Ajman, Baking, and Other Stuff

For a change of pace I will start off this post with the end! Just 5 more days till I'm home! Only 4 more days of work and then I fly out of Abu Dhabi for 2 months in the States. I'll be spending lots of time with my wonderful family in MI as well as taking a trip to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon with my parents and Amy, and then a trip to NC to visit some friends and former students there. I am so looking forward to it! Oh yeah, I can't wait for all the cuddles from Alexa and Mason!

OK now that I've gotten that out of the way let's backtrack to last weekend when I went to Ajman with Kristie, Vanny, and Jane. Ajman is one of the 7 emirates (I'll list them here so I don't forget: Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Fujairah, Ras Al Khaimah, Umm Al Qwain, and Ajman). We chose Ajman simply because there was a good deal at a beach hotel and we wanted to go to the beach. Other than going to the beach the main purpose was to spend time with Kristie since she'll be leaving us July 4 to head back to her husband in the Philippines.



After church on Friday June 14th, Vanny, Kristie, Jane and I headed to meet a bunch of people for lunch near Mall of the Emirates (total opposite direction from Ajman).  We had what's called mandi.  It's a traditional Yemeni dish, but it is gaining popularity among other Arabic countries.  Mandi is meat (typically lamb, but we had goat) that is cooked in a special oven called a tandoor.  The tandoor is placed in a hole dug in the ground and then covered on the inside by clay.  The meat is lowered down the hole, but it doesn't touch the charcoal that is inside the tandoor.  Once the meat is suspended the tandoor is closed which allows the meat to steam underground.  Weird cooking method, but it makes the meat really tender and flavorful.  The meat is served with bryiani rice and yogurt.  Since this is traditional Arabic food in a traditional restaurant you eat the traditional way; sitting on the floor with no shoes on and using your hands (although we all used a spoon).  So we had a nice lunch before we began our journey to Ajman.

The trip to Ajman took about 40 minutes.  It would have only been about 20 if we wouldn't have traveled to the other side of Dubai for lunch, but 40 minutes isn't bad at all to get to a different emirate.  Our day in Ajman began with a trip to Ajman City Center for a quick stop at Carrefour.  Then we began the task of finding the hotel, which of course wasn't in my GPS.  We figured we could find it if we could find the beach.  So that's where we headed.  Trying to find the corniche in Ajman is like trying to drive in Abu Dhabi.  Tons of construction.  There were signs posted for the corniche, but we couldn't quite figure them out.  So after driving around for about 10 minutes we decided we would head back to City Center and hire a taxi to take us to the hotel.  We didn't actually have to go all the way back to City Center as we saw one on the side of the road.  He agreed to take us there so we gladly followed him following all the confusing brown signs for the corniche.  We checked in and promptly changed into our bathing suits so we could enjoy the beach before it closed at sunset.  We walked across the street to the private beach, claimed 4 lounge chairs and then went into the warm bath water of the Gulf.  We enjoyed the water for a bit before heading back to our chairs to relax and watch the sun begin to set.  After relaxing there for a while we made our way back to the hotel to check out the indoor pool.  It wasn't all that much, but it did have a deep end that was deep enough for me not to be able to touch the bottom.  I tried to get Jane to the deep end (she can't swim) by carrying her, but I couldn't do it.  One concerned patron was at the ready to offer assistance if I needed it.  I didn't, but it was nice of him to be there just in case.  We splashed around in the pool for a bit and then went to get cleaned up for our free dinner that was included in the deal.

 

 

Dinner wasn't anything too special, but it was free.  Well I guess it wasn't really free since we paid for the night, but it was included in the price we paid.  It was a typical Arabic buffet with the typical Arabic food.  It wasn't all that good Arabic food, but it was something.  We had our dinner and then went to get our "free" massages.  We each got a 30 minute massage before making our way back to our rooms so Kristie could dye Jane's hair.  By the time everything was finished it was well past 1am and we were tired so we went to bed with plans, made by Kristie, to wake up early and be at the beach by 7am.  Can you guess how that went over?!

 

Well, if you hadn't already guessed we didn't make it to the beach by 7, or 8 for that matter.  I woke up first at 8:30.  By the time we were all up and ready it was closer to 10.  After having breakfast, Kristie and I headed to the beach while Jane and Vanny headed to the steam room and then the beach and lastly the pool.  Kristie and I just soaked up the sun all morning!  I must admit it was really nice.  It was a great way to celebrate making it through the year at ENS!  I went swimming for a bit but mostly I just lounged and read.  By 12:30 it was getting hot and we needed to get cleaned up so we could check out at 1:30 so leaving the beach behind us we walked back to the hotel. 

Our ride back to Deira City Center, in Dubai where we decided we would have lunch, took us nearly an hour instead of the 20 minutes it should have taken us, due to the fact that Freida (my GPS) took us through Ajman and Sharjah instead of taking us on Emirates Road (the highway that we came in on).  I was quite frustrated.  It wouldn't have been a problem except that the traffic in Sharjah was terrible (as it always is).  I suppose it would have been the quickest way and Freida doesn't really know about the traffic issues in Sharjah so I guess I can't really blame "her".  We had lunch at Texas Roadhouse, where the steak was terrible.  No flavor at all.  I had mine swimming in A1 Sauce.  The chili was good, but that's about it.  After lunch I took Kristie home while Jane and Vanny did some shopping.  I made it back to Al Ain around 5pm, just in time to get some shopping done at LuLu before it got extremely busy.  It was a nice weekend and what made it even nicer was the fact that since school was over I didn't have to get anything planned for the upcoming week.

 

The work week at ENS wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.  I had been told horror stories of endless boring meetings and no time to do any planning.  Thankfully the stories proved to be false.  Yes, there were some boring meetings, but fortunately most of the time was given to us for planning for the following year.  We got our first UOI (unit of inquiry, science/social studies) planned, our first summative assessment planned, a quite in-depth rubric made, our reading program aligned to our UOI and planned.  Needless to say we were quite busy!  It was a lot of work, but it will be nice starting the year knowing what I'll be doing.  This week we'll be working on our 2nd UOI. Hopefully we'll get that finished.

 

My last weekend with Kristie was spent in Al Ain.  Kristie and Jane wanted to learn how to bake so I offered to teach them what I knew about baking, which is simply follow a recipe and hope it turns out right!  They don't know how to bake because having an oven is considered a luxury in the Philippines and not many people own one.  I had no idea.  My idea of baking is stuff like cookies, cakes, pies, brownies and the like.  That is not what Kristie had in mind; she wanted to bake sardines!  I was not thrilled with this idea, but since it was my last weekend with her I decided to humor her and allow her the thrill of baking sardines.  What could have been a simple task turned into a learning experience for me.  Kristie bought the whole sardine, not the pre-cleaned and filleted ones.  So she spent a good hour in the kitchen cleaning, deboning, and filleting the fish.  What a stench!  I'm glad I had moved my air purifier into the kitchen.  It was running the entire time and the kitchen still smelled of fish.  After getting the fish prepared Kristie placed it in the preheated oven and we went to the living room to chat.  We continually returned to the kitchen to check on the sardines, but we still ended up burning the top layer of the sauce.  Since just the sauce burned we decided to try her creation.  She loved it!  Jane ate it, but she was picking bones out.  I had 2 bites, which for me is a good thing since I am a very picky eater.  I love fish, but sardines have a very fishy taste.  I think I'll just stick to salmon, tilapia, and trout that I'm familiar with and that don't really taste like fish.

 

After dinner it was Jane's turn to try baking.  Now Jane picked something much better than fish; she chose cupcakes!  We searched for easy to make cupcake recipes but ended up just buying a cake mix and pouring it into muffin cups instead.  Not too creative, but they were good nonetheless.  They did turn out kind of funny and lopsided looking and the icing that was included with the box didn't get hard enough to spread, it was more like milk, but we still enjoyed eating them!

 

 

A plus for the weekend was that I had borrowed an inflatable mattress from Fara so they didn't have to sleep on the floor this time!  Jane slept on the mattress while Kristie had the new couch.  I hope they were much more comfortable this time than their first visit.

 

Saturday morning we had pancakes for breakfast and just kind of lounged around before heading out to the Al Ain Palace Museum.  This was my 5th time there so I wasn't all that excited, but I did get to act like a tour guide as I was telling them about some of the artifacts in the rooms.  They had a good time and took tons of pictures!  Kristie loves having her picture taken and she loves taking pictures of others as well.  Actually I think that's a Filipino thing, as all of them that I know take tons of pictures.  Seriously.  There are 83 pictures of the weekend just on my camera.  That's not including the ones on our phones.  And that was just one weekend!  Lots of memories!  I'm glad they had a good time though and I'm thankful that I got to show them a bit of Al Ain.

 

93 degrees at 9:30 pm in Al Ain and 84 degrees at 1:30pm in South Lyon.  Boy am I looking forward to the cooler temperatures!!  Just 5 more days!!

And So It Begins. Or Ends?

The last few weeks have marked the end of my first year at ENS and my third year as a teacher in the UAE. The end of the school year at ENS is no different than at Ammoryiah.  The kids stop coming and I am left bored because I finish things too early.  There really should be some sort of reward, oh like you know leaving early, for those of us that get tasks done in the required amount of time, if not early.  But alas that is not the case and I am here until 4:30 pm with absolutely nothing to do.  Grades are done, papers taken off the walls, lockers and desks cleaned out, and most of my stuff stored for next year.  So with all this free time I decided I would update my blog.

Last week was the grade 4 concert.  I am so glad that it's over.  The practices were insane; too many in my opinion.  They practiced everyday for the entire week.  The thing with all the practices  was all the downtime, not to mention the fact that I didn't get anything accomplished.  All the students sat out in the quad waiting for their turn on stage.  I suppose I should rephrase that - all the students should have sat out in the quad waiting for their turn on stage.  In reality what happened was that most of the kids were walking around (if not running), playing, and yelling.  Unfortunately, it was pretty much left up to me to monitor their behavior because the other teachers weren't.  That's something that I can't tolerate.  Actually that's 2 things that I can't tolerate: students running around and not following directions, and the other teachers not trying to control them.  Ugh!  That's what made it frustrating.  My class was generally well behaved; honestly, I'm not just saying that.  The thing is they know what I expect out of them and for the most part they do it.  Now if all the others would just follow.  OK enough about the practices.

The actual concert went over very well, or so I heard.  I actually didn't get to see it as I was out directing the students back stage and trying to control some behavior.  Surprisingly many parents were there and they really seemed to enjoy the show.  They had good things to say afterwards so I take that as a sign that all the students' hard work paid off.  I did see the finale (all grade 4 singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight") and it was amazing!  They were all moving in the right direction (something we worked really hard on during practices) and they were actually singing.  My class sang a song called "Ha La La" which is a song about friendship.  They sang it in both Arabic and English.  I was very impressed with their performance during one of their dress rehearsals as they all were singing and Shamsa even said her line slowly and clearly enough for me to understand.  Who knows how well they did during the actual concert, but I'm sure they did their best!

So with the concert over I was hoping to get science taught, but that never happened.  The concert was on Tuesday and Thursday was a holiday so I only had 12 students on Wednesday.  Typical.  So there was no teaching on Wednesday; just some review.  This week has been slim pickins as well.  Sunday started I started of with 19, but by the end of lunch I only had 6.  Monday I had 12 but that went down to 4 and today (Tuesday) I only had 4 and that went down to 1.  Why do they even bother?  I mean why would they get up early only to leave around 10 or 11?  Doesn't make sense to me.  I wonder how many I'll have tomorrow.  I did tell them that we could have a party if they show up so we'll see.  I suppose I'll buy some treats of some sort, but I really don't expect too many.  I'll have to start bringing a book to read so I can keep myself busy.

On Sunday I went to Ammoryiah for the grade 5 graduation. I can't believe my first group of students in the UAE have graduated.  They have really come far.  I remember my first days with them.  Teaching them all about how to "do" school: how to be responsible, organized, take turns talking, raising their hands, not run out of the classroom, basic English (my first lessons were how to introduce yourself correctly "Hi, my name is", how to count by 2s, and draw a labeled picture of your family that wasn't copied off of me).  How far they have come!  They are reading and writing and "doing" school correctly.  Model citizens!  See that just shows you that they can be taught and that they can meet expectations, if only all of the teachers here would set some. I am so thankful that I was able to attend the graduation.  I loved seeing my girls again and getting their hugs. I do miss them.  After all the struggles with them they really were a good group of girls that were just learning how to "do" school.  Thinking back what could I have expected out of them; they had no rules or structure before so why should I have expected them to behave and do everything like I wanted them to.  They required lots of training, but it has paid off and they are ready to go to cycle 2.

It was also wonderful to be greeted by many of the teachers with cheek kisses!  I'm so glad I went and got to see Moza and Ousha, as well as the other teachers, again.  What a great way to start the last week of school!

Just 11 more work days until I'm done and 12 more till I board a plane headed to Toronto.  I'm not sure what the next 2 weeks hold, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I'm ready!  Hopefully there won't be too many all day meetings and that they'll reduce the hours.  I'm hoping that they'll let us leave at 3, earlier would be better but that may just be too much to hope for.

Well that only took 1/2 an hour.  I still have 2 1/2 to go!

Reflection

Reflection is such a huge part of the PYP program so I guess it's time I reflected!  Not that I'm not always reflecting on my teaching, but as the year is nearly over it's time to reflect on my first year at ENS.

As I reflect I am well aware of God's grace in bringing about the changes in me, the classroom, and my students.  Everything good comes from Him and I give Him all the glory and praise for making the changes.

As I sat in my class Thursday morning watching my students work independently I couldn't help but remember what it was like at the beginning of the year.  All the struggles with listening, working, not talking all the time, respect, tucking in of the shirt, fighting, bad language and just simply not wanting to be there (both me and the kids).  I remembered how hard it was for me to get up each and every day and go to work knowing that it was going to be a battle to get anything done as I would spend a majority of the day working on behavior management.  I recalled my frustrations with teaching them how to raise their hands and work independently.  Ashamedly I also recalled my harsh tone and anger towards them and many of the not so positive things I had said to them at the beginning of the year.  Remembering all that just made it even more wonderful to see what I saw.  I saw them working.  Working together.  Working quietly.  Raising their hand when they needed help.  I saw them reading, writing, checking their work, and getting help from each other.  I saw boys and girls working cooperatively and not yelling at each other.  I saw high students working with and helping lower students.  I saw a well working classroom that could have been anywhere in the States and yet it's here in the UAE where they struggle with education.  As I sat there watching them I couldn't help praise God for His grace in their lives.  He is working in them and His faithfulness is amazing. 

In addition to God working in them, I stand totally amazed as to how He worked in my life to bring me to the point of acknowledging that I needed His help in my life and in the classroom.  As God changed my attitude, my words began to change as well.  The situation didn't change, my attitude changed.  God reminded me that the job was a blessing from Him and that these students are created in His image and loved by Him and when I wasn't loving them I was living in sin.  He reminded me that I am called to speak gently, not harshly, and that my anger doesn't glorify Him.  I am called to love all people, even my Emirati students, just as God loves me.  It is a tall task and I often fail.  Even as I write this I am reminded that I still struggle in truly loving them, especially when things aren't going as well as I think they should in the classroom.  In addition to loving them I am called to work for God's glory so that my students, and the staff, can see Jesus in and through me.  And again I am reminded how often I fail, but thankfully I am also reminded of God's grace and mercy in forgiving me and giving me another day to try again.  I pray that these changes will take root in my heart so that the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year will be a much more positive experience and that I will be able to glorify God with the beginning of a new school year.

I still struggle, believe me I do.  Every day.  But I know that God is at work in me and that because of Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross I can rest assured that I have forgiveness for the times that I mess up in the classroom, and in every other area of my life.  So I praise God for sending His Son to die for me, for giving me the Holy Spirit to work in me, and for His never-ending love for me and all of His creation!

I do need to begin thinking about the 2014-2015 school year.  Where will I be?  I'm praying that I will be back in the States.  Brazil is a thought that I have, but it's just a thought.  I really haven't even began looking.  What are God's plans?  Not sure right now.  I do know that I will resign from ENS in December.  Even as I write about how God changed me I know that this school isn't for me.  I don't agree with grading English language learners as native English speakers and that is what is required here. 

Two more weeks with the students and four more weeks until I head home! We have our concert on Tuesday and Thursday is supposedly a holiday; we're still waiting for official word from ENS, but it's been in the paper so we should have it off. With a holiday on Thursday I'm wondering how many students will come back for the last week of school. I'm not sure what the last 2 weeks of school will have in store for me; hopefully we'll get some time to get planning done for the next year.