The End of Ramadan

I realize that a post about Ramadan drawing to a conclusion is about as timely right now as a job stimulus plan in the U.S. (please click here and push the red button to complete this joke), but I have a lot to catch you folks up on. Since I last checked in, Ramadan has indeed ended. Stores have opened back up. Once again, we could all indulge in the pleasures of eating and drinking in public. Eid also came and went. After a month of fasting, Eid is the week-long celebration in the Muslim world (and parts of Michigan) that occurs at the end of Ramadan. During Eid, I moved to my permanent residence, Yaqut Tower #1106, which is located behind the Holiday Inn Hotel on Airport Road. This is basically what amounts to my address. Many have been confused by the seemingly purposeful exclusion of addresses in what is an otherwise very purposely planned out metropolis. I can only surmise that since there is no centralized mail service, addresses are not that important. However, it can get a bit frustrating when trying to give directions to one of the multitudes of Bengladeshi delivery drivers. The extent of my local geographic guidance consists basically of saying, "Behind the Holiday Inn on Airport Road. It is the tall white building with green windows," followed closely by, "BEHIND. HOLIDAY INN HOTEL. AIRPORT ROAD. TALL BUILDING. GREEN WINDOWS." For the full effect, please try to roll those r's and lengthen those o's while you imagine said conversation in your head. Also, repeat that last part about four or five times and hang up your imaginary phone in exasperation.

View of Sheikh Zayed Mosque from my balcony

After having a portion of my furniture delivered, my appliances delivered, and my appliances repaired, I finally began to settle into my new place (sometimes yelling directions slower and louder does, indeed, work). It is a 21 story building occupied mostly by new teachers. This makes carpooling rather convenient. I did my best early on to win over the largely South Asian staff that keeps this place going. My fondness for cricket was clearly advertised in hopes of bridging this gulf. I learned that the maintenance man's name was Ramadan, which was a rather presumptuous choice by his parents. I talked with him quite a bit in broken English about cricket and securing "illegal" cable. Who knew that "illegal cable installer" was such an international profession? I eagerly awaited the arranged day for Ramadan to bestow me with about 500 channels for 250 dirhams (about 68 dollars). The setup took a lot longer than both of us anticipated. After several hours of signal searching, Ramadan was happy to show me all 571 of my channels. Unfortunately for me, all but about 8 or 10 were Arabic, Lebanese, Syrian, Sudanese, Eritrian, Bahraini, or Qatari channels. But let me tell you though, that Syrian dramatic programing is...well...about as riveting as you would imagine.

Once that disappointment of an evening was concluded, I sent Ramadan on his way and got ready to set out for the local grocery store. The evening had already extended longer than I had planned, and I was just hoping to get some late night food in my stomach. On my way out of the building, I ran into Ramadan again, who mentioned that he forgot his mobile phone in my apartment. I quickly went to retrieve it, and then almost as quickly realized that my apartment would not open. Immediately, I realized that this was because I had put a key in the deadbolt on the inside (not locked), which kept the key on the outside from inserting all the way (don’t think about it too hard, just go with the story). I returned to give Ramadan the bad news. "This is very, very bad," was his refrain. How to break into an 11th story apartment with a solid wood door became the question of the evening. The obvious choice (to one of us) was the balcony. All we had to do was go to my neighbor's apartment and climb over. Well, if you know me, you know there is absolutely no way that I was going to climb out on an 11^th floor balcony, hang over the edge, reach over, and climb onto another balcony. So I watched as Ramadan found an old plastic chair, sat on the railing, and attempted to use his hands (pressing flat-palmed on the glass dividing our balconies) to keep him from falling 11 stories to his death because I left a key in my lock. The irony was not lost on me during this moment. While I was celebrating Eid that week and the end of the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, I was anticipating viewing the end of another Ramadan. This one was an under-payed Bangladeshi maintenance man who installed illegal cable.

As my neighbor (who I barely knew outside of saying "hi" while passing in the corridor) and I watched, Ramadan carefully, but not too carefully, made his way to my balcony, only to find the balcony door locked. I thought we were lucky that he had made it to my balcony without falling to his death. Surely we were pushing our luck. Being the responsible party, I envisioned having to travel back to his village hometown and share the bad news with his family. As the barefoot, dirty, children ran up to me, all I could do would be to offer the remnants of this, once, marginally successful man. His kin would then break into sobs around me.

Fortunately, this did not happen, and Ramadan made it back to safety. We could assessed what we both agreed was a very, very bad situation. The only remaining option was to drill out the existing lock and replace it with a new one. I shoved some dihrams into Ramadan’s hand and sent him on a late night search for a locksmith shop. I waited about a half hour before I became too restless to remain useless. I knew the key was on the inside of my lock. It just had to be coerced out somehow. Seeing as mechanical concepts are not my strong point, I decided to violently thrust my key into the keyhole, repeatedly, in the hopes that the key on the inside would somehow wiggle out. Well, wouldn’t you know it, that arguably inane idea actually worked. I happily re-inhabited my apartment and waited for Ramadan to return so that I could say, “Thanks for nearly killing yourself, but I managed to get into my apartment with a little thing we like to call good ole’ fashioned American ingenuity.” When he did return, he seemed to accept the events with resignation, confusion, or a combination of both, and then, with little more than a wink and a nod, he disappeared into the night.

I hope that story was marginally entertaining for some of you and a giant waste of your employer’s time for others. I know you all want to hear about my school and my students, but you will have to wait…about three days or so. I am finishing my first week with students, and then I will be more than happy to spin you a yarn or two. Check back soon. Check back often. I will do my best to barely meet your needs and expectations.

A Socialist in Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s Court

First, the obligatory information:

I made it to Abu Dhabi just fine, I don’t know where I will be teaching yet, I will be living in the city, it is hot, people are nice, things are clean, food is good, and sand is endless. Overall, it seems to be a very livable country and surprisingly Western. It is cheap and easy to get around. The taxi drivers are polite, and (just like in the rest of the world) smell like death. The stores have everything you could need in terms of food, furnishings, and entertainment.  This has contributed to what has been a fairly smooth transition for me thus far. I am sure it is no surprise to anyone that I am fast making friends. In a banquet hall full of uncertain and frightened individuals, the man believes he is God’s/Allah’s gift to the world is king. As expected, there is a wide range of teachers here. Some, I can learn from and will be privileged to call my colleagues. Others make me wonder how they manage to feed and cloth themselves with any sort of semi-regular success. This is to be expected though. There is a core group of four of us that hang out pretty regularly. We quickly realized that since taxis will not take more than four passengers, we would cap our group at that, much to a couple of people’s chagrin. The people I hang out with regularly (in order of appearance) are: Betsy, a first-year teacher from Michigan who will be teaching cycle 1 (1^st-4^th grade); Kristina, a veteran teacher from Northern California who will also be teaching cycle 1; and Bijhan (“Beej”), a fellow Midwesterner (from Iowa), who will be teaching cycle 3 (9^th-12^th grades).

How about a little background info? As always, I am going to try to sneak a little learning in. Deal with it or skip ahead. If your knowledge of this area dates back to 1950 or so, then you would be under the impression that the area I now reside in is rather barren and inhabited by only sparse groups of nomads and pearl divers. This used to be correct. However in the last 50 years, it has become a boomtown (more accurately boom metropolis). Each day, Abu Dhabi (the city, not the emirate [think New York City, New York]) grows. Construction is constant, but done at a pace that results in quality buildings, not the rushed, patchwork structures I have seen in other cities with almost unrestrained growth (not in the U.S., because we don’t have growth, unrestrained or otherwise, so this concept may be both literally and metaphorically foreign to some of you). Imagine if you had a blank canvass of land, as much money as you could possibly imagine, and an interest in planning a sustainable city that would be the leader in basically every social and economic aspect. That is what they are hoping to achieve in Abu Dhabi (for additional info, just google Abu Dhabi 2030 or click here).

The first week that I was here was largely filled with paperwork, visits to the hospital for medical screenings, visits to the police station for fingerprints, and other such tasks. During the second week, we finally started with what is essentially any teacher’s least favorite part of the year: in-service. I shan’t bore you with too many details about what went on there besides covertly completing crossword puzzles and listening to borderline paranoid schizophrenic speakers. Needless to say, there was much discussion about how we will each teach our students, interact with faculty members, and conduct our classrooms.

What is of marginally more paramount importance (and oft overlooked) is how we will conduct ourselves when we are not in the classroom. If you have never moved a great distance, you may be unfamiliar with what exactly I am referring to. If, for example, you were taken away from all the people and places that you knew and placed in a strange land among relative strangers, you would be, in effect, offered the chance to create a new you. No longer would you be saddled with the baggage of preconceived notions. Those embarrassing stories that you seemingly could not escape from would be forgotten (and we all know that I have a disproportionately large amount of those). The bad choices you have made (a slightly more disproportional amount) would be unknown to all. It would be in your hands to expose such anecdotes. Just think, if you could wipe everything terrible you have ever done from memory, wouldn’t you?

Alas, this is but a double-edged sword. Along with being unaware of all the regrettable elements of your past, your new co-workers and friends would lack knowledge of the great achievements in your life (although, certainly you would be willing to share these triumphs). Goals accomplished, degrees attained, children birthed, mountains climbed, adversaries conquered, and other such accomplishments are eagerly touted, but the most astute among us do so only in small doses. Nobody wants to hear endless accounts of how great any person is (unless, of course, that person is themselves).

So here we all are, everyone filtering their self-images through the most discriminating of lenses. Those who share all are either condemned for their poor judgment or praised for their honesty. Everyone else is hiding something, good or bad. As Abu Dhabi creates itself out of a relatively unknown past, so do all the expatriates who arrive here. Everyday, Abu Dhabi takes another step forward in development and necessarily leaves behind a portion of its history. Everyone that comes here becomes a microcosm of that macrocosm. Re-creation happens every day. Will Abu Dhabi be successful in its efforts? Will each of us be successful in ours? Only time will tell, but you can be sure that I will be highlighting the triumphs, failures, and everything in between right here on what I hope to be a weekly basis. Check back, leave some comments, and pass it along to your less literate friends.