TAKE A NUMBER

As “aliens” here in Oman, the first task is to get us new faculty members legal. To live here, we need at the least a university ID, a national “green card” resident card, Omani drivers license, etc.

SATURDAY

Saturday, the first day of the workweek here, new faculty went to a large room with all the various legal and HR departments represented to get our paperwork started. After four hours of filling out forms and shuffling around from station to station, I had almost succeeded in getting my Sultan Qaboos University ID. The only snafu: I didn’t have the requisite little passport photo of me. (I had been here for three days prior and could have taken care of this many times, but no one told us.) So … “Come back tomorrow.”

Saturday night, a couple of other new teachers and I headed to a local photography studio and had our passport photo taken. With 39 copies of them just to be safe!

SUNDAY, BLOODY SUNDAY

Sunday, I waltzed back in with the photo. And after another couple of hours a university ID appeared with my name in English and Arabic. Without it, I couldn’t apply for the next card, the Resident Card. But that was done elsewhere. 1:30 pm a busload of us were driven to the Omani equivalent of the INS office. There were approximately 300,000 people in the waiting area – ok, maybe 300. Indian construction workers, Turkish taxi drivers, Filipinos, Pakistanis, etc.

You picked a number and waited till it was called. Mine was something like 495. But the number on the board was already over 600. What gives? I asked one of the overwhelmed Omani civil servants how my new number could be less than the one on the board. “Oh, it goes up to 999, then starts again at 300.” (Is Kafka listening here?) So, apparently, I had only about 695 people ahead of me. And each SQU teacher got a new separate number with many others in between!

Our graying, wiry bus driver Salman, who was responsible for getting all 15 of us through this bureaucracy and back to campus by dinnertime, quickly realized the first would be waiting till midnight for the last of us to get through, so with many probably illegal moves, he pushed us through the crowds into the inner sanctum, herding groups of us into the line for this door and that, no doubt pressing some cash into a few hands in the process. Somehow in the melee my name was finally called, and I got my pale blue Bitaaqat Muqiim (Resident Card). Two cards in one day; a record, certainly!

MONDAY, MONDAY

Today, feeling optimistic at my past success, I picked up all my 13 separate house keys from Housing (yes, there’s a lock on everything except the medicine cabinet!) and went with the 1:30 group to get my Omani driver’s license. You takes your number and sits down to wait. First came the eye test. “Which way do the three-pronged figures point: up, down, right, left?” Right?

Well, I did fine with the right eye, but my amblyopic left eye immediately ran into problems. “Which direction is it pointing?” “Is what pointing?” Standstill. “You can’t see anything?” “No, my left eye has amblyopia.” (I tried putting this in Arabic.) Problem. The tester went off into the main hall to talk to his supervisor. “You can’t see with the left eye?” the supervisor asks. “No.” “Hmm. Come back tomorrow when the director is here. We need to ask him.” (What choice did I have?) “OK, I’ll come tomorrow.”

Actually, I understand the delicate situation they’re in. No one can afford to risk making a bad judgment call on their own outside of procedure. They have to have some higher-up to take the fall. So, I’ll save everyone’s neck by going to a campus eye doctor this week and having him or her write an “authoritative letter” explaining my left eye condition and reassuring the license center director that I am capable of driving safely. (This, after 28 years of safe driving in three countries!) This will sooth the way for every party concerned, and I should get my license. (LA’s DMV made me get another whole eye exam when they encountered my amblyopia in 2005.)

Another day in Oman …