Jessie in the Mid

Winter in Kuwait

2010-02-14T22:11:00.001-08:00

Hi everyone! I know it's been awhile but January and February have been fairly low key this year. After a wonderful Christmas at home with family I came back to Kuwait and had to teach my kids about matter. Those of you who know me know I do not like messes, and I even let the kids create "magic mud" and other experiments in this unit...it was a tough task of to let go of my love of order throughout the unit. As you can see from the smiles on the kids faces they all loved the unit, and I am very thankful to have it be over now. :)

I experienced my first camel race at the beginning of February with my friends Mariam, Marisol, and Andrea. We went with an ex-pat group. Camel racing was nothing like what I expected-I thought it would be just like horse racing but with camels. The camels run 5K races though, so it's not done on a small track but throughout the desert. Bunches of followers in SUVs follow the camels around and it's videotaped so that the majority of spectators watch from inside a camel racing room. You can see below wha this looked like, complete with video! The camels were very fast (5 km in just over five minutes!) and so cute, it was fun to watch.

I spent five days in Abu Dhabi this month with two other teachers attending an International Baccelaureate conference about teaching their Primary Years Program. I've been a PYP teacher for a year and a half now, but I learned sooooooooo much at this workhsop. It was incredibly well organized and really refreshing to get so many new ideas in such a short amount of time. The school that hosted the conference was also very impressive, and it was fun to get together with other international teachers and compare experiences. I was also able to spend time with my good friend Kristin who lives in Abu Dhabi, including a yummy Mexican Valentine's Day dinner.

The most recent big change in my life is a haircut! Since I turn 26 on Sunday I decided it was time to chop off some of the hair I've been growing out for the last four years. Below you can see before and after pictures of the big event.

Life continues to be busy but good here. We hit 90 degrees fahrenheit today, so I know summer and summer weather are right around the corner! I'm going to Paris next week for our Liberation and National Day weekends with my friend Andrea, so I'm really excited for that, and then my friend Laurel is visiting in March. There's lots to look forward to, especially summer break, which doesn't feel too far away now! Hope all is well with all of you.

Assembly Rap

2009-12-19T03:01:00.000-08:00

This is the rap my class did for the grade five assembly. Enjoy!

Autumn in Kuwait

2009-12-15T09:12:00.000-08:00

Hello friends-

I'm 10 hours away from leaving Kuwait for a Minnesota Christmas, but I thought I'd update with the good things that have happened since mid-October before I leave. We definitely celebrated Halloween here in Kuwait, and I dressed up as a vampire (the True Blood kind, not Twilight, thank you very much) with two of my friends using an amazing costume kit we found here. :)

We'll save our prosthetic noses for another holiday. :) We had a little Halloween miracle this year when the power went out at school, causing an unplanned free day! It was still over 100 degrees at this point and humid, plus it was the day of conferences, so a little free time was much appreciated and celebrated with brunch with good friends.

Kuwait hosted the men's world championships in squash this October, and friends of my dear friend Marisol managed to use their "wasta" (connections) to get us really good tickets. I don't think I've ever watched a squash game before, but it was fun to get swept up in the atmosphere. We went to the final match which was between two Egyptian men, Amr Shabana and Ramy Ashour. The ministry of sport built a totally new glass outdoor arena for the championships, and it was fun to attend and get swept up in Arab pride cheering for the players.

Mid-November was spirit week at school, with a Halloween dress up day to make up for the lost day, crazy hair day and "dunk" the teacher! Which was actually throw a bucket of water on your teacher...but it was quite a fun week.

I was supposed to travel to Syria at the end of November for our Eid al-Adha break, but visa issues kept me in Kuwait. It's the first time my American passport has worked against me in getting a visa, but it ended up being nice to have five days to just lay around and relax here in Kuwait. I took the opportunity to do some additional decorating in my apartment, and I'm quite happy with the results.

Life at school continues to be really good. My kids are so much fun, I really enjoy being their teacher. They're definitely an energetic and enthusiastic bunch, and have a ton of personality. I'm still loving life in Kuwait, so I've officially signed a contract to come back next year.

Which brings me to the present time! There have been many Christmas parties and events this week here, and I'm super excited to go home today. I hope to see many of you over the holiday, and I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Cassie and Joel's Wedding!

2009-10-25T05:37:00.000-07:00

Last week I had a whirlwind trip back to America for my cousin Cassie's wedding. Cassie got married on October 17th, and AIS let me use my personal days to go back to MN for a short visit. It was kind of crazy (50 hours of travel for 100 hours in the States!) but so worth it to be part of Cassie's wedding. She was a beautiful bride, and I think all of her friends and family love her new husband, Joel. Hannah and I were both bridesmaids, so it was fun to have family so involved in celebrating. I was also able to enjoy the beautiful fall foliage (especially at Olaf!), eat yummy Mexican and Greek food (which you can't get in Kuwait), and spend lots of time with family and Lucy. Even though it was a short trip it was great to be back in Minnesota, and to enjoy some relief from the 95 degree+ temperatures in Kuwait! I've posted some photos from the trip below.

The next big projects on the horizon are the grade five assembly on November 5th and then a trip to Syria or Jordan at the end of November. My kids are attempting to perform a rap about the skeletal system, which I will then attempt to edit into a video. Check out the blog next week and if it works I'll post the video. :) Until then!

Aphrodite's Island

2009-10-03T06:02:00.000-07:00

The times that I enjoy my job the most tend to be during break times. :) We had a week off at the end of Septmber for the Muslim celebration Eid Al-Fitr, which celebrates the end of the fasting month, Ramadan. For Eid this year I traveled to Cyprus with two good friends from AIS, Mariam and Marisol, and my friend Kristin from Term in the Middle East. Cyprus is a small island located south of Turkey in the Mediterranean Sea. The island has had a tumultuous past, with the Greeks, Assyrians, Egyptians, Byzantines, Venetians, Ottomans, and British all ruling the island at various times before Cyprus gained independence in 1960. Cyprus is also considered to be the birthplace of the goddess Aphrodite, and you can visit the rock where she supposedly emerged from the sea. Currently Cyprus is divided between the Greek southwestern portion and the Turkish northeastern portion. We spent the majority of our time in the Greek side, but did spend a few hours in the Turkish part of the world's last divided capital, Nicosia. The whole week was really fun and relaxing. Highlights included the beautiful natural scenery...

The religious and cultural monuments, Orthodox Christian, Muslim, Greek and Turkish...

Getting to hand out with wonderful people, including meeting up with another group of AIS teachers in Cyprus for the break...

Renting a car and seeing how well Mariam and Marisol could drive on the "wrong" side of the road...

And, of course, plenty of delicious food and beverages that can't be purchased in Kuwait. :)

Cyprus really felt like a perfect combination of Turkey and Greece, and was definitely one of my favorite destinations. Now it's back to the grindstone at school, and we're back to our regular schedule. I'm still really enjoying my class, and finding this year much less overwhelming than last year. The year of experience last year makes a huge difference. I have nine days left in Kuwait before I head to America on a whirlwind trip for my cousin Cassie's wedding, which I'm really excited for. Until then, maasalama!

Back in the Kuwait!

2009-09-06T10:14:00.001-07:00

It's the beginning of week three here at school, and I definitely feel back into the routine and the swing of things at school. My classroom is all set up and looking lovely, as you can see below.

The first week back was a crazy amount of activity, with trying to get my apartment set up again as well as my classroom in the seven days I had before school started. A lot of construction work was done on the school over the summer, and people were frantically painting, sawing, moving and cleaning up until the very last minute, but everything magically was completed by the time school started. To end the week I hosted my first Kuwait party in honor of my good friend Andrea's birthday, and over 50 people crammed into my tiny apartment to celebrate!

I have 22 students in my class this year, 8 girls and 14 boys. I have 12 Kuwaiti students, five Lebanese, two Americans, one Russian-Lebanese, one Egyptian, and one Palestinian. I'm really enjoying getting to know this new group. They are definitely less social this year, and so far have been really fantastic about following directions and following class rules. The fear of H1N1 led to about 60% attendance the first few weeks of school, but I've met all of my kids and have been lucky that most of them have been there every day. We also started already into the month of Ramadan, so I know there are parents who aren't even thinking of sending their kids until after Eid break at the end of the month.

H1N1 precautions meant that we couldn't let kids bring in candy for the mid-Ramadan celebration of Gurgiyan, so we celebrated this year just by wearing national costumes.

This did not prevent me from enjoying some store purchased Gurgiyan cookies, though. :)

Since the majority of the Kuwaiti population isn't eating or drinking from sunrise to sunset it's been a pretty low key month, complete with a shortened school day schedule. It's also wicked hot here, with highs between 115-120. It's much less humid than it was at this time last year, which makes it bearable, but still not pleasant. However, I knew that I had readjusted to the eat when I went out for iftar (the meal that breaks the Ramadan fast) with my friend Marisol and we sat outside!

So overall it's been a very smooth transition back. I had a slight hiccough with a bad sinus infection last week. I had a tiny temperature, so due to the H1N1 extra precautions our school is taking I had to miss two days of school until I had a negative test come back, which luckily didn't take long. However, my class is fabulous, I love my new grade five teaching co-workers, and it's already so much easier the second time around. It's great to see old friends, and we get next week off for the end of Ramadan Eid, so I'll soon be off to Cyprus! Until then, masalama!

Summer Loving

2009-09-06T09:28:00.000-07:00

Hello friends! I am back in Kuwait now! I know it's been a long time since I last blogged, but I wanted to write a little about my summer break before I write about this school year so far. The end of the school went off fairly well. It was definitely a stressful year at work, but I know the first year in any occupation involves lots of extra work. And of course, there's nothing better for a teacher than receiving a "Thank You for Teching Me" plaque at the end of the year. :)

On my way back to America in June I spent two weeks in Germany. I had studied German for six years in college and high school, and have several friends living in Germany, plus we had to fly through Frankfurt on the way from Kuwait to America, so it was the perfect vacation and transition destination on my way back to America. My good friend Mariam travelled with me the first week in Berlin, Dresden, and Munich, and then I went on to Salem and Trier where my friends live.

I was able to visit my aunt and uncle's foreign exchange student Claudia in Trier. She is now married to a wonderful man and they have two of the cutest sons ever, Tilman and Linus.

They were incredibly hospitable and did a wonderful job showing me around, especially considering that both of their boys are under the age of three!

Prior to Trier I spent five days in Salem, off the Bodensee in Southern Germany. My good friend Hillary from St. Olaf lives there working at a boarding school located in a castle! I was able to meet Hill's students and we enjoyed lots of champagne, walks in the German countryside, and even a Renaissance harp performance from one of her girls. I hadn't seen Hillary in four years so needless to say it was a very joyful reunion. :)

My trio of wonderful visits was completed with several days in Munich with my friend Lara. Lara lived on my block growing up and was totally my idol when I was growing up, so to stay with her and her husband, Steve, was amazing. She also did a fabulous job showing us around Munich and making us feel so welcome.

Once I was back in America it was eight weeks of friend and family love. Highlights included California for a long weekend with my best friends from high school, Allie, Allison, and Jenny...

Playing with my SO SMART dog, precious soft baby Lucy...

Family and sister time in Apple Valley and Rice Lake...

College friend reunion in Nebraska...

And baby and wedding preparation and showers galore with my aunts and cousins.

To end the summer my new baby cousin Molly was very cooperative and arrived a couple of weeks before I left. All in all it was a fabulous and refreshing summer, filled with relaxation and time with people I love.

Exhibition and ANZAK Ball

2009-05-08T21:14:00.000-07:00

March and April were the two busiest months for the fifth graders at AIS. Our school follows the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program for the elementary school curriculum, and grade five is the last year in this program. As a culmination of everything the students have done in the PYP there is an exhibition towards the end of the year. The exhibition is supposed to be completely student driven, with the kids deciding the theme, what kind of projects they want to do, and how they want to present their projects. This was the first year we've done Exhibition at AIS because fifth grade had previously been part of the middle school. It was definitely a huge challenge, but overall the kids really stepped up and did a great job. We picked the theme "Though we're young we can reach out to the world in which we live, with caring hearts and understanding there is so much we can give", which is a lyric from our school song. Each student group researched a problem they saw in the school, Kuwaiti, or world community and then created a project to help solve that problem. My class' projects included helping handicapped people, anti-bullying campaigns, reusable water bottle promotion, anti-smoking, healthy foods, helping a children's hospice, helping the workers in Kuwait, and saving penguins. Below you can see pictures of students at the actual exhibition with their projects, where they presented the work they did in a format of their choice.

We spent literally over a hundred hours on this project, and it was exciting to see it all come together at the end. We already have a ton of ideas as to how to do better for next year, but there is definitely a feeling of relief having completed the project for this year. And when you need to celebrate, it's time to attend another ball! The Australia and New Zealand Association of Kuwait (ANZAK) hosted a spring ball at the Hilton, and I had a ton of fun dress shopping, attending with friends and dancing the night away.

There is exactly one month of school left now, and I'm getting excited to head back to Minnesota! There are no big events coming up in the next month, but I'm sure it will be crazy busy trying to fit all the last things in at school and then cleaning and packing up my classroom and apartment for the summer. It's hard to believe the year is already coming to an end, but I'm looking forward to a nice long break. :) It's good to be a teacher!

Greece

2009-04-20T05:36:00.001-07:00

This blog is turning into a bit of a travelogue, but that is just because the best part of being an international school teacher is the vacations! In between vacations life in Kuwait feels much like anywhere else, so there aren't very many interesting things to report on. Spring break came in April of this year and I ended up taking a last minute trip to Greece! It's a long story as to how that decision came about, but I will definitely still visit Jordan, my original intended spring break destination, at some point during my time here. I had been to Greece before in 2004/2005 as part of my semester abroad, and Greece was the first international destination I returned to. It felt strange to be there again in the same places I had been before, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself and the company of my dear friend Tylene. Tylene booked us an incredible hotel right on the sea, and we thoroughly enjoyed getting some sun time while we were there, as well as enjoying the amazing buffet breakfast at the hotel. Fresh fruit like you wouldn't believe!

One of the highlights of the trip was getting to see the Moscow Stanislavsky Ballet perform Don Quixote! I really miss getting to go to ballets and plays while in Kuwait, so it was very exciting to have this work out. I've never seen Don Q live before and it was very well done.

We spent a couple of days sight-seeing in and around Athens, including the Parthenon, of course, and Cape Sounion. The weather was very nice, high seventies the whole time (which felt freezing coming from upper nineties Kuwait!) and all in all it was a very relaxing trip. This is my last vacation before I go to Germany and then Minnesota in June, and it was a great end to the year.

Hannah's Visit!

2009-04-08T01:41:00.001-07:00

The worst part about living abroad is missing my family and friends, so you can only imagine how excited I was to have Hannah come to visit this March. As those of you who have seen us together know we share the exact same zany sense of humor (and if you've met our dad you understand where it comes from) and are able to entertain each other like no one else can. :) Hannah's visit also gave me an excuse to explore Kuwait more and see some new things. To ease Hannah into the cultural shock of being in the Middle East we started by visiting Kuwait's largest malls, The Avenues...

...complete with a movie in the VIP section of the movie theater. For double the price of normal admission you can sit in a reclining lazy boy chair in a 20 person theater and have a personal attendant come and bring you your popcorn.

To appreciate Kuwait's history we visited a museum dedicated to chronicling the '91 Gulf War.

Hannah came to school with me for a day and learned why my new mean teacher voice had to be created...

..and enjoyed Machboose, a traditional Kuwaiti dish with chicken, rice, tomato sauce and spices courtesy of one of my students. She received a whole chicken in the machboose!

We did a sunset visit to the iconic Kuwait Towers...

Visited Kuwait's tradition souq (open air market) area...

And the Scientific Center/Aquarium.

Hannah got to smoke sheesha (hookah-don't worry JuJu! It's just flavored tobacco!0 for the first time at one of my favorite places here, Layali Al Helmiya.

The two of us took a boat tour to Failaka Island, just a 45 minute boat ride of the mainland. Failaka has ruins on it dating back to the time of Alexander the Great, and had been a popular weekend destination for Kuwaitis prior to the Iraqi invasion. Unfortunately the Iraqis completely destroyed everything on the island, as they did to most of the mainland, but Failaka island has not undergone even a fraction of the restoration the mainland has. Walking around the island feels spooky, as nearly all of the homes still have bullet holes, etc. in them. Hannah and I visited an old abandoned school and there are still papers all over the floor from when the school was used before the invasion.

It wasn't all doom and gloom, though. Hannah and I were able to wade in the Gulf, Hannah experienced her first camel ride, and we rented a four wheeler to drive around the island.

We finished out our fantastic week by renting a car with some friends and driving out into the desert near Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately the border isn't very clearly labelled, and we almost drove right into Saudi! We finished off the day with a picnic on the Gulf before Hannah had to leave. I feel so lucky to have such an amazing sister, and I'm so thrilled she was brave enough to come to Kuwait on her own.

Bahrain

2009-03-23T06:14:00.002-07:00

The birthday of the Prophet Muhammed fell in March this year (since the Islamic calendar is lunar rather than solar the timing of the holiday varies year by year), and for the three day weekend I went to Bahrain with three girlfriends. Bahrain is a small island near Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and is a mere 55 minute flight from Kuwait. There are many similarities between Kuwait and Bahrain, but it still felt good to have a change for the weekend.

Our first stop in Bahrain was the Al-Fateh Mosque, and we were able to get a tour inside the mosque. Many people have asked me if I have to wear any special clothing, such as a headscarf or abayya (the usually black robe some Muslim women wear) in Kuwait, but the only times in the Middle East I've ever had to wear anything special have been when visiting mosques, and Al-Fateh mosque was no exception. The Al-Fateh Mosque is relatively new (completed in 1990s) and can hold over 7,000 worshippers inside.

Bahrain also has a new National Museum with many life size displays of traditional Bahraini life, as well as information on the excavations in Bahrain of the pre-Islamic people who lived on the island.

My brave friend Mariam decided she was up for driving in Bahrain, so we rented a car and were able to get outside of Manama, the capital of Bahrain. We enjoyed dinner and drinks at a beautiful Egyptian restaurant one night, and tried to find the "Tree of Life" and visit some forts around the island our second day.

The tree of life is only about 60 kilometers from Manama, but due to a lack of road maps in Bahrain we ended up circling the 15 minute radius around the tree for about two hours before we finally found it. While this tree might not look lik anything special to people back home used to foliage, it grows in the middle of the desert and has been in the same spot for hundreds of years. It's very rare to find naturally growing trees in Kuwait, and so we were excited to finally find the tree and get our photo ops with it.

Back in Kuwait the next weekend I was finally able to visit the Kuwaiti Grand Mosque, which I found to be one of the most beautiful mosques I've visited. Unfortunately my camera died early in the mosque visit, but I was able to snap some good examples of tessellations in the mosque that I used with my kids in our patterns unit.

The final exciting event in March before Hannah's visit was the Irish ball, sponsored by the Kuwait Irish society-who even knew such a thing existed? It was a fun night of dancing with hundreds of other expats at a posh hotel. It was a great beginning to the weekend when my sister arrived, which you can read about in my next entry!

February

2009-03-23T06:14:00.001-07:00

February was a month packed with activity, and one of the highlights was having my first birthday in Kuwait! Kuwaiti Liberation and National Days are February 25th and 26th, so to celebrate my birthday and the birthday of a friend whose birthday is near mine we had a Kuwaiti themed green, red, white and black party.
On the day of my birthday I got to go out to breakfast with some friends and then had dinner with another group, so it was a really nice, relaxing day.

The week following my birthday was a three day work week, and then we had a four day weekend to celebrate Kuwait's liberation after the Iraqi invasion and Kuwait's independence from Great Britain. Once again green, red, white and black were in full display throughout the school.

I'm not sure where this tradition started, but "foaming" friends and strangers alike is one of the main ways this weekend is celebrated. When driving along Gulf Road near the Arabian (Persian) Gulf it's almost impossible not to get foamed, and our taxi was no exception.

To escape the craziness of Kuwait I spent most of the weekend in Abu Dhabi visiting my good friend Kristin. You don't hear about Abu Dhabi in the news as often as Dubai, another city in the UAE, but I was really amazed by all of the work that's going into planning the future of Abu Dhabi. The city is trying to make itself the cultural capital of the Middle East, and in the next ten years there will be a ton of development, including Lourve Abu Dhabi and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. It will be exciting to see how all of these plans play out.

As always, Kristin was an amazing host, and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to attend the birthday party of one of her friends, eating Mexican food and sushi, getting to see a movie, walking around the sea side of Abu Dhabi, and enjoying a fruit cocktail at the Emirates Palace Hotel. I always love getting to spend time with Kristin, and it was very relaxing and rejuvenating weekend.

Desert Life

2009-02-14T03:13:00.000-08:00

February has been full of desert time for me. I've been out in the desert surrounding Kuwait City twice this month, first on a picnic with some teachers out near the Iraqi border and then on a "desert safari" organized by an Arab-Western awareness center with about two hundred other ex-pats. Both were nice times, although the desert of Kuwait isn't particularly beautiful.

Many Kuwaitis will pitch a tent on government land from November-April 1st and go out for weekend or overnight trips in a bit of a homage to the old way of life, so it definitely doesn't feel like a desolated place. The AWARE camp had traditional Arab music, camel rides, traditional tents, and provided an opportunity for us to wander off and explore the trash filled area around the camp. We also were able to stop at the dhow cemetery, were old boats that are no longer functional are dropped off, and saw many oil refineries on the way out to the camp spot.

The desert also came to us in the city through a huge sandstorm this week. Below you can see some pictures taken during and after the storm of my neighborhood and school. It was really crazy to see-dust everywhere, and it looked completely orange outside for awhile. Somehow the dust permeates everywhere, even indoors, and it's been a pain trying to clean up the mess this weekend. The dust is also incredibly problematic for students with asthma, and hurts your eyes and throat even if you don't have asthma. So while it was interesting to see, I'm hoping that this will be the first and only sandstorm I experience in Kuwait. :)

January

2009-02-14T02:44:00.000-08:00

I arrived back in Kuwait at 10 PM and January 3rd and was back at school teaching at 7:45 AM January 4th, so it was a quick jump back in! I definitely needed the break in December, but it was great to see my kids again and get back into a routine. We had report cards due the second week back and conferences the third week, so the first month really flew by.

The Israeli attacks on Gaza was a prevalent story in the news here, and a topic that frequently came up with my students in class. Many of my kids have a parent or family either in Palestine or of Palestinian background, and so it was an issue that hit closely to home for them. Signs like the one below, which reads "Gaza we are with you" are all over Kuwait. Even now with the war over it's still a very hot topic here.

January wasn't all work and gloom, though. One of my highlights was seeing a movie in a Kuwaiti movie theater. Movies are heavily censored here (I saw "Bride Wars", a fluffy PG movie that was cut in six separate places!) to take out any kissing or otherwise "indecent" parts of a film. The theater was new and, like everything in Kuwait, incredibly plush with fantastic service, and dinner, a movie and a trip to IKEA was an excellent escape from work one day.

President Obama's inauguration was another highlight of January. We have an excellent auditorium at school with a giant screen that the whole ceremony was projected on. The majority of Kuwaitis I have spoken with are thrilled that the US finally has a new president, and our school inauguration party complete with decorations and snacks was a fun way to usher in a new era.

One of my closest friends in Kuwait, Mariam, is Egyptian-American and has been able to break out of our school bubble through friends from her church. She was kind enough to let some of us tag along with her new friends for a picnic on the Gulf one Friday. I had no idea there was even space for picnics in Kuwait, and it was fun to meet her new friends and especially baby Peter!! The picnic was a nice way to cap of January in Kuwait.

Lebanon

2009-02-13T01:53:00.001-08:00

Hi everyone! I realize that it's been a long time since my last post. I'm going to write a little bit about Lebanon first and then catch you up with what's been happening since I've been back in Kuwait in separate posts.

I went to Lebanon for a week over the Eid al Adha break with my dear friend Kristin, who I have travelled with before on St. Olaf's Term in the Middle East. Kristin has been living in Abu Dhabi, UAE first on a Fulbright and now as an administrator at Zayed University for the past two years, and I hadn't seen her since we graduated in May of 2006. I had such a wonderful time with her, and it was so fun to hear about her experiences in the UAE and compare them with mine in Kuwait. I'm going to visit her in a couple of weeks in Abu Dhabi and I'm very excited to see her again and see where she lives.

I thought Lebanon was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. There is such varied landscape with the mountains and the Mediterranean Sea, interesting architecture and a variety of historical sights to visit. Lebanon has been part of the Persian, Phonecian, Armenian, Assyrian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Seljuk, Mamluk, Ottoman, and French Empires and is home to many religious groups, and this diversity is reflected throughout the country. Kristin and I stayed at a hotel in Beirut the whole time but took day trips all over the country to see as much of the country as we could. Below are some picture highlights.

At the Beiteddeine Castle

Riding a Cable Car in Harissa

Byblos

Views from the top of Harissa

Downtown Beirut

Mosque in Memorial to Rafiq Hariri

Downtown Beirut

Sheep about to be slaughtered for the Eid al Adha holiday to commemorate Abraham's non-slaughter of Isaac

The Lebanese Flag at the Saida Fort

A picture of Rafiq Hariri in Saida-there are pictures of him everywhere

The Roman ruins at Baalbek-definitely the most amazing Roman ruins I've ever seen!

Arab Umayyad ruins

Lebanese cuisine-yum!

It was definitely an amazing trip, and I've enjoyed learning more about Lebanese history through books from Beirut's fabulous bookstores. Despite the turmoil that lingers in Lebanon I would definitely recommend a trip there to anyone.

My New Apartment!

2008-12-11T14:46:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone-

Merry almost Christmas to all of you, and a belated Eid Mubarak! I'm back from Lebanon and leave for MN tomorrow. I'll have pictures from Lebanon up soon, but I wanted to post this video I took today of my new apartment right away. The decorating process definitely isn't over, I'm still not sure how I feel about my paint choices (they looked so different in little samples!) and most of the furniture comes from the school and is therefore horribly mismatched, but it's mine and I love it anyways. :) Enjoy, and you HGTV addicts (you know who you are!) let me know if you have any suggestions for improvements. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T04:14:00.000-08:00

I wish you all (especially Limpert family) a wonderful Thanksgiving!!! Please note the thank you chain I forced my children to make. :)

Qatar

2008-11-21T04:10:00.000-08:00

I'm finding that one of the best parts of living and working in Kuwait is the the travel opportunities. Last week I was able to go to Doha, Qatar for a weekend with three friends to celebrate the birthday of my fellow grade five teacher Tylene. Even though Tylene had a horrible case of bronchitis, we were able to have a fabulous weekend away.

On the flight over I accidentally took a video instead of a picture, which you can see here, and hear the correct pronunciation of Qatar. Special thanks to Lauren Gioe for the magazine we are enjoying!

Qatar is a mere 50 minute flight from Kuwait. It's a small country that juts out of Saudi Arabia, and we found it to be very similar to Kuwait. Our first evening there we explored the old souq, or market. I think all of us spent way too much money there on items such as these Arab nesting dolls. :) We were also able to have dinner and chill out in a coffee house with live Arab music.

Mariam and Marisol, the two other members of our travel team, both speak excellent Arabic, and it was so nice to have their translation skills for the trip! We tried to be cultural and visit museums during our two days in Qatar, but since most of the city is under construction, we spent most of our time engaged in an authentic Gulf State experience-shopping at malls! The Villagio, which was built to look like Europe, complete with Venetian gondolas, and City Center, with a ice rink in the middle, both proved to be excellent places to spend lots of money.

Doha has undergone a tremendous amount of construction in the past ten years, especially to accomodate the 2006 Asian Games (we got to see the stadium where the gymnastics competition took place!).

We were able to walk along the Gulf, see the city skyline, and witness buses actually tilting because they were filled with so many people. Traffic in Doha is quite bad as the city struggles to build new roads to match all of the new buildings.

We also enjoyed really nice night out at an Italian restaurant on the Gulf, complete with legal wine!

Now there are only ten teaching days before I'm off to Lebanon and Minnesota for our winter break! I will most likely be moving in to my new apartment tomorrow, provided they are able to fix the elevators before then, so I'm very excited about that. Another exciting discovery was a Caribou Coffee at a nearby mall! Now I can coffee breaks a la AV in 2000 anytime I want!

I hope you are all enjoying the fall, I wish you a happy Thanksgiving, and I will write again as soon as I'm moved in.

Obama and Weather

2008-11-05T04:34:00.000-08:00

Just for fun, I held a little mock election in my class yesterday. The result? Obama 24, McCain 1. My students wanted to know if I could send their votes to America to count in the election. :)

It's getting "cold" here, seemingly overnight. From temperatures in the 90s it's gone to highs in the 70s, lows in the 50s. We even had two full rainy days on Sunday and Monday! It's pretty remarkable because before last week it hadn't rained in over a year. Its fun to see how bundled up the kids are getting with gloves, sweaters, sweatshirts, etc. I even saw a fur lined parka! The sad thing is I feel like it's freezing too! It's going to be a long winter.

Linda Torres

2008-11-05T04:26:00.000-08:00

The month of October was marked by an extremely tragic event at AIS. Linda Torres, a woman who has worked extremely hard as a maid at the school for many years, slipped in her home, bumping her head and causing irreparable brain damage. She passed away a couple of weeks ago, and it is a great loss to the AIS community. Linda was an incredibly friendly and generous woman. She was supporting four children and two grandchildren back home in the Philippines and putting her oldest daughter through nursing school on a salary that is a fraction of what the AIS teachers make. There are literally more foreign workers in Kuwait than there are Kuwaitis, both in positions like teachers and engineers as well as in jobs like taxi drivers, nannies, maids, cleaning staff, cooks, drivers, shopkeepers, etc. The majority of these workers come from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and other Southeast Asian countries. They are able to earn much higher salaries in Kuwait and other Gulf countries than they would be able to at home, and many support their entire families on the salary they make here. It is really heartbreaking, though, to think of the time that they spend away from their loved ones to secure the noble goal of a better financial future. Linda is already missed here at AIS. The school is a richer place because she chose to work here.

October in Kuwait

2008-11-01T04:08:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone-

So obviously the past weeks have been pretty crazy, resulting in an absence of updates for my blog. Here's the scoop of what happened the rest of October. At the beginning of the month we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving at my coworker Tylene's apartment, complete with turkey, decorations and pumpkin pie. Although nothing could even compare to Thanksgiving and Judy and Warnie's, it was ninety degrees out, and I still think it's weird that Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving in October, it was a fun evening.

After Thanksgiving it was stress time, preparing progress reports for parent/teacher conferences this past week. I've found that my procrastination skills are still in full working order, but was able to complete all of my grading and my progress report comments before the deadlines. Conferences proved to be a very pleasant surprise. I went into them prepared to really have to prove myself and my grading, but the parents were all incredibly supportive and in tune with their children's academic strengths and weaknesses. I ended up really enjoying the chance to speak with all of the parents.

Adding to my stress levels the past couple of weeks was the fact that the grade fives were in charge of the all elementary assembly last week. Each class had to prepare a ten minute presentation to perform in front of the school. I was really nervous about the project because independent work and initiative aren't necessarily the strengths of my class, but I was so proud of the way my kids ended up performing. We are currently working on a geography unit, so my students split into two groups and did the skits, "Tikki Tikki Tembo" from China and "The Magic Tree" from the Congo. We probably spent about twenty hours in the past couple of weeks rehearsing, preparing costumes and sets, and getting ready to show the school what the kids could do. Again, I had very supportive parents, who even brought in props and supplies including a smoke machine and an artificial Christmas tree! The end result was quite successfuly, in spite of a last minute broken nose of a lead performer mere seconds before we were scheduled to begin! Luckily she is doing okay and another student was able to step in and take her part.

As if that wasn't enough going on, the day of the assembly and parent teacher conferences was also the day we celebrated Halloween at AIS! The kids brought just as much candy as they had for Gurgiyan, and were all very dressed up. We ended the day with a Halloween party, which was the perfect relaxing ending to a very stressful week.

I've enjoyed not doing any school work this weekend! I saw the play "Othello" at the British Embassy yesterday, and it was fun to get to dress up and go out. In two weeks I'm going to Qatar with three friends for the weekend to celebrate one of their birthdays, and there are only five weeks left before Eid Al Adha/Christmas break! Despite the sometimes frantic pace I'm still really loving life in Kuwait. I hope all is well with all of you!

Dubai

2008-10-09T03:55:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone-

I'm back from four days in Dubai and have survived my first week of full school days after Eid break. Dubai was an amazing getaway-I had such a nice time with my travel companion Andrea, who was actually the first person I met here. We sat by each other on our flight from Germany to Kuwait, and now our apartments are next door to eachother. We had an excellent experience on our trip from the beginning flying Gulf Air to Dubai, which even serves very cute free snack boxes!

We spent our first night in Dub at the Mall of the Emirates, where we met my friends from India Joe and Shikha and their son Yugaan for dinner. The mall is absolutely incredible-so huge, and it contains an indoor ski hill. I believe it's the biggest mall in the UAE, or maybe even the world, or maybe it's just one of the biggest, but in any case it's enormous. As we arrived on one of the last days of Eid the mall was packed with people, but we had fun doing a little bit of shopping and just people watching.

Day two in Dubai we spent the morning wandering the old Bastika area and souqs. We didn't buy anything, but it was fun to see all of the goods for sale. There are so many expats in Dubai, and many of them are from Southeast Asia, so I felt a little like I was back in India during our shopping!

That evening we went on a "desert safari", which was one of the highlights of the trip. We did sand surfing, which is basically driving around in jeeps as the driver goes up and down sand dunes as fast as he can. It's like a roller coaster and makes you feel like this:

The desert was incredibly beautiful, and after our "surfing" we ate a delicious meal in a giant tourist tent with belly dancing, henna, falconry, traditional Emirati dress, and hookahs.

We did a driving tour of Dubai the second day, getting to see all of the incredible development in Dubai, including the exterior of the Burj al Arab (the only seven star hotel in the world!). You have to pay a lot of money to even go in and see the exterior, so we didn't make it in, but just seeing how built up the city of Dubai is and looking at what it was like fifty, ten, five, and even one year ago is truly amazing.

All in all it was a really fun trip, and I'm sure I'll visit Dubai (and hopefully Abu Dhabi too!) again during the time I'm here.

I hope all is well with all of you!

Saudi Arabia

2008-09-30T06:47:00.000-07:00

So life has been incredibly busy here at school the past couple of weeks. We're coming to the end of several of our units, so preparing for the assessment at the end and trying to fit all of the necessary instruction into our condensed Ramadan schedule has consumed most of my time. It hasn't all been work though. Last weekend a friend of a friend who's in the US military took a couple of us to the Saudi border. Women can't enter Saudi without their husband, father, or son, so we were only able to go to the border and turn around, but it was fun to get to see the desert of Kuwait outside of the city and look into Saudi. I have several students who are from Saudi or have relatives in Saudi, so they were all very excited for my little excursion as well. :)

Other highlights of the past couple of weeks have been visiting the Kuwait towers:

and breaking the fast at a posh hotel with the other AIS Kuwait staff:

I've started Arabic classes with a couple of other teachers at the Arab-Western Awareness center, hired a maid (I'm so spoiled! I know) and enjoyed just getting to spend time with new friends here.

Today is the first day of Eid al-Fitr, which is the three day celebration of the end of Ramadan. We have six days off of school, so I'm really excited to have some time to catch up and get ahead at work and to just relax. My Kuwaiti Residence permit came through just this Sunday, which means I'm able to leave the country! A friend and I booked a flight to Dubai for Thursday-Sunday of this week, and I'm excited to see a new city and experience Dubai. I hope everything is going well with all of you, and check back next week for pictures and stories from Dubai!

Gurgiyan

2008-09-15T11:05:00.000-07:00

Today was the the third and final day of Gurgiyan in Kuwait. Gurgiyan is a holiday similar to American Halloween that is celebrated in Gulf States such as Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, and Bahrain. It happens about ten days into Ramadan, and is a way for kids to celebrate and enjoy the month even as their parents are in the middle of fasting. Basically, kids (and their teachers:) ) dress up in traditional Kuwaiti/Arabic clothes:

And go door to door in their neighborhoods collecting candy and nuts after they sing a Gurgiyan song. At school, student brought in more candy than you can imagine-it was kind of like Halloween on steroids. All of these boxes are filled with elaborate bags of candy:

Which were then distributed. The corner pile is the candy I received, 1/25 of the total amoount in the room:

And spent the remainder of the day whining about how they didn't want to be in school! It was really fun to see all of the kids dressed up, and we did complete some academic work as well as the games and parties and parades throughout the day, so all in all I think Gurgiyan was a fun day.

None of the kids (or teachers, for that matter) could really explain where Gurgiyan comes from and what the deeper meaning of the holiday is, but it seems like it's just a fun day of celebration. We also had an elementary fashion show and parade, and it was so cute to see all the little ones dressed up. I don't think there are many things cuter than a kid dressed up in a dishdasha (the traditional white tunic Arab men wear).

Tomorrow it will be back to the regular routine, but there are only eleven (and potentially ten, depending on the moon) days of class left before our six day Eid holiday! The year is flying by on our shortened schedule, but I really am proud of the progress my class has already made and I think it will only get better from here!

What I Did Over My Summer Vacation

2008-09-13T02:46:00.000-07:00

To see where my student's writing skills are I had them write a page about what they did over the summer. To get an idea of the kind of life my students lead, here are some excerpts from the lovelies in Five Orange:

*To begin the summer, my father gave me 1,000 KD (Kuwaiti Dinar, about US$4,000) for passing fourth grade.

*Next I went to Santorini, Greece. Our hotel room had two floors and our own jacuzzi.

*I flew to Malaysia on business class for the summer.

*This summer I went to New York, Florida, Texas, and London

*I went to Sant Tropez. It wasn't fun. I went to Monte Carlo-it was fun.

*In July I went to Paris, then to London.

*I stayed at the Waldorf Hotel in New York for some of my vacation, before I went to Los Angeles and met Hulk Hogan.

*I visited Disneyland twice and Disney World over the break.

Monday is a special holiday in Kuwait, Gurgiyan. Check back Tuesday for a Gurgiyan description and pictures!

Cruising the Gulf

2008-09-06T06:21:00.000-07:00

Ramadan Kareem to everyone! The Muslim holy month of Ramadan began on September 1st of this year, our second day of school. Ramadan is the month in which Muslims believe the Holy Qur'an was revealed by God to the prophet Muhammad, so it is the holiest month of the year for Muslims. It is also the month in which Muslims are expected to abstain from eating, drinking, smoking, and other worldly activities from sunrise until sunset. Fasting during Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam, and it is taken very seriously by Muslims. At sunset Muslims break the fast with their families, and at the end of the month the festival of Eid al Fitr celebrates the end of the month. There are already decorations everywhere, and workdays shorten for the month so as not to overtax and dehydrate those fasting. It should also be noted that the Islamic calendar is determined by the moon unlike our solar calendar, so Ramadan moves forward 11 days each year. Right now Ramadan is beginning at one of the hottest times in the Middle East, but 15 years from now it will be in the winter. About 20 of my 24 students are fasting (it is up to families to decide when their children begin to fast, but it's usually not until age 13 or 14 that children are expected to fast, although many begin practicing at an earlier age), so it's been a challenge to make sure we're not overworking any of the students during the day.

The first week of school went fairly well for me. I really enjoy my class, and it's been fun to get to know them and get an idea as to where they are academically. Most of my students come from extremely privileged backgrounds, and because of this are used to having many people they can go to when they need something, so we are focusing on working independently and critical thinking skills. :) It's definitely a great group, and I think it will be a fun year with them.

Friday is the holy day for Muslims, so our work week goes from Sunday-Thursday and we have Friday and Saturday off. On Thursday night I went to the Advocates for Arab-Western Relation center with a bunch of other staff members to break the fast and learn about all of the classes and activities the AWARE center offers. I lazed the day around Friday, and this morning a group of us went on a cruise around the Arabian (known to the rest of the world as Persian) Gulf. It's still very hot and windy, but it was a nice way to see the Gulf and the Kuwaiti coastline. You can see the Kuwait Towers, the biggest Kuwaiti landmark, in the picture below. Just like at home the weekend has gone by way to quickly, but it was nice to get away from the school a little and hopefully be refreshed for a great week!

Until next time,
Jessie

In Kuwait

2008-08-31T05:04:00.000-07:00

Hello people who are reading this blog...

So here is the story of my time in Kuwait thus far. :) I arrived in Kuwait August 17th and had a fantastic orientation for the first week with the 29 other new teachers that arrived with me. The administration did a phenomenal job of taking us to various shopping centers to buy supplies, furnishings, food, etc. for our apartment, giving us time to get to know each other and our surroundings, time to set up our classroom, etc. The second week was for all staff, new and returning, and we kept working on classroom preparation as well as whole grade planning for curriculum.

The apartment that I'm living in currently is really nice, but it is only temporary, until I can move into a new, even nicer one! I've seen the new building, which is complete and ready to go except it doesn't have electricity yet. In order to get electricity the builders need to get permission from the government, and that is a process that could be finished tomorrow or could be finished in six months, we just have no idea. So until then I'm staying semi-packed and without decoration, since the more work I do here the more I'll have to move. My apartment has a giant living room/dining room, bedroom, bathroom, maid's room, and kitchen, and is more than enough space for one person. As you can see from the pictures, it's almost too big, especially without decorations to make it feel more homey.

Isn't the brown provided blanket lovely? :) But it's more than enough for now, and it will be fun to decorate my new place once I move in.

To celebrate the end of orientation we had a delicious Lebanese meal with all of the new teachers and administration at a posh restaurant, complete with hookahs!

Thus far I'm really enjoying Kuwait and being back in the Mid. It's currently extremely hot-it's been between 112-118 degrees every day so far-but I think I'm starting to get used to it. Everyone keeps telling us that by mid-September it starts to cool down, so I'm looking forward to that. It's air conditioned anywhere inside, from taxis to tiny corner shops to government buildings, so it's just a matter of getting from one air-conditioned spot to the other. You can definitely tell we're in the middle of a dessert because there is sand everywhere, but I'm loving living in the middle of a city and seeing all of the Arabic everywhere.

It's about a ten minute walk from my apartment (the building in the middle of the picture below, tan with green balconies-my apartment is on the first floor on the left) and while it's not the scenic stroll I had in Mussoorie it's not a bad walk.

Technically I'm not in Kuwait City, I'm in Maidan Hawally, but Kuwait essentially is one city that is spreading out from the Gulf, and it's only a twenty minute cab ride from where we are to the middle of downtown, as long as traffic is good. We're also only about a five minute drive (and twenty minute walk once it cools down) from the Gulf, which is really beautiful, especially at sunset, and has lots of nice restaurants with water views.

<-The Liberation Tower, built at the end of the Gulf War

One thing that will make life in Kuwait very easy is it has tons of American food chains, and you can get anything, down to specific brand (we're talking Cheez-it Twists, Tostito Salsa, Wasa Fiber Crackers), at the groceries stores here. I've seen what feels like hundreds of Starbucks, McDonalds, and other chains everywhere, and while there many things around to remind me that I am in Kuwait, no craving will be unsatisfiable here!

My past week has been consumed with classroom preparations for today, the first day of school, and I think everything more or less came together. I have 24 students in my class, 13 boys and 11 girls, all of whom are Arab. They seem like a very fun bunch, very energetic and talkative but also quite excited about school. You can see the layout of my classroom below, and special thanks to my awesome cousin Tony for helping me to pic out some of the decorations and name tags!

There are so many more stories and pieces of information I could tell you, but I will save those for another post, as I am ready for a hard earned nap! If there's anything you'd like me to write about please let me know, and hopefully these posts will get more and more interesting as life gets busier here!

Until then,

Jessie