A trip around Bahrain

Today we began a 4 day weekend. The king of Saudi Arabia declared that the 22nd of Sept. (the 1st day of the work week-Sunday) a holiday because the National Day of Saudi Arabia is the 23rd of Sept. With the extra day we went into the neighboring country of Bahrain went shopping & attended services as the NSA Bahrain before we ventured out to see the rest of the island nation, which isn't much but desert, oil fields, refineries, & other military installations. Outside the capital city of Manama there are other towns such as Isa, Sitra, Riffa, etc. Some of these towns there are pockets of unrest as the locals disrupt the flow of life due to their circumstances. Today we ran into one of those disruptive activities when going down a street we found out it was blocked off with burning tires, 4 in a row. Nothing very serious but what was strange was that was it. No one was on the streets protesting or any other signs of folks being disgruntled. So we drove around this small annoyance & progressed on to see Durrant Resort which was basically an exclusive gated community, the Tree of Life (a large tree growing in the middle of the desert surrounded by oil production & carved-tagged to bits), & basically, the lay of the land. I did get stuck in the sand but some very nice gentlemen from Pakistan and locals help me push my vehicle out. Thank God.

Eat well in a neighborhood

Perhaps one of the best tasting & cheapest foods here is the shawarma. Not sure where it comes from but around here it is a common staple & everyone has their favorite shawarma shop. I prefer one in old Khobar near a place we call the Pilipino mall. Many Pilipinos work here. Unfortunately, the neighborhood is old & dilapidated as you can see from the photos. The area around the shawarma shop use to be a mall that burned down & just left to “rot.” Still, it is worth the crazed driving to get your tasty shawarma.

A "canned" party

There is nothing in common with the two photos you see. One is a can of Arabic "Spam" (either beef or chicken) & there seems to be a variety of canned meats at the market. So may be for our "earthquake" kit I'll get some. The other photo is from last night's (5 Sept. 13) birthday party at a neighbor's villa. On the compound there are various group gatherings & Jodi is posing with Eileen at a themed party. It was nice to see most of the folks back & into the swing of things.

The 1st week of school

We just finished our 1st week of school & boy did it seem quick. I'm spoil as I have a sweet adorable group of 4th graders that will melt your heart! Also, I only have 14 of them! Well, that many for now. Due to security reasons I cannot post photos of my students or classroom activities so you'll have to take my word that they are just adorable. We finished the week off with brownies, which I made, & off they went happy go lucky with not a care in the world! Next week, we really begin our work but the school has not received it's shipment of teaching materials & quite a few teachers are still waiting for their visas! OUCH!

Good eating!

One of the great benefits of teaching overseas is meeting other teachers from various cultures & sharing a meal together. We're blessed to have teachers from So. Africa & one of them brought over a typical bread they eat called "mealie". Think of it like heavy cornbread. Man, it was good eating!

Not too RC (religiously correct)

Living over here one notices that you are living in a very religious culture and the nationals take their faith seriously. Now with that in mind I get a laugh or scratch my head wondering at what I see around me; for example this t-shirt being sold at our local store. I wonder if they knew what it meant?

Setting up the classroom

Eileen & I have been going to the school for a couple of hours to see what we could get done & to drop off all those books I carried back with us. A duffle bag full of children books! Well, they place was rather messy with the janitorial crew doing their jobs cleaning the carpet & other things around the school. We had to cover just about everything with plastic sheets or butcher paper before we left for the summer so we just took those items down & stored it for next year. The next few days we'll set up the desks, get the classroom organized, & hook up the computer & printer. Next the bulletin boards & some lesson planning; then just wait for the kiddos to arrive. I'm so glad to be back early to do this junk because next week when teachers are suppose to be back to work there will be so little time with mandatory meetings taking up most of the day. Around the school the new preschool-elementary building is almost finish, "inshalla" (if Allah wills) in 2 weeks. Man, I'm just happy I don't have to move my classroom as some have to. As for the head count, I have no idea how many students I'll have in my class but I'm expecting a full group (24). Above is the classroom packed for the summer & the next photos will be the classroom ready for action!

Where have I been?

Hey folks! After a year hiatus we’re back on the blog. I almost forgot the password and such. Well, we finished our first year & what a year it was being frantic, frustrating, & fun. After all the adjustments we are back for more action here in the kingdom. Just a quick summary, I ended up teaching 4th grade. Eileen came 2 weeks later due to visa problems & was a great 3rd grade teacher. It took a while to set up the home, figure out how to get around & get things done but after that that, it was a rather work focused year. Still we had great vacations to Sri Lanka, the United Arab Emirates, & Oman. I have a lot to catch you all up on but I’ll get to it one step at a time. Let me start with a seasonal update on what I think is Saudi’s second biggest export & that is the product call dates. These very sweet fruits come from palm trees & this time of the year they are harvested & processed for export. I have a bunch in the front & back of our villa. The series of photos show unripe to ripen dates. I can only have a few as they are so sweet. More later.