rain

I woke up this morning to a storm. A real live storm complete with thunder and lightning. It rained for the better part of the morning and into the very early afternoon. The rain stopped before I went back home from school, but now comes the fun part--dealing with mud and standing water.

I felt like I was back in Indiana in the spring.

Thanksgiving in Bahrain...

Thanksgiving is an American holiday. I just thought I would clear that one up first. Bahrain does not celebrate Thanksgiving--Ex-pat Americans do. Thanksgiving is just another normal day here...

Thanksgiving usually implies seeing relatives, watching American football, getting off of work/school, and eating far too much. Well, this year with none of those things available, (except for the food) a handful of us teachers got together and celebrated Thanksgiving together after school on Thursday. I never really got Thanksgiving until this year. I understood the whole getting to see relatives as a special thing but I also took it for granted that I would get to see family durring the holidays. This year is different. This year I'm a half a world away from family and yes, I miss them a lot, especially durring the holidays because the holidays became the normal/only time durring the year that I would get to see family. This is changing with my relocation to the Middle East to summers. So, I'm looking forward to Christmas in July and a reunion tour; but for now, I enjoy e-mail and post (and the occasional phone call).

Winter in Bahrain...

We had rain today. Yes, I said rain, heavy water droplets from a skyward direction. Welcome to winter. The weather broke a week or so ago and we lost a lot of the humidity and got a lot more wind, now, today, we had rain...and wind, lots of wind. The weather is cooling down to the 70's. One of the other teachers has done the math and the temp has dropped 40 degrees since we've all gotten here in late August. For the most part the weather cooling off so much has only been the last couple of weeks!

I shall call him 'Squishie'...

Today there was an out of school service beach clean up for student council and IB (honors) students so for the first half of the day a bunch of kids were gone--this didn't effect me what so ever. What did effect me was when I had my last class-Psychology- and one of my kids comes in with a zip-lock baggie half filled with water and I'm expecting a goldfish or something... no, he's got two tiny jellyfish in the bag, and he's named one of them Steve! So, naturally, I asked what the other one was named and he didn't have an answer for me so I said I would call him "Squishie".

Thank you 'Finding Nemo' for the name of Squishie for all jellyfish I see...

Even in the Middle East...

I saw my first Christmas tree of the year. Yep, I said Christmas tree. I live in a part of the city that has a decent sized population of Navy and Ex-Pats so, western things like Starbucks and short sleeved shirts on women is far more common. But regardless, I saw my first Christmas tree. It doesn't feel like November. The weather just broke over the weekend, we have a lot less humidity, the temp is going down (80's and low 90's at the highest), there's rumor of rain at the end of the week, and there's a lot more wind. If this is winter, I'm certainly going to enjoy it.

better pics of the grand mosque...

Right after Eid the scafolding came off the grand mosque. The mosque looks so much better without the scafolding. The first shot also shows some of the diplomatic/buisness district of Manama in the background. The second, not so much.

Parent/Teacher Conferences...

I survived parent/teacher conferences.

Most of my parents were happy that I was not your typical history teacher and wanting to move in a direction of everyone learning (including myself) rather than just 'I'm the teacher, you're the student and you have to do what I tell you'. I've had that enough in my own 17 years of school to know that it doesn't work with most kids. So, it went well. I also had many parents telling me that their son or daughter enjoys my class and are learning a lot--this made me feel like all the stress was actually worth it. Needless to say, it's getting better for me.

I did have a few double-takes with a few of my students that came in with their parents. I had a couple of my boys wearing thobes when I'm so used to seeing them in school uniform. Same things with the girls wearing abaias. I wasn't phased at all with the parents wearing thobes and abaias but when it came to the kids, it was different.

Also, I had one mother wearing a veil, that all you could see were her eyes. We shook hands, she sat down (her son right next to her wearing a thobe) and before we start, she pulled the bottom part of the veil down so I could see her face. We talk and when we finish, she pulled the veil back up so all you could see were her eyes again. She got up, we shook hands again, and that was that. I was not terribly shocked as I was thinking, 'this is different'. That sort of thing is common with two women talking in a semi-professional setting but it was the first time for me.

Bahraini Post

Post here takes about 10-14 days to get from this tiny little island to the United States. The same can be said for US to Bahrain post.

A letter typically costs 510 fils (about $1.25 US) and a package is weighed and its 6BD per kilo. I think everyone can do the math on this. Once I figured out what it takes to send things out (packages need to be in a white box and there’s paperwork to fill out), I started sending letters and a couple of packages. Post is cheap, but it’s not all in the same.

The post man at the nearest post office is a very sweet Indian. He is working on his English and has asked me to help him every time I’m in the post office (once or twice a week or so). I am happy to help him and in exchange he teaches me a word or two of Arabic that may help me here or there. Things like hello, good bye, thank you, please.

Justice is blind...

Well, I had a small moment of 'what the...' in one of my history classes today. I was teaching about Hammarabi's code (first laws written that have survived more than 4,000 years of history--p.s. they were also the first laws written in stone) and one of Hammarabi's laws was about stealing--if you stole and were caught, you lost your offending hand. Well, this clicked with my students because one of them shouted out, 'just like in Saudi Arabia!' Prooving once again that history is not just the past, it's also the present.

So, what does a teacher say to that? At least they were able to connect history with current circumstances and make it relavent to them...