A shower of glass

It was my last day in the Kuwaiti sun and me and Ed were frantically packin our lives into our suitcases. All staff had to get their houses checked for inventory to make sure that it was in the condition it came in and rumours abounded of how the Kuwaitis had nitpicked and fleeced previous staff out of their deposits.

It was said that people were getting charged for minor things like forks going missing and scratches on paintwork as if they were sterling silver. In truth the places we were given were decked out in cheap furniture from the Friday market and Mr GB had earlier in the year cut straight through the metal of his fork with his knife while eating a steak.

To be fair to them though, if they had looked closely they would have found a few things to dock money from the two of us in our lowly flat. In a fit of maths-induced glee, Ed had written equations all over the wall of the living room and rubbed them out (badly) a day before the guy turned up and I had broken a chair falling onto it while pissing about in my room.

It was quite nerve wracking as no-one wanted to lose the £200 deposit, so we were all dotting our i’s and crossing our t’s, making sure that we had everything all lined up for the guy to come round and check.

The night before the geography teacher, who won’t remain nameless gave us a call. She had moved to NES, the New English School, or as the joke went the New Gulf English School as it took in no less than 18 disgruntled Gulf staff that year in the biggest staff massacre ever seen. 85% of the staff left in disgust over pay and conditions last year.

She was moving to NES accommodation and had packed in all her crap already including the school-supplied remote control for her TV so she rang Ed and asked if she could come round and borrow ours, with the assurance that she’d get it straight back to us.

Now this is a girl of my age who lives in Kuwait and loves it because she can go out every weekend and afford to get her nails done and drive a 4x4. She’s well known for being a bit dippy and letting people down because she “has to get her nails done”.

As she spoke to Ed on the phone, he shook his head furiously and so did I before saying out loud, “Ann-Marie has forgotten her remote control in her NES flat and the guy is coming over to check it out.” *shakes head furiously- he's not dumb * “can she borrow ours?”

We both knew that as soon as the guy checks the place over he takes your key and that's it. You can't just get the remote control out from under his nose and I wasn't prepared to give up my 100kd deposit for anyone especially as I wasn't coming back so I wasn’t about to mess around.

I said straight out - "No she bloody well can't"

She then begged and pleaded and he finally gave in and I said I was unhappy about it in no uncertain terms. I made it quite clear that I wanted it back however she done it - I didn't care if she had to kill the guy to get it back. She airily said yeah ok I'll bring it back as soon as he’s done. But I wasn't happy and she knew I wasn’t. Ed has a serious weakness for women even when they are fat and ugly.

Anyway…

The guy came round to hers that evening (we were taking n off the next morning) and, as I suspected she didn't bother to come round to ours after.

I bit Eds head off and got straight on the phone to her the next morning.

"Where the hell is our remote control?"

Yeah you guessed it. She had got what she wanted and just went home and went to sleep, her plan being to find her remote amongst her crap and give that to us whenever she found it.

We were flying in about 3 hours so I was not happy.

Maybe it was something in the way I told her my feelings but she took offence and stormed over from NES accommodation in her 4x4.

Storming up to the door, she banged on it ranting. Ed answered and was nearly bowled over by the moose’s fat ass.

"WHERE IS HE?!"

Ed moved out the way

I came out

Ed Watched

She blew her top.

"I can't believe that you have made such a big deal of this. and the way you spoke to me – after all I have done for you! I hope you do really badly next year"

I was gobsmacked. What planet was she on!! She seemed blissfully unaware of the trouble she had caused us. I am pretty certain she wouldn’t even have come round if I hadn’t sworn at her and I’m bloody glad I did!! And then to top it off with the most childish comment I have ever heard from anyone ever! It was all me and Ed could do not to laugh in her face!

“I hope you do badly next year” – oh behave!! What sort of thing is that to say to someone! Me and Ed laughed all the way to the airport, where we bumped into her dropping off another GES staff member. She tried to avoid eye contact so I walked straight into the road in front of her car and laughed at her.

The inventory itself was a classic moment in my life. When the guy was due round he was late and I had packed everything. Being hyperactive as I am I was gettin impatient.

I had bought a whole bunch of martial arts weapons earlier in the year and I had parted with most of them to one of my favourite students, but couldn’t bring myself to get rid of my 6 foot pole.

Bored, I thought I’d reacquaint myself with some moves so I started a simple exercise and swung it over my head. Ed was on the phone to Simon next door, as he was seeing the bloke first so Ed wanted to find out where he had got to.

"where is he?"

"Oh he's just left ours he's on his way to yours now"

*smash*

"oh shit Andy has just broken something next door"

*moan from my room*

“ooooooooooooh shit Ed We've got a problem”

I didn't even NOTICE before that we had glass lampshades! What sort of idiot puts glass lampshades in a place anyway! Suffice to say that room doesn't have glass lampshades any more.

*ding dong*

"oh shit he's here"

"Bugger mate. Get cleaning I'll stall him"

I legged it into the kitchen to get the dustpan and brush

*sweep sweep sweep*

By that time we had emptied all the bins. There were no more bin bags in the house. So, frantic to get rid of the evidence and with the dude at the door, I tipped all the glass out the window. There was a little tinkle from a few floors down as Ed showed the guy around the living room.

In a stroke of genius, Ed had pushed the broken chair up against the wall behind a table and was chatting to our inspector casual as you like.

When he came in to my room I distracted his attention from the still swinging lampshade by pointing at the drawers and muttering something. The gods must have been smiling that day. He didn't even notice.

100KD in the bag, we drove off to the airport laughing and relieved. Mischief escapes again!

Kuwait - teachers favourite...

Can you believe that this "Dr Manhattan" character on the Kuwait thread in the Times Educational Supplement shares the same view about the mistreatment of Newly Qualified Teachers as me! Well what a coincidence!

Hmm isn't Dr Manhattan the name used by the physics professor in Alan Moore's groundbreaking "Watchmen" series? Hmm how do I know that...?

Birds and balls in Romania

I have been living in Alexandria, a small town in the south of Romania and teaching English.

The first week has been bliss, I get spoilt by my host family which consists of a doctor, a dentist and their 13 year old son. I’ve started doing chemistry and physics in the kitchen with the kid which is a real eye-opener. He’s a bright lad, but Romanian schools tend to avoid practicals so this was the first time he’d actually done a practical. So we do practicals every night now, from “the egg-in-a-bottle” to the “imploding cans” for physics and electrolysis of salt (using paper clips 2 bits of cheap wire, salt water and an AA battery).

For those of you in the know, the electrolysis of salt water should give us sodium hydroxide and chlorine. However over here, the Romanians use iodine instead as the halogen as they used to have a high incidence of hypothyroidism so we made iodine and potassium instead. Being a travelling chemistry and physics teacher certainly does have some advantages.

Am starting to get a tiny bit paranoid that the birds are out to get me. Earlier in the year, I travelled to Vietnam and a few weeks before I left Kuwait it was reported that Vietnam had reported it’s first cases of bird flu. SE_London_Chinky mailed me the perfect solution to the epidemic earlier in the week. “Buy a ton of Pho (Vietnamese noodles) and a big pot” he says, “and serve with jasmine tea”. The entrepreneurial spirit of the Vietnamese never ceases to amaze me.

Just 2 days before I took off to Romania the birds saw me comin and started dropping dead on the black sea coast at the Danube delta. Dinner yesterday was Romanian rice stew with chicken. Is that a fever comin on…

The Romanians are taking the necessary precautions, killing off everything with wings in the Danube delta and restricting access to the affected town. In Alexandria, the ministry of education cancelled the Freshers ball at my school which was supposed to happen last night apparently to prevent the risk of the infection from spreading. What idiot brings a chicken to a ball anyway!? “Hi have you met my bird…” I don’t know. These Eastern Europeans huh…

Looks like a quiet weekend. Dad (as in my host family dad) crashed the car earlier in the week else we would have driven into Bucharest to get some provisions. As it stands at the moment though I am just gonna chill out in Alexandria and read the rest of “Salam Pax: The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi”. I’m hooked. Put a search on google for it and read the cached version. Thanks Salam for reminding me how to blog again!