People Need to Relax

Okay so yesterday and the day before were two very good examples of what to expect from living in this culture..and that is that things tend to take a while and aren't always well organized.  Sunday night was our first orientation night.  We were supposed to be there at 5pm for registration (none of us knew what we had to register for or what we needed to bring, so that was the beginning of the confusion) and it said that orientation would end at 11pm.  So we all go down to the meeting room, as we get there we see people in copier lines.  We ask them what they are making copies of and why and miraculously no one seems to know.  I laughed and shook my head, there have been several rumors flying around about what is going on and what we need to do, all of which somehow contradict each other.  My new friends and I take a seat, arriving at a little before 5pm.  At about 5:30 a woman comes in to tell us that we don't actually need to be there until between 6:30 and 7pm and that now is simply for making copies.  We find out that we need to make copies of both our stamped passport and visa, for something we need to do later, by word of mouth.  I was about falling asleep on my feet so one of my friends was nice enough to copy my visa for me while I went to take a catnap.  I came back down at about 6:30 to mass chaos in the area outside the meeting room.  There were four tables and, by talking to my friend Ilene, I found out that each table had two lists with names on them and I had to find which list/table had my name so I could get my back account oped at the National Bank of Abu Dhabi.  This seemed simple enough except that teachers kept taking the lists from the table and not putting them back, so instead you had to find the people holding the lists and figure out which table they went to.  Now this would have been bad enough without the 200+ teachers all cramming into a space meant for about 50 or so.  Needless to say, tempers were high and hysterics were beginning.  I was in a perfectly good mood having taken a nap and the sun was setting right outside the window so I calmly found my table, happened to get the third place in line and prepared to wait.  I stood with a smile on my face both due to the beauty of the sunset and the hilarity of the people around me.  People were crying, yelling, swearing, and overall having hysterics.  I got to the hot seat quickly and it was a manner of minutes till I had my bank account open and was again free to do as I pleased until 8:30 when our bosses would actually arrive and orientation would commence.  I was lucky enough to get my account before the bank tellers left for a brief Iftar meal, which I thought was well deserved with how hard they had been working and the fact that they hadn't eaten since 4:30am.  However, I was a little miffed to hear some of the teachers complaining saying "how dare they take a break to eat, we need to get our accounts." After some gentle reminding that they had not been able to eat for over fifteen hours, such teachers learned to keep their comments to themselves.  Having nothing to do and being a bit hungry ourselves, my friends and I went to my room, brought some food, and had a little snack of our own.  We had a great time laughing at the attitudes downstairs and then went down a bit before 8:30 to be ready for orientation.  Orientation started ON TIME yet many teachers were rudely outside getting their accounts open or chatting while we were getting information inside the meeting room.  Therefore, when it came time for the question and answer period people were coming and going or simply not listening and therefore many questions were repeated.  Therefore the orientation that could have taken a half hour took almost two hours.  Oh did I mention that before orientation we were each given a bag that had information for us and a zip drive.  The information packet had a most asked questions part...that answered almost all the questions asked during the Q & A...funny.  Due to the idiocy of many others and the very funny answers by the host of orientation, Ilene, Mary Beth, and I were almost rolling with laughter.  After orientation finished, we all had to get in a line based on our group number...mine was 7...and hand in our Visa, Passport and Copies in order to get our residency and work Visas.  That went relatively quickly and then a bunch of us went upstairs to have a well deserved glass of wine.  I ended the day with fun conversation and by meeting three very nice Italian men.  Yesterday was a bit better...a bit.  We had our medical checks and each group had a time that they needed to be ready to go to the bus.  Some people expected to get in and out while I expected the whole thing to take at least three hours.  It turned out I was right.  I was the last group to go and I was supposed to leave the hotel at noon, we didn't end up leaving until 1:30.  It was about a 45 minute drive to the hospital and then we went up to the 15th floor on a less then completely sturdy elevator.  We sat in chairs and got a number.  Our numbers got called to go to a desk and give them our information.  Then we were pushed through to get our blood pressure and weighed.  Then we had to have a seat until we had a skin test, which consisted of lifting up our shirts and turning around so they could check for leprosy. Then we had to wait again till we could get our blood tests, the people taking my blood laughed when I said my name because apparently when you say my name out loud it means "my dog" in Arabic.  Then we had to wait to have an x-ray to look for TB.  The longest waits were for the skin tests and x-ray.  Knowing it would take a while, I had brought my kindle.  The hospital was clean, air conditioned and the chairs were decently comfortable...I was a happy camper.  Others were not as positive.  Some women rudely asked the helpers if there was a way to speed things up, complaining that they had been waiting for too long, others would get up in a huff to go somewhere else rather then wait with nothing to do, thus making the helpers have to search for them and thereby prolonging the wait of others.  The whole process in the hospital took about 3 hours and I was back at the hotel by 5:30.  I had a two hour nap, went to dinner at the Arabic restaurant in the hotel and then went back to my room hoping to get more sleep then I had the past couple days...I ended up getting 6 hours, one more then normal.  Today, I had a wonderful breakfast and am looking forward to hanging out at the pool and then going to my 5pm aroma therapy massage so until next time, Ramadam Kareem!