JEDDAH, 13 September 2005 — An alarming epidemic is gripping Saudi Arabia this week. It’s an academic epidemic as students and school employees compete to get medical excuses to avoid the early ringing of an alarm clock. It’s ironic because this is one epidemic that is quashed by doctors and nurses deciding to go on vacation to avoid the desperate pleadings of family and friends to certify that they are sick.

Some find it hard to get adjusted to the school schedule after a long vacation, and some are just plain lazy and find it hard to rise early, so they try to get fake sick leaves, driving many hospital workers underground.

Salwa, an employee at King Fahd General Hospital, said she switches her mobile phone off during the first week of school.

“Last weekend I received five calls from friends asking if I could arrange a sick leave for them,” said Salwa. She noted the only affliction they all shared was an aversion to getting out of bed. One of the most common symptoms of the epidemic is “wasta.”

“They think it’s so easy to get them a sick leave,” said Shihab Al-Amoudi, who works at a private hospital. He said that if you don’t help them, you’re branded as an unuseful friend — a category most Saudis would rather avoid.

An unuseful friend is the one who doesn’t approve of wasta favoritism and does not help. Therefore, he or she is paid back. In other words, if you don’t arrange a sick leave for a friend, don’t expect any favors, habibi. “That’s why I take my vacation during back-to-school time,” Al-Amoudi lamented. “So I won’t be put in a bad situation and won’t be categorized as an un-useful friend.”

How about an unuseful son?

Dr. Mutaz Kurdi, an emergency room physician, said he once received a phone call from his father asking him to arrange a medical report for a son of his friend. “It was one the most embarrassing moments for me,” said Dr. Kurdi. “My nurses, the clerks and the rest of the employees gave me silly looks; I really lost my prestige that day.”

The good son noted that the move opened the door for his employees to do the same.

For schools the first week is now an expected academic epidemic.

“It’s not our responsibility to check whether that employee was really sick or not, as long as we are getting an official letter stating that they were sick,” said Badriyah Al-Harbi, a principal at a girls school in Jeddah.

As a case in point, she noted how an employee who’s drinking tea with you in the evening could be quickly stricken. “We were laughing all night and enjoying ourselves, and before she left she told me that she wasn’t coming in the next day and that she had a medical report ready beforehand,” she said.

Badriyah knew there was no real excuse for her friend but she couldn’t say anything about it for two reasons; first that teacher is her friend and second she had an official report signed by a government hospital.

The epidemic dissipates quickly after the first week of school, but the strange malady is certain to return at the end of next summer when school bells and alarm clocks start ringing too early for the soon-to-be afflicted.