It is November, right?

This morning, after a good hour and a half spent at the bank, we headed down to the public beach.

The gulf water has cooled down considerably since I first arrived in September. Back then it felt like bath water. Now, it’s quite pleasant… but that top little ring of water around your legs feels chilly, to me at least! How strange to be in your swimsoup at the beach… in November!

Especially since I’m seeing that it snowed already in Eastern Washington!

It really does feel like time stopped. Summer time, all the time.

xo, jill

I think we needed this.

Last Thursday Molly and I headed out of the bustling city to visit our good friend Frances in the desert. Frances was one of the lucky 13 to be placed in Al Gharbia, aka “The Empty Quarter.” Needless to say, her lifestyle is quite different than ours and we wanted to get a peek.

What should have been an hour and a half drive out took us roughly 3 and a half. We got in the car at 5pm, ended up on the wrong road (for quite a while), and finally landed in Madinat Zayed around 8:30pm. They don’t exactly light the highways at night, we learned.

Our first mission beyond hugging Frances was to check out her apartment. She’s done an incredible job of making it a home. It felt really nice to be in someone’s living space and not in yet another hotel. Not to mention, she had dinner ready.

The next day we explored the town. It didn’t take long.

We visited a huge well kept public garden. I tried my best to not think about the water usage it requires. If you think I have strong feelings on neighborhood lawns in the PNW, you don’t want to get me started on this vast spanse of grass in the desert! While we visited the garden was mostly empty, but I could envision a happy little community gathering taking place.

Later in the day we packed up some food for dinner and drove out to Tal Moreeb, the tallest sand dune in the UAE. Lucky for us the signage for the dune was excellent, not. There were a few wrong turns involved and a stop at the police station, but we made it. Then I wanted to barf watching the crazy drivers driving down the dune. Tummy flop!

We stopped off on the side of the road and explored the dunes a bit on our own just as the sun was setting. Incredible.

Being in the desert is unlike any experience. If you ever want to feel insignificant, this is the place. Not only do you see miles and miles of sand before you, above you are millions of stars.

We cooked our dinner over the fire (packets of veggies), and Molly and Frances made s’mores (see, I need vegan marshmallows!). We enjoyed the desert night for a few hours and managed to completely cover our bodies with sand before driving back to Frannie’s.

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing and making plans to return in a few weeks.

xo, jill

I’m doing it!

Traffic in Abu Dhabi is… well, a nightmare. People from all over the world merge on this city and basically follow whatever traffic laws they like. At least that’s the way it seems. Driving on the shoulder is common, horns are honking all over the place, and no one indicates (just like you, Mom!).

I was pretty terrified at even the thought of driving. However, after two months of taxis, buses, and hitching rides from friends… It was time. You can only stand on the road in the hot sun waiting for a taxi for so long. Not to mention my school is a good 45 minute drive from my apartment.

Last weekend I hopped into my very own rental car. Enjoying my new life over here… I thought I’d get something vastly different from my ride at home. A nice shiny silver Toyota Yaris… hatchback! That’s right. My choices were a silver sedan, a silver hatchback, a black sedan, or a black hatchback. I didn’t want a black car in the desert, and I didn’t want the exact same car I have at home… so hatchback it was. I love it.

Turns out… I love driving in this crazy city! This is what I see on my way to work:

Not too bad, huh?

Of course, just as I felt like I was getting the hang of this whole driving thing… I got a ticket! I was barely even driving! I was picking Molly up at our favorite hang out, Baby City, when an officer stopped me and asked for my license. The next thing I know a different officer handed me my license back… and a ticket. Molly, sweet sweet Molly, jumped out of the car to ask what the problem was… we didn’t get many answers. I took the ticket (in Arabic) to school and a teacher told me that the officer didn’t even write down my offense! We think I went straight in the parking lot when I should have gone right. Oops!

People drive on the shoulder at top speeds… but heaven forbid you miss a sign at Baby City!

xo, jill

It is what I came here to do.

You may remember that the first day of school my classroom was an absolute heap. Slowly but surely my fellow Western teacher and I have tidied up our little space. It’s much more workable now, thank goodness. It’s even recognizable as a classroom… you know, where learning takes place?

And little by little… I think we’re actually getting somewhere.

These first 6 weeks have been an absolute roller coaster. The week before last was a complete dream, last week was ok, and this week is still up in the air. My new technique is to plan a full day for Sunday… and by about Wednesday afternoon we’ll finally accomplish the majority of it.

Various factors contribute to why our pace is so slow. Some days the girls just aren’t in the mood to listen. Some days visitors arrive and hell breaks loose. Some days the air conditioning is limping along and affecting the girls’ attitudes. It doesn’t take much. Other days the school has planned “Healthy Breakfast Day” where we sit and eat breakfast for the entire first period. Or “Vegetable Day” where we eat vegetables for one full period. Then there was the “Fruit Olympics” … Really, there doesn’t seem to be much of a rush. I’m ok with that.

Currently we are studying “Family”. You might recognize a few faces? The girls love coming up to the board to be the teacher. It’s one of the few methods that gets them to close their mouths and pay attention.

The remaining part of the lesson asked the students to complete the sentence, “I have __ _____ .” with their family members. For example, “I have 1 sister.” The girls think it’s so funny that I have one sister and no brothers while they have 3 or 4 of each! Not to mention the mommy question. Men are allowed four wives here… so the question, “How many mothers do you have?” is not exactly straight forward. Just proves the point that families come in all shapes and sizes.

Despite a few mid-class breakdowns (It’s good for students to see their teacher cry, right?), I’m really enjoying teaching my students. They are beyond cute (wish I could show you all!), and I think they really like me! My quietest student gives me the biggest smile… and my naughtiest student… well, let’s just hope she doesn’t figure out that she’s my favorite…

xo, jill

It’s been awhile.

I’ve been desperate to get outside and do something in nature. Fortunately, the weather is finally cooling down enough to be out in the sun for longer than 2 or 3 minutes at a time. Finally entertainment can encompass more than just restaurants and shopping malls!

One of Molly’s friends set up a kayaking outing for last weekend, and I was delighted to be invited.

We spent nearly two hours kayaking around the mangroves. The water was so clear and calm it was like paddling around in a swimming pool.

Our guide explained to us the awesome nature of mangroves. The plants send their roots up out of the ground where they serve to filter the salt out of the water. The mangroves are like little desalination plants. Sadly, although Sheik Zayed declared the mangroves a protected area, later amendments by his sons have allowed for development nearby. Bummer.

The same company offers sunset trips and I can’t wait to set something up.

xo, jill

The important thing is to remember to sleep.

The standard here in Abu Dhabi, and the rest of the world I suppose, is to work for the weekend. You go about your business with limited social interaction Sunday through Thursday afternoon… then hit full speed ahead Thursday night through Saturday afternoon. (Have I mentioned our work week is Sunday to Thursday?)

This weekend in particular was packed with events and good times.

Thursday night we celebrated Halloween… it’s not much of a to-do here. Imagine that in a Muslim country. A few stores had a little section filled with cheap orange and black junk, but in general you could ignore it.

One of the teachers volunteered to host a Halloween party… and teachers can party! All in all it was a pretty fun night complete with live music, in which I stayed up way past my bedtime. Molly was a good sport to actually get up out of bed to attend the festivities with me. I played off one of my favorite song lyrics (“How can you stand it, when I run when I run like a bandit“) and dressed as a… bandit. Yep, that’s my basmati rice bag magically transformed into stolen cash. Molly went as the cutest explorer I’ve ever seen on safari.

Friday we headed back down to the Corniche for more Formula One celebrating. I just love free entertainment!

The night’s event was “Beats on the Beach” … a concert featuring a very famous Lebanese singer, Ragheb Alama, a famous DJ from the UAE, and … Timbaland. Yes. You can laugh. I attended a Timbaland concert! (Did I mention it was free and on a beach?!) And it was bad. Like, really bad. For those of you like me who are only vaguely familiar with the gent… Timbaland is a big time producer and rapper in the Hip Hop/R&B/Rap world having worked with tons of famous entertainers such as Justin Timberlake.

To put it bluntly… he’s that guy in the background of the song making the grunting sounds every few measures. And that’s pretty much what he did on stage last night. It was like listening to your sibling sing over a recording of a rap song they think they know. To make it sound even worse, his DJ kept cutting the music every few seconds so the crowd could sing along. That would have been ok… except the crowd didn’t know the songs. But don’t feel too bad for Timbaland. He didn’t know the crowd. After telling us it was his first time in Abu Dhabi he declared his love for Dubai. That’s a no-no. Then he explained how much he loves Arabic music…”I love Arabic music so much I was the only one who went to India to be in a Bollywood film and brought the music back in this song” [cue Big Pimpin’]. Oh and you want to know how much he loves UAE? “I love this country so much… my trainer is from Kuwait!!!” Nice. He became pretty frustrated with the crowd’s lack of enthusiasm and resorted to randomly playing Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit. I have to say… that’s a strange way to revive a crowd at a Hip Hop show. But it worked.

I’m finding my outlets for entertainment are vastly different than what they would be at home. For now I’m just trying to roll with it. We’ll see…

xo, jill