A Ginger Teacher in Abu Dhabi: Kids, Keys, Cars and Ikea!

Well, as you can imagine, I have been crazy busy the past few days. I will backtrack and try and remember as much as I can. I will start with school, I am getting the hang of it more and more with each day. I have mastered all the names of the boys and about half of the girls. The problem with me remembering their names is that they are not spelt as they sound, so my memory hasn't made sense of it yet, but it will come eventually. Wednesday was an interesting day, my students were not behaving when they came in from breakfast and since they don't understand what I am saying to them, my Arabic co-teacher pretty much ripped them a new one. I couldn't nut understand what she has saying but when you raise your voice, cross your arms and scowl, that's a pretty universal sign of being disappointed. They had to apologize to me saying "sorry teacher". My lessons are going ok, I need to come up with more simple centers for them, or ones they will really understand if I demonstrate. I was able to accompany them to music and boy was that fun! They were able to play simple instruments and run around to the beat of the song. Yesterday was our Friday here since our work week is Sunday-Thursday. I actually had a really good day with my kids. I think the fact that I am trying to get the hang of their names and they can see the effort makes a difference with them. That is not to say that they had their moments today, they were ripped a new one by my co-teacher twice. It is especially hard after breakfast to get them to calm down because they have had so much sugar for breakfast. I have seen Twix candy bars, Oreos, nutella filled sandwiches, chocolate milk and juice. My co-teacher encourages them to order popcorn in the morning when she takes breakfast count which is good, she totally understands what sugar does to a child. I did find out that my co-teacher has been teaching for many years and is one of the most cooperative teachers at the school. She truly is an amazing teacher, I have no clue what she's saying, but she is so animated for the kids that I can't not pay attention to her lessons, I will probably be fluent in the Arabic alphabet by the end of this year! I sat with most a few of my lower students to do a matching math worksheet with them. One little boy receives some sort of speech therapy at the school once a week and seems to be an aggressor. I have noticed that no matter where I am (American or UAE), the students that are low or high can cause behavior problems, and those are the ones I tend to gravitate towards. I helped him with his worksheet and every time he answered correctly I had a huge deal about it, clapping and smiling. He LOVED it! I got the BIGGEST smile out of him, his naughty behavior during the week was completely erased with me just because of that smile and pride he took in his work! I had the students at this station draw on paper if they chose after the worksheet and one little girl was drawing a face. I asked her if she was drawing herself by pointing to her and then the picture and she shook her head yes. So, I decided to draw the boy I worked one on one with and her. They could not stop giggling, they thought it was so funny that I was drawing them! We didn't have library today, so my co-teacher split the break with me, she took 20 minutes and I took 20 minutes. I had them play with what they chose while I watched them. They love the culture/dress up corner! I had some that were STILL at their table for math working on writing numbers on a whiteboard. Here's something that threw me for a loop, when writing Arabic, they write backwards, not too sure how I MISSED this when I was researching the place I was going to be living for two years! So, can you imagine trying to teach them to write from left to right when all they've known is right to left?!?!
I forgot to mention that I had my first encounter with a student's parent today. She is a lovely woman who asked if she could speak to me outside the classroom about her son. She wanted to know how he was doing because he will be transferred to a private school next year and has to take a test in March for it. She wanted to know what she could help him with at home. I explained to her that it was my first week at the school, but from what I could see he was doing very well and I will be starting to send home practice things for the kids next week. She was very appreciative of this and thanked me. I remember in my interview for this job that I was asked what I would do if a parent comes into my classroom in the middle of a lesson and wants to know how their child is doing. I witnessed it first hand today, however it was my co-teacher who was teaching and she just stopped her lesson and talked with her and then me.
Ok, now lets get to the good stuff. I came "home" from school on Wednesday and was whisked off to the town of Madinat Zayed where I will be living. There was a group of 6 of us in a van headed to look at our accommodations (villas). We arrived at the ADEC offices and met the famous Mocmood (I am totally NOT spelling that correctly, however that is how it is pronounced). He is an interesting fellow, let's put it that way. He showed us to our villas and they are gorgeous and HUGE! I am one person and I get a 2 bedroom 2 bath to myself! We finally received our keys after a few hours and made our way back to the hotel. Our poor driver was exhausted from such a long day and drive and after talked with him we found out he had to drive all the way back to Abu Dhabi City that night (we didn't get back to the hotel until 11:30 and Abu Dhabi City is about an hour/hour and a half away).
Oh, I completely forgot to mention that my new town of residence has a STARBUCKS! I about peed myself when I saw it exclaiming that everything was right with the world again! It's on he way out of town, so I can grab something as I head to school in the morning if I choose. So, needless to say, I finally have my accommodations and have until the 11th to get out of the hotel and into my villa. Rebecca and I are in the same villa (there are 5 apartments in each) which is awesome! The other women that are in my villa are nice as well, 2 from England (I think), one from America and we haven't seen the other person, she wasn't with us.
Yesterday when I arrived "home" from school, Rebecca and I immediately set out to find a ride to the bus station in town to take a bus to Abu Dhabi to rent a car. This seems simple right? Wrong! Apparently according to the ladies at the front desk, the only "taxi" driver in town is on vacation! So, we were pretty much stuck at the hotel until a teacher with a car came back to the hotel. We decided to grab a quick bite to eat and wait. We expressed our disappointment to the wonderful bar tender who told us he would find something out for us. He came back with two numbers of people that would drive us places. He even offered to talk to the man if we couldn't understand him or he didn't speak very good English to which he did not. A lot of the people in town are from India, so our bar tender was able to speak to him and he would be at the hotel in a few minutes! We love our bar tender, he is such a kind hearted man. We hopped in the car, were dropped off at the bus station and on our way to Abu Dhabi. The bus ride to Abu Dhabi cost AED 25 which is about $6. It took us almost 3 hours to get there because we sat in traffic with all the other people trying to go to Abu Dhabi. Oh, here's an interesting fact, if you are sitting in traffic and you would like to keep moving, just drive on the sand along side the road! BTW, this is NOT legal, but we saw SEVERAL people doing this! Also, vehicles can also just stop on the side of the exit and let people out of their car, saw that too! We finally made it into town, right by our old hotel. We walked into the bus station and asked a man what bus takes you to the airport to which is responded E1. Ok, so we went and stood where there were a lot of people and a lot of them had suitcases. While standing there, we saw a bus on the other side that said Airport A1. We asked something we were standing with if this bus went to the airport to which he shook his head no. Ok, lesson number 5,000, write what they say down and ask if it is correct next time! A and E with a thick accent apparently sound the same! So, frustrated and hot, we went into the mall to get car phone chargers and a prepaid card for my phone. We then hopped into a cab and headed to the airport, our driver was very speedy which at this point I was ok with. By the time we got to the airport it was almost 8:30, mind you we left Mirfa at 4:00. I couldn't get my prepaid phone card to work, so I stopped at Du (my cell carrier here) before we went to the car rental area. He simply dialed the SAME number I dialed and it worked. Whatever, I was just thankful that my phone is functional now! Rebecca ended up getting a car (Toyota Rav4) and we were off to Ikea. Ikea closes at 11 here, so we had about an hour and a half to shop. We stopped at Ace Hardware before Ikea to get an air mattress just in case our beds don't arrive in the time we have at the hotel. Ikea was completely overwhelming but we only had an hour, so we were able to write down some things we wanted and are headed back tomorrow. We made our way back to the hotel. The drive was quite interesting, apparently flashing your lights at someone means MOVE in this country and tailing someone is normal. We made it back to the hotel at about 1 AM. I video chatted with my parents and Moe for about an hour and a half and then went to bed. Today starts the day of MAJOR shopping! Enjoy the pics!