Speaking no evil is a pretty easy thing to do when you’re talking about the students and the staff at the American Community School in Abu Dhabi. I’ve just finished a week working with the middle school kids and I cannot remember a residency that went smoother. Dianne and Steve, the two librarians responsible for the visit, had a schedule set for me that clicked on every cylinder like the high tech sports cars that prowl the streets of this busy bustling and growing city.
We talked metaphor, we talked memoir, we talked vocabulary and editing and in one class we even talked about zombies! In the meantime Sara and I were well fed and watered enjoying a traditional Arab dinner sans table or chairs, marched up and down the Corniche, visited “The Club” and became intimate friends with a rather kooky cat named Slushie.
Everywhere you look in this town there are buildings going up, cranes erecting another and another across the skyline. The place wafts the aroma of investment and dividends. My first day in the school (Sunday – the school week runs Sunday through Thursday here) I should have had a premonition that this was going to be a fruitful visit. I put a Dirham coin into a vending machine to buy a bottle of water and not only received my selection, but FIVE more Dirhams. That’s how the whole week went – no matter how much I gave to the kids and their teachers I always ended up ahead of the game.
Speaking no evil is a pretty easy thing to do when you’re talking about the students and the staff at the American Community School in Abu Dhabi. I’ve just finished a week working with the middle school kids and I cannot remember a residency that went smoother. Dianne and Steve, the two librarians responsible for the visit, had a schedule set for me that clicked on every cylinder like the high tech sports cars that prowl the streets of this busy bustling and growing city.
We talked metaphor, we talked memoir, we talked vocabulary and editing and in one class we even talked about zombies! In the meantime Sara and I were well fed and watered enjoying a traditional Arab dinner sans table or chairs, marched up and down the Corniche, visited “The Club” and became intimate friends with a rather kooky cat named Slushie.
Everywhere you look in this town there are buildings going up, cranes erecting another and another across the skyline. The place wafts the aroma of investment and dividends. My first day in the school (Sunday – the school week runs Sunday through Thursday here) I should have had a premonition that this was going to be a fruitful visit. I put a Dirham coin into a vending machine to buy a bottle of water and not only received my selection, but FIVE more Dirhams. That’s how the whole week went – no matter how much I gave to the kids and their teachers I always ended up ahead of the game.
3 comments:
Love your blog. Great teaching!
If you need to order supplies for your classroom this site is great. We use it all of the time.
http://www.cmschoolsupply.com
Keep up the amazing work!
I'm glad you guys had such a great trip.
I've enjoyed following your posts on Facebook.
Hope your trip home went well.
Hey Michael,
I am glad to hear you enjoyed your time in Abu Dhabi so much. I wanted to let you know that the kids still talk about your visit and I videotaped our Poetry slam in the hopes that you might one day get to see it. It was great fun having you and Sara in town and I look forward to working with you again.
Mark Hardeman
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