This week, the women at our college are celebrating National Day, and the country's 38th birthday, draping Emirati Flags over the doors, and wearing Sheikh Zayed-inspired buttons, sashes and even black, red and green nail polish. The atmosphere is so festive (green eye-shadow anyone? or gumballs with royal faces on them?) that it's been hard to accomplish anything serious in our classes.
Yesterday, to top off the festivities, we sojourned out the college gates on a 28-bus police-escorted convoy. The stated goal was to inspire national pride in the emirate's 'cultural and Islamic gems'. The highlight of this trip though, was an audience with His Highness (HH) Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Crown Prince and Deputy Ruler of Sharjah, and his entourage. This royal personage and his escorts are not much older than our students. He is handsome, well groomed, and fashionable (see Ray Ban shades in picture). And though most of the students do not consent to being photographed themselves, not one of them was without a camera to capture the arrival of the Prince.
You can see that hundreds of students joined this trip, but what you don't see are the students left behind. A small number of our students, who are 18-23 years old, are still tightly controlled by their guardians (brothers, husbands and fathers) and were not allowed on the excursion due to the 'improper' amount of time being spent 'in public'. There are days when elements of this culture do send me scratching my head (or worse). But then something always reminds me that 30 years ago, when this country had just been founded, the situation was even more archaic. Colleges didn't accept women, girls were married off at 14, and females did not drive. So in the grand scheme of things, the fact that most of our students were allowed a fun day out, with their pals, their Blackberries and triple-hued makeup, I'd say progress is being made, one National Day at a time.
Yesterday, to top off the festivities, we sojourned out the college gates on a 28-bus police-escorted convoy. The stated goal was to inspire national pride in the emirate's 'cultural and Islamic gems'. The highlight of this trip though, was an audience with His Highness (HH) Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Crown Prince and Deputy Ruler of Sharjah, and his entourage. This royal personage and his escorts are not much older than our students. He is handsome, well groomed, and fashionable (see Ray Ban shades in picture). And though most of the students do not consent to being photographed themselves, not one of them was without a camera to capture the arrival of the Prince.
You can see that hundreds of students joined this trip, but what you don't see are the students left behind. A small number of our students, who are 18-23 years old, are still tightly controlled by their guardians (brothers, husbands and fathers) and were not allowed on the excursion due to the 'improper' amount of time being spent 'in public'. There are days when elements of this culture do send me scratching my head (or worse). But then something always reminds me that 30 years ago, when this country had just been founded, the situation was even more archaic. Colleges didn't accept women, girls were married off at 14, and females did not drive. So in the grand scheme of things, the fact that most of our students were allowed a fun day out, with their pals, their Blackberries and triple-hued makeup, I'd say progress is being made, one National Day at a time.
