So since I am here as a teacher, as of now, I think it’s
appropriate I blog about some of my experiences teaching here in Abu Dhabi. I’m
not sure why this hadn’t occurred to me until now. Maybe it’s because internally, I feel as
though, living here is not really about one’s work. That isn’t true for all ppl living here obviously, but for me luckily, I feel as though the totality of my living here is more of an amalgamation of all of my experiences. And my work, be it though the
thing that brought me to this lovely place, probably makes up about 15 percent
of my concerns. I am laughing out loud as I write this, because I realize how
it may sound, and I swear I don’t mean it to sound disrespectful. I think
fortunately, that I have been gifted a personality that is a bit free spirited.
I don’t think I came to that realization until I got here. As I remember it, I
was always worried about something or the other back home in America. I was
always running from place to place, fretting over some nondescript issue. Of
course, maybe I have just started to realize which things are important.
For example, now that I am here alone and my family is back home so far away, I find myself in two precarious situations. The first is that I seem to have a considerably large amount of time on my hands. I can fill these spaces of time with normal things that I like or don’t like to do like going to the gym, cooking and trying new recipes, lounging for tea and chatting time with a friend, or sleeping. The other thing I find myself doing is missing my family. A lot. I think about them mostly every day. The reason this is so precarious is because I have zero desire to leave this place, but I want to be with my family in the worst way! It’s certainly a quagmire with nothing to be done about it. I’m not homesick, because I don’t miss America so much; just the people I left there.
At any rate, I came here to be a teacher. And I am. I teach.
Sundays through Thurdays, I go to my school, which is here on the island of Abu
Dhabi. I teach grade 4 boys. I am now in my second year of teaching here. I
will type the next sentence with much chagrin, because my dad told me it would
happen, and I now have to admit that it has. Stubbornly I have tried to resist,
but I have grown to absolutely LOVE the students. Eck. There. I said it. I love
them. The boys in my class are between the ages of 9 and 10. They have varying
levels of English, and they all speak Arabic as their first language. They are
smart, funny, and extremely sweet and kind. Before I came here, I would hear
these horror stories about how you don’t want to end up at a boys school. (You
don’t get to choose your school, what grade you teach, or whether you have boys
or girls. It’s all decided for you.) People banged on and on about how awful
and rude and unruly the boys were. So needless to say, when they told me I had
been placed at a boys school my heart dropped and fear set in. When I met the
boys and even better when I got to know them, I knew almost right away that we
were a match made in teacher-student heaven. I find them to be quite easy going
and laid back. They don’t make too big of a deal out of things. They don’t take
themselves too seriously. They never cry. They never whine about things. They
try their level best to make me laugh whether its doing the gangnam style dance
throughout the hallway (gets me every time) or telling me a joke which has zero
punch line, and then saying, “Get it miss?” Everyday it’s a riot. Their parents
are a different story for another time, but the boys themselves are hilarious. And
I dearly love to laugh.
I go to work at 7:15 every morning. I teach 3 periods for 40
minutes each in the morning. Then I have a break for 1 hour and 35 minutes.
During this time, I do nothing. By nothing I mean hanging out with other
teachers and making way too much noise in the teacher room. In the afternoon, I
teach another 3 periods for 40 minutes each. When the whole circus is said and
done, the time is 1:30. Home time. First
of all, I would have never dreamed of leaving the school-house rock in America
prior to 3:30 or 4:00. Second of all, it’s magical how quickly the day flies by
when you know you’re going home to a beautiful, beach-adjacent apartment on an
island that you can view in your sitting room from your floor to ceiling
windows. It’s a hard life sometimes. You gotta try to adjust.
My students. I could talk about them all day non-stop but I
don’t for a couple of reasons. Number one. It’s annoying. I can listen to other
teachers talk about their kids, but after about 10 minutes I’m visibly cringing
with the desire to talk about something else. I just can’t talk shop too long
and that’s the way it is with me. There are just too many other interesting
things in the world. But for the sake of this blog, I will just discuss two
students that I’ve had that are truly remarkable. And not remarkable in the
ways you might be thinking. These two
boys are not really all that gifted or incredibly overly smart. They are not
hard working or particularly studious. Both of them are lazy as all get out,
actually. They might bring homework 50% of the time. Neither one of them is
particularly adorable. But if I had my way, I would take either or both of them
in every class I ever taught for the remainder of my teaching career. However
long that career may be. Ironically enough, both of these boys have the same
name. One of them was in my 4th grade class last year, and he is now
in 5th grade. The other one is in my current class. For the sake of
privacy and for the purpose of this blog, I will call them Hamad. Hamad #1 will
be the boy who I taught last year, and Hamad #2 the one I currently have in my
class this year.
Hamad #1 is in every sense possible, me. He acts like me. He
thinks the way I think. He says some of the same rude, asshat things that I would
say. If I were a nine year old boy who was born in the Emirates instead of
America, I would be Hamad #1. Hes even a chubby kid! See? Same, same. Hamad #1 is
just…well he’s me. That’s about as simple as I can put it. English is his
second language, but he has a pretty good grasp of it. His mother is a teacher
so he probably just has extra help at home. More than he understands English
however, he understands sarcasm. I shouldn’t use sarcasm with the students, but
because sarcasm is such a huge part of my personality, it sometimes just slips
out. My wit is of course, lost on 99% of the boys. Who’s the 1% who understood
it? Hamad #1. He’s in his desk, with his
chin tucked downwards into his fat neck, smiling like he’s got a secret no one
else knows. I can never tell a little white lie to the other boys, or pretend
like I’m interested in something they’re telling me when I’m truly not. Hamad
#1 knows. I hate and love him for it.
Case and point. One day a darling little boy whom I shall
call Abdullah, was telling me about his new twin baby brothers and how awesome they
were. I did everything right. I said, “Wow!” I nodded my head in interest, and
raised my eyebrows in mock excitement as he prattled on and on about the new
babies. All the while I could feel a tiny pair of rude, beady eyes to my left
trained on me. Hamad #1 had his secret smile on his little all-knowing face. He
was on to me. When the kid was through telling me his story and he left the
room, Hamad #1 walks straight over to me, with zero shame, and says, “Miss, you
don’t like babies, yes?” I feign shock
and horror at his question, to which he doesn’t falter. I reply, “Why would you
say that Hamad? I love babies.” He starts laughing then. The gig is glaringly up. “No
miss, you don’t like them. You tell Abdullah the babies are nice, but you don’t
like them,” he retorts. Then he spills over in laughter, spins his round little
body around and waddles away. How dare he? I could only laugh. I had been
caught, and by a bloody 9 year old. As if. He did it a million times over the
course of the year. We were the snake and the mongoose. We had this love hate
relationship all year! He would pretend to hate me in front of all the boys,
but in the mornings when I got to my room, he would be the first one in the
class sharpening pencils and cleaning my board. He would ask me in those
moments, what it was like in America. What were the boys like? Were they the
same as boys in Abu Dhabi? We would have nice conversations right up until the
other boys came in and he had to be rude ass Hamad #1 again. He really was the
highlight of my job. Up until this day, even though he’s in 5th
grade, he will stalk the fourth grade hallway and poke himself into my
classroom, his round, protruding little stomach leading the rest of his body
through the door. He will then proceed
to bully my poor little fourth graders who are really quite innocent and sweet.
He tells them, “Miss Khadijah she don’t like you. She is only nice to you for
fake. She don’t like any boys.” Then he laughs out loud. At himself. Lolol.
Seriously. Laugh out loud. Then I have to say, through the attempt to muffle my
own laughter, “Hamad, why do you come in here messing with the Grade 4’s? Is it
because you think they are afraid of you?” And he says, “They are afraid, look
at them. Very afraid. Because me I’m Grade 5 and I will beat them.” “Get out of
here Hamad and go on and harass the Grade 5’s.” He laughs and slaps one of my
kids on the head hard before he stalks out. What an ass! Why I love this kid, I
couldn’t tell you.
Hamad #2 is a much simpler case. He just wants love and
sandwiches. Hamad #2 is the kid who’s currently in my class. He’s just as hot
of a mess as #1. But in a kinder, sweeter way.
I don’t know Hamad #2 too well, because it’s only been about 2 months
into the year. But I already have a spot in my heart for him. If I had to
diagnose him, just with the experience I’ve gained from being a teacher over
the years, I would definitely say he was probably somewhere on the autism
scale. He’s not the brightest crayon in the box, but he has a personality of a
firework. He reminds me of a baby giraffe. He comes stumbling into the class, clumsy
and all smiles, far too eager. He hasn’t lifted a pencil over the last 2 months
and can’t really write his name without assistance. And for some reason, he has
a weird affinity for sandwiches. But he’s kind. And sweet. He’s so kind in
fact, that even though he’s obviously different than all the boys in the class,
they are so enamored with him, that they all fight to sit next to him in class.
They know he’s different, it’s really obvious, yet they adore him. What’s
ironic about this is that this country doesn’t really raise kids who are too
accepting of those who are different from themselves. These are kids who highly
value their own nationality and openly make fun of other cultures and downright
ostracize people who come from other countries. Even neighboring Arabic
countries are not exempt from the taunting. All too often, I hear them teasing
boys who have been rumoured to be from Oman, Kuwait, or Sudan. In the hallways
they jeer, “Omani, Omani, Khaled is Omani! You are Sudani! You’re black like
galaxy!” (Galaxy is a popular brand of chocolate here.) You have to experience
it to understand it. And here is a boy, who is in every fundamental way,
different than them. But they love him. And so do I. Hamad #2 is hard to
explain. There’s something that I haven’t cracked yet. Something that starts
with whatever home situation he has. He doesn’t have his mother at home, and he
can tell me that, but his English is too limited for him to tell me where she
is. He tried to explain it one day, and I just got the word, “sick.” Nothing
more. He is also unspoiled by wealth the way the other boys are. I always
usually tell the boys, “I am a teacher. Ana miskeena. ( I am poor.) You boys are
rich, but Ms. Khadijah is poor.” Well, one day, Hamdan replies, “Me too miss,
Ana miskeena. My dad maffi faloose.” (I’m poor too. My dad has no money.) It
struck me as odd for a couple reasons. Firstly, one thing that my students (and
local people here generally speaking) will never do, is tell you that they’re
poor. They learn early, that money is important. They know already at the
tender elementary age, that money makes power, and some of even them feel as
though they wield it. Perhaps some of them do. I’ve been told by several local
people that most Emirati people, well a good majority of them, are well off.
This doesn’t mean that they are all loaded and stinking rich, but just that
their government takes good care of them. There are a lot of variables involved
in who gets what, and how much; variables that are not necessary to jump into
for the intents and purposes of this blog. The point is, is that in the event
that someone were not as well off as the average, you could sooner be led to go
on believing that they were before they’d tell you they had nothing. As Hamad
#2 did that day. There was something
completely refreshing to hear this boy tell me this. Mind you, he said it in front of other boys,
and he wasn’t even mildly ashamed. What was better, is that none of the boys
laughed or even so much as snickered. They kind of protect him in this way.
He’s a simple boy, and they take care of him. He’s the best kid ever, really. I
just love him and all his little quirks. This brings me to his obsession with
sandwiches. We could be doing anything in class. We could be doing fractions or
writing a composition, and Hamad #2 will find a way to work sandwiches into the
conversation. It's even funnier because he pronounces it, "sand-ahwich."
Me: “Today, boys we are going to write about what we did on
our Eid holiday vacation.”
Hamad #2: “Miss I
want write about the sandahwich.”
Me: “Alright, so which fraction is bigger? 2/4 or 3/5?”
Hamad #2: “Miss, can we make 3/5 sandahwich?”
I’m not kidding you. Everything is about sandwiches.
Me: “When we pollute our oceans, and bigger fish eat little
fish, the big fish can die as well”
Hamad #2 “No Miss Khadijah. Big fish no eat little fish. Big
fish like sandahwich.” His face is as serious as a statue.
I can’t make this up. This is how class goes. You can just
try to imagine. You can see why it’s a complete and total riot. Sometimes if
I’m really trying to drive home a point and make the kids understand a concept,
Hamad #2 can drive me bananas with his antics, but I can’t ever get mad at him,
because he’s just a simple boy, with maffi faloose, and an intense love of
sandwiches. I can’t.
All in all, I think I’m lucky to be so entertained on the
job. I can’t deny how grateful I am that my job isn’t boring or monotonous. No
two days are ever the same. You have to love that, right?
I don’t know what the Emirates has in store for me. I know
that I love it here. I know that I’m waiting patiently. I’m waiting to get
tired of this place and grow a desire to move on. I don’t see it. I absolutely
love waking up here.
