Al-salam alaykum…

… And you, my friend, shall say "wa alaykum al-salam". This week has been nothing less than insightful and riveting!
I've grown ridiculously spoiled here at the Beach Rotana, and am due to write a letter to hotel chains across the Americas in regards to their 'relaxed' customer service! My schedule has picked up quite a bit, making it even more necessary for me to put myself on a decent sleep schedule! After occasionally swimming in the Arabic sea, stealing wifi by the pool, ordering room service at odd hours, walking the mall frequently, and enjoying housekeeping services TWICE a day—I'm BEAT! No seriously, as many of you may know, I've entered the United Arab Emirates during their Holy month of Ramadan. During this month they focus very heavily on the 5 Pillars of Islam, but one especially: Siyam, or fasting. Because of this – restaurants are closed throughout the day until sundown. Leaving us Americans access to the coveted – bottle of water, stolen breakfast banana, or leftover bag of Doritos. I might have even lost a Kilo(gram) since my arrival! J

Sheikh Zayed Mosque

My experience/relationship with Abu Dhabi this week has been absolutely saturated with cultural learning! A wise man (aka Tuesday morning's key Speaker), Mr. Ali Saloom spoke a good word on "cultural understanding". The point of the matter? That cultural understanding means absolutely NOTHING. It is respect and appreciation that truly matter when taking others and the way they live into consideration…. DEEP. In fact, I let that marinade and applied it to other areas in my life! I agreed with the Muslim man… I don't need your shallow 'understanding', as much as I require your respect and appreciation of who I am and what I look like as a person! *church* Soooo, how does that apply to me as a teacher of young Arabic/Islamic girls? It means that I now know, Arabic doesn't mean Emirate. It could mean Moroccan, Syrian, Jordanian, or Egyptian! It means that I am in a country where purity is perpetuated, so public drunkenness is shameful before Allah. It means that practically EVERYTHING I assumed about Emirate men and women is NOT true… However, at the end of the day – the symbolism behind those things are far GREATER and awesome than I could of imagined! If you'd like to know what they stand for… just ask!
Lastly, yesterday morning – as it is now around 6am here – we visited the WORLD renowned Sheikh Zayed Mosque, known to the locals as the Grand Mosque. It was breathtaking. I learned so much about the religion of Islam, and the people as a whole, and I'm blown away. The Emirate are very receptive, open, and exquisite. Among those things they are proud of who they are and what they stand for as a nation… The mosque you see was conceived by the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan in the late 1980's. He wanted a place where his people could worship, and visitors around the World can come in peace and share in Allah's glory. Entrance is completely free… Building of this landmark took ten years to after conception to even begin, and is still being completed till this very day. A better description and many more photos can be found on my Facebook if you'd like.