When I took the CELTA and dared to dream of the many foreign lands I would travel to with my qualification, Saudi Arabia was not on the top of that list. In fact, it wasn’t even in the top ten. That was over three years ago, and still I live in this hot, sandy and conservative country. I’m sure you know about the financial benefits, but what else is there? Why did I stay?

Well, for a start; Saudi is not for everyone. I have seen handfuls of young men and women who have come here and left soon after, or been miserable because they either had misinformed expectations of Saudi Arabia, or had read ‘tax-free’ rather than ‘conservative home of Islam’.

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Like a great many teachers, my application to teach in Saudi Arabia was made on a whim.  Facing another year of professional uncertainty, my credo was: ‘apply and see what happens’.  I was more than a little surprised when within a week, and without any ‘official’ interview I’d been offered a teaching post at the largest female only university in the world on the edge of Riyadh. A year on, after circumnavigating my way through the extensive highs and lows as life as a single woman in KSA I feel that it is time to pass on my experiences, especially as Saudi related advice can be thin on the ground, and rarely constructive; in this area of EFL horror stories abound.  Indeed, once I made my decision to go, I struggled to find a single constructive anecdote to guide me, which only added to my anxiety; the reality, however, was not exactly as I’d imagined.

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