Two Old Fools on a Camel: From Spain to Bahrain and Back Again

by Victoria Twead

  Just one girl sat still and upright, in the front row, hands clasped primly in her lap. Fatima. I was just opening my mouth to yell at the class when a flinty voice beside me stopped me in my tracks.

  “Miss Vicky? I was just checking that Fatima had found the correct classroom. I see she has. I sincerely hope this is not an example of your teaching methods.”

  Fatima’s mother. Why did she always turn up at the most difficult times? I opened my mouth to explain that I’d been sorting Mr. Wayne’s class, but didn’t get a chance to speak.

  “Fatima’s education is extremely important. She cannot work in this kind of environment.”

  “I...”

  “Please make sure that Fatima is given homework tonight.”

  Parting shot delivered, she swept away, black robes swishing with disapproval.

  A flashback of Spain crowded into my mind. I saw Joe and myself on our roof terrace, a glass of Paco’s wine in our hands, heads tipped back to watch a pair of eagles soaring above the mountaintops. The valley bristling with green pines, and bee-eaters chattering in the almond trees. Impatiently, I banished the memory, together with the wave of homesickness, and took a deep breath.

  Ten minutes later, order in the classroom was restored. I discovered that I was already familiar with many in the class. Cheeky Mohammed, moon-faced Mohammed, the chubby girl Zainab, Ahmed, Yasir...and Fatima.

  Another boy was proving to be even cheekier and louder than Mohammed.

  “Please don’t interrupt when I’m speaking,” I warned him. “Only one person speaks at the time in my classroom. What is your name?”

  “Mees, Mustafa Kamel, Mees.”

  I scrutinised his face to check he wasn’t joking. He wasn’t.

  “And your name?” I smiled at a tiny girl with a long, thick plait that hung down her back. She remained staring down at her desk.

  “What is your name?” I asked again.

  No reply.

  “Mees!” said cheeky Mohammed, “that’s Huda, and she doesn’t speak.”

  “You mean she doesn’t speak English?”

  Huda’s fingers gripped her pencil so tightly I thought it would snap.

  “No, Mees! She doesn’t speak, Mees.”

  Great! That’s all I needed. A mute in the class as well.

  “Never mind,” I said. “I’m sure she’ll speak when she’s ready.”

  I turned my back to write the day’s vocabulary list on the board, which was a mistake. Mustafa Kamel knocked cheeky Mohammed’s pencil-tin to the floor with a crash. Ahmed ripped some more paper off the window glass. Yasir made a face at Zainab and was rewarded with a slap. Only Fatima, in the front row, was neatly copying the words into her exercise book.

  “Who emptied a bottle of Tippex over my desk?” I asked, horrified at the sticky white pool beginning to congeal.

  “What’s Tippex, Mees?” asked Yasir.

  “Tippex, White-Out, Blanco, whatever you want to call it!” I snapped.

  “Mees! It was Huda, Mees!” yelled Mustafa Kamel, making the class shout with laughter.

  Huda shrank even more into herself, her face expressionless, her eyes still fixed on her desk. I knew she hadn’t moved. I couldn’t prove it but I was pretty sure the culprit was Mustafa Kamel.

  I learned a lesson that day, one that helped me through the rest of those torrid days. Every morning, before school began, I wrote the day’s vocabulary list on the board. That way I needn’t turn my back and I could police them as they copied from the board.

  “Miss,” said Fatima, just before the bell rang. “You’ve spelt ‘colour’ wrong.”

  She was right, of course, and I was wrong. I’d automatically spelt it the British way, but as we were in an American school, I should have written ‘color’. From that day on, Fatima delighted in catching me out with British/American spelling.

  ۺۺۺ

  I had a precious free period and made my way to Smokers’ Corner, hoping Joe would be there. Joe, Saeed and some others were roaring with laughter at another story Colton was relating about floating down the Boise River.

  “Hey, so my buddy Tucker, he hates the cops, ’n they’re on every bridge lookin’ down, checkin’ out if we’ve got beer, which ain’t allowed. Well, my buddy Tucker, he just flips over onto his stomach, ’n’ when we go under this bridge, he pulls his shorts down ’n’ moons some at the cops.”

  “Did he d-d-d...” asked Saeed when the story was over.

  “Do it again? Yeh! Loads of times!”

  “No, did he d-d-d...”

  “Drown?” suggested Joe, rather unhelpfully.

  “No, did he d-d-d-drink Coors? You said the Coors f-f-factory was nearby?”

  Alcohol was a subject of fascination to our Muslim friends, most of whom had never let a single drop pass their lips.

  “When you take alcohol,” asked Yussef, the Egyptian Information Technology teacher and father of newborn triplets in Cairo. “When you drink, how do you get home?”

  Joe and Colton looked puzzled.

  “Bennigan’s isn’t far away,” said Joe.

  “No, I mean, don’t you fall over? I was told that your legs don’t work after drinking alcohol.”

  The High School bell rang and, being the only Middle School teacher there, I was left alone. I got my books out to plan the next day’s lessons, just as Rashida arrived. With a chipped fingernail, she retrieved her half-smoked cigarette from the groove in the wall and sat down, knees wide apart.

  “How are your chickens?” she asked as usual.

  “Er, I don’t know,” I replied. “I expect they’re fine. Our neighbour in Spain is looking after them while we are away.”

  Rashida fumbled in her bag and brought out a small mirror and a pair of tweezers. She leaned her head back, and began plucking hairs from her chin, holding the mirror to study her work.

  “You remember I tell you about our chickens? In our balcony in Beirut?” she asked, after a plucking pause.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “My husband, he tell me that our grandson, he just loves the chickens!”

  I smiled and waited for her to continue.

  “My little grandson, every day he ask, ‘Grandfather, Grandfather, please can we buy a husband for the chickens?’ So my husband, he say, ‘Yes’.”

  “Did he get one?”

  “Oh, yes! A very, very beautiful husband for the chickens. Many, many colours. And the chickens, they love their new husband!”

  “That’s nice!”

  “No, my husband say it now a big problem...” Rashida plucked a few more hairs, and shook her head.

  “Why?”

  “The chicken husband, he have very bad attitude, very bad. Now, he not let my husband go into the balcony! He want to fight all the time.”

  “Oh dear...”

  “The chicken husband, he love my grandson. He not start a fight with my grandson, but he hate my husband.”

  Memories of our feisty little cock in Spain came flooding back. Cocky had been a nightmare, and I sympathised.

  “And the chicken husband, he crowls so loud! He crowls all through the day and he crowls all through the night. My husband, he not sleep, and the neighbours, they are calling him, asking if it his chicken crowling all the time.”

  “What did he say?”

  Rashida brushed cigarette ash from her knee and chuckled.

  “My husband, he tell neighbours it not his chicken. But the security man, he know we have chickens in our balcony. My husband, he say the chicken husband must go, but when he say that, my grandson, he cries, cries very much.”

  I could see that this was a difficult problem, and wondered how it could be resolved. I opened my mouth to speak, but Rashida had already fallen asleep, mouth wide open, hands resting on the mirror and tweezers in her lap.

  On the bus home that day, I noticed that Hali-Barry was missing.

  “He’s bought himself a jeep,” said Andrea, in her Texan drawl. “At least we won’t have him breathin
g all over us anymore. Do you know, he asked me on a date the other day? The thought of it!”

  As the days rolled by, I slowly shaped a workable routine for myself. It was exhausting, as every class produced work and homework to be assessed. Apart from planning lessons, I usually had 80 assignments to grade daily. Wayne was frequently absent, which meant extra work for me. Mr. Brewster still sang Wayne’s praises at every opportunity, and I gathered that they were socialising together, out of school. But I was coping, and in spite of myself, I was growing fond of my unruly charges, even Mustafa Kamel and cheeky Mohammed.

  Joe, however, was not adapting so well.

  12. Brent

  ‘Sfeeha (Middle Eastern Lamb Mini-Pizzas)’

  To Joe’s frustration his schedule was still being chopped and changed. Every week different faces appeared in his classes. Worse still, the students were beginning to see through his fierce exterior and were taking advantage.

  “They actually bring their breakfast to eat during my lesson,” he complained. “And if I’m in the Science lab, they make tea on the Bunsen burners.”

  “Well, stop them!” I said.

  “I can’t. They’re very polite, and they always make some for me, too. I haven’t the heart to shout at them.”

  “Are they doing any work?”

  “Huh! A handful, maybe, but the rest just use my lessons as a social gathering. When I do a head count, I always find twice as many kids as I should have because they invite their friends from other classes.”

  Joe and students

  “It can’t be that bad.”

  “It is. It is that bad. I’m telling you, Vicky, if things don’t improve, I think we need to leave, go back home to Spain at Christmas. I think I’ll go insane if I have to stay here. I can’t teach teenagers who don’t want to learn, I’m getting too old for this.”

  I truly sympathised. These children, whom we were supposed to be teaching, had little desire to learn. Why should they? They came from rich families with secure futures. For them, attending school was compulsory, but actual learning, getting an education, wasn’t important at all.

  However, we had signed contracts to work for a year. We couldn’t just pull out. Rumours abounded of past teachers who simply disappeared, unable to take the stress. A little heap of keys were found on the desk, and the teacher vanished, never to be seen or heard from again.

  But I felt the school had been good to us. We were well paid and provided for, even though the work was gruelling. I wasn’t ready to give up.

  But Joe became steadily more downhearted. Had it not been for Colton, Jake, and Bennigan’s, our oasis in the desert, I think he would have booked an immediate flight home. As it was, I was determined to jolly him along, at least until Christmas.

  So I was pleased when Joe made an announcement, particularly as it concerned his beloved sport, football.

  “I’ve volunteered to help with the after-school soccer club,” he said, rare, genuine pleasure in his eyes. “You know Jane, the Physical Education teacher at the High School?”

  Yes, I did know Jane. American, built like an Olympic shot-putter. She was, in fact, the Athletics Director for the entire school. Her husband was a quiet, hen-pecked chap who taught PE in the Middle School.

  “That’s good,” I said brightly, trying not to calculate the years since Joe had last played soccer. Of course, back in Spain, he’d kicked a ball round the village square with the Ufarte boys and Geronimo, but that probably didn’t count. It might do him good to thunder around a proper football pitch with the High School boys soccer team. Perhaps it might cheer him up and he’d forget about booking a flight home to Spain. Unfortunately, it didn’t go well.

  Joe played a lot of football when he was younger and is a qualified referee. He turned up at the gymnasium, looking the part, shiny new whistle in hand. He ran on the spot, warming up, then practised a few intricate ball skills, hoping to impress the watching ASS High School 1st team with his fancy footwork.

  “Your team is over there,” said Jane.

  But Joe was now practising his header techniques, bouncing the ball on his head and concentrating on keeping it in the air.

  “MR JOE! Your team is waiting for you over there!”

  “Right!” said Joe, eager to begin coaching the senior boys. He gathered up the ball and looked around.

  “Over there,” repeated Jane and waved a muscular arm at the far corner of the gym where a group of ten-year-old girls stood watching curiously. Joe had been given the Grade 6 girls’ team.

  He didn’t mind. The football pitch was in the gym, it being much too hot to play outside, and the girls were enthusiastic. At the end of the session he was exhausted, but had to wait until the last child was collected by her parents. It was only then that he realised he had no money for a taxi, no phone, and nobody left to give him a ride home.

  Sighing, he set out on the long trek back to the hotel. The sun beat down relentlessly, his new trainers gave him blisters, and he had brought no water.

  Of course I was oblivious to all this. Had I known about his predicament, one word to Jake or Colton would have sent them speeding out in their car to collect him. Joe finally arrived home, almost crawling. His head was as red as the Bahraini flag, his heart raced and his body shook. I believe any longer in the sun would have made him seriously ill.

  “But did you enjoy the session?” I asked, much later, when he’d sufficiently recovered to tell me all about it.

  “Yes,” he said, “I did enjoy it. The girls were super. Apart from the walk home, the only thing I objected to was one of the parents. There was this mother, on the sidelines, all dressed in black. I could see her shaking her head at every decision I made and she watched her daughter like a hawk.”

  “What did the daughter look like?”

  “Oh, you know, dressed like all the others, in a tracksuit with long sleeves. Nice looking girl, very determined. Wasn’t wearing a hijab, had long, very curly hair and a pale face. I’m sorry but I don’t recall her name, there were too many to remember.”

  He didn’t need to. I knew exactly who he was describing. Joe had met Fatima - and her dreaded mother.

  Unfortunately, Joe’s soccer coaching experience didn’t last long. He’d bitten off more than he could chew, even with the Middle School girls’ team and, much to my relief, resigned.

  Luckily it was a Thursday evening, the beginning of the week-end. A visit to Bennigan’s would revive his spirits. A raucous BWMDC meeting, followed by some rest, saw Joe well on the road to recovery. By Sunday, the start of the new week, he was almost his miserable old self again.

  Daryna, on the other hand, was struggling with demons of her own.

  “So many problems!” she confided. “I’ve fallen out big-time with the Three Fat Ladies and I’m getting really negative responses from all the teachers about my new rules.”

  Of course I already knew about all the ructions at the High School through Joe, Colton and Jake. The new rules were a frequent topic of hilarity at our Bennigan’s meetings. The latest was The Coffee War. Mrs. Sherazi, the owner, had informed Daryna that members of staff were no longer permitted to drink coffee in the classrooms.

  “Personally, I don’t care if they drink coffee or not,” said Daryna. “But if it’s what Mrs. Sherazi wants, well, she’s the boss...”

  Mr. Brewster had issued the same edict but the Middle School staff simply continued with their coffee habits, but furtively. Most of the High School staff did, too. Only one silly young teacher insisted on having a permanent mug of coffee on her desk and in full view. Not only that, but she would teach her lessons, coffee in hand, frequently taking sips. It was only a matter of time before Daryna caught her coffee-handed. Daryna reprimanded her. The young teacher complained that she was being picked on. The Three Fat Ladies sided with her and the whole matter was completely blown out of proportion.

  And then there was The One-Way Rule. To reduce congestion during lesson breaks, Daryna devised a system w
hereby students moved in one direction along corridors and staircases. Joe, Colton and Jake had described it in great detail at Bennigan’s, using ashtrays, beermats and matchsticks. Of course, they added their own personal touches with proposed traffic lights, parking bays, and no-entry signs. In reality, the traffic police had already been appointed. Hali-Barry had assigned himself the task and loved to stand at strategic points, bawling instructions and blasting bad breath at the students. Jake had a gift for mimicry, and his arm-waving performances had the whole of Bennigan’s laughing.

  “What am I to do about Brent?” asked Daryna, one day. “The man’s completely insane! The students and parents complain about him all the time. He loses their work, and do you know, he wastes 40 minutes every lesson just taking the register! He insists on spelling each name out loud, God only knows why... I’ve had to take some classes away from him. But you won’t believe the latest drama!”

  I was all ears. Nothing that Brent said, or did, surprised me anymore. Daryna shook her head in disbelief and launched into the latest tale.

  Brent had been allocated one of the brand-new projectors. Being a ‘floater’, he had no classroom of his own and therefore nowhere to store it. Daryna suggested he keep it in one of her cupboards, in the Principal’s office, which he did. Brent needed the projector, came to collect it, and opened the cupboard. No projector. Brent’s reaction was as unpredictable as ever.

  “Where’s my projector?”

  “I don’t know, when did you last see it?” asked Daryna.

  “It was in this cupboard!”

  “Are you sure? Perhaps you forgot to put it away?”

  “NO! It was here! I ALWAYS put it back in here!”

  “Well, that’s very strange...”

  “Somebody has stolen it!”

  “Brent, nobody has keys to this office apart from me, you and Mr. Saeed from Stationery. This room is always locked.”

  “YOU took it!”

  “Come on, Brent, why would I want to take your projector?”