Adventures in the UAE

Okay so things here in the UAE have been really interesting since my last blog entry. In the past few weeks I have moved from Abu Dhabi city to the western region of Al Gharbia, started working at my school, taken part in the UAE 40th anniversary celebration, and went to Dubai for the first time. Things here have definitely been moving pretty fast and have been very busy, but I am making the most of my time and really enjoying everything.

Okay so let's start with my move from Abu dhabi city to Al Gharbia. So Abu Dhabi is one of 7 emirates that makes up the United Arab Emirates and the emirate of Abu dhabi is made up of three different areas. So in the Abu Dhabi emirate there is Abu dhabi city, Al Ain (which is like a suburb area), and Al Gharbia. The school I was place at is in the Al Gharbia region of Abu dhabi. This area is more remote and more desert like than Abu Dhabi city but still really beautiful. After I got my school placement I realized that my school is in Al Gharbia and it is also very far west in Al Sila which is only about a hop skip and a jump away from Saudi Arabia. But nothing to fear I am completely safe! The one main problem about being so far west though is that there really isn't any teacher housing so we have no where to live there. Now this is the part that isn't so fun about my adventure so far. Since there is no housing in Sila we are currently being housed the Mirfa hotel in Mirfa which is two and a half hours away from our school. So I have a five hour bus ride everyday. Apparently they are working on getting us housing closer, but still no word yet- so inshallah. The hotel mirfa is really nice though. It's right on the water and has a really nice pool and a very nice and helpful staff. I have a big room with tons of closet space so that is always a plus! I am ready to be in a home though. Hotel living is nice and luxurious and all but I am ready to set up my home here in Abu Dhabi and no matter how hard you try a hotel is not a home.

Okay now moving on to my school. I love my school and the people I work with. The Arabic staff members at my school are simply wonderful and so welcoming. They are so excited to simply work with us and learn from us. I am working in one and a half KG 1 classes. KG 1 is basically like kindergarten 1 or prek. I work in two different classrooms and with two different Arabic teachers and groups of children.  Now this will take a lot of balancing and organization for me to handle both classes effectively. Luckily I share one of the classes with another licensed teacher so I only teach the English lessons. My students know very little to no English and can be a bit wild at times but they are very sweet and seem to like having me there. On my first day at school I was shadowing another LT and children I didn't even know kept coming up to me and hugging me or shaking my hand.  It was so adorable. I am still working on finding my groove and feel for the classrooms, but I am hoping that things will get easier with time and patience.

 dressed in my abaya for the National Day celebration at school

It is incredibly hard to believe that the United Arab Emirates is only 40 years old. Every year on December 2 the country celebrates it's national day. This is the day to celebrate the existence of their country and to show the pride they have for their beloved country. The celebrations were even more extravagant this year because this year was the 40th anniversary. So everyone prepares for this holiday for like 40 days and then national day is the final day of celebration. To prepare people decorate there cars and I mean completely covered with pictures of the country's leaders and flags and all kinds of decals.  they hang giant flags off of everything- buildings, cranes, boats, buses, big hills, and pretty much any space that can hold a flag. They also decorate buildings with lights and giant pictures. Also to prepare for national day my school put on a national day celebration performance. The kids worked and practiced so hard to get ready for this and they did great. They danced, sang, did art projects, and they were all dressed up and looked so cute. Since national day was on December 2 which was a weekend we thought we wouldn't have any days off of school, but we ended up having that Thursday off, so I went in to Abu dhabi to celebrate with some friends there and of course to shop. On national day my friend Katy and I went around shopping and things were pretty calm, but then as it got later people got more excited and crazy. There were people decorated head to toe in UAE colors, abayas, hats, scarfs, and everything. People were running around the mall spraying spray snow and yelling and having a good time. There were festivities all over Abu Dhabi, but we decided to head out to the Sheik Zayed grand mosque because they were doing a light show on the outside of the mosque. The light show was absolutely beautiful. It was projected all over the mosque even up to the high towers and it was all related to the decor that is inside the mosque. We didn't plan on going inside the mosque, but we saw a bunch of people going in and so we did. It was so fascinating to go inside the mosque at night because it didn't feel like a tourist attraction it felt like we were getting an inside look to everything. There were also some very important people there too because there was a lot more security than usual and we saw some very low license plate numbers. In the UAE the lower a cars license plate number is the closer the owner of that car is to the royal family. So when you see a three digit or less number on a license plate it is someone important. While we were at the mosque we saw the number 2,12, and 202 license plates. Seeing the number 2 license plate was crazy! The mosque at night and the light show was an amazing experience and I am so glad that is how I spent the UAE national day.

The Burj Khalifa

 I went to Dubai yesterday for the first time with some friends. We went just for the day but we wanted to at least explore Dubai once before we headed out to different places for the winter break. I was so surprised by how different Dubai was compared to Abu dhabi. Dubai is even more western and modern than Abu dhabi is and I kept forgetting I was really in the middle east. While we were in Dubai we were able to explore the Dubai Mall, the Burj Khalifa, Global Village, and the Burj Al Arab. The Dubai Mall was ridiculously enormous. I mean this one mall had over 1,000 different stores, an ice rink, a couple of waterfalls, an aquarium, and all kinds of other crazy stuff. We walked around that mall forever and we still didn't even see it all. At one point we were just trying to figure our way out of the mall but couldn't find the exit because it was that big. After we left the Dubai mall we walked right outside to catch a view of the Burj Khalifa which is like one of the tallest buildings in the world. The building was so tall and shiny, when I was trying to take pictures of it I wasn't able to get it all to fit into my camera shot. After seeing the Burj Khalifa we headed out to Global Village. Global Village is like and amusement park kind of, but it also has an interesting heritage pavilion area. They have different pavilions from all over the world  that sell items and different artifacts from that region. So while we were at Global Village we went to India, Pakistan, Egypt, Afghanistan, Iraq, and a whole bunch of other places too. Global Village was really interesting because it was nothing like what I suspected it to be. It turned out to be more carnival/ amusement park area rather than a cultural heritage festival. After exploring Global Village we were getting pretty exhausted, but we decided to head to this hotel that is right next to the Burj Al Arab and get a quick bite to eat and some drinks. It was so nice out that we sat outside at the bar and had a perfect view of the Burj Al Arab and had a really nice and relaxing time. Dubai was amazing and I was only there for all of 11 hours or so. I can't wait to go back again and explore some more.

standing next to a waterfall- in a mall!