Call to Prayer at Sunset

Last Thursday, on the way to see Rheumatologist, my cab driver dropped me off on the wrong street.  A friendly Arab guy gave me directions to where I needed to be, saying I was only five minutes away.  25 minutes later I reached my destination.  But along the way I was in prime location for the Call to Prayer that resounds 5 times a day everyday, being amplified from mosques all around the country.  So I took out my cell phone, and this is what I got.  I tried my best to not look like a tourist, just walking and pretending I was texting.  But I stop a couple times to catch the mosque on my right.  Enjoy!

(I believe he's singing something along the lines of "God is Great; there's is no God but God, and Mohammed is his messenger..." and so on.)

There's No Place Like Home...but I ain't Home Sick!

A friend of mine here told me last night that he’d soon be turning in his letter of resignation with the American School of kuwait. It was sad to hear the news. In the long two months I’ve been here I’ve considered him a good friend of mine. About a week ago he told me he didn’t know how much longer he would be in Kuwait, that New York/Jersey was where he belonged. I guess it was on the way home today when it kind of hit me, after another of several daily gasps in response to the ruthless Kuwait traffic, that my friend would be going home to America (which I looked at eon a world map recently and for the first time it seemed like a foreign land). And...I felt a slight home sickness come over me.
It was the comfort of home that I imagined he’d be going back to that made me feel so far from home. For my friend: no more language barriers, high-maintenance parents, blocked websites, unpredictable desert traffic (literally-on the sand with no marked lanes!), getting swindled by cab drivers claiming they can’t speak English, and no more absence of cold beer. He’ll be going home to familiarity and newspapers in English, family and trees, and hospitals that check your vitals with each appointment. He’ll have a nightlife and 24-hour diners. He’ll have the “greatest country in the world”.
I really believe in giving myself chances to “test myself”, to not always take the easy way out - not to say resigning and facing a board of admin is an easy thing to do - and to always give myself specifically chosen opportunities to improve in body and mind...hence, Kuwait. (I love to hear children practice reading because I know there is a lot of thinking going on there, a lot of essential growth and learning that’s leading them toward a fuller life. That’s how I feel living here. It’s like I’ve just learned how to read and there are all these unread words and books in front of me with the potential to sculpt my life in a very omniscient way (don’t know if I used that word correctly...I might be mixing it up with omnipotent...)). Yeah, I’ve got to take a cab or bus most everywhere I go and my alarm clock is set anywhere from 4:15 to 5:15 in the A.M. But, f*%#, I’ve got too much of a good thing going on here. I really like to reserve my use of the word “love”, but I’m not far from using it when I think about my job and the people with whom I live and work.
You know how you never realize what the best memories of your life are until a long time has passed since those events actually happened? In the first two months in Kuwait, I can feel some of these memories already scaling there way toward the upper echelon of my remembrances. Sure, the lure of home is there, but maybe I come upon some greener grasses - even if I have to sift through dunes and sandpits.

Updates: UpcomingTrips, Open House, Domestic Helpers, etc.

The weather is beginning to cool down.  Days are still pretty hot, but much more bearable.  Now that Ramadan is over traffic is much worse, malls are a lot more crowded, and the pace of an ordinary day seems faster.  The that we're getting into the "meat" of our calendar days are long but fast.  After-school activities are going to begin soon.  There's every things from Board Games to Ice Skating.  Another teacher and I plan to lead Kid Yoga.  Should be fun, long as I get my Dinar!  

There's a lot of discussion about travel plans for upcoming breaks and such.  I didn't go anywhere for the first Eid, and after hearing about others' trips, I'm itching to go somewhere for the next one.  Originally, a small group of us were to go to Bahrain for it, but changed our date to the end of October because we didn't want to come back to school...exhausted from the travel.  There's a deal for 8KD to fly to select countries in the Mid-east...and it looks like a group of us are going to try Bahrain in the in mid-November.  And for the second Eid were, there's about 5 or 6 of us planning a trip to Sri Lanka.  Finally gonna get some stamps in my passport! 

Last week we had Open House...it went fine.  Let's just say (I'm trying to watch my words...as a few of us were cautioned by the Superintendent in his office (Hi, Dr. Mitchell) to do so.  Getting an email from his secretary to meet him after school, where only my name is in the address box, put me in a...world of confusion for the last couple hours of school that day.)  A couple parents were demanding things that were done by there child's 1st grade teacher.  "That's 'so and so.  And I'm R.J." is how I replied after I could feel my frustration start to build.  I don't want to get too into it (it's been banging around in my head far too much this week), but the discussion got me to thinking of better ways to communicate with parents.  I want to create a classroom website/blog.  (Jeff U. I might be shooting an email your way soon :)  

Open House ended a 14 hour day at school.  And back home, it's usually a cold beer that hits the spot after a week like that.  Here, it's the Shisha.  Several people in the teacher buildings have recently bought a Hooka.  And there are plenty of restaurants to order shisha and have dinner. We went to one last night where we sat outside overlooking the gulf.  

I didn't think I'd get one, but it seemed to darn good to pass up (and a lot teachers get them). For 25KD/month I have a maid come in once a week to do my laundry and ironing, dishes, sweeping and mopping, my bathrooms, dustings, windows, etc.  25KD isn't the best deal, when I begin tutoring (which progress reports just came out, so that will be very soon) I'll be making minimum 15 KD/hour (roughly $50-$55).  Any debate about a maid ends after that...plus, I'll be making a little extra once the Kid Yoga starts next week!

Tomorrow is Sunday.  Right now I need to get ready for two parent conferences requested at Open House.  : )