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 What is the complete cultural and geographical opposite of Colombia? 

Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates; soon to be our new home.

 

After an adventurous journey north, to the inhabitable state of Iowa in the aftermath of a blizzard we are leaving with success. We have put a ridiculous amount of energy and time into researching and agonizing over schools and host countries. We went into this adventure prepared and well equipped (we can't really say the same for our last job fair experience but I guess we are all rookies at one point) Our determination paid off and we landed our number one school.....

THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY SCHOOL OF ABU DHABI

 

The school in a truly international school of about 1000 students: 50% from the USA and the rest being a mix of students from Europe, Asia, New Zealand and the Arab world. 

Here is the website of the school if anyone is interested in reading more:

 http://acs.sch.ae/acsvipers/

 

 Where is UAE??????????

The city has an access of wealth and I guess they are kind of showy

 A romanticized video of Abu Dhabi 

Why did we choose the United Arab Emirates?

There are a number of things that we considered when searching for a school.

• School Calendar- would be able to fish in Alaska? This school had the best calendar starting in late August and ending the first week in June
• The curriculum: This school uses the American Curriculum and also uses familiar programs like, Everyday Math, Lucy Caulkins, Balanced Literacy
• Reviews- through some research the school had an overall positive review from former employees
• Safety: U.A.E's economy and government is historically stable and the crime rate is extremely low
• City Size: We did not want to live in a huge Asian city of 25 million, so the size of Abu Dhabi at around 2 million was just what we were looking for
• Islamic- we knew we would probably end up in the Islamic world and even though we were perhaps open to more conservative countries we were really drawn to the UAE because of it modest approach to Islam. In the UAE women do not have to cover, women can drive, liquor is sold and it is a very modern city with a lot of western luxuries.
• School and city population: We were hoping to teach at a true international school where the students were not wealthy nationals. We wanted ideally to teach to students whose first language was English and at this school all the students first language is English. Also the city itself is very international, actually an alarming 80% if UAE is made up of foreigners. Giving us a chance to meet people from all over the world and perhaps make deeper friendships than we were able to do in Colombia due to the language barrier
• The Package: I am sure it comes as no surprise that one of concerns was pay; this after all is one of the reasons we were looking in the Arab world. Needless to say this school offers a very attractive package with benefits that include yearly roundtrip flights to your home base in the US, a handsome settling in allowance, a great deal of money to ship items from home, a three bedroom apartment close to the school with a budget for furnishings and home décor that you will own, a Mac-book, lots of Professional Development (for those in the education field this school has visitors as notorious as Wiggins and Mctighe from UBD) an interest free car loan and access to amenities like a pool and gym.
• Location: We were hoping to live in a warm climate which is technically true for part of the year in the UAE, a time where it can be breezy and in the 80’s but then of course there is the part of the year where it will be more in the 120’s!!!!!!!!!! The school is located 2 blocks from the beach. The UAE neighbors Oman a country rich with travel opportunities and because gas is literally cheaper than water trekking across the desert in a 4x4 will give us opportunities to camp in deserts and find beaches were we can scuba dive. Of course there is the goddy, glitzy over the top, Dubai which will be an easy trip of two hours.

THE INTERNATIONAL TEACHER RECRUITING FAIR

Many people ask us how to go about finding a teaching job overseas and the way most people do it is by attending one of these recruiting fairs.

For those readers who have experienced such events you know what I mean when I choose these words to describe the trip of an overseas recruiting fair:

·         Expensive

·         Nerve racking

·         Intense

·         Overwhelming

·         Exhausting

·         Emotional

·         Taxing

·         Exciting

·         Inspiring

To give you an overview, it works like this. About 100 or so schools from all over the world are set up in a huge banquet room. They each have their own table, a sign of their school and a list of available jobs. Just outside this banquet hall wait around 800 candidates, wearing cookie cutter power suits and a look of complete fear on their faces. Once the door opens people, rush to wait in lines at their favorites schools. People scramble around and conversations are left to short introductions and qualifications, from there the recruiters decide if you are worth their time to interview. The canidates race from table to table trying to get as many interviews as possible. And, in a matter of 30 or so minutes most people have their schedule full and the real fun begins. 

Recruiters now return to their hotel rooms and await candidates who will be rotating in and out of their rooms on a thirty minute rotation. In the halls and elevators people rush around and wait in anticipation. All the while there is a great deal of networking going on….you pretty much talk with anyone and everyone the whole entire time. By evening time most people will have been offered a job or even a few and are given the opportunity to sleep on their decision. 

Everyone meets at the social hour to schmooze and swap advice. The room is now filled with a whole new type of energy- nervous excitement of life changing possibilities. Saturday morning arrives and people attend call back interviews and begin to sign contracts to their new life in a foreign land. If all goes well Saturday evening is a time to celebrate, to wine and dine new employees and chat with giddy people who are letting go weeks of stress. But of course not all people can be so lucky and due to numerous variables some people will leave without a job which can be defeating, exhausting and a real test to your self confidence. 

When we went to our first job fair in San Francisco we were completely and ridiculously ill prepared and ignorant. We flew in the night before from a surf trip, sand still stuck between our toes, we went to JC Penny and tried to find the appropriate clothes on an insufficient budget. We did no prep work; it was like walking in halfway through a movie. But ignorance was not bliss, people wouldn’t even talk to us, we had no experience and no clue. We seemed to be missing something, it was hard. Yet, in the end we miraculously landed a job and we left as clueless as we had entered.

Two years later our experience could not have been any different. This time we had done our “homework” as the lingo goes and well it paid off….more than we could have ever imagined. 

We were ready for fierce competition, we were ready to be denied and we were ready for cut throat interviews that would leave us in tears. Serendipity- we were a hot commodity, a couple with international experience willing to go to Asia and the Middle East. People not only were receptive but the sought us out. One country expressed how much they wanted us to sign and even jokingly offered us their table prop ( a big beautiful South East Asian decorative umbrella) if we signed.  

Our interviews went great, somehow we remained cool and calm. That evening we were offered two positions and when we returned to our room there were a few messages on our hotel phone with more offers, all of which were in our top ten. 

Were we dreaming? How could so much change in just two years. I was so confused I actually made our #1 school explain in detail why he wanted us and how he was sure we could succeed in such a high performing school, just in case he had us mistaken for someone else. Directors were able to speak to our current boss who was also in attendance at the fair- so I suppose we had that working for us. 

When we went the following morning to turn down our offers people were understanding and surprisingly disappointed, one guy even said, after we clearly told him no, “So that is a definite no then?” The best thing was that almost all the schools asked us where we signed and when we told the,  they said that we found ourselves a great school, one of the principals said that he applied at the same school last year. We were happy to hear that our new school was held in such high regard.

We couldn’t help but feeling a little guilty with all of our success, sure we did our homework but we had other things working for us too. We were not too young but not too old, no dependents, fit and healthy and interesting background….we were a shoe-in. And some were not. As many of you know Aaron and even myself…okay more Aaron, are really social and so we met a crazy amount of people. We listened to peoples success stories, indecision of where to sign and we supported people when they were starting to feel desperate. We met an old hippy guy who found the whole thing too much and dropped out. We met a cute mid-western couple getting ready to move their kids to start a new life in Syria. We met young people right from school trying blindly to find their way. We met veterans going through the motions and trying to figure out what contract to sign. We met amazingly brave people willing to try two things that many people would never have the courage to do…..one, move across the world to teach in a unknown land and two, fail. 

Saturday evening we returned to our mail box for the last time and here we found stragglers still hoping for a job. During the fair there were a few people who stood out to us and who had a clear disadvantage. I am someone who is plagued with empathy; this is why emotional movies and books impact me so much. There is something in my heart that allows me to empathize with people too much. Ever since I was a kid it was like this, I remember my mom taking me shopping to buy some clothes for the up coming season and I always felt so guilty looking around and seeing people who could not afford the same. Or, going into Boston for some of the Christmas events would actually depress me more than put me in the Christmas Spirit. As we would be going skating at Frog pond or hearing the bell choir at Fannuel Hall all I could ever feel was the sadness of the homeless people cold and alone and I just felt bad being happy. Sometimes I hate this quality about myself because even though it is an endearing quality to care for others it would be nice to be able to relish in my own success. But as Aaron and I walked around the fair Saturday evening both of us were feeling this overwhelming empathy for these people. Both on the verge of tears as we spoke to the man with the gimp leg; this man was in his mid fourties, about four feet tall and had a major deformity with his leg causing him an obvious limp. From the moment I saw him I knew he would have trouble and we admired his determination and his courage to come this far. We talked to him many times during the fair and as of Saturday night he had not received an offer. We gave him advice since he himself was a rookie. 

Climbing the escalator we had passed the other man that had been on our radar the whole fair. Another man in his fourties, quite short and a man who spoke with a high pitched awkward voice. As we passed him his face looked worried. Our hearts broke again. But then he chased us down and asked us to do him a favor. Could we peak our heads in this room to see if the interview table was free? We were pleased to. The table was free and he was relieved, then as he told us he was going into to sign pure joy radiated from his face. As he disappeared behind the door, Aaron and I just kind of cried with a mix of emotion, happy for him, happy for us, made at the world for it’s injustices but for me I felt so happy to be with Aaron- a person just as beautifully empathetic as myself- I guess I do find empathy to be a admirable even if torturing quality.

Alright everybody we are flying somewhere above the US and batteries about to die. Start saving to come visit us in The United Arab Emirates.