Welcome to the kalidescope

My first glimpse of Abu Dhabi was the international terminal at the airport. We emerged from a low, tube-shaped hallway into a domed arrivals hall covered with a dizzying kalidescope of tiles and supported by an enormous, fluted column (similarly ceramic-ed). I'd been traveling for 30 hours, so remember the moment in a series of images, as kalidescoped as the decor:

• a Filipina woman in a silver-bangled halter top (hey! I thought we couldn't show off our shoulders, much less cleavage and belly buttons),
• a group of women cloaked in black abeyyas, one talking on a cell phone.
• men who looked like sheiks (men who probably were sheiks) in long, white dishdasha shirt dresses with scarves around their heads affixed by black cords at remarkably jaunty angles.
• blinking lights, buzzing phones
  
• the swoop of Arabic script on the signs,
• long lines, the wrong line, then the right line,
• opening one eye wide for a high-tech retina scan (my first!)
• flinching at the thunk-thunk of low-tech rubber stamps on my passport and visa.

I arrived at my new apartment around 12:30 a.m. There are three other new teachers in the same building, K among them. The luxury of being able to talk into the night with such a close friend after each new day is a gift beyond measure. The whole building sits above a men's hammam (traditional Turkish bath), a bakery and a dry cleaners. It's a far cry from my Peace Corps experience...no cement floor or tin roof here. Instead, the floor is hardwood-esque, the livingroom is about the size of my place in Burlingame; there are two bedrooms and two bathrooms, both with tubs (!)--and, joy of joys, large, rectangular, east-facing windows look out over the street and to the park across. The upper floors in the building have a Gulf view (I'm on the second floor), but my windows are the biggest in the building. In the morning, light streams through--hazy, pale yellow light filtered through the thick, humid air. It's hot outside, but not as hot as I'd been led to believe. Not heart-stopping hot. Just Houston/Florida/the worst of East Coast humidity and sunshine, oppressive but not unbearable. I'm getting used to the icy feeling of my sweat cooling in the a/c of school and home. I thought I would be writing to you all about the depth and breadth of the heat, but I don't have much to say. It's really, really hot. But that's all.

I feel like a stranger but also like I belong. This might be because I'm one of 30 new teachers coming in this year, and so surrounded by people going through the same thing. It might be because K is here too and deconstructing the wider world is nothing new when we are together. It also might be because I've studied Abu Dhabi for so many months, taking advantage of Web images that didn't exist in the same way the last time I moved abroad in 1996. The buildings of the skyline are like old friends; the street names ring a bell--and all the restaurants (from McDonalds to Trader Vics) and the stores (Ikea, Ace Hardware, etc.) look like home. Then I see a covered women with a full veil with high heels and pedicured toes peeking out from under the folds of her abbeya. And it's so cool because this woman, a walking symbol of modesty and respect for both cultural tradition and religious expectations, is wearing four-inch stilettos and Hot Rod Red on her toes. As if anyone needed another reminder that there is nothing black and white in the world, even a woman in a black abbeya. But no one would need that kind of reminder in Abu Dhabi. It's just that kind of town...

Coming attractions: some pics, Ikea as an international phenomenon and on not being a total control freak