went back to the school to pay the rest of the registration fees. I was given a number on a sticky note and was directed to go pick out the kids uniform sizes. They tried them on and we picked out their sizes-but since I was waiting to pay, they couldn’t give them to me yet. So, they stacked them to the side and told me to come back with my receipt. So, preceded with patiently waiting for the accountant to accept my money. My number was 39 and they were on number 21…..at 9:30am! By 11:30 my number was called and I made a fool of myself by whooping and hollering because I was so excited that it was finally my turn. (All this time, Sohail is waiting outside in the car for me because men are not allowed on the women’s side of the school and vice versa.) I was surprised to see that everything was calculated by hand and a calculator-with no computer entry. However, at 12 noon, I was finished paying and went on my way to pick up the uniforms.

Guess what? They gave my stack of uniforms to someone else! So, now I had to guess the sizes of the kids-because I was just so frustrated and didn’t want to have them try on clothing again. And-they were out of the sizes the kids needed. Oh well-what could I do, right? They told me that I could exchange the sizes out next week.

Then, I was told to go pick up the kids textbooks and workbooks. What a sight it must have been to see me walking out the building with over 20 books + the uniforms. Seriously-I could see heads turning and eyes glaring at me-this white girl in a black abaya! Now that I was finished it was 2:00pm and I was exhausted-but I did it-and I didn’t cry or yell at anyone!

Before I left, I was told that school had been postponed…until September 16^th. Oh my-what next?

Well, when I got back to work-the lights were out in my office. Then, I opened the door and the door handle fell off from both sides! What a day! What a day!