Once upon a time, all good stories start like that, don't they? Well anyway, once upon a time there was a teacher who lost his way in the deep dark forest. Detroit doesn't have forests, but stick with the metaphor alright? So after a while of wandering in the trackless forest, trying to anticipate where a path would be if there were any logic to life the teacher met a creature that appeared to be a big bad wolf.
"So what do you think you're doing here?" asked the wolf.
"Just trying to do my job," replied the teacher.
"Shame about that," said the wolf, "as I cut your job last week, so that we could go on paying my
son-in-law, the Community Outreach Director."
Now, in most fairy stories the hero, in this case yours truly, defeats the monster, gets the princess and half the kingdom and is gazed at in a generally adoring fashion by the peasantry. In this story, none of that happens, except that whilst my job was cut, they sacked the wolf and he didn't even see it coming.
Here's what really happened next: I got a job teaching in Abu Dhabi [yes, I had to Google it too] and moved to the Middle East for the next two years. This is the story of just how it is, here at Desert High and the adventures that happen along the way. There are camels instead of dragons, the sons of the rich instead of sons of poor shoemakers, but there's still a lot of Hans Christian Anderson in the air anyway. It's an attempt to make sense of what's proving to be an experience of equal parts fascination and frustration with a dash of WTF [look it up] thrown in for good measure. I decided to write this, on occasion, mildly disguised account of my experiences mostly to help me make some sense of the whole show. If you enjoy reading it then that makes it all the more worthwhile.
Once upon a time.......
Hey Charles - I like the blog. I was wondering why you went to the Middle East, and now it all makes sense. :-)
ReplyDelete