"I love Miss Karen very quickly!"

I have had two full “real” school days now, so it is time to update you!

I arrived at school on Monday at around 7:30am as the buses were pulling in with all the students on them. I was standing, waiting to cross the street and all the girls on the bus started smiling and waving at me. In the school as I was walking around they were all smiling and saying “Hello Miss!” and “Welcome!” This is probably the warmest welcome I have gotten from anyone in the country since I’ve been here. It was lovely.

My schedule was a tiny piece of paper, written only in Arabic with various codes that meant nothing to me. Oh, and don’t forget to read right to left! This will take some getting used to!

Eventually I found my way to my classroom. The girls were lovely, saying hello when I came in, smiling, telling me they liked me and that I looked pretty. They are SO MUCH more welcoming than the students were in Webequie, though their English is not as good. Emiratis are taught to communicate with an air of confidence and I think it will help them in learning English.

I showed the students some pictures from home, played hang man and just talked to them. At one point one student said “Miss! PLEASE slow down your talking!” so I will have to remember to speak much more slowly. I have to say I was pretty impressed with the girl’s English skills, since we were made to believe they would not be able to speak one word. Their spelling and grammar is not great, but it is decipherable and their speaking skills are enough to get by on, so they will only improve.

Today I held actual lessons where the girls made name tags and wrote poems about themselves. When asked in the poem to write adjectives about themselves, they wrote things like “tired, hot and angry”. Uh Oh! Though sometimes they would write “Angry, Happy, Scared, Excited”…so I am thinking they are just using random words. Either that or I have a lot of emotionally confused young ladies! One line at the end of the poem said “Say something, what ever you like.” One of them wrote “I love school and I love Miss Karen very quickly.” It was so cute, and even cuter when the other girls clearly caught on and I got every poem back with that line on the bottom :P

The school day is long, from 8am-3pm, with two 20-minute breaks. The girls do not really get a lunch break and there is no cafeteria, so they really appreciated the tiny chocolate bars I brought them today! It is funny because when the day is over, everyone is out of there like bats out of hell. I packed up my stuff and wandered up to the staff room at 3:08 (school gets off at 3:05) and all the teachers were gone! I guess I will have to call my cab ahead of time next time.

I had a funny moment where I was in the lobby on my cell phone calling my cab. An Arabic teacher looked at me angrily and said something to me in Arabic. There were many other teachers using their phones, so I didn’t really understand why. I smiled at her and she looked at the teacher next to me and said something to her about me. I felt uncomfortable, so I went to sit on the other side of the lobby. She was staring at me as I sat there, and eventually said “ARE YOU A NEW STUDENT?!” I laughed, explaining that I was a new teacher and she lightened up, saying I looked like a baby and she thought I was a grade 12. The Principal came out at that moment and she double-checked with her and the Principal laughed and confirmed my true teacher identity. I have encountered that a lot here. Even when people find out my age, they say I am a “baby.” I always want to reply- Babies don’t move across the world by themselves!! but I just smile and play along.

So, it has been an enjoyable few days, but I am honestly exhausted! Getting up at 6am is not something I am used to and I get home at 4 every day and literally crash for about 2 hours. This doesn’t leave much time for socializing on weeknights, so I guess I will leave that to the weekends. I am settling into my school well and my colleagues are great, but it could all change.

Our school has 16 new teachers and only needs 10. We have been told that we will be evaluated next week and the Principal will choose 10 teachers to stay and the rest will be transferred to a different school.