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 (=