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.