Three years ago, my family and I left the Saudi Kingdom behind right in the middle of the Covid-pandemic. It was a highly-charged, truly epic departure, where we felt the presence of God himself as he worked a series of miracles to lift us out of Arabia against the odds and bring us back to our family house on Siargao Island, Philippines. Final deliverance itself was sweet enough, but once back on the isla we were able to build our dream house (using funds saved from my second Saudi season), surf every day and look forward to a five-year residency on an island we truly loved. Far from th ..read more

It might seem like our final deliverance was easy and I'm somehow exaggerating the barriers which lied in our path in the days before exit. But I don't think I'm exaggerating them at all. In reality, we were hit with two completely unexpected blockages: my final exit visa wouldn't issue and Saudi banned all flights (including our flight from Dammam to Dubai, connecting to Cebu) to the UAE. In a country like Saudi Arabia, one challenge might be enough to scupper all your plans, but having two really made it feel like we had a large mountain to move away. As soon as HR confirmed they couldn't ..read more

After saying two goodbyes in Khafji (one to my polytechnic workplace and the other to the city), ejection came slightly early due Saudi’s unexpected and totally unjustified flight ban. My company transported my family and I to the city of Dammam, where we decided to stay for our final night in order to get a PCR test as a precaution for any unexpected demands during our journey to the Philippines. Alongside the test, we decided to throw caution to the wind and rent a two-bedroom suite at the Ramada Inn and eat at one of Dammam’s finest seafood restaurants.  First stop was at a travellers ..read more

As part of a YouTube series my family and I are doing on our YouTube channel, I filmed this short film "A Day in the Life of an ESL Teacher" about one of my last days teaching in Saudi Arabia. Right now, it feels too familiar and somewhat disturbing, but I hope it'll make me smile in the years ahead when I look back upon my time with less emotion and stress.  It's definitely worth watching this film if you want to know more about how it feels to teach in Saudi Arabia. While there isn't too much classroom action, you'll still get a feel of a typical day in a KSA school or polytechnic and ..read more

Sometimes it seems like you’re up against the world itself. Two days ago, from out of nowhere, Saudi Arabia decided to ban all flights to UAE and three other nations. This unexpected flight ban, alongside my company’s indifference towards issuing me a re-entry visa, left my family and I in an extraordinarily precarious position. Our long standing booking on an Emirates flight from Dammam to Dubai to Cebu now looked potentially unviable even if my company decided to relent and issue the visa.  In normal times, a flight ban like this wouldn’t be a major problem. Nor would my final exit vis ..read more

  What should have been a period of peaceful contemplation has, in typical Saudi style, been super stressful. Naively, I thought I’d just be checking CNN Philippines for travel updates and waiting for an EOSB bank transfer. Instead, a potential showstopper came out of nowhere: my final exit visa wouldn’t issue as it showed I had two visitors left in KSA. Suddenly, the fact my company hadn’t even bothered to pay me hardly mattered at all, especially when the local HR contact abruptly informed that me my wife and son would have to leave the Kingdom ahead of me and there were no alternative ..read more

Yesterday, a few of my colleagues kindly gave me a leaving present and my manager spoke for a few minutes about how I would be missed and how much impact I had had on my trainees across the years. It was delightfully low key and the perfect way to end my time at the polytechnic.  Today, on my very last day at work, I feel so relieved that’s it’s all over. Work conditions have deteriorated sharply in recent months (six hours a day in the classroom, hectic exam schedules, compulsory masks and distancing, mandatory vaccination from August onwards etc.), so I don't think I'll ever regret pa ..read more

After such a lengthy second season in Saudi, it's very difficult to believe that I'm now just 14 days away from final exit. Of course, my family and I can't take anything for granted given the volatility of travel protocols across the world and, in particular, in the Philippines. Indeed, two days ago, the Filipinos spotted a Pinoy traveller from Saudi positive with the Delta variant, but they haven't introduced any new flight bans yet. Overall, things are looking quite positive right now with a stable epidemiological situation across the Philippine Islands (5000-6000 "cases" per day) and a sp ..read more

When I accepted a two-month bespoke contract extension a few weeks ago, I already knew it included a two-week religious holiday. While we could have hit the road on an expensive mission to check out Saudi's premier sights (like Mada'in Saleh and Umluj), I decided on a destination a little closer to home. I guess the main reason for this was financial. I had already seen Saudi's Red Sea coastline and Mada'in Saleh during my first Saudi season based in Sakakah. The idea of a mammoth 20-hour taxi ride, with associated expenses, just to see the newly touristy Hegra just felt like too much, espec ..read more

Unbelievably, it’s been almost six years since I first arrived on the shores of Al Khafji, KSA. With suits and shirts in my case and a surfboard under my arm, I had a strong feeling surfing would be possible in this remote city on the Kuwaiti border. The teacher who had recommended me for the job mentioned seeing waves fit for body boarding and YouTube films showed small swell lines wrapping in. Also, I had spent a lot of time researching wind and swell movements in the Arabian Gulf on Google. However, I hadn’t expected to surf quite as much as I managed across the years and, even more so, to ..read more