Activity Day

So what a day so far, the day started with heading to the school for what is called activity day. I was so not looking forward to this since I woke up not feeling well, but off I went. When we got to the school they called it activity day. Well the start of the day was our group 13 working together to answer a quiz. It was an interesting quiz, part of the group went throughout the school, and part worked on geography questions, one on your flag, and the rest of us work of mind twisters. Our group was then broke up into three smaller groups one worked on building a car, one worked on making a building, and my worked on making a rap to perform. It was so much fun. We had to come up with a skit or poem or song about being in Abu Dhabi. The group I was in came up with a rap about coming to Abu Dhabi and working with the kids. Then we had to get perform our rap in front of the whole group. After that we had a small break and then went to culture class. We were able to hear a great speaker on his life growing up here in the UAE. After that is was a small discussion about will and a company that is here to help us.

Finally we were on the bus home. Sadly the group of Al Ain teacher had to pack up so that they could move out of the hotel and head to their new place in Al Ain. So I sat in the hotel lobby for a while my friends packed their bags and their children’s bags to get on the bus. So now I am off to get me some pasta from the mall and finally buy my internet. Well I didn’t buy it yet since I found that I can now work inside on the internet. So still going to be getting free internet.

Sheikh Zayed Mosque

We started our day at the Sheikh Zayed Mosque. This was one of the best places that I have been able to see here in the UAE. I don’t think that the picture even as beautiful as they are can do this place justice. All the women had to put on an abaya and shayla there are these white columns with gold pecks, then each column has this amazing flower deign going up the sides of them. Then we were able to go inside the Mosque and see the prayer room. It was so amazing to see the gold accents and the ninety-nine names of their God on the wall. Our tour guide gave us some great information about the mosque itself. We learned that the carpet in the mosque is all one piece of carpet. We also learned that they people who made the rug created raise parts of the rug where they are to line up on during their prayer time. We then were able to gather and have a Q&A session with the tour guides of the Mosques.

After our great tour we headed back to the school again this time we started the session with breaking off with our school providers. Three other Al Gharbia teachers and I end up working with CFBT out in the PPP schools. I learned that my location has changed from Ghaythia to Madinat Zayed. I also found out that I will be teaching in Al Hamdaniyal an all boys school 1-5 grade. I am excited to know that I have been moved to elementary and that I will be out in MZ. After that we head to our classes and sessions and then some of us received our bank cards and checks.

Once we were back at the mall, I was lucky enough to meet up with two LTs from last year who took some of us to Chinese. We then headed to Madinat zayed Mall (which is in Abu Dhabi) where we were able to find some great deals. I am proud to say that I was able to buy my first abaya for great prices, thanks to fellow teacher. Then I was able to come home and glue my shoe back together. So now I am signing off and heading to bed.

Meeting Day

“Being on a tightrope I living, everything else is waiting”


So where to start, I should have been writing all along, but since most of the time has been meeting I haven’t. Well I guess I will start with Monday, which was quite fun, we got to meet Ask Ali. He really gave some really great advice about ways we should and shouldn’t act in the UAE. Anyone can check out his website at AskAli.com or www.embracearabia.com they is quite a great site for what I saw. So after that we headed back to your Al Mawaheb, to work on our Arabic class and then our wrap up sessions. When I got back to the hotel I was lucky enough to meet with some of my fellow teachers and go over some of the resources that we have brought with us. It was a great chat session so that we could just get out into the open things that we were concerned about in our classrooms for the first day and things that we might want to get and add to your classrooms. I also trying to save money used my sandwich maker and made me a grilled cheese sandwich and some tomato soup, it was a great dinner.

Tuesday, well it started as a normal day with the morning meeting; the only difference was that this was more based on your grade levels. We learned a little more about the model of the schools we will be teaching within the schools. However we are yet to know what the curriculum is, which I think we will start to talk about this next week. We then got a chance to talk about our housing which was so nice to hear about Al Gharbia, after that again to our Arabic lessons and to our reflection sessions. Once I got back to the hotel I was pretty beat, so I used the sandwich maker once again, this time I made a pizza sandwich, which turned out just as great. Then thanks to types from other teachers I headed to the pool area with my computer and swimsuit. I took a nice swim for a while and then proceeded to connect to the internet for a while. It was great, I got all my bills for the next month paid back home. I feel refreshed and ready to get going again.