My Arabic Confusion 2

Four days ago, a fellow teacher at the school mentioned that she had forgotten to sign in and walked into the administration office. "Sign in?" I thought. "We have to sign in? Nah. I've worked here for a week and a half; they would have told us if we had to... Oh." Yes, it turns out we are supposed to sign in when we arrive at school every morning. Once again, you have to love the communication in this country.

Regardless, I followed my fellow teacher into the administration office and found my name, one of the few names that uses the English alphabet (the entire form was in Arabic). I glanced at the names above and below mine and saw that they had written what looked like their name then initials in the box next to it. I did the same.

I forgot to sign in the day after. Yesterday, when I remembered and went to sign in, I took a closer look at the "initials" people were writing after their names. There appeared to be quite a few people whose names started with V. In fact, everyone's name started with V. That can't be right...

Suddenly I realized. It wasn't a V. It was a saba, the Arabic number for seven (It looks like a V). Everyone was getting in at 7 something in the morning and writing the time down. It was a forehead smacking moment.

So for the first time in two weeks of working there, I actually filled out the sign in sheet with the correct information. Wow. And these people are relying on me to educate their students. We are all in an awful lot of trouble.