Pidgin's blog

Going home in a few days does not, for the most part, mean saying goodbye. I will be back next semester, as will most of my closest friends here. Still, the trip is not without gravitas.
 
This semester is my first experience outside of the United States, and the transition to living here was surprisingly without culture shock. The differences between this side of the world and my home registered not with angst and homesickness but with a kind of gentle amusement and curiosity. It may have been due to the fact that this is a fairly insulated campus with distinctively American influences, but I settled into this place with surprising ease.
 
I do not expect the transition back to being at home to be so smooth. With the comfort I feel here comes a certain anxiety about leaving. I have gotten used to time marked by the call to prayer, to the ease of travel by cheap taxicab, to the availability of  shawarma and manaqish. It’s not as if I’ll actively miss these things when I’m back in the states, but I do think I’ll feel their collective absence.
 
I know I’ll be grateful for some aspects of home.  The short Victorian buildings, the snow, the Christmas decorations. I’ll be grateful for family and friends, of course, and I’ve got a long list of foods to eat while I’m there (bagels, a BLT from Francesca’s, Mom’s beef stroganoff, lots and lots of pork). But as my arrival into that world approaches, these things don’t give me as much sense of comfort as I expected that they would.
 
Ultimately, I’m afraid that home will feel as foreign as it feels familiar. I am afraid that instead of being greeted by the warm embrace of familiarity I’ll arrive to a strange sense of remove from a place that has been a part of me for 22 years.
 
The idea that the feeling of being at home is a finite resource capable of applying to only one place in full at a time is a shock to my system, and I sincerely hope it proves untrue.
 
If nothing else, though, I think being at home will have a kind of compass effect, like turning to face north and realizing how far you’ve gone and in what direction. That is, while I don’t feel particularly changed by the experience of being in Abu Dhabi, I imagine that being at home again 9even if only for 2 weeks) will show me ways that I might be different. 

There are things I left at home that I wish I hadn’t.
 
When I was trying to fit a year of my life into one suitcase, I had to make a lot of tough choices. I own this terrific NYU sweater that is gigantic and warm and near offensively purple. Its size is part of its glory, but it is also the reason why I opted not to pack it. It’s ridiculous to bring this thing to the desert, I thought. Boy was I wrong. It may sound silly, but you’ll want to bring sweaters to Abu Dhabi. Both the residence hall and the main campus buildings are heavily air conditioned such that at this time of year I am rarely hot but often cold.
 
I didn’t bring my travel coffee mug, either. I guess I was thinking that I would drink my coffee at breakfast in the dining hall. I guess I didn’t consider the possibility that I’d be just as prone to oversleeping on this side of the world as I was at home. In the morning, I grab a latte on the way to class, and when I fully wake up around 15 minutes later on the bus, I feel that special sort of shame that comes from lack of self-control when I realize that I’m holding a paper cup that cannot be recycled for the umpteenth morning in a row. If I’d brought my mug, it might alleviate some of my eco-guilt.
 
Local culture dictates that certain ways of dressing are inappropriate. Basically, if one wants to offend absolutely nobody, one covers their knees, shoulders, and any décolletage. Nothing too tight, or too see-through. In my apartment with the suitcase open next to my dresser, I sorted through all of my clothing. If it was in any way skimpy or clingy or short, it stayed in the dresser. If not, it went into the suitcase. Now that I’m here, I know that many expats break at least a few of these rules on a daily basis. Moreover, on residential floors (where I spend most of my time) pretty much anything goes. When I go home for Christmas, I’ll be bringing back a few of my favorite clothing items that were hardest to leave behind in the fall.
 
I left my books behind, too. I barely made it in under the weight restriction on my suitcases without their density. But I often find myself wanting to go over a theory or look at my notes in the margins of their pages. And with my colloquium coming at the end of the year, I know I’ll need to virtually live inside them.
 
Of course, there are things that I brought that I didn’t need, too. The cell phone that doesn’t work without a SIM card? Useless. The U.S. coin currency I didn’t feel the need to empty out of my wallet? They sit and gather dust.
 
The long and short of it is that the suitcase I pack when I come back to Abu Dhabi in January will have a very different composition than the one I packed 5 months ago. 

In my last two posts, I’ve been meditating on the moment when I read the last bit of From Rags to Riches and connected with my Emirati friend. Like any epiphany I’ve ever experienced, it did not feel momentous in the moment that it happened, but rather invaded my consciousness by asserting itself gently and repeatedly. In a matter-of-fact sort of way, it tapped me on the shoulder in unexpected moments to remind me that it was there and then let me be while I drifted back to thoughts about making sure to print my response paper before class. It is persistent but not pushy, and I keep returning to it.
 
When I first got here, I didn’t really have friends. I moved through my days just getting by, jumping from responsibility to responsibility and appointment to appointment without really connecting. As I’ve settled into a group of people I enjoy, I’ve begun to feel like I’m here. It is happening in increments. With these people I feel that I am at NYUAD. And they introduced me to my Emirati friend, who is beginning to make me feel that I am in Abu Dhabi. He’s not going out of his way to spend time with me or talking to me about Emirati things or anything like that. He’s just part of my social circle in such a way that I am more confident in approaching Emiratis in general. His presence puts me at ease in a culture that continues to make me unsure. He makes me feel just a little more connected to here.
 
So I think that my epiphany is this: places open up with people. Maybe it happens in the most obvious way when hanging out with local people offers one insight into culture and access to spaces that seem somehow more authentic. Or maybe it comes with the right travel companion who pushes you to be in the world in new ways and empowers you to exploration.
 
Even in New York, where I spend a great deal of time moving through new neighborhoods by myself, I look with equal curiosity at the architecture and at the people who populate it. What are they wearing? How are they walking? Do they make eye contact with one another? An empty space can only tell you so much. What is more telling is how those who spend their time in it interact with it. Place is equal parts space and people, a symbiotic relationship that makes the ineffable quality of a building or neighborhood or city or country.
 
This is my simple revelation. I am not here just because I am in Abu Dhabi, but because I am with people in Abu Dhabi. They make my experience as much as this country does.

I really don’t interact with many Emiratis. Some days they skate by me in their kanduras and abayas, gracing me with courteous smiles between blowing gusts of Arabic at one another. Other days, in groups of only men, they stand just feet (ahem, meters) from me smoking dokha. I stand alone with my cigarette, baking in the sun because the sanctioned smoking area (just to the right of the photo above) has no shade. In New York, brutal weather bonds dedicated smokers; cupping your cigarette under your hand to shield it from devastating raindrops prompts a giggle from the only other person crazy enough or addicted enough to go out for a smoke in this weather, and for the next 5-7 minutes you chat about the absurdity of smoking and the rain and the bygone days of smoking inside (at least in bars!). But here in the UAE, I shift from foot to foot under the weight of polite silence and mild physical discomfort, the latter made more present by the former.
 
I have two Emirati classmates. The young woman is soft-spoken and smiley, but does not respond unless engaged. She gives the impression of a skittish kitten hiding when guests come over. Needless to say, I do not know her well. The young man is more confident, and speaks often in class. He and I also have mutual friends. When I am in a crowd with them and he approaches, he greets them warmly and me not at all, though we’ve sat next to each other twice a week for several weeks. I really don’t interact with many Emiratis.
 
But my newest friend is different. We were introduced by a particularly enthusiastic mutual friend: “he is wonderful, you are wonderful, you should know each other!” He too is Emirati, soft-spoken and does not engage unless approached, so for a few weeks we only said hello and goodbye to one another. Then, I was in a friend’s room while reading From Rags to Riches and in the midst of my epiphany, and when I looked up he was there. Eager to share the moment with someone, and for confirmation that the author’s assertions were truly representative of Emirati spirit, I handed him the book and asked if he would read that final section for me. He did, and we spent the next twenty or so minutes in a gentle but spirited discussion of Abu Dhabi, sense of place, and the future of our countries. It was lovely.
 
Since then, he has become one of a handful of other students that I feel are my younger brothers. We hug at greeting and at parting, and while I have been sick over the last few days he came to bring me treats and cheer me up. I feel a great deal of affection for his jolly stoicism, his selective interaction, his charming smile. Perhaps more importantly, though, having an Emirati friend who likes me on my own terms makes me feel as if I may not be an interloper after all.

Before it came to be in my sandwich, the chicken was cooked rotisserie style, like the way they do at the grocery store behind the deli counter back home. Then it was sliced into thick strips of fat and meat and reformed into a cone around a second spit, which was delivered to the little shop near my building. There, they slid a tomato onto one end of the spit, and placed it on another rotisserie such that as it rotated and continued to cook, the tomato softened and its juices dripped down steadily onto the roasting meat. There are two cones, one spicy and one not. To make my sandwich (not the spicy kind, never the spicy kind) a handsome and smiley gentleman stands next to the rotisserie and shaves off a handful of meat. It must be 110 degrees where he stands, but it doesn’t melt his smile.
 
For a snack, I order one. For a meal, two. It never costs me more than the equivalent of $2.75.
 
It is difficult to find a spot to wait and salivate that is not unbearably hot. The space is perhaps 10 feet by 10 feet, and of the (at most) 10 chairs in the place 6 of them leave one to steadily bake in the indirect warmth of the cooking. Still, on cooler days and when I’ve gone with friends, we eat in. Besides the cook, there is occasionally a sous chef of sorts, the man who makes change, a few more skittish men in the back, and several guys who seem to just hang around. The Arabic they speak is as warm to my ears as the rotisserie is to my skin. For better or worse, we are all physically and audibly very close to one another. I wonder how much of our conversation they understand.
 
When it’s too hot or I’m alone, the closeness is too much. Often, I order and wait outside, standing on the quiet inner street of my superblock with men in kanduras. They arrive after me and they get their food first, but I am not bitter. It is impossible to be bitter toward these friendly, happy people.
 
I walk the block and a half back home while homemade pickles, french fries, chicken, and some sort of magic yogurt sauce mingle in a blanket of warm pita inside my bag. I settle in, unwrap one, and take a bite. I never feel more present than when I’m eating this food. I feel that I am in Abu Dhabi.
 
This may be the genius loci of the UAE, the characteristic feeling of the gulf region, the thing I’ll miss most when I leave here, or all of the above. This is shawarma.

On the bus ride to an event, I watched the city go by out the window. (Tall buildings tapered inward at the ground floor, wide street full of cabs, construction barrier, unfathomable intersection, wide street full of cabs, unfathomable intersection, tall buildings tapered inward at the ground floor, construction barrier. Parking lot parking lot parking lot Mall construction barrier parking lot Mall Mall.) We reached our destination and I had no idea where I was. I knew I was at the mall, but I didn’t know where that was. We could have been in 5 other places; there are at least 6 malls within 20 minutes of our building.
 
It has been three months since I arrived in Abu Dhabi, and I still have no sense of where I am. But while reading the final passage of From Rags to Riches: A Story of Abu Dhabi tonight I had a series of gentle epiphanies. The book is part memoir, part history, written because the author felt that the country underwent socioeconomic and cultural changes so quickly that a generation of memories from a time before oil were being lost. Interwoven with his personal narrative, Mohammed A.J. Al Fahim tells the story of a people crippled by poverty who suddenly must negotiate “changing an entire way of life and thinking which had been passed down from one generation to the next for hundreds of years” (Al Fahim 152). The nuance of these growing pains is fascinating, and the conclusions that Al Fahim draws from them has changed the way that I see Abu Dhabi.
 
This last section of the book, entitled somewhat misleadingly “Education is the key,” describes a vision on the future that is unyieldingly faithful to the idea of progress toward education, attaining equality of respect in global politics not just as a result of financial power but of intellectual prowess, tolerance of an ever-increasing internal diversity, and strength for his country. Seen in the light of these lofty ideals, the endless construction sites are not an aimless cycle of creation and destruction, they are a tireless commitment to revision and improvement. The malls are not monuments to materialism, they are manifestations of an insatiable craving to have more and better things and consequently to somehow be more and better.
 
The wide streets may be alienating, but they are also symbols of efficiency and freedom. So, while I by no means feel at home in Abu Dhabi, I no longer feel that I am nowhere. The sense of place here is not a vast emptiness, it is pregnant with potential. 

(Photo is my own, the view from my window.)

Some "great good places" are such because they are consistent, whether they're abuzz with artistic pontification or a quiet vantage point from which to ponder the hubbub of a street. Patrons or visitors relish their first moments, and when they fantasize about going back, they relish the prospect of returning not to the place but to the experience of the place. A favorite coffee shop sets the tone for one’s morning. Apple picking ushers in the fall with the warm smells and sights and tastes of the season. When a great good place disappears, it is not just the space that we mourn. We mourn the magical moments that the space contained. In this light it is easy to see Common Ground (the large, formal, multi-purpose space in our residence hall) as the epitome of a great good place, even though no one I’ve spoken to seems to think of it other than in passing.
 
Each semester, students run one or two Open Mic nights for the student body. At around 8PM students flood into Common Ground and hunker down in an enormous pile of beanbag chairs. They munch on popcorn and cotton candy, and watch their classmates sing, dance, read poetry, perform comedy routines, dazzle and make complete fools of themselves. At the conclusion of each performance, no matter how impressive, the room erupts with hollering and applause. Unanimous cheers of support can be heard late into the night. Students talk about Open Mic with deep reverence. It may be that it is a rare time when the entire student body socializes in one place, it may be that one cannot help but be in awe of the collective talent in the room, and it may be that it has been a beloved tradition since its inception in the first year that the school existed. Whatever the case may be, students are deeply invested in maintaining it as a safe, supportive, creative space.
 
Common Ground nourishes these feelings of insulation and support. With the dark curtains that cover the walls, the low lighting and wood floors, a space which can seat 100 is made to feel somehow cozy and intimate. This feeling doesn’t just apply to performance; a few weeks ago, we hosted a dinner for about 50 student members of the LGBTQ community. It was intended to be a moment of celebration and gratitude for the support we have given one another in place where it is not always easy to be out and proud. Several people spoke very movingly, and several of us cried. We spent hours eating and talking and dancing and laughing, reveling in both the size of the group (remarkably large given that the student body is so small) and the closeness we felt to one another there.
 
There have been meetings, student performances, trivia tournaments, and dance contests in Common Ground this semester, and while the tone of each event was very different they each created a kind of closeness. Most wouldn’t recognize Common Ground as the root of this feeling, and it may not be, but its capacity to foster this feeling again and again in versatile situations makes it without question a great good place.

(photo is of me and friends at the aforementioned dinner in Common Ground.)

A couple of weeks ago in my class on the “Society and Politics of Saudi Arabia” we had the pleasure of a guest lecture with artist and photographer Manal al-Dowayan.
 
It is true that Saudi Arabia is in many ways very different from the UAE, but the two countries have much in common. They are young nations in the gulf region attempting to reconcile strong religious beliefs with an increasingly globalized world, the residents of which do not universally share said beliefs. They may handle things differently, but their struggles are strikingly similar.
 
Because both countries are so new, the art culture seems to be a contemporary art culture. In asking around about where to see Abu Dhabi art, nearly everyone mentioned Art Dubai (and usually only Art Dubai). From their website: “Over the last six years, Art Dubai, the leading international art fair in the MENASA (Middle East/North Africa/South Asia), has become a cornerstone of the region’s booming contemporary art community.”
 
Manal, as she insisted on being called, lives in and was raised in Saudi Arabia, but has studied and exhibits regularly in the UAE. She is actively involved in “the region’s booming contemporary art community,” including a project called “Edge of Arabia.”
 
She describes her work as being about “belonging,” and her search for her place in her society. Take, for instance, “If I Forget You Don’t Forget Me,” a series of photographs of the belongings of men and women whom she calls “oil people.” When Manal’s father passed away, she began to think about the questions she wished she had asked him and realized that his generation was beginning to pass away without leaving behind a collective memory for her generation.  These people, whose lives have revolved around their careers in the oil industry, had the unique experience of knowing their land before and after the discovery of this game-changing natural resource. She set out to tell their stories through art.
 
Much of her work also focuses on the experiences of women in her country. Her collections are often based on an interpretation of cultural phenomenon, like the state rhetoric about the sort of jobs that suit a woman’s nature, the fact that there is a shame in saying the names of one’s wife or mother rather than identifying them by their son’s names, and the many limitations on women’s actions.
 
This sort of artwork is not, as de Botton describes, about a depiction of the artist’s appreciation for a place’s beauty. It is about the people who inhabit that place and their struggles and successes. Her work does not give us a new perspective on the physical landscape of her country. It shows us, instead, a new perspective on what it might mean to be a Saudi citizen, and Arab, and a woman. It opens up a conversation about the societal landscape, if you will.
 
This is the work of contemporary art writ large, and it is vital work in a region that is changing so rapidly.

            MacCannell claims that, like the religious pilgrim, the tourist is after an “authentic” experience of the place they visit. He uses a gradient of six stages from front region to back region, with the former being “the kind of social space tourists attempt to overcome” and the latter “the kind of social space that motivates touristic consciousness” (598). Front spaces are designed for tourists, polished and commodified. Back spaces aim to keep tourists out, are designed for the local people, and are thus somehow more “real.”
            MacCannell’s analysis, which hinges on the impression that to call someone a “tourist” is becoming increasingly pejorative (592) and that inauthentic spaces which attempt to evoke an atmosphere that hints at authenticity are “tacky” (599). This stance presupposes a kind of liberal intellectual attitude that is far from pervasive. It is true for me, certainly. I feel a certain shame when walking around looking wide-eyed and lost, I scrunch up my nose in distaste at the idea of spending a trip at tourist attractions and only tourist attractions, I relish the idea of visiting a new country with a friend who lives there and can show me what life is really like there. For better or for worse, I am apparently in this way extremely cliché.
            Still, I don’t think that this attitude is universal, and I mean this with no sense of personal exceptionalism. Were this mindset widespread, those classic tourist attractions would no longer be in operation. They would not have the kind of long, snaking lines that imply popularity. In fact, in the context of New York, front spaces like the statue of liberty or the empire state building are seen by tourists from other places as an integral part of the “authentic” New York experience. Despite their decidedly tourist-centric presentation and the fact that for most New Yorkers they factor very little into one’s day-to-day life, the attitude is that if one were to come and go on a visit to New York without having seen these things, they will have missed out on the classic New York experience. Given MacCannell’s continuum, such people would not exist and tourist attractions would cease to exist.
            Tourists may indeed be searching for authentic experience, but measures of authenticity are highly subjective. The measure enumerated in “Staged Authenticity” is only one of many ways to determine the value of one’s tourist experience, though perhaps a new and interesting one.

I am roughly 15% of the way through Jo Tatchell's A Diamond in the Desert, and it is a useful place to pause and reflect because she and I both have a lot of questions. While Tatchell returns to Abu Dhabi after some 30 years and I have been here only 8 weeks and for the first time, many of our questions are the same.

The first is probably "what happened to the small fishing community that was here 40 years ago?" Or, more cynically, surely "such wanton destruction of their own heritage cannot be called progress?" (Tatchell 36). I have been to the "Heritage Village," which is best understood as how Disneyland might depict Abu Dhabi before oil. A goat-hair tent and rustic fire sit beside the chain-link camel's pen. The camel is sad-looking, but camels are always profoundly sad-looking. Around the corner there are trickling fountains and shops for buying spices to go with the Dior and Fendi shopping bags one just filled at the nearby Marina Mall. Tourists gather at the world's tallest flagpole to snap pictures. What is left of the small fishing community is a row of perhaps 50 boats near the fish souk, which is now staffed entirely by migrant laborers.

Second, how exactly has Abu Dhabi developed differently than, say, Saudi Arabia or Oman? To the extent that Saudi Arabia has been "straight-jacketed by conservativism and [is] still out of reach to non-Muslims, except by personal invitation" (Tatchell 18), the UAE is very different than its neighbor. Still, I haven't yet got a grasp on just how different it is. The stereotype that most of the people I know at home carry is that it is not that different at all, and the only truth I have to combat that stereotype is my extremely limited personal experience--I know that I am not forced to keep hijab, but I also know that my reproductive rights out of wedlock are zero to none. I wonder, as Tatchell does, if the development of Saadiyat Island (where NYUAD's permanent campus will be) as a new district of Art and Culture be accompanied by "the kind of freedoms necessary to allow artistic culture to flourish" (Tatchell 24)? She writes of speculating about what might hang on the walls of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi--certainly no nudes. Sometimes when I share a classroom with Emiratis, I feel the air get thinner as we approach subjects like sexuality. With the importation of NYU and the Guggenheim, will ideals of artistic expression and academic freedom come too? Will they be welcomed or fought?

I look forward to reading about her exploration of the changes that have taken place in the USE's short life, and to seeing how she answers some of our shared questions. I wonder if we will agree in the answering as we did in the asking.

(The photo is the happiest-looking camel I could find.)

In the corner of my room, there is a pile of water bottles and soda cans and cardboard and scraps of paper. Eventually I’ll drag all of these things down to the bins in the dining hall, which they may or may not just empty into the regular trash anyway.
 
In the dining hall, hardly anybody sits alone. Sometimes, when I’m working on class readings over breakfast, someone I barely know will sit down next to me and attempt to strike up conversation. I smile politely and continue reading, while others join them. Suddenly I am surrounded by strangers who talk through me, gesticulating over my chocolate croissant. I am trapped both socially and physically. I miss New York.
 
On a Thursday night, one of the floors where men are not allowed hosts a party. Women who are usually covered in abayas or sheilas display short dresses and long tresses and dance to Azaelia Banks’ “212.” The room is full of sweat and giggles—pure, feminine glee.
 
The lobby doors stick, so that when someone is in a rush and opens the door too far, it stays open. At least four staff people stand around these doors regularly and still they stay open, leeching air conditioning into the 95 degree heat. On my way past, I yank them closed.
 
At a floor event, conversation naturally evolves into a discussion of peak oil and the relative benefits and detriments of various alternative energies. Nobody is bored. I am at home.
 
At the local grocery store, Al Safa, we hunt for apple sauce for a sick friend for 30 minutes. For reference, here it is called “apple mus.”
 
I teach my friend Noha the meaning of “every hour on the hour” and “fly kicks.” She always puts the emphasis on the wrong syllable, which is incredibly endearing. She teaches me “shukran,” which means thank you, and “habib(t)i,” which means something like sweetheart or darling. When she holds the door for me, I say “shukran habibti,” and she smiles wide.
 
The woman who comes to clean my bathroom is tiny and very polite. She disappears into my bathtub while I work in the morning, and after a while her coworker shouts “Grace!” I respond “yes?!” because that is my name. As it turns out, this is the name of the woman in my bathtub too. We all laugh about it, and now every Thursday I say “hello Grace” and “thank you Grace,” and I feel just a little less guilty about not scrubbing my own toilet.
 
Walking home from a shisha café, Usama and Peter discuss how many men it takes to slaughter various animals. I tell them I’ve never seen an animal slaughtered.  “You Americans,” Peter says, “so removed from your food.”
 
Before I fall asleep at night, I look out the window and see starless midnight blue—exactly what I saw in New York at bedtime. 

The official national language of the UAE is Arabic, but the unofficial national language is certainly English. While it is not uncommon to hear the passionate glottal stops of Arabic when one is out and about on the street, most everyone uses English in ordering food or directing a cab or asking for help. That is not to say, however, that everyone’s English is good.
 
I took a bunch of freshmen out to lunch as part of Marhaba, NYUAD’s welcome week. The staff at Abu Shakra were very eager to serve us, but didn’t always know quite how. I stuck to ordering things I could identify and pronounce, but not everyone had the same strategy. One freshman, a vegan, asked our server “Excuse me, what is the okra cooked in?” to which he responded “Yes, okra.” They went around like this a few times before the whole party started to gesture putting okra into a pan. Our server’s olive face turned a pale maroon. “Tomato,” he said, “okra in tomato.” She ordered white rice anyway.
 
It is for precisely this reason that it is a good idea to bring someone who speaks Urdu to Al Ekram, or someone who speaks Arabic to Ma Wa Weel. For another similar meal out, this one a dinner for the NYUNY study abroad students, we went to an Lebanese restaurant nearby. We were given 50AED each to spend on dinner, and we ordered accordingly. A few minutes after we placed our order, our server came back to our table and started speaking in rapid Arabic to the Libyan girl in our party. Apparently, the per person minimum for the evening was 75AED. After several conversations in Arabic which I did not even remotely understand, we ate and were charged precisely 50AED each. I don’t know what we would have done without a native Arabic speaker.
 
Moments like this are extremely stressful for me. I pride myself on my communication skills, on being articulate and clear. When someone says “how do I say that they like reinforce each other?” I offer up the phrase “mutually constitutive”. When someone in the computer lab asks “what’s a synonym for like slow and creepy?” I suggest “saturnine.”  In facilitating the conflict resolution, I rephrase what the parties are saying so that their needs seem valid rather than unnecessarily aggressive. When I’m stopped on Broadway and asked “which way to Chinatown?” I don’t just point and say “that way!” I take the time to find out whether the tourist is looking for Canal Street, terrific food, or a Chinese grocery before giving them directions to a specific spot.
 
Effective use of language is central to my identity. It is the way that I apprehend the world. Stripped of this skillset, I am a ball of doe-eyed, quivering terror. I am useless and ashamed, no longer the powerful woman whom I know myself to be. Were I in another country, I’d learn the national language. But here, I could learn 5 and still not escape the peculiar anxiety that comes with not being able to say what you mean. So as it stands, I’m learning to take a deep breath and talk more with my hands.

In New York, I found nothing without the aid of Google maps. I had the app on my phone, and whenever I needed to find the nearest stationery store or fast food restaurant or what-have-you I simply told my phone where I wanted to go and it all but walked there for me.
 
I have a new phone now, one that is significantly less fancy than the one I had in New York. And even if my new device could pull up Google maps, it would be next to useless in this country. Many things are simply not on the map, and nothing that is ends up being where it seemed to be when you looked at it online.
 
It’s probably just as well, because even if I could find something on a map I’m not sure I could translate it into the real world. While I’m told that the larger thoroughfares do have names, I have seen no street signs as yet. Many things, including the NYU campus, are situated within superblocks on smaller streets that have no names. It is in light of this that it makes perfect sense that we do not use addresses here. “No addresses?!” you exclaim, “How does that work?”
 
If you wanted to mail anything to me here via FedEx or some other such courier service, you’d need to address the package as follows:
 
My Name
C/O NYU Abu Dhabi
Behind the ADIA Tower & across Al Nasr Street from the Cultural Foundation
Abu Dhabi, UAE
 
That long and cumbersome description is also what you’d tell a cab driver if you were trying to get to campus. When in the UAE, always take the silver cabs. If you are a woman, do not sit in the front seat. Know several landmarks near your destination, and tell them all to the cab driver, even if he nods and smiles at the first thing you say. Especially if he nods and smiles at the first thing you say.
 
More often than not, a cab is more expensive than a swipe of your MetroCard. Anything cheaper is probably close enough to walk. The more tolerable the weather gets, the truer this will be. Maybe then I will stop taking the shuttle and learn the way to campus on foot. Maybe I’ll snap a photo of the elusive street sign. Abu Dhabi exists in my mind as a jumbled mass of skyscrapers, a list of destinations, and a great mystery. Little by little, my sphere of wayfinding expands. Today I conquer the way to Marina Mall. Wish me luck!

(Photo is my own.)
 

­Before leaving for Abu Dhabi, I had the same conversation over and over again. It began with the question “Where is that?” and ended with some version of “Its going to be incredible!” I politely explained to my oh-so-Ohio Aunt Carolyn, my partner’s grandparents, and the chatty barista at my favorite lunch spot that the UAE is in the Middle East, and that I was trying not to have any expectations.
 
Friends and family alike didn’t understand why I wasn’t bubbling over with excitement at the thought of leaving for Abu Dhabi, and my explanation didn’t really make them feel any better. Abu Dhabi is on the other side of the world, and I had no idea what it would be like. It could very well, as they said, be amazing, but it could just as easily make me miserable. Either way I knew it would be worth doing, but I didn’t want to go into the experience with any preconceived notions of what it might be like to live here.
 
Because I wasn’t expecting, I experienced very little of the anticipatory feelings that de Botton so relishes. While he focused on the romance of his destination, I focused on those details that most people could do without dwelling on. Would my suitcase be too heavy? Too large? Was it more important to bring a sweatshirt or athletic sneakers? Could I pack my nail file in my carry-on? Will I end up sitting next someone with no sense of personal space? That is to say that my anticipation was tinged with stress, not longing.
 
For most NYUAD students, travel was a part of the reason for choosing this school. Travel is a part of the ethos here, such that it isn’t uncommon to hear “when I was in Beirut…” and “I really want to go to India” in the course of every-day conversation. There is an archetypal student who is always popping off to nearby countries on long weekends, grabbing every opportunity to be somewhere new.
 
Personally, I’ve never felt this kind of wanderlust. When friends talked about studying abroad or travelling, I’d often say that I’d go if life took me there, but that I didn’t feel particularly compelled. Part of it probably comes from the fact that it wasn’t a part of my upbringing. We spent family vacations close to home, and my memories of hunting for snails are no less fond because they’re from an island off the coast of New Hampshire rather than Italy or Spain. Even now, when the world feels so accessible, I see the emotional, physical, and monetary expense of travel more than I see its potential.
 
Still, life has taken me to a place that is deemed middle (for better or worse) for a reason. Northeast Africa and Southwest Asia are suddenly accessible, and all I need is a reason to go. I welcome any suggestions.

I'm Grace. I'm studying Religious Diversity and Governance, and I can't imagine a better place to do that than at NYU Abu Dhabi. While I’m here, I want to really explore what it means to be part of a group of people finding a way to live together despite distinct difference, and I’m starting to do just that already.
 
I don’t venture outside of school much for a lot of reasons. First, the weather is hard on me. I come most recently from upstate New York, where there is much more snow than sand. I am at home in scarves and boots and many layers, and I know how to brace myself for the cold. But the temperature here is still over 100 degrees all day long, and after three minutes out in the world my skin begins to turn a shade of pink that is no more pleasant to behold than it is to wear. I am left ravaged by the heat, feeling constantly drained.
 
When I do go out, the people that I encounter are overwhelmingly male. They gawk at me, sometimes smiling sort of maniacally but mostly just staring. At first I returned the gaze and smiled, as one might in the states. Later, I was told that such an exchange could easily be viewed as an invitation for a direct advance. I’m still having trouble shaking the habit.
 
Nobody speaks particularly good English here, and most don’t speak Arabic either. More often than not I couldn’t even begin to guess what their mother tongue is. Being articulate is central to my identity, and not being able to communicate paralyzes me. I feel incapable of the simplest transactions and of getting what I need.

I worry constantly that I’m not dressed appropriately for the public sphere. Is my top too sheer? My skirt too short? How much sleeve counts as covering my shoulders?
 
There are dozens of reasons to stay inside, and I feel them all.
 
This is what it means to be really different. This is what it is to immigrate to the US, to be the lone Muslim in one’s town, to feel alienated. I’ve never felt like this before, and honestly, that’s exactly why I wanted to come here.