In literature, poetry, and songwriting, the winter months, most notably December and January, have long been used as symbols for dark and somber periods, for death, cold, and other elements often associated with that time of the year (at least in the northern hemisphere). In increasingly typical fashion for me, I’m bucking the trend.
November was a rather rough month for me. I won’t get into too much detail, but between stress at work (observations gone awry, having to get my grades done a week in advance, getting everything squared away for my absence from school for four days on an international field trip, figuring out what the heck my students had been doing and what I need to have them do next upon my return from said field trip, and preparing for student-led conferences on top of the usual first-year teacher insanity), lack of proper sleep for several weeks running, and a series of events and observations that kind of soured me towards Dubai and its shallowness, I was mentally, physically, and emotionally struggling. Homesickness started to hit in full-force, largely propagated by an amazing trip to Jordan (whose rolling hills, naturally verdant landscapes (in places), and cool, cloudy weather reminded me at times of Tallahassee; the trip culminated in my seeing the kids’ parents greeting the students as they returned from to Dubai the last night), and I was really starting to get down.
Our school’s work days for the month of December were recently cut to just the 14th through the 17th. I was planning on just staying in Dubai for the month and write, but, since I’m now leaning towards just staying in this country for the two years of my current contract (instead of extending it another year like I was considering doing prior to becoming disillusioned about the city in November), I figured that I needed to do as much traveling as I can while I’m here. So I’m going to Rome for nine days. On my own. It’s a place I’ve always wanted to go, and it’s a trip I definitely think I need to take right now. It should be inspirational, both in bringing out my muse (more on that in a moment) and in bringing up my spirits for life in general. In more ways than I can say, I’m quite excited.
In addition, I’m resolving that, henceforth (in theory, for the rest of my life), I will write at least one page a day. On my novels, on a short story or novella, on a blog entry or whatever. Just to write. Just to stay in practice with the passion that I’ve allowed myself to neglect over the past few weeks. I’ve used the excuse of late that, were I to launch into writing on another major project, I would become obsessed with it at the expense of sleep or other activities, as I’ve been known to do in the past. And, truth be told, I probably would, but as it is, I’ve still managed to putz around at night to deprive myself of sleep with admittedly much less productive activities. And if I can find the time to read fifty-five books (no, seriously) in my first three months here, then dang it, I can afford to put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard, as it were) and write on a daily basis. Given, the chances that I’ll be able to stop my daily ritual at one page, or even five, is slim, and this was the main reason for my postponing of writing on my major works for so long. But so be it. My mind is constantly coming up with new ideas for stories, gleaning them from the sights, sounds, people, and experiences that I’m encountering on this amazing adventure I’m on. I need to put them down. Besides, writing is decidedly cathartic for me, so beyond indulging in my great passion, beyond increasing my repertoire of written works, beyond practicing my craft, I’ll be releasing the stress of my rather hectic life. And it’s a heck of a lot less expensive and more productive than a lot of other de-stressors available in this town.
I’m also planning on writing a good deal while in Rome. Lots and lots to see, but I know I’ll be back, both soon and often, and I just want to have a nice relaxing trip. Meeting people, doing some sightseeing, some photography, a little reading (I’m taking Virgil’s Aeneid, just to be meta), and a lot of inspiration and writing. I think it’ll be cool to say, ‘oh yeah, I wrote that passage while sitting on the Spanish Steps,’ or whatever.
Thus, this December shall not be the embodiment of the cold darkness that it oft symbolizes in poetry and prose; instead, it shall be the advent of a new springtime in my life, of brighter horizons, of indulged passions and inspirational experiences, of hopes, dreams, and resilience. And if that’s what my December looks like, I can’t wait to see what the actual spring months hold for me.
Postscript:
I’ve been slacking on blog entries the past few months, and I apologize for that. I hope to have more entries up in the coming weeks, including a completed (albeit condensed from its initially conceived scope) entry on my Bangladesh trip, one on my Jordan trip, and one on my upcoming trip to Rome. Stay tuned, and thanks for your continued prayers, support, and sharing in my adventures.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Bangladesh - Day 1 - The Adventure Begins
Apparently I don't do things halfway. I start writing fiction, and instead of putzing around with short stories, I hammer out a full-length novel. I get my passport, and instead of vacationing in the Bahamas or Europe, I move to Dubai. And now, for my first international vacation, when most of my colleagues are going to tourist-friendly areas like Greece, Egypt, Turkey, and even Thailand, I go to freakin’ Bangladesh.
Our adventure began officially at 8 a.m. Monday morning (September 29th). A private cab took us to the Sharjah International Airport, in the neighboring emirate of Sharjah (just a few kilometers away from our apartment building), for our flight to Dhaka. As this was my first flight out of a non-U.S. airport, the attention to security (or relative lack thereof) was kind of surprising. Asha actually got through the first security gate (into the terminal) with a giant Swiss Army Knife in her pocket, which she showed to the guard and asked if it was okay for her to take with her. He said sure (the second guard, at the second security gate which lead to our particular gate, did confiscate it, but only after Asha had again volunteered that she had it on her person). I set off the metal detector, and the guard did sort of a cursory sweep of my person with the hand-held detector, then let me through. None of this silly x-raying of our shoes as we walk through barefoot. The guards threw casual glances at the x-ray machine as our luggage went through, more engaged in the jovial conversation they were sharing than in meticulous scrutinizing. Kinda interesting.
When we got through security, the immigration control agent stamped our passports with exit visas from the UAE. I guess a person is kind of in no man's land at a point like that. A man without a country. Although I guess the issuing country (i.e. the U.S., for my passport) would still be valid, though no flights from that airport flew to any of our native countries. But I digress.
We arrived in a large duty-free area, but instead of buying anything (as we had a good three-plus hours until our flight left), we headed to the food court, which, to our surprise, was not only open, but was also permitting patrons to eat their purchases right there in the food court. If the importance of this moment escapes you, it’s probably because you haven’t been reading my other entries (go back and read them!). Short version: it’s still the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and eating in public during daylight hours is illegal. Apparently the airport has their own regulations once you get past security. It may have only been nine in the morning, but let me tell you, that McDonald’s burger tasted darned good.
Fast-forward a few hours (and another burger… hey, I was hungry, and Lord knows we had no idea when the next meal we would eat would be (note: it ended up being at about ten p.m., Dhaka time), and we were in the departure lounge by our gate. Asha bought some Smirnoff at the duty free area for use in Bangladesh (because, again, we had no idea how long it’d be or how easy it’d be to get some sort of alcohol in Bangladesh… another Muslim country, still during Ramadan, and much less tourist-friendly than the UAE). I watched the baggage while the girls went to the restroom. Coming back, Rebecca started singing the ‘one of these things is not like the other’ song from Sesame Street to Asha. And she was right. The three of us were the only non-Bengalis waiting for our flight. In fact, we were the only people whose ancestry was not from the non-Indian subcontinent that we saw for days. We did meet a guy named Rashid in the lounge, though, who was of Bengali ancestry but who was raised in Canada and now lived and worked in Dubai. He gave us some tips on Bangladesh, some that encouraged us, some that made us wonder more and more what the heck we’d gotten ourselves into. He would be staying with a friend of his in Dhaka for the week. We swapped phone numbers, and he told us to call him if we needed anything.
The plane was about forty-five minutes late arriving, and there wasn’t any announcement (at least, not one that we could hear, or in a language we could understand) regarding the reason for its tardiness. Realizing that we had gotten a cheap flight and that we were going to freaking Bangladesh, we joked that they were busy building the plane. The whole trip was full of these ‘what-are-we-getting-ourselves-into, laugh-to-maintain-our-sanity’ moments. At last, the plane did arrive, and we left on an Airbus A320. We flew over the Arabian/Persian Gulf, Iran, Pakistan, and India before finally arriving in Bangladesh. Shortly before we landed, our flight attendants sprayed the cabin with insecticide. I didn’t realize that’s what it was at first, but apparently it was their attempt to abide by the health regulations of Sharjah (out of which Air Arabia is based) in staving off the spread of disease carrying bugs (we’ll see how successful those efforts were on the return trip on Day 6… stay tuned!).
It was dusk when our plane landed in Dhaka. One thing I noticed as we flew over was the relative darkness of the city, the lack of lights below, like most metropolis’s I had flown over or seen photographs of. A few streetlights, a lighted building or two, and a good chunk of headlights. It reminded me of Peter Pan’s Flight at Disney World, when the ride takes you over turn-of-the-century (that is, last century) London at night: the scene was dominated by those little sets of headlights rolling through the streets.
Finally we arrived at the gate and disembarked. Even in the terminal, there were no other westerners. ‘Welcome to Bangladesh’, a giant overhead sign greeted us. Indeed. We went to the passport control counter and were asked by the agent for our visas. We told him we didn’t have them, that we figured we could get them there, etc. etc. etc. Well, we were right. We were directed to go over to the currency exchange booth and pay fifty U.S. Dollars, returning to the passport control counter with a receipt. We did so, and got a fifteen-day visit visa stamp in our passport. Easy peasy.
After changing our money to Takas and searching unsuccessfully for some food or tourist information, we headed toward the airport exit. We met up with Rashid again at baggage claim, and he hooked us up with a driver who took us to the hotel where our friend Jorge was staying. And when we left the airport, that’s when Bangladesh really hit us.
There were armed guards with helmets and rifles slung over their shoulders making their rounds through the airport, who, like most people in the country that we encountered, would return any smile we gave with an even bigger one of their own. Kind of an unnerving sight, until they smiled at you. Several of them were holding back the mob of impoverished onlookers as cars and taxis left the airport. There was an iron-barred fence that enclosed the vehicle cue, and in each gap between bars, faces peered out at us, the unwashed masses come to see what sort of people were arriving at the airport today. The things you do for entertainment when you don’t have the technological trappings and economic prosperity of our Western world, I suppose. It kind of felt like we were on display, those dozens of eyes on us, taking in the sight of these light-skinned foreigners. Little did we know that this would prove to be a recurring theme throughout our journeys.
We got into a van with our luggage and a driver who spoke virtually no English. We spoke no Bengali, so it made for a fun match. Luckily, Rashid’s friend who hooked us up with the ride gave the driver instructions before we left, so we got to the hotel alright. The first thing I noticed when I got in the car (other than the people cramming themselves in to see the airport arrival festivities) was that the steering wheel was on the right side of the car. “Hey!” I observed. “They drive on the wrong side of the road here!” My comment was meant to be facetiously ethnocentric, but I had no idea how prophetic my words would prove, especially in the days to come.
After a van ride filled with traffic lights that weren’t working, long lines of street lamps that were broken or unlit, clogged intersections (where buses and rickshaws drove side by side), and several dark alley roadways, we arrived at our ‘hotel’. The Hotel Zakaria seemed kinda seedy, but that was exacerbated by the facts that a) this was Bangladesh, where everything is dirty and seedy by Western standards, and b) there wasn’t a whole lot of light in the lobby, the hallways, the stairwell, the restaurant, or the road outside. Ultimately, it was a nice enough place, a place to eat (where I almost cracked a molar on a piece of bone hidden inside a bite-sized morsel of ridiculously spicy chicken), sleep (once we got rid of the rat poop that was on Asha’s bedsheets), refresh ourselves (by brushing our teeth using bottled water), take photographs (like the plant that was growing in a bathtub in the hallway outside our room, or the giant cockroach in the stairwell that Jorge took up with immediately), and ride the elevator (that had no door, so we could actually touch the wall of the elevator shaft as we ascended… who needs fingers, anyway). We had dinner, explored a little, relaxed and chatted in our room, and then retired to bed. The driver that our hotel manager had secured to take us to Cox’s Bazar the next day would be arriving at 8 a.m., so we had to sleep fast. And sleep we did.
Our adventure began officially at 8 a.m. Monday morning (September 29th). A private cab took us to the Sharjah International Airport, in the neighboring emirate of Sharjah (just a few kilometers away from our apartment building), for our flight to Dhaka. As this was my first flight out of a non-U.S. airport, the attention to security (or relative lack thereof) was kind of surprising. Asha actually got through the first security gate (into the terminal) with a giant Swiss Army Knife in her pocket, which she showed to the guard and asked if it was okay for her to take with her. He said sure (the second guard, at the second security gate which lead to our particular gate, did confiscate it, but only after Asha had again volunteered that she had it on her person). I set off the metal detector, and the guard did sort of a cursory sweep of my person with the hand-held detector, then let me through. None of this silly x-raying of our shoes as we walk through barefoot. The guards threw casual glances at the x-ray machine as our luggage went through, more engaged in the jovial conversation they were sharing than in meticulous scrutinizing. Kinda interesting.
When we got through security, the immigration control agent stamped our passports with exit visas from the UAE. I guess a person is kind of in no man's land at a point like that. A man without a country. Although I guess the issuing country (i.e. the U.S., for my passport) would still be valid, though no flights from that airport flew to any of our native countries. But I digress.
We arrived in a large duty-free area, but instead of buying anything (as we had a good three-plus hours until our flight left), we headed to the food court, which, to our surprise, was not only open, but was also permitting patrons to eat their purchases right there in the food court. If the importance of this moment escapes you, it’s probably because you haven’t been reading my other entries (go back and read them!). Short version: it’s still the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and eating in public during daylight hours is illegal. Apparently the airport has their own regulations once you get past security. It may have only been nine in the morning, but let me tell you, that McDonald’s burger tasted darned good.
Fast-forward a few hours (and another burger… hey, I was hungry, and Lord knows we had no idea when the next meal we would eat would be (note: it ended up being at about ten p.m., Dhaka time), and we were in the departure lounge by our gate. Asha bought some Smirnoff at the duty free area for use in Bangladesh (because, again, we had no idea how long it’d be or how easy it’d be to get some sort of alcohol in Bangladesh… another Muslim country, still during Ramadan, and much less tourist-friendly than the UAE). I watched the baggage while the girls went to the restroom. Coming back, Rebecca started singing the ‘one of these things is not like the other’ song from Sesame Street to Asha. And she was right. The three of us were the only non-Bengalis waiting for our flight. In fact, we were the only people whose ancestry was not from the non-Indian subcontinent that we saw for days. We did meet a guy named Rashid in the lounge, though, who was of Bengali ancestry but who was raised in Canada and now lived and worked in Dubai. He gave us some tips on Bangladesh, some that encouraged us, some that made us wonder more and more what the heck we’d gotten ourselves into. He would be staying with a friend of his in Dhaka for the week. We swapped phone numbers, and he told us to call him if we needed anything.
The plane was about forty-five minutes late arriving, and there wasn’t any announcement (at least, not one that we could hear, or in a language we could understand) regarding the reason for its tardiness. Realizing that we had gotten a cheap flight and that we were going to freaking Bangladesh, we joked that they were busy building the plane. The whole trip was full of these ‘what-are-we-getting-ourselves-into, laugh-to-maintain-our-sanity’ moments. At last, the plane did arrive, and we left on an Airbus A320. We flew over the Arabian/Persian Gulf, Iran, Pakistan, and India before finally arriving in Bangladesh. Shortly before we landed, our flight attendants sprayed the cabin with insecticide. I didn’t realize that’s what it was at first, but apparently it was their attempt to abide by the health regulations of Sharjah (out of which Air Arabia is based) in staving off the spread of disease carrying bugs (we’ll see how successful those efforts were on the return trip on Day 6… stay tuned!).
It was dusk when our plane landed in Dhaka. One thing I noticed as we flew over was the relative darkness of the city, the lack of lights below, like most metropolis’s I had flown over or seen photographs of. A few streetlights, a lighted building or two, and a good chunk of headlights. It reminded me of Peter Pan’s Flight at Disney World, when the ride takes you over turn-of-the-century (that is, last century) London at night: the scene was dominated by those little sets of headlights rolling through the streets.
Finally we arrived at the gate and disembarked. Even in the terminal, there were no other westerners. ‘Welcome to Bangladesh’, a giant overhead sign greeted us. Indeed. We went to the passport control counter and were asked by the agent for our visas. We told him we didn’t have them, that we figured we could get them there, etc. etc. etc. Well, we were right. We were directed to go over to the currency exchange booth and pay fifty U.S. Dollars, returning to the passport control counter with a receipt. We did so, and got a fifteen-day visit visa stamp in our passport. Easy peasy.
After changing our money to Takas and searching unsuccessfully for some food or tourist information, we headed toward the airport exit. We met up with Rashid again at baggage claim, and he hooked us up with a driver who took us to the hotel where our friend Jorge was staying. And when we left the airport, that’s when Bangladesh really hit us.
There were armed guards with helmets and rifles slung over their shoulders making their rounds through the airport, who, like most people in the country that we encountered, would return any smile we gave with an even bigger one of their own. Kind of an unnerving sight, until they smiled at you. Several of them were holding back the mob of impoverished onlookers as cars and taxis left the airport. There was an iron-barred fence that enclosed the vehicle cue, and in each gap between bars, faces peered out at us, the unwashed masses come to see what sort of people were arriving at the airport today. The things you do for entertainment when you don’t have the technological trappings and economic prosperity of our Western world, I suppose. It kind of felt like we were on display, those dozens of eyes on us, taking in the sight of these light-skinned foreigners. Little did we know that this would prove to be a recurring theme throughout our journeys.
We got into a van with our luggage and a driver who spoke virtually no English. We spoke no Bengali, so it made for a fun match. Luckily, Rashid’s friend who hooked us up with the ride gave the driver instructions before we left, so we got to the hotel alright. The first thing I noticed when I got in the car (other than the people cramming themselves in to see the airport arrival festivities) was that the steering wheel was on the right side of the car. “Hey!” I observed. “They drive on the wrong side of the road here!” My comment was meant to be facetiously ethnocentric, but I had no idea how prophetic my words would prove, especially in the days to come.
After a van ride filled with traffic lights that weren’t working, long lines of street lamps that were broken or unlit, clogged intersections (where buses and rickshaws drove side by side), and several dark alley roadways, we arrived at our ‘hotel’. The Hotel Zakaria seemed kinda seedy, but that was exacerbated by the facts that a) this was Bangladesh, where everything is dirty and seedy by Western standards, and b) there wasn’t a whole lot of light in the lobby, the hallways, the stairwell, the restaurant, or the road outside. Ultimately, it was a nice enough place, a place to eat (where I almost cracked a molar on a piece of bone hidden inside a bite-sized morsel of ridiculously spicy chicken), sleep (once we got rid of the rat poop that was on Asha’s bedsheets), refresh ourselves (by brushing our teeth using bottled water), take photographs (like the plant that was growing in a bathtub in the hallway outside our room, or the giant cockroach in the stairwell that Jorge took up with immediately), and ride the elevator (that had no door, so we could actually touch the wall of the elevator shaft as we ascended… who needs fingers, anyway). We had dinner, explored a little, relaxed and chatted in our room, and then retired to bed. The driver that our hotel manager had secured to take us to Cox’s Bazar the next day would be arriving at 8 a.m., so we had to sleep fast. And sleep we did.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Bangladesh - Prelude to Adventure
I’ve now technically been to eight countries. I was born, and lived for most of my life, in the United States (1); I took a cruise in the western Caribbean in June 2003, spending a day each in Haiti (2), Jamaica (3), the Cayman Islands (4), and Mexico (5); I moved to the United Arab Emirates (6) in August 2008; and I spent a few hours in Oman (7) in September on my visa run across the border (read the previous blog entry for more on that little trip). My eighth country, though, was my first real international “vacation”, the first time I spent more than a day in a country that I wasn’t calling “home”. And boy did I pick a doozy: Bangladesh.
Our travel agent actually asked us, point blank, why we would want to go to Bangladesh. Apparently it’s not a popular tourist destination. Even among my extremely well-traveled colleagues, no one had gone to Bangladesh. But we were going.
Let me back up a bit. I wrote in a previous entry about the Eid al-Fitr holiday that marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. I wrote about how there was a distinct possibility that the Eid holiday would be extended from the original four-day weekend to a five-, six- or nine-day holiday. I also wrote about how, if the holiday were extended, I would go to Istanbul for four nights, and if it were not, I would go to Nepal. Well, by the time the Dubai Ministry of Education finally decided to extend the holiday, all of those packages were already snapped up. Some of my colleagues and I went to travel agents, scoured the internet, and phoned airlines to find out what was left that we could afford with our single paycheck we’ve received thus far. The answer: not much. Which was disappointing, but not devastating. There were plenty more holidays coming up, and I didn’t have much to spend on a trip yet anyway. I was kind of resigned to spending the week in town, perhaps going on a short trip or two to Abu Dhabi or Oman, or perhaps on an off-road camping trip in one of the neighboring Emirates. There was a lot of Dubai yet to be explored as well, and I had just started work on a new story idea that was really starting to take hold. Then, as things often seem to do when you become content with what you have, opportunity presented itself.
Maybe ‘reared it’s ugly head’ would be a more apt description. Two groups of friends/colleagues found two different trips available. One was to Bangkok, Thailand. The other was to Dhaka, Bangladesh. Actually, I didn’t know it was to Dhaka at first. I didn’t really know the capital of Bangladesh. It’s kind of one of those things where you’re like “oh yeah, I knew that” when you find something out, like dredging the deep recesses of your mind for some bit of information that you had acquired, but really didn’t properly catalogue it for recall. Incidentally, both were on my list of places to travel to someday. Bangkok, and Thailand in general, was a significant one (along with about fifty other countries). Bangladesh wasn’t. In fact, I really didn’t know much about what there was in Bangladesh. But incidentally, that was what won me over to going there instead of the ultimately preferred Thailand.
There were two main reasons why I chose Bangladesh over Thailand for this trip: lack of funds and lack of time to plan. Thailand has many ancient historical sites, touristy destinations, and other crap that I specifically want to see. Bangladesh has… well, I really didn’t know. So there were no expectations, no plans to make, no things that I just had to see/do/experience. The flight to Bangladesh was about 700 dirhams (~190 US$) less than the one to Thailand, and the lure of going somewhere that virtually no one had gone to was kind of exciting. So Bangladesh won. Thailand will be there, but the chance that I would find another opportunity to go to Bangladesh, especially with three other willing adventurers, was slim.
The idea of going to Bangladesh was the brainchild of Jorge, a Spanish (both in subject area and in nationality) teacher at our school who has taught in Thailand and traveled to 31 countries, including Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, and Iran. For him, the trip was also born out of necessity, as the trip to Athens he was planning on taking ended up being more expensive than he was planning on. He had a Bengali kid or two in one of his classes who put the bug in his ear for doing something original by going to Bangladesh, and when I caught wind from a couple of my colleagues (who will be introduced momentarily), I thought, ‘hey, why not?’ Hook. Line. Sinker.
My other two fellow adventurers were both Canadians. Asha, a PE teacher, had traveled to some rough countries before, including Uganda, Ecuador, Kenya, Tanzania, and Thailand. Rebecca, who teaches science, had also traveled to 31 countries, including South Africa, Malaysia, and Singapore. All three of my companions had roughed it in much of their travels, staying in hostels and guest houses in Africa and South America, backpacking for four months across Europe, and bicycling from Bangkok to Singapore. An adventurous bunch. But they had never seen anything like Bangladesh.
The adventures began before we even left the country. Just deciding to go to Bangladesh (figuring out where we were going to go, the length of our vacation changing at the last second, the frantic search for flights, the ‘sure, why not?’ decision to go to Bangladesh of all places) set the roll-with-the-punches, fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants tone that would become par for the course during the trip. Jorge had bought his ticket before Asha, Rebecca and I did, and he left on Sunday (September 28). The three of us who were to follow him bought our tickets on Saturday (September 27) under the pretense given to us by the travel agent (who asked us why we wanted to go to Bangladesh) that we could get our visas at the airport upon arrival. He said that his information said that the country ‘strongly advised’ visitors to get visas prior to arrival, but that they are available at the airport. So we bought our tickets and decided to go to the Bangladesh Consulate in Dubai the next day (Ravi, the travel agent, called the main consulate in Abu Dhabi to confirm that his information about visas was correct, and he also found that we could get our visas beforehand, with same-day service (if we arrived at ten a.m., we could have the visas by one p.m.)). We left early, which really didn’t help us get to the consulate on time. No one seemed to know where it was. Lots of people thought they knew where it was, but unfortunately there were about three or four conflicting accounts as to where it was. Eventually we found it… and realized why no one knew where it was: it was tiny. It was really just a crappy two-story house that the Bangladeshi government decided to convert into their consulate. And I use the term ‘convert’ loosely. The second-story waiting area was a living room full of china cabinets, furniture from the seventies, packing boxes, and all sorts of other knick-knacks that looked like they belonged in the attic of some pack-rat grandmother.
After waiting for a while, the Assistant Consul (actually I don’t know what his title was, but he was the only guy other than the Consul General who had an office, so I’m deeming him as such for now) heard our inquiry and gave us some forms to fill out. Halfway through, we realized that we didn’t have a lot of these things that the form was asking us for. A sponsor letter? An invitation from the government of Bangladesh? Seriously? We asked the guy about it, and he said that we needed sponsor letters from our employers. Oh, and no, you can’t get same-day service. In fact, it’s eleven o’clock, our office is closed. What time did you open? Nine. Seriously? A two-hour workday? No wonder no one ever gets to visit your country. And no, you can’t get visas at the airport. You were told wrong. Wait, no, you can, Mr. Burns. Americans okay. No one else can get visas at airport. Crap. But the guy’s story changed several times while we were talking to him. Either he didn’t understand what we were asking at first, or he just didn’t know what the heck he was talking about. I kinda figured it to be a mixture of the two. So, no visas were to be gotten before we left, and in theory there weren’t going to be any available at the airport. Jorge’s flight left in about an hour for Dhaka. Maybe a quick turnaround flight. Maybe a reprise of Tom Hanks’s role in The Terminal. Or maybe, just maybe, we’d all manage to get into the country.
We left the consulate to grab some ‘sponsor letters’ from our school, just in case those might help our case with immigration officials in the Dhaka airport. On the way out of the building, though, a poster in the stairwell caught my eye. “Visit Bangladesh,” it said, “Before the Tourists Come.” Wow. Well, we were sure gonna try. And we wouldn’t be disappointed...
Our travel agent actually asked us, point blank, why we would want to go to Bangladesh. Apparently it’s not a popular tourist destination. Even among my extremely well-traveled colleagues, no one had gone to Bangladesh. But we were going.
Let me back up a bit. I wrote in a previous entry about the Eid al-Fitr holiday that marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. I wrote about how there was a distinct possibility that the Eid holiday would be extended from the original four-day weekend to a five-, six- or nine-day holiday. I also wrote about how, if the holiday were extended, I would go to Istanbul for four nights, and if it were not, I would go to Nepal. Well, by the time the Dubai Ministry of Education finally decided to extend the holiday, all of those packages were already snapped up. Some of my colleagues and I went to travel agents, scoured the internet, and phoned airlines to find out what was left that we could afford with our single paycheck we’ve received thus far. The answer: not much. Which was disappointing, but not devastating. There were plenty more holidays coming up, and I didn’t have much to spend on a trip yet anyway. I was kind of resigned to spending the week in town, perhaps going on a short trip or two to Abu Dhabi or Oman, or perhaps on an off-road camping trip in one of the neighboring Emirates. There was a lot of Dubai yet to be explored as well, and I had just started work on a new story idea that was really starting to take hold. Then, as things often seem to do when you become content with what you have, opportunity presented itself.
Maybe ‘reared it’s ugly head’ would be a more apt description. Two groups of friends/colleagues found two different trips available. One was to Bangkok, Thailand. The other was to Dhaka, Bangladesh. Actually, I didn’t know it was to Dhaka at first. I didn’t really know the capital of Bangladesh. It’s kind of one of those things where you’re like “oh yeah, I knew that” when you find something out, like dredging the deep recesses of your mind for some bit of information that you had acquired, but really didn’t properly catalogue it for recall. Incidentally, both were on my list of places to travel to someday. Bangkok, and Thailand in general, was a significant one (along with about fifty other countries). Bangladesh wasn’t. In fact, I really didn’t know much about what there was in Bangladesh. But incidentally, that was what won me over to going there instead of the ultimately preferred Thailand.
There were two main reasons why I chose Bangladesh over Thailand for this trip: lack of funds and lack of time to plan. Thailand has many ancient historical sites, touristy destinations, and other crap that I specifically want to see. Bangladesh has… well, I really didn’t know. So there were no expectations, no plans to make, no things that I just had to see/do/experience. The flight to Bangladesh was about 700 dirhams (~190 US$) less than the one to Thailand, and the lure of going somewhere that virtually no one had gone to was kind of exciting. So Bangladesh won. Thailand will be there, but the chance that I would find another opportunity to go to Bangladesh, especially with three other willing adventurers, was slim.
The idea of going to Bangladesh was the brainchild of Jorge, a Spanish (both in subject area and in nationality) teacher at our school who has taught in Thailand and traveled to 31 countries, including Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, and Iran. For him, the trip was also born out of necessity, as the trip to Athens he was planning on taking ended up being more expensive than he was planning on. He had a Bengali kid or two in one of his classes who put the bug in his ear for doing something original by going to Bangladesh, and when I caught wind from a couple of my colleagues (who will be introduced momentarily), I thought, ‘hey, why not?’ Hook. Line. Sinker.
My other two fellow adventurers were both Canadians. Asha, a PE teacher, had traveled to some rough countries before, including Uganda, Ecuador, Kenya, Tanzania, and Thailand. Rebecca, who teaches science, had also traveled to 31 countries, including South Africa, Malaysia, and Singapore. All three of my companions had roughed it in much of their travels, staying in hostels and guest houses in Africa and South America, backpacking for four months across Europe, and bicycling from Bangkok to Singapore. An adventurous bunch. But they had never seen anything like Bangladesh.
The adventures began before we even left the country. Just deciding to go to Bangladesh (figuring out where we were going to go, the length of our vacation changing at the last second, the frantic search for flights, the ‘sure, why not?’ decision to go to Bangladesh of all places) set the roll-with-the-punches, fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants tone that would become par for the course during the trip. Jorge had bought his ticket before Asha, Rebecca and I did, and he left on Sunday (September 28). The three of us who were to follow him bought our tickets on Saturday (September 27) under the pretense given to us by the travel agent (who asked us why we wanted to go to Bangladesh) that we could get our visas at the airport upon arrival. He said that his information said that the country ‘strongly advised’ visitors to get visas prior to arrival, but that they are available at the airport. So we bought our tickets and decided to go to the Bangladesh Consulate in Dubai the next day (Ravi, the travel agent, called the main consulate in Abu Dhabi to confirm that his information about visas was correct, and he also found that we could get our visas beforehand, with same-day service (if we arrived at ten a.m., we could have the visas by one p.m.)). We left early, which really didn’t help us get to the consulate on time. No one seemed to know where it was. Lots of people thought they knew where it was, but unfortunately there were about three or four conflicting accounts as to where it was. Eventually we found it… and realized why no one knew where it was: it was tiny. It was really just a crappy two-story house that the Bangladeshi government decided to convert into their consulate. And I use the term ‘convert’ loosely. The second-story waiting area was a living room full of china cabinets, furniture from the seventies, packing boxes, and all sorts of other knick-knacks that looked like they belonged in the attic of some pack-rat grandmother.
After waiting for a while, the Assistant Consul (actually I don’t know what his title was, but he was the only guy other than the Consul General who had an office, so I’m deeming him as such for now) heard our inquiry and gave us some forms to fill out. Halfway through, we realized that we didn’t have a lot of these things that the form was asking us for. A sponsor letter? An invitation from the government of Bangladesh? Seriously? We asked the guy about it, and he said that we needed sponsor letters from our employers. Oh, and no, you can’t get same-day service. In fact, it’s eleven o’clock, our office is closed. What time did you open? Nine. Seriously? A two-hour workday? No wonder no one ever gets to visit your country. And no, you can’t get visas at the airport. You were told wrong. Wait, no, you can, Mr. Burns. Americans okay. No one else can get visas at airport. Crap. But the guy’s story changed several times while we were talking to him. Either he didn’t understand what we were asking at first, or he just didn’t know what the heck he was talking about. I kinda figured it to be a mixture of the two. So, no visas were to be gotten before we left, and in theory there weren’t going to be any available at the airport. Jorge’s flight left in about an hour for Dhaka. Maybe a quick turnaround flight. Maybe a reprise of Tom Hanks’s role in The Terminal. Or maybe, just maybe, we’d all manage to get into the country.
We left the consulate to grab some ‘sponsor letters’ from our school, just in case those might help our case with immigration officials in the Dhaka airport. On the way out of the building, though, a poster in the stairwell caught my eye. “Visit Bangladesh,” it said, “Before the Tourists Come.” Wow. Well, we were sure gonna try. And we wouldn’t be disappointed...
Monday, October 6, 2008
Pimp Our Jeremy
WARNING: The following entry contains some facetious and/or satirical remarks regarding my ‘sexiness’ and related subject matter. The nature of these remarks should be apparent to those who know me, but in the interest of staving off interpretations of me as a self-absorbed Narcissus, here’s your disclaimer.
A few of my young female colleagues took an interest in pimping out my wardrobe fairly early on. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the expression, it basically means an overhaul or makeover of sorts to make the thing to be pimped out more flashy, visually pleasing, and sexy. When I went to the happenin’ birthday party of Genna, an effervescent and delightfully British colleague of mine in the English department, she and Christine, another of my English department friends, decided to take up the cause as well. Unleash my God-given potential of being even more of a looker or something like that. Given, I got the numbers of two girls while at the party, so I wasn’t struggling too badly in that department. But I’m all for having girls dote on me, and in the interest of my fashion awareness and increasing the number of ladies gawking at me, I went along for the ride.
Our first payday was Wednesday, September 24. We were going to go to the mall that day, deemed by the girls as "Pimp Our Jeremy" day (a play on the MTV show "Pimp My Ride"), but there was a department meeting, and Genna had dinner plans, so we postponed it to Friday: an all-day affair. Alas, Asha, Rebecca, and Martine, other friends who wanted to help pimp me out, were unable to come on Friday, but they get me for subsequent rounds (actually, Asha already took me out to Karama, a knock-off bazaar kind of place here in Dubai, and both she and Rebecca got to give their opinions on clothes I bought in… but no, that’s another entry).
Friday. Genna, her husband Paul, Christine, and her boyfriend Morgan (also a teacher at our school; science) took me to the Mall of the Emirates. First stop: hairdresser’s. I had let my hair grow longish of late, not really sure what I wanted to do with it. The cut I got is similar to one I had for a while in the States, albeit spiked with hair wax. Already a hundred times better, the pimp-ers concurred. Then to the new digs. Tried on lots of clothes at different stores. Ultimately, I walked out with only one new outfit (it was rather expensive), but the jeans and shoes are nice staples that I’ve already built upon with other new (and decidedly less expensive) shirts, and I broadened my fashion horizons. The result? Lots of stares and wows. Seriously. Asha, Rebecca, and Martine were amazed. Asha actually stared at me for a full twenty seconds with her mouth wide open when she first saw the new look. Between that, the gym, and my increasingly adventurous spirit (see forthcoming entries on my Eid break travels), those ladies won’t stand a chance. I’m trying out my new look this weekend at the clubs (since they’ll be open for the first time since Ramadan). It may be October, but Dubai just got a little hotter.
A few of my young female colleagues took an interest in pimping out my wardrobe fairly early on. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the expression, it basically means an overhaul or makeover of sorts to make the thing to be pimped out more flashy, visually pleasing, and sexy. When I went to the happenin’ birthday party of Genna, an effervescent and delightfully British colleague of mine in the English department, she and Christine, another of my English department friends, decided to take up the cause as well. Unleash my God-given potential of being even more of a looker or something like that. Given, I got the numbers of two girls while at the party, so I wasn’t struggling too badly in that department. But I’m all for having girls dote on me, and in the interest of my fashion awareness and increasing the number of ladies gawking at me, I went along for the ride.
Our first payday was Wednesday, September 24. We were going to go to the mall that day, deemed by the girls as "Pimp Our Jeremy" day (a play on the MTV show "Pimp My Ride"), but there was a department meeting, and Genna had dinner plans, so we postponed it to Friday: an all-day affair. Alas, Asha, Rebecca, and Martine, other friends who wanted to help pimp me out, were unable to come on Friday, but they get me for subsequent rounds (actually, Asha already took me out to Karama, a knock-off bazaar kind of place here in Dubai, and both she and Rebecca got to give their opinions on clothes I bought in… but no, that’s another entry).
Friday. Genna, her husband Paul, Christine, and her boyfriend Morgan (also a teacher at our school; science) took me to the Mall of the Emirates. First stop: hairdresser’s. I had let my hair grow longish of late, not really sure what I wanted to do with it. The cut I got is similar to one I had for a while in the States, albeit spiked with hair wax. Already a hundred times better, the pimp-ers concurred. Then to the new digs. Tried on lots of clothes at different stores. Ultimately, I walked out with only one new outfit (it was rather expensive), but the jeans and shoes are nice staples that I’ve already built upon with other new (and decidedly less expensive) shirts, and I broadened my fashion horizons. The result? Lots of stares and wows. Seriously. Asha, Rebecca, and Martine were amazed. Asha actually stared at me for a full twenty seconds with her mouth wide open when she first saw the new look. Between that, the gym, and my increasingly adventurous spirit (see forthcoming entries on my Eid break travels), those ladies won’t stand a chance. I’m trying out my new look this weekend at the clubs (since they’ll be open for the first time since Ramadan). It may be October, but Dubai just got a little hotter.
A Short Little Jaunt Across the Border to Oman
The visa that I have for the United Arab Emirates right now is a visit visa that lasts but 30 days. My employment visa, like that of many of my colleagues, is still being processed by the government. Unfortunately, even though I am employed in the country, my visit visa is no longer valid after thirty days. So on day number 29 (September 19), I rode on a bus with about thirty of my colleagues (the bus was pretty much filled to capacity) over the border to Oman and back on what is commonly referred to as a visa run. UAE exit stamp, out of the country, into Oman, Oman entry stamp, Oman exit stamp, back to the UAE, entry stamp, home. One nice little loophole about being from one of the 34 countries that the UAE gives automatic visit visas to (as most of our new faculty is). In theory one could do this indefinitely, live in the UAE and just go abroad and back when your visa is just about up. Once was enough for me, though.
The bus picked us up from our apartment building on Friday morning (the first day of the weekend out here). 6:45 a.m. on a weekend. Way too early, but I was excited. This was the first time I had left the city of Dubai since arriving, so I got to see the neighboring Emirate of Sharjah (which our apartment building is really only a kilometer or so away from), as well as some dunes, mountains, and wildlife.
A few of my sightings, discoveries, and experiences on our short little jaunt across the border:
- The almost-perpetual haze visible when looking long distances in Dubai isn’t smog or construction dust; it’s desert sand in the atmosphere. The haze was just as bad, if not more so, over the isolated dunes as it was over the city.
- Lots of wild camels: camels grazing on desert brush, camels sleeping, camels eating out of a roadside dumpster.
- ATVs and offroad vehicles cruising the dunes.
- A herd of goats walking across a field and into a gorge via a real live goat path.
- The mountainous region southeast of Dubai known as Hatta, whose mountains largely look like they have the consistency of a tall gravel dump.
- My first exit visa from a country!
- I got chastised by an Omani border guard for taking a picture at the border of a sign that struck me as funny at the time. Oops.
- My time in Oman (for this trip at least) consisted of spending two hours in the welcome center, collecting travel brochures and maps, watching a rugby match in Arabic and the Oman travel video on the overhead televisions, and chatting with my colleagues while our passports got processed. Well, that and walking to and from the bus. I did stand on Oman soil, so it counts as a country I’ve been to.
I’m not done with Oman, of course. There’s still plenty to see there, from the sights of Muscat (the capital city) to the fjords of Musandam, and I’ve still got another visa run of sorts to do once my employment visa actually goes through. But it’s another stamp in the passport (technically, another six, all told, what with all the exits and entries), another adventure had, another memory made, another few dozen pictures taken. Especially the one I got yelled at by the border guard for. I’m definitely keeping that one.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Fun with Ramadan, the First Day(s) of school, and Upcoming Adventures
Ramadan, the Muslim holy month (which, though determined by the lunar calendar, happens to coincide almost exactly with September this year) is an interesting time. As I mentioned in a previous post, Muslims are required to fast during the day (including drinking water… in the desert! Go figure...) and are prohibited from dancing or making loud music. Living in a Muslim country, these prohibitions also impact non-Muslims. We can’t eat or drink in public (including in a vehicle), and all of the nightclubs are closed. Most restaurants are closed during the day, and most shops close around midday. There is a trade-off though, and of late I’ve gotten to experience a few of the fun aspects of Ramadan, aspects that have been compared to the commercialization of Christmas in the West.
One of the traditions associated with Ramadan is the Iftar, or the breaking of the fast at sundown. When the Iftar call to prayer is issued from the mosques, the faithful are finally able to eat and drink, and the party begins (sans music and dancing, of course… the real party comes after Ramadan’s over, but more on that in a bit). There are numerous restaurants around Dubai that offer Iftar feasts and buffets, and I got to partake in one of these last night with some friends/colleagues/neighbors of mine at a nearby restaurant. The food was amazing, and quite reasonably priced (39 dirhams, which is about 11 U.S. dollars), and the atmosphere, especially with most of the patrons being bedecked in the traditional Emirati garb (white robes and white dishdash (the head curtain thingy they wear)), was really neat. [Sorry about the generic synonyms for “good” in the preceding sentence. I’m an English teacher; I really should do better.]
Although most of the shops are closed during the afternoon, they open after Iftar and many stay open until the wee hours of the morning. Furthermore, there are displays in the malls with traditional Bedouin and Arab displays exhibiting their culture and heritage, including live actors and animatronic camels. And then there’s the Ramadan lights. Traditionally, lanterns are hung for Ramadan decorations, and although we have some of those in our neighborhood, we also have strings of lights (like Christmas lights) strung across building faces and from street lamps. And just outside our building, we have a beautiful Ramadan tree (or so I’ve christened it… wait, can I “christen” a Muslim tradition?). It’s a tall date palm right around the corner from the mosque, and it has been bedecked in blue Ramadan lights that look ever so pretty at night. I’ve yet to see another in town (though I’m sure in some of the more traditional areas, like the one I live in, there are more), so I feel lucky that I get to see it fairly regularly.
I made it through my first week of teaching. I already know all of my kids’ names, so I’ve started to develop a rapport with my students. They are very respectful, using ‘sir’ and wishing me a good day as they leave class. My seventh and eighth graders have energy out the wazoo. My ninth and tenth graders need a jump start most days. Behavior and classroom management isn’t too much of an issue at the moment. My big thing to work on is forming and implementing a unit on the fly. We’ve got the structure for our first unit (that we finished just a week-and-a-half ago), but it’s gonna be a challenge to flesh that out (pacing, activities, etc.) on my first go. Luckily, I have a good team with me, so that’ll help as well.
I’m starting to see more and more of Dubai. I’ve made two excursions to Sheikh Zayed Road (the main drag in the more touristy part of town) in the past week, I’ve been to the Mall of the Emirates (and seen Ski Dubai through the glass), and I’ve discovered a really neat Italian restaurant on the banks of the Dubai Creek. I’ve also found a church that I’m planning on attending for a little while. Vicki, our librarian, goes there, as do a few other faculty members from our school (I knew we’d be seeing a lot of each other). It’s small, but there are a lot of good people there. I’m glad to get plugged back into a body of believers. I’ve also found a more few guys (some at church, and some in our apartment building who teach at our sister school) to hang out with, which will be nice, because outings involving shopping with the almost completely female group from my apartment building are really starting to get old.
Eid al-Fitr is the three day holiday at the end of Ramadan. As it currently stands, that will equate to a four-day weekend for the public sector (including schools) from October 1-4. There are rumors going around, however, that Eid will get called early, perhaps on the 29th or 30th of September (it all depends on when the guy in Saudi Arabia looks at the moon and says it’s over, but Eid coming early is supposedly a fairly regular occurance). If this happens, the Ministry of Education will probably shut down schools for the whole week (which is what happened last year, and what I believe schools in neighboring Abu Dhabi are already planning on doing). Air Arabia, a UAE airline based out of Sharjah (the emirate to our north, and really only a few kilometers from where I live in Dubai), is offering some sweet airline/hotel deals during September and October, so several of my colleagues and I plan to take advantage of this opportunity to travel a little. If Eid ends up being just the four days, like it currently is, I’m probably going to spend three days/two nights in Katmandu, Nepal. If Eid gets extended, I’ll be spending five days/four nights in Istanbul, Turkey. Exciting stuff, eh? Regardless, I’ll be going to both of them in the coming years, but I’m excited to start doing some more world exploring. And speaking of world exploring, this weekend I’m heading to Oman for a visa run (a trip across the border and back to renew my UAE visitor’s visa) with a bunch of my colleagues whose visitor’s visas are about to run out (and who have yet to receive their resident visas). I’ll probably be in Oman for less than an hour, and I certainly won’t get far into the country (this time), but I’ll be able to check another country off my list (with a star next to it to give it a more thorough return visit). Look out world, here I come!
One of the traditions associated with Ramadan is the Iftar, or the breaking of the fast at sundown. When the Iftar call to prayer is issued from the mosques, the faithful are finally able to eat and drink, and the party begins (sans music and dancing, of course… the real party comes after Ramadan’s over, but more on that in a bit). There are numerous restaurants around Dubai that offer Iftar feasts and buffets, and I got to partake in one of these last night with some friends/colleagues/neighbors of mine at a nearby restaurant. The food was amazing, and quite reasonably priced (39 dirhams, which is about 11 U.S. dollars), and the atmosphere, especially with most of the patrons being bedecked in the traditional Emirati garb (white robes and white dishdash (the head curtain thingy they wear)), was really neat. [Sorry about the generic synonyms for “good” in the preceding sentence. I’m an English teacher; I really should do better.]
Although most of the shops are closed during the afternoon, they open after Iftar and many stay open until the wee hours of the morning. Furthermore, there are displays in the malls with traditional Bedouin and Arab displays exhibiting their culture and heritage, including live actors and animatronic camels. And then there’s the Ramadan lights. Traditionally, lanterns are hung for Ramadan decorations, and although we have some of those in our neighborhood, we also have strings of lights (like Christmas lights) strung across building faces and from street lamps. And just outside our building, we have a beautiful Ramadan tree (or so I’ve christened it… wait, can I “christen” a Muslim tradition?). It’s a tall date palm right around the corner from the mosque, and it has been bedecked in blue Ramadan lights that look ever so pretty at night. I’ve yet to see another in town (though I’m sure in some of the more traditional areas, like the one I live in, there are more), so I feel lucky that I get to see it fairly regularly.
I made it through my first week of teaching. I already know all of my kids’ names, so I’ve started to develop a rapport with my students. They are very respectful, using ‘sir’ and wishing me a good day as they leave class. My seventh and eighth graders have energy out the wazoo. My ninth and tenth graders need a jump start most days. Behavior and classroom management isn’t too much of an issue at the moment. My big thing to work on is forming and implementing a unit on the fly. We’ve got the structure for our first unit (that we finished just a week-and-a-half ago), but it’s gonna be a challenge to flesh that out (pacing, activities, etc.) on my first go. Luckily, I have a good team with me, so that’ll help as well.
I’m starting to see more and more of Dubai. I’ve made two excursions to Sheikh Zayed Road (the main drag in the more touristy part of town) in the past week, I’ve been to the Mall of the Emirates (and seen Ski Dubai through the glass), and I’ve discovered a really neat Italian restaurant on the banks of the Dubai Creek. I’ve also found a church that I’m planning on attending for a little while. Vicki, our librarian, goes there, as do a few other faculty members from our school (I knew we’d be seeing a lot of each other). It’s small, but there are a lot of good people there. I’m glad to get plugged back into a body of believers. I’ve also found a more few guys (some at church, and some in our apartment building who teach at our sister school) to hang out with, which will be nice, because outings involving shopping with the almost completely female group from my apartment building are really starting to get old.
Eid al-Fitr is the three day holiday at the end of Ramadan. As it currently stands, that will equate to a four-day weekend for the public sector (including schools) from October 1-4. There are rumors going around, however, that Eid will get called early, perhaps on the 29th or 30th of September (it all depends on when the guy in Saudi Arabia looks at the moon and says it’s over, but Eid coming early is supposedly a fairly regular occurance). If this happens, the Ministry of Education will probably shut down schools for the whole week (which is what happened last year, and what I believe schools in neighboring Abu Dhabi are already planning on doing). Air Arabia, a UAE airline based out of Sharjah (the emirate to our north, and really only a few kilometers from where I live in Dubai), is offering some sweet airline/hotel deals during September and October, so several of my colleagues and I plan to take advantage of this opportunity to travel a little. If Eid ends up being just the four days, like it currently is, I’m probably going to spend three days/two nights in Katmandu, Nepal. If Eid gets extended, I’ll be spending five days/four nights in Istanbul, Turkey. Exciting stuff, eh? Regardless, I’ll be going to both of them in the coming years, but I’m excited to start doing some more world exploring. And speaking of world exploring, this weekend I’m heading to Oman for a visa run (a trip across the border and back to renew my UAE visitor’s visa) with a bunch of my colleagues whose visitor’s visas are about to run out (and who have yet to receive their resident visas). I’ll probably be in Oman for less than an hour, and I certainly won’t get far into the country (this time), but I’ll be able to check another country off my list (with a star next to it to give it a more thorough return visit). Look out world, here I come!
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Week the Second (August 30th - September 6th)
After a generally lazy day on Saturday (recovering from the busy time out and about the day before), I went to work on Sunday in high spirits, ready to meet the rest of the returning faculty. And a great group they are. One exciting facet of the returning faculty was the relatively high number of young (i.e. my age to early-thirties) guys on the returning staff. Our cohort of new faculty was forty-seven teachers strong, but only nine of us were male, and of those, only four were under thirty-five. Good odds in the dating game, but not so good for finding wingmen and having guy time. The returning faculty gave some balance there. Given, the returning teacher population is also very female-heavy, but that kind of goes with the territory in my profession.
Our department rocks. Just throwing that out there. We do. The English department was in shambles after last year, the curriculum was completely scrapped, and half the faculty quit or was sacked. We came up with a curriculum for grades 7-10 from scratch, a concept-based curriculum in tune with the IB system, within just a few days, a curriculum that, according to our subject area coordinator, brought the school’s director to tears (the happy kind) when she showed it to him. Exciting stuff.
I have two new loves in my life. The first is the gym in our apartment building. I’ve been doing a light cardio workout and an intense weight-training workout every day since September 3rd, and I’m loving it. Ramadan ends on September 30th, followed by a four-day weekend. When that weekend starts, the clubs will be poppin’ again, and I’ll have just finished four intense weeks at the gym. Look out ladies! Funny thing about the gym, though. There is a ladies’ gym and a gents’ gym, as would be expected in the Middle East. Access is granted via a gate key, the same one that admits us to the building after hours. My gate key works fine to get into the building, and it also will admit me into the gym… the ladies’ gym. Obviously I haven’t gone into the ladies’ gym, but I tried swiping it on the ladies’ side when it kept getting denied on the gents’, and despite twice having the management supposedly change the code to switch which gym it would let me into, it still thinks I’m a woman. I’m gonna try just switching out the card altogether tomorrow, but for the meantime, I’ve been using my roommate’s card (he’s a Physics teacher from Delhi, India named Vijay Singh (no relation to his more famous namesake).).
My other love is our school library. It is relatively small in book numbers, but the selection is stupendous: classics, modern bestsellers, young adult lit, and niche books popular among literature connoisseurs. In addition, we have a nice selection of class sets of novels and dramas, which my fellow English teachers and I have raided for personal enjoyment and for figuring out which books we want to use in our classes this year. I’ve read seven books in the past week from the library and class set store room, and I’ve got a stack of books to read next on my nightstand, as well as a list of books to read in the coming year seven pages long (and growing). I’m in hog heaven. Also awesome is the fact that the library orders one thousand new titles a year, so it is rapidly expanding. Even more exciting is the fact that faculty is able to submit suggestions for that order. I’ve already got about twenty-five books on my list, and I’m sure that will grow as the year goes on (although at least one of them was on this year’s order… I’ve already checked it out). Vicky, the librarian, is absolutely great, and I’ve got a feeling we’re gonna be seeing a lot of each other.
We started Ramadan this week, which means no dancing, no singing, no loud music, and no eating or drinking (including water) in public from sunup to sundown. It takes planning to be able to eat at midday, since any food you get from a restaurant has to be take away, and most restaurants aren’t even open during the day. Most businesses close around midday, so even going to a grocery store is often not an option. It takes some planning, but we’re starting to get the hang of it. One good thing is that our first four weeks of school will have a shortened day, so we’ll get to ease into the school year, as well as enjoying the four-day weekend that comes at the beginning of October.
At school, some things are still up in the air. We don’t yet have keys to our rooms, or even know which rooms we’ll be teaching in. We don’t have our rosters yet. And our fire drill procedures are kind of in between versions. Big construction is starting at the school on Monday (a performing arts center, another classroom wing, and a new cafeteria). And school starts tomorrow (Sunday, September 7th). But we’re resilient and gonna roll with the punches. After all, as Confucius said, punches are the spice of life. At least, he would have if he had thought of it.
Our department rocks. Just throwing that out there. We do. The English department was in shambles after last year, the curriculum was completely scrapped, and half the faculty quit or was sacked. We came up with a curriculum for grades 7-10 from scratch, a concept-based curriculum in tune with the IB system, within just a few days, a curriculum that, according to our subject area coordinator, brought the school’s director to tears (the happy kind) when she showed it to him. Exciting stuff.
I have two new loves in my life. The first is the gym in our apartment building. I’ve been doing a light cardio workout and an intense weight-training workout every day since September 3rd, and I’m loving it. Ramadan ends on September 30th, followed by a four-day weekend. When that weekend starts, the clubs will be poppin’ again, and I’ll have just finished four intense weeks at the gym. Look out ladies! Funny thing about the gym, though. There is a ladies’ gym and a gents’ gym, as would be expected in the Middle East. Access is granted via a gate key, the same one that admits us to the building after hours. My gate key works fine to get into the building, and it also will admit me into the gym… the ladies’ gym. Obviously I haven’t gone into the ladies’ gym, but I tried swiping it on the ladies’ side when it kept getting denied on the gents’, and despite twice having the management supposedly change the code to switch which gym it would let me into, it still thinks I’m a woman. I’m gonna try just switching out the card altogether tomorrow, but for the meantime, I’ve been using my roommate’s card (he’s a Physics teacher from Delhi, India named Vijay Singh (no relation to his more famous namesake).).
My other love is our school library. It is relatively small in book numbers, but the selection is stupendous: classics, modern bestsellers, young adult lit, and niche books popular among literature connoisseurs. In addition, we have a nice selection of class sets of novels and dramas, which my fellow English teachers and I have raided for personal enjoyment and for figuring out which books we want to use in our classes this year. I’ve read seven books in the past week from the library and class set store room, and I’ve got a stack of books to read next on my nightstand, as well as a list of books to read in the coming year seven pages long (and growing). I’m in hog heaven. Also awesome is the fact that the library orders one thousand new titles a year, so it is rapidly expanding. Even more exciting is the fact that faculty is able to submit suggestions for that order. I’ve already got about twenty-five books on my list, and I’m sure that will grow as the year goes on (although at least one of them was on this year’s order… I’ve already checked it out). Vicky, the librarian, is absolutely great, and I’ve got a feeling we’re gonna be seeing a lot of each other.
We started Ramadan this week, which means no dancing, no singing, no loud music, and no eating or drinking (including water) in public from sunup to sundown. It takes planning to be able to eat at midday, since any food you get from a restaurant has to be take away, and most restaurants aren’t even open during the day. Most businesses close around midday, so even going to a grocery store is often not an option. It takes some planning, but we’re starting to get the hang of it. One good thing is that our first four weeks of school will have a shortened day, so we’ll get to ease into the school year, as well as enjoying the four-day weekend that comes at the beginning of October.
At school, some things are still up in the air. We don’t yet have keys to our rooms, or even know which rooms we’ll be teaching in. We don’t have our rosters yet. And our fire drill procedures are kind of in between versions. Big construction is starting at the school on Monday (a performing arts center, another classroom wing, and a new cafeteria). And school starts tomorrow (Sunday, September 7th). But we’re resilient and gonna roll with the punches. After all, as Confucius said, punches are the spice of life. At least, he would have if he had thought of it.
A Day (and Night) on the Town in Dubai
Friday, August 29th, the first day of my first real Dubai weekend, our school took us for a breakfast cruise on Dubai Creek. There are several companies who do this, with Bateaux Dubai, the one that we used, being one of the more famous. The food was splendid, the sights marvelous, and the company, consisting solely of our new faculty and staff that had become such good friends over the past week, was quite enjoyable.
Following the cruise, our buses took us to the Burj al Arab hotel, the tallest and perhaps most famous hotel in the world, and architecturally one of the new wonders of the world. The hotel is normally closed off to visitors; the guests paying $10,000+ a night enjoy their privacy and quiet, and a constant stream of gaping shutterbug tourists filling the corridors would detract from their relaxation. You can only go inside the hotel if you are staying as a guest, or if you book a reservation at one of the many acclaimed restaurants housed within. Lucky for us, though, the son of the manager of the hotel is a student at our school, so we not only gained admission to the hotel, but we also got an exclusive VIP tour that included several of the restaurants, the spa, several exclusive balconies (one that was reserved for a wedding reception that would be coming through a few minutes after we were gone), and a tour of one of the luxurious two-story, 7212-square-foot suites. Our tour culminated in a reception with drinks and snacks at an indoor observation deck near the top of the hotel, with spectacular views of the area from two walls of windows.
After we left the Burj, we headed to the nearby Madinat Jumeirah Souq, a modern mall of sorts made to look like a traditional souq (or bazaar). The atmosphere was nice, but the Cinnabon in the food court kind of killed the image (but hey, Cinnabon is “world-famous”).
After coming back to our apartments and getting some rest, some of us went out to find a nightclub to do some dancing. Unfortunately, the clubs were either not open or not playing music, as Ramadan (the Muslim holy month, in which, among other things, dancing and loud music is forbidden) was just a few days away. We were disappointed, as we were trying to get one last dance night in before Ramadan, but to no avail. Instead, we went to the Irish Village, a pub/restaurant that serves (surprise!) Irish food and beverages, and is quite popular among the ex-patriot crowd. I met a few of the returning teachers there and generally enjoyed my first foray into the world of expat nightlife.
I’m gonna try to get some pics up of this awesome day as soon as I can. In the meanwhile, enjoy my other (albeit less detailed) entry on the rest of my second week.
Following the cruise, our buses took us to the Burj al Arab hotel, the tallest and perhaps most famous hotel in the world, and architecturally one of the new wonders of the world. The hotel is normally closed off to visitors; the guests paying $10,000+ a night enjoy their privacy and quiet, and a constant stream of gaping shutterbug tourists filling the corridors would detract from their relaxation. You can only go inside the hotel if you are staying as a guest, or if you book a reservation at one of the many acclaimed restaurants housed within. Lucky for us, though, the son of the manager of the hotel is a student at our school, so we not only gained admission to the hotel, but we also got an exclusive VIP tour that included several of the restaurants, the spa, several exclusive balconies (one that was reserved for a wedding reception that would be coming through a few minutes after we were gone), and a tour of one of the luxurious two-story, 7212-square-foot suites. Our tour culminated in a reception with drinks and snacks at an indoor observation deck near the top of the hotel, with spectacular views of the area from two walls of windows.
After we left the Burj, we headed to the nearby Madinat Jumeirah Souq, a modern mall of sorts made to look like a traditional souq (or bazaar). The atmosphere was nice, but the Cinnabon in the food court kind of killed the image (but hey, Cinnabon is “world-famous”).
After coming back to our apartments and getting some rest, some of us went out to find a nightclub to do some dancing. Unfortunately, the clubs were either not open or not playing music, as Ramadan (the Muslim holy month, in which, among other things, dancing and loud music is forbidden) was just a few days away. We were disappointed, as we were trying to get one last dance night in before Ramadan, but to no avail. Instead, we went to the Irish Village, a pub/restaurant that serves (surprise!) Irish food and beverages, and is quite popular among the ex-patriot crowd. I met a few of the returning teachers there and generally enjoyed my first foray into the world of expat nightlife.
I’m gonna try to get some pics up of this awesome day as soon as I can. In the meanwhile, enjoy my other (albeit less detailed) entry on the rest of my second week.
Monday, September 1, 2008
The First Week (August 20th-28th)
Dubai is awesome. Details follow, but for those of you who were planning on first scanning through this entry to find out how I am doing, I’ve eliminated the dirty work for you. I love it.
After finally getting my bags under the weight limit (or rather, right at the weight limit) and plenty of heartfelt goodbyes, I departed from Tallahassee Regional Airport on a little puddle-jumper of an airplane for Atlanta. After a two-hour layover, I boarded a Boeing 777 for a direct, 14-hour flight to Dubai. I was excited to find that we would be flying an elliptical route north across Europe, but alas, my seat was in the center of the center section, with no easy access to windows or aisles. I did get to see where we were via a screen that plotted our position (in both English and Arabic), and several recent (and free) movies helped to pass the time. Unfortunately, I was only able to catch about an hour of fitful sleep, but I would more than make up for that when I arrived in Dubai.
Upon arrival at the airport, my first impression was one of awe. Given, large airports and international travel are things I’ve been relatively inexperienced with, but this was something else. Actually, a display that I first saw when I excited my gate reminded me of the middle-eastern section of It’s A Small World at Walt Disney World. That Dubai was a tourist magnet was indubitable, but the veiled women going into prayer rooms, the dual English-Arabic language signs, and the truly international feel to the people walking around reinforced the feeling that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. But that was a good thing.
I made my way through the airport, got my first stamp in my new passport, grabbed my luggage, and met with some of the people from the school who were waiting for myself and another new teacher. I was then driven to my apartment, where I met the housing manager who showed me around the place. After halfway emptying my suitcase (for there were no clothes-hangers in the apartment as yet), I made up my bed and slept for about 14 hours.
I had a pretty lazy day on Friday (especially since I didn’t really get up until about 4 p.m.), but I did go to the local market to buy a few things, as well as eating my first shwarma (I was pretty addicted to shwarmas and dates for my first few days here.)
Saturday, the last day of the weekend out here, I hung out with a good friend of mine from FSU who first turned me on to Dubai. We went to Dubai Festival City, a relatively new community with an amazing three-story mall and a marina. As I would find out the next day, the mall was also within walking distance of my school.
Culturally, Dubai is at once very similar to the west, and very different. Our apartment is next door to a Mosque and a construction site (kind of a microcosm of Dubaian symbols, I suppose), and the call to prayer can be heard five times every day (and night…). The highway system is very western, though the postal address system leaves much to be desired (a result of absolutely explosive urban growth over the past few years, I suppose). Many foods and products are foreign to me, the outlets are European, and many people speak very little English, and thickly accented at that. But, strangely enough, I really have not had a single instance of culture shock yet. Culture "oh-wow-that’s-cool/neat/interesting/unique", sure, but thus far, everything here has been an incredible adventure. Given, if I were alone over here, or if I were in a place where no one spoke English, this would be much more difficult, but, luckily, I’ve already made a few dozen friends from school who are sharing this adventure with me.
Sunday through Thursday is the workweek here in Dubai, and my first one was amazing. I love my school. The philosophy, the facility, and most of all the people. It may be called Universal American School, but the staff is very international, from the U.S., Canada, Holland, Romania, India, Lebanon, New Zealand, Australia, Egypt, Spain, Peru, England, Belgium, Scotland, Japan, Ireland, France, the Philippines and beyond. More importantly, everyone is very friendly and personable. For some of us, this is our first experience teaching abroad; for others, this is their fourth or fifth country that they have taught in. I’m thinking I’ll be one of the latter before long. This whole international thing is really getting under my skin (in a good way). The administration is absolutely amazing as well, with openness, authenticity, and supportiveness in spades. Most of us new recruits are of the mind that we won’t be able to go elsewhere after teaching here, as conditions (including copious planning time built into the school day) seem to be almost ideal.
Perhaps most importantly (at least, outside of the classroom) is the social rapport that has already developed among our colleagues. Many of us live in the same apartment building, and most every night, we go out to eat and to explore the city together. This past Friday was certainly an excellent example of that, but now we’re getting into the second week, so I’ll save that for next time.
Stay tuned, and thanks for reading!
After finally getting my bags under the weight limit (or rather, right at the weight limit) and plenty of heartfelt goodbyes, I departed from Tallahassee Regional Airport on a little puddle-jumper of an airplane for Atlanta. After a two-hour layover, I boarded a Boeing 777 for a direct, 14-hour flight to Dubai. I was excited to find that we would be flying an elliptical route north across Europe, but alas, my seat was in the center of the center section, with no easy access to windows or aisles. I did get to see where we were via a screen that plotted our position (in both English and Arabic), and several recent (and free) movies helped to pass the time. Unfortunately, I was only able to catch about an hour of fitful sleep, but I would more than make up for that when I arrived in Dubai.
Upon arrival at the airport, my first impression was one of awe. Given, large airports and international travel are things I’ve been relatively inexperienced with, but this was something else. Actually, a display that I first saw when I excited my gate reminded me of the middle-eastern section of It’s A Small World at Walt Disney World. That Dubai was a tourist magnet was indubitable, but the veiled women going into prayer rooms, the dual English-Arabic language signs, and the truly international feel to the people walking around reinforced the feeling that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. But that was a good thing.
I made my way through the airport, got my first stamp in my new passport, grabbed my luggage, and met with some of the people from the school who were waiting for myself and another new teacher. I was then driven to my apartment, where I met the housing manager who showed me around the place. After halfway emptying my suitcase (for there were no clothes-hangers in the apartment as yet), I made up my bed and slept for about 14 hours.
I had a pretty lazy day on Friday (especially since I didn’t really get up until about 4 p.m.), but I did go to the local market to buy a few things, as well as eating my first shwarma (I was pretty addicted to shwarmas and dates for my first few days here.)
Saturday, the last day of the weekend out here, I hung out with a good friend of mine from FSU who first turned me on to Dubai. We went to Dubai Festival City, a relatively new community with an amazing three-story mall and a marina. As I would find out the next day, the mall was also within walking distance of my school.
Culturally, Dubai is at once very similar to the west, and very different. Our apartment is next door to a Mosque and a construction site (kind of a microcosm of Dubaian symbols, I suppose), and the call to prayer can be heard five times every day (and night…). The highway system is very western, though the postal address system leaves much to be desired (a result of absolutely explosive urban growth over the past few years, I suppose). Many foods and products are foreign to me, the outlets are European, and many people speak very little English, and thickly accented at that. But, strangely enough, I really have not had a single instance of culture shock yet. Culture "oh-wow-that’s-cool/neat/interesting/unique", sure, but thus far, everything here has been an incredible adventure. Given, if I were alone over here, or if I were in a place where no one spoke English, this would be much more difficult, but, luckily, I’ve already made a few dozen friends from school who are sharing this adventure with me.
Sunday through Thursday is the workweek here in Dubai, and my first one was amazing. I love my school. The philosophy, the facility, and most of all the people. It may be called Universal American School, but the staff is very international, from the U.S., Canada, Holland, Romania, India, Lebanon, New Zealand, Australia, Egypt, Spain, Peru, England, Belgium, Scotland, Japan, Ireland, France, the Philippines and beyond. More importantly, everyone is very friendly and personable. For some of us, this is our first experience teaching abroad; for others, this is their fourth or fifth country that they have taught in. I’m thinking I’ll be one of the latter before long. This whole international thing is really getting under my skin (in a good way). The administration is absolutely amazing as well, with openness, authenticity, and supportiveness in spades. Most of us new recruits are of the mind that we won’t be able to go elsewhere after teaching here, as conditions (including copious planning time built into the school day) seem to be almost ideal.
Perhaps most importantly (at least, outside of the classroom) is the social rapport that has already developed among our colleagues. Many of us live in the same apartment building, and most every night, we go out to eat and to explore the city together. This past Friday was certainly an excellent example of that, but now we’re getting into the second week, so I’ll save that for next time.
Stay tuned, and thanks for reading!
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
And so it begins...
In just a few hours, I will leave for my teaching job in the United Arab Emirates. The fourteen-hour direct flight from Atlanta to Dubai should be rather taxing, especially considering that the longest flight I’ve yet been on was only two-and-a-half hours. I’m excited though: about the flight, about actually getting to Dubai, and about all the adventures, challenges, relationships, and experiences that await me overseas. For the most part, I have absolutely no idea what to expect, but I kinda prefer it that way. It’s more exciting like that.
I don’t know when I will next have consistent Internet access, as I likely won’t be able to get my own Internet subscription until sometime around October or so (visa hoops to jump through and whatnot). I will try to grab a few minutes here and there on friends’ connections, so it shouldn’t be too long before you hear from me again, but just know that if I don’t write you back quickly, it’s not because I don’t like you or because I got captured by terrorists; it’s probably because I don’t have easy access to my email. That and I’ll probably be busy with getting accustomed to living in a big, new, foreign city, and I'll be starting my first year of teaching (a life-consuming event by itself, I’m told). Thanks for reading, and do keep in touch. Hopefully I’ll have some pictures and details about my arrival up here before too long.
Intrepidly yours,
Jeremy
I don’t know when I will next have consistent Internet access, as I likely won’t be able to get my own Internet subscription until sometime around October or so (visa hoops to jump through and whatnot). I will try to grab a few minutes here and there on friends’ connections, so it shouldn’t be too long before you hear from me again, but just know that if I don’t write you back quickly, it’s not because I don’t like you or because I got captured by terrorists; it’s probably because I don’t have easy access to my email. That and I’ll probably be busy with getting accustomed to living in a big, new, foreign city, and I'll be starting my first year of teaching (a life-consuming event by itself, I’m told). Thanks for reading, and do keep in touch. Hopefully I’ll have some pictures and details about my arrival up here before too long.
Intrepidly yours,
Jeremy
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Training in New Mexico
Well, I’m not overseas just yet, but last week I had an experience that is in many ways related to my upcoming adventures, so I figured that it would be appropriate to write on them here.
Last Monday (July 14th), I flew to Albuquerque, New Mexico (my first solo flight of many to come) for my IB English training. A shuttle took my fellow trainees and me to beautiful Montezuma, New Mexico, the site of the United World College and historic Montezuma Castle (which served as a dining hall, classroom building, and, for the lucky (myself included), a dorm).
The whole week was phenomenal in every sense. The grounds were picturesque, the people incredibly personable and insightful, and the classes helpful and practical. Several off-campus excursions were available, two of which I took advantage: an alpaca ranch on Tuesday and Santa Fe on Wednesday.
To my knowledge (and I inquired about this often), I was the only participant (of well over 200) who was about to begin their first year of teaching. Many of the participants were overwhelmed by the curriculum, yet I didn’t even feel as daunted as many of the long-time teachers were. Maybe it’s my young, idealistic, fresh-blood nature of gearing up for my first year of teaching, soon to be smashed on the rocks of reality. Or maybe I’m just that gung-ho that it will work out great, like things usually do when I go all in for them, like I am with my Dubai adventure. Probably a little of both.
Aside from the great experience and many wonderful relationships that I fostered (many of which are also going international and with whom I’m planning rendezvous with in their respective countries and in Dubai), I learned three big things. The first is the obvious one: I learned about the IB English program, the whole reason my school sent me to this conference in the first place. Second, I learned a good deal about teaching English, about teaching internationally, and about teaching in general from my many new friends at the conference. And finally, I learned something about myself. Actually, ‘confirmed something I was already pretty sure of’ would be a more appropriate phrasing. This week, for me, was kind of a trial run for Dubai: a long-distance solo trip to a place I’d never been, where I knew absolutely no one and had very little idea of what to expect. And I survived. Nay, I thrived. The week was absolutely wonderful, and I have absolutely no doubt that I will thrive similarly in my adventure to Dubai. Given, Dubai is a whole lot farther away, a whole lot culturally and geographically different, a whole lot more varied in its trials, adventures, and joys, and a whole lot longer lasting than my week in New Mexico. And yet, I have every reason to believe that I will shine all the more because of those increased differences. Besides, I’ll have my lucky adventurer’s hat.
Thanks for reading. This’ll probably be my last post until right before I leave (on August 20). Please keep my in your thoughts and prayers as I work on getting all my ducks in a row in preparation for my departure. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go try to figure out the best way to finagle my stuff into my suitcases to not go over the per-bag luggage weight limit. Fun.
Last Monday (July 14th), I flew to Albuquerque, New Mexico (my first solo flight of many to come) for my IB English training. A shuttle took my fellow trainees and me to beautiful Montezuma, New Mexico, the site of the United World College and historic Montezuma Castle (which served as a dining hall, classroom building, and, for the lucky (myself included), a dorm).
The whole week was phenomenal in every sense. The grounds were picturesque, the people incredibly personable and insightful, and the classes helpful and practical. Several off-campus excursions were available, two of which I took advantage: an alpaca ranch on Tuesday and Santa Fe on Wednesday.
To my knowledge (and I inquired about this often), I was the only participant (of well over 200) who was about to begin their first year of teaching. Many of the participants were overwhelmed by the curriculum, yet I didn’t even feel as daunted as many of the long-time teachers were. Maybe it’s my young, idealistic, fresh-blood nature of gearing up for my first year of teaching, soon to be smashed on the rocks of reality. Or maybe I’m just that gung-ho that it will work out great, like things usually do when I go all in for them, like I am with my Dubai adventure. Probably a little of both.
Aside from the great experience and many wonderful relationships that I fostered (many of which are also going international and with whom I’m planning rendezvous with in their respective countries and in Dubai), I learned three big things. The first is the obvious one: I learned about the IB English program, the whole reason my school sent me to this conference in the first place. Second, I learned a good deal about teaching English, about teaching internationally, and about teaching in general from my many new friends at the conference. And finally, I learned something about myself. Actually, ‘confirmed something I was already pretty sure of’ would be a more appropriate phrasing. This week, for me, was kind of a trial run for Dubai: a long-distance solo trip to a place I’d never been, where I knew absolutely no one and had very little idea of what to expect. And I survived. Nay, I thrived. The week was absolutely wonderful, and I have absolutely no doubt that I will thrive similarly in my adventure to Dubai. Given, Dubai is a whole lot farther away, a whole lot culturally and geographically different, a whole lot more varied in its trials, adventures, and joys, and a whole lot longer lasting than my week in New Mexico. And yet, I have every reason to believe that I will shine all the more because of those increased differences. Besides, I’ll have my lucky adventurer’s hat.
Thanks for reading. This’ll probably be my last post until right before I leave (on August 20). Please keep my in your thoughts and prayers as I work on getting all my ducks in a row in preparation for my departure. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go try to figure out the best way to finagle my stuff into my suitcases to not go over the per-bag luggage weight limit. Fun.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Welcome!
Greetings friends and family,
As I will be moving thousands of miles away from almost all of you next month, I've created this blog where I will (hopefully) be able to share many of the adventures and experiences that await me in Dubai and beyond. I'll do my best to keep this updated with pictures and stories on a fairly regular basis. And as always, drop me a message to let me know what's going on in your life as well. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers as I prepare to make this big and exciting step in my life. I love you all.
Intrepidly yours,
Jeremy
As I will be moving thousands of miles away from almost all of you next month, I've created this blog where I will (hopefully) be able to share many of the adventures and experiences that await me in Dubai and beyond. I'll do my best to keep this updated with pictures and stories on a fairly regular basis. And as always, drop me a message to let me know what's going on in your life as well. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers as I prepare to make this big and exciting step in my life. I love you all.
Intrepidly yours,
Jeremy
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