Got the Iqama!

Finally, finally Jeff has received the iqama, the residency permit required to get anything done in this country. And the only reason why we now have it in our hand? Because we are American. I know that sounds terribly ethnocentric, but I am still worked up about this. We went the "extra mile," literally and figuratively, and I didn't see anyone else doing that.

When other people started receiving their iqamas, (people with less seniority than Jeff) it was because a company rep stopped by the hotel one day and collected their passports. We happened to have been kicked out of the hotel by the company, because our 30-day temp housing was up, and moved into another hotel. NO ONE bothered calling Jeff to tell him the rep was at the other hotel. So because Jeff wasn't physically there, his passport was not picked up for processing.

When Jeff persistently called the guy to take his passport to Riyadh, he got the run-around. Oh, someone will be by tomorrow. The next day, Oh, it will be tomorrow... And so on. And then four days passed by. Now at this point, if you didn't already know, I have seriously had it. I'm not someone who is happy cooped up in the hotel room, with no voice, with no ability to get things done. But that is the life of a woman here. So I said (OK, maybe I screamed), "Tell him we will drive to Riyadh and deliver it ourselves!"

Riyadh is a three to four hour drive, depending on traffic, and how much dinging in your ears you can take. But we made the trip. Jeff got to the office in Riyadh and stood in front of the guy and held up his passport and said, "This needs to be done. And it needs to be done by tomorrow." And lo and behold, the iqama was completed the next day.

So for the other guys whose iqamas took 14 days to get, we know it actually only needs to take one day. And other guys whose passports didn't get picked up like Jeff's, they haven't taken any steps to get it completed. They cannot believe we took matters into our own hands. They are still willing to sit around in limbo, waiting for this phantom company rep to swing by and pick up their passports.

And how does being American have to do with getting this job done? I'm not so sure it can be attributed to that exclusively, but I do think our personalities are shaped by growing up and working in the US. Jeff and I are pretty similar in that we are both resourceful when it comes to getting things done. I'd like to think we are not overtly pushy and obnoxiously aggressive, but I do think there's definite culture clash with how we like things done vs. how they are actually done here. And to see the Brazilians sitting passively and letting things like that happen to them drives me up the wall!