I am back. Recently, I have been looking a Facebook posts and realizing how important my experience of living here in the Middle East is. The time has come for me to share about our lives here in Qatar to bring awareness and peace. Josh is getting his doctorate so having time to contribute is going to be limited. Yes I know we have been here for two years now and a lot of gone undocumented but the time has come to get back in touch with my people.
I am going to write about the cups of tea that never get drank. So often in my teaching career I make a cup of tea and return to it three hours later remembering "oh that would have been a nice moment." Let me tell the story of this cup of tea. Yesterday we began our first Model United Nations conference of the year. I have recruited and trained ten special education students to participate in a highly academic setting competing against kids that aspire to go the best colleges in the world, these students are the top performers at the best schools in Qatar. These kids come from all over the world because Qatar has a population of 2.4 million people and only 10% of those people are Qatari. We arrived with ten students highly charged with nerves and fear, one of which is in a wheel chair and another has very unstable diabetes. I wheeled Abdullah to his room to get started, he is an eighth grader which is a very young age to participate and he is the only one here in a wheel chair. This boy also doesn't interact with others on a frequent basis so is a little awkward...he is also a teenager:) I felt like a mom leaving her child knowing that he needed this experience but also knowing it would be a painful day. I also had faith that students would help him get where he needed to be. After all these kids were going to be talking about helping the world all day, an opportunity to help a young boy in a wheel chair is an immediate way to show how serious you truly are in changing the world, I had to have faith.
I wasn't given much time to fret about this because I was on to the next adventure, Fatima called to say "my blood sugar is at 35 Miss." From my knowledge this is a problem I know very little about medicine because my mom and sister in law are nurses and I leave all medical issues up to them. So after quite an ordeal of tracking down juice and protein. Fatima begins to complain about her stomach hurting, which come to find out is her pancreas having spasms due to the lack of insulin. I am just trying to stay calm because I have no idea what to do. We decide Fatima needs to go home. After a finding a wheelchair and traffic we get Fatima home, Now time to get back into the the conference it was time for the opening ceremony.
At the opening ceremony this Vice Principal gave a great speech about taking chances and being ok with making mistakes, we are all here to change the world, "have enough guts to say something is all that matters." He also informed me that Coca Cola owns the rights to 40% of the water in India...what. There was also a very large girl that got up and sang Valerie by Amy Winehouse which did not fit and was one of those moments where you are trying not to lose your shit and laugh your head off. Now that I am a chaperon it is time for me to lead by example:)
Finally, I get back to my cup and tea and I laugh "how nice it would have been to drink that cup of tea." I am overwhelmed by a realization, when I was a student I had no idea what went on in order for me to get the love I needed as a child. I had no idea the sacrifices my teachers made in order to make sure I got to go on that field trip or learned everything I needed to know in order to grow to my fullest potential. Now that I am a teacher I want to bring awareness to all of us that teachers do more than teach us 2+2 or that Hunter Gatherers were nomads (yes that is the unit I am on now with my 9th graders). Teachers give their hearts and souls to their work and sometimes save lives. Teachers do whatever is needed at the time. I am not asking for a raise or words of affirmation, what I am asking from you is recognize you had teachers that gave you their world. Teachers are amazing people, appreciate your children's teachers. Do we make mistakes yes but most of us are just trying to do the best thing for your child.
