One of my first amazingly different cultural experiences!

So, when moving to a new place, I now understand that it's so easy to get caught up in the hard feelings of adjusting to a different way of life and dealing with the very strong homesickness. However, today, I had what I thought was an amazing experience that really helped me to realize how blessed I am to be here and to see all of this new world around me.
As I mentioned in a previous post, it is Ramadan here, which means that people fast all day long, completely depriving themselves of even having a glass of water while the sun is out. The fast ends as soon as the sun goes down, which right now is around 6:00-6:15PM. Before, at this time, I went into a barber shop hoping to get a quick clean-up of my sideburns from the barber. When I walked in, he was kind of hesitant to do the job because they were just about to eat, but then at the last minute decided to do so. I felt bad and insisted that I come back after the feast, but he further insisted that I sit down, and so I did. It took him 5 minutes to do my sideburns, and when I was done, he invited me to eat with him and his three friends, and this is where the experience came about.
In the corner of the barber shop they set up a rug on which they had all kinds of food just laying out on top of newspaper. I sat down with them on this carpet on the floor, and we sat Indian style looking at the food silently, waiting for the prayer call to go off. When it was time, we all ate together, right there on the floor. There were four of us, and it was a wonderful experience. The men were from Pakistan, and only one of them spoke English. We discussed their culture and their traditon, and I told them that it was completely different for me to be eating on the floor. In their culture, sitting on the floor makes everyone equal, as there is not even a head of the table as we have in the Western world.
What else struck me about these men was how poor they were but yet how willing they were to offer me food. For us, the concept of eating off of a newspaper would be disgusting (and it probably is bad for you), but to them, it's an efficient way to eat. By the way, no utensils, either!
I also have pictures from my trip to Oman, where I saw some incredible scenery. I wish that all of you could be here with me seeing it! I will post the pictures as soon as possible with more explanation of them as soon as possible!
Thanks and love and miss you all!
- Paul : )

A little taste of that family life that I miss so very much!!!

Today I came home from work competely exhausted. Starting a new middle schol is no easy task, ESPECIALLY for such a young teacher with as limied experience as I have. The past few days it's taken it's toll on me. Less sleep at night just tossing and turning, worrying (as I know so well how to do). One of the things tha I miss most here is that genuine family life. Before I get more into this part of the story, I will tell you a bit about Lilas...
So, it's March of this year and it's one month after I find out that I'm moving to Abu Dhabi. I go to on to Facebook and join a few groups of people from Abu Dhabi and start to ask questions about life over there and asking for advice from anyone that already lives tere. This girl Lilas writes backto me, totally friendly from the get-go. and because she was so nice, we naturallly continued communicating. A few months pass by and we get friendlier and friendlier with each oher. In May, I get a picture of the building that I will be living in in Abu Dhabi, and I send it to Lilas asking her if she knows where it is in the city. The picture is below:

My building is the tall glass one, and Lilas's is the one to the left with the balconies showing! That's right, she writes back telling me that we are going to be neighbors Since then, of course, we were both thrilled and communicated right until I arrived. We saw each other as soon as I got here.
Since I've been here, her apartment has become like my home away from home. I come here quite often after school, eat with her husband and 6 year-old daughter, and just relax. They're a super young couple, in their early 30's, and their house gives me the true feeling of home that I miss so much right now. I have to say what the hardest part of this experience so far is missing the family and friends that I'm so close to. Everyone that I talk to says it gets easier, and I'm waiting for that to happen! I can't wait to see everyone when I get home though!
I'm going to go back into the family room now and watch some more TV with them before I head off home to bed! Right now it's 7:20PM and I'm totally exhausted This Ramadan work schedule is running me down, but there are only two weeks left of it. We work for 7 hrs. straight with only 10 minutes in between to eat lunch!
Talk to you all soon, and thanks again for reading the post!
- Paul : )

Some more food for thought

So, I still have a few more questions coming, which is always good! I'm glad that everyone is interested in reading! I apologize in advance if I don't post daily, but as you can all understand, it's not always easy! One of the first questions that I got is "what is it like for you in a typical day?" Well, there are some interesting answers to that, as well! The school year started with the days beginning at 7:50AM. The school provides a bus that takes us to work, and being that we live the farthest away from the school of all the rest of the staff, we have the longest ride to work and back home, which is minutes long. However, always being one to try to save time in any circumstance, I started taking a cab. Cost for a 15 minute cab ride to work: 10 dirhams, which in US currency is only $2.70! I would pay that money for some extra sleep in the morning any day! Plus, of my three roomates, 2 have already noticed how much more relaxing it is in the morning to not have to get up at 5:45 to catch the bus and have therefore joined in on the cab ride with me, which obviously makes it cheaper for all of us!
The school day runs until 2:50 on a normal day, HOWEVER, it is now Ramadan, which changes EVERYTHING. Ramadan is the Islamic holy month and is just important to Muslims is to Christians. The concept of Ramadan, from all that I've understood so far, is to get closer with the Muslim faith through sacrifice, which for during Ramadan means not eating or drinking all day until sundown. This is a daunting task, especially during the hot summer months. In order to deal with this, the whole Muslim world restructures its life. Offices open later in the morning and close earlier in the afternoon. Our school day begins at 8:20 and ends at 1:10. The lessons are shorter, planning times are more compacted, and it generally becomes a stress-fest for all teachers involved.
After the sun goes down during Ramadan, Muslims have a party each night and eat together with family and friends. In fact, it is against the law for anyone (including me and all other foreigners) to be seen eating or drinking in public. If you are caught, you get a fine and are seriously shunned upon. Therefore, during this time the staff room door is closed for when we eat lunch, we have no water bottles in the classroom, etc. Our students are tired everyday during Ramadan because they go wake up super early in the morning to eat and drink before the sun comes up and are up late at night at family parties. Life changes in everyway during Ramadan, and in the end, we have one week off to recover!!!
A few weeks ago I went to the Emirates Palace, which is the most expensively built hotel in the world. It's luxury is absolutely mind-blowing, and the luxury of it's service is second-to-none in the world (actually, except for that famous hotel in Dubai). Here are some photos of it:

The outside of the palace. Sorry about the poor quality of the photo, but the camera that I used wasn't exactly the best!

The main lobby (mush more beautiful to see, but you can get some idea of it).

The main lobby, with the former and current president of the UAE.

The back courtyard (which we found out later we weren't supposed to have access to)...

A photo of the UAE flag waving along with some of the architechture of the building.

This place is truly mind-blowing!

Sorry, but I've got to run! Will post next chance I get!

- Paul : )

I got my first two questions. Job well done!

Well, reality tells me that I did come here primarily to teach, and of course there is lots of information to share about that, as well! And, it's only fitting then that my first two questions came from one of my wonderful professors of education at Long Island University and from a dear friend who has years and years of teaching experience. So, Nancy and Ed, thanks to your curiosity, everyone else gets to read along, as well!!!

My school. First things first. I teach for the American International School in Abu Dhabi. Here is the school's website:

http://www.aisa.sch.ae/aisa/Index1.aspx

AISA (which is the acronym for the school) is part of a larger school district throughout the Middle East called the ESOL schools. On the top right of the AISA homepage you will find a link for the ESOL schools, and that will give you a full list of where else they have schools.

So, teaching internationally is part of a completely different world than teaching in the USA, and beyond that, teaching in the Middle East adds yet another dimension of how things work. Picture setting up a home that is supposed to be like one in the US but yet it's in a different continent of the world. This is virtually what international schools are, a home away from home. In order to run, these schools need to secure as many resources from back at home as possible, and if they don't have those resources, the school will run, someway, somehow, just the same!

I am teaching 7th grade English and Social Studies this year at AISA. Accepting a grade 7 teaching position was also a big change for me because I was always afraid of that age group for obvious reasons, but I knew that in order to get overseas to teach, I had to accept some compromise. So, after a summer of gearing up to teach 7th graders in an established school, I find myself with the first major surprise of this new adventure:

I, along with all of my other middle school colleaugues, WOULD BE STARTING A MIDDLE SCHOOL FROM SCRATCH!!! You see, for years AISA worked as an elementary school and a secondary school (grades 7-12), and the grade 7 and 8 students were running around like poor little fish out of water. They were COMPLETELY disoriented. They went from an elementary setting where they never changed rooms to suddenly changing 9 classrooms per day. They were lost, unorganized, and quite frankly, desperate for guidance! Noticing all of this, the AISA administrators organized for a middle school to be set up, and they did it quite well. They worked with the most current research on middle schools, which says that things work best with block scheduling for students to study their core subjects of English/Social Studies and Math/Science (I’ll get more into the breakdown of that later). So, as if the pressure of moving my life somewhere else weren’t enough, it was now my time to shine and to help start a whole new school with my very limited teaching experience yet EXCELLENT training thanks to LIU.

I freaked out for a few days because I didn’t expect all of the pressure, but I’ve passed all of that now. It is a great experience so far, and my colleagues really, really get me by because of all of their experience.

Well, this blog is wonderful but also quite time consuming. There is so much that I’d like to share, but I guess it needs to be done a bit at a time! I’m off to work to do some lesson planning, and I’ll continue this post later. There lots and lots more to share about the school, my students, and a typical day in my life.

Thanks for reading!!!

My first post... FINALLY!

Dear all:
I apologize for the long delay! Had anybody asked me before I left if it would taken me this long to add my first blog post, I would have never imagined so! Anyhow, here I am. As you can all imagine, adjusting to life in a different world is never wasn't meant to be easy, and at some points, it really wasn't! In the days that follow, I will be sharing bits and pieces of information that I believe that people will find most interesting. What would be best, however, would be if you all ask me question either via email or directly on the blog, this way I can answer them for everyone to see. As for pictures, they will be a bit slow to come for a very good reason: the humidity ruined my camera! That's right, I went out on a boat for a day and my camera case got a little wet, but being that it's a waterproof case, I figured that it wouldn't effect the camera. It turns out, however, that the humidity built up inside the case and the camera just went wild. Now it has a mind of its own and works when it wants to work. Where does this bring me? Unexpected expense #1: a new camera! Anyway, here are some of the photos that I took on that little boat trip two weeks ago. I was thinking of you all, of course!!!!
This is a photo of the boat that we went out on. The international mix here is truly UNBELIEVABLE, probably unlike anything anywhere else in the world. On that day, I went out on a boat with two Americans, two New Zealanders, and one Englishman. The boat belonged to an English guy. Very cool man. Living here is totally cheap. Anyone here with a descent job can afford the real amenities, like this guy with his boat. I even drove the boat, which was the first time that I've ever done that. It was amazing!
This is a photo that I took on one of the many, many islands surrounding Abu Dhabi. It was a big, natural patch of sand. I specify that because here it's difficult to distinguish between which islands are natural and which are man-made. The building here is incredible. There are cranes everywhere and buildings going up like mad!

This was my island hopping buddy. She's also American (from Las Vegas). She kept me going all along the coast of that little island until I got tired out and made us head back!

A little about my living quarters. There are tons of apartments that the staff live in, and whatever reason, I totally lucked out with where I live. There are four of us in our apartment. It is huge and is in one of Abu Dhabi's premier buildings, and the trade-off is that we live in 4 instead of the other apartments that only have two people. We are also the farthest away from work, which means a 45-minute bus ride to and from work. Here are some pics of the apartment:

Kitchen, of course...

Living room...

Dining room (our table has become our makeshift ping-pong table, as well)...

The big empty hallway. I still haven't quite figured out why there's a batman poster there, but apparently it has something to do with the teacher's that lived here last year. As for the bare white walls in the rest of the apartment, could you expect anything less from four guys living together??? We need a push to decorate, but right now we all have no money because our first payday is next Thursday!!!

I don't think I will ever live in a bigger apartment. There are five full-sized bathrooms for four people that live here! It is immaculate.

This is a date tree, which is the famous product that grows here. They're very, very good and also naturally sweet, which is why I only tried one. Having anymore would send my famous hypoglycemia into a total fit!

Anyhow, I will cut it short for now. It is 8PM and I'm getting ready to head out, but stay tuned! I just wanted to set this up and share a few pictures. There are plenty, plenty more things to share with you. There is an 8 hour time difference between Abu Dhabi and NY, and it will become 9 hours when the clocks change because the UAE does not change its time.

I'm really relying on many of you posing questions so that I can answer them for all to see. Any finally, for those who are wondering, I have yet to see a camel... That may change next week however, when I head out to the desert in Oman...
Thanks!
- Paul : )