2007..... what's inside?

Where is it? tic tac tic tac tic tac....... BZZZZ!!! no answer... ? Well, this is a nice city where I went three times already, which is neither in Bahrain, neither in Saudi Arabia and not even in France. This city, it's my 2007 project. From now I know what I want to do and where I want to be, right after this Saudi experience, I think my relatives know about my intentions... and I appreciate very much their encouragements. I'm growing with the idea that France is a nice country, seen from outside. And honestly, even though it requires a distance with friends and family, I want to entertain this distance with my homeland... Also and mainly because there is another distance I would like to get rid of. I don't specially believe in the magic of numbers, but if during the year 2007 I manage to fulfill my projects, I might become a bit superstitious ;) And among those "if", "would", "maybe", "probably" and other "hope", I will do my best to find a real way.

Who agrees with me on the fact that 2006 ran very fast...? Actually, time flew. From the beginning of 2006 I remember a very nice new year's party, my research for an internship, this night partying in Lille at Fred's homecity, a pleasant week of rest in April with Aurelija and then... Departure to SA. On the eve of 2006, I never imagined that I would be here one year later, this was not in my plans at all. At that time, I had other expectations which unfortunately failed but I found a personal benefit through that, it taught me that I should prepare myself better before planning anything serious. Now, I have something like 3 months to get myself ready and gather necessary documents for my different applications. I'll also enjoy some 15 days in France in the first half of March to get a bowl of fresh air. Every 3 or4 months spent spent here, you feel that the air is a bit dusty so... what's better than have a break (shall it be short...) and meet again with your family, love and friends? I'm counting days now... But still, I'm not yet nuts enough to display the daily countdown on my MSN nickname. ( "France : 41 days until D-day")..... I also need to refresh my music folders, which are getting even more dusty than the local atmosphere! So this is my official holiday plan for March : 28th Fev - 4 th March in Orleans, 5th March - 16th in Chalon... not without some trips to Paris. We'll see that when time comes.

2007 has just started and it seems very busy already. Let's hope it will indeed, if not exactly as I expect it to be, at least I'd like it to look like this mental picture I have, something that is getting clearer and clearer day after day. But first of all, there is a little mission to finish here in Middle East, and I still enjoy it very much. I think that contrary to many foreigners coming here (i.e. for oil business) my relation to local people is not "client-oriented". I'm not sure that business can lead that easily to friendships, or maybe not as much as cultural exchange is. Even though I would like to do something else in my life than teaching French language all the time, I enjoy very much this position here and I encourage anyone to take any opportunity to come to Middle East. If we grew with the idea that the Western World is ruling everything, we shouldn't forget that interesting things happen Southwards and Eastwards. The best way is not to be stuck on National Geographic channel or read travel books, it's just to go and see it with your own eyes, feel it with your own guts. Yes, I admit, I'm far away from my relatives but I'm sure I'm not wasting my time. I'm almost 25, and I realize there are so many things left to see, and so little time. That's why I want 2007 to be the year of change, the "great bend" : I still want to discover people, cultures, languages ... but this time, "not alone".

Well done! (please)

"Well done" is an expression I use when I go to this Steakhouse restaurant. I like it very much : American atmosphere, which reminds me of "Buffalo Grill" restaurants in France, friendly waiters, and most importantly, great great food. How to say.. The first time I went there, I was looking through the menu and was wondering what I would order. The choice is very wide and many meats (except pork meat of course, which is absolutely prohibited) are proposed... Beef, chicken, turkey, mutton... and also some fish, that I did not try. One feature of my personality is that I am very difficult and conservative about food, no one reading this post can say the contrary : neither the persons who know me well, and even less the people who don't know me :P You might think it's very silly to order a-l-w-a-y-s the same thing in a restaurant. But as far as I am concerned, I am a bit afraid of being disappointed with a changing. I know the value of what I'm ordering and I don't want to change. That's why I always have the same seat and the same dish. From my seat, next to the kitchens, I can see the waiters and cookers running here and there, filling the plates and so on. It is something we don't have in France. When you go to a restaurant there, the kitchens are hidden from the customers. Here it's not, and actually I prefer that.

In August, I decided that I would go to this restaurant once a week, every Wednesday after duty. Now, the waiters know me and know my order. It's like in France, when you've been living in the same town for a couple of years and are used to buy your baguette at the same baker shop, they know your name and your order. However, I don't consider staying here for years of course ;) And I know I will miss this restaurant and its food, for sure.

What is so special about it? That's simple : the quality of meat. In France, you can easily make the difference between the quality of meat that you buy at the supermarket, meat that you buy at the butcher's and meat you eat in a good restaurant. Until I reached Saudi Arabia, the best meat I had ever had was in those "Buffalo Grill" restaurants - even though the quality of their food has been decreasing those last years. To me, it was the highest level, the best taste. But now it's far behind what I experience here. The quality is incredibly good. I asked one manager about the origin of beefs; they are neither from the Gulf nor from Europe, but from Brazil. I was surprized.

I remember that after the affair of "mad cow" in Europe in the mid 90's, the French government had created a kind of "norm" such as ISO9001 but specific about Beef, after they discovered in the "Hard Rock Cafe" restaurant in Paris that they were keeping out-of-date beef meat in the freezers. This "VF norm" (Viande bovine Française) was supposed to "relieve" customers about the quality of meat they were buying. At that time, there was a huge phobia about meat coming from the UK, as if each piece of British cattle was contaminated with this "madness" !! But since that time, there has been a typically French paradox I still cannot understand. The Government insisted on important measures about freshness of meat, health of cattle, better tools to identify the origin of meat.. and in the meantime, quality has been decreasing. I'm not the only one who claim this. Meat is not as good as before, and I don't believe it's because of industrial methods of killing, because they haven't changed for 20 years; I have no clue that could solve this paradox. To conclude about french meat, I would say that such protectionist measures didn't provide us a better quality.. Brazilian beef does taste much better ;)

You may think that I have much time to waste, by writing about food. But if we look well into the topic, it's not just about food. It's generally about the way we (French people) deal with our own national products. It's not only about meat! Look at wine. For many decades now, the French has thought that the quality of their wine had no possible competitor all around the world. Bordeaux and Bourgogne vineyard's owners refuse to accept competition, but it's been there for a long time already. Five years ago, there was a wine worldwide contest. Each country picked its best wine and sent its best experts. Those experts, just by sipping some wine, could tell you about the country, the year, even the type of grape, the region, and many other details (that's why they are called experts :P). During this contest, of course, all the bottles were blindfolded, only 2 or 3 persons actually knew which label corresponded to which bottle. Each bottle had a number. So, after some rounds, the experts unanimously chose one bottle. They were all sure that it was one of the best Bordeaux ever but they were all wrong. It was a wine from Australia. I guess that a little wind of shame was blowing this community of "experts" that day.

So what? what is the relation between this wine contest and the quality of food? This relation can merely be called "illusion". This illusion is founded upon the old reputation of a French style that is nowadays completely obsolete. If French wine used to be the best, some years or decades ago, now the competition about quality is harsh and I have absolutely nothing against this; the instant when you start thinking that you are above any competition because your products have a good reputation, I think you start losing the point. Because in this competition, there are many guys who have enough energy to convince you that your reputation belongs to past. And I'm sure that this French touch already belongs to past....

This blog is not dead

No it's not! Just that for some time, you know, I wanted to leave some things away, stop analysing all the time everything that was happening to me and live it 100%. I have to admit as well that the level of laziness was quite... how to say.. HIGH. But let's say that I managed to put up with this, and that i'll try to write here more regularly.

My last message was posted some 4 months ago, in the middle of August. At that time, I was just considering starting to write “seriously” my internship report which was to be handed one month later, when I would go for some vacations. Today, my need for some vacations is comparable to that former period, all the more since everyone around me (not geographically speaking, I’m talking about my relatives) is preparing Christmas. I don’t mean to complain at all about my situation here, since I will spend this period in Middle East – hoping that some 2 weeks will be given to me after the January-February Session – but it feels very weird to know that it’s Christmas period when absolutely n-o-t-h-i-n-g in your immediate environment reminds you of the events. No need to mention that in the Muslim context, 24th and 25th of December are not more significant than a 12th of April, unless one of those three days might match with an Islamic celebration. Even at my workplace, the students didn’t seem to understand clearly why I took the Christmas days “off”. “ But it’s going to be a hole in the session, isn’t it ?”,one said....
Yes, so what? Isn’t it me, the boss, after all? :)
It is in Bahrain that we find some elements, decorations that remind one about Christmas. Some big trees are decorated (Christmas palm trees are a bit... exotic but still, a tree is a tree even though it requires big balls.. ehm). However I still haven’t found the sandman with a carrot as a nose.
This “opening” to Christian culture in Bahrain is mainly due to the important community of filipino people. Some of them chose Islam, but they are not that many. I had long been wondering what was the connection between Filipinos and Christianism (Roman Catholicism). It’s thanks to – or because of, choose your point of view :P – the Spanish. Them Spaniards, again! They brought Catholicism there, and also had an influence in the forming of one of the main Filipino dialects called “Tagalog”. When you hear Filipinos speaking this language, despite their pronounciation which is typical from this Asian-Indonesian part of the world, it’s possible to recognize some spanish words such as numbers, for example...
So Bahrain is more tainted with this Christian tradition but we shan’t exaggerate : it’s still a Muslim kingdom and even though Christian churches are tolerated – contrary to Saudi Arabia that admit nothing but mosques – you will obviously find more mosques than any other religious temple. Another difference, as far as religion is concerned between Bahrain and S.A. is the belonging to a specific dissidence. In Islam, we mainly find two dissidences, the first one which is “Sunnite” and the latter that is “Chi’ite”. The Chi’ite Muslims have different mosques, their convictions are based upon the great tragedy of Islamic people in the History of religion. In Bahrain, the religious color is Chi’ite contrary to Saudi Arabia, where Islam was born. I’m not sure that the open-mindedness of Bahrainis is due to this religious specificity.. I’ll try to find some documents for next post about this and explain it better.
Today I found again my little book entitled “learning Arabic without pain”. So far, I’ve ignored the therapeutical virtues of learning this language. When you look more thoroughly into it, you realize that the title is a big joke, since its content seems to be very hard to digest. Still... This is a language I want to know more about. Now that I can read numbers (٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩) and most of the arabic alphabet, it would be quite useful to grasp their meaning. To me, learning a language which looks like no one else has always looked exciting. I experienced that through my “very light” learning of Ancient Greek 4 years ago and I liked it very much. At that time, it was the changing of alphabet that gave a special difficulty and interest to the language. Now, the difficulty has reached another level above, since not only is the alphabet different, but the direction of reading is different. Another interesting thing is that letters, in Arabic, are not written in the same way depending on their position in the word : there are 29 letters in the alphabet, and each of them has 3 graphic variations : one variation if the letter is at the beginning of the word, another one when the word is in the middle of the word and a “final” version, when the letter is at the very end.
Let’s forget about linguistic stuff for a while... Some more news will be coming soon. For now, I will just go to bed, keeping some things to say – I mean, to write – in a little corner of my mind. I hope my “frequent readers” who were disappointed with this huuuuge break will excuse me.
See you..

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Hi… Many of my « regular readers » asked me why I haven’t updated the blog since the 20th of June. I don’t have the answer myself. It’s not that I’m not interested anymore in writing on this website, it’s just that I can’t find much time for myself. There are moments when I’m at work, at the office, preparing some courses, at some other moments i’m teaching, and once I completed those 2 things, I try to rest a little... which means that I merely want to do nothing special. My “biological rythm” is being changed, I didn’t feel it much at the beginning of my staying here, but it’s true that when the sun rises at 4.30AM in the morning and sets at 6.30PM, your behaviour is a little bit modified. I don’t have enough distance to know “how” this behaviour changes, as far as I’m concerned, but it influences much the way i’m scheduling each day.

First, I have to say that my attitude about the country is changing, as well. First, I had the impression to be in the middle of nowhere. Amelie Nothomb – who is not my favourite writer, but still, I remembered how she called China in “Biographie de la Faim” – called those strange places “nowhere” and “never”. A strange calling that simultaneously involves the idea of space, and the one of time. About space, and particularly because of the climate, I was wondering what I was doing there. The temperature outside, that reaches an average of 45 – 47 °C in the afternoon, is quite difficult to stand. However, I will not complain : at the office we have a very efficient air cooling system, the “A.C.”. So, inside, it’s constantly 22°C. Mild, isn’t it? And for those who will tell me that my skin is still very clear, I just remind them that I haven’t come there to sell donuts on the beach! :D
As far as the topic of Time is concerned, let’s say that I have the impression to find objects as they were in France 6 or 7 years ago. About “junk food”, for example : I remember when SEVEN UP had still a “not too much acid” taste, it was some years ago in France, before they change the recipe... that I’ve liked much less since then. Here, I find again this sweet taste of sevenup. There are such examples with many other products, it wouldn’t be interesting to list them individually. It’s not a bad critique, to say that I’m feeling as if it was 6 years before. In reality, according to “Egire” calendar, the current century is the 15th. This explains that.

Let’s talk about the job itself, now... It’s getting very interesting now, because my group of beginners become more and more able to produce a “correct” french. By evaluating them, I actually evaluate myself. Many of them come to see me after class, to ask me some more vocabulary about very common things, “everyday expressions” for which they’d like to know the translation.

It was days ago that I realized how much English is useful in teaching. Knowing very few things about Arabic (definitely not enough to use this language in a teaching context). It gives a very special dimension to the language you teach. Not only do you analyse your mother language by teaching (and by answering the students’ questions) but you also examine the language that serves you for the teaching, which is not the “target” language but the “instrument” language. It requires – and provokes, in the same time – a double metalinguistical analysis, and I think this is an aspect that I wouldn’t have discovered if I had remained in France for my internship, in a company or association. Here, I am certainly the teacher, but first and foremost a learner because the person who faces a situation of immersion in a “foreign context” is not any of my student but myself. Peculiar situation, to be both a teacher and a foreigner. I know the topic that I have to teach, to transmit, but it’s connected to a knowledge that is geographically speaking far from there. And that’s the difficult point : to make that knowledge closer, as much as possible. Before leaving – and wholly speaking “in my curriculum of a language learner” – I realized very rapidly that the one who teaches learns a lot, and the one who learns indirectly teaches, through his positive and negative reactions during the process of receiving Linguistical data and general knowledge.

Last day, I helped one of my students, Hamed (36 y.o, surgeon) in enriching his application for Schengen VISA, as he considers going to France from the 31st of July. At the Embassy of S.A. in Paris, they advised him to attend a FR school in Toulouse, as he will be studying surgery (for specialization) in Paris. I advised him to get closer to Paris, and finally they found a school for him in Tours. He will spend 3 years there, for his specialization. I’m very glad that he is going to fulfill one of his dreams, which is to get an higher education in medical sciences, in France.

Now, it’s the weekend, I’ll try to rest a little bit. My next projects are to get my Iqama (residence permit), my Passport (with the Multi-entry mention) and my Saudi driver licence, which was just converted at the Embassy. With those documents, I’ll be able to purchase a car... and travel around when I got spare time. Raed was very nice to drive me back home everyday after work, now it’s time to get some more independence and show some gratefulness.
And some other project.. to decide about my holidays of September which include some days in Orleans, some other days at home and, I hope so, a week with Aurelija in Vilnius. Days are passing quite fastly here, I hope it will be the same for the whole summer... and rapidly we should reach September. Until this date, I will have to write my 25-paged report for University, and another one for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

I’ll try to give some news quite soon! See you, take care.

After 6 days of silence, here I am :)

Hi... It's been almost one week since I last posted a message on the blog. It's true that I've been very busy in the last period. I started working at the center last Wednesday and tried to find some basis for my project. As I wrote in the last messages, I need to find a "direction" for the Franco-Saudi Center and to think of a new way of communicating outside. To rely on a "self-made" reputation is definitely not enough. What is required is to give a new, fresh skin to our image. And it's not easy at all, you can believe me. I admit that sometimes, I've been too lazy to face the problems directly : I did face them, but I took my time to do that, postponing always postponing the tasks to the next day, until the deadline. Now I have to reconsider my way of regarding things. Efficient reactivity is needed, and once again, I have to admit that I am not that good for this. I'm not used to making decisions that are both "fast" and reasonable. When I hurry up to make a decision, it's sometimes very imperfect, and when it's reasonable, it means that it needed time. Now, I have to make those two qualities match : that's my personal purpose.
For example, let's talk about courses for Women. As you might guess, in Saudi Arabia it's not possible to have men and women in the same class. If it was the only "problem", still it would be ok... but I was told that it's not even possible for men and women to be in the center at the same time. I thought about having Men courses in one room, and Women courses in another room, independently. Unfortunately, this is not something we are allowed to do here. This would have been more practical, but it doesn't fit with Saudian traditions and moral rules. It would be very risky for me to show any sign of anger about this. It would cost much... I would lose my job, if not worse.. Today women called me to discuss this. Actually, for the reasons I've just given, they have to go somewhere else to attend the lectures. And this 'somewhere' is inside a compound (A secured residence), whose director lends us a classroom for free...provided that the French-Saudi center is in charge of the cleaning. It had been 3 months since the last teaching session, which means that the room hadn't been cleaned since then. One student woman called me to complain, because the place was dirty and too small to welcome 10 students. As I was new, as I didn't know about this before, how could I react? Actually I felt ashamed. I was ashamed, because if it had happened to me, I would have called the director to complain and I wouldn't have been very nice on the phone, thinking that I would be "right" to do this. When you pay for a service, particularly language lectures, the minimum is that you attend them in acceptable conditions. Dust, Dirt is not what I call an acceptable condition for studying. She was right to complain, and I didn't have the good role. I understood that the responsibility of a captain (it's not very humble of me to use such a metaphor...) is not just to lead his ship towards the direction he wishes. Sometimes, there are contrary streams, storms. He can do nothing about it, but try to find solutions to keep it over the surface. That is my role : to react rapidly and efficiently. Today, I hired a cleaner to tidy up the woman classroom. Otherwise, I would prefer to give their money back, rather than provide them a service in such conditions. The center needs a new image : image is strengthened by credibility, and if you provide a service in bad conditions, you're going backwards. I don't want to harm our image. Men and women attend the class separately, all right : but in the same conditions, that's my word.
The positive aspect is that despite the world cup (that explains some kind of absenteism), registrations for the classes are going quite well, particularly registrations for women. We are going to hire a new teacher (not to replace the previous one) because the classroom is too small to welcome more than 10 people... And we have 14 registrations. Today I received a c.V. and a letter of motivation from a french-speaking woman from Canada. She speaks Arabic, English and according to the secretary, has a very good level in French : besides, she has already taught this language and already knows our teaching method. (Méthode Panorama 1 and 2). The funny thing is that she doesn't have any literary carrier, she's rather a scientist (She has a PhD in physics). What matters is that she speaks well and teaches well. I will receive her soon at the office, probably next week. That is another part of my job, to be responsible of human resources. The center is not that big but still, if people keep on talking about the center to their relatives, we should gain some importance and consider hiring new teachers. I like this "coordinating" aspect.

About the courses I've been teaching, today was my third day. On Saturday, I started teaching 2 different levels : from 5.30 to 7.30, I have a class of beginners who are already able to introduce themselves correctly, with a good pronounciation, after 6 hours. I'm happy about it : they are very interested in their learning process, and always talk with me after the session, around a cup of coffee or tea. Then, from 7.40 to 9.40, I have a group of good speakers. I don't need to use english for the teaching, I just speak French and they understand quite correctly. However, I still need to speak slowly. Their level is "6", which corresponds to the studying of the Unit number 6 of the method that counts 12 units all in all. Their level is very good, I would say, considering that they reached the middle of the "learning process". Of course, it doesn't mean that when they pass level 12, they have the same level as native speakers, not at all. Still, they can do many things with their knowledge and competences... to ntroduce themselves, talk about many topics, construct a skilled argumentation, or even apply for a job. I didn't imagine that teaching your native language to people could be such a satisfactory experience, when you realize that they do well and that they constantly want to improve themselves. So far, I have spent 6 hours with each group, so 12 hours all in all... there are 48 hours of teaching left before I reach the minimum amount of hours for the Master thesis. I have to make a paper about this experience... Something like 20 pages. I think that it's ok : I already know what I'm going to write in this mini-thesis. I won't have to invent anything, if you know what I mean... I just have to open wide my ears and my eyes to find something interesting to write about my first official teaching experience. I didn't want to have an internship in FR, although it can be very useful for foreign people who arrive in France to know some words. I would certainly have enjoyed to committ my internship into a social and human action, but I prefer travelling. To teach French is a good pretext for travelling, and for the moment I really don't regret the choice I made. Another aspect of my mission is to go to the companies' headquarters and propose them the services of the French-Saudi center. However, it requires that I have a car, and before having a car I need to convert my FR driving licence into a Saudian one, and this process requires that I get my residence permit.... The problem is that my passport is in Paris now (again...) at the Ministry. It will come back soon, I hope so.

I'm having my last 2 days at Eric's place, the teacher of Greek and Latin at the French school, I think I won't forget the way he has welcomed me here in Saudi. He completely shared his big house with me, shared his food (delicious diet meals from Carlton hotel ;) ) and his good mood. Today I made a present for him, a pair of jeans from his favourite brand (Replay) and he looked very happy. At the moment, I'm proud of myself in the sense that the presents that I made did provoke the effect I was silently hoping for, which is pleasure... and it makes me even happier afterwards. I'm hesitating about asking Eric if he would like to rent me the same room from September on... On the one hand, this place is very pleasant to live in, but on the other hand, I don't want anything bad to happen if we become room-mates, I experienced this in DK.. I want to keep on getting along with him, meeting him some time and go to Bahrain with him, as he promised me.

As soon as possible, i'll write about my new life downtown. It's going to be very different from life in the compound... but it's another interesting step to take.

See you soon and take care..

Errrr... I don't know which title to put on my message!!!

Well, after "hello", "heyhey", I think I will have used all the different manners of greeting you on this blog. I receive some comments about it sometimes, and I'm very glad about it. I know who they come from, it's better to have few messages from people you like than tons of posts from people you don't know. So, thank you very much for giving me reasons to continue... Today was a calm day, on the whole. My chief picked me up at the compound and drove me to the FR center, where I spent the whole morning. During this time, he went to the travel company to buy his ticket to go back to Riyadh. Today, French pupils who live abroad had their first exam at high school, and began with philosophy. His son is among those pupils, so it was normal that he goes back to Riyadh and encourage him. We spent 3 very interesting days, my chief and I, he gave me some instructions about how to run the center, about the objectives in terms of communication, partnerships with companies, advertisments in newspapers... There are a lot of things to do, above the mere act of "teaching" and this dimension gives a very interesting dimension to my job. I am free about taking initiatives, contacting companies, schools, educational institutions in FR.. This center will become what I want it to be, so on the one hand it raises a lot of excitment, and on the other, it supposes to develope a high sense of responsibility. It will help me to become more mature... I don't want to fail it. The responsible of Cultural office, in the FR embassy of Saudi Arabia, had been hesitating for a long time between closing the center and leaving him a last chance to survive. I think I want to take this chance and make this Center not only a language school, but a cultural center, a kind of tool for local schools and companies whose purposes are to cooperate with FR institutions. The demand for FR lectures is high, according to the phonecalls I receive, as far from the side of man as from the side of women. Saudi express a real motivation and interest for FR language and, furtherly, for higher education : it would be a shame to waste this demand... What do you think about this?
I'm very glad to talk with local people on the phone and to invite them at the office for a tea or coffee, it's the occasion to have a nice conversation about their expectations, linguistically speaking, and also culturally, by the way. In general, they are shy, they say 2 or 3 FR words, expressions in a sentence, to show you that they are interested in what you do, and that they would like to learn more. I spend nice moments at my office, sending some faxes to France, to Saudian companies to let them know about my new project. People are coming and going, I already have the impression that it's living, at least a little bit. What I would like, it is to leave a good and sincere impression to the visitors, so that they can talk around them. I would like to set a system of sponsorship, so that people thanks to whom new people come to register would be rewarded, I don't know yet the way I would do that, but not necessarily by doing a commercial special offer : rather by thinking about an intelligent way to catch their interest.. I keep this topic "under my elbow" ;) The main objective, of course, is to have as much people as possible in the courses.. But I don't want to favour the commercial aspect, i'm not interested in that. I want people to feel good by coming to the Center, both feeling at home and abroad. As the region is known for its very high production of Oil, it would be good to create some partnerships between the companies and the French Institute of Oil, for example, that proposes some very high education in this area... Everything is possible!

For the moment, I'm feeling good where I am. I visited the owners of the neighbour shops, as my office is inside a mall, and had some cool conversation with them. There are different types of shops, which is interesting : offices of educational information, restaurants, clothes shops, candy shops... They all greeted me very kindly. I admit that the position of the "white foreigner" makes me feel uneasy, although I can't get rid of it I need to show that I'm here to work "with" them, and not only "next to" them. Integration is important to me, even though I am quite realist about it, I don't have utopical expectations. At least, I have to try! The secretary who works in the office is really kind, he's going to help me to find a car. Today, I told him that I needed to leave the office because I was a bit hungry, he proposed me to call Mc Donald's... and finally went there for me, although I felt embarrassed. I don't want to command anyone, hierarchy is not something that will cross the door of "my" center.
At night, i'm living in the compound, where there are some important (quantitatively speaking) communities of people from France and Lebanon. The day before yesterday, we played Scrabble altogether and I was amazed by the deep knowledge of FR language that people from Lebanon have. To get back to my temporary living place, i'm very happy and quite sad at the same time. Eric, the Latin&greek professor who invites me, is really welcoming and helpful. I enjoy talking with him about anything, jobs, conditions of living abroad, our respective lives in FR. The sad thing is that soon, I will have to find a place to live in outside the compound.. not that I am afraid, it's true that the idea of living downtown is exciting, but still, the Fr community is nice here and I will miss the compound, for sure. I'm still thinking about a present for Eric.Tomorrow in the morning, I'll visit the French school, which has been proposed to me several times so far. This place is also a potential partner in the activity of the FR center : its director looks interested in the running of the center, we will probably soon talk about settling the female lectures inside the FR school. I'll also contact the teacher for women, we need to work together on the way we will communicate. My boss told me that she just "teaches", I think we'll reconsider her status and give her some little more tasks in terms of communication about the center.

Wow.. I thought I wouldn't have that many things to tell today, it seems that this post is longer than the previous ones. I can't promise that I will write so much everyday, but I'll do my best to update the blog as much as possible. Now i'm thinking of a picture to publish with this message. Oh, and one more thing, I admit that it's not easy to publish pictures, but anyway I managed to find a solution.. not the easiest one. Now, you can have a look at this URL, if you want to see some pictures : http://martiello.free.fr/web/index.htm I will also put this link as a permanent one, on the blog, above Google News. Try to look at them sometimes, if you wish !
Have a good night, feel free to leave messages and questions...

Hey Hey.....

I'm going to give the news for the 3 last days, for those I couldn't talk to since Friday. Many things happened, not bad one on the whole. First of all, I have to admit that it's not really easy to communicate the news on the internet, not that I don't have any access, on the contrary, but just that Saudian equipment is not as fast as the one I've known so far. I'm going back to the source, a 56k connection is the maximum I can have for the moment : I'm thinking very seriously of opening a private DSL line, but beforehand, I'd prefer to find an accomodation of my own, and the most important thing, the instrument we can do nothing without it : a car. But let's begin with a chronological summary of the last days.
On Friday, I was on my second day in Saudi Arabia. The sun rised over Riyadh very early in the morning, at around 4, 4.30 if I'm not wrong. It permits to wake up early, an habit that I've got familiar with since I've arrived, despite short time spent sleeping. I had my breakfast, then spent the morning listening to music, not daring go outside to see the landscape and take some pictureS. There is something in my mind that told me that there are risks about taking some pictures inside a diplomatic area, so I retained myself from doing that. At 1.20, I went to my chief's place to visit him, as he had invited me for lunch at this time. After posting Thursday's message on the blog, we had some drinks with a colleague of him, and another young man who has worked for the FR embassy since April, and who has the same status as mine. We had a very delicious lunch, some fish whose name I can't remember. As far as I know, i'll publish its name, it's worth tasting it but I doubt we might find some in Western Europe. The desert was a "Strawberry Charlotte" prepared by a cooker from Lebanon. I've been told several times that food from Lebanon is good. Well, at the end of lunch, everyone went back to his place, I had a nap until 6.. At this time, my colleague from Riyadh called at the door and we went to the Embassy together. He had some Faxes to send, while I would relax in the swimming pool. Of course, I can't give details about security inside the embassy, first because I know almost nothing about it and also because it's not an interesting topic to develope now, but the few that I saw about safety rules impressed me. After swimming, my colleague came to pick me up and we walked to our quarters. The "D.Q.", on the whole, seems to be a very safe place, we just have to look at the number of soldiers, overall near the American area, whose people were target of some attacks 2 years ago. Once again, no details.For dinner, I had some... pasta (looks like in DK, doesn't it?) and listen to music - Cyril's selection on my USB player - until tiredness close my eyes naturally. By the way, if there was a country where Sand Sellers wouldn't suffer from unemployment, it would certainly be Saudi. However I don't know if the joke of the "Sand Seller" is valid for everyone. No big deal...
For the beginning of the week - in other words, on Saturday 10th - it was planned that I would go to the embassy to register my presence here. First I went to the Consulate, which is a kind of Townhall and that is in charge of civil rights and duties, voting, stuff like these. Then I went to some more specific offices, to apply for the IQAMA, that is to say the Saudian ID. Without IQAMA, theoretically, you can buy no car and open no bank account. As strange as it may seem, I'd like to do those two things... I hope my papers will rapidly be available.Inside the embassy, I met some people among whom the head of the FR school in Khobar, "JF" (as he calls me "JMM"), he's someone who has a pleasant sense of humor. In the afternoon, we were supposed to have a flight to Dammam at 3PM but that was just "the plan". Once at the airport, we knew that the flight would be delayed, 30 minutes or so. Then, the flight was announced at 4... then 5... at 5.30, we finally took the bus until the plane. And things started to take a strange appearance. All the passengers were sitting calmly in the plane, reading the newspapers that had been offered some minutes earlier. Engines started spinning rapidly, then ... nothing. No light anymore in the cabin. OK, sometimes it happens that the pilot makes some tests on engines before taking off. 30 minutes later, still nothing. It was already 6.30. We saw some engineers getting into the plane, holding some corkscrews and toolboxes. Then I thought : "there is definitely something wrong with the plane". Suddenly the pilot announced that we had to take the bus again : the driver took us to the airport hall again, where we waited for some 40 minutes, and at 7.30, AT LAST (!!) we took off. It means that all our plans for the night were cancelled, as we were expected to land at Dammam at 4, 4.30. The last joke, that we call in FR "the little cherry on the top of the cake" happened when everyone stood up to get out of the plane, after landing. The pilot taxiied the aircraft until its full stop location but no stairs were there to let us get out. People nervously laughed, "and then finally" :) left the airport quite rapidly.I left with JF and 2 other people from Lebanon, among whom a music teacher (who works at the FR school) and a cardiologist whose fluency in French is almost perfect. After some 50 km sitting in a very comfortable American car, we reached our compound. There, I was welcomed by a French teacher with whom I got along very rapidly. He teaches Latin and Greek and also French at Middle school. His welcoming was warm and still is, I'm looking for an idea to show him my gratefulness, something else than a mere "thanks a lot". If you have any idea, please "post it"(©) as a comment. My first night in Khobar was calm, I rapidly fell asleep..
On Sunday morning, my chief picked me up at the entry of the compound, where some soldiers asked me what I was doing there. Showing them my temporary resident permit, they finally understood that I was waiting for someone. By car, we visited the main areas of the city; Some mosques by the sea are really interesting as far as their architecture is concerned, I'll try to take some pictures. (Sorry if you have the impression that I promise "more than I show pictures.. For the moment, it's a very long process, if not impossible to publish them on FTP servers).After visiting my workplace and talking about it with my chief, we went to the clothes-shop just below the Saudi-French Center. We found very interesting stuff, among those I found a leather pair of trousers which brand is Levi's. Quite surprizing.. The FR teacher who rents me a room told me that those items are genuine.For lunch, we went to a kind of asiatic restaurant in which many nationalities are present. I had some beef with a spicy sauce, and drank some "Saudian champaign" which is made of apple juice,sparkling water, pieces of oranges and apples and leaves of mint. It's very tasty. Then, we went back to the F-S center where I stayed some time and met the secretary of the place, someone very helpful and polite. He proposed me to give me a hand in the choice of a car and of a little apartment. I sent some faxes to Bahrain, in order to propose them a partnership if they had any cultural project. I did the design of my business card and made some modifications compared to the previous one.At night, after getting into the compound again (and walking in front of the soldiers who had recognized me), I brought a letter to JF who proposed me to play scrabble (Scrabble duplicate) with other FR-speaking people. And I can say that people from Lebanon are very good at Scrabbling :P That was a good idea to go there, I had the opportunity to have a talk with people I didn't know before.
Generally, I like the place, the country where I am and the job i'm going to fulfill. There will probably be darker sides in the next weeks, but i'm already trying to consider which things could be negative for me within a short or middle perspective. I'll let you know about this soon. Until then, take care and leave me some news when possible. SEE YOU..
P.S. : My best wishes to those who are starting High School exams from today.