ACID Braden

Well, we certainly had a most interesting Christmas this year.

The interesting bits began on Christmas Eve. We, the families that stayed here in Riyadh, had a little get together with a pot-luck and bonfire at one of the family’s villas. There were about ten kids running around, dads throwing a football and people enjoying some holiday cheer.  It was a really nice chance to celebrate the holiday together, when most of us are away from family.

Pinata buster

We even had, courtesy of Charmagne and some design help from Alex, a pinata full of candy and clementines! The evening was a lot of fun and a really nice way get into the holiday spirit.

As the kids had been sick for a week, we left the party a little early, came home, got into pj’s and began to unwind from the exciting day.  And as the story goes, “When what to our wondering ears should we hear, but the knocking of a gloved fist upon our door, so dear.  We flew to the portal and flung it wide, and to our great surprise, there stood St. Nick with holiday wishes to tide.

Santa

You should have seen Isabel’s eyes!  She backed up a few steps and did a bit of a “Am I dreaming?” check before she let it sink in.  They were both a bit cautious, but you can see from the picture that their hesitation did not last long. We had a great little visit and it was really wonderful of Santa to stop in for a visit on such a busy night.

After our visitor left we got the kids, and their huge smiles, off to bed, made all the necessary arrangements for a good Christmas morning and we too turned in for a little sleep.

Anticipation

The next morning we managed to get up before the kids and get the tree light on, but that was about it before they were there and ready to go. We had a lot of fun opening lots of gifts that made it from both families back home (Thank You!) as well as stockings and Santa’s gift. It was extra interesting when Isabel’s doll (which, by the way, she guessed what it was before opening it, based on the doll accessories that were in her stocking) seemed to be bleating, yes, bleating.

As Charmagne and I were looking at each other with a “what the heck?” look there was a knock at the door. Now who would knock on someone’s door, even in Riyadh, at 7:00am on Christmas morning? Answer: Paul, Armando and a goat. It seems that Armando (our facilities manager) was helping Paul (our friend) get some wood for his bonfire pit when they passed a goat souq. Paul had the idea that it would be funny to take a goat around to different houses Christmas morning and as Armando was going to buy one for the workers at school as a thank you for all their hard work…we ended up with a goat in our yard Christmas morning.  You might be wondering how someone could even bring a goat onto a compound, but let’s just say that as Paul drove the school’s van through our check-points and onto the compound, the guards said, “Ah, it is Christmas.”  Needless to say, it was a really unusual and fun way to start Christmas day.

Dante, Erik, Matthias, Isabel

That night Paul and the rest of the Lefebvre family came over for dinner and a little gift exchange. We were to have had dinner at their villa but as it was being painted that day…remember, Christmas is not a day off here…they catered dinner at our house.  We all got the kids costumes, which was a HUGE hit, and they spent about 2 hours running around in their costumes and we had a lot of fun sitting around a fire and listening to the kids play. It was a really nice way to wrap up the day. While we all missed our families back home, our families here helped make this a wonderful Christmas.

Here are a few more random Christmas photos: click to enlarge

(see below for the goat video)

Thanks go to Paul for making the video and uploading it to YouTube!

We are (finally) into our Christmas Break. It has been a long haul but the break finally rolled in. And we started it with both kids, beginning with Dante, getting sick. While Isabel never had a high fever she had the stuffy nose, cough and general aches and pains. Dante on the other hand gave us a bit of a scare. He hit close to 104F one night and was in the tub cooling off. Fortunately it came down fast and though he still has a cough four days later he is definitely on the mend.

As for Char and I we are trying to stay healthy and not get too exasperated dealing with two sick and uncomfortable…i.e. grumpy, kids. Right before break the kids had their winter concerts. Both did a great job and had a lot of fun. Needless to say we were very proud of them.

From Winter Concert

From Winter Concert

For more pictures click the links under the photos

For the next two weeks we have no real plans, we would like to head up to the date farm that we have visited in the past, but we’ll see. Other than that a few day trips, a visit to the souq for a little shopping, take some new teachers to the old town…but mostly we just want to relax.  We’ll be around if you wish to call, Skype or email.

We wish all of you the best this holiday and Happy New Year!

ACID

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity of taking eight students from ninth and tenth grade to Amman, Jordan. The trip was for the model united nations club. First off I have to say I had a great group of kids, from the management standpoint I could not have asked for a better group.

We arrived with little incident, which when leaving Saudi with a mixed gender group and not being the parent of any of them is an amazing feat in and of itself, and got to the hotel. The organizers had a very long, loud and pointless get together the first night. By way of pointless we supposedly tried to break the world record for most number of people patting their heads while rubbing their tummies…yeah. The next day we had to be up at 4:30am to get on a bus bound for Petra. If you are not familiar with petra this photo should help you identify it, if from nothing else than Indiana Jones:

The place was amazing. The buildings all carved out of rock, endless caverns and canyons snakng through the desert. As I understand it we actually saw very little of Petra. It is a vast complex and had we not had a guide that must have been paid by the numer of tourists he could get through in a day we might have seen a bit more. Reaqlly though, to do it justice you would ave to stay at the nice hotel at the entrance and spend a couple days exploring. Should you be planning a trip take the hotel, it is four hours one way by bus from Amman…needless to say when we got back, late, it was all we could do to get dinner and prepare for the opening ceremonies the next day.

The conference itself lasted three days. It was opened with a very interesting presentation by one of the Jordanian princes on the topic of land mines. This was not one of the conference topics, so I am not sure how it related other than the fact that his foundation helped fund the conference. As for the three days of conferencing, well it was interesting and a learning experience for all of us. I had never been to one of these before and took a lot of notes for when we have ours here in February. My strongest impressions were: Do it in two days, not three and keep the conference in English. The “local” delegates kept speaking in Arabic. Not only was this against policy but there were several schools (ours included) that did not have Arabic speakers and so were left out quite a bit.

Most of my students did not propose any resolutions or amendments, but did take semi-active roles behind the scenes. A couple though really got into it and were significant contributors. It was really neat to see them in action. Perhaps the best time of the whole trip for me was when, after the first conference day, we ordered room service and all worked together on proposals, terminology and procedure. It was really neat to see them working so closely and all getting something from the experience.

The last day I got to visit a former student who, owing to a terrible car accident last summer, is in hospital. At the time she was in Amman so her mom came to pick me up for a visit. She looked great and was excited about a move to a hospital in Germany where she hopes to get better care. Good Luck, Aya!

After a very long trip away from my family we all returned to the Magic Kingdom and I was able to reunite with my family. It was hard being gone that long and I hope that the next time it is a shorter trip.

Here are a few photos of various locations and sights…including what happens to a teacher who has been chaperoning a group of teenagers…