Halloween!

It doesn't mean ANYTHING out here so it is fun to do our own thing. We used a friend's large house and all hid in different room. We played some games...enjoyed the cool weather and generally had Fall Fun.

Layla is super into bats after we passed by a WHOLE TREE of them in Sri Lanka earlier this year. Anyone watch Wild Kratz? She can enunciate the word "sonor direction" better than anyone. Or whatever that crazy phrase is for how they direct themselves!

Layla's BFF in the back row. Ryan loves her too. She is an angle EVERY day. 

The crowd! Tom lead a game of having them bite apples on a string. Great way to laugh at your kids.....

The tissue paper mummy was a case of TOTAL frustration for them. Poor things.

Sibling Love

Our house helper loves to do Ryan's hair like this! And he's learned the darned peace sign from Layla!

Layla has dressed herself since she was two (= I figured it was a set of battles not worth fighting and now I really enjoy seeing what she puts together (=

Pictures of my students

I have 24 kindergarten students that I am teaching. It has been a very interesting process of learning what they are able to do and understand blended with what I can do and how the plays out when you have 24 of them all at one time! Thankfully I have a local full-time assistant who is a wonderful young lady who is alert and understands the flow of events. She and I can get a LOT done in one morning!

I thought you all would enjoy some photos......

Birthdays are a big deal in class! Parents often come with bags of birthday things expecting ME to put it all together. sigh. cultural differences! My assistant and I have it down pretty fast now. I love that she likes to be efficient with me (= most kids are turning 5.

I am not a trained KG teacher so many of these skill-building crafts are new to me. Apparently we have to do like 25 self portraits so kids learn to draw a face properly. Who knew. You can see they still need some practise. I am NOT a crafty art person when it comes to small children!!!

I have all local kids with the exception of one Pakistani and one Egyptian. They are really fun and happy kids for the most part. There are 5 boys I could drop kick out of class most any day but really only one of them is actually devious. The other four are just undisciplined rowdy boys.

I work with them in groups of 6 at a time in hopes them can actually HEAR me and FOCUS. Not so much of either goes on. sigh.

These rainbow fans were my one flash of craft brilliance so far this year. Somehow they looked awesome even though the kids participated. (-;

Eid Al Adha

This weekend is Eid al Adha which celebrates the sacrifice that Abraham almost made of his son. It has all sorts of symbolism in the Muslim faith and is a big big deal where we live. I got this text message the day before Eid from the Ministry of Health:

Be keen always to slaughter animals at the slaughter house. Using gown, gloves and boots while slaughtering or handling blood and body fluids, protects you from acquiring the Haemorrhagic fever infection. Wish you a Happy Eid.

Wow. Now that gives so many clues about how life here is different than the US! I relish little cultural gems like this. Most families of course prefer to slaughter at home. Some will hire guys to come to do the actual slaughtering but many still do it themselves and drag the carcasses to the nearest open dustbin. Our old house was right next to a dustbin and we had 7 years of carcasses bloating and bits of it being dragged by dogs and cats and such across our front step. And the flies were another story!

Mercifully, our current home is much further from the dustbin and we don't get the ensuing flies or smells! Here is a smattering of our day yesterday which was the first day of Eid.

Layla now understands the concept of Halloween in the US so she is telling everyone that Eid al Adha is like Halloween for arabs....not quite right but kids do go around ringing doorbells and getting candy all day (=

You can see the empty plastic chocolate container in front of Layla...she was handing it out all morning when the doorbell rang. One set of neighbors gave us the plate of chickpeas and another neighbor gave us something I can't identify but the sauce was amazing. The stuff to dip in it was very mysterious!!

In the evening we visited the family of a student of mine. There are 9 children in the family and the youngest is my student. I thought it would be interesting to meet this family as the sister speaks a great deal of English and enjoys foreigners. She was quite eager to relate to us....this isn't always the case (=  I can't take pictures of the ladies so here is Sofie and one of the little boys. I asked Elsbeth and her kids to come with me as I didn't want to go by myself.

We were there for two and a half hours before any food showed up! The sister apologized profusely.....the food had been cooked at her uncle's house and he had gone on a visit and no one could find the key to his place (= They eventually showed up. The plate with darker meat on the left was cooked in the ground in a tanoor. It is FANTASTIC meat. The lighter colored plate on the right has bits of stomach and such and is cooked in vinegar. Ummm. ugh is all I have to say! The very front plate is beans, then there is humus and "cheese" which is the white creamy substance. Then olives and bread in the background.

Driving home last night we saw some strange lights and dust flying in the air so we went to investigate and it was a family putting the meat in the ground! It was really cool. They had three or four men throwing the dirt over it but you could already smell the meat so maybe they had just been checking the progress. They usually cook it overnight. Yum yum!!

Life at the moment

I'm in my fourth week of teaching kindergarten and I can see that I am getting acclimated to the new output of energy and time. It has been a big change in our family schedule and we are STILL gong through all sorts of machinations to figure out how to help everyone in our little community group get to and from school and all such activities. I'm not in charge of that schedule and I've very grateful for that!

Ryan started a preschool class with 4 other little 4 year old boys. Another family is organizing it and it has been a great thing for him. I don't think Ryan has hardly noticed that I'm working full time (= that is largely due to the fact that he is also busier but our dear house helper is his primary playmate most days (-;

At the moment I'm sitting outside!! It means the weather is getting better and we are SO ready! At the moment Ryan is trying to show our neighbor boy how to ride his bike now that we've taken the training wheels off. Layla is making dirt donuts with our neighbor girls and I'm so happy they can all play outside again I'm willing to delay dinner and bedtime! The kids are nice but the three ladies don't like me because of problems between our house helpers.....ah the problems unique to our situation! They also had an Ethiopian house helper and they badly mistreated her which of course was difficult to respond to. So who knows if we did the "right" thing but whatever should have happened....the kids like us but the ladies...not so much.

I'm teaching in the international school that Layla attends but it is about 85% local kids.In my kindergaren class I have 21 locals and 2 kids from Egypt. Most don't speak English which makes my job INCREDIBLY difficult. If you include the cultural issues of homelife being fairly undisciplined and unstructured it makes the first school years really chaotic!!  All the experienced teachers tell me that it magically gets better around December. I'm not holding my breath. I have 5 extremely active boys, one with some sort of autism spectrum issue and I think two with some other sort of ADD issue. They TRULY can't sit still for one minute!

So I'm on a steep learning curve about a lot of things in life these days but I'm LOVING it. I've been wanting to get a job for a long time - I'm grateful to have been able to stay home while the kids are young but it has been a struggle. I love having a place in this culture and a place where I can do something meaningful and deep and talk to parents everyday. I use my Arabic for sure though at the moment I'm learning kindergarten arabic (=

I'm grateful for this season.

How To Be Cured of Perfectionism

How To Be Cured of Perfectionism:
Turn at least 40 years old
Live in a developing country in the Middle East for 9 years
Take a job in this place....for which you are essentially untrained for the important bits
Take a job where you need to teach 22 little people how to sit, stand, cut, draw, recognize letters etc etc etc...
......but it isn't stated anywhere that they don't actually speak a word of English....
.....and you are expected to teach them English but it isn't actually in your job description
....and you do have a wonderful local assistant but she refuses to speak to you in English so you essentially need to function in Arabic with her and English/Arabic with the kids
....and you have all the issues of parents but with the cultural component added and the distinct dynamic that bad reports from school and result in fairly severe punishment at home.
Yikes.
Learn to embrace realistic expecations by staring this impossible job in the face every day.....without ignoring your family at home.

This job is fodder for many many lessons and crazy stories!!!

Just an old photo of sweet Layla when she started school at the same place 

My class looks exactly like this except there are 22 kids and they are all locals (=

Facebook Friends

Please note....I am using some of my FB posts on this blog. I am trying to stay connected with people in both hemispheres of the digital world and it is easiest to repeat some posts here.

Photos of England

This is Warwick castle....rather like a renaissance festival in the US....but in a REAL castle. It was amazing!! We saw actual jousting and they not only jousted each other but bags of exploding gas or something and rings on fire and such. The kids were enthralled. There was also a birds of prey show where they send these huge birds swooping over the audience's heads. Crazy. Very English history stuff which I loved being a History major and growing up in the Brisith education system!

Mom and Dad on one of the bridges in London with Big Ben and the houses of Parliament in the background. The third tower on the left is the Tower of London where everyone was imprisoned and beheaded. We had two separate "tourist days" in London but most of the time we did what you see below:

walking in the green woods!!!!!!!

Layla is wearing a present from her Nana...her aunty's old dress and hand-knit shawl which was VERY useful in Britain as it was literally the coldest August on record! We loved it. Ryan is wearing an astronaut dress up outfit from my mom. He went outside in full expectation that he would be able to soar into the air. Oh the disappointments of childhood!!!

We were in England for about 5 weeks and were able to stay in the home of friends of friends. It was in a small village and we LOVED it. Public pool, public library and playground....big treats!!! Tom was there for some medical stuff which was good news all around though his vestibular system is permanently damaged in January by some virus they assume was the chicken pox virus. crazy. His brain is miraculously compensating which is incredible. He does still have fatigue as a result of his brain overworking to learn how to get balance signals with only half the data it usually does but she said that should taper off fairly soon. She was an awesome Dr.

Good times all around!

Catching Up

I'm writing from England where we've spent the last few weeks with my parents. We've had the use of a home in a LOVELY village that has a playground, pool, library and green fields for the kids to play in. All of this is walkable from where we are staying. It has been a wonderful time.

We came to England for Tom to see a vestibular specialist to explore about what happened to his ears/brain/balance in January of this year. The doctor was amazing and able to give a very clear explanation of what was happening. The short story is that he did have quite a bit of damage from a viral attack in January that killed the nerves on his right side. However the brain is so amazing and can totally compensate over time.

She drew diagrams and gave illustrations about how our bodies are designed to determine balance and achieve equiblibrium. It was so fascinating. It was also interesting that she could give the verdict after just about 10 mins of shaking his head around and looking at his eyes! She did a much greater range of tests after that to determine if all 5 branches of the vestibular nerve were actually dead.

Because our eyes are connected to the balance system this is how we can observe what is going on in the brain. That is the basis of the ability to determine what is going on. Again, it was totally fascinating to learn about how our brain works and can compensate.

So we are very grateful that he'll be able to have essentially a total recovery. The viral attack is likely from the chicken pox virus and having an attack on one side does not increase the chance for an attack in the future.

The process of the brain learning a new way to function is the reason for all his fatigue this Spring. His recovery was slower than expected but she said that does not indicate a problem. We are grateful to hear that the fatigue will taper off. It already has to a great degree but we just didn't know if it could all return suddenly.

So we are grateful for this time in England to have this sorted out!

well....maybe I'm not really alive

My previous blog post gave the indication that I was alive and well and able to post on this blog. My dear friend Sue who is here visiting me has been brow beating me none stop to post something on here.  So I'm saying that life is a bit too much right now to be posting.

I'll throw some pictures up here but that is all I can manage now. Not sure when I'll be back......We are spending August in England so Tom can see a vestibular rehab specialist. My parents will join us and we'll just generally enjoy cold, rainy, green England!!

Summer Reunion!

Yes, I am still alive

I wish I had posted more on here but there has been so much going on and then when I DID try there were just internet or VPN or whatever technological issues to overcome! So disheartening.

Our family went to Sri Lanki for two full for some R and R specifically for Tom. Ever since his vertigo issues in January he gets easily exhausted and we've had a fair amount of stress from several angles for quite a few months. So it was a MUCH needed family time in nature.

Sri Lanka is the destination of choice for people who want to get away to a cheap place and don't mind bugs or sweat (=

Here is our photo album. I know it is long but the we just saw so many interesting things like how they get rubber from trees, and a precious gems factory and an elephant orphanage and lots of peacocks and other crazy animals.



If this slideshow is not showing up, try clicking on this link

Up and running again

I'm happy to say that I now have a computer to use again! Trying to do emails on a smart phone is not something I have patience for!!

Sadly, my car died yesterday as I was taking our househelper to the airport. She's going home to visit her family for SIX WEEKS which seems like forever. Our kids have been sobbing on and off about everything for two days now. Their emotions are slowly getting back into place.

It is a big switch from having full-time help to having none but we'll manage. I enjoy the practical aspects of taking care of a house but just can't do it with all the OTHER things I'm supposed to be doing in life as well (=

Here are some updates on life:

1. Tom went back to the dr at the first hospital we visited back in Jan. He has changed his diagnosis from BPPV to Vestibular neuritis. Esssentially there has been damage to the nerves that connect his brain and ears and recovery is not known until several months after the incident. He is in the zone now of being physically able to do whatever he wants but there are consequences for just about everything. He is still tired a great deal of the time and requires several hours of napping everyday just to keep going. So we are in a waiting period to see how his ears do and then we may pursue something this summer in Europe. Vestibular issues are hard to diagnos and treat and the ENT (who is an AWESOME Hungarian dr) said there is not one vestibular lab here or in the countries nearby. They have v. labs in any major city in Europe.

2. Layla will have her adenoids removed next month. She has had fairly significant hearing loss due to fluid that has been in her ears for at least a year and a half. This surgery will be done by the same dr mentioned above who is treating Tom. The surgery date just got moved so I'm not sure exactly when it is now but it is more like the end of April.

3. We are looking to take some time away as a family particularly for Tom to have some "decompression" time. We have had a very pressured and difficult Fall and then his vertigo episode in January has thrown us for a bigger tail spin. We are on the hunt for cheap flights and housing (= Layla has two weeks off of school so that is what precipitated it.

4. The After School club started again! It was a total mess the first weeks for reasons beyond our control but we have about 75 students signed up again and two new teachers. The kids really enjoy the club and I'm so glad that everyone understands their role and how it works. Things run more smoothly that way!!

5. Someone in town started a bible club for kids 3-7. I'm SO grateful. You don't realize how much kids learn at sunday school until you don't have it an realize that there is so much you can't teach your kids unless you really make a point to! So we are glad to have that for a few weeks this semester. This woman has all sorts of fun materials and story aids and puppet shows and so forth. She is an angel in my book. We had 14 kids there this afternoon - 7 of which came with me (=

6. The Aquaculture project is a bit quiet these days - we all have other things demanding our attention. Tom's proposal for work on the Abu Dhabi airport will be decided on this week. Selling construction products is great money when it works but usually you spend a ton of time on projects that don't pan out. We are really hoping this one will go through. It has dragged on for SO LONG!

I can't really think of anything else. I have quite a few fun photos to share but I don't have the computer synced to my phone yet and don't have the energy to sort it out tonight (= On a smaller note.....layla was VERY excited to come home from school with new reading material! She has been reading this simple readers for their reading program but the teacher finally gave her a chapter book! She was thrilled. She read her chapter in the car on the way home (=

We're back - here are some high/low lights

Well we survived our 9 day camping/hoteling trip with five adults and six kids under the age of seven. It was very helpful in understanding the area and learning more about this part of the country!

Sadly, my computer is now broken for some mysterious reason that is yet to be determined. I'm on Tom's computer and I'm not sure when mine will be repaired.

In terms of the trip...things that were GREAT:
1 - Kids' attitudes were really good for the most part. Adults did pretty good too (=
2. Camping was great except for the first night
3. We met LOTS of random local people who were kind enough to stop to talk to us and answer questions about life in their town/area.
4. We had only one situation where our car was a bit out of control on the dirt
5. No one got really hurt! There is a history of this when we go camping so we were happy to break the trend!
6. We saw great little towns and communities along the coast. The island was spectacular.

Things that we would rather avoid next time:
1. The gale-force winds our first night camping....didn't know that there was a big storm going on at the time!!
2. Ryan got sick the second night. He is a trouper but just didn't sleep well AT ALL the whole time.
3. We were tired of being in the car for SURE. Usually we were able to break up the driving so it wasn't too bad.
4. Wind; just doesn't mix well with camping. It is one of those things that you are immune to in normal life that you only realize can totally exhaust you if you don't have a car to hop into or a house to stay in (=

I'll try to post a web album of photos but I'm not sure quite yet of how to do that with my computer being down. All my quick links make it much faster (=

Thanks for your prayers!!

And we're OFF!

We will be traveling in this same area but a few hours further down the coast

It is hard to believe but we are leaving on our road trip today! I thought for sure that it was going to be delayed again as Tom is still not feeling 100% but he has improved and we've just adjusted to the fact that he needs to rest after lots of talking with people. One thing he learned is that the mere fact of turning his head to talk to people is quite taxing on his brain so he is trying to be aware of that. It is a bit difficult as you can imagine! The follow up dr appt yesterday was totally useless and it is during these times you wish you were in the US or wherever where they have a broader sense of therapy or preventative approaches. We have some great info (thanks to many people who connected us to resources!!) we'll pursue here on out on our own.

Check the previous two posts to figure out what we are looking at/for as we hit the road for 8 or 9 nine days!

We are grateful for our companions who are such troopers and willing to camp with us all over the place! They finally got a four wheel drive after EXTENSIVE searching. So their kids are happy to have more room in the car for sure and we all feel more secure about them not getting stuck in the sand! We are also able to borrow a trailer which makes packing a bit simpler.

Our house helper will be coming with us - one of the many ways she is a great match for our family....she loves to camp! The first time she came with us two years ago she was very hesitant but after the first day she said "this is just like life in Ethiopia way out!" Meaning that outside the city this is how people live. Then she told me she could make us better food next time now that she knows what to expect (= Love that about her.

We are camping both because it saves significant money on hotels but also because the weather is gorgeous for another few weeks (it will probably be COLD actually.... We are taking the winter coats my sister bought us last winter!!) Part of being able to live here long-term and enjoy it is to make the most of the "winters" by being outside. It is more and more fun now that are kids are 3.5 and 6.5 and we are out of the "eating dirt and random stuff on the ground" for the most part (=

So do think of us as we are driving all over the place! We are interested to see what we will find and who we will meet.

Road Trip Extravaganza

As a result of the topic described in the previous post, we have been planning a road trip to check out the environment where all this might take place.

It takes two days to drive from our current home to the island and bay designated by the government to develop the particular mariculture species that the company is thinking "growing". We need to take this trip to look at some of the following factors:

1. Is it feasible to live as families with young kids on the island? We are two families with 6 kids total under the age of 7. Good Times.

2. What would schooling look like? Probably home school but then is there internet access of some sort?

3. If we are to do these projects and the community development/"NGO-type" work with fishermen and their families what might that look like? When the government did their pilot project with the exact same species they discovered that it was the women who actually did all the work and not the men. This was totally acceptable for the government but all the processes are set up for men to do and in a gender segregated society this will take some management. This is an example of the community development side of things.

4. What are the largest towns nearby and is it better to live there and have the guys drive a bit further?

5. Who are the local people involved in this and can we manage to meet them in the few days we have there?

6. We have heard there is only a very small village and some seasonal "resort" for surfers (= Sounds a bit random. Is there housing for rent? Grocery stores? etc

So we have lots of questions and we've had to put the trip off three times because of Tom's health. He is doing okay but still tires very easily and would not be able to ride in a car for 8 hours!

At this point the plan is to leave on Feb 12th so we'll keep everyone updated as we can!

New job possibilities

Tom has done several jobs during our time here. Currently he is still selling American construction products throughout the Gulf. It has it good points and less than desirable points. We have a new job possibility that we started cautiously evaluating back in November when someone approached Tom and Walter with the proposal. It is rather "out of the box" for both of them but the company has operated in four other 2nd/3rd world countries and been successful to one degree or another in all of them.

It is a company that joins governments in their desire to stimulate and/or revive the fishing industry in their country. They are interested in starting a project here because the government here has done a GREAT deal of research on the fishing industry and is really looking for ways to maintain the many small fishing villages that line the coast.

So this company approached Tom and Walter saying they needed some help on the ground to implement this if it was to happen. The positive things about this is that the government is very interested in the whole process, the company has experience with working with non-western crazy bureaucracy and they have all the skills and would provide training and oversight as needed.

The company is currently submitting a proposal for a feasibility study which would take one year to complete. In the next two weeks we will take a trip along the coast to look at the area (it is about 8 hours from where we are currently) and evaluate it for both living conditions and the business concerns.

There is a great deal we don't yet know and there is no guarantee that things will move forward past the submission of the proposal for a feasibility study. Either way though, it is a great fit for Walter and Tom and they are grateful for the oversight of experienced experts who would be providing the structure for how this all works.

We'll keep you updated as there are real developments. So much is "inshallah" that it isn't worth writing until something REAL happens! Our big road trip to explore the area was supposed to have started yesterday but Tom is not feeling well enough at all to sit in a car for several hours let alone days. We are hoping he'll feel well enough next Thursday!

January 2014

Well it seems we can hardly catch our breath around here! Thanksgiving, Tom's birthday, Christmas, house guests, New Years, new school term and then Tom got REALLY sick and isn't yet recovered. And here we are looking at February already!!

Just to keep folks up to date Tom had an episode of extreme vertigo in November that lasted about 4 hours total. It was totally miserable with constant vomiting anytime he moved any part of his body. Then a couple of weeks ago he had a few dizzy spells and the whole thing started again with a vengeance. We took him to the ER and he ended up spending two days in the hospital. We had an MRI and CT scan done which were all normal so that rules out the scary causes. Meneres is still an option but drs are basically settling on BPPV which is easily treated at home. However, in the last 9 days he has not improved as expected so they are wondering if it may be something else. Apparently there are viruses that can cause two separate episodes like this. crazy. 

So he is not in a life threatening situation but he is just miserable. He is doing better now but still cannot drive or shake his head without the room spinning. He can walk when he concentrates and doesn't have to dodge obstacles. He can do some computer work and watch TV but only for limited periods of time and then he needs to rest.

We are SO GRATEFUL that the hospital gave us all this treatment for FREE because they didn't want to hassle with our insurance practices. Don't get me started on the state of health care in the US versus here...Thankfully we are not in a high deductible insurance and though we have to pay for all the follow up stuff his meds are only $15. We'll be okay financially but we were wondering there for a minute! 

Hopefully I'll have time to keep things updated.

Thank you for Christmas presents!!

I don't I have a photo of each gift but I thought I'd post what I do have (= The shoes for both kids were a HUGE hit!!!

 

The dress and tiara are AMAZING

The dinasaurs are a blur of action (= The nightgown is from Lucy...the pose is from who knows where!?!

We loved getting Nana's package the day after for a calm and quiet gift opening complete with candles, cookies and cider. Lovely (=

 

Azeb loved her scarf!! She says "God Bless You!!" 

Ryan has two of Tom's old trucks! They were a super gift and he loves them. 

Thanks to all of you for your time and energy and expense of sending us gifts. It is much appreciated and enjoyed!