Life

I (Jamie) am realizing that every week our lives happen or we happen to our lives.  You can choose your own philosophy on that one.  My point is that after six months of living and working in Saudi, this has become our lives.  There isn't a huge shocking cultural revelation everyday or every week.  Seeing six Indian men riding in the bed of a compact pick-up truck going 75 mph down the highway in the morning is normal.  Saudis causing a bottle neck situation at every busy intersection by making a two lane road into four lanes and then having to get back down to two lanes when the light changes is expected.  Seeing a two year old sitting on his/her dads lap while he is driving is scary, but not shocking.  Having to check when prayer time is before going to a store has become routine.  All of these things we used to think of as weird are now just a part of life.  We have settled in.

Settling in is a big reason why we haven't blogged in two weeks (I believe this is our longest gap).  I'll quickly fill you in on what has been going on.  About half of our 9th and 10th graders have been on a Habitat for Humanity trip in Bangladesh for the past 10 days.  Last week we had normal 7th and 8th grade schedules, but did not hold classes for the high school students that stayed behind.  Instead, the students spent all week doing service projects around the school (I have a very organized storage room now!).  Our friend Cory (who also has a very clean storage room now) headed up the week with Tara and I working with him.  On a side note, Cory realized last week that he has not been mentioned in our blog so I'll fill you in quickly.  Cory and his wife Natalie were the first ISG veterans we met.  They took us around and helped us settle in and have become good friends of ours.  Also, they have a beautiful 3 and half month old baby boy and a big sweet dog named Marshall they rescued (ok, Marshall is sweet if he likes you, but scary if he doesn't.  Don't worry, he loves us).
Anyways, the kids did a lot of cleaning in classrooms, reading to little kids, picking up liter, making bulletin boards and huge Dr. Suess mural in the library.  I also had a crew working with me to renovate the landscaping by the gate entrance.  We are still working on that project.

Besides what is going on now, we are planning for our more blog-worthy events.  At the end of March we will be in Bangkok, Thailand for our teacher convention and spring break.  After the convention we plan on spending about a week on the island of Koh Samui.  Also, my big brother Seth is now deployed to Djibouti, Africa until this summer.  We are both on the same time zone now and plan on getting together in Bahrain for a weekend when he can take leave.  And looking way out to June, we are going to do a week long trip around Ireland on our way home.

Sometimes we really miss being back in Wisconsin, but I tend to think our great jobs and travel opportunities make it all worth it.

Until next time,

Jamie