Friday, January 30, 2009

Bicycle in Hindi

A bunch of elder Indian ladies and I nearly had an altercation today at Dubai's Mushrif Park. In my defense, these old gals and at least 50 of their closest family members were grilling and picnicking, dancing and singing, and eating papadums right smack in the middle of the bike-dedicated lanes of the park.

And though I swear I have an affinity with Indians, I spent the good part of my ride in a state of ruined euphoria, annoyed at the Indians' propensity to lay down a picnic wherever a tree casts some shade. Shame on me.

For the past two weeks, the college has been on mid-year break and I've made it my business to find all the safe and good places to ride my bike. Though the UAE isn't the Mecca of cycling like Boulder County, I have found a few gems, and my favorite discovery is Dubai's Mushrif Park. With its low scrub trees and rolling sand dunes, the bike trail around the park is the most desert-like place to cycle without having to cross any roads. When I arrived this afternoon, I was like a kid on the way to Disney World, hardly able to appreciate my good fortune.

I got there at around 1:30, suited up with my helmet, water, fancy new bike shoes and mobile phone and set out onto the trail. Just as I was approaching the end of my first lap, I came around a shady bend through a long stretch of brush trees hanging over the trail and had to stop fast to avoid straw mats, strollers, rice cookers, lots of people sitting around Indian style with plates in their laps, and at least 8 older women weaving through the crowd handing out food from tin containers. I clipped out of my pedals, and a little breathless, tried to explain that this is a bicycle trail, a bike path, you know, a training place, and they moved (a little) to let me navigate around all the people, looking at me like I just dropped down out of a UFO. All I really wanted was to ride my bike, so I hopped back on, a little miffed and headed out for another lap, only to come around 15 minutes later, to find that their crowd had multiplied, and there were even more baskets of bread, babies, coolers and a full-on cooking stove in the middle of the path.

At this point I am ticked, and I know really, I need to get a sense of humour, but I was incapable at this point, and so even more loudly I said BICYLE PATH I AM TRAINING BICYCLE PATH PLEASE, all while dodging picnickers and plates. Some of the younger folks actually tried to slide over their straw mats and move stuff out of my way, but the older ladies were saying WE ARE ARRANGED LADY WE ARE ARRDRANGED ALREADY SO SORRY. Now I'm thinking, seriously can't these people read the giant white bycicle drawings on the path, don't they notice the dotted lines? And surely they can see all of the lovely picnic tables and shelters in the more developed parts of the park. But hey, shoot, I should stop at the rangers office and tell them about these renegade picnickers. But no, maybe I shouldn't ruin their party. What to do? Argh, shame shame on me, yuppie impatient expat with no manners yelling at old ladies. Shame on me.

I opted not to tell the rangers and when I came around for lap three, the party appeared to have parted for me (and probably the other two cyclists who'd joined the path by then), except for a hapless school-aged kid right in the middle with a hunk of bread in his hand. As I got close and slowed down they started hooting in a high-pitched woohooo all Indian-Bollywood-style while hollering something like bampling baaisick and rushing to get the bread-kid out of my way.

This is when my mood turned OK and I was probably even grinning as I came out at the other end, to lap their party twice more to the tune of bollywood bampling baaaisick. And though I said before that Urdu is the Language to learn, I should probably learn to say bicycle in Hindi as well.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Hopeful and Inspired

The morning after the election, I watched Obama's acceptance speech live in my classroom, tears rolling down my face, thanks to a student who received a text from her husband that the results were definitive. Obama had won.

The extent to which we discuss politics in class varies, as we are encouraged to keep our students plugged into current events, but we are also encouraged to steer away from too much politics, and too much religion, as topics of discussion. So how does one address current affairs without politics, you might wonder. We faculty do too.

But lets face it, during an American election year, providing a weekly touch with current events would be a sham if it didn't at least cover the election, a bit. Therefore, over the weeks, it became clear to my students that I am a fan of Obama , and as the election drew close, the gals asked smart and sometimes funny questions. Why is his wife in so many pictures with him? Why does he have only two children? How many maids are there in the White House? Is he afraid of the middle east? And how on Earth is he not a Muslim with the middle name Hussein?

Fortunately one of the perks of being in a well-funded college system is that most of our classrooms are smart, meaning they've all got fantastic teacher kiosks, attached to the internet with drop down projectors, fancy speakers and in many cases smart boards, where where I can mark up an internet screen shot with fancy laser pens and then save or print the manipulated screen, instantly. So when my student reported that the results were in, somewhere between 8 and 10am local time, and near midnight DC time, I scrambled to get my class online, and like magic, Obama was about to start his speech.

I am grateful to my students, who watched me, speechless and grinning through tears, without saying a word till it was over. At that point, volleyball player Mariam, pictured in my Semester One posting, looked over and said, 'Miss, we are very happy for you and your new president'. At this point I was almost a total wreck and all I could do was nod in thanks to my dear patient students while I gathered myself up for another lesson on writing letters.

Before long, the inaugural was upon us, and though classes are not in session this week, I hope that some of my students tuned in to CNN, like we did here last night, to watch the swearing in, the inspirational poem, and Rev. Lowery's excellent final benediction, 'when the red man can get ahead, man' . We watched it here with friends, and I took great pride in the interest and attention Brady gave to the whole thing, including his worry that Bush might be sad, and bored now in Texas. Liam and Brady both were pleased that they've visited Washington and touched some of those monuments where mobs were gathered on TV. And though there are days when I question the decision we've made to live away from our country, I take solace now, knowing that despite the fact that we are abroad, our citizenship in the United States has the power to make us hopeful and inspired.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Dubai Shopping Festival!

I was telling someone at work that I desperately needed new shoes, since most of my workaday zapatos have been beat up by the dust, heat and sweat, and made worse every day by the sand road in front of our house. It's gotten to a point where I carry my shoes to the car with me, and slip them on once I'm in, to prevent sand from getting down in with my toes. You'll see the wear and tear especially on heels, where the sand sneaks in and separates the heel from the shoe.

At any rate, I've managed to live in this country for 5 months without buying more than one pair of shoes (for a fancy event, so they don't even count), so I figure I'm long overdue for a good bit of malling action, with the goal of finding 2 (or 3 or 4) new pairs. Even the pairs I bought in the US for weddings and special evenings are biting the dust, literally, as those are the shoes most women wear here on a daily basis. The only pair I may get a few more months out of are made by Dansko, and by the time that happens I hope to be in the US where I can pick them up again at Nordstrom.

And just as I thought we'd done most of the major touristy things in Dubai, I consulted with my colleagues about where to go for shoes and they said, 'don't go yet, just wait for the shopping festival, it starts in two weeks'. At this point I stopped in my tracks, heart rate accelerating, and just stood there, waiting for more.

Shopping festival, I thought, hmmm. When I think festival, I think corn dogs, kitchy art booths, kiddie rides and overpriced sodas. But with the word shopping attached, it takes on a whole new form, a kind of grown-up dream land with giant discount signs and wall-sized price tags and jeans in every imaginable size. Sure enough, as I stood there soaking in the additional intel from my friends, my personal shopping fantasy was realized and described by my colleagues as a month-long event, sanctioned by the government, enticing hundreds of thousands of foreign tourists with deep discounts, crazy quantities and prices, mad-dash 10 minute sales in stores, as well as mall-events for kids such as camel rides and falconry demonstrations and clowns (it was a real festival after all). The malls (and boy are there ever malls in the UAE) and even the smaller shops participate, and the offers change daily, so if you're a real shopper, you can set out fresh each day, to get a different kind of deal on every outing.

I've only been out once so far, and I aquired a 59 dirham pair of jeans ($19) from H&M, a 34 Dirham red-fancy-leather belt ($12) and a gorgeous cashmere sweater for 69 dirhams ($21) from a store called Promod. I am told that you should pace yourself, because even as stores run out of some stock, they replenish others and the discounts deepen as the festival goes on. This year it ends on February 15 and I intend to go out several times before then. My goal: acquire belts, shoes and handbags, replace my 1990's out-of-style work pants and blazers, perhaps buy a new CD or two, and get Rosie some shirts where her belly doesn't hang out. If only the festival extended to hair salons and restaurants, I'd probably never come home.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Bus Carer

As Brady, Liam & Rosie got onto the bus today, the bus carer informed our helper Chamry, that one of our children (I'll let you imagine which one) has been repeatedly naughty on the bus. In the words of Chamry, 'naughty naughty again and again, bus carer says to tell Sir (billy) please'.

Bus carer, much like invigilation and faffing around (see october 7 posting), is just another British English word I've had to get used to and secretly chuckle about. Only in this case, I was comforted by the English word. Bus Carer is far more pleasant than 'bus monitor', and on top of this, the carers are orderly and smiley, yet very serious about getting the kids safely buckled in. What's more, putting little 4-year-old Rosie onto the bus was a big step (for me) and the fact that two people are employed as 'carers' made the whole thing a little easier for this guilt-laden aspiring supermom to take.

But funny language aside, part of living in the Arab world is getting used to the help. Here at the office there's a gal who washes our coffee cups and freshens our break room and bathrooms througout the day. At the malls there is always an attendant in the bathroom for restocking and clean up and even help with your children. And at home, we are still getting used to the luxury of of having a helper. Chamry processes all of our laundry right down to the ironing of hankies, does the meal prep, lunch boxes, housecleaning, meets the kids' bus after school, and even runs errands by taxi if necessary. I couldn't be more grateful to her, as my transition into fulltime employee-hood in a new country would be so much more challenging without her.

But sometimes it's a little much, and you don't necessarily want the help. Or you don't care for them to know that you never finish your coffee, that your kids are picky about fruit, or that you've bought new blouses, or even that you prefer not to have your jeans ironed or your coffee cup emptied (I like the cold dregs two hours later). And on a more personal level, we now have both a helper AND two bus carers to (kindly and quietly) observe and pass judgement on our parenting.

It's bad enough to know one of your kids is creating havoc for the bus carer and likely other children, and that other parents get word of this from their kids who ride along with yours. I cringe to think that dinner conversation in a villa nearby includes 'Guess what that Watts kid did on the bus today'. But the transfer of this untidy information from the carers to our helper, to me and then billy makes me squirm with the discomfort of dirty laundry hung in the front yard.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Semester One







I have made it through my first semester and it has been rewarding. Mostly.


I taught two groups of business students how to write essays, letters and technical summaries, listen to lectures, speak about books, films, food and business, and to read technical, scholarly and business-related literature. We practiced debates and test-preparation, discussed Islamic culture, shared pictures of family, and even watched a movie (School of Rock) as a reward for hard work.

One group of students even prepared a cake party in my honour, and this very special picture and attached video are here with the permission of the students.

Mariam is on the left. She is the head of the school volley ball team, runs her own gift-wrapping service and hopes to work in TV production. Noorah, in the middle, will make any excuse to plan field trips, and she would like to be a flight attendant after finishing college. She has visited the US (Minnesota) with her sister for some kind of leg surgery, and thoroughly enjoyed the Mall of America. Khawla on the right loves to go camping with her brothers and hang out with nieces and nephews. She's often wearing western-style shirts and cowgirl attire. Not sure of her future plans though.



And while the teaching experience has been rewarding, it has not been without frustrations. There is the occasional rudely demanding, impolite and even hostile student and those who show no mercy towards new faculty who do not have all the answers.

But all in all I am settling in and quietly celebrating the end of my first phase in the UAE. Fall semester 2008.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Happy New Year!

Grandpa and Sarah came to visit for Christmas and the highlight was a day trip to Oman, for a day-long Dhow cruise through the fjords. We snorkeled, met fishermen, drank Arabic tea and lounged on boat cushions with a great local guide and some other mellow tourists. We also visited the Sharjah fish market, went dune bashing (again), took in the Dubai Museum and did some holiday baking. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!