World's Greatest Daad

With Father's Day coming up, we need to start thinking about all those special dads out there. If you are a doting father, just remember that nothing you do will ever compare to the U.A.E.'s own Daad Mohammed Al Balushi. You see, when his parents named him Daad, they could not have known the destiny that they imparted on him. Daad is the proud father of 92 children and counting. Don't think that this man is just resting on his laurels, either. Daad has made an ambitious promise to father 100 children by the year 2015; a promise this 64 year old wonder intends on keeping.

His rhymes are so potent that in this small segment he made all of the ladies in the area pregnant.

I first learned of Daad's adventures in fatherhood from an article celebrating people dedicated to passing along their DNA to as many children as possible (Daad is #4 on the list). This man from Ajman made his fateful promise to the late Sheikh Zayed in 2002 and so far has worked to keep his word. Because it would be impossible for one woman to aid Daad in his quest, he has enlisted the help of 18 women to be the mothers of his children.

Naturally, those of you reading this are thinking, "Hey wait a minute, doesn't Sharia law allow a man to marry only four wives? How can the government of the U.A.E. get behind this?" Don't worry. Daad has thought of that. You see, Daad only keeps four wives at a time, divorcing them as he goes along. In fact, he married his 18th wife last year, and all of the expenses were paid for by His Highness Sheikh Humaid, the leader of Ajman. How's that for a lucky lady!

Daad is "pretty sure" he can name at least two of the kids on his lap.

Don't think that Daad is not selective of his brides to be. He has clearly stated that he will not marry a divorcee or widow. What are Daad's specific tastes in women like? In 2010, he married an 18 year old woman from India as arranged by his doctor and was "visibly excited" when talking about how pretty she looked in the pictures of her that he had seen. In fact, even though he has stated that he thinks he has married enough women to meet his 2015 goal, he has mentioned that he will be scouting for a new bride in Jaipur, India when he travels there to have his prosthetic leg fitted (hint, hint, ladies).

I'm sure that all you fathers out there with your one, two, three, or even ten children feel pretty good about yourselves and the time spent with your families. But just remember while you're playing catch with your son or daughter, teaching them to read or ride a bicycle, or just relaxing on the beach while they splash around in the waves, that there is a man out there who has no interest in what you think it means to be a dad.

Eid al Adha Holiday

The Imam needs to see this moon before you can book your holidays.

For the Eid al Adha holiday, we are never sure exactly what days off we will have until it is a little too late to actually book a holiday. Because of the dates that Eid was presumed to fall on, we knew that we would get Sunday (usually a work day), Monday, and Tuesday off (November 6th - 8th). The question remained whether we would also get Wednesday and Thursday off to make it a full week. In the past in similar situations the teachers and students have gotten the time off so a lot of people took the gamble and booked week long vacations.

Last Tuesday we got notification that we were only getting the three days (plus weekend) off to make this a mere 5-day holiday. This was no big deal for me because I had only planned on going camping for a few days. Others were not so happy. To add to the insult, many of the other colleges around the UAE were off for the whole week. A lot of teachers and students had already booked holidays. Since students were unlikely to cancel holidays, that meant mass absences and not much chance of any teaching going on.

The good news came at 3:45 today in an email: we were going to have the full week off. Unfortunately, the damage was done. Some teachers who had previously planned on traveling canceled their trips, losing deposits.While none of this really surprises me, I do think it could have been handled better. Giving everyone the week off to start with would have made everyone happy and helped to avoid the resentment. Alternately, had the powers that make the decision announced the dates earlier, students and teachers would have been prepared to be at school this coming Wednesday and Thursday. At any rate, I'm not about to complain about a week off.

Marriage

I know a few non-Emirati women who are married to Emirati men and then are by default Emirati citizens. (My apologies if I have oversimplified this. I welcome any corrections in the comments.) However, I didn't know any native Emirati women married to non-Emirati men. I've asked about this a few times, but never really got a satisfactory answer. I was under the impression that it just didn't happen.

The National has written two articles about this, dispelling my preconceptions. As it turns out, Emirati women marrying non-Emiratis is on the rise. (This article gives details of the trend.) Unfortunately, for the women involved, they lose citizenship as do their future children. The thinking behind this is that "they are viewed as incapable of making decisions effectively, and in need of protection so as not to be taken advantage of by others.”

In a second article, an Emirati woman tells her story of marrying a Scottish-Egyptian man. She expresses her very real concerns about her desire to pass on her culture to her children despite them not being Emirati citizens. She goes on to talk about the lack of equality between Emirati men and women with regards to with international marriages.

This seems to be a law that is on the verge of change as most people mentioned in the article don't have any strong feelings in support of it. The bureaucracy regarding international marriages in the UAE make marriage in Japan seem free and easy.

Censorship Revisited

I realize that I'm not covering any new ground with this post, but censorship is a topic that comes to mind occasionally, especially when it's done in a ridiculous fashion. As with the Christina Hendricks cover of GQ, someone has been busy putting white stickers on photos of women's cleavage in order to protect me from impure thoughts. This time the objectionable photo was seen on the back of a box of Special K breakfast cereal. As you can see from the photo, not only is the model's cleavage covered, the sticker with the product information written in Arabic is also being used to cover her thighs in her short dress.

Naturally my thoughts go out to the poor people who are spending their time putting thousands of stickers on magazine covers and cereal boxes to protect others like me from temptation. I wish these brave men (or women?) well for putting themselves in harm's way to keep me safe from the impure thoughts that would naturally occur were I able to see what is under the nearly transparent stickers.

Camel Beauty Contest

As everyone familiar with the story of the first Christmas is aware, Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the desert. To celebrate this Christmas season, I was planning on going to a Camel Beauty Contest. (Click here read about it.) This annual camel festival takes place in Al Dahfra, about a two-hour drive from us. It's part of a two-week festival. This contest, the biggest in the world, has over $26 million in prizes. I was hoping to go last year, but never got around to it and this year, and was too beat to drag the kids there to look at some camels. I kind of regret not going again. Hopefully, I'll make it next year.

National Day Decorations

Today is National Day in the UAE. Last year, I celebrated it by going to Oman and this year we will be celebrating by getting the hell out of Abu Dhabi and going to the Empty Quarter. Emiratis celebrate it by decorating their cars and partying in the streets. I took a few photos of some decorations with my phone and here are a few of my favorites. Enjoy!

National Day Celebration

Thursday is the UAE National Day so our school had a celebration yesterday morning. It started out with everyone standing outside to wait for the police band to arrive then perform. Here they are playing the bagpipes in formation.

Once we got back into the auditorium, we were treated to a musical performance by some of the students. They played four songs beautifully. The first and third were classical Arab songs played on instruments from the region. I was very impressed with how well they were played and was disappointed that they weren't longer. The second song, sandwiched between the Arab music was "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica. While it is a slow song, I thought it was an interesting choice. However, it wasn't as interesting as the fourth song, "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen. It was great to see how into the chorus the audience got and quite surreal to see the students clapping along and chanting "Hallelujah."

After the music, there were some students who read poetry in Arabic. Despite having no idea what they were saying, it had a really good rhythm to it and was entrancing. As someone who didn't know what was being said, I felt the poetry went on a bit long, though the students who hadn't sneaked out by that point really got into it.

The presentations were followed by a two hour buffet lunch outside in the shade. That was my morning classes shot. I was a little surprised to find my afternoon students showed up but there you have it. With National Day on Thursday we have a four day weekend. Combine that with all the planned celebrations this week, I don't feel like teaching so you can imagine that the students won't feel like studying.

Phone Comparison

As is common here, I saw a student with several phones on his desk. I've seen this before, but assumed that each was for a different group of people, like business, family, and friends; or something like that.

Seeing three distinct brands of phone aroused my curiosity so I asked my student which one was the best. He hesitated and said that he couldn't really say. Why I asked him why not, he replied, "I use the Blackberry for messaging, the i-phone for playing and the Nokia for calling."

With all those features, who can blame him for being indecisive?

Adultery

It's important to remember that in the U.A.E, adultery is a crime. Even if you aren't married, having sex with another person is still considered adultery. While it is not nearly as severe as in countries like Saudi Arabia or Iran, the consequences can be life changing. Two items in the news today are good examples of this.

In the first article (click here to read the whole thing), a Filipino woman in her 20's fainted. Once she was taken to the doctor, she was found to be pregnant. When it came to light that she was unmarried, she was forced to reveal who her boyfriend was. While the lady in question wasn't married, her Filipino boyfriend turned out to be. His wife and kids are still in the Philippines. As far as I can tell, both the woman and her boyfriend are being held. As is often the case, Asians are considered a lower class than Emiratis or even Europeans or North Americans so their punishment in crimes is often more severe.

That's why this next case seems to be that much more surprising. A British woman is facing a prison term and the loss of custody of her children after being convicted of adultery (click here to read the article). She and her Egyptian husband had recently had marital troubles. The truly shocking part of the story is that she has been convicted without proof and maintains that nothing ever happened. Her ex-husband and police burst in on her while she was having tea with an acquaintance. By all appearances, this is a case of her husband's attempt to frame her so he can get custody of the kids.

While both stories are out of Dubai, I think they are appropriate to how things are in Abu Dhabi. I would also have to say that they are an exception more than the norm. However, reading about things like this does wake a person up to how the country is run.

University Prep

In the news yesterday, there was an article about how 90% of U.A.E. high school graduates are unprepared for University. The recently hired Provost of the Higher Colleges of Technology, the schools I work for, was quoted extensively in the article. There are a number of statistics given showing the number of students who need to complete college preparatory courses before they are suitable for studying at the university level. These are generally the students that I teach.

Unfortunately, while the article is full of examples of students that need these "foundations" courses in Math and English, along with descriptions of the students' situations, not much is written about the causes of the problem. The only mention of this talks about how students go from wrote-learning in high school to an environment where they have to analyze data and think critically (sound familiar to anyone in Japan?). Having taught rooms full of students who couldn't sit still for more than 10 minutes at a time last year, I don't know if I would attribute this situation to that entirely, but it is one reason among many.

One thing that the online article misses which was in the print version, are opinions from four Emirati students. Two of the students felt that the foundation programs were a waste of their time a third thought that he knew the Math, but since he studied it in Arabic in High School, the program taught the the Math in English, which he needed for University. The fourth felt that it prepared him for the change in teacher dynamic required for university.

Personally, I find that the students I teach this year are much more able to sit and study than the students I had last year. At first, I thought it was because I was teaching a higher level of student but after talking with other teachers who are teaching the lowest students, they all agree that that students this year are much more respectful that last year.

Overall, I thought the article was well worth a read, especially for people who are considering coming to the U.A.E. (Click here to read the article.) Also, I give the people who released the data, the credit for realizing that there needs to be a change.

Handicapped Spot

In one of my classes, there is a handicapped student who walks with a special cane. Because of this, the school created a special spot for him outside his classroom. They had to cut some hole into the brick, cement some posts around the spot with chains and a lock to keep others from parking there.

After the school went through this effort, he got transferred to my class, a few hundred meters away. Since then, the classrooms have been exchanged so his spot is right next to his classroom again.

I don't want to give the impression that I'm complaining about the student, because I'm not. In addition, I think that it's great that the school would go to these lengths to make his life easier. I just think that it's a sad state of affairs that the school would have to do anything more than paint a sign on the spot to reserve it for a handicapped student.

When I told my wife about this lack of courtesy, she told me about the time a few days ago when she saw a car double-parked in front of a handicapped spot at a supermarket. The space was empty, but the car was blocking it so when a person with handicapped tags tried parking there, all they could do was circle around the parking lot waiting for the car to be moved. The thing that really gets me about that story is that the person didn't even have the guts to actually park in the spot and risk a fine. Instead, they blocked the spot for their own selfish convenience, completely missing the point.

Censorship?

While viewing some magazines the other day, I saw this cover of GQ with a picture of the buxom Christina Hendricks on it. A white sticker was covering her cleavage. The sticker was slightly transparent and could easily be pulled away which kind of left me wondering what the point was. To add to the confusion, there was an issue of FHM, a British girly magazine, next to it. What would the point of buying that magazine be if you couldn't look at the pictures?

Photo Contest

This is actually some fairly old news, but since I've been wandering the halls at Abu Dhabi Men's College for various reasons, I've noticed the photography that's been up in the front entrance. This is remnants from the schools photography contest at the end of last semester. I think it's impressive, and I like the idea of the students getting into something and taking pride in an outside activity that doesn't involve something they can buy.

A few teachers pointed out that some of the photos are too good, too well timed, such as catching a man riding a jet-ski in mid flip. I prefer to avoid cynicism and say that for the most part the students took pride in the accomplishment of having their photos selected. I was in the room when one of my students received notification that his photo (directly below) had won honorable mention. His reaction was genuine and a joy to watch.
The next two photos were just pictures that I liked for one reason or another.





Lastly, here is the winner. I think it's a nice photo and gives a real feel for traditional Arabic life.


I offer my apologies for only providing crappy photos taken with a camera on a phone. It was my intention to provide a link where people could view the photos for themselves. Unfortunately, search as I may, I just couldn't find any presence on the web. They're possibly buried in some campus news story on the inter-college portal in which you have to log in on, but what use would that be? I really think that the organizers dropped the ball on what could have been a wonderful promotion opportunity.

Thirst

Over the past few days I've been pushing through the jet lag and going into work. Something that I find helps is a constant infusion of caffeine that I get though sipping on tea throughout the day. Unfortunately, with this being Ramadan, I can't have any food or drink at my desk. That means that any time I want to get a snack or even get a drink of water, I have to go into the break room. This has been severely hindering my productivity. I would feel bad, but based on the constant number of people in the break room, it seems to be hindering everyone's productivity. Last year when I was just starting at the school, it was a wonderful opportunity to get to know everyone, because everyone in the school was in the break room eating their lunch. This year, it's working out to be the same.

Also with Ramadan, we have shorter work hours. We're only expected to be there from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and I've gotten funny looks from people when I'm still sitting at my desk at 3:05 because I'm in the middle of something. I have to admit that aspect of the holy month is nice, but I'm still thirsty all the time.

In addition, when trying to schedule time to run or cycle, I now have to leave early in the morning not only to avoid the heat, but to avoid sunrise as well. Wednesday and Thursday I went running and had to make sure that I was finished with my drink before the sun rose. (Here is a photo of the lights along the road I run, the Corniche in Abu Dhabi.) I suppose that I'm being overly paranoid, but I don't want to deal with the hassle of being stopped by a policeman.

This morning, I went cycling and only the hard core people were there because it's hard to drink on our ride. It turned out that I wasn't quite as hard core as I thought when I got separated from the group after about 10 kilometers into the ride. I just couldn't adjust to the heat. As it was, I was always looking around for when no cars were around so I could eat or drink something to keep from passing out.

In the end, I made it home where I can sit around in the air conditioning with a blanket on my lap eating and drinking all that I want.

Sakura

Abu Dhabi has gone truly international. They are having a Japanese Sakura (cherry blossom) festival that has been going on since late April. I've seen a few signs for it, but haven't heard much about it and can't seem to find much information about it on the web. The posters seem to portray Japan as accurately as American TV and movies (that is, not very accurately) and the sign with the word "sakura" on it is written in various Japanese characters in a manner that makes it almost impossible to read for those familiar with Japanese writing.
There isn't much chance of a report as I haven't attended and don't really have a strong desire to. From what I've heard from others who have attended, it seems like not a lot of other people living in Abu Dhabi do either.

Easter

People think that because I live in a Muslim country that Easter isn't recognized here or even worse, forbidden. The opposite is actually true. While I don't know the specific significance of Easter in Islam, I do know that Jesus considered one of the prophets. I asked a Muslim co-worker of mine feelings his feelings about Easter as well as the Muslim beliefs. He told me that Muslims believe that Jesus is alive along with the other prophets such as Mohammed, Moses, and Abrahim. He said that in the Torah it teaches that a few days before Jesus was crucified, God changed hi with a double of some sort and the man that was crucified was not actually Jesus.

While the idea of what actually happened to Jesus is quite different, the basic belief that he was holy is the same. I would imagine that most people in the U.S. would be surprised to learn how closely tied to each other Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are to each other. The longer I'm here, the stranger it seems that the leaders of countries in which these three religions are prominent are working to create a divide.

As I said, I don't really know the actual significance of Easter in Islam, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't involve colored eggs, chocolate bunnies, and peeps. Happy Easter everyone.

Wonders

Currently there is a worldwide campaign to choose the "New 7 Wonders." Through a process of elimination, there are now 28 official finalists and the UAE has one in the running. They have created a website and are encouraging people to vote for their candidate, Bu Tinah, an island off the coast of Abu Dhabi.

The Grand Canyon is also one of the finalists. The idea is interesting and if this its the first you have heard about it, you should go to the New 7 Wonders website and check things out and vote. Who knows, your favorite natural wonder could win and be destroyed after becoming a huge tourist draw.

Students (take 2)

Right now is the time of the semester when the summer holiday seems so close yet so far away. With a three quarters of the year behind us, the students must be feeling that too. The good news is that by now, most of the jokers in my classes have been removed for poor attendance and only the serious students are left.

Because they're college students, they have a lot going on. Pretty much every class, one or more students has to leave early to visit a friend or relative in the hospital. A lot of them must be pretty sick themselves, because they themselves have doctor's appointments to go to. I feel a little sorry for how difficult it must be to schedule a visit with a doctor because even though the last class finishes at 1:40 in the afternoon, all of their appointments are around 12:00 or 1:00.

Also, their families put huge burdens on them at the young age of 18. Every class, two or more students get important phone calls from their fathers that they have to take lest their father get angry. On the one or two occasions that I've questioned a student, he showed me his father's name clearly written in Arabic to show me who was calling.

Even with all they have to deal with, a majority of the students step up and do what they have to. Even though the ideas of currency exchange and ratios were a little difficult for them, I was pretty happy with the results of the last quiz. Right now, we are studying how to add hours and minutes and apart from a few students, they're OK with that.

This week is Independent Learning Week in which the students don't have to attend classes, but they have projects for each of their courses. Based on the reaction from some of my students, I think that the project we gave them might have them a little overworked. They have to take 10 quizzes online covering the math that they learned in the first semester. Each quiz takes about 15 minutes so that's two and a half-hours of work. That may not sound that bad, but when you take into consideration that we're expecting them to remember material from the first semester such as changing fractions to decimals and rounding, it gets a bit ridiculous. We DO give them the chance to take the quizzes as many times as they want and take their best score, but that takes more time...time they certainly don't have.

If you're thinking that being a college student at my school is all work then you'd be wrong. A few weeks from now, the English department has a treasure hunt scheduled for the students. From what I understand, the students will be looking for clues scattered around the building. While I don't know the full details, I DO know that there is a Disney movie scheduled for afterward. Unfortunately, I have a Math conference to attend that day so I'll have to find out what movie it was later.

Even with all the work, I'm happy to have the job I do. A lot of the students are very nice people and genuinely work hard. Teaching at this school reminds me of when taking Physics in college. Most of the people in my class didn't take it very seriously. There was an Indian man who taught us who I imagine had to work very hard to get to where he was. Looking back, he must've thought that we were lazy and pampered. Compared to how hard he probably had to work in his life, he was right. It's all a matter of perspective.

Race

One thing about living here that should be noted is that the U.A.E. nationals are multi-racial. Skin color can vary radically. I have seen red-haired, blue-eyed Emiratis and have several students who would be called African-American back in the States (though I doubt whether my students have been to either Africa or America). There seems to be no differentiation among races or based on skin color.

I hadn't really given it much thought until today when two of my students who were jokingly giving each other a hard time began calling each other the worst word in the English language, a word so bad that I can't even type it out fully: "*i**e*!" While I should mention that they both have dark skin and seemed fully aware of what they were saying, it did surprise me to hear and I asked them to stop. At the end of class, I took the two of them aside and made sure that they knew fully what they were saying and that some people might find that word offensive. They said that they knew but would be more careful.

I did think the whole thing was kind of funny. One of the guys identifies with African American culture so obviously knew what he was saying. There isn't much of a distinction by race, only by nationality.

Festival

Our kids' school had their International Food Festival today. I convinced my wife that she should get together with the other Japanese moms to have a Japan booth. One of the other moms was concerned that I might get mad because I wanted our family to be a part of the American booth. My wife assured her that wasn't the case and that she shouldn't worry.
In addition to providing "kakigori" or snow cones, she had lots of examples of "origami" (paper folding) and "kirigami" (paper snowflakes). The other moms provided sushi rolls and other typical Japanese food. After several weeks of preparing for this, my wife was delighted to be invited to the school to help with the origami club and to give a demonstration for my son's class.
She spent a lot of time preparing for it and at first I worried that she was over preparing. After seeing the other booths, I'd say she was right about the middle for preparedness.

Overall, I thought it was a good evening, but the festival itself wasn't all that well organized. It seemed like the festival was originally meant to be a pot-luck type thing that someone decided to make a fund raiser and at the last minute changed their mind about. They started off by selling tickets to games then as I was in line to buy tickets they made an announcement that games were free. I wouldn't have minded paying if it was better organized.

One thing that my wife noticed was that the Emirati moms had their maids do all the cooking and setting up and cleaning. I guess that at least they showed up.