My thoughts on culture shock...

Culture Shock is defined by http://dictionary.reference.com/  as,

"a state of bewilderment and distress experienced by an individual who is suddenly exposed to a new, strange, or foreign social and cultural environment ."

Culture shock can be defined in five stages and not everyone goes through them.

The 5 stages of culture shock:
    * The Honeymoon

    * The Actual Shock/Negotiation

    * The Adjustment

    * Assimilation

    * Reverse Cultural Shock

Before I came to the United Arab Emirates.  I read everything I could about culture shock and these five stages came up pretty frequently in my research.  These five stages are very general and often fail to consider that people will experience different phases in different cultures.  The United Arab Emirates is completely different in terms of what someone might experience because the country is made up of so many expatriates (you can almost avoid the culture all together if you work in an office of other expatriates).  If someone is from India and comes to the UAE they may feel some of these stages but they may also just surround themselves with other Indian expatriates.  Someone from Australia may feel these stages as well but never quite assimilate because they too find other Australians and continue to live very similar lives to what they lived in Australia.  And me?  I am from America and for the most part who do I spend my time with?  Other Americans?  But as an educator I come into contact with Emirates and Arab Expatriates everyday these are my colleagues and my students so the shock was inevitable. 

So in my research I read that in the UAE there are two types of the stage of "adjustment" in the UAE.  In one type we surround ourselves with expatriates from our home country or western countries and live very familiar lives from back home down to the cinema, the food, and even our extracurricular activities.  We often join in on complaint sessions in regards to the Emirates and Arabic culture.  On the other end of the spectrum there is this world where expatriates become friends with Emirates and Arab expatriates and learn about their culture.  They experience the food and may attend an Emirate wedding or celebration.  They see the beauty of the Muslim community and they find some acceptance.  This acceptance brings them to a place where they really see the UAE as their home rather than temporary situation in their lives.  In my research I remember reading that if one did not come to this place of acceptance that they might as well have a calendar on their wall counting down the days until they get home.  They forgot to mention the fuzzy gray area in between the two places that I seem to have landed.  So finding myself in limbo of acceptance and rejection I want to really dissect my culture shock according to the five stages of culture shock.  First I will give the definition of each stage and then I will attempt to summarize what my feelings were during this stage. 

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_shock the Honeymoon Phase is defined as the following:

During this period the differences between the old and new culture are seen in a romantic light, wonderful and new. For example, in moving to a new country, an individual might love the new foods, the pace of the life, the people's habits, the buildings and so on. During the first few weeks most people are fascinated by the new culture. They associate with the nationals that speak their language and are polite to the foreigners. This period is full of observations and new discoveries. Like many honeymoons this stage eventually ends.

When I first arrived in Abu Dhabi we were greeted with roses and brought to the 5 star hotel the Rotana Beach with view of the gulf out our window.  Honeymoon?  Yes!  I felt like I was in a fantasy land with enormous sky scrapers everywhere.  I was snapping a million pictures of the beautiful buildings, the hotel, I even went stark mad just taking photos of trays of food in the breakfast buffet.  I was trying new foods and even ate the McArabia from McDonalds just because it was different!  I look at this stage and fear that maybe my honeymoon phase was short changed by the wear and tear that hotel life started to have on us. 

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_shock the Negotiation Phase is defined as the following:

After some time (usually three months but sometimes sooner or later, depending on the individual), differences between the old and new culture become apparent and may create anxiety. Excitement may eventually give way to new and unpleasant feelings of frustration and anger as one continues to have unfavorable events that may be perceived as strange and offensive of one's cultural sensitivity. Language barrier, stark differences in public hygiene, traffic safety, food accessibility and quality may heighten the sense of disconnection from the surroundings.

For us I think the "Negotiation Phase," came sooner due to hotel life becoming so draining!  I kept finding myself saying again and again that once we get into our homes everything will be easier!  I won't fight with my husband and my son won't make me insane if we can just get in our home with an internet connection and a stove and a fridge.  I was starting to feel like my hierarchy of needs were not being met.  Many would laugh at me and I feel ashamed to say that when so many people could and would never consider living in a 5 star hotel challenging; but it was!  We were ready for our apartment and space!


We were running out of money and getting really sick of eating out, not having internet, and not having space for our very active two year old son to rome about (his legs were covered in bruises from running into the furniture in the small hotel room) or even a space for him to nap or fall asleep before we did.  In addition to that is the anxiety that comes with this country deriving from questions like:  when will have a meeting? When do we move to our apartments? When do we move from Abu Dhabi to Al Ain?  When do we get our passports back?  When do we find out school placements, get debit cards, get rental cars, when do we start school and how will I find my school?  For a type A personality that likes a lot of control it can feel like the honeymoon phase comes to a crashing stop.  I still felt myself saying and still do over and over again am I really here?  Am I really living in this fast growing country across the world from all that I know with camels in the back of Toyotas?  And I smile because it is something that will continue to amaze me and justify this decision. 



According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_shock the Adjustment Phase is defined as the following:

Again, after some time (usually 6 – 12 months), one grows accustomed to the new culture and develops routines. One knows what to expect in most situations and the host country no longer feels all that new. One becomes concerned with basic living again, and things become more "normal". One starts to develop problem-solving skills for dealing with the culture, and begins to accept the culture ways with a positive attitude. The culture begins to make sense, and negative reactions and responses to the culture are reduced.

So I know on some levels I am here in this phase right now.  I am used to the new culture, I am never surprised and often anticipate many things that were shocking at first.  Food delivered may take two hours and  that is ok even if they said 45 minutes (complaining does you know good).  I may have to return to the electric company four or five times to get the utilities switched in my name and they may be completely inefficient but it doesn't surprise me.  Cars may fly up on two wheels around the round about and I may feel like I am on the defense often when driving; but I am not phased by this lack for safety in this country.  I may pick up son up at a day care stuffing his face with cotton candy delivered to him by a stranger and I won't even raise an eyebrow.  The prayer calls have become background noise and I know to go shopping on Fridays around noon to have the malls to ourselves and the other western expatriates.  I know that most places are closed from 2 to 4 and on Fridays so I don't even bother trying to get things done then.  I know that "No problem" does not always mean there won't be a problem.  I know that sometimes Insha Allah means it will happen and sometimes it won't.  I learned the world won't end if my son pulls his pants down in the mall or I wear a short sleeve shirt or accidentally eat with my left hand or cross my legs in public.  So in so many ways I feel right at home here. 

I have also found my favorite places to shop, get dinner, joined a bowling league, go to movies, have a reliable babysitter, my favorite route to work, and have made some good friends.  We have favorite parks and Mike, Gavin and I love to go to Dubai just to go to the book store and eat at big American chains like Outback and Fridays.  We love to go to explore Al Ain and love that there is so much to do that revolves around family.  We are happy here.  We miss family and can't wait to see them this summer and look forward to a time when we return to the United States but are not by any means checking dates off a calendar. 

As I read the last portion of the this phase of culture shock as defined by Wikopedia it states, "The culture begins to make sense, and negative reactions and responses to the culture are reduced."

Some may say I am extremely self-absorbed in my own cultural ways or too confident or cocky even, to say that the way we do things in the United States is best.  Maybe?  But I will never be able to make sense of the way things are done here!  I will never be able to understand (I can deal with it and let it roll of my shoulders) why the bazillion stamps and why there isn't a universal computer server for each company.  For example if I want something done with my bank I have to go to a certain branch and no one can just pull something up from a connected server on the computer (this means lots of driving around).  Lack of efficiency across the board at the government level and the business level and I can never find any sense in something that I see so inefficient, I just can't!  I really believe that there are some Emirates that are paid some outlandish salary just to sit in an office and stamp things.  I will continue to have negative reactions to these things and opposition to the backwards and inefficient planning for so many things in this country.  So does this mean that I will not find acceptance?

I suppose on some levels my reactions have reduced to a shrug of the shoulder and a certain expectation for this inefficiency so that I blink my eyes and more or less forget that  I had to give five copies of my passport to someone for some reason and they still need another copy because they can't find it.  I know I can't let these things eat me up but do I have to make sense of it?  In my professional opinion no!  I can let it go but I cannot endorse inefficiency.  In contrast anyway I could make a list a mile long of the inefficiencies in the United States so I suppose in some ways I have not quite found acceptance even in my own country...

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_shock the Mastery Phase is defined as the following:

In the mastery stage assignees are able to participate fully and comfortably in the host culture. Mastery does not mean total conversion; people often keep many traits from their earlier culture, such as accents and languages. It is often referred to as the biculturalism stage.

Mastery is still over the horizon for me.  I am still learning so much and this learning could go on for a while.  For example it was just brought to my attention that drinking coffee at the morning assembly isn't culturally appropriate and apparently I have been getting looks of disgust for months now.  I feel terrible now and I do not bring my coffee to morning assembly and I felt pretty bad that I made such a terrible mistake ongoing for so long with out thinking twice.  Culturally for me teacher + morning = coffee mug in her hand.  I never considered the notion that no one else was drinking coffee.  I have to say my mornings are a little off now but I am working on it.  I suppose mastery will be when I avoid making these little mistakes all together for the most part.  Insha Allah...

Spontinuity and Impulses

So last week I traded in my rental yaris tin can for a lovely new Mitsubishi, Outlander, a crossover 4x4.  It is used and for just a little more then a rental I will have it paid off in two years and it is still under warranty.  It couldn't be more of a boring color, white, but as my friend Abby points out it is pearly white.  I really love driving it and can tell already that I am getting more respect on the road from my fellow drivers and maybe my head is a little taller to not be driving the same vehicle as the Farooj Chicken delivery guy.  But I have to complain, there is a tape player!  No CD player and how did I miss that, well I am super impulsive and didn't look for details like a CD players or MP3 player compatibility...the worst part is that all in the same week the one station in Al Ain that plays American music, which is pretty bad top 20 stuff suddenly stopped playing American music and switched to Hindi.  Fantastic!  So I am currently improvising with my phone or netbook for music or I sing to myself.  I plan on doing a little shopping for a CD player for my car at some junction; but not on the agenda this month. Here is a picture and in case you are wondering I am not leaving the plastic on the seats like some of the strange locals (apparently this is big here to keep things in their packaging to keep them nice; not uncommon to see all the stickers on the computer of a teller or customer service rep.

In other news I joined a bowling league.  Yes there is bowling with out alcohol and I suck at it!  I joined with some other teachers and so far we are having a lot of fun.  It seems to be all teachers for the most part and no one seems super competitive although it is clear we all want to win!  We get to just unwind and be super silly and laugh a lot and it is nice to get away from Mike and Gavin and have some guaranteed girl time once a week.  Also bonus, it counts as activity points on weight watchers! Here is a picture of my team, "split happens,"

From right to left there is Jolynn from Illinois, Sylvia from South Africa, and of course me, and Abby from Illinois (I met her in Iowa before we came out here).

We have a lot of laughs and I am really enjoying  bowling so far!

This past weekend was really fun and full.  On Friday, my friend Abby and I got much needed pedicures, which we agreed we needed much more frequently.  Then we were off to the Al Ain Airshow.  I haven't been to an airshow since I was a kid, it was pretty amazing!  Gavin was all over the place running around and had gasps of enthusiasm for the planes and loud booms and had his fill on junk food.  We went with Abby and her family and really enjoyed it.  Here is a picture of Mike and Gavin enjoying the airshow (yes we try to keep Gavin strapped in as much as possible!)

Then afterwards we decided to throw caution into the wind or be sponteaneous and we hopped into our rugged new 4x4s packed with hot dogs, wood, a grill, some chairs, and sand toys and found us some random dunes.  We are in the desert so why not?  So we drove abound 8 miles towards Dubai and pulled off into the nearest deserty sand dunes stocked with some camels nearby and everything.  Abby's truck got stuck in the desert!  Mike and Andy had to jump on the back of the truck and jump up and down and do some pushing to get it out.  Apparently they weren't working the 4x4 correctly but I had to make the joke and ask if they were still planning to join the off roaders club when they got stuck in the sand making a three point turn about.

We set up near a few dunes and the boys started digging with their toys and the sun began to set quickly!  We got the grill and fire going and made some hotdogs and smores.  It was a lot of fun!  The only downside was that Gavin is really impulsive/active/unaware of the whole toppling down a dune to be injured concept so after trying to corner him in a cornerless desert to play in one area, we were forced to strap him to his stroller and supply him with enough chips, graham crackers, and marshmallows to keep him from whining.

Here is a fantastic picture my friend Abby took of me, Gavin, her boys, and Michael at the top of a dune at sunset. 

Here is another picture of Abby and I making smores around the little grill Abby brought.

Then on Saturday I was invited to a Valentine's Day craft party at another teacher's flat.  She had put together a whole morning of activities for the kids to make crafts including picture frames, necklaces, and valentines.  I really thought it was a good idea for Gavin!  I really did!  Gavin has limited activity with other kids and I really thought this would be a great opportunity for him to get to play with other kids!  I also have spent time coloring and working with play-doh with him and as long as I am there to guide him he loves it and can spend quite a bit of time focused diligently on the task at hand.  Plus I just figured in his love for hearts was a plus, I mean how could we go wrong?

Well we arrived and everything started off so sweet and innocent!  Gavin was nicely gluing hearts together creating a lovely valentine for Daddy or Mommy.  He even was coloring on it very nicely.  Then he notices the necklace making station with beads.  Hearts, and starts! Oh my!  He loves hearts and stars (he seems to have a thing for shapes lately-really really into them).  I grab a nice handfull and bring him back to our area where I try to focus him on making a neckclace with the beads I have.  Before I can stop him he dives towards the nicely organised dishes of beads and he dumps them over.  OH no he doesn't stop there!  He then preoceeds to wave his hands back and forth to see them fly accross the room.  At this point my sweet hostess is grabbing the broom and scrambling to pick them up and assuring me that isn't a big deal and I am sure at this point it isn't, everyone is laughing and Gavin is really confused when I put him in time out.  I apollogize profusely and then decide he needs a distraction.  Gavin is compulsive, I am going with," it is a normal two year old thing." 

For example if he sees a toy at the park and wants to play with it and the child that has it refuses then we have to leave the park because he will think of nothing else but getting his hands on the toy.  At times distraction will work but mostly it doesn't and why didn't my gut realize that the beads fell under this very same category?  Here I am with a group of ladies that I barely know hoping to have some new friendships for both Gavin and I to flourish trying desperately to get Gavin to eat a cookie and get his mind off of things.  And he dives again into the beads!  Desperately trying to ensure every bead is spread across the room.  Again my hostess smiles as she scrambles to pick up all the beads and my heartrate goes up and I feel panicky and Gavin sees the other kids going to play and he follows.  Maybe he is distracted now? I saunter down the hall to see how Gavin is playing when oldest boy begins to point frantically at the cookie on the floor, "who brought food in the bedroom?  There is no food allowed in the bedroom!  Who brought food in the bedroom?"  I apollogized to the young boy and scurried to hide the evidence hoping no one would see my child with the red scarlet cookie.  Well at this point Gavin decides to give the beads one more toss around the room and our sweet hostess has given up on cleaning up the beads plopping defeated on the couch.  Gavin is now attempting to dislodge the door from the princess doll house of the little girl and I can see I need to leave.  They all smile and nod and say good-bye and I even imagine are feeling a little sense of relief.  I left and in hindsight realize Gavin just might not be ready for craft day.

Here are the beads before Gavin attacked them lol:

Here is Gavin's valentine before he turned into baby godzilla:

Next week Michael and I are headed back to Abu Dhabi for the first time since we were bussed away from the Beach Rotana last August.  We are going to Yas Island to see Eric Clapton!  I cannot wait!  Details to come on that venture!  I am up way past my bedtime but I have to admit it is kind of nice.  Michael is in Dubai with a friend and for the first time in a long time I have the place to myself while Gavin sleeps; the peace is kind of nice. 

So a friend posted a link to this blog that another teacher has written and I think it really captures all the negatives of my experience thus so far.  I also think it would be a good blog for anyone considering this experience to read.

Here is a link:
http://mellyschu.blogspot.com/2010/11/truth-is.html

This is pretty intense and I can see all of what she is writing about.  I think in a way I am pretty lucky at my school, while there is a division and probably some teachers that look down their noses at me (not probably there is!).  I choose to only notice the happy bubbly Egyptian music teacher that always smiles at me (and makes less money then us).  She is a larger woman with glasses and a very colorful and elaborate kandora and head scarf, and she wears a thick pancho over her clothes in the cool weather.  Every morning she gets the girls together to play music for the assembly and she works so hard and because she is Egyptian her salary is less then us (salary for expats is generally a significant amount more than one would earn in their home country but not equal to other teachers at the school...westerners all make the same based on experience and then Emirates naturally make significantly more).  Well she greets all of the LTs every morning with eye contact, smiles and firm handshakes.  She asks about family and really cares.  One morning my friend Sylvia from South Africa was shivering a bit and coughing and she took her warm pancho off and gave it to her!  This is just an example of some of the humanity in this country that does exist.  Another teacher works in Special Education (I still have no idea what she does but she has a child with special needs of her own and openly admits it and this is humbling for someone from this country).  She has lost a child from illness and I imagine that has been humbling as well for her.  She is an Emirate woman and due to her child's illness she lived in the states a few years so she has more acceptance and appreciation for western society.  She lights up when she sees me.  When I was out sick with kidney stones she was scribbling down homeopathic remedies for me and had legitimate concern for my health.  So there are some open minded opened arm teachers at my school; however they are in the minority and many of the ladies shake your hand if you come up to them and they look somewhere else and they force fake smiles, and I try to attribute it to the language barrier (hey I got to sleep at night!).

The principal to me is a quiet woman that stands at morning assembly and never addresses the student body.  She is thin and frail and wears a very simple black abaya and shayla.  She doesn't say a lot and is always very quiet and smiles when she sees us. From what I can tell she appreciates and wants us at her school and understands how hard we work)  It seems the assistant principal is the real authority and I do get a bit of disgust from her and lack of appreciation for what we do (for example she wanted us to complete our marks over Christmas vacation with no value for our time off).  For the most part I know that there is a division at our school and there is a level of disrespect to the point that some of us feel like servants at our school but I just choose not to see it that way.  I come to school just as I always did in the US and I teach.  I close the doors and I close out the drama that exhists at every school (which comes with the territory of working in a female dominated profession, too much estrogen makes me choke).  I dot my i's and cross my t's and I stay under the radar as much as possible.  My principal has stepped foot in my classroom twice and both times she smiled.  I also have a few random Arabic teachers that stroll in to yell at the girls, pass out notes, take my girls away or whatever and I go with the flow.  But honestly I can do this and I feel like what I am taking from it is that I am becoming a better teacher for it.  I am seeing some progress with my girls and in the grand scheme of things that is what matters. 

We took our girls on a picnic at the park.  I brought a jump rope and they loved it!  Great picture of girls jumping rope.

Many of the girls just as their culture teaches them, tossed their trash on the ground.  Well, the Arabic teachers were happy with that and I guess thought that the laborers could clean it.  But the LTs brought trash bags!  And all the grade three girls new the words to the Barney "Clean up" song.  The Arabic teachers jaws were to the floor as our girls happily sang the clean up song scurrying around picking up garbage and sorting out any food that was untouched to give to laborers at the park or the cleaners at the school (these ladies are from Ethiopia and the Phillipenes and make roughly 200 USD a month that they send home so they eat very poorly).  It was fantastic!  When one of the LTs said to the Arabic staff, "we don't want the park to spread around how filthy our school is," they agreed to this disgusting task as they certainly were not going to pitch in!

This is not a Muslim or Arabic thing, this is just what money does to these people.  Why walk or find a trash can if someone else can pick it up?  It is not uncommon to see trash flying from a car, or to see a family cleaning the trash from their car on the ground of a parking lot.   We were also amazed that the Arabic staff just left their picnicking materials on the path thinking someone would pick it up and of course we did (sure that makes us look less like their inferiors right?),

Ok so this blog I mentioned earlier in my post got me thinking because the real cure to culture shock is acceptance and appreciation of the culture but I know for me that will never really happen, I will leave here repelled by Arabic culture (ok not all Arabic culture but for the most part any Arabics with lots of money) and the opposite is happening to me.  For example when I see Arabic kids at the playground I grab Gavin and go away because I know they will be throwing sand, taking his toys, or just plain push him away because he is an annoying two year old (they will come up to me and tell me to make him stop trying to play with them...so sad).  Instead of keeping an open mind I find myself thinking or expecting these kids to be rude brats. Let me exemplify, last night we were in Dubai at the Chucky Cheese and Gavin was playing with one of the employees and he got away and was on the run so she was chasing him and I was right behind her chasing him too.  Well he saw an Arabic boy , maybe ten or eleven playing dance revolution and jumped on the game too!  He started playing with the kid.  I caught up to Gavin and grabbed him and the Arabic kid is screaming bloody hell at this employee.  His mother and father are at the table near by taking the whole scene in and they are not intervening.  He wants a refund because this little boy ruined his game.  I was holding Gavin in my arms watching this and I said, "stop yelling at her!"  I handed him my game card, "I will pay for another game, my god he is two years old."  He glared at me and stomped over to his table and grabbed his card and paid for the game.  The employee rolled her eyes at me and smiled.

I am trying to find the beauty in the Arabic and  Muslim cultures but not sure I can really find the needed appreciation and acceptance to really allow myself to settle here for even a moment.  I guess on some levels my culture shock is becoming less and less as I learn my favorite places to shop, my routes to and from school, make friends and I am even joining a bowling league and buying a car so in a sense we are making a life here but I know it will always be us and them and that I will leave her never really taking on the original acceptance and appreciation I intended to have or gain when I leave this country. 

I think about what made me want to pick up my roots and run away from New Mexico and it was mainly poverty.  Because of poverty the social problems that existed made Albuquerque a not so enticing location to raise a child.  High rates in alcoholism, drinking and driving, drugs, gang activity, garbage in the parks and streets, lack of parental involvement with children (which translates to poor academic performance, more violence and bullying on the playground), and too much crime.  Our neighbors were shooting shot guns on the holidays into the ground, our neighbors would not think twice before stealing packages from our step or letting their dogs crap in our yard.  You get it, no sense of community, the parks were not safe, and the schools were not safe.  I didn't want my son to grow up and be hazed for a gang...you get it right?  I couldn't leave soon enough after four men walked into the Denny's down the street with machine guns leaving the 16 year old waitress dead. 

So in contrast what disgusts me here is the money (which breeds poverty that lives in fear so it doesn't translate to crime).  I appreciate the family values and the safety that the stringent laws creates.  But so much faith in their god seems to translate to lack of safety.  They feel like God wills them to be safe.  So no carseats, stuff 100 kids on a bus made for 60 kids, drive like maniacs and if a child dies it was their God's will and there was nothing they could do to change that.  Then the life of priviledge and having a servant to do everything means complete lack of humanity for some of these laborers.  They always have someone to carry things for them or clean things for them.  I could go on and on when I think about lack of humanity in some of these people and lack of work ethic.  It seems like too there is also a lack of parent involvement because these women just shoot out babies (the more babies the cooler you are) and so they don't have time to give their children the attention they need and often the nannies take care of them.  So this translates to no discipline, bullying, violence, and poor academic performance.  Hmmmm interesting how similar poverty and money can translate to the same thing...

I guess what I am saying is that suburban and middle class America has never looked so good to me.

As my two week holiday came to an end and I came back to school with my new years resolutions to eat healthier, be a better mom (in other words time for potty training and getting the kid off the sippy), and to be more active.  What am I doing to make these changes? 

I started by joining Weight Watchers online on January 1st which has put me in a position to really track my food intake.  I am more aware of my portion sizes and how to make healthy substitutions.  I am trying to be active in some way at least 20 minutes a day and trying to vary it up with Pilate's, yoga, walking, and the weights and treadmill we purchased over the holidays.  I have also added multi-vitamins to my life and am eating more fruits and vegetables which also means Gavin is slowly becoming more interested in eating healthy.  So far while the pounds are not flying off I am feeling more energetic and more comfortable in my clothes.  This also translates to being a better teacher because I am sitting down a lot less which means I am a more vigil and active teacher.

How am I becoming a better teacher so far??  I am trying to reflect on student performance and group my students accordingly.  I have organized my girls into reading groups and am attempting to differentiate instruction giving the girls different leveled readers and activities and surprisingly there are not too many complaints that they are doing different activities.  On a side note why this surprises me is because this culture squashes individuality on some levels and often I see so many girls attempting to be just like the other girls and this can be related to the fact that the mothers and fathers are so much the same in attire and even mannerisms and walking...I mean to say most of the Arabic ladies walk the same; they sort of slowly float along and the men do as well.  Which in contrast is funny because in their cars they drive like maniacs.  Anyways so my whole point was that because I see my girls so desperately needing to be the same as the group I thought they would throw a tiffy when I started to give them different activities but I found that as long as they are in cooperative learning groups and the girl next to them is doing the same thing they are fine.  Now in each class I have one girl that is even beyond the highest reading group.  I have given these girls even high readers and activities to choose from.

While I have been able to differentiate in reading I am still really struggling with this in math and the reality is I need to.  For example the past two weeks I have been struggling to teach carrying and borrowing in addition and subtraction.  I have used hundred charts, and base ten blocks and still I have some girls that are just clueless and some girls that are ready to move on.  So I know that a good teacher could find a way to get the higher girls to move on and would find a way to go back over the skill with the girls that still are not getting it.  But I just don't know how to do this because very few of my girls are independent learners.  I can give them a task and they need constant recognition so when trying to work with the low girls the high girls are right there to show me their work and look for recognition.  So this is something I know I need to improve on.

My faculty head says to me after an observation that I struggle with my "time on task," and I have to agree with her.  I have trouble getting my girls focused and they easily get distracted.  This derives from poor classroom management.  Now I know I don't have the worst classroom management but I know for sure it could be better.  Now in contrast there are teachers that are excellent at classroom management but the children complain to their mothers that the teacher is mean and then the mothers complain to administration and there is a cycle so it is almost like we can't win.  My faculty head is also looking for us to exhibit an equal amount of positive reinforcement as negative reinforcement so it is a balancing act.  My issue is out of fear of being reprimanded or brought under a spot light by administration or even worse ADEC themselves I set out at the beginning of the year to only have a positive reward system.  Which on some levels has worked for me and has been motivating and the mothers love it.  But back to the problem at hand, I simply do not have enough time on task with my girls.  So the new year brings a new behavior management system.

I am implementing the stoplight system.  I have a hanging pocket chart with colored circles red, orange, yellow and green.  Each Sunday (like Monday) the girls start at green.  When they move to yellow it is a warning, orange final warning, and red means move away from the group and work alone.  Now of course girls can earn their way back up to green.  This system also has rewards, if you are in the green at the end of class you leave two minutes early (could never do this in the states it is fantastic!) which means the rest of the class thinks they are leaving late (although we would be in serious trouble if we let any of the girls out late).  They are in pure torture sitting waiting for just two minutes and it is really working!  Then on Thursday (Friday here) I am giving all the girls left in the green a small prize candy, gum, pencil etc.  I know I just started it but really I think it is working out quite well! I only had a few tears (tears must work on mom every time with some of these girls) and hopefully I won't have any angry mothers.

Now as far as helping my son transition into being a "big boy" I am at my wits end!  I am hearing from many that "my son was potty trained before two," or "before two and a half," and I am really starting to get a complex so here we go.  I let him run around all day no diaper and I sit him on the potty every 20 minutes and after naps and after waking in the morning and after a drink and after a meal and he refuses to go in the potty!  He exhibits all the signs he hates wet diapers and tells me he needs a new diaper all the time.  He loves his potty, loves to sit on it, but refuses to pee in it.  He pees on the floor in the same spot and so we put his potty in the same spot and yet he pees on the floor next to it.  I guess eventually he will go in the potty but at this point I just think he is stubborn.  I mean take this morning after waking up his diaper was dry and I have him a sippy.  I put him on that potty 10 to 15 times and sat with him.   We sang the little potty song I made up and we sat and sat.  Then after two hours (that means bladder control doesn't it?) he pees on the floor by the potty.  I think he just wants to be defiant and stubborn...I know my loyal fans and readers (lol my mom) will tell me he is only two....I digress...

In general news we are trying to buy a car and get a loan because car rental prices are just too high and at least when leave the country we can sell the car and maybe pocket a little extra cash but getting a loan has been a nightmare as everything in this country has been.  I think, I believe, I hope that as they say "Insha Allah" it will happen tomorrow.  We were thinking of going with a brand new Mitsubishi ASX but now we are toying with the idea of going to Dubai and checking out the used car lots as they have a lot of cars that are still under warranty and less than a year old for around 5000 USD cheaper.  There have been over 100 teachers that have left their cars at the airport or apartment parking lots and left the country blowing off their car loans and debt.  Apparently their situations were bad enough to warrant such poor purchasing decisions and abandoning debt to become wanted fugitives in a country they can never step foot in again...I am truly amazed at the behavior of some so called educated professionals; they have no idea how bad they make the rest of us look; which is one of the reasons I am struggling so much with getting my own car. 

Last weekend I went out with some other teachers to one of the night clubs in the hotels here in Al Ain and I had a great time dancing to top 20 American dance hits while drinking Vodka and cranberry juice (I made sure I dance for 20 minutes straight for each drink I had to burn the calories).  It was so much fun and I even stayed out until 3am.  I was under the weather the whole next day and realized that a night out at 33 is much harder than it was at 23 but still a lot of fun. Quite the scene even here in Al Ain down to the flamboyant Filipino man in make-up and heels busting a move on the dance floor.  Needless to say I will probably keep my drinking and dancing at a minimum as I can't afford to lose a whole day off to a hang over!

Well Michael and Gavin and I have begun a tradition of going of the mall on Fridays when all the Muslims are at church so we can have it to ourselves and the other expats.  Gavin gets to play at the play area and we window shop so I am off to do that now!  I think we may go see a movie tonight as well...

Holiday, Birthdays, and Sugar Highs!

The end of the trimester means assessment, grades, and a nice break is coming.  In contrast to the US school was over early every day through the week, little to know teaching or learning was really happening, and the last two days of the week almost none of my girls were coming.  We made some festive ornaments to decorate their rooms (they certainly had nothing to do with Christmas in this Muslim country!),

We have two glorious weeks off and by some miracle these two weeks happen to encompass Christmas and New Years for us westerners; my family couldn't be more happy to continue some form of tradition together this holiday season.  We have our Christmas tree up, a stocking for Gavin, and even a wreath to decorate our front door.  As per usual I am running around doing last minute Christmas shopping and procrastinating on getting all the wrapping done, although there is no rush as Gavin will simply tear them apart if I place them under the tree!  His favorite past time when mom and dad are involved and not paying attention is to toss all the ornaments around the house.

To get the holidays going my friend Abby held a cookie exchange and I have to admit that I was apprehensive and even felt a little like I was  a poser but low and behold I got my mom's snickerdoodle recipe and sat down to make them.  After driving all over the city I finally found all the ingredients minus the crisco which simply had to be supplemented by something called Ghee (pretty much the same but easier to stir and I am sure it is not quite the same).  Anyways by some miracle it turns out I can actually bake!

I was so proud of myself because I consider myself a flop and failure in the kitchen but as my friend Heather put it, "baking is an exact science, follow the recipe and you can't mess it up, cooking is more like an art; you just feel the ingredients and work and work until you create a masterpiece."  So my theory is I am a scientist in the kitchen and as long is there is a recipe I can follow it but I cannot simply taste a dish and recreate it like many artists I know!  So I took my plate full of cookies to my friend Abby's home and had a really great time!  It was wonderful chatting with other teachers and mothers and sharing our joys and frustrations with this change in our lives.  I had a lot of fun and look forward to more get togethers with these ladies.  The best part is I came home with a plate full of different decadent yummies that Michael and I had no trouble devouring over the weekend!

My husband and I have really gone overboard with the toys this year for Gavin for Christmas, but with the nephews so far away we can't spoil them as much.  Gavin has a nice toy workbench, toy kitchen, some puzzles, books, and clothing to look forward to.  On Christmas eve all the teachers and families that haven't left on holiday travels are planning to get together to eat at Chinese restaurant that rumor has is pretty fantastic so I am looking forward to some good Chinese food!  We are all bringing one small Christmas present for our children and one of the husbands is dressing up as Santa Clause and delivering the presents to the children.  We are hoping Gavin doesn't run away like he did from his last Santa encounter at the Hilton! 

We went to the annual lighting at the Christmas tree at the Hilton and it was quite the production with carolers singing all the must-hear-Christmas-songs, the lighting of the tree, complimentary wines and soft drinks, and then Santa of course repelling from the sixth floor balcony on a rope with drum rolls and spot lights, very exciting entrance.  Then we waited in line to see Santa and Gavin got his present and ran away after multiple attempts there was no picture for us to post on Facebook or the blog  of Gavin sitting like a good boy on Santa's lap.

My birthday was on Monday and I was so happy to see so many birthday wishes from family and friends new and old from all over the globe.  It really made me smile, social networking really helps to feel warm fuzzies on our birthdays doesn't it? I spent the morning and afternoon with three ladies getting pedicures, having a wonderful meal of Indian food and doing some light shopping at my favorite local mall, Bawadhi Mall.

For my birthday Mike, Gavin, and I took a trip about 70 miles to Dubai where we stayed in the Holiday Inn Express and I have to say after staying in a 5 stars hotel a 3 stars hotel simply is a place to sleep lol.  We went to the Dubai mall which is absolutely enormous and gorgeous and extravagant to say the least.  We had our first sushi in 6 months!  Gavin sat nicely believe it or not and snacked on fruit and a fresh fruit mango nectar, he loves the fresh juices in this country!  The sushi place had conveyor belts going around with color coded bowls filled with sushi.  You just grab what interests you and eat it, at the end they tally up how many bowls you have and give you your bill.  Michael and I proudly ingested around 264 dirhams worth of delicious sushi!  Or around 73 US dollars.  It was fantastic!  Then we strolled around the mall taking in the beauty of extravagant fountains, the tunnel of fish, and the enormous book store!

I will continue to risk my life driving to Dubai just to have monthly trips to the biggest most wonderful and a bit overpriced bookstore ever!  It is called Book World for good reason because it is a world of books!  The whole store s-curves into a huge circle of books galore!  They have every book that I could think of (although if you ask Michael their Sci Fi and Fantasy sections leave something to be desired).  Michael was really excited about the large selection of anime mangas and Naruto calendars (including other anime characters). They even have a huge geek display area in the back that would get any sci fi or comic book nerd oober excited.  Enormous lit up museum like displays of action figures. It couldn't help but make me laugh when Michael told me one day he aspires to have such a collection in his man cave...gotta love the nerd in him lol. 

We finished the evening at Cinnabon where we shared a mini cinnabon that wasn't really so mini, a piece of carrot cake, and oreo cake.  We also had a nice strawberry and banana shake that I thought was a smoothie when I ordered it!  Needless to say Gavin had more sugar in that one sitting than he has probably ever had at once and immediately became drunk by it.  He was being super chatty and silly making Michael and I laugh so hard, who needs entertainment when you can simply give a two year old sugar and watch him perform! 

As we were leaving the Dubai mall there is a section called Fashion row or something like that and it is a string of all the major designers that are referenced on Sex and the City, luxurious carpets line the floor that you sort of sink into!  I had to take my shoes off to squish the carpet in my toes.  As you are walking there is a runway in the middle that is a lit up floor and Gavin loved it!  He was running back and forth just cracking up loving it!  Unfortunately we had to pull him away kicking a little but due to his sugar overload his attention was easily averted to some pretty butterflies hanging from the ceiling lol.  After our fun filled trip to the Dubai mall we headed to our slumming three star accommodations (hopefully you understand the sarcasm here as the hotel was really nice and right in the category of where we usually stay in the US on vacations). 

Gavin, needless to say, had some trouble coming down from his sugar high and was literally bouncing around the room until some time after 12.  The next morning we barely made it to the breakfast that left something to be desired after what we were used to at Hilton.  It was the bare minimum with cereal, apples, a few danishes, juice, coffee, and milk, but it was nice!  Our plan was to go to the Dubai Outlet mall, check out the Dolphinarium, and then end our day with a dinner cruise.  But after the Outlet mall we were exhausted from our sugar-hungover-whiny-two-year-old-bundle-of-joy, not to mention we were located about 10 miles closer to Al Ain, it just seemed too easy to hop on the Dubai Al Ain road and be on our way home, and so we did!  We have decided our next trip to Dubai needs to be with out Gavin! 

Tattered Princess Dress

I suppose I cannot find much to complain about right now as we barely came back from a nice long break from Eid and were told not to bother teaching this week as the nation begins the many days of celebration for National Day commemorating 39 years as a nation.  The city saves no expense on lights and flags decorating the streets as almost every palm tree trickled down the street is dressed in lights.  Evenings here are beautiful and are helping me to feel a little of the holiday season that I miss from back home.  Never thought I would say I missed shopping to "Grandma got run over by a reindeer," but I do!  So this week my colleague Heather and I work all week long to put together an act for the National Day show.  Our "act" consists of 33 girls holding colored signs that spell out "We love United Arab Emirates"  The colors together make the flag as well and the rest of the girls spell out a cheer saying "We love United Arab Emirates," sort of YMCA style with their arms.  All in all very cute, but very discouraging and confusing with our lack of communication!  We wanted all the girls in the act!  Here are some pictures of practice:

At this time from what we knew the performance would be outdoors like last year after assembly all the girls would simply sit down and the whole school and mothers would enjoy the performance.  We are all excited about seeing the girls doing the hair dance and some of the Arabic teachers have some traditional songs the girls will be singing, how fun right?  I am told there will be henna and it will be a lot of fun.  Well then we are told on Monday no, the performance will be in the Theater.  The theater is so small, how will we all fit?  I am thinking well it will be close but we will all fit because of course all the mothers and children will get to see the performances! So we do a dry run of our act in the theater and it goes pretty well and looks pretty cute and we feel good.  Then Tuesday morning rolls around, we come in and had told the girls to not wear their uniforms and to dress in UAE colors.  They came in beautiful, some of them wearing princess dresses and make up and their hair in beautiful curls down their backs!  Many were wearing flag colored Kandoras and face painted flags and one girl even had flags on her eye lids!  All the mothers were here ready to see their girls performing and the show was set to start at 9 am....

So we line our girls up near the theater in the dingy dirty cement area covered in garbage and we wait....  Then I find out that we are waiting on these gentlemen from the Ministry of Education to come, there is a red carpet rolled out in front of the theater.  Then I see angry mothers grabbing their daughters and leaving.  I go to find out why?  Turns out many mothers have been turned away and they are not allowed to see the performance, either are the students!  The only people seeing this performance are these men, who are already over an hour late and the Arabic teachers and some of the more affluent mothers.  So we wait unsure when we perform, no direction, waiting for these men so we can start the show, no chairs in this cement almost parking lot behind the theater.  The girls are hot, the girls are hungry, the need the bathroom and we wait.  Finally the show starts some time after eleven.  I have sung every song I know, taught them hand clap games and even duck duck, goose, but we are still miserable!  What kind of party is this?  If you were to speak to almost any other teacher today from any other school they would share stories of jumping castles, amazing performances, the "hair dance", and they would share pictures of a wonderful day with you, but my girls were miserable!

So finally it is our turn to perform, we were very last, some time around 12!  As we file what is left of our classes on to the stage hair ties are broken, make up is running, and dresses are torn but they are smiling.  I look out to the audience and the men are leaving!  The Arabic teachers are leaving!  My faculty head proudly beams at my girls from the audience and a few of the women stay seated realizing there is one last performance.  My girls begin and they nailed it!  As they filed of the stage not a one of them seemed to notice the lack of audience and they all were smiling ear to ear as I gave them thumbs up, pats on the back, and told them how great they were.  My faculty head was to tears as she shared that many of these girls would never see a stage if it were not for English teachers as the Arabic teachers only allow the pretty, smart, and outgoing girls to be in acts.  So this makes me feel good.  Then one of my darling girls says to me in broken English, "Miss Leah, I thought today be good day...today bad day, very bad day."  I look at my sweet little Fatima, "today was very bad I am sorry honey, but you are so pretty and grade three did a great job,"  she forces a smile and saunters away in her tattered princess dress.

Life has sure been busy since my last post.  We are completely settled into our new home and have really started to enjoy our routine.  We are spending much less time shopping now that we have everything we need and are eating out much less, which is good because I am not sure how good the trips to burger king were doing me.  Gavin recently acquired a new tricycle which he is enjoying but not quite grasping the concept of pedaling.  It has a handle bar so we steer him and push him around the compound while he keeps his feet on the pedals.  He is developing into a little trouble-making tantrum-throwing sentence-speaking toddler.  He loves to color, he loves to play with play-doh, he is learning to sing, and he loves to do puzzles with Mommy.  He loves to climb, dig, run and wrestle with daddy.  I was quite impressed he only tried to eat the play-doh twice and I am quite sure he concluded that he did not like the taste.  He will get t over excited and begin drawing on the floor, walls, and couch with the crayons if given just a split second with out us.  Another thing he has started to do is snatch pens from my school bag and tear off down the hallway dive on the floor of his room and immediately scribble as much as he can on his floor before we apprehend the pen from him.  He keeps us on our toes.

Michael has been very busy organizing all of our media onto these media devices that categorize our entertainment from music, shows, movies, kids shows etc.  He downloads all the new shows and movies from the United States and we are never have a shortage of things to watch on TV.  Mike also figured out how to get kindle books on our phones and so we won't be without books from the states either as we have yet to find a decent book store with books here in Al Ain, there are of course some of the popular books like twilight and John Grisham novels or harry potter in all the book stores but you just can't find a store where you can stroll through browsing the fiction section as the English sections are minimal (there are book stores that would be fun in Abu Dhabi or Dubai but none here so far).

I am excited to announce the grocery stores here seem to be acclimating to the western presence here as I am finding more and more things I actually want to or know how to cook.  I still miss my lazy lazy frozen stouffers lasagnas, my x, y, z meat helpers (i.e. chicken helper) and rice a roni packets!  And have yet to find powdered mashed potatoes or stove stop stuffing or Cambell soup!  I have not been to the store called Spinneys and hope to find it soon as it is said to have all the western stuff for a unreasonably high marked up price that I just may pay 5 dollars a box for some kraft mac and cheese lol.

A little over a week ago I finally got my residency visa which means I am legal so thus starts the journey of sponsoring Michael and Gavin.  Lots of driving around lots of official translated documents and important stamps and letters for this and official letters for that, then jump over a tree, across the river, over the bridge, sing while hoping on one foot, and do the hokey pokey....no seriously I don't know if I will every get this visa sponsoring stuff done! I hate to be that girl that complains about the country she is in but this country dots their i's and crosses their t's a few too many times!  Then they have to stamp everything.  I get frustrated because everyone needs official copies, you cannot for example scan and email someone a copy of something, you must drive there and they must stamp it and you must sign it, I digress...

One last complaint preceded by the statement that I am very happy with my girls.  I love them to death!  I love teaching here, I love watching them learn and at the end of the day I know I belong in this classroom.  I have some great routines going and some real learning is happening with my girls here. I get along well with all my colleagues and feel blessed to be at such a wonderful school that is working so hard towards the reform. But....I know you were waiting for the but!

The paperwork is far more extensive then it was in the states.  I thought it was actually quite overwhelming in the states as I was a special education teacher and I had to track modifications/accommodations, I had to track academic goals, I had to write IEPs, compile re-evaluation packets, and in the case of a behavior problem I had to conduct functional behavioral analysis', then write a BIP, and then implement and document the BIP and it's effectiveness.  In addition to rolls as a special educator came all the data that the state wanted to show that we were making academic progress and evidence.  But at the end of the day there was a form and a process that was consistent through out the state of New Mexico that was explained to us in detail.  When we used a new  program for data we were trained on it (and we complained a great deal about the waste of time on these trainings).  I complained so much about all this paperwork in the states.  I miss forms, processes, and consistency!

My job here in the UAE is constantly changing, they tell us to do  something one way and we spend hours and then they change their mind...this is very consistent.  We are expected to map all of our students in six areas three times a year and this I can handle, but the way of mapping has been explained to me in multiple ways and I still have no idea how I am supposed to do it.  They have given us a lot of "creative freedom" on how they want this done which means how do we do this?  How should we do this?  So we all come up with different ways and then they decide we should use high lighters on written forms after I spent a few hours creating templates on the computer that I can use to type things in and eventually make it easier.  Then I am handed a nice binder with a pack of high lighters being told they decided we would hand write these forms and color them with high lighters.  Just to exemplify....

In addition I have been told I must map my students in the standards of reading and writing, math, and Science ( pages and pages of standards that are not even realistic for students that are learning in a second language and that have limited proficiency).  I have to gauge if they know all the standards.  The idea here is that each girl with have this binder (so 48 binders total) that will have samples/evidence of their work completing each standard.  We will then check off each standard as they complete them and in theory at the end of the year we will have these binders with check lists that we turn in showing their process as they completed all the standards (I am thinking there are over a hundred standards for all three subjects combined).  I will have to pour myself over these 48 binders three times this year and can you imagine how large each binder will be for each girl?  Not to mention how tragic it will be for me as a teacher to sit there and realize how many of my girls cannot even complete these standards.  For example do you know of a Spanish speaking student in the third grade in the states that speaks limited English that can state the scientific method or tell you the categories of animals under vertebrates and invertebrates in English (maybe in Spanish) ?  I am trying to remain positive and hoping that somehow I will find a system to make this part of my job a learning experience, and beginning to think I should compile some data myself and write a dissertation for my future doctorate or some kind of paper I could publish? Right?  Do we see the Nobel peace prize in my future?  I am only kidding but I really have to find some way of validating this large  of a work load for myself as I fear that these beautiful binders that I will put together will simply be tossed a side with the intentions being good and they will never be put to use.  I digress...thanks for listening to the ramblings.

Yesterday, Mike and I had our three year wedding anniversary and it was quite nice!  I found the Spinneys and bought a six pack of wine, oh yes six whole glorious bottles of wine sit in my cupboard at my beck and call.  I made a lovely meal, I say lovely because all other meals have been a flop and or just "OK" and this meal of butter filled whole cream chicken and mushroom Alfredo and garlic bread was simply divine!  We had seconds and brownies.  It was really lovely...we put Gavin in his room with his new babysitter Diego...do not judge, sometimes we need our time!  It was really nice...to three years with the most wonderful friend and husband!

Today is sort of a fun day at school, I look forward to a day of henna and dancing and food at school and then we have an entire week off of school for Eid, so Happy Eid!