Celebrations

Where to start this week?  Celebrations seems a good place.

I’ve survived my first Irtiqaa inspection.  Irtiqaa means flying higher and is the organisation that is responsible for inspecting schools and reporting on them.  Similar to ERO back in NZ.  However, these people are flown in, mostly from the UK, so haven’t worked in this system so how they can come for 4 days then tell you that you are ‘unsatisfactory’ I don’t know.  I’m sure they are being paid huge money to do so and the head man seemed to get a great deal of ‘satisfaction’ from telling us this.

The team consisted of four members, 3 men & 1 woman.  Most were ex Principals, one from Jordan so he could speak Arabic and gave a more real context to the experience.

As a newbie, I wasn’t spoken to at all which is interesting as I’d already formed opinions about the school and the administration that I am now a part of.  The only time I saw them was when the head man came to my office to ‘inform’ me that there was a Grade 1 class downstairs without a teacher.  I’d just come from teaching 3 periods with Grade 5 followed by lunch duty and had only sat down but said nothing and just got up and headed off.  The manner in which the message was delivered was condescending and rude.

But in his school... etc, etc, etc.

Enough said.  It’s over and now the real journey begins.  Will the systems hurriedly put in place after the pre-inspection continue or were they just there for show?

The other interesting fact is that we are still understaffed by 2.5 teachers.  So it’s very hard to showcase your school when there aren’t enough teachers.  Also 3 new teachers started the day the inspection began so it’s difficult for them as they didn’t know the names of their students and we were told by the head honcho that he wanted to see ‘wow’ lessons.

And to top it all off, during the final briefing we were inundated with Head Office staff visiting our school to inform us that we are receiving up to 200 new students on Sunday!  Fantastic.  Already we don’t have enough teachers and now we’re getting new students?  Also we don’t have enough empty classrooms.  Talk about chaos.  Everyone shouting, talking, making phone calls...  Oh well, that’s life here.

The reason for this sudden influx of students appears to be that a new school was built close by.  A new ‘subdivision’ of large villas has gone up in the neighbouring ‘suburb’ but obviously no-one thought about the infrastructure required to service this development.  If you build 7 bedroom villas you will attract families with the average 8 children.  All those children have to go to KG & school somewhere.  But there are no schools.  So they have been building lots of fabulous new schools.  Quite something really.  But many of them are not ready yet.

So this new one in the neighbouring suburb is open but no-one monitored the enrolment process so it was grossly over subscribed.  Also parents liked the sound of a new school so just took their kids their.  But on the flip side those who are within the zone didn’t like it as it is co-ed, a new initiative here, and many don’t want their girls to be with boys so took them out and brought them to us.

I often chuckle to myself when things happen here as to how one Principal I know well would be turning in his grave (it’d be enough to put him there) at how things are done here.  Parents often just rock up to the classroom with their kids and leave them.  Because the school has no systems in place the teachers don’t know what to do, especially the new ones so they get the most ‘new’ students arriving, and the class numbers grow.

Then I get parents arriving demanding text books for their girls (the books are a big thing here) when they are not even at our school.  So they want the best of both worlds.  And the worst thing is that these parents get away with it most of the time.

Systems and communication are sadly lacking in this country, especially in my new school.

Anyway back to the new subdivision and lack of schools.  So it seems that the new school is under-resourced, under-staffed, and over-subscribed with students.  So parents have begun to complain to the ‘organisation’ we work for.  When nothing happened they began to complain to their bosses.  Now it so happens that many of these families have ‘wasta’ or know or work for people with ‘wasta’ such as the Sheikh or the Crown Prince.  So now the ‘decree’ has gone out that we must have bums on seats (put much more eloquently than that).  This would be wonderful if we had seats or teachers or any staff even to supervise these students.  What about duty of care?

Consequently, we are receiving an influx of students who haven’t yet been to school this year, as I suppose some other schools in the area are.  I’m sure next week will be hectic.  I’m looking forward to being out of school on a HOF training day for one day anyway.

On another note entirely, it was the teenager’s 18th birthday last night.  How’s that for timing, I have one son turning 18 now and another turning 21 in February?  Both big birthdays within our culture.

So a ‘gathering’ was duly organised. I opted for the traditional shared kai while the teenager opted for the younger version of a piss-up.  Now this presents some issues in a culture where drinking is not the norm and the legal age is 21.  However, I now have a legal liquor licence, which I’ve never been asked for since I got it, so a trip to the bottle store was in order.  After finding some nice Marlborough wine and stocking up on beers and some interesting choices for the teenager we were set for a good night in.

I’d cooked the now becoming famous butter chicken and ‘bought’, yes bought, a birthday cake from the supermarket downstairs.  The teenager was shocked at this turn of events - never in 18 years had a cake been ‘bought’.  It was almost a sin!

So a chilled glass of the most aromatic Matua sauvignon blanc in hand I sat down to enjoy some catch-up time with my Abu Dhabi whanau.  Most of these people are from the group I came in with.  It seems that you bond with a few and they become friends for life.  Also my Kiwi friends from downstairs who we are blessed to know.  So with three pregnant woman in the room I was the only one drinking which left plenty of the wine for me to enjoy.

I kept sniffing my wine, as any good wine drinker does, and the sharp aroma of gooseberries reminded me of many a similar evening at Richmond Street (and elsewhere).  Of course, I’d chosen the label especially for the significance to some of us wine drinkers back home so you were on my mind as I savoured every drop.  I’m sure many of you will be doing the same tonight (Friday) so have one for me and the boy.  You know who you are!

Teenagers trickled in then became a river as more and more arrived.  Some I knew well from frequent visits here and others I’d never met.  Mr Popular indeed!

I enjoy the United Nations mixture of the ex-pat community here although the girls would never get in dressed as scantily as they were.  As always I enjoyed talking to some of the kids about where they are from and what they will do next year after finishing school.  Everyone here is so transient that you need to keep on making relationships as people come and go.

Most of the crowd disappeared into the bedroom while we ‘oldies’ sat in the lounge.  Only the frequent visitors felt comfortable enough to wander into our domain.  Several of the guys were fascinated by my friends Maori tats and kept returning to admire them, much to our amusement.

The icing on the cake for me was not the cake (which funnily enough wasn’t iced) was when the girls began singing happy birthday.  Everyone joined in then I remember the cake!  So we had an official cake cutting and 18 tea light candles to blow out.  Luckily they weren’t on the cake as the candle wax sprayed all across the floor and several close spectators.  So now I have a floor covered in red candle wax.

Then one of our kiwi friends made a nice impromptu speech then the guys did a haka.  Now that was a bit emotional, as I always find it.   The kids here were spellbound and huge applause broke out.  Most had never seen anything like it so hopefully they will remember it.  Then the discussion was all about what a Maori was, etc, etc.  So doing our bit for race relations around the globe.

Throughout the evening there was only one time when I had to step in as some guy arrived who wasn’t invited.  The teenager could have dealt with it but he was downstairs somewhere so I just asked him who he was and he said, “I’m leaving.”  Now that would never happen in NZ.  You’d have a whole group getting involved and things would heat up.  But here he just left although he must have hung around downstairs as I saw him again later.

Also if I asked for the music to be turned down, it happened immediately.  They were all so easy to manage and I didn’t even have to throw them out.  I’d spoken to the moany neighbour to inform her we were having a party and luckily she wasn’t going to be home.  So that was no problem for once.  Without any prompting from me the teenager had them all rounded up and out of here before midnight, some of them to home, others out clubbing.

One of my kiwi friends had stayed on to help as the bouncer if needed so we sat down to a much appreciated cup of green tea with honey and the sound of silence.

Another milestone passed.

Cooling down

Well the weather certainly is cooling down.  This morning at 6am it was only 27.3 degrees!  That's the first time I've seen it under 30 in months.  I can't believe that I'm saying the water in the pool is nice at 30 degrees.  Imagine that?  Soon it'll be too cold for me to swim.  I remember last 'winter' I had the pool practically to myself with my own personal lifeguards as it was too cold for the locals to swim.  Us hardy kiwi's and a couple of other Irish were the only swimmers.  Now I may find myself in the realm of the wimps dipping my toe in and walking away.

This morning I went down for a swim, my first this week.  I managed 16 lengths today.  I went down about 8am and it was lovely.  I even managed to lie in the sun for a while without getting up a sweat or needing to drink copious quantities of water.  So I got my dose of vitamin D for the week.  I hadn't swum since the bout of cramp, due mostly to the fact that I get home a lot later from the new job and am tired so usually eat, then rest, then it's time for bed before I know it.

After spending the week in a wee sweat box of a room at around 50 degrees while I distributed around 10,000 student textbooks I wondered if this promotion was all it was cut out to be.  I was even mistaken for the cleaner by one of the Arabic staff and asked to do her photocopying while she was busy in the classroom.  Mmmmm!

Earlier this week we had a pre-inspection from the school inspectors.  I don't think it went too well and they return tomorrow for the week to sit in on classes and grill the teachers and no doubt us.  So all week we have been crazy doing nothing.  Meetings galore but most of my time is spent waiting for them to start, even when I suggested that we have a set time each day.  Then we are on lunch duty in the canteen.  Then another meeting and it's time to go home.  Oh wait!  The Principal wants another meeting after school on a Thursday!  Unbelievable!  Thursday is a sacred early finish so I was surprised when all the teachers turned up.

Obviously the new Principal isn't too worried about the inspection as she informed us at the meeting that she won't be in tomorrow morning.  What a surprise.  What with that and the Vice Principal locking the door to her office that contains the only working printer in the school it's difficult to get any work done.  The frustration continues to climb.  Even when I approached security to unlock the door he refused as she had told him he wasn't allowed to.  Makes you wonder who actually runs the school?

The good news is that 4 new teachers turned up, but then we lost one (think I mentioned that last week).  However, we are still short at least two teachers so have two Grade 5 classes without any teachers (no English, no Arabic, and no Islamic) and at least two Grade 1 classes with no English teacher.  I wonder what the inspectors will make of that?

I'm not stressed about it as I don't see the point.  With a new administration team it's pointless anyway and I see it as an opportunity for the school to get direction for the rest of the year.  I'm sure they will tell me what I should be doing as no-one else does.

Today I swapped my rental car back to the original Nissan Tida I had at the beginning of the month.  I'd returned it as it wobbled at speed but it's been a long time returning.  I've got to like the Nissan Sunny I've been driving although you need a higher powered car here, especially as I've been taking the three new teachers to work so the car is sluggish at the lights with a full load.

It's taking an hour to get to work and I'm usually 5 minutes late clocking in.  We are supposed to be there15 minutes before 8am when assembly starts but with the detour to drop the teenager off at school and having to take the long route through the airport it takes me a bit longer to get there.  Also it depends on the amount of traffic each morning, taking me 10 minutes to even get off our island onto the main road out to work.  Then it's so busy and if there is an accident (which there usually is) it delays us even more.

Still my driving is getting better, or should that be worse?  You need to be aggressive, even when trying to buy petrol it's like a fight to get your car edged in front of someone.  No place here for nervous drivers!

New School

New School

Well two weeks back at school have flown by.  My new school is a long drive each day so I am battling both the traffic and the school environment.  Most of my time seems to be taken up with sitting around waiting for others to arrive at meetings.

In those two weeks I’ve attended two day’s training and led two training sessions for the staff with another day’s training this week.  Training days are great as breakfast is available when you arrive at the Park Rotana Hotel, then morning tea is served and usually a buffet lunch.  So no-one minds a day out of school.

We are currently short 6-9 teachers.  Why 6-9 you ask?  Surely it would be one or the other.  Well no, it depends on whether we have western EMT’s or Arabic EMT’s.  Western EMT’s teach 30 sessions, usually split into two classes of 15 sessions.  Arabic EMT’s only teach one section of 15 so if the teachers college sends us any of these teachers we need more of them to fill the vacant slots.

Good news though, we have 3 new western EMT’s who are in the country.  In fact, I’m taking them to work tomorrow morning although they can’t teach yet because they haven’t been cleared from their medical.  So we continue to wait.

At this stage we are short 1 teacher in Grade 5, 1 teacher in Grade 4, 1 teacher in Grade 3, 1 teacher in Grade 2 and 3 or 6 teachers in Grade 1.  So many classes have not had a teacher yet.  As I entered the Grade 5 building the other day to check on the teachers, there were four classes of girls sitting on the floor inside the doorway being supervised by 3 bus monitors while they coloured in a picture.  Mmmmm!

I am careful of not saying too much about it as HOF’s are expected to teach 15 sessions as well as do their job so if I have too much to say I’m sure I’ll be teaching.  Still, it’s difficult to see so many children starting their new school year in such an environment.

I have my own office and now have a desk, chair, computer, table, and two seats I managed to find in an empty room.  I’ve learned that if I want anything I have to find and acquire it myself, even down to stationery.

On that note, I was impressed to see all teachers given a large container full of stationery supplies for the year.  However, it came to my attention this week that some of the EMT’s supplies seem to have been removed before they got theirs.  No laminating sheets or coloured pencils for them.  Mmmmmm!

We received some interesting new last week.  Our school is to be inspected next week.  Wow, you say.  Not quite what we said.  The school has a new Principal, new VP, new HOF so why wouldn’t you inspect it?  So some stressful times ahead this week as the inspection team arrives for it’s pre-inspection and to collect all the relevant data they require.

I’ve got a rental car now.  Had a Nissan Tida but didn’t like the shaking when I reached 120km on the highway.  I couldn’t even get up to the speed limit of 140km so I took it back and it’s been temporarily replaced by a Nissan Sunny which is much nicer to drive, also more expensive.  The Tida is AED 1800 per month, the Sunny AED 2000.  I’m not so sure about the brakes on the Sunny though as I need to depress the pedal a lot to slow down.  I’ve never used the brake so frequently in my life.  As there is no stopping distance left between cars on the road it’s a constant stop/start/stop/start dance.  And this is at 100km per hour.  I cringe every morning when I join the steady stream of traffic on Salam Street.

I’m dropping the teenager at school so need to go a round-about way to get back onto the road I need for work.  The first week I was lost at least 3 times and did a 15 minute circuit back to where I started.  I just got the hang of the correct turn off when school started and I found the road completely blocked over 3 lanes with banked-up traffic - school mums getting the kids back to school.  So now I’ve had to find another route as I couldn’t handle that each day.  My route now takes me through the airport then a loop back onto the correct side of Airport Road.  You need to drive here to understand what I mean but the road only goes one direction so you have to keep driving to an overpass to get onto the other side.  Nothing is easy here.

Yesterday I had an unpleasant experience.  I’ve often wondered how people drown when they get cramp while swimming.  Well I was on my last length (20) and just slowly swimming breaststroke (which I seldom do) when I was suddenly struck with cramp in my calf.  Without a word of a lie, I couldn’t even make it the two feet to the side of the pool.  I thought I’d have to get my lifeguards to jump in and rescue me!  I managed to reach the side and then drag myself along to the ladder.  Even now, a day later, my calf feels as if I’ve ripped the muscle just under the knee.  So no swimming or walking today as I’m limping badly.

I’m enjoying having a car and last weekend I picked up another kiwi friend and headed out to the Saracens clubrooms to watch the All Blacks play Argentina.  Imagine my surprise when we arrived and made the numbers up to 6.  All women!  I missed the rugby today though but heard we had a good win against South Africa.

Today I headed off to Marina Mall to do the groceries.  I stopped in at Centrepoint shops to check out the furniture store and ooh and aah over the lovely items available.  I even found hand woven rugs which were replicas of Grandad’s rugs.  My favourite is the fabulous marble dining tables.  When I got back home with my groceries and had to lug them from the car to the lift (3 trips) then into the lift and out again on our floor then drag them to the door, I remembered why I just use the supermarket downstairs.  Sure it might be more expensive but the hassle wasn’t worth the savings.

The down side is that the teenager thinks I’m a taxi (only once!)  Speaking of the teenager, this morning I was rudely awakened by a loud group returning home from last night.  Oh the joys of teenagers.  So the house turned into a marae with bodies sleeping everywhere.  Then this afternoon when I came home it’s a different group of boys here to go down to the gym.  Never a quite moment here...