Ahhh, the Weekend

One of the peculiarities of the relationship between the Christian and Islamic weekends is that, even though they are "reversed," Saturday ends up having the same purpose in both versions. As I've been blogging about since the world was young, I've been trying to finalize the establishment of a bank account (which should not be this bloody hard). Today, Saturday, a group of us are heading down to actually, insh'allah, put money in the bank. This will be my third to the bank, not counting the dozens of emails, phone calls and texts. Anyway, I'm heading down today because the banks in the Islamic world are closed on Friday, obviously, just as they are closed on Sunday in the Christian world. That leaves Saturday in both worlds when the bank is open half a day, so we're heading down this morning. That left yesterday for general goofing off, and it was a really nice day. After grabbing a big breakfast - Friday is the only day of the week where I don't just eat fruit, yogurt and mueslix - I worked out for a couple hours and then plopped down by the pool. My friend Liane suggested that we head downtown because she wanted to do some shopping, although I think we were mainly interested in getting off the island. Living at the Radisson Blu out here on Yas Island is pretty sweet, but it is very easy to fall into a routine/rut, and I'm determined to make a more concerted effort to change things up. Anyway, Liane and I caught the 2:00 Radisson shuttle downtown and bounced around the Abu Dhabi Mall for a couple hours, and she was successful in finding some clothes and shoes (as expressed in the picture of her reveling in her purchases).

I did find one of her shirt purchases buried in the back of a rack, so I think I more than justified my existence. After that we caught a cab over to the Intercontinental Hotel to go to the Belgian Cafe, which our friend Tanya swears is the best bar in Abu Dhabi. Here in the UAE it is very rare to find a free-standing bar, not surprisingly, so almost every bar is located in a major western hotel, and the Belgian is no exception. It was a nice place, featuring, as you might expect, Belgian beer and food. We had the Hoegaarden white beer and some prawns, which were really good. After that we caught a taxi all the way out to Yas Island, and it only cost around $18, which I've spent to take a taxi from the Burlington Airport to Shelburne, so that was OK (although I always flash back to the pennies I spent to taxis in India and it seems like a fortune). We met up with the other Remnants for our usual happy hour at the Radisson, and then Tanya, Liane and I walked next door to the Park Hotel to eat at their Mexican restaurant, which was expensive (this is Abu Dhabi, after all) but quite good. And then I collapsed into bed. It was really nice to get out and do something different, although it has left me exhausted. Now, if only the banking excursion is half as successful.

The Ghost Walks

It's payday, which is always a nice feeling - especially for my numerous creditors. And, I actually have a local bank to deposit the funds, at least until wiring them back to the Vermont Federal Credit Union, and then sent on electronically to various and sundry companies. It's amazing how all of these things are carried out electronically, or at least amazing to an utter luddite such as myself. Some of my friends, and especially Mike Lange, desire to have as small an internet presence as possible (although not all of them, like Mike, do it because of their role in the witness protection program). I played hooky from Zayed yesterday - although, to be fair, I didn't have any classes or scheduled meetings, so I can't claim any serious measure of profligacy. I caught the 290 bus, which runs from right in front of the hotel cluster out on Yas Island and deposits you downtown. It cost 2 dirhams (about 60 cents) to ride the new, air-conditioned bus for an hour. Surprisingly, I actually remembered where to get off (right at Zayed the 1st Street) and made it to my bank, the local HSBC branch. While I was sitting around waiting to talk to the excellent Imtiaz Shaheedi, I had one of those cool foreign travel moments. The second floor waiting area was very clean, air-conditioned (thank god) and "western", with the exception of a couple things. First off, there was the large, elaborate and authentic Arabic coffee pot, with matching small cups, on the table. Someone would walk up occasionally to ask if I wanted some coffee, and then pour it if the answer was yes. Secondly, while I was killing time I looked at the information screen and saw the following message crawl across the bottom: "Interested in Shariah Compliant Financial Solutions?" When I filled out the paperwork to set up the account in the first place (over two weeks ago) I had the choice of selecting Islamic banking or "regular" banking. Since I chose "regular" banking I wasn't necessariloy looking for Shariah Compliant Financial Solutions, but it has become one of my favorite phrases. Imtiaz took care of all the paperwork and apparently I now have an account, although we he sent me the information last night it was devoured by the Champlain College filter, so I still don't really know anything about the account that I have - other than I have one, or at least I think I have one - and now a check!! The summer I taught in India I just was paid with large wads of rupees, so I never actually had a check - so this is a new thing. I guess I could add it to my list of 50 new things, which I'm supposed to be creating so that my good friend Trish will stop pestering me. She's doing this mainly to humiliate me because her 52 New Things - and her latest 50 New Things in Jordan - have become cultural touchstones. But more on that later.

After finishing up at the bank I walked to the Abu Dhabi Mall, which is where I was schedule to meet the shuttle, several hours later, that would take me back to Yas Island. While killing time in the posh mall I reveled in western consumerism - grabbing lunch at McDonald's (and a Big Mac meal cost exactly the same as it does in the US), ice cream at Coldstone (although they didn't have my favorite, the Boston Creme confectionary ice cream extravaganza) and a latte at Starbuck's (I chose it to take advantage of their wifi, which didn't come together because they charged for it - I guess I was thinking of Chinese Starbuck's which featured free wifi). I also had to do some shopping. In the chaos that was my trip planning/packing, I managed to leave with only four dress shirts, and one of which, my favorite, really is pretty threadbare, and has since arriving lost a pivotal button - so I was forced to guy a couple shirts. Well, the Abu Dhabi Mall was not a particularly good location for such a venture, at least for a poor professor. In every clothing store I entered a regular button-down shirt cost between $150-$200. Now, my friend Alfonso Capone, who is bit of a clothes-horse, tells me that this is a perfectly legitimate price to pay for a shirt, but I guess it's the Hoosier in me - I just couldn't do it. So, I walked into every shop until I found one with a 75% off sale, and ended up buying a couple nice shirts for around $30 a piece. So, in the end it was a success. The Radisson Blu shuttle arrived on time, and off I skated to home.

Now, I'll still have to travel back downtown on Saturday to deposit the check (the direct deposit won't be set up until time for the October payday), but I'm definitely making progress. Next goals: Emirati ID card and Emirati/International driver's license.

A Craptacular Day Redeemed

I'm still adjusting to the different weekends, and I was determined to use today to get downtown and run some very necessary errands, but also stop by the Captain's Arms for fish & chips. Unfortunately, it all fell apart. I was grabbing a quick workout this morning when the very rep at my bank called me to tell me that there was a problem in attemptint go finalize my opening of a bank account at HSBC. First off, I have to admit that I really appreciate that the guy went out of his way to actually do some homework in advance and call me to tell me about a potential problem, as compared to me showing up downtown and then finding out (which is what would have undoubtedly happened at an American bank, especially a Vermont bank). What is annoying is that I began to process of trying to set up a bank account two weeks ago and I was really hoping to finish it today. I couldn't complete the process two weeks ago because I didn't have a local phone (since remedied) and didn't have my passport (Zayed had it as they tried to finalize my resident visa). The passport showed up this week, and so I thought, foolishly, that everything could be locked down today. Essentially the problem today was that my original salary letter from Zayed, which you have to have to open a bank account, had "expired." For some reason it was written on 17 August, two weeks before I arrived in Abu Dhabi. So, I need to get another salary letter, and then make another trip downtown to open the bank account (not to be confused with the trip I have to make downtown to actually put money in the bank, of course). Not surprisingly this put me in a remarkably foul mood and I ended up deciding not to ride downtown with the Remnants because my enthusiasm for life in the UAE had reached an early nadir. Instead, I did the only logical thing a person in that bad of a mood could do - I sat out by the pool, and alternated between swimming, drinking cool mint drinks, tanning, reading, and eating a club sandwich. My mood eventually improved, and I may, may, actually be fit for polite company again. Still, it simply shouldn't be that difficult to set up a bloody bank account. Oddly, I guess I wouldn't mind this so much if it were happening in India or Kenya, but the ultra-modern veneer of the UAE fools you into thinking that these things should be easy. Now, no one is generally more culturally sensitive than I am - or more accepting of different "times" (Arab time, Indian time, Africa time - as my Arab, Indian and African friends always kid about) - but there is a time when it is not simply a case of differing cultural timelines. Sometimes it truly is incompetence.

The Sacred and the Secular

Here's a really beautiful painting created by a female student at the Dubai campus of Zayed University. I made my first of what will undoubtedly be weekly visits to the Dubai campus yesterday (more on that later) and had the privilege of seeing this picture. It is hanging in the office of my good friend Jyoti Grewal, who is also the dean of University College, and who is my boss (as much as I ever have a boss, I suppose). Every year Zayed hosts a women's conference and this painting was displayed. Apparently Jane Fonda loved it and wanted to buy it, but the artist refused and instead gave it to Jyoti because she was her favorite teacher (which says a lot about the power of teacher - as Henry Adams reminded us, a teacher impacts eternity because you can never tell where her/his influence ends). On the long drive back to Abu Dhabi (about an hour and a half) I had lots of time to think about the painting, and, not surprisingly, I had several different thoughts about it. First off, it is beautiful and speaks to the fact that the lives of women in the Islamic/Arabic world are much more complicated than we think they are. Secondly, however, it made me think what the response of Muslims would be if we dramatized some of their iconic images. Now, of course, Jesus is every bit as much a part of the Islamic tradition as he is the Christian tradition, so the distinction between the two is very artificial, and one we make in the "West" all the time (even the use of the term West as distinct from the Arabic/Islamic world is in and of itself a very arbitrary distinction. Plus, it could be argued that this is not an artistic commentary on Jesus, but rather one on an iconic artistic image. The other side of this is, of course, that we "started it" because we were the ones who "commodified" (although I'm currently embroiled in a discussion with my good friend Steve Wehmeyer on this topic) religion in the first place - at least in regards to the representation of our Christian religious figures in a secular setting. If anything, it is the Islamic world that has not changed in that regards; at least not changed in a radical, revolutionary way. One of the constant themes of the blogs since I arrived is the slow, almost imperceptible, evolutionary nature of societal change here - but change nonetheless. Just the creation and celebration of this work of art shows how the world is changing.

Captain's Arms

And here are a few pictures of the very cool pub that we visited while on a driving tour of downtown Abu Dhabi on Saturday. The high point was unquestionably the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque (worthy of a very lengthy post or two later), which was awe-inspiring, but ending up at a little English pub in a quiet, tree-lined little courtyard was a pretty fantastic way to end the day. As it turns out it is really easy to get there because the Radisson Blu has a shuttle that runs downtown to the Abu Dhabi Mall repeatedly throughout the day, and once you're at the mall it is probably around a two block walk to the pub itself (even I could pull it off). I suspect that this is going to be a regular Saturday event. Now, to be fair, it, like almost everything in Abu Dhabi is expensive - as I pointed out a couple posts it did cost around $30 for fish & chips and one beer, but I think I can treat myself occasionally. In fact, I would say this Saturday. My passport actually arrived safe and sound this afternoon, complete with my Emirati visa (which, mysteriously enough, is good through 2014, which may be part of Jyoti's scheme to lock me up for three years), which means I can go to HSBC and complete the process of setting up my bank account. Oh, and one final note - you have to love the happy hour sign. As my good friend Mike Kelly opined, "the hours are right."

Where Am I? (more specifically)

And here's another map that I found in a ZU glossy. The first map is an overview of the new Abu Dhabi campus. At the top is the beautiful auditorium with the administration building right below it. Then there is the courtyard, which is now sitting sadly vacant while the school decides what to do with the space. My theory is that they will add darkened glass to the space in the library that is overlooking the huge central courtyard and it will open up later in the year. Once the weather completedly breaks, and it has already started, the kids will be trying to tear down the walls to get outside. It is a really delicate cultural dance, and I do think that the administration here is doing the right thing in being sensitive to the more conservative parents. In the US we are used to revolutionary change; here in the UAE we're moving along at a more evolutionary pace. The key point is that they are still moving, and moving too fast, as history has shown us time and time again, usually has the opposite impact. Below the courtyard is the main female and male wings of the campus - the female on the left (where my classes are) and the male is on the right (where my office is). Below that is the library, which also has female and male floors and a segregated schedule for the common spaces. The second picture of a close-up with a few of my own clumsy notes added. I suspect I'm probably doing this more for my benefit than anybody else's, but I like to post maps to give a sense of the spacial structure. This place is huge. I went to an orientation session the other day and found out that the male population at Zayed is up to 19%, up from 9% last year, so things are definitely changing. It wwas also interesting to learn that 20% of the students are 18 and younger, with the other 80% being in the more traditional 19-24 range.

Reflections on Things at Hand: A Tuesday

By 10:00 a.m. today I realized that it was just going to be one of those odd days, so I devoted a Reflections on Things at Hand (one of my recurring features) just to the morning.

Today must be insane shoe day at Zayed. I have seen more fashionable/scandalous high heels shoes today than one would normally see in the States in a season. I've talked before about the amazing creativity that the students use when adapting the abaya, as a way to upholding tradition but also expressing individuality. This especially shows itself in regards to shoes, and especially high hells. My favorite of the day was from a young woman wearing a very conservative abaya and hijab, with none of the fashionable additions that they create, who was also wearing the most eye-catching red shoes with what must have been four inch heels. Beyond the fashion disconnect, I'm just amazed at the skill required to walk in them.

My other favorite fashion moment of the day related to a young woman who was sporting a cut-away abaya. Often the students will just leave the abaya open in the front, where it almost looks like a cross between a cape and and an academic robe (think Harry Potter). Lately I've seen several girls with the lower part of the abaya, just in the front, cut away. It works to emphasize what are normally a pair of skin-tight stone-washed jeans. Today the cut-away abaya bracketed a pair of remarkably loose/slouchy pajama pants and moccasins. Fascinating. The thing is that once the girls are in class the vast majority of them are very serious students, and they leave the fashion mentality out in the promenade.

Oh, and walking back into the male wing after office hours I saw one of the boys using a match to light a pipe, inside the building. I have no idea what that was about. I suspect that just as with the high heels and the stone-washed jeans and the pajama pants, it was just fashion.

Queueing Up for Petrol

On the way home from school today we finally had to stop and put some gas in the car. That turned out to be quite the adventure because we headed out a way that we didn't normally go, and our 20 minute drive turned into an hour drive, but getting the gas itself was pretty painless. There was a pretty long queue, which we figured related to the paucity of gas station as compared to the lack of any petroleum in the UAE. We ended up paying 1.61 dirhams per liter, which, if my math is correct, works out to $1.66 per gallon. Many of my friends back in the States were pretty horrified by how low it was (although it is apparently much cheaper in neighboring Saudia Arabic, as you might expect). I did have to admit to people that it tends to balance out, in that I paid $30 for fish & chips and one beer at a cool bar downtown over the weekend (which I'll blog about later). I also paid $30 for a cheesburger and one Coke in Dubai once time, although the burger did have an egg on top and was potentially the best burger I ever had in my entire life.

Hitting My Stride, Sort Of

I'm sitting here on a Sunday afternoon holding my office hours in the main promenade of the female wing, between Magrudy's bookstore and the coffee stand. Note to self: avoid blueberry muffin in the future, Starbucks it ain't. As I've discussed, since I teach in the female wing but have an office in the male wing it is impossible for my students to visit my office. So, I have started holding my office hours out in the main promenade. I posted a picture of the area a few posts back. It looks like the poshest mall you can imagine. The first floor is reserved for shops (yet to be filled, with the exception of Magrudy's) and the second and third floors feature offices and classrooms. To me it's cool to sit out here just to watch the parade of female students and the infinite variety of fashion statements that one can make with an abaya (which I've discussed before). Today I saw the first girl (forgive the use of the terms boy and girl - it's a cultural thing, I don't know anyone at Zayed who says women or men) with colored hair - a streak of blonde. It is rather amazing. I saw three girls on the same bench today: one was covered from head to toe in very familiar fashion, another who were her hijab just like a scarf and who had a colored border on her abaya and what must have been four inches heels on her red high heels, and one who wore her abaya completely open to display her punk rock t-shirt, faded jeans and hi-top Keds. Apparently there is a big move towards a short and sassy bob cut, as compared to the usual fascination with long hair.

I had two great classes today, which for any teacher make our day. As my good friend Alfonso Capone always opines, as long as things are going well in class it doesn't matter what buffoonery the administration is cooking up. I'm starting to get a better sense of the students and what I can expect. I'm really pushing them to analyze material and not just write down what I say and rely upon wrote memorization (which is very much in the tradition that they've experienced up to this point). In my 8:00 class we started to discuss World War I and we had a wonderful discussion. The really liked the poetry of the common soldiers as well as the propaganda posters. When I showed them the famous poster of the little girl sitting on her father's lap and asking, "Daddy, what did you do during the Great War?" they had a very tangible reaction - I suspect because they in turn wrap their fathers around their own little fingers. They did say that they thought that it was unfair to take that approach to shaming young men into fighting, which is good because I want them to understand the very human nature of the conflict and how it changed an entire generation. My 13:00 class is getting ready to start on the Aztecs, although I included a tour around Central and South America to examine, briefly, the Olmecs, Mayans, Moche, Nazca and Incas, just so they'd know that the Aztecs didn't exist in a vacuum. We were bruting our way through a reading from the Mayan epic the Popol Vuh, which they initially thought was stupid but eventually grow to like. We read the section where the first hero twins of the story, One Hunahpu and Seven Hunahpu, were killed by the lords of the underworld, and One Hunahpu's head was tossed in a calabash tree. Then a young virginal maiden, Lady Blood, came to see the amazing sight, only to have the skull spit into her hand and impregnate her, which led her father to order her taken off and killed, and her heart brought back to prove that she was dead (and she substituted a heart made from tree sap, which fooled the gods). The students did a great job digging into the analysis of what might have been going on. First off, two of them pointed out that they have the same story in the Quran, the story of the virgin birth of Maryam (Mary in the Christian tradition). Secondly, they pulled out the obvious Snow white reference (although they were wigged to find out that the story is very old and not a creation of a writer at Walt Disney a few decades ago). Finally, and most importantly, they culled out that it was the interplay between the Mayan priest telling the story orally to a Spanish priest, and then having the story go through Latin and Spanish versions, which might have led to the fusing together of the different versions. I was very proud of their effort and things are starting to come together very nicely.

Oh, and I brought my 8:00 class cookies this morning to apologize for being late on the first day (when my classroom was changed at the last moment). It seemed only fair since I demand that they bring me cookies or cupcakes if they are late. And speaking of which, while I was sitting here typing away a student walked up and gave me a cookie and apologized for being late last week.

Changing Face of Abu Dhabi

I have an absolutely lovely day today that will require several posts to chronicle. Tony, Liane, Peter and I drove downtown Abu Dhabi for the day, which was quite the challenge because it is both completely torn up and also very different than Peter and Tony remembered. We didn't know if Liane was going to make it or not because she was out fairly late at the Beady Eye concert last night, which was literally a five minute walk from our hotel. Yas Island holds a series of concerts once the weather breaks and this was the first. Rafael, the amazing waiter/bartender/conscierge who dominates happy hour ar the Radisson scored us free tickets, even though I begged off - although I have my name in already for Metallica, who are coming in a couple months. Anyway, as part of the trip we both drove out to the point of land past the Marina Mall which gave us a great view of part of downtown (there are big buildings going up everywhere, and this, the second picture down, is just one little corner). We also made it to the insanely posh Emirates Palace Hotel, which has a deal with the British Museum which allows for rotating exhibits actually in the hotel itself. There was also a shop where you could, literally, buy actual artwork such as Tang three-color statues or Moche pottery. I'm not talking about souvenir reproductions - I'm talking about the real deal. I gues if you can afford to stay there you can buy artifacts. I was really taken by a Tang dynasty three-color camel and a Moche pottery of a crouching corpse - my birthday is in early January - I'm just saying. Anyway, the Mesopotamia exhibit had just closed but there was a new exhibit focusing on the work being done on Saadiyat Island, which is the island that will host the new cultural center. Part of this complex will feature the branch museums of the Guggenheim and the Louvre that I mentioned the other day. Sadly, they're just beginning construction so, even considering how quickly things are put up around here, I don't think it will be completed before my year is up. Now, if I stayed . . . Here are the pictures - the top is a few shots from the exhibit of Abu Dhabi in the 1950's when Sheikh Zayed took over, then there's a nice skyline of today, and then the last shot is a model of the Saadiyat Island complex. The mass of bizarre geometic shapes at the bottom is the Guggenheim, right above it, and looking like an extraterrestial/aquatic version of Captain America's shield is the Louvre, and above that, and looking an albino whale crawling back towards the water, is the new performing arts center. These folks dream very big.

Aspirin

The UAE, both Abu Dhabi and Dubai, are famous for their, to say the least, unique architecture. I'm sure this is not the only picture I'll be posting. This is a building that I pass every day on the way to work - and whose outline I can see from my balcony at night - which the ex-pats lovingly refer to as The Aspirin. I think it houses the Emirati organization that overseas all building projects or something like that. I always have this fantasy that someday I'll look up and it will have worked its way loose from its foundation and gone rolling across the desert.

Where Am I?

I won't bore people with a map of where the UAE is located or where Abu Dhabi is inside of the UAE. Both are in the news enough that everybody already knows that. However, I did find a nice little map of where the new Abu Dhabi campus is located inside a glossy book that all the new Zayed hires received. If you look to the far left that is downtown, and that is where the old Abu Dhabi campus used to be, and, truthfully, where I was hoping I'd end up. That said, once you see where the new campus is you can see the logic of where I'm located. Head to the right of the page about 2/3 of the way and you will find the new campus, just below Khalifa City A. There's not much around it now, although the city will doubtless and catch it soon. Now, look up to your upper right hand corner and you'll find Yas Island, where I'm exiled at the Radisson Blu. There's not a lot there at the moment, although in a year, according to the plans I've seen, the place will be jumping. Right now it's only about a fifteen minute drive in, as compared to the forty-five minutes to an hyour commute that I'd be facing if I lived downtown. So, it is a bit of a conundrum. For now I guress I'm perfectly fine bunking at the Radisson. Oh, and just a bit of info - if you look back to the upper left hand corner you see the tip of the island which will soon house the Louvre and Guggenheim branch museums.

ZU Beauty Parlor

OK, I've cut and pasted an announcement that went around on ZU mail yesterday. It dealt with the grand opening of the new beauty parlor on the Dubai campus. Apparently we're going to get our own out here on the Abu Dhabi campus as well. This was a major bone of contention with the Abu Dhabi students last year - they hated the fact that their colleagues in Dubai could go the beauty parlor while on campus and they couldn't. I passed it around to many of my female friends at Champlain who, after tossing out a few disparaging remarks, did take note of the special reserved time every day for faculty and staff. The entire concept is an interesting one and relates to the whole dress code issue at Zayed. On the surface the wearing of the black abaya seems repressive, but it's amazing how the women turn it around and make it a statement of personal style and identity. Yes, some of them wear the abaya in a very traditional way, even down to a veil, but the vast majority of them don't. It astonishing how many of them are also sporting stiletto heels or just leave the abaya open in the front and wear it almost like a cape. The new look I noticed the other day was having the lower part in the front cut out so that the abaya actually nicely framed the stone washed jeans (and, again, the tall heels). An increasing number of the women are not wearing a scarf on their head at all, which is actually going in direct opposition to places like the University of Jordan where more and more women are wearing the hijab. The variety of ways that the abaya is, for lack of a better word, accessorized, is dizzying. I wish it were appropriate to take pictures, although I suspect that most of the women would be more than happy to have their picture taken, because the variety would change the perception that most people in the west would have. Now, that said, the interior of the university is a safe island, which, much like home, although for a different reason, allows the students a little more freedom of self-expression.



Opening Hours of Dubai Campus Beauty Salon
September 13, 2011 in Administrative, Campus Services, Dubai, Events, Featured, Student Life by Maria Kennedy

Dear All

The Refinery for Her’s opening hours are as follows:-

For Students:- The Salon opens Sunday – Thursday 8-5pm

For Faculty & Staff :- In addition to the above hours the salon will remain open from 5-7pm for faculty and staff only. Those availing of the additional hours will receive a 10% discount on all treatments



Thanks

Mariia

The Amazing Aya

And here's a picture of Aya Wadi, my administrative assistant (I say my because she assures me that she works for me, although I'm certain that she must actually work for someone far more important who hasn't shown up yet - they don't give people this talented to guys like me). She's essentially the Zayed University equivalent of Darlene McGrath, and anyone at Champlain would get that reference. Aya is Palestinian, although I've yet to figure out whether she was born in the UAE or has only been here for a while. She takes care of my few requests, usually before I get around to asking for help in the first place. One of her chores is dealing with transfer issues, and since we're in the male wing of the campus it means that there is a constant queue of boys camped in her office (which is right outside mine), although I can't decide whether or not they are actually concerned with transfer credit or they just all have a crush on her. I took this picture when I discovered that Monkey had escaped from my office and was trying to get her to use her influence to get him his own suite.

First Week

Ah, it must be the first week of the semester. I have a textbook, a syllabus, a class roster, and the first candy bar offered up by a student as a propitious sacrifice to the angry god for being late. I've obviously implemented the culture of intimidation already (inside joke). Anyone who knows me at Champlain knows that my rule is that you cannot come into class late without being publicly persecuted unless you bring me a cookie or a cupcake. The students here willingly and enthusiastically agreed to the stipulation and only had one question - store bought or home made. They have been absolutely wonderful so far and I'm really enjoying teaching them. One of my other traditions is handing out nicknames. If I have two students with the same name I give them nicknames to tell them apart, and the first step is always labelling one Evil "fill in the blank" or Good "fill in the blank." I told that story to my students here at Zayed, and it really struck me what a different place the Middle East is than we assume in the US when a student volunteered to be "Evil Fatima" to break the tie. Priceless.

Remnants of the British Empire

Since I've mentioned them several times, I thought I'd go ahead and post pictures of my fellow ZU professors who are living out here on Yas Island at the Radisson Blu. Tony, whose picture is at the top, is British. Liane, second, is from New Zealand. Peter is another Brit. And then we have Tatja, who is from Serbia, but we've overlooked that as members of the British diaspora. They are really a lovely group and a lot of fun to hang around with. In an odd way they remind me of the absolutely wonderful group of faculty that I spent time with on my first trip to Jordan on a State Department grant back in early 2005: just very easy-going folks who don't let much bother them. They have been a tremendous resource in regards to Zayed University. As of this moment they're only supposed to be teaching this semester at Zayed, having been invited back to cover the heavier fall cohort, so none of them will probably be here come February (and more's the pity for me). As I've mentioned in previous posts, Tony and Peter invested their ZU money from earlier stays into lovely homes overseas - Portutal for Tony and Sri Lanka for Peter. In classic academic fashion, three of the four have spouses back home (we are all too many of us academic gypdies): Tony's in Portugal, Peter's in Sri Lanka, and Liane's in Belfast of all places.

There Are No Guarantees

OK, so I'm channelling Ryan Adams again. Today, among a number of different chores, I did something I had not done on a trip since the summer I spent teaching in India in 2004: unpack my suitcases and put everything away. I don't know why this felt like such a big deal, but it just felt that way, and it has left me feeling pretty melancholy. Whenever I talk to anyone here I tell them that I'm only going to be here for a year, and they just give me a knowing smile in return. I suspect a lot of people come to Abu Dhabi for a year, and then stay ten. Two of the ZU professors who are staying here are back just for the semester in response to a reply from ZU - they had already put in their time teaching here and have leveraged the financial payout to own places in Portutgal and Sri Lanka. I guess I need to balance out what I have in Vermont and what I could potentially have here. And, obviously, it's not just the financial benefits of teaching in the Gulf. More important to me is the role that I could play in reshaping Zayed University. For all of my wars with the administration at Champlain I can also honestly say that it is a better place than I found it, and I could certainly walk away with a clear conscience. There are so many things I love about Vermont and Champlain, but also so many things that I just loathe. It used to be an amazing place to work, but it's simply not anymore. The question is, what role can I play in making Champlain a good school and a great place to work?

Mugg & Bean

In today's coffee-crazed world I sometimes think that you measure your friends by their association to common coffeeshops. I was just reading my good friend Trish's blog, where she was writing about returning to her favorite coffee shop in Amman, Jordan. Sadly, I haven't any place as charming as hers, but at least I've tracked one down that is reasonably close to the Radisson. Mugg & Bean is a chain that you see a fair bit overseas and I went there today with Liane, my Kiwi friend and one of the ZU professors squirrelled away at the Radisson, and her friends Jen and Bruce, who teach at the Dubai campus of ZU. As it turns out I had actually met Jen before on the shuttle that runs between the two campuses, although we didn't remember it until around an hour into the discussion. It is always sobering when I meet some many folks overseas who have travelled a lot more than me, and by American standards I've travelled quite a bit (of course, since only around 15% of Americans actually have a passport I guess it's nothing to get too worked up about). Anyway, they had all sorts of suggestions about places to travel from the UAE, including some great low price carriers, even one down in Sharjah. They told me it's very easy to get to Zanzibar from here, so that trip is definitely on my radar. I'm still working out the logistics of my trip to Samarkand. My friend Mike Lange has a friend in Kabul, Afghanistan, and I'm considering the notion of a Kabul-Samarkand trip. Now that would be cool. In the meantime, however, it's just tnice to continue to meet folks and get settled. I think the Mugg & Bean might make a good weekly Saturday lunch trip.

First Weekend

It's the weekend, and I slept very late. One of the peculiarities of time and cultural differences is that just about the time my friends back home are waking up on Thursday my week is essentially over and the weekend is beginning. Of course, the flip side of that is that when my friends are dragging out of bed on Sunday my week has already started and I've taught my first round of classes. I've now been here a week, although it feels like a month. I have some vague plans for the weekend: 1) need to rally and workout, 2) actually unpack and put my clothes away in drawers, 3) my Kiwi friend Liane wants me to go with her to some yet to be determined bar to watch the New Zealand team play rugby (actually sounds like a lot of fun), 4) maybe catch a taxi to the British Club tonight - a couple new friends of mine have invited me there for some celebration, and 5) my friend Tony and I are looking to catch a bus or hotel shuttle downtown tomorrow so that I can start a bank account, shop for a local phone and buy a couple clothes that I somehow didn't pack (I can remember in the midst of repacking being disgusted that I had somehow thrown four black belts into my suitcase, and then managed to somehow take them all out, and now I have none).

Life in the Desert

Here's an odd little contraption that one finds in the all the hallways of the hotel. It's a little humidifier that pops on now and then. It also has a cleanser as part of the "mist." It spins around and the water gets sudsy. The weather here is odd - it's hotter than bloody hell, but we're also on the gulf so the humidity is stifling. So, you're sort of humidifying and fighting the effects of too much humidity at the same time.

Saj

I found a new lunchtime treat at the campus. Normally I just grab a banana, a container of fruit, and a bottle of water at the campus (now, this may change once all the shops open up in the Promenade). In the big central areas the first floor will be reserved for restaurants and coffee shops and a beauty parlor, with the second and third floors for the classrooms and offices. Since there are so fewer men than women I'm wondering if there will be a lot more shops in the female wing than the male wing, and if there will be "gender-specific" differences (there is a sociology study waiting to be written). I load up on fruit at breakfast and lunch, knowing that "supper" will just be snacking at happy hour (and they don't have a salad bar). I broke with tradition (as much tradition as you can build up in a couple days) and tried the saj, which is a Lebanese treat. It is a wrap that is baked on a special grill - think of a two foot wide convex grill, sort of a large black contact lense - and then filled with goodies. I had the combo saj, which is cheese and some sort of very spicy spread. Absolutely delicious. It's much like an emaciated shwarma, if that makes any sense.

Monkey is Popular

In my continuing, and exhausting, effort to chronicle Monkey's travels throughout the Middle East (and, truthfully, they may not have been a greater traveller in the Middle East since the time of Ibn Battuta) here's a picture of him at happy hour on the balcony of the Radisson Blu. He was swapping stories with Tony, Peter and Liane, all great story tellers, and he was holding his own. I didn't bring him tonight and they were visibly disappointed.

Good Night From the Other Side of the World

In the nearly four-hundred posts that comprise this blog (is that even possible - although I can remember asking the same thing after three-hundred) th eone which arguably received the most positive feedback was a series of pictures I took and posted (without commentary) of the sun coming up over Port Elizabeth in South Africa. Let me post a few pictures of the sun going down last night. We're on Yas Island and the sun was setting back towards the Abu Dhabi, so it's not quite as romantic as if it were setting over the Persian Gulf itself. Still, they are nice pictures. We end up sitting on the balcony on the eighth floor every night and the heat, even after the sun goes down, is just incredible. As long as the run is going down there is a slight breeze, but when it disappears usually the breeze stops and it becomes even worse. My friends tell me that insix or seven weeks it will be like heaven. Right now it feels like an oven - and, no, it's not a dry heat.

The New Abu Dhabi Campus

Doubtless I will be posting about the new Abu Dhabi campus of Zayed University all year, so I won't spend too much time on it now. I think I'll just post a few pictures to break the ice (and what I wouldn't give for some ice - it was around 108 today with whithering humidity). When I agreed to spend a year teaching at Zayed I made it clear that I didn't want to go to Dubai, not simply because Dubai is just a bit too crazy for my taste, but also because their own new campus is out in the middle of the desert. Of course, now that Abu Dhabi has a new campus it is also out in the desert. With that in mind, I came prepared to not like it. Actually, I like it a lot, although everything is still being madly thrown together. My brother, who watched the video, said it looked like something somewhere between a remarkably posh mall and the mother ship, and that I definitely had to go there. My office is in the male wing - there are two equal wings with classrooms and faculty offices and shopts on both side. Simply because you're in the male wing it doesn't necessarily mean that you'll only be teaching the male students and vice-versa. It makes it a bit complicated because if you're in the female section and are teaching a male class you can't really ask your students to come visit you in your office hours, so you end up having "branch" office hours in separate adjunct offices in the corresponding wing. Thye library and fitness building will have certain hours reserved for the different sexes. It's a delicate mix, and one that you would expect with a country that is struggling with modernity like the UAE is. I guess some people get frustrated by this, but maybe it's because I'm an historian (or maybe it's because I've read so much Marcus Aurelius), but I take a more flexible view of the pace of change (and, yes, I know how strange that sounds coming from anyone who has seen me blow up at a faculty senate meeting because people are being slothful - and by that I mean everyone I've ever met; I guess the difference is that we have a million natural advantages so I have trouble accepting our sometimes glacial rate of change, and am more forgiving of other parts of the world).

My First Day

Today was my first day at the new campus and I really couldn't be happier. The driver showed up right on time this morning to pick up the Radisson Blu Five (Tony [British], Peter [British], Tanya [Serbian], Liane [New Zealand] and yours truly) right on time. The campus seemed to be around twenty minutes away. Right now it's just in the jmiddle of a big stretch of desert, but I suspect, much as with our first house in Atlanta, very quickly the city will catch up and bypass the campus. It is huge, especially considering the fact that there are less than three-thousand students. If you haven't taken the opportunity to watch the video embedded in an earlier posting be sure to do so. It's still pretty chaotic and a lot of things are being delivered on the fly, but I think it's going to be a great experience. I'll post more pictures of the building itself later. Right now I'll just post a few pictures of myself (breaking one of my cardinal rules of never posting pictures of myself, although my friends are always scolding me for not doing so) and my new office. Because, in addition to teaching a couple classes, I'm also serving as the Assistant Dean for Curriculum I received a really nice office. Zayed, and especially my friend Jyoti, have made it clear that they want me to stay and they are doing their level best to make a compelling argument. A couple of my new friends were giving me a little grief over how big my office is, and I responded with a) telling them that they'll really be impressed when I have the wall knocked out as part of my expansion plan, and b) they were still welcome to come by at any time to watch me from a distance behind the velvet rope (and anyone who has ever taught we me could see that coming). I do have to say that the adjoining office where my secretary is housed is pretty posh as well - apparently, from what I can gather, I have the Zayed equivalent of Darlene McGrath, which means I've hit the jackpot. There's also a picture of the bizarre view outside my window, which is sort of a microcosm of the generally surreal feel of this entire adventure. I'm amazed at how happy I look in that picture, although, doubtless, very soon I will cause mischief and it will be everybody else who is frowning. If history teaches us anything this wll turn out much like "Ransom of Red Chief," with Zayed paying Champlain to take me back.

My Travelling Companion

I guess every Johnson needs a Boswell, but the best I could come up with on this trip is Monkey. He's named, appropriately, after Monkey from Journey to the West. I don't know his real name. He was a gift from my great friends Bob and Cindy Mayer. They were concerned that I would not actually take him along on the trip, but here's proof positive. Monkey is basking in the late afternoon sunshine on my deck. He's thinking about coming up to school tomorrow to check out my new office, so, doubtless, more pictures of his shenanigans will follow.

Reading the Paper

Here's an interesting section from the paper about technology and how it is shaping our lives: "In this incessant need for technology, we are connecting with the world but aren't we losing touch with the ones we care about the most. . . Most of may may not realise it, but technology has now replaced marriage and other close relationships as a major source of affirmation in our lives. Marriage and family are tough sometimes so people turn to social media for support and understanding." I thought this was really interesting because it's a topic I discuss with my friends and colleagues quite a bit, but especially because it was in the Khaleej Times this morning. There was a related pieced on cyber bullying. We tend to think of these are uniquely American problems when obviously they are incresingly a problem for more and more people around the world. There was also an insightful article about changing gender roles in the Emirati workplace (and the phrase "the pink-collar workforce was used).

In addition, there was a thoughtful op-ed piece on the world's growing population and consumerism. After discussing how quickly China and India would catch up to the US in economic size and consumer hunger, the point was made: "Wherever we look - be it carbon emissions, oil and gas, food shortages, water, rare earths, fisheries or forests - there just isn't enough for the world to soak up another two consumption-driven Americas. To stop heading down this road Asian governments must immediately recognize that a bleak future lies ahead if Asians attempt to live out an aspiration to consume like Americans." It is always a bit humbling/depressing to hear your country used as a synonym for over-consumption (just as it is when the US is used that way when folks describe a violent society) but always pretty ironic that I read it in the UAE, which is the only country in the world to have a larger per capita carbon footprint than the US. That said, for all of their often over the top behavior, it does seem that the Emirates is taking the issue more seriously than the US is.

Finally, there was s story about the US government issueing another travel advisory for American citizens travelling abroad in light of the tenth year anniversary of 9/11, which is, appropriately enough, the first day of my fall class at Zayed. I'll be interested in follow the news coverage, although not so much in the mainstream US media, which I'm afraid will just use it as an excuse for more shallow patriotic chest thumping.

Day One

Well, I've managed to make it through my first day here in Abu Dhabi at the Radisson Blu. After scarfing down my comp breakfast I went to the fitness center and devoted forty minutes to the treadmill and then lifted weights, and then I went outside for a swim and sat (in the shade - it's 37 C and humid as hell) reading the Khaleej Times. Tonight I had the chance to meet my first new Zayed University professors. Apparently there are five of us out here, all of whom arrived expecting to be placed in a room with a kitchenette and all of whom (or at least the guys I met tonight) ended up in business suites (which are very nice, but which certainly do not have a kitchen and only a small fridge). I had received an email from one of them asking if people wanted to get together tonight in the business suite on the eighth floor for their nightly happy hour. I was more than ready to get out of my room. I met Tony and Peter, two older British professors who have spent decades teaching all throughout the Middle East, and an American named Patrick who is here doing something in regards to border control. It was a very pleasant way to kill a couple hours - sitting out on the balcony watching the sun go down while downing a couple Stella Artois and eating some curried shrimp and chicken. It was made better because it's nightly and the drinks and food are comped, which will help stretch my budget. It's hard to eat in the hotel restaurant for less than $50 so I can't see me doing that very much. The bigger issue, obviously, is whether staying here in the hotel is sustainable, both financially and emotionally. I was thinking about renting a car, but you really can't rent a car until you have an Emirati national identity card, and that may take awhile. I think I'm going to talk to the folks at Zayed about getting an apartment somewhere, although that leads to all sorts of logistical issues of its own. We talked about getting together a reserving a taxi ride to and from the hotel daily with some sort of group rate. I'll have a better handle on things tomorrow when we head into campus for the first day of orientation. So, many questions, but also a nice evening spent with some great guys who told some hysterical stories.

My Place

Let me post some pictures of the bizarre little world I've found myself in here at the Radisson Blu, and which has left me feeling more than a bit like Bill Murray in Lost in Translation. I arrived late last night at the Abu Dhabi Airport after a very long flight. I had visited Abu Dhabi a few times before, but only after flying into the Dubai Airport. Because I'm actually working here it would have taken longer to check in at the airport than if you're just visiting, which, if you're an American, is just dropping down your passport. There was a long line to look at passports and visas and go through the eye scanner, but I was greeted as soon as I got off the plane by a nice young Filopino woman from a service that whisks me people through the airport, and that's exactly what she did for me. She grabbed me and we blew right past the long queue as if I were an actual VIP (with me apologizing the all the folks in line as we strolled past). So, the entire process which I would imagine would take over an hour, ended up taking about two minutes. Then I was met by a driver arranged by Zayed University, and delivered on to the Radisson Blu, where they also made a big deal over my visit and joked about the fact that my reservation was for 99 nights. The Radisson Blu is located out on Yas Island, one of those man-made islands that the Emirates is famous for. Although the hotel is really nice I can also say that it's not really what I was looking for. I was hoping for a little two bedroom apartment in an actual neighborhood, where I could get used to the lay of the land and frequent little family restaurants, etc. There's nothing out here except for other posh hotels and Ferrari World and the formula one race course (which actually, at one point, runs underneath the five star Yas Hotel). If Zayed was looking to grab my attention they have, although I also can't say that I'm surprised. I just don't know how sustainable any of this is - either me staying here (there's no kitchen, although I have free breakfast everyday in the restaurant downstairs - and I guess I'll just swipe tons of yogurt and store them in my little fridge) or as a country (but more on that later). There also is no place to shop for food or place or laundromate, and I really don't want to spend the rest of the year eating dinner at the fine restaurants at th3e local hotels and having my laundry done by the hotel staff (although one of the perks that Zayed threw in was two free items of laundry a day - yes, it was explained to me last night as I checked in). The room and the hotel is beautiful, just sort of surreal. More on all this later, but here's a few pictures. The balcony is so long that it has two separate sliding doors. Again, it's just surreal.