Casablanca, thank you for your reply. I was expecting 10,000 riyals roughly as an SO salary which is ok with me and if I need a couple of housemates to start off with I'm ok with that too, I'm adaptable!
For anyone else who's interested, I have been speaking to a pilot from QA today and he said that if you're on an MPL course, you will not have to wait as long for your line training because the MPL has a time limit before the license becomes invalid (or something like that)...so the airline is obliged to fulfil your line training within a certain amount of time. I do not know exactly HOW MUCH time, it says it takes 10 weeks on my course schedule, but I guess we'll see when we get there