Coffee and tea with police officers

Okay, in all fairness, what I'm about to describe is probably not what you immediately pictured when you read the blog post title. You probably imagined me at some police station, right?

I did actually have coffee and tea with some Abu Dhabi police officers this week, and now I'll explain.

The other day, several us on the Al Rowdah management team spent the morning at a campus that we just opened. It’s located in Mohammed Bin Zayed City (near Mussafah, and not far from my home away from home in Mangrove Village).  More commonly it's referred to as "MBZ".  

Fun fact: When you see a name like Mohammed Bin Zayed, "Bin" denotes "son of". So you have a first name of Mohamed, and he is the son of Zayed.

The school itself is not new; it was recently utilized as a secondary boys’ school. But with fresh paint inside and out, new carpet, new brickwork outside, new furniture – well, it will be a lovely facility, with lots of room. There’s still plenty to do with the refurbishment, but it’s getting whipped into shape quickly.

To start with at this site, we have just one smaller group of students – Abu Dhabi Police. About 60 male students in total right now. These are officers who are improving their English language skills. They are at different levels of English proficiency.

This was the first day that the students were at this facility, so we were there to greet them, help get them introduced to the new site.  They had met their teachers the day before, at another campus site.

Why am I telling all you all of this? Well, it’s to share a couple of moments that I completely enjoyed.  Moments that illustrate Arab hospitality, and moments that reminded me of why I love working in higher education.

After playing greeter and directing the students to their classrooms, I decided to sit in on a class or two.  (Sometimes you encounter some very shy students. These young men were poised and confident and very friendly as they exchanged greetings with me.)

I chose the first class because the door was still open, so it felt less intrusive or disruptive to observe for a few minutes.  As I interacted with them about their lesson (for the time I was there, they were focused on words in English about different occupations), one of them offered me tea.  (If you’ll recall, or read, in other posts – hospitality is important here culturally, as is saying “yes” when offered a drink or snack.) This student had brought a large thermos to share, complete with cups. It was a delicious blend of tea, milk and sugar.

I got a kick that someone had brought in tea from home. I’ll have to ask the teachers if this is a regular thing for these particular students. (It is not for other classes I have observed.)  I found out that a few days later, more treats were brought in (cake I believe) by a student to celebrate the birth of his first child.

After several minutes I moved to another classroom and different level of English learners. I asked if I could sit in for a few minutes. One of the students, in the front row, saw my cup of tea. He asked where I had found that tea, and I explained it was from the Level 4 class. With an air of “well, I’ll show you good tea” he jumped up and went toward the back of the room. I had not noticed that there was a large metal food container and some thermoses on one of the desks in the back. As I made my way to sit in the back of the room and observe, he dished up a plate of food; I believe it was an Emirati breakfast dish, with Arabic bread cut into small pieces, with a sort of broth of milk and sugar.  And a generous portion, in my eyes! And then came two cups of hot beverages. Another tea with some milk and sugar, and a cup of Arabic coffee.  

An amusing moment! One of the students sitting near me said "too much coffee", as I sat with my plate of food, a cup of coffee and two cups of tea! I made a shaking movement with my hands and arms and said that yes, it was too much caffeine and sugar, and he made the shaking movement too, quietly laughing.

I felt it would be rude to not sit for awhile, eat the food, and drink at least some of my three cups of tea/coffee. What was great fun was watching the students engaged in the lessons.  This lesson was to help prepare them for the IELTS test (English language proficiency test), and the teacher was helping them understand the focus of the upcoming test.

As I left (and apologized to the teacher as I had not known my presence would end up being disruptive with the food and drink serving), the student who had given me the snack and drinks asked if it was better than Level 4’s tea.  I was diplomatic and said they were both delicious (which truthfully they were). He smiled, nodded, and seemed pleased with that answer.

I then stopped by the highest level class. In all of the classes it was a joy to watch the students who were engaged and wanting to learn the lesson. This group’s lesson was about morphology.  In their workbook they had a word and two blank lines next to that word. They had to say if the word was a noun or adjective or verb, as well as the meaning of the word.  And then they had to take that word, and say what the noun or adjective or verb would be of that word. So for example, they had the word “invent.” They had to describe what invent meant, correctly stipulate it was a verb, and then come up with the noun of invention and the adjective of inventive.

To see these young men, who are in professional careers already engaged and wanting to gain a hold of this language … and you could see their confidence build, even in just the short time that I observed, as they would understand what they had read, and got answers correct … an honor and a delight to observe.

As you might be picturing all of this in your head now, the officers are not in uniform when in class. They are in the traditional kanduras, or dishdashes.

A side note, and I share this because many of the officers greeted their friends like in this photo below.  In the Emirate culture, women will greet female friends with a handshake that is held for a length of time, and three kisses on one cheek.  Men will greet male friends with a handshake that is held for a length of time, and they will touch noses.

(Photo from internet.)  These men are in formal wear (versus the everyday all-white garb).