It was an unusually dark afternoon in Dubai. Flashes of distant lightning, dim sunlight, and the occasional high-beam headlights lit up the dirty sky. Residual sand from the strong desert winds lined the street. Despite the shady sky, the sand glimmered when the penetrating lights shone on it. That was the sign the sandstorm had finally blown past the street we lived on. The shouting and screaming of neighborhood children slowly replaced the dusty air. We kids had resumed our king-of-the-courtesque ball game. The sandy street served as our court, a court where kicking, slapping, and being hit by the ball was all too abundant. Regardless of the visible bruises we would later develop, we were having fun.

The fun continued until a concerned mother came up to us shouting in a somewhat unfamiliar language. The mother enveloped in black cloth, looked at her tattered son through the small slit on her face covering, then started yelling at me in Arabic as if to reprimand me. I looked at her with a blank expression in response. She continued by berating me with what seemed to be more fast-talking nonsense. Once she was done with me, she moved on to my friends and started talking to them. The mother appeared to be familiar with the Malaysian girl and the Australian boy and spoke in English and in a much nicer manner. She asked something along the lines of, “Why do you guys want to get and give boo-boos?” I desperately wanted to say that it was fun but chose not to because I assumed I would be yelled at again. The Malaysian girl answered in my stead, “Playing ball is fun; hitting is fun.”

The mother was taken aback by the statement, so she grabbed her son’s hand and led him home. The rest of us resumed our brutal ball ballet. I distinctly remember losing my position as king after being yelled at.

As the afternoon sky cleared and our surrounding view brightened into a burning orange, I stepped onto my front lawn and saw the mother, her son, and her husband. I knew I was about to be in trouble and shoved the ball at my side into my belly out of fear. This fear, however, was unfounded because the four parents in the front doorway of my house came to an understanding. I let go of the ball. Instead of being brutally yelled at again, I was greeted by both my parents and the Emirate kid’s parents, only this time, in English. Immediately after I returned the greeting, the father started speaking Arabic to me. This was odd because neither of my parents spoke Arabic. My father politely informed him that neither did I. To which the Emirate father expressed, “Oh I am sorry, your son looks part Middle Eastern.”

On this sandy Dubai street, I realized for the first time that I was different than the other expat kids in the neighborhood. The fact that my mother and father are of different races culminated in me looking like another race altogether. I was deep in thought about what I looked like when my thoughts were interrupted by an apology from the Emirate mother.

I thanked her for her apology, this time in the one Arabic word I remembered from pre-school, “Shukran”. In her apology, she explained that because she thought I could speak Arabic she yelled at me in a way that an Emirate child would expect. Additionally, she also invited me to a play date with her son, which I agreed to. There was nothing too different about how I acted there and earlier in the afternoon. Just my looks and this one simple word earned me a ticket to the largest villa in the neighborhood. On this sandy street, I understood for the first time looking different meant being treated differently, both good and bad.

© Chris. All rights reserved. If you are interested in quoting this story, contact the national team and we can put you in touch with the author’s teacher.