So with the epic adventure aboard M/Y Blue Moon concluded, I switched vessel to flight EK 761 en route to Dubai. My cabin on the yacht began to feel like a bit of a luxury once I was seated on the plane between two ninja’s heading for Saudi Arabia. There wasn’t much conversation.
With my folks living in Dubai I was keen to settle down with a cold beer and return to a normal pace. The Republik of South Africa was out, since the world cup was about to start and flights back home would cost you the deed to your house- and I had little more to my name than the clothes on my back. When I got to Dubai though it was clear that I had miscalculated somewhat, as I stepped out onto the tarmac at 5am to be greeted by a steemy 32 degrees. Dubai summer is not for ants. I was now seeing the pattern between flights entering vs flights exiting the emirates, and understood why I could quite easily find a flight into Dubai. Humans were fleeing!
Once settled in the desert it was time to do some work. I had decided to teach English in the Far East in the coming months, and got offered a job in the meantime at a local language school teaching private lessons to 3 kids. It sounded very chilled and I was keen to get some experience as well as some cash. In hindsight the years that those kids stole off my life didn’t quite balance with the joys of imparting wisdom. I soon discovered that my 3 students were Afgans whose family had fled the capital due to your everyday problems such as rising petrol prices and US air strikes. In their case the grass probably was greener on the other side..
With my “students” sitting before me I began to anticipate a few problems. Aged 8, 10 and 12 - One ADD, one autistic and one painfully bored - I was no match for this trio. The fact that lessons were 3 hours each and bathroom-breaks were frowned upon made me more nervous. What had I walked into? I dived in head first, employing every tack and bit of wit that I possessed to keep these animals under control. Before each lesson I would have to carry out a recci to search for anything they could break or use to inflict pain. Sugar had to be hidden, doors fortified and the public warned. Their arrival on the premises was heard, not seen. Keep in mind that 3 hours learning a second language is a prospect that would strike fear into most- but these terrors were not ‘most’. I learnt that it was their school holidays and they had been pawned off by disinterested parents into summer-camps, swimming lessons and the low point of their day: English. They had also been spoilt to death and had no grasp of what an authority figure was. Basically it was a catastrophe. Think matric finals with no breaks and gremlins stapling your tie to your shirt throughout. There were times that people walked past and it must have looked like I was teaching hand-to-hand combat. At the end of one torture session and old Israeli sailor came up and hugged me. He said, “They are evil”. It was for all purposes, a nightmare. I had such respect for our teachers at school. Why would they put themselves through this? I felt like calling up Mr. Amos and apologizing for making his life hell. Was I being punished and if so, when would it end? At the glorious end of my contract I sat down and thought about what I had subjected myself to, and contemplated whether I wanted to spend the next few months doing the same. The purist teacher argument of “the privilege of teaching another soul” was, by this stage a joke to me. The question was; could I physically survive? After much deliberation and advice from mates teaching abroad I decided to push on, under the influence of a promise that these kids were the worst that I would ever encounter. With teaching experience now under my belt I was in demand and could choose where I wanted to go. Thailand, Japan, Vietnam? The list was as endless as it was glamorous. Do not ask me why I chose Korea. It’s going to take me a while to answer that myself.
NB Tip- Be nicer to your teachers. It will come back and bite you in the ass.
NB Fact – Ninja’s, aka Muslim women wearing full burkha’s has now been banned in France for security reasons. Trust the frogs.
