Valley PR Blog

Veeds of Arabia

By Linda VandeVrede on September 21st, 2009 In People

Jim with a friend at Internet services in KSA

Fellow writer Jim Veihdeffer is on a year-long adventure in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to teach English as a Second Language.   Until just a few weeks ago, he was basking in the sunshine in Phoenix.    Here’s his story:

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I came to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia with a variety of motivations: money, cultural adventure, opportunity. 

• Soft job market in Phoenix for PR — a number of my trusty clients were simply going quiet or disappearing. Looking ahead, I didn’t see myself making any forward progress for a while and going somewhere where they have money seemed like a good way to sit out the recession. 
• Although I wasn’t initially seeking out a TESL position (Teaching English as a Second Language), it turns out there’s quite a world market, complete with recruitment fairs. This one just came my way as I was poking around looking at what teaching opportunities were available in the community college system. Although I enjoy the prestige of teaching at ASU, it’s hard to make money and it actually costs you more, the more courses you take on simply through parking fees, travel and grading load.
• When the Saudis contacted me in response to my letter of inquiry, I looked around at what was actually tying me to Phoenix and it was mainly friends and mortgage. No wife, no kids, no car payment, no other relatives or government commissions. I did have some very special people I was leaving behind, but part of my due diligence was figuring out ways to keep in daily touch with Skype, VoIP phone, and e-mail.
• I considered that spending a year in one of the world’s hot spots — in every sense of the word — would be a unique opportunity that relatively few Americans could ever talk about. People spend a week or two weeks …or a month somewhere…but I reckon it really takes a year before you can claim to have an understanding of a place. It was very helpful to me to hear every single one of my friends and acquaintances say “Good for you; go have an adventure.” (Except, I think, my mother, who said “Make sure you take plenty of good underwear.”) The fact that Saudi Arabia, with it’s very fundamental Muslim policies and customs, not to mention 108 degrees today, is not considered a great place to visit paradoxically makes it a great opportunity in the sense that not many people can talk about it authoritatively. Everyone has their two cents about Paris or Cairo or Japan or Nepal.  But try getting into a restaurant at 10pm during Ramadan!
• In point of fact, the base salary is not all that great, by American standards–at least for teaching. Many people think that because KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) is considered hardship duty, and the country has all this oil money, it must pay extravagantly. But the total remuneration package only comes out as fairly attractive when you consider not having to pay US income tax, lack of any taxes whatsoever in the Kingdom, free housing for teachers (in my position), fairly low cost of living (a 20 mile cab ride cost me about $6.65, with no tip needed), opportunity for overtime tutoring at the school, no need to buy gas for the car, no car insurance for a year and… since the government pays my round trip airfare, it’s like getting a free trip to the Magic Kingdom.

Biggest hope: to return to the US with credible Arabic language skills and a healthy job market.
Biggest fear: that I will return and find that my new job experiences have no particular market value other than cocktail party chatter and blogging.

Biggest disappointment to date: U.S Embassy — a combination of Motor Vehicles Department and branch bank.

Biggest thrill to date: the extraordinary graciousness of the Saudi people (not necessarily including airport customs).

A big advantage of coming from Phoenix: weather is about the same, with extra dust in the air. You say it’s 105? No prob.

My name in Arabic:جيمس فيديفر

(don’t forget to read it right-to-left, otherwise it will just seem like gibberish to you)

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Want to contact Jim?   You can reach him at jveeds@aol.com.   Follow his further Arabian nights at http://jveeds.blogspot.com and on twitter @jveeds.

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