Hello all,
So it’s been a while since you’ve all heard from me (for a few of you, a very long while, as is not atypical for me), but I wanted to let you all know that I have arrived safely in Abu Dhabi and am beginning to settle in here nicely.
I got in last Thursday night but was without reliable internet access until tonight, so my apologies for not writing sooner. My flights were uneventful except for the fact that due to our late departure from Boston, I had to rush a bit to catch my connecting flight in London and one of my bags accidentally went to Dubai. I can understand its desire to do so – from what I’ve seen and heard of it, Dubai is a cool place. Luckily it made its way back to me the next day.
So this place is pretty amazing. The city is at once both incredibly familiar and completely foreign due to an interesting combination of western/expatriate influence and traditional Islamic customs. Pretty much any item you’d find in the states is available here in some form, and there are times when I feel I could be back home. But then the call to prayer rings out, or I walk down a street and hear nothing but Arabic, and I’m reminded of how far away I really am. I certainly can’t describe it all, but I can say that the magnitude of the move has either not sunk in yet or hasn’t hit me the way I expected it to – as different as it is here and as much as I’ve already had to adjust, I just don’t feel like I picked up and moved halfway around the world. I guess never having done something like this before, it’s hard to know what to expect.
It certainly helps to have 6 or 7 NECC colleagues from back home here – there always seems to be someone to hang out with. Also, in just a week I’ve already met some very interesting people, both expat and local, and so far everyone has been really nice and helpful.
The job is also going well. My student is pretty cool – very high functioning and he has a great sense of humor. The first day I worked with him (which incidentally involved going skiing in Dubai - the “slope” is actually in a mall of all places), he told me a joke with a play-on-words punchline (my favorite kind, surprise surprise) and then proceeded to explain to me exactly why it was funny. He might not make it as a stand-up, but he’s quite entertaining nonetheless. He was also very caring and showed a great deal of concern for me as I repeatedly fell down the “mountain” (my skiing leaves something to be desired, though by the end of the day I had the hang of it…sorta). I’ll be sure to tell more about him and the British school he goes to (which is quite interesting), but if you want a snapshot of his academic ability, I started teaching him to solve simultaneous equations yesterday. Don’t feel bad if you don’t know what that means – I didn’t either.
At the risk of going on and on, I’ll cut this short and promise to write more soon. I really hate mass emails, though I suppose they are the most convenient mode of communication in cases like this. That said, I would love to hear from all of you and will certainly do my best to respond individually in addition to the occasional update-en-masse (with pictures, of course, once I’ve snapped a few more and become technologically literate enough to actually figure out how to send them). Also, if there are alternate email addresses you’d like me to use, please let me know. I hope that all of you are well and although I am having a good time here, I do miss you all and hope to hear from you soon.
Maxa salaama (literally “go with peace”),
Jared
