Choueifat: An Introduction

My entrance into Choueifat effectively marked the beginning of my conscious life. Everything before this traumatic episode would have to be a collection of hazy dreams, still reeling from the whole concept of consciousness, or perhaps the feeling of being generally clueless like some kids are.

I first joined the International School of Choueifat in Abu Dhabi in September of 1996, in the beginning of Grade 8. Though I can't say everything during my stay was rotten, I think it's safe to say that most of it pretty much was, except for a handful of interesting people (both students and teachers) that I met during those 5 fateful and eye-opening years.

Doubtless there were countless people who I hated wasn't very fond of, but even they, in a strange sort of way, shaped my perception of both myself and the world around me, for which I am (modestly) grateful.

The administration at the International School of Choueifat during my stay was hideously rotten not very agreeable. Somehow I feel their policies were optimized to make the lives of their students hell, cramming us kneck-deep with tests, detentions, after-school and weekend classes, trying to make little Mathematicians and Physicists out of us at the expense of our external exam grades. In addition, I believe in insisting to impose their ego on us with live webcast lectures and "Advising" and "Careers" sessions and other such superficial, counter-productive luxuries, that our well-being as students was never a high priority with them.

As far as the students went, most of them were fun to be in a class with. The Egyptians, Palestinians, Jordanians, Syrians and Lebanese were a particularly interesting bunch, a collection of sheesha smoking, easy-going, fight-picking, getting-over-the-whole-testosterone-thing people who were generally nice (to me), peppered with the odd obnoxious freak among them who also got called out to detention everyday and not often enough for me occassionally got the crap beaten out of him (for good reason, no doubt). These were the guys responsible for the ever so interesting gang fights that would take place in or around the football field, the descriptive bathroom graffiti, end-of-year vandalisms, most of the above-average grades and the lion's share of Canadian university acceptances.

The Indians, Pakistanis, a rare Bangladeshi or two (me among them) and an assortment of obscure South Asian valedictorians, accompanied by the odd Persian or British-Iraqi, would hang out at what was known as the Table Tennis Area during our latter years. The primary area of socialization, eating, fighting, scuffling, taunting, corny-joke-cracking, adolescent immaturity and homework-copying, this area most of all occupies the fondest memories of mine in this school.

I will try my best to chronicle, from my perspective at least, the years that essentially shaped who I am today. The good, the bad and the ugly fuse together into what are now my memories, either fondly remembered or viciously suppressed. But I am writing this after almost 3 years after graduating from that concentration camp of a school. Memories are not a record, they're just an interpretation. And what follows is my interpretation.