@nformer

Salutations from Abu Dhabi

Early last June, former College librarian Frieda Wiebe submitted her resignation after taking a one year leave. During
the past 11 years, Frieda played many key roles at the College. As the administrator responsible for the operations and

services of the Library, she led it through the growing pains of moving to a new home and upgrading its technology.
She was also acting dean of Student and Instructional Services for a brief period in 1990 and again from December

1994 to December 1995.

Frieda’s achievements were many and included the Community and Technical College Libraries’ Micromedia Award
of Merit. Over the past year, she has been working with the Higher Colleges of Technology in Abu Dhabi in the United
Arab Emirates. I asked her to fill us in on what life is like there and this is what she had to say:

reetings from the desert. It’s hard to
believe that we arrived in the United

Arab Emirates a full year ago. Time
surely does fly when you’re busy and
experiencing something new every day.

This year the summer weather seems
much more tolerable despite its regular
40+ degrees C along with nearly 100 per
cent humidity . . . yes, this is the desert,
but Abu Dhabi is right on the Arabian
Gulf (not called the Persian Gulf by the
folks here) and while it very rarely rains,
the air is laden with moisture. There’s a
great running path right along the Gulf
and near our apartment, so I have been
able to maintain a running schedule of
sorts, which will surely improve again as
the weather cools to a mere 25 to 30 C.

The Higher Colleges of Technology,
where I am managing Learning Resource
Services, are now in their twelfth year of
operation. We are about to open the
eleventh college in the system, a
women’s college in the Fujairah emirate.
Both men’s and women’s colleges
already operate in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Al
Ain, Ras Al Khaimah, and Sharjah. Each
college, as well as the Centre for
Research & Training, HCT’s continuing
education and commercial arm, has a
Library and Independent Learning
Centre. Coordination of their services is
keeping me extremely busy while still on
a steep learning curve.

It’s fascinating to live and work in
another, yet very different, multi-
cultural environment. While all HCT
students are national Emirati, nearly
all employees are expatriates from a
wide variety of European, Middle
Eastem, Asian, African, and North
American countries. Just learning to
understand the English spoken in 50
different accents has been a challenge,
let alone trying to get a grasp of some
useful Arabic phrases.

The island city of Abu Dhabi offers
a great variety of restaurants, a well-
established cultural foundation, a
number of art galleries, a concert
society, and a few small book shops, so
life can be pretty normal and
comfortable. More interesting,
however, have been our off-road
ventures into the desert to camp, ride
camels, or explore the wadis (dry
creek beds that apparently
occasionally flood with torrents of rain
. .. a phenomenon that we have yet to
see).

I can’t say that I miss the B.C. rains,
but I do miss the greenery of the
Lower Mainland and I miss the people
(all of you) at Capilano College with
whom I enjoyed working for nearly 10
years. I am, of course, always very
pleased to hear from you. My e-mail
address is frieda.wiebe@hct.ac.ae

After at least three trips to the Omani
Embassy, Frieda Wiebe finally gets
to visit Muscat, Oman. The city is
located on the Gulf of Oman, which
is about a five hour drive from Abu
Dhabi.

@ @ Capilano
@em College

Vol. XX1 No.7
September 24/99