excited

I was so excited throughout the night that I didn't sleep. At all. I get into a taxi in 45 minutes to head off. Happy, happy ,joy,joy.

hours

not that i am excited but i have just 7 hours until a cab gets me to take me to the airport. i have packed and I am just waiting for the time to pass. no sleep for me tonight. I am ready to go and cant wait to get out of here. It has been a long hard slog to make it this far. But in just a few short hours I will have completed another of the challenges that i set for myself. I deserve a beer for this one.

pissed

a valuable lesson for the day. seems like every time i try not to learn i do. so this morning one of the guys that lives in the same building as me left for the UK. He got off on time and had no problems. When I got back from lunch the front desk asked where he was. I told them and they freaked out. They said he owed one months rent. Now this guy arrived the day before i did and has paid at the same time as me for the last 7 months. I knew he didn't but i wasn't going to start something as he was gone. Then they told me I also owed a months rent. That was preposterous. I had them print a receipt to show me what was paid and when. They didn't have when I arrived nor the second month but insisted I owed them. I have been keeping my receipts and went and found them. I showed them the receipts and they still insisted that I owed. I had to call one of the administrators from the school who spoke arabic to help. This after I had produced more adequate records then they had. I just cant believe that people are so crap. Instead of looking through old ledgers which had the receipts in them or looking at the computer records and seeing that there was something odd about a month where there was no revenue reported they accused me and this other guy of trying to skip out on the money. After they finally accepted that the receipts I had were proof enough they asked me if they could make a copy in order to have records. So I learned that people suck.(Well I knew that already but it was reinforced) And I learned that keeping receipts is well worth the minute it takes to slip them into a folder. Keep your receipts they could be your ticket out of a shithole.

exit stage right

I received my final exit visa today which means i am actually allowed to leave the country. I have never been in a country where workers are forbidden from leaving without the permission of the employer. It is kind of scary actually. What if they had decided that I hadn't completed my contractual obligations? I would not be allowed out. I am sure that this happens to many of the laborers. They get here and have their passports taken they work 12-14 hours a day and sleep stuffed 10+ to a room earn barely enough to live and when they finally have had enough and try to go home their employer refuses to grant an exit visa. No exit visa, no getting out of the country. But of course slavery doesn't happen anymore. That ended a long time ago. Unless your a domestic worker or a laborer here in the kingdom. Glad to be able to go without much hassle. Looking forward to the long flights full of booze. And the sand and the water at the beach.