Painting the days away

Our break from school is coming to a close. It was only 9 days, but felt like a very long time, which is odd because usually breaks are never long enough. This may have something to do with the fact that we were confined to a small space (our compound) for most of the time. We did enjoy our time however. We did a lot of working out and swimming at the pool. We took every opportunity to leave the compound, which usually consisted of shopping. Our big project was painting the living room. I’m sure it was amusing to watch us since neither of us has had much experience painting. The word “Oops!” was often heard followed by “What happened? Wait, don’t tell me.” It ended up turning out beautifully, especially when we added a few blinds. There is still work to be done, but we’re happy with it thus far.

As for school, we don’t know much more than we did last time we posted. Tomorrow will be our first day back to school and there will probably be a bunch of meetings to figure out what to do. We are all just taking it in stride and trying to find the best of the situation. If nothing else, it gave us more free time this week because we didn’t know how to plan lessons without kids. Plus, this will give us more flexibility to do things such as open a bank account and look for cars to buy.

Here are some pictures and a video for you to look at until next time.

Tara

Jamie trying out his new swimming gear.

Tara working hard!

The finished product

Our new "blue" living room, plus the new blinds (from Ikea!)

This video is more for listening. We got locked into Ikea

during prayer time and they played the prayer over the intercom.

This type of thing doesn't surprise us anymore. In fact, it has actually

become a normal part of life.

Royal Decree and BBQ

Hello everyone! We have decided to do a quick mid-week blog to update you on some news. The Saudi government has declared by royal decree that schools do not reconvene until October 10^th for middle and high school students and October 17^th for elementary students. This is a precaution against H1N1. We think they are worried because people have been traveling so much over the break, especially all the Muslims going to a very crowded Mecca over break. I haven’t heard of any swine flu on this side of the country and there has been none reported in our schools.

There are a few worries with this, but they should be fine. The worst case scenario is that our school year is extended. I personally don’t think this will happen because our school district was smart. We had a virtual day scheduled for October 19^th. A virtual day is when school continues online in case students can’t come to school. It’s too bad we aren’t ready for it yet, but next week we prep and the following week classes continue virtually. We will be five days behind, but should be able to make them up via long days or on weekends.

On a more fun note, I was able to fire up the grill and make some good cheese- burgers for the first time since being here. I was given an old gas grill a few weeks ago from our vice-principal, but didn’t have any propane. Today we had our school driver take us grocery shopping and to a place to exchange our tank for a full one. For those of you that use a gas grill, get ready to be jealous. We paid 16 riyals, or a little over $4 for a full tank!

Briefly, let me tell you why we don't have a ton of pictures of Saudi Arabia on our blog. It's not o.k. to whip out a camera and take pictures in a lot of places. You run the risk of taking a picture of a Saudi woman and her husband, or the Mutawa (religious police) seeing you. We probably could get away with taking more pictures, but we're not risking it. We probably will take more pictures when we have our own vehicle and can take pictures out of the window. For now, pictures of Saudi culture are going to be few and far between.

We hope everyone is doing well at home and you should be hearing from us again later this week. Enjoy the pictures.

The proud owner of a free grill and cheap propane!

One of our friendly geckos on our patio wall

We found that the dates with almonds stuffed inside are very good

Eid Mubarak!

Eid Mubarak! Today is the last day of Ramadan, which means a week off of school for the Eid celebration. You might ask what we are going to do with all this time off. With no vehicle we are asking ourselves the same thing. Prospective plans are to do some painting in our house, do some cleaning, schoolwork, and lots of working out and swimming in our pool. It will be nice when everything is back to “normal” although we’re not quite sure what that is yet.

School has been continually going well. Tara’s 8^th grade students have been learning about the brain and senses. We had our first dissection this past week, cow eyeballs, and the students loved it! Jamie has had a successful start to his lunchtime Monopoly club. Because it is so hot out right now, students don’t go outside during lunch. Monopoly club gives them something to do and they seem to really be enjoying it. Blink has also become popular with those who don’t want a long game. Right now, Tara is the reigning champ and is yet to be beat by any students.

As for the weather, it has been cooling down. Highs are only about 105 F, but it still makes running around the compound difficult. We are up to about 2 miles running outside before the heat becomes too much to bare. We usually end our workouts with a trip to the pool which is always the best part.

Tara and Jamie

Jummana and Noor playing Spiderman Monopoly.

The boys were really getting into it.

Sami and Amna starting their eye dissection.

Salim showing off the aqueous humor and lens from his

cow eyeball. He kept calling it an omelet.

Iqama!

Exciting news! We got our Iqama (residency permit) this week! This is very exciting because we are officially residents of Saudi Arabia. With our Iqama we can now open a bank account, Jamie can get his driver’s license, and start looking for a car to buy. All things we have been looking forward to doing.

Also this week, we officially got our first sunburn. You may think that since we are so white we would have gotten burned in the first week, but we don’t stay outside long enough for that. Today we stopped on our way to the pool to meet our neighbor (Kieran from Ireland) and then stayed at the pool for half an hour. It was pretty much a record for being outside in the sun.

Learning moment of the week:

In Saudi Arabia, the currency is the Saudi Arabian Riyal. 1 Riyal is divided into 100 halala coins (funny name, I know. I laugh just about every time I say it). At stores, they use halalas in sale prices, but don’t like to give them for change. In fact, most of the time there aren’t even halalas in the cash register. Usually, we would just get ripped off and they would round up to the nearest riyal. However, twice now we’ve been “gummed” meaning that instead of giving halala change, we get a pack of gum. That way we are at least getting something.

Tara

Toilet in a public store. Pretty easy for Jamie,

a whole different story for Tara.

Fish market

2 weeks down and we’re still going strong. School is going well as we continue to get to know the students and become more familiar with how things work at our school.

An exciting thing happened this week. We got our first paychecks! Yay for money! For the last three weeks we had been living on a “settling in” allowance that the school had given us. It was great to actually see our names on a check and realize that we are actually a part of the full-time working world. Getting the checks cashed was a whole different story. We don’t have a bank account here yet because to get an account you have to have an iqama, which we are still in the process of getting. Our principal had to use his connections at the bank so we could at least cash our checks and have money to spend. It was quite an exciting time for all of us new staff.

Today we had the opportunity to experience a fish market first hand. It wasn’t at all like I expected. I had pictured a big tent with tables and vendors all packed underneath like I had seen in Africa. Instead, everyone had a shop (often with open sides) where they laid their fish to sell. Everything was whole, but they would fillet it and even fry it if you wanted. A fellow teacher, Lisa, took us to the market via the compound bus and bought a pound of white fish (we had no idea what kind it was) and had it filleted for 18 Riyals or about $4.80. Not bad for very fresh fish. Across the street Jamie was able to buy a variety of dates, which are his new favorite food here in the Kingdom.

One unique thing about shopping in Jubail is that all shops of the same type are lumped together in one area. For example, all of the paint shops in Jubail are on the same street. It makes comparison shopping quite easy.

That’s about all we’ve had for exciting adventures this week. Until next time.

Tara