First Week in Al Ain

Friday, August 5^th, 2014

Post by Kim

Hi Folks!  So Adam and I been in Al Ain now for about a week, staying at the 4-star Ayla hotel.  Here’s a picture of the hotel.

The hotel is very nice – again quite luxurious with very good breakfast.  Our room is more spacious than that of the Grand Millenium, so it allows us to spread out our luggage more easily.  We’re looking forward to settling in our new flat, though; I’d like to put our clothes in a washer as opposed to hand-washing everything and hanging them in the bathroom!

Adam has been assigned to teach at Sultan Bin Zayed, a Cycle 2 (Grades 6 to 9) school for boys; teachers usually teach students of the same gender here in the UAE.  The faculty consists of around 20 teachers, with 6 of them Westerners (including Adam).  The children, like Emirati men, wear the traditional “gandoora” (white robe and headscarf; you can see an example of one in the Tim Hortons picture in the earlier post).  Sometimes, when students are entering the classroom, they greet Adam using the “mokhashama”, which involves shaking hands, making nose-to-nose contact accompanied by a kissing sound with the mouth.

There are a number of aspects that Adam enjoys here, compared to teaching in Baltimore.  One good thing is that his work day is significantly shorter.  Back in the United States, he would usual arrive at school at 6:45AM and leave work at 3:00PM.  Here, in Al Ain, he only needs to report at the school at 7:15AM and leaves at 1:15PM!  Also, at home, he does not need to do much lesson planning since everything is fairly well laid out for him.  Adam says that another advantage is that the class periods are much shorter (45 minutes as opposed to 1 hour 30 minutes), which makes the day go by more quickly.  Overall, he says that the teaching experience here is a net positive over teaching in Baltimore.

While Adam has been teaching in the past week, I’ve been shopping for second-hand furniture on Facebook groups, hand-washing our clothes, and applying for jobs.  I’ve been communicating with various employers here, who seem to be interested.  Actually, this past week, I was formally offered a position teaching English to elementary school kids at a private local school.  I declined the offer because, although the recruiter and other administrative staff seemed kind, I had a bad vibe from the sheikh (who was the big boss and financial benefactor of the school).  It might have had something to do with my “ethnicity”, which I’ll talk about again in a later post.  Anyhow, despite the increase in salary to the maximum end of the payscale (which he offered after I left the school), I declined the job because he didn’t make me feel valued and supported.  I’d rather take a pay cut and be happy/enjoy my job than have a higher salary and feel unappreciated.

In the meantime, I just recently got a job homeschooling two girls from another expat family form the United States!  The girls are really sweet and live on the same street as Adam and me, so it’ll be super convenient to come to their house to homeschool them while their parents go to work (one of them teaches with ADEC as well).  I’m really excited about spending time with the girls – teaching to a small group of kids, which I enjoy doing more!  This should start next week.

Speaking about our neighborhood – Adam and I have been assigned to the Hili Complex, which comprises of maybe about 800 apartments.  It’s huge and a really convenient location!  We’re right next to Hili Mall, which is brand new (less than one year old) and has a “Geant” Hypermarket  (or superstore, as you would call it in North America).  Our flat consists of 3 bedrooms/3 bathrooms and is about twice as big as any condo we have lived in Canada or in the States – more than enough for a childless couple!  We’ll move most of our furniture in tomorrow (Saturday) and check out of the Ayla hotel either Saturday night or Sunday morning.   Anyway, we’ll post some pictures of the Hili Complex and our flat in the next weeks -- not now yet because I haven’t figured how to get my phone pictures onto the computer!

Because of I took most of my pictures on my phone as opposed to my camera, I don’t have many pictures to show for this post.  Here’s one, though, that I find kind of amusing.  Hope it gives you a bit of a laugh!