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 10th for middle and high school students and October 17th 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 19th. 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
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