The Grand Mosque!

The Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi is stunningly white with gleaming minarets rising above a nest of egg-cup domes and acres of courtyard surrounded by colonnades and reflecting pools. The cool, marble corridors host a garden of inlaid flowers and intricate Turkish-inspired designs. The interior sparkles from top (multi-colored and multi-crystaled chandelier) to bottom (the flora and fauna on world's largest carpet). K, Teni and I went this morning--a long-anticipated visit to one of the only mosques open to non-Muslims in the region.

We arrived at around 11:30 in our recently acquired rental car. I was worried that we'd get there too close to the prayer that falls around noon, but it turned out to be perfect timing. A few small groups were visiting, but the place was free of large buses and tours. We parked in the mosque's still-unfinished lot and made our way through sand and the landscaping (still under construction) to the pristine marble of the building. The mosque compound is surrounded by reflecting pools (totally finished). The deep blue contrasts nicely with the gold and white even on days like today when it's too windy for a mirror-like surface on the water.

But the best part of the visit was yet to come. I can hardly describe my glee when a guard directed us to a counter where they were handing out abeyyas to all women visitors! Abeyyas! As you regular readers know, the traditional Emerati dress has been a source of endless fascination these past four months. I couldn't believe I was actually going to get to wear one.

The ladies doling out the abeyyas at the mosque used K as the measuring stick for our little group. So Teni and I looked like we'd been let out of the harem in our big sister's clothes, while K glided around as if she'd been born to wear the thing. It was thrilling nonetheless trying to get the head scarf just so and move around without tripping over the hem. As this picture shows, I had some initial difficulties (it was very windy) before more or less mastering the wrap-and-secure technique. Abeyyas are also less hot than initially suspected. They are made of a very thin material (at least the ones they handed out at the mosque), and flow nicely with one's clothes underneath.

We wandered around for awhile, admiring the designs and flipping through copies of the Koran on shelves along the walls of the vast interior. We also shamelessly arranged half a dozen abeyya shots each for our Facebook profiles. I mean, how often does one get to wear an abeyya in the world's newest, fanciest mosque? Plus, we practically had the place to ourselves. As I mentioned, there were few visitors, all of who seemed to drift away as the minutes passed. Suddenly the call to prayer echoed through the building and we realized we were the only ones inside except an older man in full prayer mode. We tiptoed out the side entrance, since the front door had already been closed (oops). We strolled around the courtyard before heading back toward the main entrance. I didn't want to relinquish my abeyya, but we couldn't very well wear them out into the parking lot.

But, in a way, we did. We metaphorically wore them all day as we thought about how cool it was to stand in a holy place and admire the dedication and faith of the people who built (and are still building) the mosque, and the people who visit and pray there. Respecting Emerati traditions reminded us that there are traditions to respect--that the city may be full of malls and McDonalds, but it is also driven by something other than oil wealth and designer brands. It meant a great deal to be able to experience it firsthand today at the mosque.

Thanksgiving Abu Dhabi, part I and II

This Thanksgiving weekend held a bunch of firsts: first traditional feast for Teni from Trinidad, first sweet potato and marshmallow experience for K (who loved it and demanded the recipe--score one for American comfort food), and the first time cooking more than soup in Abu Dhabi for me (roasted carrots from the family cookbook!). We actually went to two different feasts with different vibes--Thanksgiving #1: International Turkey Day , and Thanksgiving #2: Midwest meets the Middle East.

Thanksgiving #1 took place at the apartment of Madame L, our closest homie and Arabic teacher. She has friends visiting from the States, and invited us to a quiet dinner and game night with them, her husband (a fellow Californian) and a neighbor or two. Imagine our surprise when we got there to find at least 15 people from our school, her husband's school and half their building. But what else is Thanksgiving for? We had one representative from Massachusetts, but almost everyone else came from distinctly non-Pilgrim environments: Romania, China, Canada, Alaska, Poland, Morocco, Trinidad, Dominican Republic and France. People dressed up and stood around drinking red wine, discussing travel, work and politics, and admiring the view of the city from the ninth floor apartment. Although Madame L's husband lovingly prepared all the classics, the crowd treated it as a buffet, though there was some exclaiming over the pumpkin pie. (L-R: Teni, me, K, Madame L, and her two visitors)

Thanksgiving #2 happened today among the teachers in our apartment building. We were in charge of bringing a hot veggie dish and rolls. The rolls we bought at the grocery store, along with a Dutch oven, Pyrex glass dish, three pounds of baby carrots, 30 cloves of garlic and two lemons. The roasted carrot dish in the family cookbook is super simple and super good. It felt like Thanksgiving-meme, cooking and chopping (I even wore an apron), then taking a covered dish and two plates of rolls upstairs to where our building mates had gathered. M's (music teacher at school) parents are visiting from Kansas and they had spent the day baking pies from scratch (having imported Karo syrup, pumpkin puree and marshmallows on behalf of the woman who brought K's new favorite dish). Others brought green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, salad and homemade cranberry sauce. Someone went around with a video camera asking everyone what they were most thankful for. We gathered in the livingroom where our hosts had pushed the table against the coffee table and cobbled together enough chairs to give everyone a seat at one long, but multi-level table. It was crowded and loud and totally Thanksgiving. I had one of those ex-pat moments (very briefly) where I missed home because I felt at home so far away from home. It didn't last long because someone passed the pumpkin pie, and it was time for dessert.

Taking wing

I'm convinced that you don't really arrive in a place until you show it to someone else. It's like becoming an older sibling or getting a promotion. All of a sudden, you realize you've 1) developed a wing and 2) now have someone under it. Instead of being the wide-eyed newbie, you are the expert. You also realize how deep the groove you've been in all these months has truly become.

K's friend Teni arrived last night from Trinidad. She may be the only representative of her island to land in Abu Dhabi this year, and she wasted no time on small inconveniences like jet lag, rising this morning at 7:40 a.m. less than 12 hours after touching down from Port of Spain via Miami and an unscheduled 20-hour layover in London. She wanted to explore the city while K and I were teaching, and explore she did.

She got a lift from a friendly driver named Hasan who offered to drop her at the nearby mall. (Random offers of rides are common enough to have happened to K twice, but I have yet to be so favored.) Once there, Teni discovered the roller coaster and checked out the bowling alley, neither of which K and I have set eyes on, despite visiting the exact same mall almost daily for the past four months. Tonight we dragged her back, to go to the Mexican restaurant, then took a walk along the Corniche. We pointed out the landmarks and marveled at the beautiful weather (I was comfortably wearing jeans, a t-shirt and a pashmina--this is a huge change from even a week ago.) We said at least three times each that the city was growing on us. Now that's it's breezy and pleasant (as opposed to a sauna on steroids) and approaching the long December break, it's easy to look up from the daily grind and appreciate the city, the walks to school in the early morning chill (yes, there is one), the roller coasters in the mall (child-sized but quite extensive), the cheap taxis, the act of opening windows rather than turning on the AC, and the time to show off the city to visitors. My college friend J comes next Sunday. By then I'll be a hostess expert.

It is cool to be at the point where things feel settled and almost home-like. This is also a totally-not-subtle hint to all of you out there contemplating a visit. So far, Teni says she has had the best vacation of her life (over ice cream on the Corniche). Come on over! You'll be glad you did...

On the list of things to ponder

As most of you know, I'm here in Abu Dhabi for a constellation of reasons, many of which revolve around teaching. Last June I left an intense urban charter school I helped found and to which I was passionately (but perhaps unhealthily) attached. I came to my current school to explore new ways of being a teacher in a completely different environment. The experience so far has not shaken my conviction that urban education and/or underserved student populations are my fundamental vocation as a teacher. At the same time, I've enjoyed teaching my current students tremendously and am learning a great deal about how privileged kids are educated from the perspective of a teacher.

The most obvious thing I already knew: much of the education of middle/upper class students does not happen at school. It happens at home, on trips, during extracurricular activities, and via family members, tutors or the Internet. Underserved kids learn a lot outside of school, too, but the information privileged kids pick up actually helps them in the classroom. That being the case, one of the things I'm thinking about now is how a dedicated teacher can influence a student's life outside of school and inspire kids without the helpful bulwarks of parental involvement and/or resources to pursue school-based education with as much confidence and comfort as their privileged peers. I learned at my previous school that the school itself cannot do it all in a way that's healthy to staff members or, some may argue, the kids themselves. But nor should teachers throw up their hands or schools assume they are powerless. The question is what is doable and which of the things on the doable list are most effective? Clearly, I have no answers to this, but I've been mulling it over this week. This trains of thought was inspired by my first round of parent-teacher conferences at my current school

The content of the conferences was identical to any set of conferences I've ever had: "Joe is a such an excellent student;" "I wish I had a classful of Marys;" "Johnny is so bright but he's not working up to his full potential;" "Susy needs to slow down and not rush through her work;" "Bobby should socialize at lunch and concentrate in class;" "Betty is easily distracted--is she like that at home?" "I'm concerned about Teddy's reading level/sentence structure/organization skills." The only difference was the parents. For one thing, they made appointments themselves, arrived on time and signed up in droves. My teaching buddy Ocanada and I talked non-stop from 12:30-4 p.m. on Wednesday and from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Thursday (excluding a 45-minute lunch break on Thursday). At my former school, we called parents, made the appointments, called again to remind them and, if that didn't work, showed up unannounced at their doors to talk about their kids. This doesn't make those parents horrible people--there were countless valid reasons why they didn't show--but that lack of direct involvement did affect their children's education. Can a school enforce parent involvement? Should they? Does essentially forcing parents to show up do any good? Is there another way for the school to fill in this particular "involvement" piece if parents are unable to hear student-specific messages from the school and reinforce them at home? Does the school change to accommodate the parents if the parents are unable to accommodate the school? How does the school change? My former school is part of a nationwide movement that is killing itself (and I'm not being entirely figurative here) to be different in a way that serves all kids. But they did this by taking the regular model of school and piling on time, dedication and accountability (hence the knocking on doors when parents don't show). But do the radically different factors that affect parenting across social classes mean that schools serving these populations should look and feel just as radically different? And how should they look? Is that discrimination or the essence of true service? I have no idea whatsoever. I've just been thinking about it a lot this week.

Of course, I'm starting from the assumptions that all children deserve the highest quality education regardless of whether or not their parents show up--or have to be dragged--to parent-teacher conferences, even though we all know that students whose parents show up will do significantly better in school as we know it. If that is not your automatic assumption, you are reading the wrong blog.

The question is which part/parts of the act-of-parents-showing-up-for-conferences is the key to a student's subsequent success, and can this piece of the educational puzzle be isolated and replicated in some other way? Can something else just as effective take its place?

Let me know if you know...and if you haven't thanked your parents for showing up at all your conferences through the years, add it to your Thanksgiving list this week.

(Thank you, mom, for showing up to every conference and advocating for us at every turn. xo)

Rain in Arabia

It rained today and the temperature dropped to 78 degrees. Does global warming elsewhere mean global moistening here? People were alternately shocked and gleeful. K and I were drenched on the way to school because we thought the storm clouds couldn't possibly mean, well, a storm. It poured for 20 minutes, then the sun came out again. But not before thunder boomed, kids splashed in the courtyard outside and various city blocks shorted out because the infrastructure isn't built to tolerate the wet.

And you think Californians can't drive in the rain...

It was cool to see water fall from the sky again. And also cool when it stopped, though I was among the few to think so. I'm teaching at the only school on the planet where kids look forward to rainy days...

Name changes and knees

I haven't written in a week, and don't have the excuse of being in Turkey with the kids. I think I'm still getting over the name change, which most of you agreed was necessary, and I know in my heart was the right thing to do. But, alas, it has affected the experience of writing this blog. As RR, I don't quite feel that same whisper of sand, subtle sway of a camel, breeze blowing through my head wrap as I crest a dune with my trusty Bedouin guide that I did when writing as (my last name) of Arabia. Not that there is a Bedouin, camel or dune anywhere near my 2nd floor apartment above a down-low bathhouse and a Lebanese bakery. But you get the idea...

I'll get over it soon, and get back into the rhythm.

Speaking of rhythm, I've started running regularly on the Corniche (that clean Gulfside promenade a few blocks from my apartment--see pic below). Yesterday, I busted out the roller blades. Since my usual demure workout pants (sweat capris) were in the wash, I put on some shorts.

It was the first time I've showed my knees in public since arriving--and that is including the days when it was hotter than the ninth circle of hell and twice as humid. I have seen plenty of women, mostly European and Asian, flaunting shoulders and even mid-thighs in the malls and restaurants. But I haven't been one of them.

I was amazed at how exposed I felt walking down the sidewalk in shorts (the baggy cotton touched the tops of my knees but didn't cover them). I have never thought about my knees before. I have never thought about anyone else's knees before. It has never crossed my mind how many strangers' knees I have seen or how often or under what circumstances--or if they've seen mine. But my attack of modesty made me realize how much I've absorbed of a culture where grown women never, ever show their knees in public (in fact many of them were power-walking down the Corniche in full abeyyas, veils and Nikes). It's not that I'm ashamed of wearing shorts, but I understand the cultural context now. And I realized strapping on roller blades and zooming along the Gulf, knees blazing, was going to render me a bit out of step with the local scene.

I did it anyway. I had walked all that way, and I know that showing my knees is not all that serious, in the grand scheme of things. In Abu Dhabi, no one says a word, even if they do stare. Plus, there were plenty of women along the Corniche wearing a lot less (since it's also the main access to the public beaches). I had an impromptu race with a Pakistani guy on a bike. (I kept skating past him, and he kept pedaling to catch up.) In the end, he won...but barely.

6th grade road to ruins

I have walked the streets of Ephesus and sat in the same amphitheater attended by Pythagoras. I've checked out remarkably well-preserved architrave sculptures and hugged at least one Ionic column. And I didn't do it alone. Last week 68 6th graders, 12 other adults and I explored Turkey's "Road to Ruins" along the Mediterranean coast. If it was Greek or Roman, over 2,000 years old and in pretty good repair, we saw it. Didyma, Miletus, Ephesus, the hill town of Priene where Alexander the Great once had a house overlooking what was then the coast. Myth, legend and good, old-fashion middle school social studies melded in perfect harmony, much like the golden numbers used to construct the shrines, arches and triumphal gates we visited. (Here I am with Medusa's head, which used to be part of an architrave on the temple of Apollo in Didyma.)

Of course, if you ask the 12 year olds, they remember playing truth or dare on the bus. eating chocolate pudding for dessert and shining flashlights at their roommates to wake them up. All very age appropriate. And yet each one gave a detailed speech about one of the structures or sites we visited, despite knocking knees and the potential life-threatening embarrassment in front of their friends. They did a great job, for the most part. Many of the talks attracted groups of retirees (the only other people touring Turkey at the moment), as generous and adoring an audience you'd ever hope to find, even the ones who didn't speak English. I had to brief a group of kids at one point about how to handle cheek pinching, hair ruffling and even exuberant embraces from perfect strangers. Life-threatening embarrassment reared its pre-adolescent head again, which delighted the grandmas and grandpas all the more. (Here is the famous library of Celsus in Ephesus, a queen among ruins.)

The highlight of the trip for me, besides traipsing around the old stone and listening to my students impress the cruise-ship crowd, was watching a play put on by each of the two drama elective classes. The brilliant drama teacher, Mrs Aussie H, had the kids adapt a myth to perform in the great amphitheaters we'd be visiting. One group chose Persephone and Hades. The other did Narcissus and Echo. Both plays were designed to be staged without props or scenery, so the kids themselves played those roles (linking arms to provide a throne for Zeus; standing in as trees or a stormy ocean, etc). I can safely say that nothing as inspired has played in the great theaters of Miletus and Ephesus in the last millenium. The German Elderhostel group in Ephesus was particularly taken with Persephone and Hades, especially the daring portrayal of Zeus by the shortest boy in the grade. In Miletus, Narcissus and Echo brought down the house with their reworking of Aphrodite into a SoCal mall rat named Aphroditzy who went around proclaiming, "You are, like, so cursed." (The great theater of Miletus is pictured here.)

We also held a mini-Olympics in the hippodrome in Aphrodisias and a debate in the bouletarion (town hall) in Priene. The question of whether or not to stop for Turkish apple tea was resoundingly approved by a council of the people of group A. Every day, the hotel packed us a lunch, which ate amid the ruins or on the beach of the Aegean (the weather was stunning for the time of year). Every evening there was an activity from movie night to a traditional and modern Turkish dance show by a youth sports club in the town. One early morning activity (unplanned) was watching Obama's thrilling acceptance speech. We adults had struggled out of bed at 6 a.m. expecting to see the returns, only to find that the election had been decided! Our cheers woke the kids. There were only two American teachers on the trip (myself being one of them), but most of the parent chaperones were American--and the non-Americans (Canadians and Australians, mostly) were as interested in the outcome (and as pro-Obama) as we were. My fellow American, a Republican evangelical from Texas won the diplomacy award for not raining on our parade, even though Obama had rained on hers. But she did draw the line at videotaping the kids cheering for Obama on the grounds they might be victims of peer pressure. (As a 6th grader in the Reagan era, I never knew a Republican kid to bow to peer pressure, but kids these days might be different...)

Partisan politics and stunning election victories aside, the trip was organized and ideal for the age. The kids had a blast and, I'm glad to say, were excited to be there and grateful for the opportunity. I was grateful right along with them. Like the 12 years olds, this trip changed me. After a few days of the bus leaving on time, the kids chatting happily (ie: non-dramatically or meanly) in the back and the site presentations flowing smoothly, I lost some of my (very deep) aversion to field trips. After the chaperones were able to sneak off to shop for souvenirs one evening (leaving just two behind), I was almost completely over it. When we made it back safely with all the passports and all the kids, flying through the night, changing planes and passing through customs in record time, I was ready to do it all again next year. I'll bring more money for beautiful Turkish pottery and much less anxiety about what could happen. (A detail from a statue in Ephesus--and a reflection of my internal serenity as I contemplate next year's trip to Turkey...)

PS: I have more pics of the trip. If you are not on Facebook (where they are posted) and would like to see them, send me an email or comment below.