There's not much to tell about my holiday in RAK, but I'll try to describe it for you. Fara, Arian (her 11 year old son) and I left Dubai around 1:30 and arrived at Acacia Hotel in RAK around 3:30. We checked into the fully booked hotel, went to our room (which was super tiny) and then went across the street to have some lunch. Our lunch wasn't all that pleasant as we were attacked by flies and cats. The season of the flies is upon the UAE, but this was beyond ridiculous. It was like we were sitting right in the flies' nesting spot. They were all over our food. Disgusting. Then there were the cats. There were two and they almost had a cat fight while we were having lunch. Needless to say we left ASAP! Once we got back to the hotel, Arian and I went to the pool while Fara went to the gym (I didn't bring my gym clothes so I couldn't work out). Arian went swimming, but I just sat on the edge soaking my feet. By this time the sun was beginning to set and the water was cold. After some time Arian convinced me to get in and I swam a few laps anxiously avoiding all the kids who were having a blast with water guns, in and out of the pool. Fara showed up about an hour later and we sat outside for a while before heading back to the pint-sized room to get cleaned up and head to the mall. Because our holiday was during Eid not much was open, just the hotels and malls, so that's what we did.
Tuesday we spent the day at the beach. The Acacia Hotel is part of a group of hotels and although the Acacia is not on the beach one of the their other hotels is and we got free passes to their beach and swimming pool The Bin Majid Hotel was much nicer than the Acacia, but I'm sure it was at least twice as expensive since it had its own private beach. But we got to enjoy the beach without paying the beach resort price! Nice deal. Relaxing on the beach was nice; the water, not so much. It was like someone had dropped all their grass clippings in the gulf. It was gross. Arian and I pretty much stayed as close to the shore as possible until we found this path (I know sounds weird, a path in the middle of the gulf, but that's what it was) that enabled us to venture further out. We spent a good portion of the day at the beach and at the pool before heading back to Acacia to get cleaned up and then make an exciting trip to the mall for dinner.
Prior to checking out on Wednesday we just spent some time by the pool. I enjoyed my time at the beach, but I definitely won't be going back to this hotel. The room was small, no extra towels, crammed breakfast area, no pool towels, and the beds were nearly on the floor. If I end up back in RAK I'll definitely be going somewhere else; most likely paying the money for a beach resort, just not during Eid when everyone hikes up their prices!
95 degrees at 4:30
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Life at ENS and in a Muslim Country
It's been a few weeks since the changes all took effect and I suppose the chaos has settled down things have gotten a bit back to normal! Things are still really busy, but not like the first week when all the changes went into effect.
Due to all of the changes, I got 4 new students (3 from Vemal and 1 from Kevin), but only 3 have been in my class, one is out of the country for medical reasons and I don't know when he'll return. I'm hoping that he won't (not that his medical issues are bad enough to make him not return, just that he'll go to another school or stay out of the country) because I have heard that he's "bad." That's coming from the students, but they know. They have told me that he "shouts" and "doesn't listen." I don't need another one of those! One of my new students, from Kevin, is a huge behavior problem and was causing complete destruction in his class, so they moved him to my class, is continually disrupting the class. He doesn't stop talking or making noises, he sings, laughs, makes noises, yells, anything to hear himself. Thankfully my boys are pretty mature enough to ignore it. I did have a hard first week with my class adopting his behavior, but I talked to them about it and they have gotten much better. It's still hard, but not like when my class was going crazy because he was. I have just decided that I'm going to send him to the PCO (parent care office) every time he gets out of hand and when my strategies (move his name, separate him from his group, ignoring, take away points, praise, and give points) aren't working. What typically happens when a student gets sent to the PCO is that they call the parents and let them know of the behavior and in extreme cases they demand that the child be sent home. Yes they really do that. But in this case the parents know the school number and are refusing to answer the phone when the PCOs call so nothing can be done. Frustrating. Although thankfully they don't send him back to class until the next period so I do get a break. It is going to be a long year and I have to rely on God's strength and patience to get me through it. The question now is what will happen after we get back from our week break for Eid. Looking forward to that! Just kidding!
Eid Mubarak! Joyous Eid! My holiday officially started Thursday afternoon and I get a week off. I'll be going to Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) on Monday with Fara and Arian, her 11 year old son. I've only ever driven through that emirate and stopped at a beach so it will be nice to spend a few days there and explore the region. Everyone that hears that I'm going to RAK says that I will love it. They say that it's completely different from anywhere else in the UAE and it's very quaint. We'll see. I am looking forward to it; knowing that I'll spend some time at the beach and the pool relaxing and not thinking about school!
Eid Al Adha is the festival of the sacrifice where Muslims celebrate the saving sacrifice that Allah provided when Abraham was set to sacrifice his son Ishmael (Isaac in the Bible). So they sacrifice a lamb or goat in memory/honor of the sacrificial ram that Allah sent. This is not a good time of the year for a lamb or goat! Anyway we had our Eid assembly Thursday morning where the 3rd and 4th graders dressed in Haj attire and walked around the handmade kabba (represents the one in Mecca). In addition to that someone brought a goat! Poor thing. I thought they were going to sacrifice it right there during assembly, but all they did was role play the sacrifice with a plastic knife. After the pretend sacrifice they led the goat away and proceeded with the rest of the assembly. The assembly lasted the entire first period so that was nice to have a break. We didn't do much on Thursday given that I only had 15 students; thankfully Suhail, my behavior challenge, wasn't one of them.
I had to leave school early to help Fara work on getting paperwork for her divorce. She is Muslim and needs to get an Islamic divorce in addition to a legal one, so she needed witnesses to get the process started. We (Fara, Tara, and I) went to the court at 2 only to find out that they were closed until 3 (Fara was told they close at 3), so we waited around until they reopened at 3 to find out that she needed male witnesses. Women don't count; they are weak and may lie (the reason given to us by the attendant, with us women standing right there). After getting over the initial shock of being called weak and a liar simply because we're women we found out that the witness just have to be men, she didn't actually have to know them. So two men were rounded up from the courts to be her witnesses. Not sure I agree with that, but oh well. She had her witnesses so she could now get the paper granting power of attorney to her friend in the UK. Once the attendant found out that the recipient of the power of attorney was female he stopped the process. Nope. Power of attorney can't be granted to a female, for the same reason. Ugh! Frustrating and it didn't even really effect me. It's just seeing how women are treated here. Fara eventually found a male family friend who agreed to be her power of attorney so she could get the paper. So they printed out the power of attorney paper, and had her sign it. Not a problem except it was in Arabic! No English translation at all. What in the world was she actually signing?! OK I know that I live in an Arabic speaking country and that I am a guest here, but so is 80-90% of the population and English is the predominant language. I guess not at the court. An additional frustrating fact is that if Ali, her husband, wanted the divorce all he would have to do is go to the court and sign a paper and it would be granted. Thankfully she got the paper and is sending it to the Imam (like a Muslim pastor) in the UK that is going to grant the Islamic divorce.
On a side note, Kristie is coming back! I'm excited, but I'm also sad for her because she will be coming back without her husband. Their marriage didn't work out at all and he's not willing to leave so they can get work elsewhere. She's working on getting her visa and a job in Dubai, so I don't know for sure when she'll be back, but she will be back!
95 at 3pm and it's only supposed to get to 99! Hopefully no more 100s for a while!!!
Due to all of the changes, I got 4 new students (3 from Vemal and 1 from Kevin), but only 3 have been in my class, one is out of the country for medical reasons and I don't know when he'll return. I'm hoping that he won't (not that his medical issues are bad enough to make him not return, just that he'll go to another school or stay out of the country) because I have heard that he's "bad." That's coming from the students, but they know. They have told me that he "shouts" and "doesn't listen." I don't need another one of those! One of my new students, from Kevin, is a huge behavior problem and was causing complete destruction in his class, so they moved him to my class, is continually disrupting the class. He doesn't stop talking or making noises, he sings, laughs, makes noises, yells, anything to hear himself. Thankfully my boys are pretty mature enough to ignore it. I did have a hard first week with my class adopting his behavior, but I talked to them about it and they have gotten much better. It's still hard, but not like when my class was going crazy because he was. I have just decided that I'm going to send him to the PCO (parent care office) every time he gets out of hand and when my strategies (move his name, separate him from his group, ignoring, take away points, praise, and give points) aren't working. What typically happens when a student gets sent to the PCO is that they call the parents and let them know of the behavior and in extreme cases they demand that the child be sent home. Yes they really do that. But in this case the parents know the school number and are refusing to answer the phone when the PCOs call so nothing can be done. Frustrating. Although thankfully they don't send him back to class until the next period so I do get a break. It is going to be a long year and I have to rely on God's strength and patience to get me through it. The question now is what will happen after we get back from our week break for Eid. Looking forward to that! Just kidding!
Eid Mubarak! Joyous Eid! My holiday officially started Thursday afternoon and I get a week off. I'll be going to Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) on Monday with Fara and Arian, her 11 year old son. I've only ever driven through that emirate and stopped at a beach so it will be nice to spend a few days there and explore the region. Everyone that hears that I'm going to RAK says that I will love it. They say that it's completely different from anywhere else in the UAE and it's very quaint. We'll see. I am looking forward to it; knowing that I'll spend some time at the beach and the pool relaxing and not thinking about school!
Eid Al Adha is the festival of the sacrifice where Muslims celebrate the saving sacrifice that Allah provided when Abraham was set to sacrifice his son Ishmael (Isaac in the Bible). So they sacrifice a lamb or goat in memory/honor of the sacrificial ram that Allah sent. This is not a good time of the year for a lamb or goat! Anyway we had our Eid assembly Thursday morning where the 3rd and 4th graders dressed in Haj attire and walked around the handmade kabba (represents the one in Mecca). In addition to that someone brought a goat! Poor thing. I thought they were going to sacrifice it right there during assembly, but all they did was role play the sacrifice with a plastic knife. After the pretend sacrifice they led the goat away and proceeded with the rest of the assembly. The assembly lasted the entire first period so that was nice to have a break. We didn't do much on Thursday given that I only had 15 students; thankfully Suhail, my behavior challenge, wasn't one of them.I had to leave school early to help Fara work on getting paperwork for her divorce. She is Muslim and needs to get an Islamic divorce in addition to a legal one, so she needed witnesses to get the process started. We (Fara, Tara, and I) went to the court at 2 only to find out that they were closed until 3 (Fara was told they close at 3), so we waited around until they reopened at 3 to find out that she needed male witnesses. Women don't count; they are weak and may lie (the reason given to us by the attendant, with us women standing right there). After getting over the initial shock of being called weak and a liar simply because we're women we found out that the witness just have to be men, she didn't actually have to know them. So two men were rounded up from the courts to be her witnesses. Not sure I agree with that, but oh well. She had her witnesses so she could now get the paper granting power of attorney to her friend in the UK. Once the attendant found out that the recipient of the power of attorney was female he stopped the process. Nope. Power of attorney can't be granted to a female, for the same reason. Ugh! Frustrating and it didn't even really effect me. It's just seeing how women are treated here. Fara eventually found a male family friend who agreed to be her power of attorney so she could get the paper. So they printed out the power of attorney paper, and had her sign it. Not a problem except it was in Arabic! No English translation at all. What in the world was she actually signing?! OK I know that I live in an Arabic speaking country and that I am a guest here, but so is 80-90% of the population and English is the predominant language. I guess not at the court. An additional frustrating fact is that if Ali, her husband, wanted the divorce all he would have to do is go to the court and sign a paper and it would be granted. Thankfully she got the paper and is sending it to the Imam (like a Muslim pastor) in the UK that is going to grant the Islamic divorce.
On a side note, Kristie is coming back! I'm excited, but I'm also sad for her because she will be coming back without her husband. Their marriage didn't work out at all and he's not willing to leave so they can get work elsewhere. She's working on getting her visa and a job in Dubai, so I don't know for sure when she'll be back, but she will be back!
95 at 3pm and it's only supposed to get to 99! Hopefully no more 100s for a while!!!
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