The Dust will settle Leaving comfortable stateside No dust will settle car to plane to plane to plane to customs to bus to bus to hotel No dust will settle Sleep wake eat Bus to meeting to meeting Office bank clinic auditorium Professional standards UAE style Dust scattered everywhere Clouds of 25 conservations Pause continue pause continue English French Arabic German street slang Curbs and sand and asphalt in every direction Trees rooted in w...

Ten thousand miles apart yet these things are the same Teenage high school boys deliberately screech their truck tires to mark the asphalt and ride with door open to greet their friends, Stateside and UAE side Little girls cry in order to manipulate their mother into their decision Public school teachers are overworked and riddled with their "piles" that never end, like laundry Great and compassionate administrators get paid for one job and obligate ...

The quietest Bus Ride Sunday is the first day returning to our schools after a quiet "Persian Gulf" resort weekend. I will skip all classroom details for now to report its greatest effect, no teacher talking for hours after school! Not one sound! Come on now, that is a rare event; the hundreds of teachers I had met stateside and UAE always have something to say. The educational council hires a travel agency to coordinate the housing and transport for teachers...

Least Favorite Moment At 9PM we were being driven in a newly equipped minivan from Abu Dhabi to Western region in Ruwais. The education council wanted the teachers to be placed commuting distance to their school sites, Al Ain or Al Gharbia. I, the stateside foreigner, had been chugging water in response to arid desert climate, in response forces me to be on the lookout for bathrooms every known destination. SO, as we were travelling for hours and hours, I ne...

This pic shows the cartoon-like high energy of the boys like the ones my classroom! They write, listen, do math, eat, run, laugh, and talk and talk. I have two sections of 25 boys each school day, do not sit down until I sleep. Truly, in heart, they are some of the most interesting people I have ever met. My school principal and head of faculty are patient, beautiful, intellectual women who never cease to uphold the mission of education for hundreds of the studen...