Day 6 --- grrrrr

August 26:           Well today was a colossal waste of a day. This was day one at the school. Allison and I were both down in the lobby of the hotel on time at 7:00. As usual they picked us up late. I’m beginning to learn the true meaning patience and “insha'allah” (God willing), Arabs have a different sense of time and keeping appointments. Being late is expected here. So we get on the bus and rode to the school. We got there and met the principal in person, and a few other people. Then we were directed to the gym where there were several desks in groups of four with a table cloth on top to make tables. Allison and I sat down and were quickly encouraged to join the math table. We got to meet all the other math teachers. After introductions I learned that I am teaching sixth and seventh grade boys. Allison, a high school teacher also, was given third grade! So that will be interesting to see how that goes. It has to go well I love Dubai, and I don’t want to leave! J Apparently the school has the teachers that have already been there a year get to teach the higher level classes. So hopefully next year I’ll move up some, in fact I would love to move vertically with the kids. All boys will be interesting too! Now the bad news: As part of our paper work I had almost everything I was supposed too BUT my degree wasn’t “attested”. Basically I have to prove through the US government that my bachelor’s is real. This is a crazy completed process; Allison is having her dad look into a service that will take care of this MAJOR detail for $200. This is definitely something I should have taken care of when I was still in States. The attestation process is stupid: original degree has to be brought the local county where it was earned, and then it has to be sent to the state capital where it was earned and then finally to the U.A.E. embassy in Washington, DC then they send it to the U.A.E for final acceptance. Totally ridiculous! They told us though that this was required for our VISA, which is required for everything else we need here in the U.A.E. Major pain! Anyway after we tried to find that solution online, we also tried to get reimbursed for our air fare to get here in the first place. We were constantly told that the finance guy was busy. So we finally dropped off our flight receipt, we’ll see how long it takes to get paid. After that we went back to wait for the time to tick away in the gym. There was nothing else to do for the whole day. On the return trip from the school we drove by the Holiday Inn to drop off three other teachers, and then we returned to our hotel. When I walked into our hotel I asked for another Internet password, and told them to bill it to the room this time. We were sick of paying for Internet. I was quickly informed by the front desk that our hotel booking was expired at 12 noon today (it was 3:00 by then). So either our school has to renew our reservation or we are going to another hotel. After seeing the others being dropped off at the Holiday Inn, we asked to go there. Not only do they have Internet here, they also have breakfast in the morning. So we are now at the Holiday Inn, when we checked in they only have us here for two days. We’ll see how true that is; apparently a VISA is required to get an apartment. We already know the attestation process takes at least 10 business days. So I don’t see how we’ll be able to leave hotel and get an apartment within those two days. After we were dropped off at the Holiday Inn, I got semi settled we called a taxi to take us back to the old hotel to get my car. I had the stupid idea to leave the car behind so the school didn’t know about me having car. That was dumb; because if they are going to pick up all the other teachers in the morning I’m sure I wouldn’t be denied a bus ride in the morning. So after I got the car, Allison wanted to go Carrefour so we drove up there and bought a few necessary items and also stop and got some ice cream. Made our way back to the hotel and now it’s not even ten and I’m ready to crash. Tomorrow should be another interesting day.