So much in a YEAR Part 1

My, my, my.  I have thought about this post for the past 3 months.  It has been a while since my last post (Sept. 2014 I think) and soooooo much has gone on in our lives.  Let me start from where I think I left off (should have read previous post- lol), I took the teaching job at the private school here in Al Ain.  If  you recall, I was orignillay hired with ADEC but had not cleared security so I began to look at other schools.  During the first week of school I found out that the pay I was offered was not correct.  See, they offer housing but since I didn't need housing (live with Brian and he gets housing) I was told that I could take the housing stipend, well, that is not true.  AFTER being here I was told that housing is offered from the government regardless of public or private school so we couldn't "double dip" (although I asked this question several times).  Oh well, I already accepted the position and even without the stipend it was still more than the other schools.  A week later I get a call from ADEC offering me my original position (which included 4000aed more a month).  After prayer and talking with Brian we decided to stay at the private school since I already committed to working with them.  Well, after about 4 months I was asked if I wanted to be promoted to department coordinator, which came with 1000aed a month stipend (for real this time- lol).  I knew it would require more time, but hey, why not.  BIG MISTAKE!!! Teaching at this private school required too much of everything; time, commitment, just plain chaos. I was required to teach 4 different subjects (yes 4), both boys and girls (which are in 2 different buildings), one boys class had 30 students. If you know anything about this country you know that a classroom of more than 20 boys is ridiculous.  I had boys hanging out the 2nd floor window, playing with wood boards from a broken bookshelf that had nails in them (I requested they be removed from my room 6x's) AND manage 5 other science teachers (all of whom started after me).

After being there an entire year I decided to resign at the end of the school year.  My children were not happy and were not learning at the level I felt they needed.  When I informed my HR department they later stated that I would have to pay close to 30000aed ($8000).  What the what???  I asked why and was told that I signed a 2 year contract and these are the fees incurred for breaking the contract.  I quickly realized that I never signed a contract and therefore should not be held liable for any of the fees they said I owed.  They disagreed, that I didn't owe the fees, so I took them to court.  While going through the court process I found out that my school is not governed by the local court system, it is owed and governed by the Sheik.  Really?  It all began to make since though, I was hired and a visa within a week when ADEC could not get me a cleared visa for 6 months, this school has wasta (i.e.-connections).  To make an even longer story short, I won, kinda.  I didn't have to pay the entire 30000aed, but did have to pay a little less then half. I was happy and separated from that BEAST of a school.

Summer's End

The summer is officially over for me :(  We decided to go home (US) for the summer even though we've only been here for 5 months.  Brian and I booked a trip to Jamaica to celebrate our 12 year anniversary so even if we wanted to change our minds we couldn't get a refund on our trip, so, why not?  Ive never been to Jamaica and have always wanted to go.  I HAD THE BEST TIME!!! The resort was beautiful, the weather awesome and the company of my husband was much needed.  Also, we decided that if we want to be financially free that we need help so we hired a financial counselor.  Our first appointment is next week so we needed to get all our frivolous spending and extravagant vacations out the way. lol.

We had my daughter's birthday party in Hinesville.  She shared her party with my godson.  That too was pretty awesome.  My friend, godson's mother, did an awesome job.  All I really did was send her money (that's my kind of party planning- lol).  I felt bad for my son though.  We left to go to the UAE two days after his birthday and I really didn't have the time (or energy) to give him a birthday party.  We do parties every other year and the way it has turned out we do 2 every other year (one per child), but it looks like we may now change that to 1 every year (one per child) since my son did have one this year.  It should be a little cheaper this way, we will see.

We decided to take another detour through London on our way home.  We didn't realize that we had to take ALL of our luggage off the plane in London.  Apparently there is a new rule that if your layover is more than 8 hours you have to take all your luggage off and check them back in at the connecting flight.  We had 9 checked bags and 3 carryons.  This proved to be a very difficult task.  The terminal for our connecting flight required us to take 2 trains and trolleys are not allowed on the train.  Brian and I had to carry all 9 bags between the two trolleys.   We had the kids holding the doors open and screaming for us to hurry up.  Im laughing now, but I was one hot lady.  When we got to the counter our flight wasn't even available to check our bags through self check in because we were 16 hrs early.  Our connecting flight was very gracious and did not charge us another over baggage fee because I explained that I didn't know I had to take our bags off the plane.  After finally doing an early check with our bags we check our carryon bags at a place in the airport that "watches" your bags, for up to 24 hrs., for a small fee.  This time we had a 16 hr lay over and decided to catch the big bus tour to get a quick glimpse of London.  Even though it rained it was well worth the trip.  

I start teaching one week before most teachers here in the UAE go back because I am a new teacher and my school has a separate orientation geared especially for new teachers.  I hope it is worth it!  Hopefully this will give me more time to get over jet lag and decorate my classroom.

Jet lag is a beast. 

Our home

Below is a quick video of our home in Greenland Compound.  We were originally assigned to Hili, which is a beautiful compound, but Brian said he felt like he was on the set of "Good Times" going into the compound.  The buildings are 5+ stories high and it is brick city.  There is no green space and no pool.  He asked to be reassigned but at the time the only thing available was a 2 bedroom apt. (flat) in Greenland so we took it.  We were told at the end of the current school year we can request a transfer since there will be a lot of people ending their contracts.  We really like Greenland, there is a huge green space in front of the pool that the kids play soccer in, the pool is shaded most of the day and the living room is huge, and the ceilings are at least 15 ft. high.  I hope we can get a 3 bedroom here, if not, we may just keep the 2.

Greenland kiddie pool

Greenland adult pool

Weight room in Greenland

Available activities in Greenland

View from upstairs hallway

Play area and green space for soccer outside pool area

Hili

Hili playground

Week 1 and DONE!

I've actually been in school for 3 weeks, but this is the first week with students.  All new teachers started school the week before returning teachers came.  I was presently surprised to see that I was 1 of 2 African American teachers hired this year.  There are about 20 new teachers (not too unusual for an international school), but only 2 blacks?  The other teacher is from Houston, Texas.  I swear I think people only recruit from Atlanta and Houston. lol.  We had almost no time to work in our classrooms as we were in training just about every day.  The school I teach at is an IB (International Baccalaureate) School and they just received full accreditation for their DP (diploma program- grades 11 and 12).  This year they will focus on MYP (middle years program- grades 6-10) and I have the honor of teaching both 8th grade science and 10th grade biology.  The school is divided into 4 buildings on one campus.  The campus is HUGE.  There is a KG school, primary years school, boys school, and girls school.  The KG school and PYP (primary years program) are both mixed gender, so both boys and girls are in the same class, but once students reach grade 5 they are separated (this is a cultural thing here).  Once girls reach a certain age (around 5th grade) they need to be separated.  Fifth grade is still considered elementary (PYP) and still fall under PYP guidelines, but they are just "housed" in the other building and have their own "wing" to keep them separate from the older kids.

There are several administrators at my school and as someone has said, it's a bit top heavy, that at times you're not sure who to go to or who to listen to, but I'm sure I'll figure it out in time.  Unlike my classes in the US, I have to teach several subjects and in both the boys and girls school, so at times I find myself driving (did I say my campus is HUGE) from one building to the next to catch my class before it starts (none of the buildings are connected).  My son goes to the primary school and my daughter goes to KG school so I literally find myself in all 4 buildings almost on a daily basis.

Teaching in the UAE is definitely something to get use to.  Because the school has a newly accredited diploma program there has been several schedule changes, almost daily, to accommodate the new requirements for graduation.  I thought this was crazy, but apparently this is nothing new here.  Most of my classes have been easy to adjust to, but one class (my my my) is extremely difficult (please pray for my students).  They haven't realized that I can be that cray crazy black girl from America who refuses to let her students get away with foolishness, but as Kevin Hart has said, "They gone learn today!".

On another note, (yes I digress).  You may know that I decided to go the private school route since my work visa had not gotten processed, but if you didn't, now you do.  Why is it that on the 7th day of my first official week of school I get an email from my recruiter stating that i have cleared security and that if I still want to teach in the government school I should be able to report next week.  REALLY?  I have already registered my children for school, paid fees, purchased uniforms, decorated my classroom (well, ok, the nannies helped too) and now you tell me that I can come work with you.  Honestly, after thinking about my most difficult class I seriously thought about calling them, but I'm not quitter (at least not behind a difficult class). So... I'll give it a couple more weeks and see how things go.

Below is our week one dress attire.  Because I work in the boys school most of the time I have to have long skirts or pants, shirts that pass my elbow and my neck line should be covered.  Those of you that know me know that I am NOT a skirt/dress person, but with the heat here a skirt is much cooler than pants.

Those of you that know my daughter know that she LOVES to wear dresses, so she is in heaven.   

ADEC or Private School?, that is the question

Being here in the UAE and not working has given me a lot of time to research and investigate other options.  I found a great website (seekteachers.com) that advertises for private school positions.  I have applied and been offered positions at 3 different schools, 2 private and ADEC.  I went to one interview, I won't name the private school, but it was so unorganized it was ridiculous.  I had half the interview in the hallway with kids running around because they "forgot" to ask me a couple questions.  The administration was very nice, however they too did not have answers to my questions.  I thought to myself, "I'm interviewing you just as much as you are interviewing me".  When they asked what was my expected salary I told them and they (principal and vice principal) both sat back in their chairs and took a deep breath.  I knew at that moment, even after the chaos in the hallway, that this was not the place for me.  If I was going to deal with this mess, financially it had to be worth it.  The vice principal asked me to come in the next day and teach a class for 15-20 (now they still haven't told me the salary).  I agreed, mainly because I wanted to teach, I haven't taught since before Christmas break, and I wanted to see what a middle school boys classroom was like.  I can recall a coworker of mine who loved teaching her classroom of all boys, now that was back in the states and I have heard the exact opposite here.  I went to the school the next day with my own children, as I didn't have anyone to watch them.  My children were so well behaved, I was so impressed that I took them out for ice cream when it was over.  Well, needless to say, I rocked it!  The night before I began to stress a bit about what to teach.  I wanted it to be hands on, but didn't know their prior knowledge of any concepts.  I was told to teach "anything I wanted to".  The lesson I chose was food webs and food chains.  I had index cards with pictures and words of organisms and had planned to put them into groups and have them decide the order they should go in, then we would talk about the different ways to acquire energy, consumers, producers, herbivores, carnivores, etc.  Well, I went to sleep that evening and woke up not really feeling it.  I figured regardless of where they are in their curriculum everyone can use a  refresher on the importance of the scientific method.  Also, I didn't know if the class was a physical science, earth science or life science and this lesson would be appropriate regardless.  I searched for about 2 hrs the next morning looking this puzzle I usually do about the steps to the scientific method, but couldn't find it.  Then I decided to just cut out what I remembered (I've done this assignment at least 50 times).  After about 5 min I had it.  By this time I had 30 min. to get me and my kids dressed and out the door.  I cut out 5 more versions of the puzzle, got everyone dressed and off we went.  After the lesson I went to the HR department, that is also were my kids were staying until I finished and was told that I had the job if I wanted it.  Well the salary they told me was way below my ADEC offer (now I know public school always pays more, but this was ridiculous).  I told them I would have to talk to my husband and I would get back to them.  The next day I received a phone call and they not only decided to pay more, but they wanted me to be the science HOF (head of faculty).  I thought "wow", that's great, but it was still less than ADEC with no benefits and I would have to deal with this unorganized system, so I turned it down.  I just thank God that I am not to concerned about titles, I want to be in a place that I can grow, but also a place that is supportive and organized, at least a little.

The second private school I interviewed at (I actually interviewed with them first) was in Abu Dhabi. I really really like the school.  The campus has 4 buildings; boys school grades 5-12, girls school grades 5-12, elementary school (mixed boys and girls grades 1-4), and kindergarten school.   All four buildings have their own swimming pool, indoor playground (it gets hot out here), and theater.  The administration was awesome, they almost seemed to finish each others thoughts during the interview.  They were able to answer all my questions and even questions I didn't know I had until they answered them.  I left there loving the school and hoped they liked me enough to offer me the position.  Well they did, but now there was another issue.  As stated earlier the position was in Abu Dhabi, I live in Al Ain and my husband teaches here in Al Ain.  We asked about a transfer for him and were told no, he just got here and the window to request a transfer had already passed.  So, I called the school and informed them of this.  The principal called me back and stated that their Al Ain campus would be willing to take me if I wanted it.  I was so excited, but caution at the same time.  As I have experienced in the states, even though schools are under the same umbrella, they can be totally different.  I went to meet the principal and although not as pleased as I was with the school in Abu Dhabi, it was nice.  The campus  had a few more perks because it was built after Abu Dhabi.  I emailed the principal in Abu Dhabi and told her that I would have to withdraw my application with their campus and would like the offer from the Al Ain campus.  She stated that she hated to let me go but gave me a great recommendation, she encouraged me and also explained that they are building 3 more campuses in the Emirates within the next 2 years and that maybe we could work together again in the future.  Now, as far as pay, the pay is less than ADEC, as expected, but the benefits are great.  They offer free tuition for both kids, as well as everything else ADEC pays for; housing, medical, annual plane ticket.  So now our biggest dilemma deals with whether or not we want our children to go to a school that has 95% local students.  We are praying and waiting for God to show us the direction to go in.

Dud Missions and False Hopes

I know I said I was going to try and post to this electronic diary weekly, but honestly, I have been in such a rute lately that I just haven't felt like it.  Also, I post so much on Facebook it seems like Im working twice to give the same information, maybe Ill slow down on Facebook.  Well, I titled this post "Dud Missions and False Hopes" because a couple weeks (the day after I finally got our stamped visa in our passport) ago I found out that I am unable to teach until the upcoming school year.  I was originally told that once I get my official stamped dependent visa in my passport that it was just a matter of transferring it to a work visa, which could take 2-3 days.    I was told that I would now be hired as a local since I live here and may have to pay 500AED fee to apply.  When you apply internationally ADEC pays that fee. Yes, the person actually said, 2-3 days and even mentioned the 500 AED like he really knew what he was talking about.  I found out today that I still have to go through the same exact process I would have if I was still in the states.  On top of all this, ADEC sent out an announcement that if there is anyone still in security by the end of the week they would have to wait until next school year.  Honestly, that makes since, it's nearing the end of the year and anyone being hired now is really just collecting a pay check because the students stop coming at the end of May/middle of June, although I would have like to be one of those "pay check collectors".  So, I continue to wait for my weekly email from Teachaway that starts out "Sorry to inform you...".  In the meantime, I have learned how to effectively homeschool my children, Brian and I started working out with a group at the park 2 days a week, and my children and I spend at minimum 4 days a week at the pool.  So... I guess things could be worse, Brian continues to remind me that for the past 2 years all I said to him was "I really need a break" and now that I have one I don't want it.

The people here are very nice, for the most part, especially the younger generation.  Everyone is so fascinated with Anais' braids and beads it's funny.  We've even had people ask to take pictures of her hair.  Now I said, they know they would be offended if I asked them to take a picture of them with their abaya on, but I go along with it, no harm.  I just hope my daughters picture isn't plastered all over the internet- lol.  There are times, many times, that I almost forget that I'm in another country.

We finally made it

My children and I have been in here for a little more than a week.  When I say this process is crazy, I am not exaggerating.  Brian spent about 6 days running around like a chicken with his head cut off to get all the documents needed for us to travel as his dependent.  Yes, we are here as his dependent, my visa still isn't cleared.  When we made the decision to have us travel as his dependent I had mixed feelings.  On one hand I was ready to meet my husband in the sandbox, but on the other hand I felt like I was suppose to "tough it out" like the other 20 or so people in this same situation.  Needless to say, we decided to have us travel.  So, I am here and now I am running around like a chicken.  The level of communication is ridiculous.  One person tells you to go to one location while another says you don't need to go there but to some other place.  I told Brian we really need to put together some sort of pamphlet of something that can walk and expat through the process of getting their family residency visas.  Im seriously thinking about it.

We arrived one week before Brian's spring break, which was a blessing.  Brian was worried about me not getting the new teacher experiences,; being picked up from airport, living in a hotel, going through orientation, but I said being here with him was better than all of that.  He had to rent a larger vehicle to pick us up because 330+ lb of luggage would not fit in his little Nissan Micra.  We live in Al Ain so we had to travel more than an hour from the airport in Abu Dhabi.  Given that this is his spring break we wanted to do a couple things around here one being The Color Run 5K in Abu Dhabi which was Friday, we did and we had a blast!!  We also visited the Emirates Palace, Sheik Zayed Grand Mosque, and a couple of souks, all without spending very much money, remember, I don't have a job- lol.  We are planning to do a day trip to Dubai next week, only about a 1.5hr drive  and a desert safari trip while he is still off from work.  My biggest concern right now is what to do with the kids when spring break is over.  I may have to try the homeshooling thing again, new location, less stress, we will see how that goes, pray for me- lol.

The culture here is a bit different.  Brian told me that things happen at night and I didn't really take much thought as to what he was saying.  Well, it is definitely a night culture.  It is too hot to do anything during the day, and from what I hear it is going to get much much hotter.  Most people don't come out until 8pm and stay out until 1-2am, even children.  We took the kids to the park a couple times around 11am and you see little babies (6-12 mon) playing at the playground like it is 1pm, just crazy.  Also, there are hundreds of what I call, impromptu picnics on the side of the road.  People will just pull over on a major street, park their cars and have a picnic, blankets, food, soccer balls and all, at 11pm.  In the US (at least on the East Coast) the malls usually close around 9-10pm, not here,  they stay open until midnight at least.  Brian says, "...and you wonder why the kids are tired in school".  The school day starts around 8am.