Well, we got our contracts last night. We are moving to Al Ain, which is where we thought we would be. It seems they move families there. It is about an hour and a half outside of Abu Dhabi City. Stuart will be teaching in a school that is located about halfway between Abu Dhabi City and Al Ain. As he read about his school he found out it is actually a 1st through 12th grade school with only 200 students, but 30 faculty. Hmmm, those numbers sound good to me. I know that my school is a Cycle 1 school (1st through 5th grades). I also know that I have a Western principal. We are both very excited to get started in our schools.
We are pretty sure that the culture of Al Ain will be a little more conservative than that of Abu Dhabi City. AD is much more westernized than I imagined. Frankly, we could be in any major city in the states. It seems to be a melting pot of cultures. Nothing about this place makes me feel nervous or scared for any reason. The question we got most often when we told people about this entire experience was 'Is it safe?' I can tell you with 100% confidence that this place is totally safe. Throw your stereotypes out the window and come visit us. See for yourself.
We walk around the malls and we don't feel out of place. They have all the fast food we have in the mall food courts and then there is the traditional Arabic food as well as a lot of Indian food. The malls are several stories tall and you would be hard pressed to find much on sale. I have been told that shopping is the national past time. I fit right in!
At the grocery stores you can buy American brands of most anything but it is just more expensive. There are a lot of nuts and dried fruits in bulk barrels, especially dates. So far we have not seen any pork products, but are told there are secrets stashes in some of the stores.
The people are wonderful. Everyone loves the kids and wants to touch them or talk to them or play with them. I really believe most people would find the UAE very similar to home, except maybe more hospitable. There are rude and entitled people as well, but what society doesn't have that group?
We started orientation on Sunday that lasted two hours and then people just started to get up and leave, signaling it was over. It was odd to say the least. There we were able to start the process of setting up our bank account and get more information about car rental and furniture for our new home.
We had our medical exam yesterday. The advantage of going through a large organization with immigration is that they have things all set up for you. Although it took some time, it was easy. When Stuart went through immigration in the states we had to figure everything out on our own and it seemed more complicated.
We will most likely move on Friday to a new hotel in Al Ain. Then we will start school, with kids, on Sunday. Nothing like just throwing us in and seeing how it goes.
We are still not sure what we are going to do for Jack and Millie as far as daycare is concerned. However, we are leaning towards putting Jack in school. He is old enough to be in the KG1 program, which would be equivalent to preschool. If we do not do that we have been told that because of his age, next year he would automatically go into KG2, which means he would miss preschool unless we would be able to find a daycare that basically does preschool-like things for kids his age. We shall see.
We met an English woman who has teenage girls who are babysitting Jack and Millie while we have to do school things, which is great. They are moving to Al Ain as well so hopefully we can talk them into staying with the kids until their mother can find them a school and we can find places for Jack and Millie. They have truly been a blessing from God.
So far we love it. Things move at a much slower pace and I have had to keep my big mouth shut on more than one occasion already. The kids have adjusted well so far and are now on the right sleep schedule, which is good for all of us. Now, if their mother could stop waking up in the middle of the night, that would be nice. Although, if I start sleeping normally these posts might not ever happen.
Stay tuned!
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