Baby Crazy in Abu Dhabi

Baby Crazy in Abu Dhabi

My best friend in Abu Dhabi was pregnant when I arrived in September, 2012. We spent a lot of time together and I was so excited to meet her baby! Bernard and I were on the “it’s time” list to help out when she went into labour. Unfortunately, the ONLY weekend we picked to have a tiny Christmas vacation over the three-week long holiday was when she went into labour! We quickly bussed home to Abu Dhabi and the baby came.

The next day was Christmas Eve. We ate breakfast, picked up a couple of essentials from her apartment and headed to the hospital. It had been a while since I’d held a baby, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a baby this new before. Seeing and holding an ultra-newborn baby is a precious moment only people who have been there can understand. I loved every minute. Aryan was approximately 12 hours old when I held him. I looked right at Bernard and he just shook his head and looked concerned. HAH!

<-- Bernard's reaction to my baby fever

Fortunately for my baby-loving self, my friend and her family lived a short walk downstairs in our villa, so seeing her and the baby often was easy peasy. As a 20-something married woman, holding the cutest baby in Abu Dhabi frequently and not wanting a baby is hard. I often felt myself wanting a baby… so it was excellent that I could walk downstairs and “borrow” Aryan.

Being pregnant is natural in Abu Dhabi. It’s recommended. Having babies is seen as second nature.

I don’t know if I want kids. I always thought Bernard and I would be excellent parents, but since we’ve been married, no one has rushed to the “When are you having kids?!” question, and I really appreciate it!!! I like the idea of being married for a little while before even thinking about children!

Over here… different story.

“Miss, you married? Why you no baby?”

“Miss, you stomach hurt? You pregnant?!”

“Miss, you have baby yet?”

“Miss, how many children you have? What is zero? For why?!”

On Mother’s Day, I wished all the ladies at school a happy mother’s day. As a teacher, I feel like I have 21 kids! I spend ALL day with them and teach them very important skills in life, so damn straight I deserve a nice “Happy Mother’s Day”. Having said that, as I was wished a HMD, I smiled and said thank you. Uh oh. Wrong. Here it comes:

“Oh, you have kids?!”

Yes, 21 of them.

“….What?”

My students are my kids.

“No. When you will have kids?”

I JUST got married.

“Why you no pregnant?! Enshallah in one year you are pregnant.”

Okay.

In the Middle East, once you are married, you are expected to have kids. It’s just common practice. People were baffled and confused as to why Bernard and I weren’t planning a family yet. They instinctively thought I was pregnant or at least trying. To be honest, I think everyone was inquiring so much and insisting on my having a baby because Bernard and I would have THE cutest pseudo Asian baby ever. I count my lucky stars every day that I fell in love with someone so beautifully Asian and gorgeous it literally hurts my heart when he smiles. Hell, I’m pregnant just thinking about his beautiful smile!

 Right?!

Anyway, I was consistently reminded that I didn’t have a baby and should have a baby. It was kind of hilarious. One day, I had really bad IBS pains and had to be “rushed to the hospital” ß this was according to my VP. Rush is a strong word… I simply needed a ride there. Anyway, the woman who drove me said “What’s wrong?” and I said “My tummy really hurts” and she said “Oh, Mubarak! You are pregnant” and I was like “Helllllll no”. She was confused. Obviously stomach pain meant pregnancy. Anyway, I went to the emergency and was referred to a GI who encouraged me to get a colonoscopy ASAP and gave me some medicine. All is well.

That evening, I had returned from the hospital and was resting when my phone rang.

Hello?
“Hi, Miss Sarah?” It was the VP.

Oh hi!

“How are you? You feel better? What’s wrong?”

Oh, I have IBS and it was really bad, but the doctor said I’d be fine. Just tummy pains.

“You pregnant?!”

No!

“Oh okay, enshallah soon. See you tomorrow” hangs up

The next day, I was hand delivered a “present” from the VP. It was diaper cream, cream for a pregnant tummy, some baby oil, and a pamphlet for “new mothers”. Apparently, no I’m not pregnant meant yes, please supply me with baby essentials. I laughed but was nervous. Did she know something I didn’t?! Was I…. was I pregnant?! The psychology of all the pregnancy vibes, and likely prayers by women who just wanted to see me with a tummy because I was “too skinny miss!”, were getting to me and I was nervous that maybe all these thoughts MADE me pregnant.

As a Master of Sexual Health Education, I knew that one needed to sex to get pregnant; however, Abu Dhabi was a weird place and I saw women having babies left, right, and centre… so I was suspicious that there was something in the water…

I went home that day panicking. “BERNARD! Look what I got!” I showed him the pregnancy gifts and he smiled and said, “Didn’t you say you weren’t pregnant?” and then he laughed. I asked him “Bernard, what if I am pregnant?” and then he calmly sat down and said “Sarah, do you want me to tell you how babies are made?!” and we had a good laugh.

Bernard and I are married so I am perfectly comfortable saying that we have a lovely marriage with lots of love, but we love in a safe way. Typically, when you love safely, no baby… but I’m a paranoid moron sometimes, so I was just on “high period alert.”

The next day as I was feeding Aryan and he was smiling at me, I started thinking “what if?” Seriously, what if I was pregnant? Bernard and I are married and plan on being so for the next 478937 years. We make a decent living. Although we have overseas plans, they could easily be changed if needs be. I don’t drink anyway. I have a support system. I’m almost 26 years old. We are likely going to have a baby anyway.

I was starting to be “okay” with the idea that I could be pregnant.

(I’d like to stop and remind you that there was no way I was pregnant, but the BABY FEVER in Abu Dhabi was practically brainwashing me into thinking that the baby way is the only way!)

 Anyway, I got my period and was happy, obviously. I sat down with Bernard and I started to say “Hey, you know, I was thinking that it wouldn’t be so bad if I was pregnant…” He cut me off, “WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR DINNER?!” I stopped him. “Bernard! Just listen. Calm down. But seriously, if I were to get pregnant—“ He started pacing and opening and closing the fridge door. Then he went into the kitchen, turned on the tap, and looked at me. “What? I can’t hear you.”

At that point, I realized Bernard was right. I was a little baby crazy and I needed to stop. That weekend, I babysat Aryan and felt better. I had my baby fix. Bernard also felt better because I stopped my insane thoughts about babies. He started to find pictures of puppies and very quickly I started saying, “Bernard, I want a dog!” He was happy. His mission was accomplished.

In a place where every other store is a baby store or a children’s store, it’s really hard to explain why you aren’t thinking about having a baby. People don’t understand “I’m still young” because I’m not, in their eyes. Heaven forbid I said “Fuck that. I don’t want no babies.” They’d probably die. Hah!

Last week I was walking to school with one of the assistants who lives in our villa. She asked me if I was going back to Canada for the summer. I said yes. After a long pause, she said, “Make babies” and we both laughed. I laughed awkwardly and she laughed because I was laughing. I said “No, no, no” and she started talking about IVF and other ways I could have a baby. She clearly didn’t understand that I wasn’t planning on having a baby. I’m still laughing.

In a nutshell, “Can I have an iced tea?” means “I’m pregnant” in this country.

Sarah not even Wun baby

In the beginning...

I wrote this little chapter on the last day of work. I hope you enjoy it. As we wrap up our journey in the Middle East, I plan to chapter out most of our memorable experiences. Enjoy!

As I sit here among the sea of vacant chairs and desks, I reflect back on my year as a teacher in Abu Dhabi. I think about how I once was and how I am now. Frankly, I don’t remember how it used to be. I really don’t.

The strength and determination I have had to find to get me to where I am right now is unbelievable. You know when you have those experiences where you only really remember the end of it because you have no idea how you got to it – you just know you got there and didn’t realize you were that kind of person?

I feel like Abu Dhabi has been an experience that has changed me, completely. For better and, maybe, for worse… I don’t know. Maybe I’m less patient. I am definitely less trusting, more paranoid, and more stressed. I feel more irritable, but I also feel wiser, more complete, more in tune with who I am and how I operate.

Here are some notable thoughts on my year as a teacher in one of the hardest, most notorious for discipline issues (aka there is no disciplinary measures), schools in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

The beginning

My name is Sarah. I am Canadian. I am sensitive, passionate, gentle, soft, liberal, loyal, trustworthy, health-conscious, singsong, smiley, optimistic, and positive. I love to smile and infect people with my sunshine demeanor. In previous jobs, I was asked how I am so bouncy and lively all the time. Answer: Because why not? Life is cool! It takes a lot to make me incredibly sad and it takes even more to make me angry. I’m a worrywart and a little paranoid over stupid things. I have health issues that I attempt to keep at bay the natural way – healthy eating, staying positive, yoga.

I was encouraged to apply for an ESL teaching position in Abu Dhabi while I was in graduate school at UBC. Naturally, I flocked to this option, as I trust everyone, and if someone has experience in the area, why wouldn’t I trust him or her? I quickly applied to schools in Abu Dhabi and Dubai and I cried when I got a reply from two schools in Abu Dhabi. One school asked for a few documents, which were easy enough to get, scan, and send. The other school asked me to fill out a 25 page application, create a video essay of why I loved teaching, send loads of documents, and alerted me to the fact that the job offer had not been set in stone and that this was a process. I was very interested in both. Clearly, the second one was more stringent and all that, so I was rooting for it, but in the end, the first school was the only one that ever emailed back and offered me a job as a Grade Two Classroom teacher in Abu Dhabi, UAE. I was frigging ecstatic! Me… a teacher! I didn’t have a teaching degree, but I had a Master’s in Education and I knew the ropes. My countless volunteer experiences at schools and my passion for tutoring drew me to try teaching overseas.

Teaching overseas had been my dream for over ten years at this point. As a tween, I had this picture in my mind of me going off to Japan, for example, and enlightening young ones and falling in love (with a person and the place) and living and exploring the world. I thought it would be perfection – I should not have jumped to conclusions.

Naturally, as a 12 year old, loving Hanson and not realizing the wonders (and horrors) of the world yet, I didn’t know shit. As a 20-something in graduate school, having experienced ESL tutoring and teaching in Canada, I knew it was not going to be a walk in the park! Not only is ESL teaching one of the hardest jobs on this planet, but also getting to know and feel comfortable in a culture that isn’t familiar is near impossible without support.

Fast-forward to my anticipated departure: Late August, 2012. I had been emailing my director and HR person constantly. My worrywart, pessimist, perfectionist self just wanted to BE there getting my classroom ready for the students and prepping myself for what I would later find out to be one of the most shocking reality checks ever in life. I didn’t end up leaving for Abu Dhabi until September 9^th – almost one week AFTER the first week of school!!! Naturally, I had a few panic attacks and thank GOODNESS I had my rational and calm husband to be all hilarious and sweet. Little did I know the disorganization and aloof attitude towards my visa and flight accommodations (I had to do EVERYTHING myself at the very last minute even though I was prepared to make all these arrangements in early June; I was just told ‘no, we will handle it, please don’t worry’… Don’t worry? Suck it. Assholes).

So Bernard and I finally boarded a plane on September 9^th to arrive in Abu Dhabi I believe at 9pm GMT. We arrived at midnight, but hey, with five million layovers and plane changes, lateness is bound to happen. Anyway, the flight was a horror movie. I fainted, convulsed, threw up what seemed like endlessly, and couldn’t breathe. GOOD TIMES. Needless to say, I fear getting BACK on a plane for that long in a few weeks, but this time I’ll be flying towards my loving family and familiarity, not some strange land where no one knows me and no one trusts me.

Fortunately, I had Skyped with a lovely lady prior to arriving in Abu Dhabi and I was given her flat number, so I knocked on her door around midnight and her and her husband were nice enough to take us to the mall where we picked up some peanut butter and bread for a quick lunch for me the next day.

So we went to bed, and I actually managed to wake up around 6am the next day to head to work. Everyone was nice and smiley. The VP welcomed me to Abu Dhabi and the coordinator for my department generously toured me around. She first took me to a grade one class and told me it was mine. I smiled and greeted the kids. I very shortly after found out it was a mistake and they weren’t my class – number one of eight million in a list of mistakes to happen at my school… No big deal!

I finally met my real class: Grade 2Y. I smiled and waved and made cute faces at them. I had never taught a grade two class before. I had taught grade two children, but never a class full of small Arabic children. They all stared at me suspiciously as if I was Lady Gaga but they didn’t like Lady Gaga because of preconceived notions, if you know what I’m saying. It felt hostile. It felt scary… but I was excited! I wanted to get up and teach RIGHT then and there, but I didn’t. I was told I would start tomorrow. I didn’t know what to teach, what to say, what to do… nothing. I wasn’t given a curriculum; I wasn’t even given a book! Hell, I didn’t have a damn board marker! I just had to go in and GO.

The next day, I eagerly bounced out of bed and walked to school. I stumbled around like a jackass and found my coordinator. She led me to my class where the mayhem began. All the kids were hopping around and screeching and just acting like pure animals. The teacher who was in the class gave me a weak smile and left. I turned to face the kids and when I turned back, my lifelines were gone. I was left to do my thing. The kids’ noise level and animal levels intensified. Welcome to Abu Dhabi… good luck!

Approximately 95% of my day was spent trying to talk over the kids. I managed to ask them their names and only a couple lied to me. They laughed as I mispronounced their names and continued to cause a ruckus as I looked confusedly at my desk, the awkwardness of the triangle-shaped, small ass classroom, and the general crappy atmosphere.

Break time was death. An assload of screeching animals (children) running around at lightning speed, doing all but killing each other – pinching, scratching, shoving, kicking, spitting, biting… so much biting… twisting, punching, and just terrorizing each other. They all seemed to glare at me with demonic grins as they sized up the new teacher all prim and proper in my long skirt and countless layers of appropriate, yet ugly, clothing. So I wandered around at break duty not knowing what I should be doing. I was told to go to the basement for duty. What the hell does that mean? Some teachers were sitting talking on their blackberries, others were talking to each other, some were pacing and glaring viciously at me. (I later realized this was not a vicious glare at me – it was a perma-scary face NECESSARY to have ANY control over the children… seriously). I was frightened. Why wasn’t anyone smiling? Why wasn’t anyone telling me what to do? I asked a few people but they just glared at me and walked away.

Home time was also a wake up call into the realities of the Middle East and hierarchy. Earlier than expected, random people opened my classroom door, yelling foreign names I did not recognize, and then my students one by one barreled out of my classroom in a very disorganized and pushy fashion without so much as a glance up. When maids or nannies came in, the children would hurl their bags at them and I would say “hey! Show some respect” and the children would laugh at me like I had no idea. The nanny would also glare at me like I offended her for trying. It was a strange thing I had never seen before. Parents would look at me warily; grab their kid saying “yalla! Yalla!” [hurry up/let’s go] and leave without so much as a wave. I was traumatized by the day and by all the things I was just supposed to know. I was told before moving to Abu Dhabi that I would have extensive training on cultural sensitivity and policy and procedure of the school. Nope. I was just supposed to know.

I was also just supposed to know that there was a meeting after school. As I was catching my breath from the day, my class phone rang. I jumped and picked it up. “Hello, Miss Sarah? Yalla! There’s a meeting! Let’s go!” I ran around trying to find the room and when I found it, I walked in to cold stares and an uncomfortable freeze in communication. I whispered sorry, wiped my eyes, and found a seat. This would be the first of many meetings where little was actually said and less was understood. This was my first meeting, so I was ready with pencil in hand. I didn’t really understand anything – terminology, procedures, a lot of “as we did last year…” – I began to think I was the only new teacher. I began to feel isolated and uncomfortable. I began to think that maybe this was more than just a bad day.

Needless to say, at the end of my day, I collapsed into Bernard’s arms, sobbing profusely, talking of disrespect and audacity. The first week we had to polish off some visa stuff and so not only were my days filled with disrespectful children and glaring, menacing staff, but at the end of my days I had to travel around blindly (thank goodness for Bernard!!!!) to get shit done. We also had to buy food, furnish our apartment, and dodge roaches… and get over the fear of cockroaches. Luckily, Bernard is a true badass so he took the liberty of killing most of them, but I eventually had to step up and bust a cap in loads of cockroach ass.

The first week was hell, the next week was worse. Come October, I was just sad and angry all the time. My kids were dickheads and most of them didn’t have the decency to let me even ask them to do something. Luckily, I had a LOT of good kids in my class (I later learned most teachers had at least 30 kids who all behaved terribly and no one gave a shit. I actually had a class with few ‘locals’ and lots of kids who, with time, could and would eventually be managed).

Honestly, I don’t remember much of September through December, and when I try to think of it, my head hurts. An example of a notable experience of hellish proportions was a light fixture falling from my ceiling and nearly hitting a student in the head, followed by me having to interrupt my own lesson to clean it and deal with it. How was it dealt with? “Okay miss, it’s fine.” Nothing. Nothing happened. I demanded that someone come and make sure all the light fixtures were secured but of course it didn’t happen. I was petrified… Later I would discover that things like this need a “zero fucks” and “oh well” attitude. But this was first semester and I was still the happy, sweet, patient, worrywart, way too caring Canadian who cared about safety, bullying, and discipline.

Don’t get me wrong, I definitely still care about those things, but my perspective of everything had to change in order for me to survive Arabia and teaching in my school.

I consistently found myself baffled by everyone’s nonchalant attitude to my intensely upsetting experiences, like kids threatening to kill each other, and me! Granted my kids were only seven years old, but as Dr. Phil says, early behaviour predicts future behaviour… so I was concerned. I was always concerned. I was way too concerned about everything. I learned to shed this concern and remain fairly neutral with the ability to be alert if necessary.

I was told by a kind colleague, who invited me over after school one day after she saw me crying, that it isn’t that bad. That it gets better. She told me that she worked at the all boys’ section of our school last year and her students would literally jump on tables, throw desks, and piss in the corner of the classroom. I laughed… she didn’t. She said, seriously. This was my standard of bad: Kids pissing in the corners of the classroom. I had students pee on the floor in the bathroom… but this wasn’t directly in front of me as an act of “you can’t stop me and you will never be able to” so I shouldn’t see it as bad.

Essentially, if a student doesn’t whip it out and piss in front of you in the middle of a lesson, then you have it good as a teacher in Abu Dhabi… your job is bliss…

In a nutshell, the beginning was terrible and I wanted to leave because I couldn’t handle it.

Fortunately, as I write this, I know that I overcame this beginning and writing it all down reminds me just how strong you have to be to be an ESL teacher in the UAE. I am a strong person and I always knew that, but after this year, I’m a pure badass.

Sarah don't wanna mess with this Wun

Stay tuned for the next few chapters such as these two:

Tears, Fears, and Spears… into my face

Baby Crazy