I called her The Inspector because that’s what she felt like the first time I met her. She was English, tall and slim, and a Moslem revert – as many term it – with a spirited intelligent face and a great sense of fun, which you could see from the lines at the sides of her eyes and because she was always smiling, even when you weren’t looking at her.
Of course she wasn’t really an inspector, but her height, breezy mien and vigorus gait gave her the air of someone supervising others in an efficient but friendly way.
Also, although she was a fellow English instructor, most of the time she was in the corridors and not in her classroom, where sulking and insolent students lolled around at their expensive desks, exchanging vapid comments during brief breaks from their compusive phone scrolling.
Most of them -college girls in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia – were perfectly pleasant as individuals, but whether you were there in front of them trying to teach them – or not – their behaviour didn’t change much (and there were plenty of good reasons for this, not relevant here).
The more dictatorial of our many bosses were terrified of losing their own jobs if they put a foot out of place, and so were more sycophantic ( and less fun as a result of course ) than we were. It took them a while to notice The Inspector’s characteristics and grasp the potential repercussions of her spirited persona.
When they did, they found her rather difficult to manage, partly because she was cleverer than all of us, and popular, and because she was marvellously unpredictable too.
Out There & In Here 