My poor parents. My dad and my step-mom had scheduled their vacation to come see me during the exact time that I was transitioning from my first job in Abu Dhabi to my new job in Sharjah… so they got to see me in all my glory.
I don’t know if I plan things this way, or if this is just my luck, but my last day of work coincided with my last day of living in the villa, and the first day of moving to my new place in Sharjah. So, true to form, I am frantically running around the villa like a nut bag trying to finish packing, finish last-minute details for an upcoming event for the devil company and deal with delivery men that hardly spoke English. To this day, I still feel guilty for being too busy to be the proper host I should have been for my daddy and step-mom. They seemed to be o.k. with it, even though they didn’t get to see all they wanted to see. I still remember, during the chaos of the last day, I couldn’t find my dad anywhere. After searching for a few minutes, I come to find him outside swimming in the ocean. And I use the term ‘swimming’ loosely, as he was just floating in the ocean like a starfish. (The water here is so salty, anyone can float.. it’s magical!)
It was at this moment that I realized just how utterly thankful I was to have my daddy and step-mom here. I mean, I was already thankful, but this was one of those BAM moments where your heart just kind of swells up with love. I needed their support more than I had allowed myself to realize. Even though I was constantly surrounded by people for work, I was increasingly feeling more lonely and misunderstood by the day. It was so good to be around the people I can just be with, and not have to care about how I am coming off.
By the afternoon, both my car and theirs were packed to the ceilings with the surprising amount of things I had accumulated in the past six months, and we made the trek to Sharjah. Lovely, dirty, dusty, Sharjah – my cultural oasis of conservative, abayya-clad women and more strict social norms.
I should have known what I was in for, but I don’t think anything could have prepared me for the experience of working in a local school. I had already gotten a taste of doing business in the Arabic world, but I had been working for an American company. I had gotten my feet wet, and I was about to plunge right in.