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Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Taking over as the new Director of Patient Safety

Well, regular readers already know that I was given the new responsibility of becoming the "Director of Patient Safety" at my hospital. The previous incumbent for this post is my Sudanese friend Dr. Amr Hilal, and he is relinquishing this post because he is leaving the Kingdom in a few months' time. 

A few weeks ago, I was informed by our hospital's medical director Dr. Shehabeldin that he had recommended my name to the hospital director for the twin posts of "Director, Total Quality Management (T. Q. M.)" and "Director, Patient Safety (P. S.)", but I expressed dismay as I was already busy with my services as a Pediatrician, and secondly, I would be at sea in the Kingdom as my knowledge of Arabic, both written and oral, is hardly appropriate to read or make documents that form the core of these two directorships. Later, he had a discussion with other responsible persons, and decided to hand over only the Patient Safety directorship to me, and has nominated a Syrian surgeon, Dr. Tarek, for the other directorship.

I was told clearly that the additional responsibility would earn me no extra income; that it would perhaps help enhance my C.V. but give me no material benefits. Later, I was also told that I would get a room to myself to discharge my duties as director, P. S. I have mixed feelings about this post, as, even though it WILL add to my C.V., it will also create a lot of extra work and stress for me, something that I am not too willing to incur at the present time of my life. 

Dr. Amr and I have had two sessions so far, where he has begun to explain the duties and responsibilities of this job, and one of the senior nurses of our hospital, sister Maria Ana Li is also part of our team as she is the nursing coordinator for the departments of P. S. and T. Q. M. A lot of ground is yet to be covered, but I expect to be fully briefed within the next week or so. 

Insofar as my level of commitment to this extra responsibility is concerned, currently, it is hovering near 50% ... but I hope to get into the groove as time passes. I have no choice, as the department will face an annual inspection by the Ministry of Health's CBAHI (Central Board for Accreditation of Healthcare Institutions) division.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

An unexpected problem ...

This will be just a brief entry. The truth of the matter is that I did not receive my monthly salary, which should have got credited into my account yesterday night/early morning today. 

The problem occurred because of an error that could have been easily avoided. I have gone on a vacation thrice during my first contract, and when I returned to the Kingdom, all I did was to deposit my passport and retrieve my "iqama" from the Ministry of Health's Ta'if office, and then return to Al Muwayh and resume my duties. This time, too, I did the same, but, unfortunately, the hospital did not inform the Ministry about the resumption of my duties. There was, thus, no entry in the computer at the Ministry's Ta'if office about my return. They have, therefore, withheld my salary!

When I spoke to other doctors in the hospital, they informed me that I was supposed to have taken some papers from the MOH office upon my return, get it endorsed by a few concerned officers, then take this paper to my hospital and have the hospital issue a letter to me ("re-joining" letter), which would then be forwarded back to the MOH for appropriate re-conciliation into their records. 

As I was not aware of this protocol, I was completely in the dark about this non-appearance of my salary for the first time since I came to the Kingdom. Alas! I have, during my duty, helped create the relevant letter, and this letter has been faxed to the MOH office for action. In any case, I will have to borrow money from friends in this month, as my salary will now be sent only next month!

Monday, February 24, 2014

Car repaired, and life back to normal

On Thursday evening, i. e. on the 20th of February, I travelled to Ta'if with Mr. Suleman and Mr. Ahmed, the two pharmacists who live in Ta'if and work in our hospital. They were very kind and not only agreed to take me in Ahmed's car, but also bought me snacks and water from a supermarket on the way. They dropped me about 8-10 km from the city center, and I took the opportunity to have an orange juice at a corner outlet before hailing a dabbab to travel to Hotel Ahle Saif, my destination for the next few days. Moannad was the Sudanese receptionist on duty and he helped me get my favourite room (a double bedder on the first floor) for SR 60 per day only. Of course, there is an Indian worker (Munawwarali) too, who helps me in other ways once I check in into this hotel, which has become the only place for me to stay in through the entire last two years.

I settled into my room for the evening, but did go out in between Maghrib and Ishaa to visit my car mechanic at his garage. He wasn't there, but my car was, and when I sought permission from one of his workers to check if the car did start, I was told to definitely try it out. To my pleasant surprise, the engine of the car started smoothly as soon as I turned the key which was already in the keyhole on the dashboard. I left the key in, locked the car, and left for tea and dinner, followed by a walking trip to Ta'if's Heart Mall, where I made some grocery and other purchases from Panda. I called up the car mechanic (Mr. Shabbir Choudhary) to ask him if any work was pending and was told that the car would only be ready on Saturday.                                            

The next morning, he calls up early on at about fifteen minutes past seven to inform me that he could not proceed with repairs as the car was locked from without and the key hanged inside! Oh sh@@! I told him I would go and meet him within the next half an hour, as I had a spare key in my wallet. However, he called me again after a few minutes to tell me that he had managed to open the offending door with a key that he had with him. So, it turns out that he continued to tinker with my car throughout the day,  and promised me that the car would be ready the next day.

I spent the rest of the day sleeping, watching or downloading movies, and visiting the Bab-al-Rhea (the open market with sections for vegetables, fish, mutton, etc. - and which is located very close to my hotel), where I bought some fresh veggies, a coconut, some other stuff too.

On Saturday, I was at the car repair shop for most of the morning and afternoon. I had paid SR 1000 to him earlier when I had sent the car from Al Muwayh on a winch; I paid him another 1000 today, and requested him to await the balance amount as my salary would come in after 3 days of my departure to Al Muwayh with the car. He agreed. By afternoon, he had the mechanical aspects of my car ready. The A/C compressor was leaking, and he tried to repair the leak for the next 1-2 hours, but failed to seal it completely. He then took a break and took me in his car to an Afghanistani restaurant for lunch. This place is close to my hotel, but in one of the side roads. The food (Mutton pulav and the typical salad and so on) was excellent. 

I then returned to my room to pack my bags, then slept a little, then went back to the workshop to discover that Mr. Shabbir had not succeeded in repairing the compressor leak, and had replaced the compressor inside the car. He asked me to return to him the next time to get this fault rectified. I took the car back to the hotel, put my luggage and the various food items and grocery in the car trunk, and drove off to Al Muwayh, reaching my home a little after 8 p.m. 

My 2 1/2 day stint in Ta'if had thus come to an end. I had my car now, and I was ready to face the working day the next day with a smile in my heart. The only reason I was not openly smiling was that my bill for this last repair of the engine would lighten me by about SR 4000, of which I had only paid half the amount.

That's the whole sad story so far ... now my car is 21 years old, and I have spent over 12000 on it, so it is worth more than SR 20000 in costs (I had bought it from Dr. Narendra for SR 8500 and spent about SR 600 on paperwork), but will probably sell for less than SR 7500 when the time comes to dispose of it.

Friday, February 21, 2014

How far I have come in the past one year

Most of my followers are on the more active blog http://drtaherofarabia.blogspot.com, and I, too, have paid little attention to this, a much more important blog as this is reflective and will endure beyond my tenure in Saudi Arabia, beyond my work as a Pediatrician, and perhaps, beyond my life. Hence, I decided to make a fresh entry here and perhaps get more people to check out this blog and its very interesting entries. 

First of all, let me say that my stay away from my home and my family caused many changes to happen to me as well as to my family members. This entry, however, is about me. To be honest, a few of the changes have been unnerving, to say the least. For example, coming into more money has made me realise what I have missed until now, and has made me splurge on several unnecessary things. I have bought many more clothes than I really need. I have splurged on electronic gizmos - I now have the latest smartphone and ALSO a Kindle. My laptop is a Dell touch-screen computer with a 15" screen. I keep drooling at electronic merchandise whenever I am near a shop or a market that sells these things, and I do not feel guilty when I buy something that I don't really need as of this moment. 

During my last trip to SE Asia, my Canon DSLR camera broke down, and I rushed to purchase - yes, purchase a NEW Canon DSLR - such has been my profligacy! 

Moving now to the positive things that have happened to me: 

- I have become a bit more pensive, less short-tempered, more loving and more reflective.
- I have become more patient and tolerant of others' weaknesses and stupidity.
- My thoughts are more inclusive, i.e. I now think more globally when I think about people, events, personalities, and problems.
- I have come to understand that even when I was with my family, I could not really control my daughters' fancies or plans, so why worry so much about this ... Allah will take care of them!
- I can speak a fairly good level of Arabic and can continue a conversation for at least five to ten minutes with someone to whom this language is native.
- I can identify with the problems of others, which, by the way, are not always of a financial nature. Let me add here that financial problems CAN create non-financial ones!
- I have observed the way Arabs live and can now understand why they behave the way they do: whether it is about their food, their mania for football, their love of olives and cheese, their begetting at least three offspring and many-a-times 4 or even more, etc.
- I now know that Saudis are as, if not more, intelligent than people from any other nation of the world, and of nothing else, they have managed to advance their country's infrastructure, development, achievements and progress by recruiting the best talent from around the world --- and for this, I respect them.

Knowing these things has improved me as a person, and I am grateful to Allah for this.

There have been many material changes too. I now enjoy cuisine from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Syria, doses of which I have been exposed to over the past 2+ years. I still remember how I hated their food - this was just 2 years ago! Now, I actually relish many of their foods. Not just that, I even cook my Indian food with less chilly and other spices!

I guess this brings this entry to an end. I would love to write more, and perhaps I will, over the next few weeks. Do tell your friends and family to also read this blog and help me to save it from oblivion! I would appreciate your comments. Do write them and start a meaningful dialogue. Thank you.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

The weekend looms large ...

All this week, I had to commute to and from the hospital without my car. As my readers are aware, my car stopped working some days ago, and I sent it last Saturday to Ta'if to get the engine repaired. I have had to take lifts from diverse people, and the experience has, sort of, refreshed the memories of my first year here in Saudi Arabia when I had no car and used to rely on colleagues or total strangers to go from one point to another - both, within Al Muwayh, and also when I needed to go to Ta'if or further onward either to Makkah for an umrah or Jeddah to proceed on my flights to India. 

This week, some of my saviours have been guys from the security section, kitchen, engineering department (maintenance guys), total strangers from the village, former patients who know me and my own doctor colleagues, of whom I must mention, in particular, my friend Dr. Emaam Sayed (from the ER). These guys have selflessly helped me out whenever I have needed them. 

On Tuesday, I sent a sample of my blood for "glycosylated Hemoglobin (HbA1c)" (a test that tells you about how well you have controlled your sugars in the past six to eight weeks BEFORE the test was taken). Normal people have levels under 4% of the total hemoglobin, and the ones who have diabetes usually get higher levels of this chemical in their blood. In the past, I have been very reckless in my diet, and have seen my test results going even up to 11%. About 5-6 months ago, I added vilbaglutide to my drug regimen (a novel drug suggested by my Mumbai-based friend cum endocrinologist Dr. Raghunath Phatak). Last, but not the least, I have begun homoeopathic medicine for my allergic skin AND  diabetic problem. I am not exercising much, so the effects on my illness are a joint effect of all these confounding factors.

Thus I am very happy to share with you the result of my most recent HbA1c result: it has fallen over a per cent in the last 3 months. It was hovering around 8% when I went to India on my annual vacation; yesterday's result is only 6.75%. This is great news for a person like me who is trying to fight his diabetes since over 14 years!

Today, I finally received my appointment letter stating that I was now, officially, the Hospital's Patient Safety Director. The previous incumbent (my Sudanese medico friend Dr. Amr' Hilal) was endorsing me the range of responsibilities of the P.S. director, and, from whatever I have discussed with him, it does look daunting! (Here's a self-motivator then: remember that I will have to perform my new duties with dedication, honesty and integrity.)

That's it for the day.

Monday, February 17, 2014

My car goes kaput

Yes, I sang the possible requiem for my car a few days ago. Actually, it was a day after I returned from Taif. The car refused to start in the morning, and continued to stay asleep through the day with repeated attempts. In the evening, I had an electrician and a mechanic take a look and the verdict was clear: this car would not start not because there was an electric problem, but because the engine had finally given up on me. 

I now had two options before me: either I could sell this car to scrap, or send it to Taif to get the engine repaired. I know that some of you must be thinking ... the sane thing to do is to sell it off to whoever agrees to buy it and purchase another second hand vehicle ... but the reasoning I was following was this: I am not likely to stay more than a year here in the Kingdom, so it makes perfect sense to spend a few thousand SR and repair the car rather than spend a bigger amount, buy another car, and then re-sell it at a discount a year down the line. 

The car was mounted on a carrier vehicle (known here as "Saatha" in Arabic, or "Winch" in pidgin English) and sent to Taif to my mechanic Mr. Choudhary Shabir on Saturday, the 15th of February 2014. I must wait for a week before the car would be ready for me again. (I hope).

After the car was sent away, I have had a difficult time going to and fro from and to the hospital from my home. On Saturday, I was on call, and had to walk it up once; on Sunday and Monday, as I write this, I had to take help from other doctors, workers at the hospital and even patients with whom I have created more than a passing acquaintance over the last few years. Let's see what the next three days bring for me. On Friday, I am planning to go back to Taif to get back my car. 

Until then, I am going to make a day of it, and use the walking to stay more fit.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Good news and possibly bad news

As of yesterday, I have been given the additional responsibility of becoming the Director of Patient Safety in Al Muwayh General Hospital. Now, whenever someone gets a "title" it should be good news, right? The reason why this news has given me mixed reactions is that this job needs a lot of work: one has to draft protocols, interact with the ministry, be ready for periodic overhauling of the system, and be prepared for evaluation of your department by a special team that would be sent from the Ministry of Health. In other words, the post is time-consuming and tiring if one applies oneself to it assiduously. I am therefore not very exhilarated. 

There are other bits of news as well: I am writing this from Ta'if where I am lodged in a hotel room. Today, I attended a refresher course for Basic Life Support (BLS) or what is called CPR in normal parlance. I passed the course, which means that I now have the BLS certificate renewed for two more years.

In other news, I managed to get signatures from two qualified MRCPCH doctors to attach to my application form for part 3 of the exam. These two doctors were both working in the Children's Hospital in Ta'if. The first, Dr. Gaafar, is a senior Sudanese consultant, while the second, also a consultant paediatrician, is Dra. Amal from Egypt. Both of them were kind enough to give me their bona fides without much ado, and my thanks go to them both. The flip side of this news is that I do not know when and where I will give my Part 3 exams, as the centers in Jeddah and Dubai are both already over-subscribed for May 2014. In view of this, I did not prepare the payment for the exam, and will await the announcement of dates from India, where, too, I can go and give my examinations. 

My car again gave me trouble - yesterday, as I entered Ta'if city, it stopped suddenly when I was trying to negotiate an incline. It re-started after a wait of about 30 minutes, but stopped again as I reached the Ta'if center. I had to leave it there overnight and proceed to the hotel by the local taxi (dabbab). Today morning, after I got relieved from the BLS, I contacted Choudhary Shabbir, my local car mechanic and friend, and when he came to where the car was parked, it started immediately - without any intervention by him - so that I could take the car by my own self and park it near my hotel for the rest of the evening. Let us see what tomorrow brings. According to the mechanic friend, this car's engine is near moribund, and it will be safer for me if I dispose of this car and buy another one for the next year or so. Hmm ... I have to think seriously about this. 

That's it for now. Thanks for reading this, and wish you a good day. Do leave a comment if you please. Join up to receive updates whenever an entry is made. Like us on Facebook (click HERE).

Saturday, February 08, 2014

Media in the Kingdom

Today, I want to share a little about how the print media work in the Kingdom. There are a lot of Arabic newspapers, but since I do not either understand or speak more than pidgin Arabic, I will not be talking about these. My two sources of information here in the Kingdom are Arab News and the Saudi Gazette. Although I do not have a print subscription to either of them, I check their posts on Facebook almost every day, and when I go to the highlighted bit of news, I go to their home page and look at the other news items as well. 

It seems as though the Arab News site has more diverse news than the SG site. I do not know why this is so, but then, SG is more like a tabloid, and AN has a large newspaper format and has many reporters all over Asia, the Americas and Europe. Their editorials are more balanced, as are their main news items. 

It is fair to say that they have a self-imposed censorship and they ALWAYS defer to the royal family and the government even when the news item is not so laudatory to either of them. However, and this is significant - they do publish letters which are critical of the ruling establishment; they also allow comments on their web-site which are similarly critical (though they do moderate the comments, they usually print most of them). 

Their coverage of news from South and South-east Asia is also far-reaching, and they often surprise the reader with news on events that are hardly of any importance to the Middle East. For example, they did write on the floods in Uttaranchal, the retirement of Sachin Tendulkar, the Chinese "intrusions" in Arunachal Pradesh, and even the rise of the Aam Aadmi Party. 

What I like is their third-last page, as they have a cross-word, a Sudoku, a complete map on weather and namaaz times in the Kingdom, and a chain of comics. Indeed, I consider it a good newspaper. Whenever I am in Taif or any other big city, I make it a point to purchase the newspaper every day. 

The Gazette - I have seen just a few times. Sometimes, it does have great pieces of news on India, but mostly, it focuses on news from Saudi Arabia, and a bit on the Middle East and Egypt.

In the line of duty: Re-visiting Al Khurmah

Regular readers of my blog may perhaps remember my going to Al Khurmah for just a day about 5 months ago to substitute for their resident paediatrician. At that time, in my blog entry, I had described the horrid room in the male medical ward where they had lodged me; the room was a patient room, had an unlockable door and a viewing window in the center which could not be closed. I had stayed there from about 1 p.m. on the day of arrival until about 10 a.m. on the following day; in the morning itself, I had seen about 15 patients in the out-patient department, and had handled about 4 ER calls and 7-8 admitted patients.

I was now being sent once again to the same place for 3 days, and I made sure to clear with their medical director (through my own M.D. Dr. Shehab) that this time they would give me a proper room to stay in. I was assured of the same, and so it was with a peppyness I did not feel from within that I drove in my own car to Al Khurmah on the morning of Tuesday, the 4th of February 2014.

Al Khurmah is located south-east of Al Muwayh, about 110 km away. The road to it branches off the main Taif road about 36 kms south of my village, and the road then runs due east for another 70-odd km before you reach a fork to the south that will take you to Al Khurmah. The straight road continues onward to Raniya (a much larger town than Al Khurmah, which can be classified as a small town).

I reached the hospital in Al Khurmah at about half past eleven. I met the M.D. Dr. Hashim, a Sudanese doctor who has a diploma in Cardiology from Leeds University, U.K. He gave me two choices - either I get to stay in a room all to myself in the (where else) male ward, or share a bed with another locum doctor - Dr. Mahmoud, a surgeon who was also here on substitution duty - in a room that was located within the hospital premises. I experimented with both the places, and by evening, I shifted to the male ward room, which was not the same room I had stayed in on my earlier visit, but another room with most facilities. There was no refrigerator and no TV, though.

The work in Al Khurmah is far more than what it is like in Al Muwayh. This is not just because of the greater size of the village; it is also because the paediatric department is extremely busy because Dr. Hadidi, the specialist paediatrician whom I was replacing is loved by the local population and parents flock to him like ants to sugar. He has a no-holds barred policy: he sees every child that is brought to him, whether or not the parents have a referral sheet from the local dispensary and whether or not the patient has a file. I experienced this influx of patients throughout the three days that I was here. My O.P.D. nurse was Sr. Shahida, a Pakistani nurse. She told me that the usual number of patients that Dr. Hadidi saw each day of the week was more than 40. I got just about 50-60% of that. Partly this was because patients chose to not show me but wait for the next week when Dr. Hadidi would be back on duty; however, partly, it was also because I stopped the patients who did not have a file or a referral paper. Many of these patients tried to coax me or force me to see their wards, but I stayed adamant and continued to refuse patients without the right papers.

Emergency calls were also more frequent, and it was all I could do to manage about 6 hours of sleep through each night, that too, with breaks. On the positive side there was something that was more valuable than the negatives I have just listed: for the first time, in more than two years, I was actually seeing real patients - patients with significant problems. I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. The reason for this is not too difficult to understand: I was, until I moved to Saudi Arabia, used to dealing with genuine problems and not just sore throats and colds, which make up the majority of my patients in Al Muwayh. I saw, for example, a child with cardiac disease, another with dehydration due to loose motions, a newborn with very high fever, a preterm baby, a spastic child with penumonia, etc.

The food served by the hospital canteen needed a little tweaking. I had carried chapatis with me, and therefore, I asked the kitchen staff to not send me their khubz. Also, I requested them to send me just a little rice. They complied some of the time, and at other times, they simply forgot my instructions and sent a plateful of rice and the khubz as well. I had specifically told them not to send me jam, cheese, and other similar foods, and yet, on each of the three mornings, my breakfast continued to have these prohibited substances.

The net was either non-existent, or very slow, and hence I could not connect to the world for most of the time. However, I did venture out into the town to reach a spot where the connectivity was good (this was on the second evening), and drove to yet another place with good connectivity on the third evening. These two brief outings enabled me to check my emails and surf facebook for a little while. On the third evening, it also enabled me to connect to a college friend for the first time in more than 25 years!

Al Khurmah has a big shopping area with nearly 100-125 shops of various kinds. I had heard about this from the locals, and I went to this area on the first evening to look around. On the second evening, I went again to this "souk", but this time, in the company of one of the doctors of the hospital - a Hyderabadi radiologist working in the hospital; his name is Dr. Mohd. Nizamuddin. He took me to the souk in his car, and also decided to join me in eating out in a small Indian restaurant within the market area. Dr. Nizam is in Al Khurmah since over 5 years, and stays here with his family. However. his wife and children are presently in India, so he had no problems in joining me.

All in all, the experience at Al Khurmah was nice. I returned to Al Muwayh on Friday afternoon after lunch as Dr. Hadidi arrived form wherever he had gone for three days. 

Saturday, February 01, 2014

And yet another weekend

The cycle of working for five days and then resting for the weekend has begun ... this week, I was looking after the OPD and my colleague was on call; this meant that I would have an absolutely tension-free weekend, and could, if I wanted to, go anywhere I wished beginning from the end of duty on Thursday, the last working day.

Inherently, though, I was not planning to go anywhere, as I have just returned from a long holiday, and do not crave the free time ... but then, something came up that needed me to go to Ta'if. It made my decision easy that my friend Dr. Measser, a Syrian resident who works ... or should I say, used to work ... in the E. R. was travelling to Jeddah with Dr. Moataz, our anaesthetist ... and could take me along and drop me in Ta'if. I write "used to work" because he is leaving the Kingdom this weekend, and going back ... perhaps to Turkey. His homeland is Syria, of course, but as that country is currently in the throes of a never-ending revolution, he has decided to make Istanbul his base for now.

Dr. Moataz was travelling to Jeddah to pick up his family which was due to arrive in the Kingdom from Egypt. There was one empty seat in the car (Dr. Measser was with his wife), and they accommodated me.

I had to visit an international courier service to send some important documents home, but, to my disappointment, I found the offices of both, FedEx and DHL closed for the day. I was debating whether to return to Al Muwayh (as I was not prepared to stay in Ta'if this time ... no toiletries, and no bag) or to hang in there for a night and do the couriering the next day. In the end, I decided to stay on, and checked in at my usual hotel opposite the Makkah taxi stand.

The Hotel Ahle-Saif has two Sudanese managers, and two Bengali workers - all of them know me very well; the managers always give me a good, clean room at low rates, and for this, I thank them all the time (their names are Ahmed and Moannad, by the way). The Bengalis - Munawwar Ali and one other whose name I cannot recall - which means Bangladeshis, actually, and not those from West Bengal in the parlance here - are also extremely helpful and it is a pleasure to tip them from time to time to ensure even better service the next time. Unfortunately, there was no vacant room when I came in, so I left what I was carrying at the desk, and went off to Ta'if Mall to spend the time. The "dabbab" drivers usually take SR 5 to take you there as it is less than a kilometer from my hotel. I spent the next few hours there, eating my lunch at Al Baik (I had one spicy chicken burger with fries and a drink, PLUS one fish sandwich (more like a Frankie, if you ask me). I looked around in other shops, and then returned to Al Baik to parcel some stuff to have back in Al Muwayh, and it was at about half-past three in the afternoon when I returned to the hotel, to be shown to a good room with a clean double-bed and so on.

I spent the rest of the evening dozing off or surfing the net on my S3 phone. Later, I went to the Mobile market to look around. The Note 3, which costs above 45K in India was available off the shelf for about SR 34K here! I may buy this in future. I also looked around for a Power-bank (saw an original 2500 MiaH one by Maxell for SR 150 at one shop), a cover for my Kindle book reader that is due to arrive from India through a friend, and other stuff, but did not buy anything other than a plastic screen protector for my Samsung Ace.

Dinner: I had my dinner at the Asian Restaurant which is just below the Ahle Saif Hotel, and then returned to my room by half past nine. I slept early - say around midnight.

The next morning, I went to FedEx and couriered my documents. This done, I ambled here and there, went back to my room, then checked out by half-past-one. I had packed all my food etc. that I had picked up from Al Baik as well as the Asian restaurant into a carton of water bottles (which the manager of Thara Restaurant so kindly provided me with), tying all this with a rope that was purchased by Munawwar Ali from a supermarket nearby, and I carried all this by a

dabbab to the SAPTCO bus stand, and then, by the bus back to Al Muwayh. Dr. Emaam Sayed, who I am good friends with, came from his duty to take me in his car to my home, and I was back in my house by five p.m. 

In the night, I watched T.V., went out for a bit, cooked some lamb curry, and so on, before going to bed by eleven, right after completing this post.

Thank you for reading ... see you around in the comments section. Guys, I need you to interact with me and not just be a silent reader. Send me your appreciation, critique, whatever ...