It's been almost a week since an American teacher was brutally stabbed to death in a bathroom in a mall in Abu Dhabi. I'm not going to lie...it has really hit me hard. No, I didn't know Ibolya Ryan...but I was originally assigned to live in the place she lived. I have blonde hair like her. I very easily could have been in her place. And even though I'm thankful I wasn't, I also wonder what I would have done if I had been there. Because she wasn't alone. There were other people in that bathroom with her. And as far as I know, no one helped her. I have watched the video footage over and over and what I saw was a bunch of women fleeing from the scene. So she bled to death in a public bathroom.
I know that none of us can say what we would do in a situation like that. But I keep thinking, the murderer didn't have a gun, she had a knife. Granted, it was a huge butcher knife...but how easy would it have been to kick it out of her hand? Or to at least trip her on the way out the door. I mean, she left the knife on the floor in the bathroom so it's not like she was running around trying to stab other people.
It breaks my heart that she has three children...two of whom were probably sitting upstairs in the apartment watching TV or playing video games waiting for their mother. And she didn't come back.
She didn't come back.
The UAE uses Sharia Law. The sad thing is, I live here, and I don't even really know what that means. Someone explained it to me one time like this: if the mother dies, the father or the closest male relative gets custody. So if something happens to me, my husband will get the kids. But if something happens to both of us, the UAE government will take our kids until the closest male relative can come here and get them.
Ibolya Ryan was divorced and didn't have the father of the children living here.
I saw the interview they did with her ex-husband and it was so unemotional. Maybe he's just a stronger person than I am, but I feel like I've had a harder time with it than he has.
Today was my first day back at school since we've been on break. I teach third grade girls and I wondered if they had heard about it or maybe their parents shelter them from the news. It didn't take long to get my answer. Within a few minutes of class, I heard "American" "hair like you" "bathroom" "knife" and saw lots of hand motions of stabbing and throat slitting. It was disturbing, especially because some of what they said was in Arabic so I didn't know if they were saying they were worried it was me or if it was like they had seen a movie and it was kind of thrilling.
For the rest of the day, I felt like my Arabic coworkers were looking at me differently. "Hey lady, you should die your hair dark." "Why don't you wear an abaya?" "I bet you hope it's not a terrorist attack." "Why are you here? You should probably go back to your country."
No, no one said those things to me...it's just what my mind was telling me.
I was impressed with the way the Abu Dhabi police handled the situation...well, other than the creepy horror movie music playing in the background of the video. But just the fact that there was a video released so quickly and they were able to locate this woman who was covered from head to toe in black is impressive. It's also already been called a terror attack. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Obama still hasn't called the Fort Hood massacre or the beheading in Oklahoma terror attacks.
So now the question we all have is this: will it happen again? We all hope not...but if it does, I am sure the UAE government will act swiftly and justice will be served.
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