Al Noor Girl's School

     I know it has been a while since my last post but life has been crazy here in the UAE.  Back to school is always stressful and busy for teachers but thins year the stress was x20!  I began the school year teaching grade 3 girls.  I have a class in the morning and another in the afternoon.  I have 2 began with 2 partner teachers.  Kenita is a veteran of one year here in the UAE and she is such a blessing with her knowledge of how things work here in Abu Dhabi.  My other partner is Chris.  She and I are both new and she and I are treading water together, trying not to sink.  The first couple of weeks went as well as can be expected.  My class list changes almost daily and boy do I miss the organization of the US.  No class lists or procedural manuals here!  I would give thousands to have Gaye Steadham here to  create some order in this chaos!
     Last week my dad lost his battle with COPD and emphysema.  This was an especially hard time for my mom and sister along with both of my kids.  I wish I had been able to be there to support them more.  I was given several days of bereavement leave.  During these days I was also trying to deal with some excruciating heal pain.  After a day in the emergency room and an X-ray later I found out I had a heel spur.  We were able to find a wonderful orthopedist here at the German medical center.  He was able to get some shoe inserts for me that seem to help the pain.  His biggest blessing was getting me hooked up with a dermatologist in his practice that has a 3 month waiting list.  Dr. Berger was able to prescribe my injections for psoriasis and we are praying his in depth report will pass the muster to get the insurance to pay for my meds.
     The last day of my leave my HOF, which is English Head of Faculty, called to tell me that our school was not going to receive anymore English teachers this year so we were going to have to add girls to each class and I was the lucky winner who was losing a class of third graders and gaining a class of second graders.  This means I teach 1/2 a day of each grade level.  This would be considered difficult in the US but it is a nightmare here in AD.  In the land of paperwork I now have double the work load, planning and documentation.
     So my first day back to school was a little crazy.  After lunch I received a group of 21 second graders who speak a little broken English.  They arrived after having 2 weeks of totally managing themselves for the past 2 weeks, literally.  If you can imagine what a group of 20 seven year olds would do without an adult for 1/2 a day in a classroom in the US, multiply that by 50 and you have it.  So not only are they out of control but I don't have a class list and have no idea what their names are and if they are actually in the right room.  We spent the day on Goldilocks and the Three Bears which they seemed to love, thank God!  I made it through the day!  I was then told I would have to move my classroom downstairs to a new room the next day, REALLY!!!!!  As you can imagine, I did break down and cry for a few minutes.  So bad foot and all I moved the classroom downstairs the next afternoon.  Thank God it was Thursday (our Friday in US) and I had the weekend to recoup.  20 years of teaching could never prepare anyone for this adventure.  I am holding it together one day at a time hoping this calm down and I get some sort of routine set in the next few days and weeks to come.

     These are all pictures of my first classroom.  I hope to have my new room in this shape soon!  The bottom picture is a shot of the classrooms from the middle courtyard.  The courtyard has a covering a some playground equipment for the girls to play on during recess/lunch.