Cupcakes, but no camels

In prior weeks, there were camels, but no cupcakes.

This week, there were cupcakes, but no camels. Such is life.

Cupcakes were had with friends at Marina Mall. Like everywhere else, a boutique "cupcakery" is due to open at the unfinished Souk at Central Market. Until then, we will have to settle for "less than," normal, civilian cupcakes.



As usual, Starbucks is also a cult favorite anywhere.



I have also been remiss in posting a photo of our building, so here it is, in case you were curious. We are on the 6th floor, and the shot shows where our windows look out.



The mini-hoodlums and slightly larger hoodrats (1st and 3rd graders, respectively) are still up to many of their old (and some new) tricks. We wise(ned) teachers are on to them-but like any tricky medium they are constantly adapting to achieve new levels of mischief and tomfoolery. As I alluded to on Facebook, a coworker of mine has a young one who enjoys eating pencil shavings. This is, however, an improvement on the whole for Grade 1, as another colleague intimated that he once found one of his chewing on a nail that he found in a loose piece of wood. I don't know what this says about the diet of these kids...perhaps they are lacking in fiber.

Daniel and I certainly do not help the nutrition cause any, as we give out stickers and candy as rewards. Any teacher here who doesn't is either a magician or is kidding himself. These kids do not complete tasks or remain in their seats for the sheer joy of being good. They will, however, do it for halawa, or as mine call it, "L, l, lollipop." I've told them that just "lollipop" is fine, but they think that it is called "l, l, lollipop," since that's how we introduced the letter L. Oh, well, something is better than nothing, I suppose.

There have been small victories, and they do seem to be learning some things. While Daniel's kids did speak some English, as they're older and had an English teacher last year, mine have little to no English basis. I am also placed in an area in the suburbs of Abu Dhabi, so even the older students, who are usually more proficient via exposure, are lower. The 4th and 5th-grade girls come up to me and will say, "Hello teacher!"

I usually reply, "Hello, how are you?"

They reply, "Finethankyouhowareyoumadamebye!"

So, the English is there but not necessarily well-formed.

I am fading fast writing this so I will end it here, and hopefully return soon to be more diligent than I have been. Talk soon!

Al Taqqadom Primary School, Al Shamkha

Photos taken by Jenni, our fearless lead teacher

Drawing and drawing blood

Hey everyone! Sorry that it's been so long since I've updated. I did type one out the other day, and then lost it, ($%#$!) so I have a lot of ground to cover.

We've been at our schools and in our classrooms for a little less than a month, now. Most of the kinks in the schedules have been ironed out. Grade 1 will be opening up two new sections, and English and an Arabic section, so our class sizes will go down. That will be a huge blessing, since 27 five and six year-old girls in each class is a lot to handle!

Our little girls our bundles of energy and my Grade 1 colleagues and I certainly do not worry about lack of enthusiasm. My two sections have enjoyed our phonics music time, and particularly enjoy attacking me with "sssss" for "snake" and "a-a-a-a-a" for "ant." It is certainly interesting to teach a class where more than half the time, they do not know what I am saying, and I do not know what they are saying. I find that we are able to communicate basic things, and like in any language, little ones can tell from the look on your face whether or not you approve of what they're doing. ;)

I feel like in the past three weeks the learning curve has been extremely steep. I've learned a lot of Arabic in order to survive, although most is slang and on the level of 6 year-old girls. I suppose some is better than none! Here is my sad little list of things that I can now say in (broken) Arabic:

-- Come on!

-- Stop!

-- Stop that!

-- Finish (this)/ Finished?

-- Girls!

-- Today, tomorrow, yesterday

-- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

-- Water

-- Food

-- Put it in your backpack/bring it home

-- Mother/father (usually while gesturing/threatening to call one or the other)

-- 1/5 and 1/6, switch classrooms

-- Sit down

-- Get down from there

-- Good

-- Problem/ This girl is a problem (usually when calling the social worker aka disciplinarian)

-- Art/music/sports/computer class

-- Listen

-- Be quiet

-- Stop talking


If none of the above works, and they get too crazy, I usually just let them color. All of my worksheets are text rich, and I figure that any exposure is good exposure. I have them trace the letters and words, even if they don't know what it means. All kids like to color, and they especially like to do an extra good job with letter tracing if it means a sticker. Seriously, these kids freaking LOVE stickers. Good kids and bad will jump through hoops for them, which is what brings me to the title of this post. Children here are very physical in the way that they interact, and are much more apt to slap each other around a little bit if someone crosses them, or jeopardizes their chance at Barbie stickers. On the other hand, while they do get into more frequent cat fights, an hour later, the same two students will be best friends again. Sometimes it is easier to let them solve their issues this way. The next day is always a clean slate, anyway, and I have plenty of Barbie bandaids, too.

Some overdue photos