Evans of Arabia

International Week

2012-02-16T07:43:00.000+03:00

Greetings,
We celebrated International Week at our school this week, culminating today in an International Parade with students and their families representing countries as diverse as the United Arab Emirates, China, South Korea, Canada, Malaysia, Uruguay, Ukraine, Chile, United States, Australia, Germany, France, Finland, South Africa, Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, India, United Kingdom, and, of course, Saudi Arabia. It was a wonderful celebratory week with various foods cooked and brought by families, ethnic foods at lunch (including tortilla "crepes" with chicken), chocolates for Valentine's Day, and country anthems played each morning.

Thanks for reading, Jennifer

Delayed Updates

2012-02-10T23:25:00.000+03:00

Greetings,
We have certainly been delinquent about Evans of Arabia of late. Apologies to anyone who has been looking for updates. We are never really sure how many people there are, other than our parents who sort of are supposed to read our news ...

In short, since we last wrote this is what has happened:

We celebrated American Thanksgiving with many friends from all over world, including the US, and enjoyed our best and most delicious Thanksgiving here yet.
Hayden competed with his friends in the second annual dodgeball tournament - and his team won.
Logan's elementary choir sang in the school's winter concert, and he played the marimba.
We went to Austria for our third annual Christmas ski holiday - and close friends from Portland met us there. We skied, enjoyed our same apartment, consumed delicious food, went sledding, and listened to Michael Buble's Christmas album daily. Fantastic and festive!
The third annual 5k fun run was held in January and all of us ran in the 'race'.
We have just finished grades and report cards - a many hour process.
We have been to Jeddah to renew Logan's passport which required a half day off of work for Jennifer and David and an early departure from school for Logan. Both parents and the child have to physically appear at the consulate with all IDs, including Logan's original birth certificate FedEx'd from Colorado. All seemed to go well. Now we will be set for Hayden's next year.
Another outing just last night to Afghan souk with friends from England who, sadly, are heading home in March. They needed a final carpet purchase and ended up with two lovely ones!
Boys are engaged in sports and music, school and friends.

We will try to write more regularly from now on! Thanks for reading, Jennifer

Floating on the Dead Sea

2011-11-27T05:46:00.000+03:00

Greetings,
Over this last Eid al Adha holiday in early November, we headed to Jordan. In a nutshell: what an amazing country! Walking through markets in Amman, people asked where we were from and always answered back, "Welcome to Jordan." One man stopped us, showed us the addresses in Chicago and Miami where family members lived, and insisted on buying us falafel sandwiches at his favorite shop nearby, so enthusiastic was he upon meeting a certifiable American family. We saw men and women driving, shopping, working, walking and talking - together - and we always felt safe and appreciated.

After a first day in Amman, we drove to the Dead Sea, about 30 miles away, with a stop along the way at a place purported to have been the sight on the Jordan River where John the Baptist baptized Jesus Christ. Archeological evidence, written stories, and oral pilgrim accounts have been used to support this hypothesis. Amid careful but discrete security measures, we walked to what remains of the river - now a narrow strip of water - just 25 feet of largely agriculturally-diminished water - separating those of us on the Jordan side from those on the West Bank side. We were most likely at the ceremonial sight of an act that would change the world forever, humbled and awed. At more than 400m below sea level, and more than nine times saturated than the ocean, the Dead Sea has always caused us each to doubt - doubt the idea that people actually can float and read a magazine simultaneously - but it really is true. It is impossible to sink or dive beneath water level. The free mud, and the salty, mineral-rich water in the sea, leave skin feeling smooth and clean. We stayed at one of the few resorts along the sea's banks that allows people to access the beach, but the boys spent much of their time in the swimming pool, playing on the water slides. "Swimming" in the Dead Sea is really just floating; water in the mouth or eyes is to be avoided at all costs!

Next we headed to Petra where, once again, we were amazed and astounded by the rugged, timeless beauty and the raw, exposed history. We had heard that Petra was amazing, but to actually explore its many canyons, hike up its meandering paths, and wander among the beautifully carved rocks was considerably better than we had expected. Like many archeological sites in that part of Jordan, Petra is in fact a fusion of Nabataean, Roman, Byzantine, Crusader, and Islamic cultural legacies. Once a choke point on the historic Silk Road due to its unique geology, Petra had gradually outlived its economic significance as sea trade routes opened up. Camel caravans that had once come through by the hundreds each week, each paying the pricey tax to gain through passage, gradually came less and less often, and with this fall-off went Petra's fortunes. And so for a 1,000 years essentially, what we now know of Petra gradually filled up with sand and was toppled by earthquakes. Only by chance did hardy non-locals in the 1800's hear tell of a fabled city carved into rock in the middle of the mountains, a sight until then secretly guarded by the local Bedouins who lived in that region. The first European to see Petra was fluent in Arabic, dressed as an Arab on pilgrimage, and snuck in by pretending to go in order to perform a sacrifice. Nearly discovered, he almost didn't make it out. Thankfully, it has gotten a bit less perilous to visit the place today.

From Petra we headed back north, this time taking the Desert Highway, instead of the Dead Sea Highway we had been driving heading south. We spent two final nights in Amman but enjoyed the day in the ancient Roman city of Jerash. This is another outstanding historical site with substantially intact remains of temples to Zeus and Artemis, Hadrian's Arch, a large oval plaza, and a long colonnaded street which once housed a market along its sides. Upon entering the site, we passed the hippodrome (built between the first and third centuries A.D.) and were enticed to watch chariot races and a depiction of the power of the Roman Army.

Overall, it was a wonderful trip with fond memories and much history.

Thanks for reading, Jennifer and David

A trip to the Afghan Souk

2011-10-27T08:20:00.000+03:00

Greetings,

One of the new teachers at school, a woman who - with her family - came from Denver actually, asked if I could organize a trip to the Afghan souk because she had read about it on our blog last year. So a few weeks ago a group of people from school traveled by bus to the Afghan souk in Jeddah. Because of traffic on a Thursday night (like a Saturday night in the West), it took nearly two hours to get to the actual area in Jeddah. The Afghan souk is really a series of shops on a narrow street in an Afghani region of the city. The one way street is always jammed with cars trying to get to someplace else; in addition, there are cars parked helter-skelter on either side of the street - some angle-in front parking and others attempting some form of parallel parking. The "sidewalks" that line the street and are in front of the shops vary in dramatically in height and stability, so 15 women in abayas but no head scarves stepping up and down these sidewalks and swerving into the road when necessary makes for quite a sight, I suppose. The little side streets are mostly dirt, strewn with garbage and roaming mangey cats. At the start of the street was a fruit and vegetable market, set up in carts and temporary tables; the ground was covered with dried fish remains, which we all stepped in on our way back onto the bus at the end of the evening, prompting the driver to ask if anyone had perfume. In this area, we have found two amazing Afghan shops. The first, with just carpets, has doubled in size since I was there two years ago, and is well-lit and comfortable. The Afghan men who run the shop welcomed us into their shop, immediately started helping us with carpets, and offered us sweet tea. These knowledgeable men can swiftly toss carpet after carpet from a 50-carpet stack, describing each and watching for the interest from the customer. They had silk Persian carpets, Islamic prayer carpets, wool carpets, and blended carpets - all handmade, of course. They could describe why one carpet might be more expensive than another by showing us the small knots per inch on the back of the carpet. Nearly everyone in our group enjoyed sweet tea and purchased at least one carpet.

The other shop, the one I have written about before, has an entire front room dedicated to carpets and then several back rooms filled with antique furniture, and some newer renditions, mirrors, carpet-covered ottomans, and random food-serving items from India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. I found an old Indian cherry wood coffee table that I liked. It looks like a intricate small old door set down into a door frame, laid flat, and attached to four legs. A sheet of glass sits above the actual wood table top and is set into the frame. I negotiated the price with one of the owners, and then asked if they could clean the table and get the glass for me. "No problem," they insisted. Next I asked if they could deliver it to me on our campus about 70 kilometers from Jeddah. "No problem," they said. I gave them a card which gave our location in Arabic, their eyebrows went up, and suddenly I realized that it might be a problem. Another man who seemed to be 'in charge' came over and they discussed my situation for a long time. Finally, he turned to me and said, "No problem. But you will have to pay 200 SARs ($56) for the delivery." I said that was fine. On the card with our campus address, I wrote my first name and my cell number. I asked what I should pay him at the time, and he waved his hand, saying, "No problem." I left the store. I was not sure if I would ever see the table, but I hadn't paid any money, so I was not too worried.

art on the coffee table

Three days later, I received cell phone calls while I was in my classroom. I
could not understand the person on the other end of the phone, so I gave my phone to my student, Abdulrahman, and he translated back and forth for me. It turns out that it was one of the Afghan men from the shop, waiting at the gate, with my table! I borrowed a friend's car, drove out to the first gate, apologized for not having an abaya, and went to the visitor center parking lot. There was a small truck with my table. The man lifted the table into the back of my friend's car, refusing any help from me, accepted the payment for the table plus the delivery, and left.

Later our friend delivered the table to our neighbors' garage, since we were not at home, and we reclaimed it finally that evening. It is now one of the main places that Hayden works on homework and Logan works on his many art projects. It reminds me that a person's word can mean so much, a commitment to sell and buy, and to follow through on an agreement. No receipts or papers or agreements in writing were ever considered.

Thanks for reading, Jennifer

A traveling suitcase

2011-10-14T20:45:00.001+03:00

Dear all,
As David has written about his race, his training, and his reflections on returning to the Ironman after twenty-five years, I will write about the more mundane details of our lives. David successfully flew from Kona to L.A. to JFK and on to Jeddah, arriving on time, meeting the KAUST taxi driver holding a sign with his name, and happily making it home. We were all excited; Hayden was making dinner, and Logan was making a welcome home sign. After hugs David was telling us about the medal he won and some other things he had gotten, and he said, "Oh, maybe I should just go ahead and open my suitcase. I know I have some laundry." (An understatement, to be sure.)

He put the suitcase on the floor and commented on the fact that the handle on our new suitcase was already broken. He unzipped the bag and looked uncomprehendingly at little boy clothes with Spiderman on them. We all stared, afraid to accept that this was not David's suitcase, though it was identical to ours. A bit of a panic. What to do? I tried to get a ride with a friend back to the Jeddah airport, but he had too many other errands, so I arranged a taxi - though it could not go until 2:30 am. Finally, after a meal, David realized that we should both go, return the suitcase, and look for his. We borrowed our neighbors' car and drove back 70 km to Jeddah's Saudi terminal. An hour later and with a lot of help from several men who worked for Saudia Airlines, we had returned a suitcase which was not ours (but which was wanted by a young Spiderboy) and understood that David's suitcase had been tagged with the name of another traveler and had been sent to Brussels! We supplied all the information we could, were given a file number and a phone number, and headed home.

the traveling suitcase

We tried to call American Airlines because the agent in Kona was the one who had mistakenly tagged the bag incorrectly, and the bag had never left the control of that airline, though Saudia was now helping us. We got a clarification that Saudia had submitted correct documentation and was searching for the bag. The phone number, however, had not yet had anyone answer. Sigh. David sent an email to the baggage claim department for American Airlines in the Brussels airport. Did you know such an email existed? A few hours later, he received confirmation that a bag with the correct baggage claim number had been re-routed to Frankfurt and then on to Jeddah. I again called the ghostly number with never an answerer - and received an answer. Yes, his suitcase was in Jeddah at the North Terminal. Wow!

David and Hayden again borrowed a car and went to the Jeddah airport once more, hoping that the baggage claim ticket David had was actually for HIS bag and not someone else's bag. It was correct. The right suitcase was returned to him, and they have just returned home. Truly, despite it all, don't we have so very much to be grateful for?

Thanks for reading, Jennifer

Kona, Hawaii, Ironman 2011

2011-10-11T21:25:00.004+03:00

Everyone competing in Kona has a story, often an amazing one. For some, the road to Kona is paved with personal struggles - the bilateral amputee, the cancer survivor. For others, competing in Kona is the culmination of athletic achievement, the holy grail destination in a very personal endurance sport journey. One person I spoke with had been trying to qualify for Kona for a decade and had finally, thankfully, made it in just a few months ago. Of the nearly 2,000 competitors, almost half were Kona rookies, most were quite young, and all were ambitious.

Having competed at the Hawaii Ironman three times in the mid-'80s, this has been a week of reflection on what was and what is Kona for triathletes. Inevitably, the sport and the resulting race times have changed. While there is no getting around swimming, biking, and running 140.6 miles in a day, the fact that so many are now doing Ironman, and doing it so well, points to the rapidly evolving maturity and popularity of this iteration of endurance athletics. The top athletes of the race's first decade at Kona - Dave Scott and Mark Allen - would, I think, more than hold their own against the top guys today (especially if they could ride the same bikes!). The sheer numbers now participating in the sport have meant more depth and competition, and not just at the pro level but at the age-group levels as well, which brings me to the 50 - 54 male age group. As we inevitably learn, there are physical limits that accompany growing older. What I learned yesterday is that there are an impressive number of guys who are flirting with, and arguably regularly redefining, those limits. Where before there may have been one guy in his early 50's transcending age, today there is a plurality and, well, this makes for a much more interesting race!

crossing the finish line

Going into the race I knew a few things. For one, all triathletes know that times established at qualifier races rarely translate as easily in Kona. For every athlete who establishes a personal best here, there are probably a dozen for whom it's a long, long day. Additionally, Darwinism is alive and well at Kona. While an athlete may have "easily" qualified at one of the more than two dozen races around the globe, there is nothing easy about racing at Kona, even if you happen to have a relatively smooth day. If it's not the choppy surf, it's the sometimes relentless jockeying of a mass swim start with 2,000 folks. If it's not the endless hills of the bike course, it's the punishing winds off of Mona Kea. And if it's not the mid-afternoon heat during the marathon, it's the humidity, the seemingly endlessness of a marathon after the swim and bike. In the end, Kona has a way of letting you know who's boss; your job during the day is to realize that Kona's course holds the trump cards and racers must play by her rules.

My day started at 2:15 am after nearly five hours of sleep. Having learned my lesson from Port Elizabeth, I ate early the night before, consumed only carbohydrates the day before, and was in bed by 7:45 pm. Bob Flanigan, a triathlete from Richmond, VA, happened to also be staying at the same B&B and proved to be tremendously helpful with final preparations. Bob is heavily involved in the sport, with a triathlete coaching business, Central Virginia Endurance, and various other sports commitments, and it was simply fantastic having him here as a resource and now friend. By 4:00 am he was up and we were eating the default race-day oatmeal breakfast and putting on the game face. There was not much conversation at breakfast as both of us were preparing psychologically for battle, with dread and with anticipation.

We left at 4:30, drove as close as we could to the start and walked the three blocks to final check-in, which involved getting our bodies marked with the race numbers, checking our electronic anklets to make sure they weren't duds, getting weighed as part of a study, shedding our casual clothes and belongings and bagging them for later pick up, applying anti-chaffing balms and creams and, not least, putting on that vital sun-bloc, pressurizing our bike tires and re-checking the food and drink we'd stored, going to the bathroom at least one last time and, finally, joining the hordes waiting to get into the swim start venue after the start of the pro field and the singing of the Hawaiian state anthem.

By 6:45 am most age-groupers were in the water, warming up nervous swim muscles, and gradually inching toward the 100m wide start line, now in deep water and much more spread out than it used to be due to this era's larger field sizes (and greater number of Type-A athletes). Exactly at 7 am the cannon went off and, suddenly, the months of training and waiting were over, the big race underway. In '84 I recollect 1250 competitors, with many of them not as well-prepared as many are today. Consequently, if you got off the line relatively smoothly in those days you could jump on the "swimmers' train" and have a fairly uneventful, and fast, first leg. This is not so in today's triathlon world, at least not for the non-pure swimmers of the triathlon world who, like me, don't come from competitive swim backgrounds and have had to learn to swim well as adults. While the first few moments were clean and fast, as all swimmers made a bee-line toward the first course marker off in the distance, a convergence of fast and aggressive swimmers began occurring and, soon, the inevitable bumps, slaps, and kicks of folks trying to be in the same place at the same time began occurring. To be sure, some contact is par for the course in mass swim starts, but stories of tough Kona swims are legion. The difficulty of this year’s swim was perhaps compounded by nastier seas than usual during the week due to the latent effects of an apparently big storm off of New Zealand. With choppier seas than normal and consequent decreased visibility, following another swimmer's toes was tougher and sporadic physical contact perhaps a bit more understandable.

Although I knew that I wasn't swimming as well as I might, I was still a bit surprised and dismayed upon exiting the water to see the clock already at 1:05. Oh well, if there's another tidbit all ironman athletes know, it's that the swim rarely decides the race; I took consolation in that as I jogged the requisite path in the transition area through the showers, to the bag pick-up, via the changing tent, and then to the bike. I knew I had prepared well for the bike leg and so, as I set out on the bike course, I strove to get into the rhythm, coaxing the swim muscles to transition into bike engines, reminding myself to be patient and confident.

Again, the sheer number of better athletes, and my slower than expected swim, made for a very crowded bike route, especially through the first half or so of the 112-mile bike course. For a time, it was virtually impossible to be the requisite 7m or more behind any leading cyclist, so you just had to do your best to play by the rules and not put doubt in the mind of any of the many bike referees scurrying about on motorcycles and doing their best to keep the day fair and safe. Upon passing the first of four penalty tents on the bike course, it was clear that many had pressed their luck too much; at least a dozen cyclists were standing in or near the penalty tent, each holding the stopwatch he'd or she'd been handed upon check-in, painfully waiting the four required minutes while standing by their bikes, unable to go to the bathroom, eat or drink as the race unfolded next to them. It must have been frustrating and yet I'm strongly in favor of keeping a no-draft race.

After a few meandering miles around town, the legendary Hawaii ironman bike course is essentially an out and back route across the endless up and down lava, lunar-like ramparts of Mona Kea before angling 19 miles to the west and then north to the turnaround at Havi, very near the northern tip of the Big Island. If the monotony and heat of the lava fields doesn't zap your strength and determination, the final climb to Havi, predictably into brutal head- and cross-winds, can make a mockery of even the strongest of cycling skills. Fortunately, the legs were willing yesterday, and the endless stream of cyclists provided a consistent incentive to keep passing and pushing on. By Havi I knew that I was having a strong leg. I did not know that I had exited the water in 18th place out of 129 in my age group, just as I didn't know that I was going from 18th to 3rd during the bike, but I had a feeling that the stars were aligned and that the result would be helpful. The final 30 miles were tougher. Fewer were the fading cyclists since by now I had apparently caught up with the stronger riders and, I suppose, I was also trying to mentally prepare for what I knew would be a tough run.

The second transition proved once again how tough it is to pretend you're a runner after having biked and swum for 6+ hours! As I hobbled through the required loop around T2 (as the second transition is called), I prayed that it would get easier. I also prayed that a lack of longer mileage runs due to protracted bout of tight achilles in the months leading up to Kona would not preclude a reasonable performance.

Apparently, the run started out well. Dave Lindahl, a longtime training partner from Seattle Nordic skiing days, who'd kindly joined me in support of my efforts here this week, had cleverly volunteered to work at the aid station at miles 1 and 9 on the out and back section of Ali'i Drive of the run course. As runners went by he was able to identify the two guys in my age group ahead of me and let me know how far back I was - about seven minutes, apparently, at mile 1, but then less than two minutes back by mile 9. I tried to relax and get into an easy rhythm. At each aid station I took the cold sponges, then water, the energy drink or cola, and then finally the cup of ice, which I promptly tossed into my race hat and which then provided much needed cooling over the next mile, whereupon I went through the same ritual again.

Although I knew I wasn't running as well as I could, given the lack of mileage and the limited road miles I'd done in preparation - for obvious reasons, Saudi Arabia is primarily a land of treadmill runners (to the extent that anyone runs at all) - I liked my chances and felt encouraged. But then again, in the back of my mind I knew it would eventually be not so much a race of catching those in front but of holding off those faster runners coming from behind. Well, I gave it everything I had, but I was powerless to do anything about the two guys in my age group who went by me after the final turnaround at the Energy Lab, still with eight or so miles to go. I wanted so to stay with them, but I just couldn't, and pretty soon I was doing all that I could to cut my losses and hold on to what I was estimating was a 5th place spot. The final miles seem endless, my body on the verge of throwing in the cards, but somehow I found the energy to keep going and, eventually, I could hear the loudspeaker at the finish line, feel the energy of the huge crowds lining the course. And then there it was, the final 400m or so along Ali-i Drive to the hallowed finish line and then, with reserves from who knows where, my body was summoning up its last milligram of adrenaline and I was somehow gaining speed to the finish, elated to finally be there and under reasonable power. A happier sight cannot be described; I have been fortunate enough to have competed in a lifetime of endurance competitions, and none have forced me to reach down as deeply as did yesterday's race.

So, all things considered, I'm very pleased with how the day went. The four guys who beat me are incredible athletes, and it was truly an honor to pit my abilities against the best in the world and be in the mix at the top of the age group, especially in the latter stages of the race. In the end, having the top five guys within five minutes of each other at the finish line shows how deep and competitive and balanced a field there was out there yesterday in the 50-54 age group. I came to Kona with high ambition and come away with a deep respect for the sport, and especially the age-groupers, happy to have been able to give the day my best with the best.

Special thanks to my wife and boys, without whose support this endeavor never could have occurred. It takes a village to nurture and support a Kona triathlete, and I'm truly grateful to Jennifer, Hayden, and Logan especially for putting up with my antics these past many months. For the rest of you who supported my Kona Quest (and you know who you are), I say "thank you" and hope that one day I can return the favor.

Aloha from Kona,

David

Kona, Hawaii, Ironman 2011

2011-09-30T07:26:00.000+03:00

Greetings,
David has been traveling for nearly 30 hours and is still enroute to Kona, Hawaii, for the 2011 Ironman Championship. I cannot believe how long it takes to travel half-way around the world! Fortunately, the race is not until 8 October, so he will have time to relax and rest after the exhaustive trip.

More details and updates will be posted as the race day nears. Gratefully, David has a good friend arriving in Kona in a few days to join him, support him, and help him hobble around post-race!

More soon! Jennifer

School Year #3

2011-09-16T15:00:00.005+03:00

Greetings,

We have just completed the second week of our school year #3! We have a large new international school now, with much larger classes, a spacious foyer, a lovely lunchroom surrounded by windows to the outside, a pool which may open some day, a separate girls' wing for girls who choose the girls' section of our school, and a large auditorium where we can actually hear the person on stage. It's wonderful. The first two days of school included an activity we did in advisory groups called The Amazing Race where each group competed in a school-wide scavenger hunt game in an attempt to have fun and to learn the layout of the school. Now fewer students are lost getting on their way to class, but I am certain that each student - and each teacher - has been lost at least once. It's nice in a way because it was not just the 6th graders, new to our secondary school community, who were lost occasionally, but everyone!

I am pleased to be teaching grade 7 English and humanities again, though I miss my lovely grade 7 students from last year! I pop in to visit them when possible. There has been noticeable maturity among this year's grade 7 group, and we off to a good start. I also teach a grade 6 English section, which is fun as well. David teaches grade 6, grade 7, and a grade 9 section of math, and he, too, is greatly enjoying his classes so far.

Hayden is settling in to his classes and enjoying more independence as a middle school student in the secondary building. David and I see him little during the day in our big building, but I spot him occasionally in the lunchroom - or in my English class! Logan is loving grade 1. One of his good friends, also from the United States, is again in his class this year, and this has been fun for Logan since there are six sections of grade 1 in our school. Both boys will start soccer again this coming week, Hayden will be continuing with guitar soon, and Logan will begin piano lessons. Hayden is hoping to make the basketball team at the secondary school and has been practicing almost daily, but he's up against all interested boys under 16.

David is wrapping up the intensity of his Ironman training, beginning to shorten some of his workouts and tapering for his upcoming race in Hawaii on 8 October. He will be leaving here in two weeks for his long flight to Kona and the adjustment necessary for a worldwide championship Ironman triathlon. The boys are wondering why Dad takes so many naps!

We are grateful for our steady and fulfilling jobs, the many sports and increasing music options for the boys, the wonderful friendships we are making in this international community, and our continued opportunities for travel. We are also grateful how much time the boys have spent with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and extended family members over the summer. We have many blessings.

Thanks for reading, Jennifer

Together Again

2011-09-08T10:23:00.006+03:00

Greetings,

Recently we took our Eid al Fitr holiday in Italy where we met up with Jennifer's parents and, after a long month apart, Hayden! Mom nearly leapt out of the car before it had come to a complete stop when she saw Hayden sitting on a bench with his grandmother, waiting in a small village in the Piedmont region of Italy. It was a joyous time and a wonderful place to meet up together.

We all first headed with our friends to our their newly purchased, partially renovated - and very liveable - farmhouse in a remote location in Piedmont, surrounded by hills, woods, and stone farmhouses. We helped work on pruning and trimming trees and bushes, Jennifer's dad and our friend Chris both eager to charge up the chainsaw and tractor. We enjoyed local pizza, fresh eggs and cheese, bread from the nearby bakery, fresh milk and yogurt, various meats. Wow. We went into Alba, explored some vineyards and wineries, and generally had a glorious three days. Logan and his friend Charlotte created an art studio in an unfinished part of the farmhouse, complete with painting, canvases, drop clothes, and messes.

Following that we drove to Cinque Terra where we stayed for three nights in an incredible - but hard to find - hotel in the northernmost village of Monterrosso. From there we hiked three kilometers to the next village of Vernazza, ate a lovely

lunch, wandered the shops and watched the boats coming in. A few hours later we hiked another four kilometers to the next village. Each village had narrow, cobblestone paths and streets, small shops, cafes, colorful laundry blowing in the breezes, vibrant umbrellas, and many-flavored gelato shops. From any of the villages, you can catch a train to another village so that you can hike just one way. Visually, Cinque Terra is one of the most appealing places I have ever seen, but the fragrant smells of the flowers, fish, and sea added greatly to the pleasure.We ate fresh seafood and pasta daily and enjoyed local olive oil and the best pesto we have ever had! We were also able to enjoy the sandy beaches open-water swimming in the late August Mediterranean Sea.

After one week in Italy, we boarded the Royal Jordanian flight, via Amman, back to Jeddah with the start of school in mind and wonderful memories of Italy to carry forward.

Thanks for reading. Ciao! Jennifer

Common Language, Optional

2011-08-12T15:58:00.003+03:00

Greetings,

A Korean man came to our door yesterday looking for basic tools to borrow by way of explaining that he and his family were our new neighbors. We were immediately excited! After all, we'd returned from summer vacation a bit despondent over having lost two of our former neighbors to larger houses elsewhere on campus. So this man's unexpected visit, along with his news that he had two kids, a boy 7 and a girl 4, was a breath of fresh air, especially for our soon-to-be 7 year-old son. When our new neighbor returned the tools later in the day, he brought his kids with him; unfortunately, Logan was next door (the other way!) with yet another boy his age.

News of the new boy next door proved too much for our amazingly sociable Logan and so, without any introductions or prompting, after breakfast this morning he summarily mentioned that he'd be heading next door to play with the new boy, John. Things must have gone well between them since Logan was gone for awhile. And when he returned, with John now in tow, it was now his chance to share his toys and make the fun.

And that was when I realized that neither boy had a common spoken language, not even a word of one, apparently, but instead were communicating in the universal language of 6 and 7 year-old boys. Which by now meant the two had headed up to Logan's room and its huge tub of legos, had begun assembling the latest in inter-galactic weaponry, and had clearly engineered superb machines given the "boy sounds" (as Jennifer calls them) emanating from the room.

But never a word did I hear, not even a peep, just the familiar engine-like and weapon-ish sounds of our son, peppered with the less familiar but equally impressive utterances of his new friend. After a while, it was time for lunch - only how to communicate this to John? Undeterred, Logan motioned to John to follow him, which he dutifully did, taking him next door to his new home and explaining to his father that it was time for him, Logan, to have lunch, but that maybe next time John could join us. I'm guessing next time will come soon!

Thanks for reading! David

Colorado. Seattle. London.

2011-08-09T11:02:00.016+03:00

Greetings,

We were so busy during our trip to the United States that we didn't have time to update our blog, but we are intent on more frequent updates from now on since many people mentioned reading our blog. Thank you.

After we left Michigan, we headed to Colorado for a just a couple of days, left the boys with Jennifer's parents, flew to Seattle and drove to Vancouver for an IB workshop. We took advantage of the glorious weather and the city of Vancouver by cycling and running in Stanley Park and eating at a variety of amazing restaurants. Upon our return to Seattle, we met the boys at the airport and went to our

Ballard neighborhood to stay in the guest room at our friends' house. Their house is just down the street from our own house and, though it was odd not to be living in our house, we were able to see that it has been very well-cared for both inside and out. Though the Seattle weather was disappointing, we still managed Greenlake runs, bike rides, and some backpacking (cut short due to the rain) in the Cascades where our boys, two of their closest friends, andus parents played Sardines in the boulder field at Lake Dorothy. It was definitely a highlight to return to one of our favorite mountain spots and breathe in the incredibly fragrant smells of the Pacific Northwest woods. We had dinner with friends, enjoyed pizza with many people in Gasworks Park (despite rain and cool temperatures), kayaked on Lake Union, took our kids and their friends to the awesome St. Edwards park where we had a picnic and played frisbee on one of

the first real summer days of Seattle. That day essentially doubled the number of minutes of sunshine for the city's summer 2011!

Next we went to Denver where we celebrated two milestone birthdays - my mom's and David's - which have or will occur this year. Again we reconnected with family and friends, including Jennifer's brother and nephew. One highlight was hiking to the top of Grays Peak at 14,270 feet with my brother, my nephew, Logan, David, and my dad. It was a typically crystal clear day in Colorado and we made it to the car just as the afternoon hail began! Logan was so proud of himself for hiking to the top, even with a broken arm. Finally, we enjoyed real summer weather and lots of outdoor time, running or biking. We relaxed, ate good food, enjoyed the amazing Colorado summer, and saw friends.

Hayden was not with us

because he was blessed with two weeks at Interlochen Center for the Arts where he attended summer camp and spent time with his Michigan grandparents once again. Today he will fly from Michigan to Colorado for the second time this summer and spend the next two and a half weeks with his

Colorado grandparents until we meet up in Italy for the Eid al Fitr holiday. Though we miss him and the house feels empty without him, he will enjoy his time in the States more than the heat and lack of activities here for the moment.

We made one final stop in London on our way back to Saudi Arabia. We hoped four days in one of our favorite cities would help ease the time transition, but we also saw my English "family" and David's friend from the South Africa Ironman. We visited Covent Garden where David was, once again, roped into a street performer's show, and we finally experienced the London Eye.

We are now back in Saudi Arabia, preparing for a third school

year for KAUST, meeting new faculty, working on the new school building, and reconnecting once again with our amazing colleagues!

Thank you so much to all of our who made the effort to see us during our whirlwind tour of the US. We appreciated the beds, guestrooms, meals, and time offered by so many, and we were so grateful to see so many friends and family members.

Thanks for reading, Jennifer

Visiting Friends and Family

2011-07-10T16:22:00.008+03:00

Greetings,

Since I wrote last time, we have been to West Chester, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia to see David's sister, her husband, and her dog, Tucker. We enjoyed beautiful weather, rural countryside, and amazing gardens at Longwood Gardens, an estate once owned by the du Pont family. Pierre du Pont left the greatest legacy in the gardens, purchasing and protecting forests and plants for all to enjoy. The property was originally purchased by the Peirce family from Willam Penn. They established a working farm and planted an arboretum on the property. In the early 1900s, the land was sold to Pierre du Pont who created much of the gardens that people can

visit today. Prior to his death, the property was turned over to a foundation and now the public can visit this vast and amazing place.

From PA we drove to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where we were met by a long-time friend of David's (and mine!). David and Paul did an intense masters swim workout, and Paul pushed him hard. I think David barely hung on to Paul's heels.

After their early morning swim and a large breakfast, we drove to Traverse City to meet David's parents for lunch at a culinary institute located on the East Bay of Lake Michigan. We enjoyed an amazing lunch at Lobdell's Restaurant, a teaching restaurant for chefs, and were fortunate enough to watch the jets and WWII planes practicing for the Cherry Festival show over the Bay while we ate. We got to have a tour of the incredible kitchens, including the baguette-forming machine, the huge ovens and soup pots, walk-in refrigerator and freezers, and all types of kitchen equipment.

During our stay in Interlochen, we visited the Interlochen Summer Arts Camp where Hayden will be studying piano, instrument exploration, and creative writing for two weeks in August, as well as playing sports and swimming. Neighbors loaned us a pontoon boat which we took out on Duck Lake and enjoyed a cool swim. My favorite activity in the area is running on the forest trails in the woods. It makes me feel like I am floating and not having to work so hard. Finally, we went to a fabulous 4th of July party where we met many wonderful Traverse City and Interlochen folks, including a lovely couple originally from Pakistan, the hosts of the party, their daughter, and

her friends who performed live music for much of the evening. They have formed a band - Yesberger Band - who will be traveling the Midwest and West Coast this summer, with stops in Seattle in July: www.reverbnation.com/yesberger. Check it out. Yesberger Band is playing this summer with Bobby McFerrin and with the Temptations.

We headed to Grand Rapids, truly a lovely large town/small city in Michigan, and stayed with friends, again from Seattle days, who have moved there. Again we got to go boating on a lake and enjoyed grilled (pork) bratwurst, rich coffee, and fresh fruit.

This summer so far has allowed us opportunities to reconnect and reunite with our extended family and friends, many of whom we knew in Seattle or who visited us in Seattle years ago. We have so many highlights and memories already. The boys are enjoying reconnecting with their culture, food, and family and friends as well.

More soon. Thanks for reading, Jennifer

We are here!

2011-06-30T04:41:00.004+03:00

Greetings,

We arrived safely in Boston, found our rental car, and, miraculously, our hotel in Boston, and after a quick bowl of New England clam chowder headed directly to bed. In the morning, we walked around Beacon Hill, ate a nice breakfast, admired the runners in the Boston Commons, took the subway to walk around Harvard, and packed up to drive to Thetford, Vermont, where we stayed with good friends from our Seattle days. Not only do these friends live in Vermont, but other mutual friends have also moved to nearby Norwich as well. Then, much to my surprise, I ran into a good friend from grad school days in Eugene, Oregon, who also lives in Thetford. It was a veritable Northwest reunion of sorts.

The second day in the US, Logan fell off a rope swing and broke his arm, but he was quickly put on the path to healing by efficient doctors and nurses at the Dartmouth Medical Center. I think they were pleased to work on an otherwise healthy and cheerful young boy and did everything they could to keep him happy. He is recovering well!

We all participated, with our friends, in the Thetford Run for History 5K. Though David ran the fastest time, he did not win because he was unable to answer a single question about Thetford's history - even though there were 50 signs with clues and information posted on the course. I guess being the fastest does not always make someone the winner! Logan, despite his cast, walked the entire course with me, and Hayden ran the course, answered some interview questions, and got his picture in the paper the next day: Hayden Evans from Saudi Arabia. Though no Evans won the race, we did win a huge box of organic tomatoes because we traveled the furthest to participate in this historical race!

We have been eating delicious local produce, lots of pork, and picking our own strawberries. In Thetford we went to the local Strawberry Festival at an organic farm and had amazing strawberries on our cereal the next day. It's so nice to connect

with friends and family after two years. It sometimes feels as if we have not been gone that long. Our overseas life feels far away and long ago for now... We are amazed at how green and lush everything is. Logan keeps saying, "America is so green!"

We are now in West Chester, Pennsylvania, visiting family and driving lawn mowing tractors. Tomorrow we head to Michigan!

Thanks for reading, Jennifer

Nearly there ...

2011-06-19T09:33:00.002+03:00

Greetings!
School has finished. Tests were taken, graded, and reported on. Report cards have been written, edited, edited again, and edited one more time - and then emailed to parents. Boxes have been packed and removed from our classrooms, though instead of being moved to our new building, they are now piled up in the gym until the new school is ready for them. Final meetings were held and closing out papers signed. Tearful good-byes were said to those faculty and staff who are leaving us. Bags were packed and taxis took people to the airport. We have stayed around for an additional week to help out with the school library unpacking and some other school projects, but we are counting down our last two days now and are so excited. Hayden keeps a countdown chart on the refrigerator and changes it each morning. Logan just lost another tooth, and the toothfairy found him here in the desert compound, so he was pleased! We have been packing and cleaning and getting ready to be gone for five weeks. Looking forward to seeing many family and friends over the summer.

Cheers,
Jennifer

Wrapping up the school year

2011-05-29T05:54:00.006+03:00

Greetings,

We have been so busy with the end of the school year just two weeks away. Last teaching, final projects and tests, grading and report cards, celebrations and graduation, packing our classrooms and preparing to move to the new and very large international school building ... Many checklists of things to accomplish by June 15.

The boys had their final soccer games last night, which instead of being held in the usual soccer park were held out in the stadium. Lots of soccer was played and watched and cheered. Mostly the parents were a polite bunch, observing and chatting and laughing. One father was ballistic with advice for his young son, maybe six or seven years old, yelling constantly at his son and all of the other kids about what they should do. I am certain none of the kids for whom he was sharing this wisdom were listening, but the other parents on the sidelines suffered through his inane shouting for 30 minutes. Good grief. Give it a rest! Our kids had tons of fun though and were able to say good-bye to their wonderful coach, Alex, who is moving to Indonesia with his wife and daughter after school is finished. Sad. He has been instrumental in the soccer program here, bringing many kids into this amazing sport and helping them improve dramatically.

After the boys played soccer for an hour each, we came home and Logan ate, bathed, and headed to bed, exhausted. Hayden did the same and then got up a couple of hours later to watch Barcelona play Manchester United; sadly for Hayden, Man United was outplayed!

We are so excited for our trip to the United States in three weeks! We will be able to spend about 5 weeks in the US before returning for another year here.

Thanks for reading! Jennifer

South Africa Ironman 2011

2011-04-19T06:09:00.004+03:00

Greetings,

David's race report from the

South Africa Ironman race, April 2011

. Inspiring!

The day began in the dark, like so many of life's big climbs and long races. In the preceding days, athletes had reported to race headquarters for their packets, received massages, gotten bikes and helmetsinspected and checked in, turned in their bags for the two transitions, and done any final preparations necessary. You could feel the tension building; if going in to battle can be any analogy, then Port Elizabeth (PE to locals) by Saturday night had the feel of a town about to go to war, and it was not only etched on the faces of the athletes, its putative soldiers, but even apparent in thetight smiles and general nervousness of some of the 40,000 in town to support the 1,700 folks competing. Doing an ironman is a test on so many levels, and we all knew that test was coming eventually, and now it was upon us.
Having had days with blustery weather, scary waves and incredible winds, race day was a treat and obvious relief to all. The water was relatively calm, the best most of us had swum in since arriving in PE, and the wind was a fairly manageable "easterly," which we'd been told would make the bike course fast. It was 19C, cool but not cold, in all about as good as it gets here.
By 6:45 am, bikes had been checked and rechecked, transition bags had been stocked with final essentials, those who wanted to had completed warm-ups, and triathletes were now all assembled in the pen on the beach. I, naturally, got to the start a bit late and had to make my way up through many in the considerable ranks in order to be with the swimmers whose finishing times I felt might best match mine. And then we all listened to the South African national anthem, a beautifully inspiring piece of music and a great send-off for the athletes. Standing there and shaking hands with and wishing luck to those around, most of them South African, you could not but help feel proud of what this amazing nation has so clearly achieved in such a small amount of time since the dismantling of apartheid. I am sure not every eye was dry; being here this week has only underscored how well-founded their pride is for country.
At 7am sharp the gun went off and, suddenly, the moment that so many had been waiting for now. Having 1700 swimmers make a bee line for the first turn buoy 300m off shore is sort of a recipe for bumping and such, but gradually openings occurred, the ranks thinned just enough, and most swimmers seemed to get into rhythms of choice. I felt immediately good, which allowed me to relax and focus on finding fast feet to swim behind, which I mostly did. By the end of the first of two equal 1.2 mile (1.9km) laps, I was feeling great and hanging with what felt like a fast bunch. Running briefly on the beach before entering the water for round two, I took a quick glance at my watch and noticed that I was on a 57 minute pace and became even more excited about how things were going.
But then the cramps started, first in the calves, then inner thighs and feet. They weren't debilitating, but they prevented me from kicking, or kicking with pointed toes, and so I had to fall off the pace in order to salvage the swim. Since arriving at a "certain age" I've noticed the entry of occasional cramping into athletic life, and though race morning and the previous evening I thought I'd followed the usual protocols to help mitigate, the cramps still came. Oh well, my plan was to back off enough in order to avoid getting a huge, race-ending cramp, and this I did. Not a great swimmer anyway, I liken triathlon's swim to a tennis player's modest serve. It gets the ball in play but certainly doesn't win the point.
The swim/bike transition, or T1, was great. I. like all triathletes, had a personal escort in the men's tent, and she very nicely and quickly unpacked my gear bag, got the shoes and helmet and incidentals out, handed them to me, repacked the bag with my swim stuff, and basically made that whole routine vastly less complicated. I'm not known for fast transitions, and this latest race was no exception, so it was a real treat having a person dedicated to helping me get through what often is an arduous, poorly coordinated, sometimes klutzy task on my part.
In Abu Dhabi four weeks back I'd tried attaching my bike cleats to my pedals prior to the race and running sock-footed to the bike and then slipping the shoes on at the beginning of the ride. That wasn't a great success, so at this race I decided to just run/fast walk in my cleats to the bike. You are not allowed to put your bike cleats on in transition anymore, one of the many rules that are different from the mostly non-rule paleolithic era of triathlon in the early and mid '80s when I used to compete seriously.
And then I was off, the body quickly shifting its own gears from swimmer to cyclist, the bike now heading down the coastal road before the one quasi-climbing portion of the 60km (37 miles and change) bike loop, which we would be completing three times. Strong cyclists were everywhere, but gradually I seemed to be moving up relative to most, trying to stay calm, repeating again and again, "it's not about the bike, it's about the run" but then still wanting to ride well and, at times, push pretty hard. Gradually, I began to feel I was having a fairly good ride and that conditions were excellent, which mentally just feeds on itself. While some others seemed to be falling off the pace by lap two and three, and a few of those around me were dinged by the referees buzzing about on motorcycles and had to spend six minutes in one of a number of penalty tents out on the course, I just kept pumping the legs, drinking the fluids, and downing the goos and energy bars I'd brought along or sometimes took from the bevy of volunteers manning a feed zone. As the end of the bike portion approached, my legs still felt surprisingly good, but I backed off the pace a bit since, well, I hadn't actually run 26.2 miles at one go since a Seattle marathon in the last century and was more than a little nervous about the prospect!
T2 was quicker, though only relatively so, and mostly because there are just fewer things to deal with in T2. Again, a compassionate and pro-active volunteer got me up and running far sooner than I would have on my own, and then I was stumbling along those first few minutes, trying to get some semblance of rhythm in the running legs and forcing the body, yet again, to make a huge physiological shift in a nanosecond.
One of the tougher aspects of the race was not knowing where any of my competition was in the 50-54 age group. I'd asked a husband of one of the triathletes competing, whom I'd met at B&B, whether he could stage himself at the exit to T2 and let me know which athletes in the 1280 - 1374 sequence of race numbers came out before me, but during the race I never saw or heard this man on the side of the course. Instead, I had to compete with a bit of gnawing uncertainty, even paranoia, and with no room for error given that there was but one Kona slot for the entire 95-person age group. So, I ran on, never quite sure what was what yet trying to stay steady and strong just in case it came down to the final miles - not that I would have been aware, if this were the case!
The first few miles were rough. I tried to find a rhythm but could tell I'd left quite a bit out on the bike course. Leaving one of the early aid stations, I somehow dislodged my container of electrolyte pills which I was carrying in a back pocket of my tri-suit, and which I'd planned to use every 20 minutes by popping a pill down with water at each aid station spaced 2 to 3km apart. It dropped to the road, and I stopped, turned around and, in leaning over to pick it up, nearly had my left hamstring go into total cramp lock-down. Clearly, I was going to need to be careful. A quick stretch and self-massage, a new resolve to over-hydrate and aggressively take more Powerade, and a gingerly, more cautious return to form ensued, and within a few minutes I was back in the running groove, trying to think positive thoughts and hoping that the hamstring had been an isolated hiccup and not a harbinger.
By the halfway point of the 26 mile or 42km run I began feeling the need to use a bathroom, something that has never happened to me in dozens and dozens of running, cycling, swim, triathlon and other races during 35+ years of competition. But there it was, nature was calling, and so now the focus became finding a port-a-potty. Of course there were none, or folks I asked didn't seem to know where one might be along the course. But then, as things were looking especially grim, I saw three of them just behind an approaching aid station and, once I stopped walking into toilets already in use and actually found my own and was able to go to the bathroom and then get back on the run course, I immediately began feeling better, like I might actually be able to make it. I was wolfing down the coke and Powerade at every aid station by now since the course was now littered with folks cramping up, or worse. At one point a male pro went by me looking smooth and strong and then seemed to hit a brick wall, his face in agony, his hands grasping his right hamstring. Later he went by me again, only to go through the same routine again. Finally, he went by me one last time and I never saw him after. I presume he finished, but a number of pros, and many amateurs, did not. Although I didn't think it was particularly hot (one advantage of living in Saudi Arabia!), many did, and the day did not end well as a result for many. Just in my age group, I believe more than a dozen in the DNF category. Fortunately, this suddenly 50 year-old body hung in there and soon I had 14km, or one lap, to go. It was about then that I began having to reach way down and remind myself that all others were in similar situations, that I'd been through this before, etc. I just read Unbroken, an amazing and true story about the will to survive, and the ironman has got nothing on what Zamperini, the book's protagonist, had to go through in life! So, I pushed on, knowing that with every step I was getting a bit closer to the finish but still nervous about where I was in the race relative to the others in my group who were in contention for the Kona spot. It was my lowest moment; every long race has one. Or two.
About then a guy a lap behind me came up on me and we began running together, me realizing he was running a pace I thought I could rise up to and then me falling in right behind him and pretending that I had a bungee cord attached to his shorts so that I wouldn't fall back. It was a match made in heaven as Gunnar (his name) literally pulled me around that last lap, even doling out encouraging words now and again since, with slapping feet and wheezing breath, he could clearly tell I was nearing empty and pretty much on auto-pilot.
And then the finish line area downtown came into sight and, suddenly, I was overcome by emotion and tears came. I thought of all the folks, from parents to high school running coach and running teammates, to training buddies later in life, to my ever-supportive family, and to colleagues and friends that all played roles in getting me to that point; it was a very profound moment. The body tried to pretend it was still game, and I picked it up as I neared the finish, pumping my arms and slapping the hands of many who leaned out over the finish chute to congratulate. I knew by the time on the huge finish clock that things had gone well but, still, didn't know how well relative to my homeboys in the 50-54 age group.
It's not a pretty sight after a race and so, more or less in rigor mortis, just the barely living kind, I hobbled over to the massage tent for a wonderful massage and some icing. Then I picked up my bag, which had my phone, and almost immediately received a call from my in-laws, Dee and Doug Pierce who, even though a continent and many time zones away, were the first ones to inform me that I'd prevailed in the age group. I was ecstatic, especially after then calling Jennifer who confirmed the same and sounded as high as a kite.
And now it's over, and I, for one, am looking forward to spending time with my family and taking a breather from training. These past months I've felt that I've had two jobs, one of which is teaching and the other of which is full-time athlete. It will surely be nice taking a bit of time to recharge the batteries before getting back in the hunt in preparation for Kona on October 8.
This opportunity has been the chance of a lifetime, and I know many of you have played significant roles in helping me get to that finish line a few hours back. Well, I'm now hungry (what a surprise!) and breakfast soon will be served at this most excellent B&B (Algoa Bay B&B, if any of you plan to come to PE, which I highly recommend), so I must sign off.

Oman

2011-04-15T07:24:00.007+03:00

Greetings,

Over spring break week, we stayed here to work most of the week and then David headed to South Africa to compete in the South African Ironman (more posts to follow on that ...), and I took the boys for a long weekend to Muscat, Oman. Grounded in Islam, Omanis remain genuinely open to others, quick to smile, friendly and willing to offer help if needed. Sure in themselves, they are not threatened by differences.

Muscat, the capital city, has well-maintained parks, beautiful gardens, palm-tree lines streets, and clean streets. People generally follow road rules and drive safely. We enjoyed swimming in the pools at the hotel, eating a variety of foods, wandering through the Muttrah souk and bargaining for items - Omani caps, frankincense and sandalwood, cotton tops, and

other interesting items. We also visited the Grand Mosque, just ten years old and one of the most beautiful mosques I have ever seen: peaceful and graceful with intricate patterns adorning the interior ceiling of the main prayer hall.

We took one day and went on a day trip with a guide to Wadi Shab, stopping at a fish market on the way. A wadi is like a southwest canyon that fills with rushing water when there's a rainstorm. The walls of the wadi rose high above the rocky terrain on the canyon floor. There were small pools of water and lush palm trees scattered throughout. We hiked up about 2 kilometers over large gravel and then larger boulders. As we got to the end of wadi, we were walking along the canyon bottom which clearly showed evidence of having been the river bottom a long time ago. We stashed our backpack and shoes and swam through clear water pools to an end cavern with a crevice wide enough above the water's level for just our heads to fit through. Inching through about two feet of narrow rock,

we entered a smaller, stunning pool of water with a waterfall on one side. Truly, it was breathtaking and amazing. Well worth the trip! For a interesting perspective on Oman, read this editorial from the New York Times as well as the comments that follow the editorial: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/14/opinion/14kristof.html?scp=6&sq=Oman&st=cse

Oman is surely

a lovely country. Thanks for reading, Jennifer

The 2011 KAUST Bike Race from Hayden

2011-02-25T08:12:00.007+03:00

Greetings, friends and family,

Yesterday, the 2011 KAUST Bike race took place. Once again my speedy dad won the race. However, the adult bike race wasn't the only thing that happened yesterday. There was also a six and under race, that my brother competed in, and a ten to twelve year old race, that I competed in. Logan started out in about the 5th row of kids at the start line and ended up to be the winner. When the race was over, Logan hadn't even broken a sweat. I was not so lucky. I had to do two giant laps, instead of one small one. I had to race kids two years older than I. I had to race in the hottest part of the day. I also had to win. So, that's what I did. I still was not as lucky as Logan though. When I got done I was dripping with sweat and could barely walk. I then collected my medal, shook hands with the president of KAUST, and drank about five big bottles of water.

I guess it wasn't that bad though, because as soon as I got done I played ultimate frisbee for two hours. Ultimate frisbee was really fun. I scored a few points. Finally, we went to the yacht club and had an okay dinner. The view was great. Thanks for reading!

Hayden

A Weekend Outing

2011-02-18T06:44:00.006+03:00

Greetings,

Yesterday we rented a car and drove to Jeddah. It's not too expensive to rent a sedan-type car for a day, and, since we don't own a car, we thought we might do it once a month. In 19 months, we have rented a car maybe three times. Driving to Jeddah is far and increasingly we find that, except for Starbucks coffee, we can get a lot of the foods and other items we need right here on campus. I always feel a low level of constant stress when we go to Jeddah as we try to accomplish many things in a short period of time. With traffic, fast flying cars on the highway, and the occasional driver heading the wrong direction on streets, getting around can be challenging. Busy long highways sometimes go a mile or more without an intersection or break in the median forcing drivers to frequently drive far past their destination simply to make a u-turn and head back to where they need to be. With beautiful walled homes and glamorous malls, I have never been able to figure out the justification for the vast heaps of construction rubble, neatly piled like small pyramids, across large swaths of the city's otherwise empty land.

After a long day of soccer games and errands, we headed back home to KAUST but, since we had a car for a few more hours, we decided to drive beyond home to the King Abdullah Economic City where there were, apparently, some newly opened restaurants. We exited the highway, drove through a gate that resembled a makeover of the Arc de Triomphe, thanked the friendly guard, and proceeded another 15 kilometers through barren land lined by palm trees and a simple hedge. We eventually came to a beautiful apartment building where we saw some cars parked. We too parked our car and were amazed to walk down a gorgeous sandy beach - the sand recently brought in from elsewhere - in front of a lovely waterfront walkway lined with several restaurants and lots of outdoor seating. We walked all the way past the buildings, through remnants of construction, and to the section of the beachfront where villas had been built in a V-shape configuration opening toward the Red Sea. The reddish-brown color of the villas reminded me of an Arizona resort. On the water, a long pier has been built that leads directly to the coral reef drop off. On either side of the pier is a small swimming area where the coral seems to have been cleared out,with steps down to beckoning sea. It was stunning and we had visions of returning some time for an afternoon/evening swim or snorkel. Hayden saw a large sting ray slowly swimming over the rocks, only to disappear lazily into the dark blue depths of the swimming area. Hmmmmm.

We picked up shells, enjoyed a long beach walk and a lovely Lebanese dinner on the waterfront before winding our way back to the road which ultimately brought us home. We have heard that construction at the economic city is on pause as many of the builders have been brought into KAUST for work, and it is clear that much of the economic city is ready for occupants and building completion, but the apartment buildings that are finished are beautiful, the waterfront is nicely designed, and the restaurants are happy to serve!

Thanks for reading. Jennifer

Jeddah rivals Seattle in rain

2011-02-11T08:10:00.002+03:00

Strange but true: from late December through late January Jeddah probably had more rainfall than Seattle. Even though December is often the cruelest, wettest month in Seattle, with January often not that much better, Jeddah has been more than holding its own this year. During our winter break away in Austria, Jeddah had three rainstorms, one of them big enough to flood much of the city (and, temporarily at least, portions of KAUST). Then, a few weeks after returning to KAUST, we had another huge rainfall, this one wreaking even more havoc in Jeddah and again testing KAUST's limits on drainage.

Fortunately, the engineers at KAUST did their homework after last year's also big flooding. Although we had our own temporary version of the Great Lakes on campus, the storm drains worked overtime, the water diversions held, and soon campus was pretty much back to normal. Jeddah was not so lucky; KAUST coordinated a humanitarian effort to help those most adversely affected, with even our school playing a helpful role.

While Seattle is synonymous with rain, far fewer folks would associate Saudi Arabia with the wet stuff. Given this, a few images from the past weeks might attach a bit of humor to what was otherwise a very tough week for many in these parts.

Biking across a bridge that had the biggest puddle, a lake really, even though the bridge straddled water. Huh?
During the worst torrents, looking over at manicured shrubs and noticing that they were receiving their pre-programmed watering. Nothing like a double dose of water! "Excuse me, sir, it's time to wake up for your sleeping pill."
Biking to dinner in a downpour, which we hoped would end, and basically needing a kayak to get home after the rain's intensity only grew. Logan's bike at one point was below water level. And he was still riding. This prompted pulse increases in both parents. It was then that we abandoned the roads and just went for high ground.
January is often synonymous with snow days for US school kids. Not so here, where students miss school because of heavy rain. Which makes sense when you think about it if you're receiving more than 100% of your annual rainfall in the space of a few hours.

So, amazing to say this from Saudi Arabia, but we don't need anymore rain, at least not for awhile. Fortunately, there's none forecasted. And I mean FOREcasted. Now, true to form, it could well not rain for another ten months. At all!

Thanks for reading,

David

The 2011 Fun Run from Hayden

2011-01-21T12:50:00.002+03:00

Greetings,

Yesterday, the 2011 KAUST Fun Run occurred. Once again my speedy dad won, however, the person in second was very fast too. At the end of the race everyone had to go around the track once. The person who was leading at the time, for some reason, did not know this fact. As soon as he got onto the track he slowed down, thinking the race was over. My dad, who was right behind him, quickly whizzed around him and won the race again. Fortunately, the guy in second was the same man that my dad passed on the track. The person in third was a high school boy from New Jersey. He is one of the best runners on campus, and only in tenth grade. Logan is the real exciting part in this story. First, Logan probably hopped about 100 yards in the kiddie sack race. Then, he decided that he wasn't tired at all and that he wanted to do the 5 kilometer race. He started out at a really fast pace and kept it that way for about half the race. Then, at the first water station, he took a 2 or 3 minute water break and watched about 50 people run by him. I was one of those people. When I finished the race I sat down with a bottle of water and waited for Logan. I didn't have to wait long. About 2 minutes later, Logan came running across the finish line. Surprisingly, Logan beat about 5 of my friends who were doing the race. We then waited for Mom, who was about 3 minutes behind. We waited around for the awards ceremony. Then, tired and hungry, we biked (slowly) back to our house. Thanks for reading!

Hayden

Campus Rain 2011

2011-01-15T08:47:00.005+03:00

Greetings,
It has been nearly a month since we last posted on our blog. Since then, we have had a glorious holiday of snow, cold, snow, cafes, Christmas festivities, and skiing in Austria - with safe travel all around. We were so fortunate to be able to stay again in our favorite apartment in Seefeld!

We have been back for a full week and today were going to start our second week when emails came through saying that school was closed for students today. Why? Rain. Last night's incredible rain. Last year when we had these intense rains, we had equally intense flooding both inside and outside. This year our house was nearly all dry and the roads, though flooded with thigh-deep water last night, gradually drained throughout the night and were nearly dry this morning.

It is ironic to be a Seattle family whose wettest bike ride occurred in Saudi Arabia. We managed to bike to our friends' house for dinner in the rain and the puddles. We took extra clothing to change when we got there. After a lovely Greek dinner and a wonderful evening, we figured we needed to brave the weather to head home to check on our own house, just as water started cascading down our friends' inside stairwell. We thought there was a lull in the rain, but it picked up as we biked the 1-2 kilometers home. The puddles we had ridden through had, in the two hours we had been at their house, turned into small lakes. We were able to make it across the road, through a slightly higher parking lot, across another lake-like road, and up onto a less flooded sidewalk. We made it safely home, threw all clothes in the wash, and took hot showers. (You never know exactly what kind of water you are riding through!)

Although many of the lakes had drained or been pumped during the night, the electricity was still out in the elementary school and school was, as a result, canceled for safety reasons for today. In Seattle, we had school closure once for what our neighbor termed "cold sidewalk day." Snow that was anticipated did not come until the next day, but school was closed prematurely. Then, of course, it had to be closed again when the actual snow did arrive. Last year here, we had major rain and floods right before an Eid holiday and school was closed because no one could safely get through, the drains did not drain, and the schools were very leaky and wet.

The sun is out now, so hopefully all will dry out and the rains will move elsewhere. Thanks for reading, Jennifer

School Support Staff

2010-12-16T14:09:00.002+03:00

Greetings,
At the three buildings that make up The Kaust School - the early childhood, the elementary, and the secondary schools - we have support staff who clean, repair, adjust the freezing air conditioning, and serve lunch to all students and faculty. The staff is make up of people from the Philippines and several countries in South Asia. A committee of teachers organized an appreciation lunch today for all of the staff, including faculty members who wanted to come too. Teachers prepared food and students helped serve and clean-up. It was a lot of fun to have these members of our school community sit and eat lunch with teachers and students. They all do so much for us and we are so grateful.

Thanks for reading.
Jennifer

KAUST coming into focus

2010-12-12T03:56:00.003+03:00

Greetings,

First it was one girl who had previously been with our girls-only program, but now a member of the co-ed 7th grade group that I teach has joined the after-school math group. She had questions about some of the math problems I'd assigned for recent home work and wanted some help after school. A minute later another girl, a classmate, joined her. She'd been out that day visiting the dentist, and, though she could barely talk and was certainly in pain with a visibly swollen mouth, she too wanted to come after school for math help. They came together, and pretty soon we were discussing the nuances of fraction-based word problems, the kind that could trip up most any student, non-native English speaker (as the case was) or not.

Then two ninth grade boys, also my students, walked in, asking for help, and pretty soon I had word problems flowing on one side of the classroom, on the main whiteboard, and algebraic equations using the midpoint formula going up on the side board. Finally, two more students walked in, neither one of them a student of mine, but both in search of math help. They had a crossword puzzle involving math terms, and when I told them that crossword puzzles were absolutely the best things in the world and that math crosswords were the best of the best, they chose to stay.

Now what is amazing about this entire, spontaneous gathering is that all six students were Saudi - which is to say that none of them are native English speakers and a number of them had never had instruction in English before arriving at KAUST. Rather, here were students who could barely speak a word of English 14 months ago when KAUST School opened its doors, now reflecting on some fairly sophisticated problem-solving or terminology, and they were doing it on their own time, after school!

At one point I looked up as each group was working through its particular challenge, and I briefly stopped them to let them know how amazing this all was. Were it me, for example, and had I suddenly been immersed in an entirely different school system using a wholly different language with a set of fairly demanding teachers and a tough curriculum, I'm not sure I would have had the courage, let alone the ability, to stay after school barely a year later and carry on with learning the way these students were.

Saudi Arabia is a land of immense gifts, and KAUST is a result of one man's vision of an educational path this country could take. If you could capture in one classroom what this vision is beginning to look like today, you might look no further than the room I was fortunate enough to be in yesterday. Education may be a gift, but it's one you have to earn, and these kids were clearly there making the most of what is obviously becoming a unique, powerful, and instructive life experience for all, students and teacher alike. Thanks for reading.

Taj Mahal by Logan

2010-11-26T16:26:00.002+03:00

A new blog entry by Logan,

"When I was little, I thought the Taj Mahal was some other building."

age 6

12 November 2010

Thoughts on Contemporary India

2010-11-26T10:05:00.006+03:00

Greetings,

A week hardly does justice to a place as large, varied, and storied in amazing history and culture as India is, but that was all we had, and so I planned accordingly. Only the very brave or woefully naive undertake an Indian vacation completely on their own, and so within a few weeks of launching preliminary research I'd (Jennifer leaving all arrangements to me on this trip) zeroed in on a private tour group that came with a long list of satisfied customers from across the globe, a few of whom I contacted directly by email, just to be sure.

The tour group, Trinetra Tours, turned out to be an amazing find. They came up with the Delhi-Tiger/Game Preserve-Jaipur-Agra, seven-day itinerary, furnished us with a van, a talented driver, varied and welcoming hotels, and a knowledgeable guide at every stop. They also met us, and later dropped us off, at the brand new Indira Ghandi International Terminal in Delhi, just completed for the recently concluded Commonwealth Games. Indeed, it was the getting to and returning from India, the only part that Trinetra didn't organize, that proved the most problematic in our overall expedition. One thing is for sure: The Evans family will never be taking Air India again!

And how was India? Amazing, complex, rich, poor, serene, bustling, ultra-modern, ancient, Hindu, Muslim (and Jain, Sikh, Buddhist ...), anglophile, or Hindi-speaking, or both, high-tech, menial, and much more. "Contrast" is a word that constantly describes India and all that is Indian.

We found Delhi almost overwhelming. I had left there 37 years previously, which is to say 10 million inhabitants ago. Although we spent a good chunk of one morning driving around my old neighborhood, we couldn't find the house. Too much had changed, and I couldn't get my bearings since the field across the street from where I thought I'd remembered living - then an impromptu cricket field that doubled as a pyrotechnical display lot during any Hindu holiday, festival, or wedding - had disappeared.

In a similar rapid evolution, when I took Jennifer and the boys to see the school my sister and I attended in late elementary and middle school years, I found a place again all but unrecognizable. The field locations and sizes indicated that it must be the same campus, but each building had been completely redone, and the campus, like the city, had dramatically increased its building density, its in-fill. Everything looked vaguely familiar yet wholly dissimilar to what I'd envisioned. Logan, true to form, jumped right into a recess game with kids his age, on the very same field where a Presidential Fitness Test during

my 6th grade PE class first gave me a nascent sense of athletic identity. It remains a wonderful institution, and, to a person, each adult we briefly chatted up had great things to say about the school. Yet Delhi, at 14 million folks officially and probably more like 16 million unofficially, is beset with all the attendant problems of any city that might be located in a country not yet 65 years old undergoing such rapid change. The vestiges of the British Raj and the Moghul Empire remain and still variously define, but Delhi is so rapidly, sometimes painfully, changing that urban planning must be a huge challenge at every turn.

One of the best unintended consequences of our tour hinged on Trinetra Tour's inability to get us first-class rail tickets out of Delhi. Instead, we were accommodated on the world's largest rail system, with 1.5 million employees, in the next class, and in the sleeper section, even though we, unlike most, would not be taking the train to its Mumbai (Bombay) terminus 1400 km down the track. The sleeper car we found ourselves in those four hours provided a rich, largely unadorned tableau of upper middle-class Indian life. We were the only non-Indians on any of the cars the boys and I walked through, and yet at every turn individuals and families were happy to see us and were especially friendly toward the boys. If Istanbul is remembered by Logan and Hayden for the cheek tweak, then India has become equally legendary for the hair pat. Many folks, young and old, gave the boys a loving tap on their blond heads, with more than a few quite eager to crowd them into spontaneous family photos. At the Taj Mahal Logan was so highly sought out for group pictures that I thought it would be hilarious to set up a stand and rent out the boys for just this service - "Here's the picture of Shah Jahan's unparalleled homage to love, and, oh yeah, here is our adopted American son..."

In the end, we saw the Moghul triumphs in Delhi, Jaipur, and, of course, Agra, and soaked up whenever we could an increasingly ubiquitous middle- and upper middle-class contemporary Indian culture. I was astonished at the scope of change made largely possible by arguably the world's largest middle class in easily its largest democracy. India was indeed abuzz, having just hosted the Commonwealth Games and then, just a few days prior to our arrival, a lengthy (by US presidential standards) visit by President Obama. It was not difficult to notice that India is ascendent, excited about its future, especially in IT and related fields.

Yet it was also easy to see an India often challenged by mostly unchecked population growth and a natural environment struggling with omnipresent and consequent human pressures. Interestingly, most of the Indians we spoke with acknowledged the role of the British in their current success. Three generations of humanity later, and counting, can make the heart grow fonder, as can beating them in the Commonwealth Games. But it is also unescapable that 200 years of British influence has left defining treasures and practices, in education, transportation, law, government, and many other contemporary Indian institutions, and many Indians are now grateful for this legacy. I found this especially interesting, my family having originally moved to Pakistan in 1958, barely a decade after India and Pakistan were essentially wrenched apart at their very birth as nations and weaning from the British, and a time still quite raw and recovering from some of the more unfortunate aspects of protracted colonialism.

Most of all, Indians undoubtedly compromise one of the largest and fastest growing English speaking populations in the world, which doesn't do US interests any harm, and may end up doing quite a bit deal more. Certainly, President Obama wasn't there just to further open up the trade channels, regardless what the papers and websites say. My guess is that China was Topic A of discussion, with P.M. Singh and Pres. Obama acknowledging that now is as good a time as any to be particularly in tune with each other. Pakistan, and by extension Afghanistan, remain nettlesome for them, and India's imbroglio that is Kashmir remains a sticky point for us, but China's regional/global aspirations are so unambiguous by now to all those paying attention (which those two leaders certainly are) that an Indian/American rapprochement was perhaps inevitable. Necessity begets alliance. We will see what becomes of all this, and how our two countries increasingly collaborate, or not, in the future, but it was certainly a momentous time to be visiting a country that plays second fiddle less and less for anyone and has arrived as a serious geopolitical power in this world forever being redefined.

Thanks for reading, David

On the Road ... in India

2010-11-21T13:04:00.008+03:00

Greetings,
We recently enjoyed a trip to Delhi, India, during the Muslim Eid holiday. One of my most vivid memories will always be the sights along the road as we went from Jaipur to Agra and back to Delhi. I wrote the following while in the car during our journey:

The competent driver hired by Trinetra Tours drives us from Jaipur to Agra and then back to Delhi, smoothly maneuvering the Toyota around cows blithely sauntering across the bustling road. Pigs wander and root through all manner of garbage with piglets following some distance behind. Water buffalo stand across a lane of the road, thoroughly unmoved by the human chaos. Camels, with heads proudly held high, regally saunter along the dusty streets, apparently unaware of the attached cart piled high with goods and perhaps a brightly-scarved woman or a lean man with legs folded neatly underneath himself. All manner and types of dogs run, play, eat, and sleep on or along the road, assuming that all other species will pass right by, until they don't.

On the new highway, which offers two lanes in either direction and a median in the middle, I see motorcycles laden with towering boxes of goods of all kinds or with an entire family of 4-5 people. I observe bicycles progressing slowly. On one occasion when we were stuck in interminable traffic heading back towards Delhi, Hayden looked out the window and said, "Mom, that guy on the bike is going faster than we are." I worry about fast, crazy buses and slow-moving trucks with burlap bulging in all directions looking nearly to burst and spew lentils, perhaps, all over the drivers and riders surrounding. In the median breaks, drivers enter the highway from another road, never looking back once, and pedestrians stop to talk to friends on bikes, one or the other partially in the road. I notice crouching women along the median in the road, painting white along the median curb. We come to one sign which mostly blocks the highway, forcing all drivers to slow and slalom around the two-part sign with a u-turn arrow indicating an advertisement for some restaurant or shop the driver may just have missed. We come to an unmanned police check-point with a large painted word, STOP, and a speed bump. I look ahead and see a safari jeep coming our way, on our side of the road, in our lane, towards us! I see an old man carefully crossing the road with his rickety bicycle. I look up ahead again, and now there is a brightly painted and decorated truck heading directly towards us. Our driver easily moves to other lane. Honking his horn all the time. No sweat.

Along the side of the road, with the dogs, cows, pigs, and water buffaloes, I notice many goatherders working their goats along

the road, miraculously keeping them all together. I wonder why I never see goat on any menus? Cows abound, as do pigs, and yet most Indians, I understand, are vegetarians. Hinduism prohibits the killing or eating of cows; Muslims are not permitted to eat pig. And yet, here these animals abound. Is it religion? Or culture? Or is it because people see these animals searching through all manner of rubbish and choose other options?

We are so grateful for the amazing skills of our driver and the sights that we see enroute. More to come ...

Thanks for reading, Jennifer

Math Club at Harbor Secondary School

2010-11-05T04:58:00.004+03:00

One of the pleasures of teaching math is being able to extend the subject on occasion, beyond the curriculum, in order to demonstrate a few of its myriad applications. Currently, perhaps nowhere is this more easily done than through the math club, an after-school activity that meets once a week and appears to be bringing together a polyglot of students, boys and girls, 6th - 12th grade. At one practice a few weeks back, we had a record 16 students show and, so far this year, we've been averaging about a dozen students per session. Three were Saudi girls from our school's all-girls program, the first time more than one from the girls' program had ever shown up for practice. Even though these girls attend our school, most of their classes are held in an isolated part of the building, and I so far have taught only co-ed or all-boys classes, so they might as well have been from a different campus.

As the practice session began and I saw the students - Saudi, Palestinian, Finn, Indian, American, Jordanian, German (with occasional guest appearances of Chinese and American graduate students from the university!) - tackle the first few problems, it suddenly grew clear to me that there were a few transcending themes evident. One, naturally, was the use of the English language. For many of the students before me, if you were to go back just slightly more than a year, and sometimes less, you'd find them in schools where instruction wasn't in English. Yet here they were, mixed and matched, using English to not just communicate, but to communicate often complicated ideas to each other efficiently, which is to say rapidly and accurately - the mainstays of a good math club member! The second theme was the language they were perfecting: math. If English is the lingua franca of instruction at our school, then math is arguably its subject analog. Like all knowledge today, math as a subject and technical language is profoundly and increasingly international in its scope, and so here I was watching a rich soup of nationalities hone analytic skills, tackling problems in much the same way they'd be approached in a classroom in Accra, Manila, or Frankfurt, say.

It's a quick 50 minutes each week, but in that time I've seen kids' eyes light up with new ideas, approaches, techniques, often evoking a quick smile or "aha!" moment, the kind that makes every teacher's day and keeps us, students and teacher, coming back for more. And so we will, me with a few more problems meant to provoke and stretch, (and with homemade banana bread or shortbread in hand to fire up those young minds!), and they with their boundless energy and enthusiasm, continuing a journey of inquiry possibly without limit... to use a math term!

Thanks for reading,

David

Teaching English

2010-10-24T05:55:00.005+03:00

Greetings,

For those of you who know me as a teacher, I am a constant editor. Secretly I edit menus and signs and notices. I correct my sons' speech and their friends' speech and, most avidly, my students' speech. Yesterday while in the library after school, ostensibly there to assist students with homework needs, several of my students started intentionally speaking incorrectly so that their names would go on the daily and somewhat humorous list of students who repeatedly make simple grammatical or spelling errors on topics already discussed and practiced. It went like this...

R: I did really good in science today, Ms. Evans.

M.E. You did what??

V: I had a good math test. Wait, that sounds correct...

M.E. That's because it is correct. You can have a good test, but you cannot do good on something.

V: I did a well job.

R: Hey, look I wrote 'alot' as one word.

M.E. I guess your name will go up three times.

R: Good.

V: Me too! Is my map badder than his map?

M.E. Clearly, I will have to create a bunch of boring worksheets for you all to practice your English.

R: Well, I won't do them.

M.E. I bet your dad would be interested in know about that.

R: I already speak good. (Smiling!)

These two boys were simultaneously teasing with me, doing science homework, and playing a game of chess. Another boy was working on his world map for humanities class which I thought was due today, but I was immediately corrected. It's due on Tuesday. Whew. I love middle school kids, and I know that they can speak correctly if they can intentionally speak incorrectly just to bug me!

Thanks for reading, Jennifer

Logan's life perspective

2010-10-16T06:11:00.002+03:00

Greetings,

This is Logan's perspective on life in nutshell ...

Mom asks, "Logan, what is your favorite country that you've been to?"

Logan answers, "Probably whichever one I'm in [at that moment]."

He's a live in the moment kind of guy!

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer

A Passage to India

2010-10-15T06:27:00.002+03:00

Greetings,

Many of you have followed the tangled tale of the Commonwealth Games, held in India these past 15 days, ending Oct. 15. For some who know India, the games' "too little, too late" attempt at holding a well-organized and safe series of athletic competitions for thousands of athletes from the former British colonies only confirms the paralyzing administrivia which serves as a debilitating anchor to so much that happens in a country with such promise. Here's our family's version of the story.

A few months back we were debating where to travel on the November Hajj break. We know that we are blessed while at KAUST to be able to travel to so many places and share so much of the world with our boys, but we won't be here forever, and so each vacation choice becomes more important as time passes. Our September trip to Istanbul was quickly approaching and, from what we were hearing and what we certainly discovered, Istanbul is a tough act to follow when looking for a great family vacation.

India is almost equally close, and my family spent nearly a decade in Asia's subcontinent while I was a baby in Pakistan and later a young boy in India. I very much wanted to share with my own family a bit of the amazing country that is the world's largest democracy and one of its fastest growing economies. In part, I was curious to see what I remembered from those halcyon years of late elementary school in Delhi, but I was also very curious to see how India had changed. We'd even flown over India a few times getting to Thailand, each time musing; in the end, her appeal was too much to resist.

Finding flights and a top-notch, Delhi-based trip planning group was easy, but then came the process of actually getting the visas required to enter the country. Mind you, Americans rarely have to acquire visas to visit countries or, if they do, the visas are usually the token kind, acquired at little price during transit through the airport upon arrival in the country. Not so, India. The world's second most populated country requires visas for all, and there's no "Get out of jail free card" for anyone who may claim to have lived there and loved the experience.

KAUST is blessed with a government affairs office, and it was the folks there that we soon turned to since, as many of our friends attested, they could do wonders in helping us get visas and sort out all sorts of details related to travel. Except, as it turns out, in the case of India. Apparently, India won't allow a "handler" to process visa applications, potentially saving us the oft-dreaded trip into Jeddah. Instead, the visa applicants for India are kindly requested to appear in person at the Indian consulate in Jeddah. On a workday. Only between the hours of 9 - 12. Which really means 9:30 - 11:30, or so we were told. And get there early, we were also told, the line can be epic. We were also told to bring the following:

Our passports
Copies of our passports
Our iqamas (work permits for the Kingdom)
Copies of our iqamas
Completed two-page visa applications for each traveler
Two passport-size photos for each traveler
Letter of employment and good standing at work for Jennifer and me
Three months of bank statements
Our itinerary - including hotels booked during stay, flights
298 SR per person traveling (about $80 each)

Last Monday, I deftly combined two medical appointments in Jeddah with this increasingly convoluted search for the holy grail, I mean Indian visas. The medical offices, as only Indian karma would have it, were conveniently located only blocks away from the hospital I had my doctor appointments in, so, as soon as my first medical stop was done, I raced out the back of the hospital, flagged a taxi (driven by a Pakistani, mind you) and was dropped off next to India's Jeddah consulate. Only I was inconveniently on the wrong side of the road, and the traffic was a continuous stream of honking, speeding, swerving vehicles, which is to say it was vintage Jeddah. Finally, after minutes of waiting and a quick mental review of my KAUST injury and dismemberment insurance, a miracle in the form of another man wanting to also cross appeared and in an instant - during which time I held my breath and my heart stopped - we'd made it across. I strode now confidently into the main entrance of the consulate, only to be kindly told by the officer on duty that, yes, the consulate's visa application office is directly across the street where I had just been. More heart palpitations ensued, soon followed by another "blocker" (my way of vicariously enjoying American football season while in KSA), and within seconds I was once again confidently striding up the stairs to the offices I'd been directed to.

The tip-off should have been the lack of a line and the plethora of civil servants with few apparent tasks in each of the offices I walked by, including the one I was directed to enter. In true Indian style, the civil servant I addressed said they could process visas, just not American visas since "our software is for some reason currently rejecting all American visa applications." Trying to smile back, I joked that I was from Seattle, home of Microsoft, and that if there was anything I could tell Bill Gates I'd be deeply honored, to which he replied that, alas, it was Indian software, not American. He then had me come over to a window and, pointing down the street, identified a business that "should" be able to help me with the visa applications. Of course, it was across the dreaded street.

A minute later, having now become rather brazen in my street-crossing techniques, I entered the business that would be the putative solution to our visa application problems. A man looked up from a counter and, in an offhand manner, took a look at me and said, "I hope you're Canadian because if you're American our office for that is down the road." I gave a quick "thanks" and sped off down the road, grateful that at least I didn't have to cross the gauntlet behind me, but increasingly suspicious of the wild goose chase I seemed to be on. I was also getting more and more nervous about making my second doctor's appointment with a bus trip home now looming.

Fortunately, the third time was a charm. A very pleasant Indian man showed me to a seat by his desk, asked me for about 20% of the documents Jennifer had prepared from the above list, but then informed me that the visas could be picked up after 5:30 the next day. I tried to plead, saying that we lived 100 km away, and that taking time off from work was next to impossible. I even casually mentioned that I'd lived in India as a boy and that our family had deep respect for his country. No matter. I then asked if another person could pick up the passports the next day and, like music to my tired ears, he replied, "But of course, sir." This is where the folks at government affairs could come to the rescue, or so I thought.

But it wasn't quite that simple. You see, there was this one little detail on my visa application, and brazenly printed on my passport, that the Indian consular folks took exception to, as I suspected they might. Later that night, my cell phone rang, which it rarely does, and as I approached it, trepidation crept into me, because I knew what it was probably about. It was the man processing my visa, and clearly in the background were a number of Indian men - perhaps a committee voting thumbs up or down on my application to visit their country? You see, if there is one thing that rankles most Indians it is a connection, however attenuated, to Pakistan, and I, as luck would have it, was born in Karachi, largest city in their archenemy's state. He assured me that he would do everything he could to explain my family's reason for living in Pakistan way back when, and I also asked him to remind the folks at the consulate that I'd lived in India, by the way, and after Pakistan, by the way, and that we'd loved India, by the way. And then I hung up the phone and worried myself sick that night, thinking how, in this amazing hurdle race that was trying to get visas to visit India, an event beyond one's control, from so long ago, and with no relation to the current problems between the two countries, was going to nullify my family's hopes of visiting the country.

But the fateful call that would have destroyed our plans to visit this amazing country never came through, a kind KAUST government affairs officer picked up our passports (now with Indian visas proudly displayed) and, now in less than four weeks, we are fortunate to be able to travel to India.

Thanks for reading, David

Teaching Middle School

2010-10-08T07:10:00.004+03:00

Greetings,

As a middle school teacher, I often get comments from people about how brave I must be to teach these rather strange pubescent beings, but I am not. I just have fun in class! When I imagine teaching five year olds, I nearly cringe at the thought (though I do love the age as a parent), so I guess I can understand how we each must find our calling as teachers. I am not brave, just comfortable with them at this point in their lives of being between little kids and young adults. They are funny!

Last year, we as a school did not fully appreciate the incredible span of abilities we would have in terms of English language, so we grouped all students together in the secondary school for all subjects. Needless-to-say, it was not particularly successful for many. This year, we have split native English speakers (or those who are very proficient) from students for whom English is brand new or an early second language (duh!), and this has been remarkable, in my opinion, in our classes. I am really having fun teaching again and I can better help my students where they are.

I teach grade 7 English and humanities to students who are very proficient in English. They are a hilarious, dynamic, and interesting group. Coming from the Philippines, Malaysia, England, Canada, Egypt-America, India-America, they each bring their own experiences into our class. I teach them about writing and let them launch into their own writing experiences, having them share with each other daily, and I am lucky to get to know them well this way. I read their stories about moving to Saudi Arabia, about saying goodbye to friends, about childhoods, about mischief they caused, about their families, and about their trips. They are just at the point of developing their own voices as writers. We also talk a lot about books, recommending them to each other and reading some books together to learn how to discuss literature. Last year I taught this class too, but in the class I also had kids who had never spoken a word of English. It was so hard to serve the students well with such a vast spread in abilities. I guess this year is better because one boy said, "You are much more interesting this year." The students who are learning English as a second language are in another class where they are also thriving, learning at their pace.

In addition to grade 7 English and humanities, I teach grade 6 English as a second language and humanities to those same 6th graders. These students are nearly all Saudi, but I have also Palestinian, Egyptian-German, Ukrainian, French. They too are working so hard and we also have fun in class. They make so much progress in their learning from week-to-week, and it's encouraging for them. Most of the class came up from the elementary school where they had some excellent instruction in organization, language, homework-doing, and expected school behavior. They are also fun to teach, willing to participate and learn, and funny as well. They help each other and tell on each other, translate if possible for each other, and borrow more books from the library than any other group. Our librarian has ordered many many graphic novels, which are stories that combine mostly illustrations with some words, and my 6th grade students love them!

I think we are off to a good start this year! Thanks for reading, Jennifer

Ubiquitous Turkish hospitality

2010-09-17T15:25:00.004+03:00

Greetings,

Hospitality knows no limits when it comes to children, at least if you're in Istanbul, during an incredible weeklong vacation over Eid holiday. I suppose it helps if your toe-headed children look a bit different than most, and that your western-ness might represent that next carpet sale, or sold meal, or hawked trinket. Nevertheless, the friendliness and accessibility of the Turks was on display everywhere we went, and our boys were very often the ice breakers to conversations or at least pantomimed interactions that might have not occurred otherwise.

Logan had to suddenly go to the bathroom one day while we were walking around Sultanahmet, our hotel's locale while in Istanbul and also the location of the Hagia Sofia and Blue Mosque. Although WCs were around in some public areas, of course at this very moment I couldn't immediately see one, and so we quickly ran to a restaurant we'd patronized a few days earlier, hoping that the staff would remember us. It was as if we'd never left, and while I waited for Logan the manager told me that in Turkey old folks and little children are always accommodated

in similar situations.

The day before we'd walked through a section of town particularly packed with carpet showrooms, and at each storefront the owner of slowed us down, made conversation, patted our boys' heads, and promised them apple tea if only their parents would abide them a sales pitch. One wonders how much tea and accompanying sugar cubes the boys could have downed if only our ability to say "no thank you" had been up to the task, but there is perhaps no one so capable and determined as an Istanbul carpet salesman, so we largely admired the most resplendent and luxurious carpets hanging in the front windows from the relative safety of the street, being sure not to pause too long at any one.

Logan decided to abide his father's interest in going to a Turkish Bath, and so one afternoon we went to a bath designed by arguably the most famous Ottoman architect of all time, Sinan (who lived more than 90 years, long enough to serve three successive sultans and design more than 50 incredible buildings all over the empire), which also happened to be in our neighborhood. Logan decided to let his dad be the guinea pig, and so he carefully watched while the masseur rubbed and then soaped me down, Logan all the while sweating away in his towel robe, perhaps summoning the courage to got next. Well, there wasn't much of a choice, for just as soon as the masseur was through with me he splashed clean the beautiful marble surface, patted the space I'd just vacated, and motioned Logan summarily over. I then carefully yet discretely watched from an adjacent cool-off room while our masseur lovingly gave Logan his first Turkish bath experience. I could tell the masseur enjoyed working on a young boy who didn't complain or squirm and, while he did, I watched as a number of the other masseurs looked up from their work to smile at Logan. Later that day I knew the experience had been a success when Logan asked me when we could go back again!

On our second to last day in Istanbul we decided to take a boat trip to the Princes' Islands, a string of islands in the Marmara Sea just off the coast of the Anatolian, or Asian, side of this city of 15+ million inhabitants, and the only city to straddle two continents. At the end of a full day, we got off the boat and instead of catching the shuttle back to our hotel, opted to walk along the waterfront a bit in hopes of finding a good seafood place for dinner. We made it about 30 yards down the dock before attempting to pass by a group of grizzled fishermen, apparently not long off their boats after bringing back the day's catch. These guys were just beginning to share a piping hot dish of baked fresh sardines with onions, tomatoes and savory spices, all dripping with the trademark Turkish olive oil. They were breaking apart huge hunks of fresh bread, and spooning up generous portions of the baked fish dish when they spied the boys and, instantly, we realized that we could not pass by without trying their culinary delight, which they were eagerly offering us. We each tried some of this divine local fare, but it was when the boys took their first mouth-fulls that the guys all broke into huge smiles and insisted that we share more. No need for a huge appetizer that night!

And finally, there was our tour of the spice bazaar, which included spices and sweets, for the eyes and tongue. Each time we went by a sweet vendor, the boys were plied with a cube of homemade Turkish candy, or taste of honey, or some such, often surreptitiously by a smiling vendor who proffered the candy while patting the boys' heads. In the final analysis, Istanbul was one, long, delectable treat for us, a first glance at a proud and varied country we now hope to return to.

Thanks for reading, David

Dad's "Great" Idea by Logan

2010-09-15T09:16:00.003+03:00

Greetings,
Yesterday our family went to the Princes' Islands off the coast of Istanbul in the Sea of Marmara. We got off the boat on the second island and my dad had this "great" idea of renting bikes to ride around the island. Sounds fun, right? Well, as it turns out it was not as fun as we thought. My dad immediately started up a hill without realizing that my bike was so rickety and heavy and had no gears at all. My bike was heavier than the other three bikes together. My parents kept saying, "C'mon, Logan, try to keep up," but they didn't realize that my bike was so old that I had to pedal to go DOWN hill, and my bike tire had almost no air so when I biked along, I just bounced away all of my energy.

The other bikes were not so hot either. Hayden would be biking along, pedaling normally, when suddenly there would be a metal-on-metal screeching sound. Dad's bike always had the kickstand down, so we teased him that he would be safe if he fell. His bike had a sheared off front shifter and no front brakes. Mom's bike, called the "Corvette," could not shift any gears until Dad made her get off the bike while he lifted the back wheel up to "fix" the gears. After that, she had three gear options. Hayden had two to start but lost one after a short time. To shift from one gear to the other usually required a lapse time of about 10 minutes!

The stressful part of this family ride was that we had been allotted one hour in which to do the ride and make it back to the boat. The bikes gradually became slower and slower. We became panicked and I was so tired my legs felt like they would fall off! We finally did get back into the seaside town only to not be able to find the bike shop for which we had no name or address. We passed signs that said no biking but we had to bike in order to find the shop. We eventually got there and it took the owner several minutes to scrounge up Dad's Saudi driver's license and some change.

During our voyage to the islands, we learned that the Princes' Islands were used in part by Ottoman sultans as a place to banish their wayward sons. I think they had to ride old rickety bikes around the islands for the rest of time.

Thanks for reading,
Logan

Istanbul

2010-09-12T22:27:00.003+03:00

Hello all,

We are spending our Eid holiday in Instanbul, Turkey, and I must sadly admit that I did not really appreciate the amazing historical significance of this city until I visited. As the Roman Empire collapsed, one final emperor, Diocletian, foresaw weakness and split the Empire into western and eastern parts, thinking it would be easier to administer this way. Constantine ultimately ended up with the eastern part, which around 330 a.d. he centered in his new capital city, Constantinople, a city which became the center for the Byzantine empire - which was really the eastern part of the Roman Empire. The former and original glorious Roman Empire eventually collapsed, but the Byzantine Empire continued for hundreds of years and remained strong in Constantinople until the Ottomans finally defeated it in the 1450s. The Muslim Ottomans added minarets to some Christian churches and covered up images of Christ and scenes from the Bible, but they were generally tolerant, open, and accepting of other faiths, so groups of people flocked to libraries, mosques, and other public places to gather, study, learn, and talk, regardless of religious beliefs.

Istanbul, formerly known as Constantinople, boasts glorious mosques which are open to the public except during prayer time and vast Byzantine churches, many of which were later converted to mosques. Blue and white tiles decorate the interior of many mosques, conveying an aura of peace and tranquility. It is clear that this has been a city of diversity, openness, and tolerance - and it still is this way though Turkey continues to struggle with an outspoken minority group of 14 million Kurdish people for whom there is no government representation.

We sampled a Turkish bath experience - gender-separated scrubbing, soaping, and relaxing. We have enjoyed all kinds of food, particularly various kebabs, eggplant cooked so many ways, and tomatoes, olives, and feta cheese. We have walked, taken the public tram system (an on-street train system), tried ferries and local buses. Today we took a local ferry up the Bosphorus which connects the Sea of Mamara with the Black Sea. Who knew that Istanbul is the only city in the world that spreads across two continents - Asia and Europe? Most of Turkey is in Asia, but much of this city is in Europe. We also visited a medieval fortress today which was built by Mehmet the Conqueror in 1452 in order to stage the Ottoman's final (successful) assault on Constantinople. It was an impressive place with ramparts, steps, and walls on which to roam.

Ironically, we are visiting just at the same time as the world championships in basketball are being played - here in Istanbul. Last night was the final game - between the USA and Turkey! Who would have thought?! The US won and many Turks congratulated us with broad smiles today.

We have met friendly people who try to help us whenever possible and who beam with our basic attempts at Turkish; we have seen people genuinely reach out to our boys, patting their heads or cheeks and greeting them when possible; we have had carpet-sellers serve us tea and share their vast knowledge of carpets.

Thanks for reading, Jennifer

A New School Year

2010-09-06T20:13:00.003+03:00

Greetings,

We are wrapping up our second week of our second year of school at The KAUST School (TKS). What a difference one year makes! Our students are more engaged, more prepared, and more ready to learn than last year; as teachers we can more readily understand their abilities and language limitations and progress over last year. All around it is a smoother, if tiring, first couple of weeks. Despite the fact that it's Ramadan, TKS started school as expected, supported and directed by the University. I have been impressed by how many students and families have committed to being at school in the middle of their holy month. They are showing their commitment to education in the midst of a special Muslim holiday. Ramadan comes to an end in a few days, and the Eid holiday will begin - where school will once again be closed (as will pretty much every thing else). We will head off on a short trip to Istanbul, Turkey, before returning for a full-on schedule and routine for most of the rest of the Fall.

Our kids have enjoyed getting to know several new kids from the United States and Canada, which makes their social relationships and friendships more familiar. They both seem to recognize that they have aspects to their lives here - freedom to bike around and play with neighbors - that they would not have so easily back at home. We have noticed in the last month that the weather has cooled slightly, and it's becoming more pleasant to sit outside at the end of the day while the kids play on their bikes. The pool water is perfectly chilled and the A/C in the school, though cold, is not as unbearable as last year. We are all well!

We hope all is well with all of you. Love to hear about your lives at home too!

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer

Dee's visit to KAUST

2010-09-02T20:00:00.002+03:00

I have been visiting the Evans family here in Saudi. It has been an incredible experience--one I will always remember and treasure. They have shared their lives, their work, and their friendships with me and I have met an incredible group of people from all over the world. They all bring their vision, their expertise, their knowledge and their enthusiasm for this unique project.

I have especially enjoyed being with Hayden and Logan and watching them grow, develop and learn to be friends for all nations, all people and all opportunities. I have felt appreciated and blessed to be in this community of leaders.

Thanks to them for sharing this with me.

Dee (Jennifer's Mom)

An Homage to the Foreign Workers at KAUST

2010-08-26T11:56:00.004+03:00

Greetings,

Having grown up in a foreign service family, I was early on exposed to some of the realities of expatriate life. However, working as my father did - as a diplomat serving the US government - or as my wife and I currently do - as educators serving a somewhat lavishly-funded project, hardly begins to conjure the experiences of the vast majority of people whose jobs take them overseas.

I have earlier commented on the tens of thousands of workers who for the past three years have worked on creating a major research university and campus out of the sands of coastal Saudi Arabia. As we drive north from Jeddah, the vast buildings and surrounding campus neighborhoods seem to rise out of the simmering heat like a Sphinx, a visual aberration in this largely empty, arid, hardscrabble land. As we get closer, and especially as we make our way onto campus and begin appreciating the vastness of the KAUST project, it suddenly dawns on us that undertaking anything of this magnitude on such short order could only have occurred through considerable, almost incalculable, human effort. It is usually about then that we begin seeing the workers, ubiquitous in every aspect of campus.

A school head I know once said that getting donors to pay for a new auditorium is glamorous, and therefore fairly easy. It's getting them to pay for the supporting infrastructure and the often underestimated long-term maintenance costs that makes the shiny new auditorium more of a reach for most institutions. Now imagine the maintenance and upkeep at a place like KAUST! Apart from the monetary costs, which I can't begin to fathom, there is the human cost, and on this count I'd like to express my deep gratitude to the men and women - primarily from India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh - who largely made, and every day and night maintain, this huge and growing campus. These workers are part of a large trend worldwide - more than 200 million people now work outside their country of citizenship; in Dubai, just 1 in 5 is a citizen; 1 in 4 Filipinos works overseas; nearly 5 million Americans live, and often work, overseas.

Last week our plumbing had a hiccup, and so we dutifully called the prescribed number to have the problem addressed. In short order a skilled team from Asia's subcontinent showed up, readily attended to the problem, and then had us sign off on the work order. It was then that I discovered that the three workers were from Hyderabad, India, but that their boss was from Lahore, Pakistan. When I mentioned to the team that I'd spent a half a decade in India and Pakistan as a boy, the disbelief was obvious and the smiles were genuine. I agreed with all of them that Kashmir is about as close to heaven as you can get (carefully avoiding discussion of that ongoing regional conflict). Given the two countries' histories, I was impressed with how well the entire team worked together, and how proud they were of the their origins, our shared understanding. Yet in coming here we Evanses haven't said goodbye to spouses or our own children for as many as two years, or put off getting married, or signed up to live in spartan accommodations at considerably different pay, or work under often dramatically different circumstances It is these kinds of sacrifices, made by thousands, that have helped build KAUST, and we would just like to say thank you to these men and women.

Thanks for reading,

David

Hayden's Highlights from Camp

2010-08-25T20:03:00.005+03:00

Hello!

Dee Dee (My Grandma) and I just got back to KAUST late Sunday night. The first day especially I was really tired. I almost took a nap whenever I sat down. When I flew from Frankfurt to Denver earlier in the summer it took me only about a day to get fully adjusted to Colorado time. I was in Denver for 4 days until camp started. Then we drove the 2 hour long drive to Buena Vista, where A/U is. We got there at about 2:30. That afternoon I basically played Gockey and bounced on the tramp the whole time. Gockey is a version of mini hockey except they play with little hockey sticks and a squash ball. At first I was really bad. But because I kept playing and playing I soon got to be pretty good. That night the head of camp told us all the rules and things we should know about camp. The next day the mountaineers went up to the ropes course. I still think it was one of my favorite days at camp. We went on this awesome zip line where you were attached on by a carabiner. Its a good thing too because the zip line goes 25 feet up in the air. It is definitely the best zip line I've ever been on. A few days later the mountaineers went caving in some caves about a 45 minute drive away from camp. We had to hike a little ways to get to the mouth of the cave. The cave was really dark and dusty. We all either had flashlights or headlights. The caves aren't huge, but it was still really awesome. At one point we had to army crawl with our flashlights off. It was really freaky but really fun. When we were all done with caving we went back to the mouth of the cave to find that we were all completely covered in a thick layer of dust. A few days later we went to a place called Turtle Rocks. It is an outside climbing place across the valley. It was kind of shaped like a turtle. We did a few climbs, then we hiked up to the turtle's head. We had a pretty good view of the surrounding 14ers. The next activity the mountaineers did was climb Mt. Yale. It was a really fun 3 days. The first day all we did was hike up to a camp site at about 12,000 feet. The next day we got up really early and started hiking. We hiked the first 2 hours in total darkness. We peaked at about 10, having hiked uphill for 5 hours straight we were all very tired. On the way down we had to go through some hail. I got totally soaked even with a rain jacket on. The next day we hiked back down to the parking lot. Thank you so much for reading this!

Hayden

Gearing Up

2010-08-24T09:58:00.005+03:00

Greetings,
We have been fairly enmeshed in the process of gearing up for a new school year. Teachers have all been meeting to work on units, advisory, attendance, planning ... As a new school in its second year, we have structures to get into place and decisions to be made to support the learning that we can provide. We are working on becoming approved as an MYP/IB school, so we have projects to do for that approval as well. School starts on August 28, but as it's right in the middle of the Holy Month of Ramadan, we will be missing many students who are either away or at home in Jeddah but unable to come to school. As a school, we have made a big push to encourage kids to come to school for these next two weeks of Ramadan and prior to the Eid holiday. The school day will be somewhat shortened to accommodate students who may be fasting and in honor of Ramadan. During this month of Ramadan, somewhat surprisingly, we have prescribed differences in required working hours for faculty and staff across the entire KAUST community, depending on whether a person is Muslim or non-Muslim. For an international community, I would have thought that all people would have the same working hours, shortened or not. Perhaps this is something that will be adjusted and/or equalized as time goes.

We have several new faculty and staff members for our growing student body - more from the United States than in the original group. It has been a pleasure to get to know the new members of our 'team'. They are a dynamic and talented group, who are working hard to learn so many new things and prepare for school too.

My mother and our son, Hayden, arrived a few days ago. They both looked happy and had gotten tremendous support and assistance at the airport from a KAUST representative who met them and helped them through immigration and customs. They are both struggling to adjust to the huge time difference between Colorado and Jeddah, but it gets better daily. It's very nice to be back together as a family - I missed that time. Hayden has matured a lot over his month away, including his two weeks at camp, and he seems confident and taller. Apparently, he wrote us a postcard from camp, but as we have not yet received it, I am so grateful that we had other ways to hear from him - phone calls and skype.

Hope for more blog posts soon. Perhaps even from Hayden. Thanks for reading, Jennifer

Home at KAUST

2010-08-10T13:45:00.002+03:00

Greetings,
Logan, David, and I arrived safely back at KAUST last week after our amazing summer adventures. The three of us awkwardly careened through the Zurich airport with four large suitcases, three boxed bicycles, a guitar, three smaller backpacks, a bag of bread and cheese we could not bear to leave behind, and a computer bag. I saw people watch coming, quickly get out of the way, and look at their travel companions as if to say, "Geez, those people really need to learn to travel lighter." I suppose that could be true, but after five weeks away, we had things to bring back that we can use here at KAUST, particularly two new bikes to add to our growing collection - all of which get used.

Once the bags and bikes were checked for the plane (and paid for!), we proceeded to our gate. I was a bit apprehensive about getting everything securely back in Jeddah. The flight from Frankfurt was packed with pilgrims, mostly from England, coming to Mecca and Medina for the upcoming Holy Month of Ramadan. I gingerly sat next to a man draped in the traditional white pilgrimage outfit, trying not to disturb him, and was surprised when he immediately addressed me in Manchester-accented English. Enroute David and I ended up chatting with many members of his family about life in England and life in Jeddah. Originally from India, he and his wife were quite surprised to discover that David had been born in Karachi. Wonderful family who invited us to visit when we were in Manchester!

Upon arrival at the Jeddah airport, we made our way through immigration and waited for the bags, wandering between carousels as no one seemed clear as to which of the three would carry our flight's bags. Eventually, our suitcases came sliding down the conveyor belt and, just as I began to fret about the bikes, three large bike boxes slid down as well. Our KAUST taxi driver waited patiently, helped us load up everything into the van, and drove us home. It was nice to be home, to unpack, to relax, and to settle back in again.

We remain so grateful for our amazing summer adventures, for Hayden's awesome experiences at a mountain camp in Colorado and his continued new experiences, and for our safe return. We are eagerly anticipating Hayden and his grandmother's flight to Jeddah later this month so we can be all together as an Evans foursome again, to share stories and laugh about memories, and so we can host our first guest!

School starts on August 28. The campus is gradually slowing down and transitioning to night-time hours in preparation for Ramadan, which starts tomorrow. In fact, I have a medical appointment next week in Jeddah, where (except for 24 hour emergency service) the clinic hours are from 9 p.m. to early morning some time. Until now, I have never had an appointment at midnight. Could be interesting!

Thanks for reading. More soon, Jennifer

Swiss Observations

2010-08-01T21:09:00.004+03:00

Greetings,

As we come to the close of our amazing five week vacation, nearly all in Switzerland, I find myself pondering this amazing country. Certainly, five weeks does not make us Swiss or particularly clear on Swiss culture and history. We have observed so much here, though, which makes us so very appreciative of nearly all that Switzerland offers.

This is a country of efficiency - hundreds of trains come and go, on time, from hundreds of stations each day. Rarely are the trains late, and, if they are, announcements will let people know that the train will be arriving in 13 minutes or 23 minutes or whatever the expected new time. This is a country of constantly available fresh food - milk, cheese, bread, meats, salads, fruits, sauces, pastas, vegetables and fruits. Every meal matters - food always tastes good and fresh. Even at little train station food shops, we can find delicious, local yogurt, cheese, baguettes and bread, fruits and vegetables. Few chemically-created junk foods that you might find at a local corner store in the US. Meals also take a long time. Lunch or dinner, if eaten in a restaurant (rather than in one of the apartments we have stayed in), often takes one and a half or two hours. People sit and talk and eat and talk and eat. Few times have we see people eat on the run, as meals seem to be an enjoyable experience and part of the day. We have seen many families on outings together, going swimming, hiking, biking, playing; it helps that Switzerland has probably more nicely built, creative playgrounds per person than any other country. Quality of life seems to be quite a major component of living. We see many people eating meals with family and friends outside in the gardens, balconies, patios, or decks that are clearly a dynamic part of the integral living space.

I love the Swiss commitment to public transportation. Trains and buses traverse the country, reaching into remote valleys on narrow winding roads, using the horn as switchback turns are approaching. We have been able to get every where we wanted to go on trains or buses or bicycles. It certainly means fewer cars traveling around with just one or two people in them. Cars are very small, bikes are every where, trains leave frequently. We also have enjoyed the Swiss idea that on a hot day, lakes and rivers are part of the national playground. Just today, we joined many people swimming in Lake Zurich and later we discovered crowds jumping off bridges and the sides of a deep flowing river from Lake Zurich. Logan jumped on in with everyone else, quickly swimming to the ladder on the side. Should one miss the ladder, there are many others just short distances from each other down the river. It was truly a highlight!

The only aspect of this country that, in just five weeks, I have tired of is the incessant smoking. Since it's summer, people are out and about, eating at outdoor cafes and smoking. Everywhere we go, people are smoking - young and old, fit-looking or not, rich or poor, with children or not. Last night, we went to eat at an outdoor patio pizzeria. At one point, every sing

le table around us had at least one smoker. One table of four had four smokers. The saddest thing is the number of people with children who smoke right around them, allowing the smoke to drift into their babies' or toddlers' faces. It's hard to understand in a country of active outdoor people who bike and walk more than drive, who eat healthfully, who take care of their environment, and who appear the epitome of health and well-being. It's on my mind because I have been around more cigarette smoke here than nearly any other place. Despite this, our summer has been amazing fun, interesting, exciting, active, and memorable in every way. We have swum, hiked, biked, trained, and bused all around, enjoying Swiss hospitality and friendliness and appreciating frequent help from strangers when we, on more than one occasion, looked lost!

Missing Switzerland already! Thanks for reading, Jennifer

Switzerland

2010-07-26T21:56:00.005+03:00

Greetings and apologies for long delays in updates,

We have had three fabulous weeks in Switzerland, actually nearly four by now, I think. Rather than detail the entire time, I will highlight each. One of the coolest aspects of Switzerland is the diversity from region to region. We started in the German Heartland near Interlaken; migrated to the Italian region of Ticino; took three days to visit Frankfurt, Germany, and see Hayden safely off to Denver; and now are in the French-speaking region between Lausanne and Geneva staying with friends.

Meiringen highlights: Excellent German/Swiss style pork, potatoes, and cheese. Lots of delicious ice cream and yoghurt. Two weeks with my parents who met us in Meiringen. Cable cars and gondolas to mountain summits where we hiked several kilometers across high ridges and down into different valleys. Bike rides for the Evanses family. Kids next door for Logan and Hayden to play afternoon soccer with. TV with final World Cup games. Learning some Suisse-Deutsch. Friendly people. Families on hiking and biking outings everywhere. Walking and biking taking precedence over cars. Swimming in Lake Lungern. The Jungfrau region. Hayden's big hike with David and my dad.

Lucarno in Ticino highlights: Pizza. Pasta. Gelato. The Italian region. Italian feel, language, culture. Bus rides to the end of a valley where we ate pizza and hiked back down on beautiful trails. Rock jumping into rivers. A fantastic apartment. A rented motorboat and swimming in Lake Maggiore. Laughter over dinner with the boys. A castle in Bellinzona. A cable car and chair lift to the top of a mountain, a long long hike up and down and back to a town, a one and a half hour relaxing, stress-free wait for the last bus into town.

Frankfurt, Germany. Hotel directly across the street from the train station which was extremely helpful for the Evans family who overpacked, assuming cooler weather when it's been incredibly hot, and who are traveling with two bikes. Amazing hotel breakfast, included. Seeing Hayden safely off to Denver. A hilarious restaurant which, though trendy, will not last a year. (It's this restaurant where you get a card upon arrival and stand in long lines to wait for people to order and watch food prepared until you finally order your pasta or pizza or salad, watch it get prepared while you are still hot and standing, 'charge' the meal to your card, and finally, wearily, retire to eat overcooked food. Why can't we just order from a person and sit down like a regular place?) An amazing museum of natural history! Wonderful German food in the old part of the city.

Morges, Switzerland. We are now staying with a friend of David's and another mutual friend joined us from the US. The beautiful home has a pool and a trampoline, so Logan is in heaven. This part of Switzerland is very French - language, food, and culture. Took Logan to a park yesterday where there are many many ropes courses for all ages and levels. He had a ball! David and his college friends are exploring the region by bike each day, some days actually starting before lunch!

This is an incredible country of diverse language and food, attention to detail and fine craftsmanship, awareness of the many aspects of the quality of a life as a broad range beyond just one's job, families and family outings, access and commitment to public transportation of all kinds. We realize that this is, perhaps, the vacation of a lifetime, but we have enjoyed every minute of one of the hottest summers, filled with adventure, life, and challenge. We appreciate the vibrancy of this culture, the many languages, the amazing foods, the love of the outdoors and the many ways to access it.

More soon. Jennifer

End of the Year Celebrations

2010-06-18T16:22:00.002+03:00

Greetings,

The first year for Kaust School is officially over. Graduation happened for our two amazing senior boys, who have set the standards high as our first graduating class. Though friends, they are different from each other in their impressive talents and skills, and I think all of the teachers are proud that these two boys set standards high for future classes. We were blessed that they were the first. All tests, projects, and exams are over. Grades are mostly done. Teachers are working on final reports to be sent to parents at the end of the week. Awards and celebrations have occurred. The last day of school saw an array of emotions on the part of the students - many smiles, memories, and tears. We laughed about the fire alarms that went off the first day - and every day of the first week. We talked about how far we have come. We said good-bye to some students moving on. We acknowledged with awards the special abilities and strengths of some. It was a more touching and emotional last day than I expected. It's funny because students are so excited for school to end - and then it does and they don't want to leave. I suppose it's the work they are happy to have a break from rather than the relationships with friends and even teachers. I suspect that some will have little to do over the hot summer months; others will head home to other countries or travel.

We went to a large faculty/staff party last night to honor two couples from the founding administration team who are leaving. The first superintendent was only hired as an interim for this year, so he and his wife are heading home to the US. I like and respect him a great deal, as do many. I think he has a been a true advocate for the schools and for the teachers specifically. He will be missed a lot. He confronts issues when needed, but quietly, and he willingly and openly commends the strengths and gifts he sees in others. The other couple who is leaving is heading to Germany. The husband was in San Francisco doing the hiring when we went to the recruitment fair. He is a wonderful man, and we also really like and enjoy his wife, who has deftly managed the school where Logan goes - the early learning center. I will miss them a lot. Several of the kids acknowledged these adults on the last day of school and one said, "I don't really know what Mr. M does at our school, but he was always really friendly and nice to the students." Everyone laughed.

We have a full week of work this next week and then teachers are heading off for the summer. We will be here a little longer than this next week, doing some working projects, before we head to Switzerland to meet family there. We are excited for our vacation and travels.

More soon! Thanks for reading,
Jennifer

Last Day of School

2010-06-15T13:05:00.003+03:00

Greetings all,
We have been super busy, as you can imagine, finishing up classes, tests, grading, projects, grading, activities, grading. You get the idea. I am finished now with all projects, tests, and grading! One boy came up to me after class today - a boy who could not say anything in English on the first day of school - and he said, "Ms. Evans, a student in class always teased me that I failed on every test. Today I get a 6 and today she get 4. Today she quiet!" He smiled a mischievous smile and went to lunch. All year this boy has tried, then not tried, tried, then not tried. Nonetheless, he has learned so much this year. Another boy who was in a similar situation worked all through our final humanities class while we were playing a geography game; he completed his entire final test and did very well!

We will try to write more soon.

Thanks for reading.

A Birthday Celebration

2010-06-05T11:12:00.004+03:00

Greetings,
A year ago we celebrated Hayden's birthday with his good friends in Seattle - eating and playing at Discovery Park. This year, Hayden has a new group of friends and many of them were able to join him for his birthday (though he misses and talks about his Seattle friends as well). We all met up at the secondary school to play basketball on the outdoor courts and tag on the playground, which was new for most of the kids who do not come to the secondary school often. Along with a lot of water, juice, and 7up, we ordered pizza to be delivered to the playground from the campus pizza shop, Pizza Inn. Later we headed to our house for chocolate cupcakes, more water, and a ping pong tournament. That evening Hayden said that the party had been awesome. If you have a group of boys, a ball or two, and a park or playground, you pretty much have a good, sweaty time. The boys were energetic, funny, and active. One of the coolest parts of our lives at the moment is the various nationalities and backgrounds of our kids' friends - Canadian, Filipino, American-Lebanese, Indian, South African, Ghanian-American, English ... Kids love to play - wherever they might be from - and they generally like pizza and chocolate too!

We are wrapping up our year. We have two weeks of school left, including final projects and tests and a lot of grading and report writing! School is done for the students on June 16, but we have one additional week of reports, meetings, and packing up for the summer. We are officially done on June 23. We will stay until June 29 when we head off for the summer.

Thanks for reading.

2010-06-03T14:14:00.002+03:00

Many of us remember paying nearly $4/gallon for gas a few summers ago. Not so here. At our sole gas station on campus, which we frequent about every three weeks, if that, gas is a whopping 70 cents per gallon. Our usual habit is to pull into the station on our motorbike, pop the seat to reveal the hidden gas tank, and then wait the 9.2 seconds it might take for the attendant to fill up the two-liter tank which, let's face it, is never actually empty. I'm usually embarrassed enough about spending so little that I often find myself silently praying for the tank to be suitably empty so that I can give the pump operator two riyals in order to tell him to keep the change. Never has a 70- 90% tip felt so good! Of course, this tip is a mere 25 cents or so, which may seem none too consequential to many of us but could really add up for the Indian or Pakistani citizen who most often fills our tank...

Indeed, campus is an odd juxtaposition of vehicles, from cyclists and their mechanical cousins like our small motorbike, to huge, hulking SUVs. Many families have purchased a vehicle, often large, for use while in Saudi Arabia. What many are finding, however, is that getting off campus and exploring the country is proving to be more the exception than the rule, and so most vehicles just sit, or else are driven a perfunctory quarter mile to the store or school once or twice a day, only to collect a veneer of dust in the driveway once home.

KAUST also provides a fleet of buses, and these understandably get most use before and after the school or work day, but seemingly very little use otherwise. Oddly enough, whether large or small, about the only thing most of these campus vehicles have in common is one occupant, or maybe two, much of their time in use.

So, while the U.S. continues to reel from the effects of its largest oil spill in history, with no end in sight, this part of the world, where oil is much more plentiful and vastly easier to drill, seems of another time, and certainly of a forgotten cost when it comes to anything related to purchasing energy. How will it all look in 50 years? Who can know? In the meantime, we ride our bikes, both mechanized and not, and enjoy getting around our growing campus when we need to.

Thanks for reading,

David

This is Why I Teach Middle School

2010-05-25T08:21:00.002+03:00

Greetings,
Though this year has been challenging in many ways, typical of starting a school, there are, of course, tremendously positive things that have happened as well. I have seen students who could not read well, complete entire books in English and feel proud; students who could barely say hello in English can now struggle through a conversation and read simple books; students are doing homework, writing essays, passing math tests, learning to edit their own writing, and discussing literature!

We are studying the Middle Ages in humanities right now. I asked the students to write about what it was like to live during the Middle Ages. One 7th grade student, whose first language is not English, wrote, "Many people usually died during the Middle Ages."

Yesterday, we were talking in that same class about whether students would have wanted to live during that time (no one did), and then we talked about why that was. The conversation moved to how people 500-1000 years from now might view this current time period in which we are living, and students pondered how this country and the world might function without oil. They thought that maybe laptops and iPods would be so obsolete. Finally, we talked about changes that they have seen just in their short 13 years. One boy said, "My parents still have those huge CDs that you have to play with a needle." (Record albums) I told them that in my lifetime, TV has gone from being five or six channels during a limited time of day to what my students experience now - hundreds of stations on at all hours. It was a fascinating conversation, and I realized how much they are able to think and discuss ideas.

Thanks for reading!
Jennifer

Arts at KAUST

2010-05-14T10:37:00.002+03:00

Greetings,

At first, the practices were informal, modest, the May concert slated to be for another small gathering made up mostly of friends and colleagues. Then a fellow violinist's brother, a seasoned cellist, arrived from Germany, in part to help us through our Vivaldi solos and the concert, to have been advertised by word of mouth and taken place in a small venue, was switched to the large cinema cum campus theater. A concert poster began making the campus rounds, and the few students I'd invited grew into the much larger number encouraged to attend by our school's music instructors, one of whom is our string bassist, with his wife the conductor of the community choir, which would nicely fill the second half of the evening's bill.

By 7 pm, concert time, the auditorium was packed, with people waiting in the wings for an available seat and we ten nervously warming up in the back room, hoping we'd get through the five pieces on the program we'd not quite gotten through sans hitch yet. Thousands of miles from where each of us had originally fallen in love with classical music, here we were, about to play to members of an audience, many of whom had never been to a classical concert before let alone attended an evening event where men and women were able to sit freely together.

Again, the orchestral and choral offerings had to be sandwiched between the two evening prayer times, leaving us a bit less than 90 minutes to perform everything, with a stage change added in for good measure.

In the end, I tried not to look beyond the bright lights of the stage to the large audience beyond and instead just focused, like my musical peers, on creating good music that those assembled might enjoy. Personally, it was a bit of an epiphany. I'd never been much of a soloist in younger years (having always been surrounded by other musicians, many much more gifted than I, especially during Interlochen summers). Yet here I was, playing beautifully composed music with new friends and trying to stay reasonably poised, especially through a couple of solos, in a hall that had never held a music concert and on land that could not have anticipated the huge changes about to come to it just five years ago.

By all accounts, the evening was a wonderful success, and further indication that the arts are alive and well at KAUST and that there is enough of a number among the provosts, researchers, professors, graduate and high school students, teachers, accompanying spouses, and even visiting family members who not only like to make music together but apparently even like performing in public on occasion, especially if it brings the community together, which this evening most certainly did.

After our first-half gig, we ten got to sit back and relax together and enjoy the impressive performance of our community choir, which sang songs in French, English, Swahili, Japanese, and Spanish and was accompanied ably in one of their songs by two brand-new percussionists who happen to be two Arabic-speaking high school boys from our school. Sensational!

Two nights later, the four Evanses attended the first KAUST Talent Show, again awed by the wide-ranging abilities of many on campus. Original poetry in English and Arabic, Tai Chi, fashion, classical and pop music, dance, comedy, classical Indian violin - it would be hard to beat the diversity of talents we were happily exposed to on Wednesday!

So, KAUST continues to define itself each month in ways new and inspiring. Those hours of violin practicing as a kid are having certainly unanticipated outcomes, that's for sure. Given that this week has also included Mother's Day, I hope it's not too late to thank my mother for making me practice after school each day after school in elementary and junior high. I may have given up the violin for running at 14, but music, rather like riding a bike, once embedded in the heart never leaves you. Thank goodness since I like to do both, though not generally together!

Thanks for reading,

David

Beach Day

2010-05-07T15:48:00.006+03:00

Greetings,

This weekend was been glorious, as usual! Logan and Jennifer enjoyed time at the pool on Thursday, David and Hayden went to the cinema to see "The Blind Side" (great film!), and we all benefited from homemade pizza at friends' house. Some friends brought a carpet salesman from Afghanistan to their home on Wednesday night; he and his son took time to explain the various carpets, styles, and colors to the many KAUST residents who were curious and/or wanted to purchase. The Afghan carpets are truly rich in color and fine in their wool textures. We chose a small one in deep reds which we both loved. There was a waterpark set up Thursday afternoon, with bouncy houses and water slides. Friday we went to the beach where we swam, kayaked, and played some football. The beach water is getting warmer, not surprisingly, and the Red Sea is crystal clear blue.

The beach is so nice. It's been all cleaned up, and barges of sand from somewhere along the coast south of Jeddah have been brought in to create a beautiful sandy beach. We can swim, windsurf, kayak, and enjoy the sunshine. It's quite lovely. I was excited that Hayden wanted to try kayaking and was enjoying the easy maneuverability of the single kayak. Although Hayden is learning golf and badminton, kayaking might the best option for when we ultimately return to Seattle.

School for the kids ends on June 16, but we have meetings and work for the week following that. We have hired a lovely Filipina woman, named Princess (!), to look after Logan after school and to be with both boys during that third week in June when we will be working yet they don't have school. We are all starting to get excited about the end of school. Only five weeks of classes to go. Students and teachers alike are feeling that itch of 'the end of the school year.' The students will have to give up their school-issued laptops, which for some will feel like a huge void in their free-time/game-playing. Some kids have really benefited from the laptop program, but many have been increasingly pulled into time-wasting (in my opinion) games and YouTube sites. It would not be so frustrating except for the kids who are most playing games are often the same ones who repeatedly don't complete homework and who truthfully NEVER read! You gotta wonder ...

More soon. Thanks for reading.

KAUST Activities

2010-05-02T07:55:00.005+03:00

Greetings all,

Please excuse our lapse in blog entries. School, work, and life takes over, and we find that we are out of time at the end of the day to write about our lives. We have been busy with school - teaching, planning,

assessing, tutoring, planning, teaching, meeting ... you get the idea.

A week ago we were fortunate to attend Hayden's and Logan's student-led conferences. Hayden showed us many writing pieces he has done and read two pieces to us aloud - one was a story about a day with friends in Seattle and one was imagining himself on an Olympic bobsled team with a teammate named Britt. He showed us his skills on his class laptop, showed us an online math game that he uses frequently, reflected maturely and proudly on his achievements and where he is heading, and talked confidently about his progress. He was clearly so well-prepared to share his work with us.

Logan showed us all of his work, too. Equally well-prepared and confident, he talked about his many art pieces, what techniques he had used, what he had tried to make, and what he had learned. He also seemed so proud of his work and efforts. In my earlier days of teaching (before I had children), I had not understood the value really of student-led conferences, but after experiencing our kids' talking about their learning and growth, I realized how empowering it can be when the kids are prepared well. Thank you to our kids' teachers!

We recently bought a ping-pong table and have it set up in our garage so that kids can come and play together. Hayden has been enjoying it quite a lot.

We have been asked about photos of our campus, so we will post some here. The main campus mosque is truly stunningly beautiful! One photo is our house with the garage door up. Our house is a three bedroom-townhouse between two others. Our neighbors on both sides have kids Logan's age, plus one family has a toddler son who adores Hayden, and the other family has a son just a year younger than Hayden.

Thanks for reading, Jennifer

Afghani Souk

2010-04-17T11:13:00.004+03:00

Greetings,
Over the weekend, some friends and I rented a small bus whose driver took us to the Afghani souk in Jeddah. I had read about the amazing sights and items to buy there and had been intrigued for some time about this. The Jeddah magazine claimed that we would enjoy a "blissful shopping experience." Skeptical but interested, we headed out on Thursday afternoon. The driver eventually found the location we wanted and all eight of us women, fully covered with our black abayas (which cover the body but not head or face), disembarked from the bus to the stares of many.

We started down the small street, stepping over piles of concrete and rocks, around prowling cats searching for meals, and away from small bare-foot boys playing soccer. A short distance down the street, an old man motioned us into his shop. The small shop's walls were completely covered with carpets of all types. Some were red wool with bold patterns; others were soft silk with blues and greens in intricate patterns. One told a story in pictures of Soviet tanks entering Kabul. Another carpet, in yellows and whites, represented the Holy door of the sacred Kaaba stone from the Grand Mosque in Mecca. We began looking through the carpets, getting assistance from three young Afghan men with pale skin and reddish hair. They explained the various qualities of carpets, the types of wool or silk, locations made, and the patterns in each. Prayer time was called by the mosque singing but we were able to stay inside, talking about carpets, with all doors closed. Some purchases were made by our group and many photos taken.

About an hour or so later, we headed further down the street and were welcomed into another shop, again by an old Afghan man who spoke English well. He quickly flipped on some inadequate air conditioners and proceeded to engage us in conversation. I showed him the small local magazine I was clutching and explained that we came to this district because of the article and photos. He was so amazed to see photos of his shop in the magazine. He kept pointing out where various photos had been taken in his shop. I was interested in one red wool carpet, large enough to fit nicely in our bare entry way. He flipped the carpets on top onto the floor and pulled the one I liked out for me to look at in better light. The elder shop owner explained that it was a marriage pattern, and I said I was already married. He laughed and made a joke about my evening at home should I end up buying the carpet. He told me the price was 1200 Saudi riyals. I said that I really liked it but that I didn't have that much. He asked how much I would pay. I said I had about 750. I took out my wallet and took out all of my remaining cash. I had 770 Saudi riyals. He took the money, counted it out, handed me back 20 riyals, and rolled up the carpet with a wink. He brought out tea and almonds and we all sat on huge stacks of carpets drinking tea and talking to him about where we were from. I told him that my parents-in-law had been to Kabul, where he was from, and that they had seen the ancient statues at Bamiyan (which have since been destroyed by the Taliban). After the tea, several others in our group negotiated for carpets big and small. We spent easily one and a half hours in the shop, chatting about family, bargaining for carpets, drinking tea, and admiring his products. It was truly a 'blissful shopping experience.' The shop owner was kind and friendly, willing to negotiate, chat, and offer up smiles and laughter.

Thanks for reading,
Jennifer

Music at KAUST hits a high note!

2010-04-15T14:38:00.005+03:00

What do a 14-person gamelan orchestra made up of Indonesian grad students, a couple playing an apparently well-known Chinese violin double concerto, and sundry classical chamber groups all have in common? They were all wonderful participants in KAUST's first community-wide music concert, an event heard earlier this week by about 250 grateful and impressed campus residents, many of whom, by the end of the evening, suddenly realized that there is more than ample musical talent right here on campus, thank you!

In fact, the gamelan group played a beautiful rendition of Edelweiss, giving The Sound of Music (my favorite movie of all time) a special spin, while the classical groups, many accompanied by one of the apparently very few pianos on campus, had to withstand notes from an instrument that could easily have benefitted from the attention of the piano tuner who never showed. Oh well. Beware of pianos needing to be moved just before concerts...

The concert was slated to begin at 6:45, after prayer time, and had to be over by 8:20, well before the next prayer time. Indeed, if you're one of those who's worried about attending concerts that drag on and on, then an evening concert in Saudi Arabia could be the answer to your problems :).

More concerts are being planned, one of which your humble author will be performing in next month. Now that the ice has been broken, musicians are literally coming out of the woodwork. A mother whom we'd chatted briefly with at the beach only last weekend, revealed to a clarinet-playing colleague who had just performed that she is a flutist with PhD in musical performance! The next day I saw another colleague, our school counselor, walking out of his office and toward the music room toting a violin, which I'd never seen him carry.

I'm beginning to get the feeling that we're actually part of a large music conservatory! Maybe we've been misinformed all this time and this is really King Abdullah University of Strings and Troubadours?!

Thanks for reading,

David

Frustration and then Cookies

2010-04-08T20:04:00.002+03:00

Greetings,

If yesterday for me was a real low point, today has been a high point. Yesterday I was frustrated and disappointed by students who didn't care, who didn't take learning seriously, and who taunted each other through Facebook (certainly a questionable development in the lives of human adolescents!). After work I discovered that our replacement credit cards had been sent to a US address and then replacements for those were not a day or two away but 2-4 weeks away. The USAA credit card representative unfortunately had to bear the brunt of my fairly challenging day. Finally, burned popcorn for a family movie night triggered a smoke/fire alarm that can only be shut off by the fire department. After several calls and nearly 15 minutes of waiting outside, they arrived in the fire truck, typed in a code, and silence finally ensued.

Today, however, was a new day. I attended one of the best yoga classes ever with an instructor from India. Though not permitted to teach co-ed classes, he has been permitted to teach a female class, which is widely popular because he's so good. I left class feeling somewhat rejuvenated. In the afternoon, the boys each competed in their first-ever swimming races and each performed well considering it was their first. They may have been disappointed not to win, but having never trained before, they swam remarkably.

Finally, we enjoyed a wonderful home dinner and then ... cookie-making for David's birthday at the beach tomorrow. Making cookies with kids must be, if you are in the mood, one of the funniest endeavors. Hayden, ever eager to help with cooking and baking, grabbed the eggs to break into the bowl. He kept trying one egg over and over, until finally David said, "Hey, that egg is hardboiled." Next try, the egg broke all over the counter without one drop going into the bowl. The next two were successfully added to the batter. I had to do a continual dance in the kitchen trying to keep the boys' fingers from the batter. Remember being young and thinking, "When I am a grown-up, I am going to make a batch of batter and eat it all?" I thought that. I never did it, but tonight I remembered wanting to. The cookies are done, a few less than anticipated, but no real loss. Many laughs and good memories instead.

Now ... for the writing of progress reports. Sigh.

Thanks for reading. Jennifer

Thinking, Learning, Reading

2010-04-06T11:54:00.002+03:00

Greetings,
One of the hardest things, at least for me, is teaching those kids who just don't care about learning. What is it that happens - or does not happen - in the life of a child who, by the age of 12, does not care to learn anything new, does not care to read, does not ask questions, or desire to know? What has happened in the lives of other kids who inquire, who read, who ask, who try, who want to learn new things? Is it possible to get a kid who does not want to learn to want to learn?

Hmmmmm.

More on Bangkok

2010-04-05T05:47:00.006+03:00

Greetings,

Hayden has already written some about Thailand, but I just have to write about one of my favorite places. It was so amazing to be 'back home', and even though we went to Koh Samui last year and I love it there as well, Bangkok was where I really lived for nearly two years.

The NESA educators' conference was at the Royal Orchid Sheraton, which is located by the Chao Praya River - not at all the area in which I lived. It was a wonderful opportunity to take David and the boys to my two favorite wats, or temples, in Bangkok. We went to Wat Po, with the largest beautiful golden reclining Buddha. I was reminded of the specialness of Thai temples: in the midst of a bustling metropolis, the temple remains quiet and peaceful, a place of contemplation. Next we crossed the river on another river shuttle to Wat Arun, the Temple of Dawn. Because it's across the river, it's even more quiet and peaceful, though beautiful with small pieces of tile decorating the stupas and temple structures.

On Sunday the conference ended in the early afternoon, and we took a river shuttle to the skytrain station which then took us to the largest outdoor weekend market that I have ever heard of: Chatuchak. There you can buy leather bags, t-shirts, Thai ceramics, kittens and rabbits and other 'pets', food (of course), all kinds of Thai handicrafts and gifts, CDs and DVDs, clothing ... just about everything. Apparently, no one really knows exactly how many stalls bargain and sell products in the market's mazes, but it's around 10,000. The boys were, I think, amazed and intrigued. Hayden chose a wall hanging for his room,

and Logan chose a colorful elephant. We all stopped and ate pineapple from the various sellers in the market and later had banana smoothies while watching market/street musicians. It was hot but invigorating, particularly for me. I loved being able to speak Thai again, bargaining with people and chatting away. I hope that for the boys seeing me speak Thai and David French they will be inspired to learn another language some day, perhaps continuing with Arabic!

We found some great restaurants where we ate lots of pork, rice, noodles, curries, vegetables, and amazingly sweet fruit - dragonfruit, mango, pineapple, watermelon ... We ate my favorite - sticky rice, grilled pork, and raw papaya salad - at street restaurants on several occasions. We finally were able to find the boys' favorite Thai specialty: mangoes with sticky rice and coconut milk. Thai people have truly mastered the art of food. It's everywhere, it's inexpensive, and it's mouth-wateringly delicious!

We took an afternoon trip by train to Ayuthaya where we wandered around the ruins of an ancient powerful civilization and another day we hired a taxi to take us to the famous floating market at Damuen Saduak. We hired a small boat to take us through the market, marveling at the shops along the canals, the boat traffic jams, and, again, the incredible food options.

We were grateful to have the opportunity to attend an inspiring conference with helpful sessions in one of our favorite cities. Thanks for reading. Jennifer

Culture in Thailand from Hayden

2010-04-02T10:30:00.003+03:00

Hello!

We just got back from another trip to Thailand. This time we went to Bangkok. I had a great time. It is a little noisier than Samui Island, but it is good in different ways. Some of the things I really noticed about Bangkok was the people. A lot of them are very poor and barely making it but they are all very nice. If you ask them a question like "where is the bathroom"? Instead of just vaguely pointing in some direction they will actually stop and say "the bathroom is down there. You should see a sign". A lot of them don't speak english so were all lucky that my mom speaks Thai pretty well. I love listening to her bargain to the tuk tuk drivers, who always try to charge more to westerners then Thais. Another thing I noticed about Thailand was the culture. When I went out on my outing to the amusement park with a bunch of other kids my age. The group was totally run by Thais and they were really nice. Some of the rides we went to I didn't really want to do because they were upside-down and really fast and instead of trying to make me do them they just said okay and waited with you. In other places they would try to persuade you do the ride even if you didn't feel comfortable doing it. I don't really like being forced to do things so I was glad that the instructors didn't do that. When I was there I made a few friends. One was Ian and one was another boy named Hayden. They were both 9 and both from the U.S. I would highly recommend going there if you haven't yet. Also, since there is no pork in Saudi Arabia I tried to eat it as much as possible!

Thank you for reading this!

Hayden

Making music at KAUST

2010-03-20T04:48:00.003+03:00

Greetings,

Childhood included much music for me, from piano lessons very early in life, to solo and orchestral violin a a bit later. From about nine years of age, Interlochen's music camp spelled many happy summers, first as camper and then as a counselor. After a hiatus, the violin found its way back into hands and heart again at college and then, sporadically, with various students over the past two decades, often through duets or trios... or even via the absolutely ridiculous playing of Pop Goes the Weasel with students singing the quadratic formula.

Music, almost any kind of music, seemed on a too distant horizon when we arrived at KAUST now nine months ago. Illusive is perhaps a word that might best describe music's role here. And, besides, we had a school to start, two sons to look after, and various other commitments.

Yet music, or at least the desire to make music, is a very natural and wholly human faculty, and before too long I was asking around to see who played what and if there might be a possibility of creating an informal chamber group. Fortunately, we have a person on campus with a wonderful musical background in viola, and an evangelical bent to further music's cause, played or heard.

About three months ago this woman drove over to our house, pulled out two music stands, a number of duets for violin and viola, and before I could get nervous was having me play all sorts of pieces with her. That impromptu tryout led to a later formation of a chamber group consisting of a string bass, a cello, two violas, and four violins. We practice just once a week, and often sound like we do, but it has been an increasing pleasure to be able to play in a group once again. The added bonus is that I've found our stone-floored house and its attached huge garage to be great practice places (though not necessarily able to increase practice frequency), making me sound much more rich and melodic in tone than I deserve.

A week or so back our informal group even gave a small concert, in our music director's house, which happens to have a huge gallery-like grand entrance, perfect for a small chamber music gathering. So, just like in the old days, we each invited a few friends to attend, and shared a relaxing evening of music, with cookies and juice for both big and little kids afterwards!

The plan is to work up a more extensive set of pieces and play in a public venue before the end of the school year. In the meantime, I'm beginning to think that the battered violin case I've had since childhood may soon need replacing. Old violins may be worth something; the same can't be said for sad-looking cases!

Thanks for reading,

David

Logan and Curling

2010-03-16T14:23:00.002+03:00

Hello all,
We were able to watch only some of the Olympics on a station that seemed to just have a camera set out somewhere to record whatever was happening. During the half-times, we just saw ice. Still, we saw some events, particularly from 3 a.m onward, and the final hockey game was shown completely - with lots of rivalry between various faculty members. Boy, did that generate some competitive emails.

The best part, though, was watching curling with Logan. David had just come in from a bike ride early one morning and Logan and I were watching the Olympics. The camera had just switched from amazing ice skating to curling. Logan said, "No Daddy, it's not on yet. They are just cleaning the ice." Actually, it was in full competitive mode at that moment.

Enjoy. Thanks for reading. More soon.

KAUST Activities

2010-03-10T06:09:00.005+03:00

Greetings,

In the last several weeks here at KAUST, many new places have opened up. After many long months of waiting, we are able to go swimming in the lovely, newly opened pools. There was initially a male pool, which can be seen from the bowling alley and some apartments across the canal, and then a female pool, which is outside but behind a tall wall and so is hidden from view. There is also a children's pool, but it is out by the male pool. After a few days and several comments by community members, the male pool became the family pool during most of the day time hours, allowing women to be able to swim with their children. This has been wonderful for so many people. Often Logan enjoys jumping into the pool for a bit, usually surrounded by friends and classmates, in the afternoon when I pick him up. We are so grateful that our boys are such strong swimmers!

A week later, the beach also opened up. (Photo above is actually from our recent trip to Oman, and, therefore, shows the beach of the Arabian Sea rather than the Red Sea.) Trucks and trucks of sand were brought in to create a sandy beach where there not had been one, and last weekend we headed out there to enjoy a swim, some sunshine, and reggae music. Kayaks and pedal boats are also available to rent, so I am hoping that we get into kayaking - something that we can easily continue when we head home to Seattle. Below the surface of the water at the beach is a dead coral reef, so water shoes are a must, but the water itself is crystal clear and refreshingly cool this time of year. By August? It may feel like a bath. For now, the beach is open only on weekends, which probably works fine since not many people would make it out there during the week.

Hayden has been taking some golf lessons and seems to really be enjoying his time golfing with David. He also gets to drive the golf cart, which is always a thrill. David and I are on a bowling team with two other colleagues. Once a month, all the teams get together and bowl against another teacher/staff member/spouse team of four. As far as I can tell, nearly no one practices much between games, and few of us are fantastic bowlers, so we have a lot of laughs and high-fives for the random strike or spare. (Sadly for me, we are not allowed the gutter barriers during the games, which I benefit from when I bowl with the boys.) Logan loves the pool and the climbing gym and biking up and down our flat quiet street with many other kids in the afternoons.

Tomorrow starts our weekend. David is off to CPR training in Jeddah. Just after the Dec/Jan break, one of our staff members collapsed from a heart attack and was kept alive through CPR given by another colleague. When this teacher eventually was rushed to the KAUST clinic, stabilized and then ultimately transported to the international hospital in Jeddah, no one was sure of his status, but he is now alive and well and back to teaching. Everyone has been so grateful to have this amazing and engaging colleague back at school. As a result, many of us were reminded of our lapsed certification in CPR and are wanting to update. My turn is the following weekend.

Thanks for reading. Jennifer

Bike Races at KAUST

2010-03-05T14:53:00.003+03:00

Greetings,

A first year on a brand new campus includes many inaugural events, with each one catering to as much of community as it can. Yesterday's bike races and family fun activities were just that, providing another "first" for KAUST. Naturally, planning and safely undertaking a day of bike races and other activities takes countless hours, but in the end, as the 120 or so kids involved finished one of the three age-group races, the smiles and looks of satisfaction provided all the evidence needed to gauge the day's success.

In truth, the day began inauspiciously. The afternoon before, a group of us had carefully placed 40 straw bales at each of the four corners on the race course, hoping to soften the crash of any errant rider by covering the base of trees, posts, hydrants inadvertently positioned to the outside of the course's corners.

As you might gather, straw isn't a huge commodity in this part of the world - indeed, I've yet to see anything remotely approaching straw growing anywhere nearby - so weeks in advance the straw had to be ordered and, given the tight security at the campus perim

eter, the truck driver hauling the bales to campus had to be escorted from the campus commercial entrance to the race venue by one of the event organizers. So, that night we left the course with significantly safer corners, now ready to complete the next big task: putting up 4 km of police tape early the next morning in order to fully secure both sides of the 2 km race loop.

Imagine our surprise the next morning when we all showed up to put up the tape to find that our carefully placed bales had all disappeared; even the loose straw had been swept away. Minutes later it was confirmed that a fastidious campus cleaning crew had come through sometime in the night and had apparently seen the stacked bales as just a larger job than usual, and now our bales were in the landfill! I quickly called a teaching colleague, arranged to have a large load of gymnastics crash pads brought over from the school, and before the first race went off the corners were safe once again.

After the races, I chanced meeting a large contingent of Chinese graduate students from KAUST. They had come for the 30 minute race for anyone 17 or older and were visibly excited about having ridden in their first race and, like true learners, were trying to soak up as much as they could about bike racing and training from the old guy. We had a short chat, during which they asked if I might ride with a group of them from time to time to help them improve their riding skills while I, noting their interest in my descriptions of the math classes at Harbor Secondary School and sure of their extensive math backgrounds as doctoral candidates in the hard sciences, eagerly invited them to join our weekly math team meetings.

As I walked slowly back to my bike, a palpable feeling of community and shared mission swept over me. About 120 kids had biked in their first bike races that day, many of them wearing a bike helmet for the first time in their lives. A modestly dressed girl with a head scarf (under a helmet!) had won the girl's division of the 13 - 16 year-old race. Not many bike races can make that claim!

Thanks for reading,

David

Vacuum Bags Part 3 - Dubai

2010-02-28T14:42:00.002+03:00

Hello all.

As many of you have apparently read about my vacuum bag saga, which I know because I have received many comments and suggestions, I will update you on the situation. Several people sent me links to sites online where vacuum bags may be ordered. For some odd and unexplainable reason, Siemens vacuum bags, at least the very ones I needed, were never to be found on any sites that I could find. Out of desperation, I finally sent an email to Siemens in Europe. A week later I got a response from a manager of a shop in Dubai where the vacuum bags I needed could actually be purchased. And, incredibly enough, he told which of the many numbers and codes on the vacuum booklet and the vacuum itself would, in fact, tell the shop personnel the exact bags I needed. (It is a precise number on the bottom of the vacuum and not at all the ones listed in the vacuum brochure.)

As it turns out, I was planning to go to Dubai this very weekend for an International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program (IB - MYP) training. I emailed the guy at the shop and asked if he could deliver the bags to my hotel. He said they did not do deliveries but that the bags were in stock in the shop. I emailed bag a very short description of my frustration and inability to find these bags anywhere and asked again for them to be delivered. He finally agreed, but it turns out I needed to head to the mall anyway, the famous Mall of the Emirates, so I took a cab and went there. Now, I have been dealing with this issue for about five months, though I mostly try not to think of it since it's not so important, truly, in the greater scheme of things, but as I was walking toward the shop in this very large and exquisite Dubai mall, I actually felt nervous. I walked in and asked for the bags I needed and - I am not joking - the man who worked there said that they were out because someone earlier that day had purchased them all! As Hayden would say, "What are the odds of that?" I nearly screamed but instead I just sat down. Eventually, I realized that he was the man with whom I had been in contact and he vaguely knew of my difficulties. He was able to sell me "permanent bags," which can be easily emptied out and reused, and he found two disposable ones floating around "in the back." I bought all the permanent ones they had, which are supposed to last at least six months but for us will probably last a lot longer, took the free ones and thanked the man. I assume they will work - and you will no longer read about vacuum bags on our blog.

On another note, there is, in fact, an indoor ski hill at the Mall of the Emirates. I did not believe it really, when people told me about it, but I went and watched people ski, snowboard, and sled on a hill inside this desert country. It was bizarre - but it did look fun!

Dubai is somewhat similar to Muscat, Oman, but very much more urban with more tall skyscrapers; in fact, the now-tallest building in the world, the Burj Calipha, is here in Dubai. The training has been mind-filling and overwhelming at times but also very useful and helpful. I head back home tonight, and I can't wait to see my three boys!

Thanks for reading. Jennifer

Oman from Hayden

2010-02-21T15:07:00.002+03:00

Hello!
We just got back from Oman. It was an amazing trip! Muscat is beautiful. The streets are lined with flowers and the mosques are brilliant! The mosques there are huge, beautiful buildings. One of the things I liked most about Muscat is the smell. Muscat smells wonderful! When people are done with their garbage they throw it into a trash can and not onto the sidewalk. Also, the flowers that line the street smell very nice. Their smell is all over the city. You can smell it even when you're inside a building! Our hotel was really nice, with a fifty foot ceiling and eight floors, when you walk into it for the first time it feels like you're in a castle. My brother and I loved to gaze up at the ceiling. The pool was nice too. When we were there we saw the Tour of Oman. My dad was really excited because he had not seen a bike race in a while. He got to talk to a professional rider from Washington state! We had this really nice taxi driver who took us around to see a couple different spots where the bike race came through. Thank you for reading this!
Hayden

The Book Bowl

2010-02-16T13:32:00.003+03:00

Greetings all,
As in any school, the love of or appreciation for books and reading varies greatly among our students. Some come from a background of childhood bedtime stories and some do not; some enjoy reading during free time and some probably have rarely ever read an entire book; some read well and some do not. Our librarian and two teachers have organized an amazing program called the Book Bowl. All students are organized into Book Bowl teams which consist of grade 6-12 students and two teachers. We meet together three times a week to read books which have been selected by the organizers of the Book Bowl. The themes of the books center around the UN Millennium Development Goals - improving maternal and child health, increasing literacy globally, better access to immunizations, environmental awareness, population issues - but the books are high interest and widely acclaimed novels. The books span the spectrum of the reading and language abilities of our students, so that all students can read at least one book. It's been exciting to see more students reading around school, to see students returning books finished and checking out new ones, and to sit and read in a class for 15 minutes together. We hope that more students will realize the wonderful pleasure that can be gained from books and stories, that language and vocabulary will be richer, and that students will begin to understand some global issues and concerns through well-written books. So far, I would say, it's been quite successful.

In thinking about how many of us became passionate about books and stories, I thought that I would read aloud children's picture books to my grade 7 students. The illustrations are colorful and sometimes funny, the language is rich, and the stories easy to grasp on various levels. We have talked a lot about aspects of children's books, and now the students are writing their own children's books which they will revise together, edit together, illustrate in art class, and ultimately share with the preschool and kindergarten students. Some students are writing ABC Books with Arabic translations, which will be wonderful to share with the younger students whose primary language is Arabic. Another student is telling a story through the voice of a hawk his family rescued and raised during the summer. One student is writing about a princess and another is doing a book of emotions and faces. It's been really interesting to see what the students are coming up with since we have read story after story in class. The best part is to look at their faces while I read a picture book, see their focus, hear their laughter, and sense their enjoyment.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading. Jennifer

A Busy Cool Weekend

2010-02-06T13:14:00.005+03:00

Hello and greetings,
We have been a little remiss in blog entries lately - except for Hayden's recent one about David's golf - because we just finished up first semester which meant heavy grading, writing of report cards, and preparing for the new semester. Most of this last weekend was devoted to grades and reports. It takes many many hours.

David and Hayden did slip away in the morning on Friday for some golf. (Please read Hayden's very funny account of that!) We also had a teacher and staff get-together on Thursday night. It was held outside at the elementary school under a very nice covered area right next to the playground. The adults could eat. The kids could play, romp, and throw balls just far enough away not to hit anyone. It was awesome. We shared gifts that people had purchased over the December holidays for a secret other person in the school. Great barbecued food plus side dishes and salads and desserts, of course. It was amazing because it was actually cool. I wore a sweater and needed it on the way home. I was shocked. It was breezey and in the mid-high 60s. Quite different from much of the year when it ranges here from about 85-105. Even this morning when Hayden and I left for school in the cooler morning (about mid-60s), I laughed at Hayden because as we stepped outside he said, "It's freezing!" Ha.

While David and Hayden golfed, I took a break from reports and Logan and I made brownies. No matter where you live, if you can get the ingredients, brownies are a hit - whether cooked or not!

This semester I am teaching an exploratory class, like an elective, on Language Workshop. I am having the kids read - and practice reading - children's books with expression, clarity, and enunciation. Today was our first day. I read a children's picture book first, and the grade 7 boys were rapt! I guess you don't grow out of that. Eventually they are going to choose a picture book and make up a skit with it. Should be fun language practice!

Thanks for reading. More soon. Jennifer

The golf course, from Hayden

2010-02-05T13:08:00.003+03:00

Hello!

The 9-hole KAUST golf course is quite good for a brand new course. The driving range is really nice. It is almost never busy and it's all free. You don't even have to pay to play the course! The course is nice also. They have par threes, fours, and fives. Par means how many shots the pros usually need to complete the hole. My dad usually gets one or two over par, sometimes more. That means he's not very good. I have to try not to laugh at some of his shots. One time he got eleven on a par five. Now I don't think I can name anyone who does worse than that. Another thing my dad seems to do is hit the ball into sand traps a lot. So far he's never hit it into a lake but it's probably not going to be long before he does. I'm not allowed to play on the course yet, but I'm happy just being his caddy. I get to drive the cart, which is pretty fun. They go fast! I'm looking forward to my first lesson with the club pro. It's coming up later this week, and I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for reading this. Hayden

A Long Day ...

2010-01-26T20:56:00.002+03:00

Greetings,

Just thought I might give a synopsis of a typical day at KAUST. Today I got up about 5:40 a.m. (If inspired enough and not injured from following Hayden over ski jumps, I get up earlier and join a small running group of teachers once or twice a week.) I showered and dressed and headed downstairs for coffee and BBC news. Around 6:40, David woke up Hayden and Logan, got Logan dressed and ready, and the boys came downstairs for breakfast. Warmed by a sweatshirt for Logan and David's neon bike jacket for me, we headed off on the motorbike for Logan's classroom where we always read a book together before we start our separate days. Hugs and kisses first.

I teach first my advisory students who are currently mired in trying to figure out how to do a skit which shows risk-taking. They actually risk-take daily but can't really figure out how to present this. Next, I am off to the conference room for an 80 minute training on how to use the online library resources. Our library is phenomenal, which is wonderful for students and teachers alike. Next I teach my first 85 minute block - Grade 7 English. We are reading a novel about Afghanistan, having lots of discussions, practicing combining sentences without making run-ons, and studying children's picture books. The students are soon to start writing and illustrating their own picture books which we will eventually read to the preschool and kindergarten students. A quick lunch follows and then another 85 minute class - Grade 6 English. We are reading a novel about Egypt, which connects to their humanities class on Ancient Egypt, and they are writing ABC books about themselves which are due next week. They have had lots of time to write, revise, and edit with each other, but I am not sure how well the peer revising and editing has gone. Needs a lot more work, I suspect. After a quick break, I am off to teach Grade 7 girls' P.E. We go to the Harbor Rec Center across the street where they chat, run on treadmills, chat, ride stationary bikes, chat, do some stretching and strengthening with me, and chat some more. After we walked back today, I was responsible for monitoring after school detention for students who continually come late to school or class or who have other issues with homework or behavior. The students in detention have to sit in a very cold lunchroom without their laptops and without talking to anyone. They can read and do homework. I much prefer working after school in the learning center where we engage with students who choose to come for homework help or are told to come for homework help. Much more engaging.

End of school, I head back to the Rec Center to pick up Logan who has been playing there with his after school play group. We head home to meet Hayden who went for a bike ride after school and just finished his homework. Logan and I spend five minutes working on his beginning reading. Hayden checks his email. I start dinner - our favorite Hanoi Pasta (known by the name my friends and I called it when we lived in Hanoi and based on the ingredients we could get there). We sit to eat and watch Hayden have fifths! I clean up and David heads back to school for an evening parent meeting about report cards. The boys bathe and have stories or read and get to bed by 8 p.m.

Busy day. Sometimes it's hard to know if my students are really learning. Some days are so long, like this one, and some days are more reasonable. We have the BEST principal I have ever ever worked for. Really. And that helps so very much. She is wonderful - and from Seattle as well.

Finally, off to relax and get ready for bed. Tomorrow is Wednesday, our last day of the week, and David heads to Dubai for an Ultimate frisbee tournament for the weekend. The boys and I will relax and play. Maybe David will find those elusive vacuum bags ...

Thanks for reading.

Jennifer

The first race at kaust from Hayden

2010-01-21T17:33:00.006+03:00

Hello all,

Today was the first race ever at Kaust. It was a total blast. It wasn't too long and it wasn't too short. A lot of younger kids tried to compete but they went really hard in the start and then after a kilometer they were so tired they could barely move. I did not make the same mistake. I ended up passing all of those kids. My friend Colin did it with me too. We talked along the way. It made it go by much faster. The course was basically flat the whole time. It wasn't a really exciting course, but I still had a good time. All the Philippino workers watched in awe as we went by. You should have seen some of their faces. They act like they've never seen a running race before. Well, I guess most of them haven't, but still their faces acted like they thought we were from neptune. In the last kilometer I dropped Colin and managed to pass three people before the finish. When I did finish, my Dad was there and he urged me on. Apparently, I finished second in my category. The only person who managed to beat me was a high school boy who was really fast. My dad finished first though. He got a big trophy that said: Kaust first place. He let me hold it. My mom ran too. Thank you for reading this!

Hayden

Teaching at Harbor Secondary School

2010-01-19T20:13:00.002+03:00

Greetings all,

I have had many questions regarding the students, the school, and the teaching which I thought I might try to address. The greatest shock in the first couple of weeks for many teachers was the realization that we had significant numbers of students who knew virtually no English but were attending a school in which the primary language of instruction is English. There were many frustrations initially, some of which continue at times, but I was realizing today that several of our students have made huge strides in English in just thirteen weeks of school. On the first day, for example, I had one 7th grade boy who could not say, "Hello, my name is ..." Today, though, he was able to explain to me that he reads a lot of books in Arabic and that he likes to read (!) but that he is slow in English. This from the boy who appeared to opt out mentally of all things at school in the beginning. Another day he asked if I could send an email explaining the homework to his mother because they were going to work on it together. When I responded that I would be happy to do that, he smiled at me and said, "Thank you, Mrs. Evans." Remarkable and impressive. This boy, I understand from our Arabic instructor, is a top student in that class - always does his homework, always polite and respectful. I realize that in my class when he does not do homework, it's because he simply did not understand me. He's really trying - and many teachers have noticed.

In my classes, I teach about 12 boys and girls together for world geography and English. In the 7th grade P.E. class, I teach only girls - twelve of them. We have access to the gym with the windows covered so the girls can play sports without fear of being seen. The girls love to play tag and running games, but we have also done units on fitness, badminton, and floor hockey. Sometimes we use the new Harbor Recreation Center where they can use the female gym for organized fitness classes (Jennifer's version of yoga and strength training), treadmills, and training bikes - or they can bowl. We are trying for more of the former. One day the rec center was experiencing water leakage issues and flooding, despite the dry weather, so we had to play basketball outside. For some of the girls with their head scarves and abayas, this was stressful until one girl called her mom to be sure it was okay. Then they relaxed, practiced tossing and passing the ball, and shot at the basket. By the end, most of the girls said it was really fun.

In the humanities class, we have been reading about Incan civilization as a precursor to student research projects and presentations on ancient civilizations of their choice. I have been thrilled to observe the mixture of students discussing questions from the readings (words that people don't understand) and trying to figure out what is important to know. The progress is startling when I remember that it has not even been half of a year.

Our own children are also maturing well. I know that we are throwing a bit of a kink in their lives by pulling up stakes from home and moving, but I have also seen growth in them that I might not have seen at home. Hayden is understanding and aware of the language developing in some of his classmates and he is becoming a leader in his class academically. He is also proud of his improving skills in Arabic. We have lots of younger kids around on our block, and often I see Hayden outside helping a younger boy with his scooter or starting a game of tag with several five-year olds. Logan just seems generally happy with life. He is beginning to read some words, sounding them out little by little, and he is quite pleased with himself. Both boys are good cyclists, getting plenty of practice on these flat streets (as opposed to the steep hills of Seattle), and developing as inline skaters!

Thanks for reading. Sorry if this is too long. Jennifer

Skiing by Logan

2010-01-15T11:02:00.004+03:00

Greetings,
My grandma and grandpa paid for me to have ski lessons in Austria. I am really good now. I learned how to do jumps, and I liked to go fast. It was really fun because there were lots of really steep slopes. I saw lots of other really really good skiers who looked like they skied a lot. And also I got to go really fast sometimes, but the nice thing about learning is that you get to go slow also. And it was so cold that on the last day I had to wear more than I usually wear, and I got some new mittens that were really nice. I learned how to ski on the little kid hill, but then I got to go to Rosschute and the six-person chairlift and the gondola. There was a funicular that was just a little train that went up to the lodge at the top, and they had a little kid play area inside. I loved it so much that I want to go there again.

I really liked the Austria food that they had there. I liked the frankfurters with catsup and french fries and the chocolate croissants.

And the ice skating was really fun but it was hard. I fell down sometimes.

Thanks for reading my blog, Logan

The Vacuum Bag Saga Part II

2010-01-12T20:48:00.002+03:00

Greetings,

I did not really expect to write about our vacuum bag issues on a blog, but the issues continue, so I have to continue the story.

"Austria. Next to Germany. Home of Siemens products, including our vacuum. Perfect," I think. Ha. I carefully write down our specific type of vacuum. After Christmas day in Seefeld, Austria, our home for two weeks, I meander into a small appliance type shop which sells expensive clocks, espresso makers, hair dryers, and vacuums, among other things. I buy two alarm clocks - radio-controlled which are not, in turns out, radio-controllable in Saudi Arabia (though we can manually set them) - and a travel hair dryer. I ask about vacuum bags. "Oh yes, I have Siemens bags," replied the saleswoman. "What type of vacuum do you have?" I slowly take out my notebook and show her what I have written down. It's the wrong information. "There is a small number on the bottom of your vacuum. I need that to know which kind of bag. Do you have your vacuum?"

Right. I always carry my *@*# vacuum when I travel. "No, I didn't bring the vacuum with me. I live in the Middle East."

"Oh, too bad," she says, looking truly sad. I ask her if she might be able to make a call to check for me on which bags are needed. She hesitates but comes around eventually and tells me that she will call when Siemens re-opens on January 5. We leave on January 6. No time to order.

We go to Innsbruck. I take my notebook with my list, just in case. We buy some court shoes for us and Hayden and inline skates for Logan, have a great lunch, and leave the restaurant just as all shops close for New Years Eve at 2:00 p.m. Fair enough. It's a holiday. We enjoy Innsbruck's incredible beauty, festive lights and trees, and forget vacuum bags.

Our final day, we leave Seefeld early to catch a train to Munich, hoping to have two hours to quickly find and buy a few items we need but have a hard time finding in Jeddah. We get up early, take a lovely train to Innsbruck, get on the ICE train to Munich and sit back with a beautiful breakfast in the dining car. The boys are truly impressed. Hot chocolate. Eggs. Bread. On a stunning train going 155 km/hour. Wow. We get to Munich with few winter clothes on, mostly packed, knowing we are heading soon to Jeddah. It is FREEZING. Seriously cold. And all shops - I mean ALL shops - are closed for Three Kings Day. I had no idea that Bavaria celebrated a day in honor of the three kings who were at Jesus's birth. The church bells are going crazy, and we slip into a huge cathedral to enjoy the choir, the warmth, a sermon given in German with a welcome to the congregation in English, Spanish, and Italian. The music is phenomenal and the cathedral is breathtaking. After some time we head back outside. It's even colder. We head back to the train station, passing by a large beautiful store with MY vacuum in the window. Closed. The train to the Munich airport goes right past a stop named for Siemens products. Sigh. I am just not destined to get these bags. I guess it's time to empty the bag again - or buy a broom.

Thanks for reading. Jennifer

Nordic or alpine?

2010-01-08T16:08:00.007+03:00

Greetings,

As one who grew up downhill skiing with my family and taking the Winter Park ski bus on Saturdays, it was with such pride and pleasure that I was able to ski with our boys in Seefeld, Austria. When in Seattle, we went to the Kongsberger ski club Nordic trails nearly every weekend throughout the winter. As members of the club, we enjoyed the cabin, the friends, and the sauna available there. The boys spent many hours being pulled in a ski sled (when they were little), Nordic skiing, sledding, or having snowball fights at the cabin. In Seefeld, however, they were interested in trying more alpine skiing, which they had sampled in Leavenworth and Snoqualmie Pass. Signed up for lessons, they quickly developed their strength and coordination as alpine skiers. The first day, Logan needed help to ski down the beginners' slope, but by the end of our trip, he was able to ski down longer steeper intermediate slopes tha

t his older brother liked. Hayden, on the other hand, had moved on up to even higher elevations and longer slopes at Rosschute. David and I took turns skiing with them when they were not in their lessons, and I remembered skiing at Winter Park with my parents when I was young. It was thrilling, though a ski jump wipe-out reminded me that following Hayden over jumps no longer seemed to be such a good idea!

Each day we picked up our rental equipment and headed to the ski bus or let the boys go to their lessons and then we headed to the Nordic runs. Growing up as an alpine skier, I have had a slow transition to Nordic - it's hard work, I have to ski up hill, and there are no chairlifts. However, on this trip I realized that though I enjoy skiing alpine with the boys, I truly love Nordic more. The boots are more comfortable, I always stay warm, and it's great exercise. Nonetheless, I am so grateful for the opportunity to do both.

We did take the boys Nordic skiing one morning and after Hayden started getting the feeling back, he also admitted that he enjoyed it and that though he had not always wanted to go to the cabin in Seattle, he was really appreciative of the fact that he could do both types of skiing well. Logan struggled with Nordic at first, but after a while he started striding and

swinging his arms and moving fast. Huge smiles! He too was proud of his accomplishments.

When we first arrived in Munich, we had to wait for a late-arriving train to take us to Seefeld. We gradually started pulling out more and more winter clothes - hats, jackets, mittens, boots - until Hayden was pretty sure we would soon be lugging along empty suitcases. While shivering on the train platform, Hayden said, "I am so cold my bones are freezing together. I wish I were back in Jeddah." We did not let him forget that statement.

One particular ski afternoon was frustrating for Logan who was trying so hard to ski fast without falling. He fell yet again and said to me, "I don't know why I fell down because I am already really good." Skiing fast was his main goal. My main goal was for him to ski in control. We worked on combining the two!

Seefeld was festively decorated for the holidays with sparkling lights and trees all over town. We loved being there, eating lovely foods and drinks that are not necessarily available in Saudi Arabia. We rented a two bedroom apartment with a kitchen and a living room, so we could cook many meals 'at home.' Returning each day, it really did feel like home.

Thanks for reading. Jennifer

A Skier's Paradise

2010-01-07T17:29:00.003+03:00

Those who know us even just a little are probably aware of how much we like to ski. Indeed, skiing, personally and professionally, has informed a large part of my life over the last decade or so, and as our boys have gotten older and stronger the family side of skiing has gotten more fun.

The family fun factor hit new heights in Seefeld, Austria in the Tyrolian Alps recently when, in two snow-packed weeks, we fit in all the great times we normally have over the course of an entire winter, and then some. While the boys were in alpine lessons most mornings at one of the four alpine venues within shouting distance of downtown, their dad, with occasionally Jennifer as well, was having the time of his life on some of the 260 km of cross country trails in and around Seefeld, home to more than a few of Austria's World Cup thoroughbreds and site of one of the coolest Nordic ski shops anywhere.

Incidentally, Seefeld has hosted the Nordic competitions of not one, but two, Olympic games ('64 and '76) and has also hosted many a World Cup Nordic event, so it's putting mildly to say Seefeld knows free-heel skiing. Heck, we even found out that World Cup downhill titan Lindsay Vonn (who learned to ski on Minnesota bumps) loves the slopes of Seefeld and often uses it as her home away from home when in the Alps, so it's not just Nordic skiing that works its magic in Seefeld.

Anyway, one morning I'd come in and ask for skate ski gear, whereupon the young man who happily greeted me each day would suit me up with the latest, fanciest gear I'd ever been on. The next morning I'd hit the trails on superb classic gear, freshly and perfectly waxed for that day's ski conditions.

Once on the trails, there were short, medium, and long options, and flat all the way to anything but flat variants of each. Modest roller skiing at sea level in Saudi Arabia had not quite prepared me for the shock of daily, often very hilly skis at 1200 - 1600m altitude, but eventually the body was bludgeoned into some form of ski shape and ultimately craved the next day's permutation of trails.

In true Austrian form, no matter the trail, a skier is never more than 10K from the next restaurant or cafe, ready to administer to every possible solid or liquid caloric need; it's impossible to get lost - just follow your nose to the schnitzel and strudel!

Thanks for reading, David

Happy Holidays

2009-12-22T20:32:00.003+03:00

Greetings Friends and Family,

We just finished up our 11th week of school with a touching and thoughtful awards ceremony focusing on one of the IB learner profile characteristics: inquirer. The teachers chose a boy and a girl from each grade who most represented the qualities of being an inquirer - interest in learning, asking questions, eager to pursue knowledge. With no Christmas pageants, celebrations, gifts, or baking, this was a mellower week than pre-Christmas weeks I remember from home. All the teachers do have a secret person for which to choose a simple gift over the holidays, to be shared upon our return.

We leave for Austria tomorrow, where we have rented an apartment outside of Innsbruck in a town called Seefeld. We hope to do some skiing, snowball fighting, cooking, sipping of wine, celebrating of the holiday, and purchasing of vacuum bags. The boys are very excited.

We recently were able to do another trip on the KAUST boat which takes us out into the Red Sea for swimming and snorkeling. Hayden was lucky enough to get to drive the boat.

After work one day, I was making dinner, David was grading papers, Hayden was doing homework, and Logan decided to play dress-up from the many clothes in piles around the house. He was quite thrilled with his creations.

We are getting mail now - regular mail through the post! Write letters and / or send photos of you and your families. Always fun to see!

We wish you all a very happy and peaceful holiday season, wherever you may be, and hope you have time to reflect on the value of family and friends.

Thanks for reading - Jennifer

A Vacuum Story

2009-12-20T19:31:00.002+03:00

Hello Friends and Family,

We are very busy finishing our final week before we have two weeks off for the December holidays. Very exciting time. Tests. Grading. Final written papers. Projects. Listening to Christmas music in the cafe. Shopping for vacuum bags.

When we finally moved into our house, we ultimately decided that a small vacuum would be helpful for cleaning our floors, particularly for vacuuming up the ants and dust that seem to come into the house. One weekend shopping spree in Jeddah, David and I split up to divide and conquer. He ended up with the list that included the vacuum. He was awesome. He got a great small, quiet vacuum made by Siemens, a good product. It came with one vacuum bag. One. The department store that sells the vacuums does not/is not allowed to sell more bags. We were told we had to go to the Siemens store. There is one - in all of Jeddah. We went several weeks later on a Friday, the holy day. It was closed, even after five in the evening when many stores opened. Another time, Hayden and I went to Jeddah for errands on a Thursday. The store was closed - and didn't look likely to open in the hours we were standing outside. I tried one other time. Not open. I checked online. One Siemens store. In all of Jeddah. I took the evening bus with some friends last week, partly to go to the Siemens store for these bags and partly to shop for some Christmas presents, a rather odd combination I might add. (I have already once pulled all of the gunk out of the bag in order to keep reusing it. It was an unpleasant but not impossible experience.) That evening, we were stuck in traffic and finally got to our destination ... just as the call to prayer sounded and all stores closed. As the prayer time ended, I checked Siemens. Closed. I returned one hour later. Open. I could not believe it. I entered the store nervously, fearing it would close again as I opened the door. I told the very nice man what I needed. "Oh, you are unlucky," he said. "We are out of those bags." I nearly screamed. I explained that I lived in Thuwal and he said, "Let me have your number, and I will maybe bring you some when I have to head that way." No such luck yet.

Happy Day. We will try to write again soon. A holiday message!

Thanks for reading, Jennifer

Grocery Store Opens

2009-12-10T13:59:00.006+03:00

Greetings all,

This last week saw us all busy back at work and in school, missing the pristine and calming aquamarine waters of Koh Samui, the aromas of grilled seafood and steaming bowls of jasmine rice, fragrant coconut oil massages, the peaceful and soothing sounds of the waves on the beach, the laughter and calls of the boys in the pool, and, for Hayden, heaping piles of bacon for breakfast.

This week we taught classes, played at the recreation center, and discovered that the large new supermarket had finally opened. It's called Tamimi Market, but, somehow it's also a Safeway. It's excellent, and you cannot imagine how thrilling it is to stroll through the aisles of a large supermarket, knowing that those items are now available five minutes from our home instead of 75 kilometres. We can now buy, here in our community, Tillamook cheeses, parmes

an cheese, coffee, fresh lettuce and greens, frozen organic pizzas, Argentinian beef and lean freshly ground hamburger, all manner of toiletries, raw and roasted nuts of many types, baguettes and rolls, boxed brownie mixes, granola bars and Cheetos (Hayden hopes), and most other items we might find in a grocery store in the U.S. The manager promises that canned pumpkin is soon to come, so we might actually have pumpkin pies and muffins. The mini-mart was doing its best with essentials, but this is truly helpful and will mean we do not need to go to Jeddah to buy food.

Just returned home from a shower for a 20-something colleague who is getting married in Connecticut in December. David is heading to a men's tool shower for this woman's husband-to-be, also a colleague. Among us women, there was a lot of laughter about the tool shower, wondering how much fun the men would have compared to us. I doubt if their cake, should they have one, will look like the cake I just enjoyed! One of the gift ideas was for each person to bring a Christmas ornament for this couple, and they received - like David and I did at our wedding - an amazing assortment of ornaments from Oman, Istanbul, Jordan, London, Italy, Thailand, Starbucks, and even the Jeddah Marriott!

Love to all and thanks for reading,

Jennifer

Thailand from Hayden

2009-12-05T06:24:00.002+03:00

Hello!

We just got back from Thailand, and we had a great time! One of my favorite things about the trip was the great food. Kowneeo mamuang was my favorite. It is a dessert, of course! It is mango with sticky rice and coconut sauce. It is very very good. My Mom has been telling me stories about it since I was 4 years old. I'm glad I finally got to try it. I think the best place to get it is the resort we were staying at. The food there was spectacular! We went out to a couple of other restaurants in town, but my favorite by far was our own resort. My whole family agreed that the best restaurant in town was probably our resort. Another thing I like about Thailand is that the people there are so nice. When we come to have dinner they push you in, and put your napkin in your lap for you, they even talk to you and ask you how you like the food, and they talk with Logan and me too. One guy asked me where I was from, another asked me what my name was, another asked me if I liked soccer, one even asked me if I was Thai. I told him that I was not. The last thing that I want to tell you about is the transportation. On Samui island there are no hummers, no big huge 4 by 4s. I didn't even see one big truck. The average vehicle is actually a 10 year rusty old motor bike. There must be almost 50,ooo of them just on one island. Thank you for reading this!

Hayden

Logan's blog entry

2009-12-04T11:58:00.010+03:00

Hello all. Below is Logan's blog, written directly and exactly from Logan's letter to a friend in Seattle:

"I went to Thailand. It was really nice. I love the food. I just wish I could stay there because I lived right on the beach! My favorite food there

was fried rice and mangos. I think you would also like it if you came there. The mangos are really sweet. I also loved to play on the beach. There was also a pool there that I had a lot of fun in. But then I had to leave. I wasn't happy when I had to leave because Thailand is so nice. I also learned a little bit of Thai. I think I wanted to stay there longer, even though KAUST is a little bit nice. I had to go on a lot of airplanes. In Thailand I even saw somebody stick his head in a crocodile's mouth and he even put his hand in also and he put his hand in the crocodile's huge throat."

Logan also said that Thailand was his new favorite place, which I, of course, don't mind hearing.

We were so grateful for this opportunity for travel over the Thanksgiving holiday and the Muslim Eid.

Thanks for reading. Logan (and Mom)

Bits and Pieces

2009-11-25T05:54:00.005+03:00

Greetings,

We were awakened this morning around 5 a.m. by a vaguely familiar noise - thunder, accompanied by flashes of lightening. As I sat at the computer a bit later to check email, I suddenly heard pouring rain on our front patio and David and I raced outside to stare in awe at - rain! It must be sympathy rain for our friends in Seattle who write frequently about rain. And like our Seattle home's leaking (but soon-to-be-fixed) windows, we hear dripping in the kitchen and are, simply, hesitant to look. The housing 'help desk', the infamous 959, will probably be inundated with phone calls today about leaks in houses. Another huge crash of thunder and David mentioned the "Raindrops on Roses" scene in the "Sound of Music", which goes perfectly with our drapes, virtually identical to the ones that Maria made play-clothes out of. Kind of exciting to have rain, though I have no idea how we will get to work in an hour. It is currently coming down in sheets. As Hayden would say, "If this was snow, it would be a blizzard."

The other day walking home from the rec center, I said to Logan that I had heard from his teacher, Ms. Sue, that he had had a very good day. He said, "I have good days and I have bad days. That's the kind of boy I am." Long pause. "Probably most kids have good days and bad days." It sounds like Logan's days are heavily leaning towards the good days. He is happy and learning and still loving books, of course. We are so grateful for the many fantastic books available in the various school and community libraries here! Both boys and us adults are finding so many good book options. Currently I am reading Girls of Riyadh and I just finished a fabulous book, Finding Nouf.

Today is our last day of school before the Eid holiday. This is the Eid when many Muslim pilgrims travel to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the most holy site in Islam, for their pilgrimage. It is a very powerful and meaningful experience, as I have been told. We are heading out of town tomorrow morning and will be back, ready to start back up after a week.

Thanks for reading - off to clean up leaking rainwater!

Jennifer

Biking in the desert from Hayden

2009-11-20T16:58:00.001+03:00

Hello!

Today, my dad and I went biking in the desert. It was a blast! We saw camels, alive and dead, we saw some of the most poor people I've ever seen, and we saw lots of wild dogs that didn't look very friendly. It's a good thing there were about ten of us there. I got stuck in the sand and the rocks a couple of times. There were a lot of rocks. Huge mountains of them! Some of them were pretty tall. It would be so easy to get lost because all of the little mountains look the same. We all had to stick together. We had to also get up really early or else it would be way too hot. When we got back from the ride we had a big brunch with beef bacon, scrambled eggs, and toast. I was starving! I ate a large pile of eggs, more than ten slices of bacon, and three big pieces of toast. I think I biked about ten miles. You burn energy so quickly though, it felt like I biked twenty. Our bike ride started at about eight in the morning, and we had to drive about two hours to get there. Plus, I had to get up even earlier because I had to have a little bite to eat before we left. I think I got up at about five in the morning. But all I remember is the awesome biking, the great food, and the camels. Over all, the whole trip was one of my best days ever at KAUST so far.

Thank you for reading this!

Hayden

The New Rec Center from Hayden

2009-11-13T17:58:00.003+03:00

Hello!

Finally, the new recreation center opened. I'm very happy about that because there are lots of things to do like racket ball, badminton, basketball, soccer, and bowling. Today we went there and found that the basketball courts weren't done and they were having problems with one of the bowling lanes. Our family played a game. I came in second. Other than that, it's great! They even are eventually supposed to have a fifty meter pool and a gym. I think the gym is almost done. I hope the pool has a nice slide like the one in Denver. The only thing that I don't like is that the halls are way too wide and waste space that could be used for sports. The restaurant there is nice except that my mom doesn't like the coffee because the coffee water is yucky she said.

My mom wrote about this but I just want to say that the boat trip is way better than the recreation center.

Thanks for reading this!

Hayden

The Glorious Red Sea

2009-11-13T13:52:00.007+03:00

Greetings,Yesterday we were fortunate enough to get to join a KAUST family boat trip out into the Red Sea. The KAUST yacht left the harbor in the morning with about thirty people and five or six staff members. We cruised out about seven miles into the sea to the

point that we could look back at KAUST and vaguely see it on the horizon. Coffee and muffins were available. The hazy morning soon gave up and the bright sunshine crystalized the day. Once the boat stopped to allow people a chance at some fishing, and a few people caught some small fish. We continued further to a reef where we spent the rest of the afternoon, alternating between swimming, snorkeling, and relaxing on the boat. Sandwiches and cold drinks were available for lunch.

Throughout the day, I was so grateful that Hayden and Logan are such good swimmers now. Logan still swam with a life jacket when he went into the sea, but I know that he will not just wander off into the water and get into trouble. Both boys thought the day was such a highlight to relax on the boat and swim in the luxurious water. It's so salty that it is very easy to stay afloat.

A great day. Popcorn and the movie "Cars" ended the day. We certainly treasure our weekends and the family time they offer.

More soon. Thanks for reading. Jennifer

Transportation

2009-11-08T19:15:00.003+03:00

Greetings!

As many of you know, before we left Seattle, we sold our beloved dark green Subaru Outback, which had been with our family since just before Hayden was born. With that car, we traveled safely with our children up to the mountains nearly every weekend in the winter, once to Colorado in the HOT summer, once to Los Angeles in the traffic, on backcountry, rutted roads, and up and down Seattle's steeply hilly streets. Still, who wants to return from overseas to an old car? We packed up our bikes, rollerskis (as David has already shown), inline skates, running shoes, and a skateboard thinking we would use those all here, which we have been.

When we lived in Jeddah, we took taxis everywhere. Now that we live here on KAUST campus, we have access, though sometimes sporadic, to buses and we have our bikes. We pretty much bike a lot because it's really the fastest and easiest way we can get anywhere as a family. Most of our friends and colleagues bit the bullet and bought new cars as soon as the males in the family had gotten their driver's licenses, but we held off. In the early weeks, people were generous about giving us a lift when needed, even to Jeddah, but after a time, we began to feel that we didn't want people to resent us asking all the time. We are trying to avoid buying a car since it seems the distances are so small, at least on campus, and so sporadic, when we go into Jeddah or - perhaps someday - further to explore. We discovered that we can rent a car on campus anytime for a modest price for 24 hours. We figured out that we could rent a car every single weekend for nearly four years and spend less than a new car, and we won't rent a car every single weekend. There are also free community buses to Jeddah on weekends and most weeknights, if I am up for a late night. Finally, we recently bought a small motorbike which allows David or me to take Logan to school in the morning, spend a few minutes with him in his class reading a story, and then make it to our own classroom in time for advisory. The distance is not so far, but since Logan goes home with a caretaker and two friends after school, he could not take his bike home and it kept getting stuck at school. Or we would walk him and then be late. This seems like a perfect solution for us. Hayden is Mr. Bike this year, as he bikes all over campus, often with friends, and explores. Logan, too, has become so competent and confident on his bike, which, because it's home, he can ride every day after school. The motorbike is not permitted to leave campus, not that we would anyway, so we feel pretty safe - and, yes, we always wear helmets. We bought it here on campus, so the mechanic is right here and will tune it any time. I ride it for short distances every day, nearly, and have yet to see the gas tank fall below 'F'. I bet I could go one year without filling it up.

Our lives are busy with school. Our days are long but satisfying. Our kids are learning and growing, being challenged by the need for tolerance, learning Arabic, meeting new kids, and, overall, doing so very well. Hayden and I took the bus to Jeddah this last weekend and bought some new carpets for our house, which make it feel much more like home. It was a worthy trip. I am proud of the insights I hear from our boys, and I can appreciate their struggles too because we all feel them.

We are fortunate enough to get to go to Thailand later this month during our Eid holiday, when many Muslims will travel to Mecca for their hajj. Rather than do an exploration of Thailand, we are simply going to go to our favorite island bungalows and relax on the beach, enjoying fabulous Thai food!

Thanks for reading and keeping in touch! Jennifer

Wheeled sports at KAUST

2009-10-29T10:14:00.003+03:00

Greetings,

We're at the ramparts of November, and there are plenty of fine folk around the northern hemisphere getting ready for snow sports and the advent of winter. Heck, we hear that snow has even begun to fall in parts of the Rockies and Cascades, and a colleague returned from the Twin Cities a week back to say that Minneapolis had already received its first snowfall. Of course, we have a difficult time appreciating this at KAUST, where a cool day is one that stays in the double digits, Fahrenheit, and outdoor workouts, if they happen at all, occur early in the morning or late in the evening, and even then are accompanied by an alarming rate of liquid loss.

Though many are surprised to see a family so often biking together (or is it the wife/mother in shorts?), nothing can compare to the stares from folks as you roller ski or roller blade around campus. I've bladed and r'skied a number of times now (check out Hayden's video), and each time as I pass a group of workers (and there are far more day laborers here than there are KAUST employees such as Jennifer and me), the looks of total shock and disbelief register everywhere, and a well-intentioned "Hello!" or "Good Morning!" often only adds to the puzzlement of the men who may only hear Bengali or the occasional redirect in Arabic.

Yet this is an incredible campus for wheeled sports. Built, or more likely being built, for 20,000, but with only 2,000+ currently here, if you choose your workout times reasonably well you can cover kilometer after kilometer of the 40K possible on car-free, brand new, pancake-flat roads. What motorized vehicles you do come across are usually so shocked and surprised to see you that you might as well be in an Obama motorcade, so widespread is their deference.

There is one lonely hill, a slight incline leading up to the university campus, and the cycling group I now ride with twice a week tries to hit that hill as many times as we can on our fairly short rides (since no one is in shape for longer rides here, and besides, a long ride in SA might be your last!).

There are now four security gates on the campus perimeter, providing the only ways to get on and off campus. Each has cement bunkers arrayed to force a serpentine, slowed approach to the many stationed security personnel, and each consists of two stopping points where, at any exit or entry, a man will ask you for your KAUST ID and might look in, around, and under your vehicle. Just for good measure, there is a machine gunner stationed at each of these checkpoints. These men are all Saudi nationals, and if there is anyone you want to remain on good terms with at KAUST it is certainly these guys!

But they often smile when we pass as a cycling group, and a few have even taken to teasing us and asking us who is the fastest, etc. These are small steps, but gradually community and commonality are being realized here. The groups involved are incredibly disparate, oftentimes disjointed, not infrequently disappointed, even disparaged, but it is the small steps toward the common good that KAUST is becoming that matter the most, and the roller skis, roller blades, and bikes around campus help put us in better touch with the humanity that is making this place more viable each day.

Thanks for reading,

David

Biking at kaust

2009-10-24T15:10:00.002+03:00

The biking at kaust is okay for a city that is still being built. Yeah, there are big trucks and buses and other work veichles but they are actually quite careful around kids. King Abdullah probably said if you hit a child you're fired. Of course, that's not that bad considering they get paid about 100 dollars a month. I think we've only had one close call this whole time. One thing I hate is all this gravel, they must have shipped over 20 tons of it. It lines all the streets. Every single street in all of kaust is lined with a thick coating of gravel. Logan tripped over it once. There are lots of problems but I think that over all, its actually not that bad. Thank you for reading this!
Hayden

Toilet Smiles

2009-10-21T09:05:00.002+03:00

Greetings,

We have some bad smells coming from our air conditioning - moldy and mildewy - and from our master bathroom - sewagey (is that a word?). I called the infamous 959 phone number for help and I received the following emails as a follow-up:

Your call was logged today 10/20/2009 5:03:50 PM by taha as follows:

Problem: Plumbing : Bad smile coming from the toilet
Description: There is sewage Smile coming from the toilet
Priority: Priority 2
Estimated Completion Date/Time: 10/25/2009 5:03:00 PM

Problem: A/C Not working : Bad smile coming from the A/C
Description: Is the A/C working in any part of the location? : Main entrance Is there access to the A/C Panel? : How long has the A/C not worked? : 3 weeks A/C has a very bad smile
Priority: Priority 1
Estimated Completion Date/Time: 10/20/2009 10:59:00 PM

Yes, for three weeks our A/C has had a very bad smile. I wish it would grin in a more friendly manner! And sitting on a potty with a sewage smile is very concerning! I wonder what the workers may think they are coming to repair? Life is eternally interesting, is it not??

Watch those sewage smiles! Jennifer

Shopping in Saudi Arabia

2009-10-18T20:39:00.009+03:00

Greetings all,

Well, life is settling in a bit since we have moved from the hotel life and into our home here on campus. School has started, homework is kicking in, and students are beginning to settle in as well, though we did receive at least six new students in the secondary school today. Since the large supermarket on campus is not yet ready, people have been offered complimentary food at the campus cafeteria and campus eateries, which are mostly fast-food type places offering pizza, Burger King, subs, Lebanese, Arabic, and Indian dishes. The free food came to an end at the small restaurants this last weekend and will end at the cafeteria at the end of the month. Therefore, I have been making forays to Jeddah to gather food for our return to home cooking. It's just not quite as simple as walking to Ballard Market or driving to Trader Joe's.

Since I am not, as a woman, allowed to drive off campus, I have on two occasions taken a week-night bus leaving campus at 5:30 for a Jeddah mall, which includes a large supermarket similar to Fred Meyer in Seattle. Last week, I went on the bus with a friend to the Red Sea Mall. As we arrived, prayer time was soon to start so we darted into a restaurant to order dinner and eat while waiting

for prayer time to end and shops to open. We were

able to get some of the things we needed that evening, including basic food and items for our kitchens at home. We headed back to the bus at the designated time of 10 pm, struggling across the large parking lot to the bus pushing our heavy shopping carts and clutching frothy cups of coffee. Two other people were late to the bus but called a friend to say they would be only 20 minutes. We agreed to wait. Forty-five minutes later the bus driver simply started to leave when the missing passengers raced up in a taxi! We ultimately arrived back on campus at 12:15 am wondering how we would make it to school the next morning.

On the weekend, the same friend said that her husband had agreed to drive to Jeddah to buy some additional items and to do food shopping. We headed out again, this time in the car, late on Friday morning, which is the most holy day of the week. (Remember that Thursdays and

Fridays are the weekend.) David was more than happy to stay home with Hayden and Logan, as well as with our friends' sons, none of whom wanted any more trips to Jeddah. We had called to ensure that the store we were heading to was open and that the mall would be open too. We arrived just as the gates of the store were being closed for long Friday prayers. We were allowed to dart inside as several customers were paying and leaving. Though the store was closed for an hour and a half of prayer, we were allowed to walk around and shop until it re-opened. It was surreal to be shopping in a closed store with only a handful of employees around, half-heartedly restocking shelves. Once the store reopened, we finished and headed to the now-open cash registers to pay while massive numbers of men flocked into the store, grabbing at the newspaper inserts announcing Friday sales.

We headed into The Mall for some final items only to find nearly every store, except Starbucks, still closed and not due to open for an hour or four. Who knew? Time to go home. Not as productive as we had hoped, but we have been enjoying fresh vegetables, pasta, tacos and burritos, and some brownies at home. After all the meals in hotels, restaurants, and cafeterias, it is such a pleasure to sit down and eat together at home!

The photos in this post are all from our home. The drapes on the

windows are basically the same as the ones Maria used to make play-clothes for the Von Trapp family children in the Sound of Music. There is a kind of bar that separates the kitchen from the dining room, and Logan likes to do his art work there.

Thanks for reading! Jennifer

Not Quite What it Seems

2009-10-15T11:16:00.004+03:00

Greetings,

Those of you who know me even passably are aware of an abiding antipathy to most faculty meetings. Lucky for us, the faculty meetings we now attend are anything but boring. Take this week's meeting, for example. Despite an inspiring secondary school principal and a well-organized meeting agenda, the reality is that faculty meetings here are anything but what they once were. For one, we currently have our meetings in the only room - the school's cafeteria - large enough to accommodate our three dozen or so faculty. So, while we attempt to discuss curriculum, the lunch crew is busily trying to finish up their day's business. Plates clatter, silverware jingles, fridge doors slam - all while the school's head is trying to focus on the finer points of getting the school up and running.

And that's the least of it, for we also feature what has to be the most active fire alarm system in any school's history. Indeed, the fire department has been to our school so many times already in two short weeks of classes that they might well consider building an extension garage for one of their trucks and just taking over part of our campus. During our 3:15 - 5:00 meeting, and already having gone off twice that day already, the fire alarm went off twice more, the gathering of now alarm-insensitive veterans staying put as if a fire alarm hardly mattered now that the kids had gone home.

Of course, in the greater scheme of Murphy's Law, a few fire alarms are nothing. So to add to the unpredictability of the day's meeting, we also had the power go out during, ironically, a Powerpoint presentation. Never so quickly has a well-intentioned electronic presentation been snuffed out, and yet the grizzled veterans we've become barely batted eyes (as if we could see eyes batting...) and continued on, as best we could, with the conversation. Eventually the lights and general power came back on (which is always underscored by the constant whir of the central air conditioning, no matter the building), the meeting found its center once again, and all seemed relatively normal - until prayer time suddenly occurred and, we soon found, the school's PA system was being perhaps inadvertently used to loudly broadcast the prayer both inside and outside the entire building. Quietly and discretely, a few of the Arabic teachers snuck out of the room, apparently talked to the appropriate folks, and soon an air of normalcy gained a foothold. By now it was 5 pm, we'd been at school since 7:30 am, and the meeting ended on time, albeit "a bit short" of the intended conclusion.

Such is life at KAUST, we are finding, where things are never quite what they seem, yet each of us endeavors as best as possible in his or her own way, hoping for that presumably far-off day when a meeting will be just that, a meeting. Of course, for my part, I kind of like the unpredictable punctuation to our meetings - heck, at least there are no sprinklers in the ceilings of the school! Of course, why there are none in a school is yet another story...

Thanks for reading,

David

Kaust from Hayden

2009-10-10T15:29:00.003+03:00

Since we moved to Kaust from Jeddah, life has become a lot more like the one we had in Seattle. First of all, I've been going to school every day. Second of all, we actually have a house and I have my own room with a desk and a carpet. We still go into Jeddah quite a bit for shopping trips but that will soon change. My dad said that he will be happy if he never goes to another mall in his life. I don't blame him. My mom is not a big shopper either but she enjoys it more than my dad. Logan just learned learned how to ride a bike. He sort of learned in Seattle, but I think now he's really mastered it. When ever he's not at school he's either riding his bike or eating. I am really exited to have my bike too. Yesterday my friend Colin came over and we biked all around our neighborhood, and we even went off a couple jumps. Thank you for reading this!
Hayden

Jennifer's classes

2009-10-10T13:23:00.003+03:00

Greetings all,

After my last posting about school starting, I received many questions, and I realized that our post raised more questions than it answered. I will try my best to explain further. As students were changing grades and moving from boys' only or girls' only programs to the co-ed program, our classes, grades, and schedules were adjusting constantly last week. Now it is slightly clearer, but change seems to be the key word this year ...

As of today, the first day of our second week of school, we have a girls' only school which is located in an upstairs wing of the school, though many of the girls have been more than happy to have some classes in the co-ed section of the school, as well as to eat lunch in the co-ed cafeteria. We have no more boys' school. All boys moved into the co-ed component of the school, which made most teachers very pleased. Now I am teaching the eight 6th graders Language A (English/ Language Arts), and my colleague teaches them on alternating days for humanities/social students (Ancient Civilizations - Egypt, Greece, and Rome). In 6th grade Language Arts, we are working on reading, discussing, writing, grammar. Though the students have varying abilities in English, they seem to be trying really hard, and there is always one Saudi boy who is comfortable enough to translate for the others. Last week we introduced the components of a story (setting, rising action, conflict, anit-climax ...) to our students with a children's story that belongs to our family. I copied the story and read it aloud while the students read along - about a knight, a princess, a dragon, and a battle. The students said they loved it. Later I asked the kids to let me know with a five-finger rating system how much they had understood, and all students raised either 4-5 fingers, showing thorough understanding of the story. It was a fun lesson and it gave me a sense that they understand more than they can sometimes express. One boy who I thought didn't understand English well, enthusiastically offered many predictions for the story, and he was right in each case! Tomorrow they will have their first quiz!

I also teach 7th grade humanities. There are more than 20 students, so my colleague and I have split the class into two sections. Again we alternate days between Language Arts and social studies. Today we drew maps from memory on large completely blank pieces of paper. It's a very hard exercise which really shows how much awareness of the world people have. My three Saudi boys, try as they might, really only knew Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and a few countries around the Arabian Peninsula. That's okay. Think how much they will know by the end of the year!

We do have teachers on staff who are trained in English as a Second Language (ESL), and they come into the class or offer ideas whenever asked. This has been tremendously helpful. All teachers have to balance between students who are native speakers of English and are 'ready to go' and students who are primarily learning English as we go. I am grateful that most of my students are trying really hard and seem pleased to be here. As is always the case, once you begin to get to know your students, to see their strengths, and to see some successes, you just care more and more and want to help them continue to learn. I am buoyed by the idea of what all of my students will be able to label on a world map by June - and what that will offer their world perspective!

Over the weekend, we spent one day doing errands in Jeddah - buying a vacuum and a blender, a desk (again at IKEA), some food we cannot get here in the mini-mart, and other household items. On Friday we stayed home organizing our house, installing a water filter system in the kitchen (no more need for bottles of water), cleaning and vacuuming, doing laundry. It felt good to settle in. We also enjoyed a relaxing brunch at the cafeteria where we can get omelets, smoothies, waffles and pancakes ... more than we are cooking at home at the moment. The super market on campus will open, inshallah, in December, and the mini-mart just cannot keep up with all food needs, thus the campus-wide free food until ... who knows?

Thanks for reading - and for all the positive comments about Hayden's blog. He is ready to try another. -- Jennifer

Dubai for the weekend

2009-10-06T20:26:00.002+03:00

Not only has this been my first teaching job where the first day of school was in October, or the first that has allowed for a vacation even before teaching the students, this has been the first time I've ever missed a first day of school - albeit for professional reasons.

The occasion was IB math curriculum training with a group of colleagues, originally planned to occur a month into school but, with delay followed by delay, actually taking place the weekend before and first day of school.

Fortunately, the IB training was first-rate, Dubai was a stark contrast to Jeddah, and the group of us returned in time for the first day of academic classes no worse for wear.

Dubai, like much of the rest of the planet, has been adversely affected by the world's economic downturn. In Dubai's case, the telltales are cancelled or delayed construction projects (I'd never seen so many still cranes towering over a cityscape), and, on a personal plus side, the opportunity to stay in a five-star hotel (due to slashed rates), the Emirate Towers, about the last place you'd catch me staying were the tab not someone else's. The room I shared with a colleague apparently goes for $900 per night on the hotel's website, though I doubt anyone is paying that these days.

Dubai's sidewalks are clean and continuous, streets are well marked, smooth, and spotless, cars drive with seeming civility and an apparent recognition of the rules, and building construction in general seems to have been executed to a high standard. Interestingly, Dubai doesn't have the oil SA has, though it has attracted impressive business investment and parlayed that into a fusion of Las Vegas and Singapore. It is apparently a very popular vacation destination for those with money, whether native or expat, from the more religiously conservative corners of the middle east; with the incredible sums being spent on oil in the region, you can imagine how many folks that might be. Heck, it even sports the world's new tallest building, and one of the few seven-star hotels, if you're into those sorts of things. Still, I'm not sure I'd go back. There are many places in the middle east with a great deal more historical attraction to them, which is why we're increasingly talking about heading to Egypt, Jordan, or even Turkey when wanderlust hits again. Thanks for reading, Dubai David

And...school starts ...

2009-10-05T17:41:00.005+03:00

Greetings,

A month later than originally expected, school actually started on Saturday, 3 October. Hayden biked to the elementary school and met his teacher; Logan and I locked up our bikes and walked across the street to his school to meet his teacher, Ms. Sue. (See photo) I stayed with Logan to read some books in his classroom until Ms. Sue came over to say hello. After nearly nine weeks of living together at the Marriott hotel, our boys already know their teachers quite well - and vice versa. Logan's teacher is Australian and Hayden's teacher is from Canada, but what is most appealing about her - in Hayden's mind, of course - is that her Australian husband loves American football!

At the Harbor Secondary School, where David and I teach, class changes have been a constant for the last few days. Nearly all the boys who originally wanted to be placed in a boys' only program have opted for co-ed, as well as many girls. The school was initially founded with the understanding that there would be a girls' school, a boys' school, and a co-ed international school. Right now, it's all in the same place. The girls who have opted for the girls' school have a wing for girls only, but they are generally happier than we expected to come down stairs for classes and to share lunch in the lunchroom. The first day was complete with excitement, confusion, transition, exhaustion, activities, new friends, and - of course - a fire alarm! All systems are still being worked on. The air conditioning, for example, is either freezing cold with rooms around 16 degrees celsius or off which allows the rooms to

warm up to steamy mid-twenties. It's exciting. Though I teach co-ed classes, the students are mostly boys. I teach 7th grade humanities to 8 boys and 1 girl; 6th grade humanities to 3 boys and 1 girl; 7th grade P.E. to 8 girls. My colleague teaches the other half of the humanities classes, total grade 6 is around 9 students and grade 7 is around 20. More students are arriving in mid-October. Like their teachers, some families' relocation have been delayed in order to get the graduate students, professors, and teachers moved in. My students are wonderful. Having them in the class makes us realize, again, why we are here, adjusting, preparing, adapting, and working hard. They are so fun and many are eager to learn. I have students who are Saudi Arabia, British, Swiss, Palestinian-Jordanian, Filipino, Saudi-British, American-Egyptian ... They seem happy to be here and I see them acting as teenagers do world-wide - silly and sophisticated from one moment to the next. We are tired each day, not completely prepared for the next one, but making it work well nonetheless. All the teachers seem very jazzed about their kids!

David is no longer teaching just boys since the boys' only classes have disappeared - except for 2 boys in the 8th grade and that may change ... He is much more pleased to be teaching girls and boys because he thrives professionally in that setting. Must head off to dinner. More to follow. Students receive laptops tomorrow, which should offer new challenges and benefits!

Thanks for reading! Jennifer

LONDON FROM HAYDEN

2009-10-02T15:05:00.003+03:00

Hello!
This is what I really liked about London. 1. They speak english. 2. There are lots of parks with green trees and bushes. 3. It is just the right temperature. 4. It is clean and the people there are nice. They don't cut in line, they don't throw their trash everywhere, and they say hi to you when they pass you. 5. There are so many things to do as a family. There are tons of museums and old fascinating buildings and stuff like that. You could live in London 10 years and do something cool every day. That's how cool London is. 6. In London they also have so many ways of public transportation. There are double-decker buses and taxis and they even have a underground train system called the tube. Thank you for reading this!
Hayden

A (mostly) completed house ...

2009-09-30T22:11:00.007+03:00

Greetings all,

We have moved into our new home in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia, the village which now houses the large graduate university known as KAUST (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology). It is a brand new house, so new, in fact, that it is not complete. Yes, the walls and floors are done. The furniture is here, though some pieces seemed to be put in so quickly that they are actually broken. We have plumbing, though it took David awhile to figure out that the reason we had no hot water was that we actually had to push a button to get it started. There remains work to do nonetheless. We have a list of things that are supposed to be completed by work teams when we call the "help desk." So far, other than pest control arriving to set up rat traps, we have not had a lot of the finishing work done yet. Several days ago I did stay home from work (since school has not started) to wait for the pest control guys to show up with their traps. Just as they were finishing, the maintenance team arrived to actually patch the many holes in cupboar

ds and behind appliances which could allow rats easy entrance. While the men were patching holes, another team of eight men - yes eight - arrived to perform a final cleaning of our house. They mopped, dusted, folded some towels inadvertently left out, washed down our balconies, scrubbed bathrooms, washed some walls, and cleaned the dust out of the closets. They did such a good job that I tipped the whole group by giving money to the supervisor and asking him to share it around. As they were leaving, the plumber showed up to fix the leaky sinks and dishwasher. He tried really hard to accomplish the job, and did succeed in some problems, but he didn't have the right parts to complete the dishwasher sleeve for the hose. No worries. Because all of the food in the restaurants and cafeteria is free, we have not really been cooking much yet. This will change some time, but no one seems to know when we will have to pay. (When asked, a cafeteria worker said to me, "Tomorrow, maybe, or in December.") In the end, we ended up with only one rat trapped in a cage - so far, though I just discovered 'evidence' of another one! We are still waiting for shower rods, bathroom lights to be installed, a TV remote (you cannot use the TV at all without it), another large hole to be fixed, and the landscaping to be completed. Still, we don't have to commute from Jeddah, I don't have to wear an abaya, our kids can ride bikes and play outside, and our schools are 10 minutes by walking from our house! A lot to be grateful for in any case.

Our schools are in a similar state, but further along. We expect students to start on Saturday, and I think everyone is very excited to have kids in the building. After all, that's why we are here really. At the end of our work day today, all the teachers and administrators gathered in a circle to share thoughts about school starting on Saturday. It was powerful because people are committed and excited, despite the challenges of starting up a school which is still being completed. Unfortunately, the entire math and science departments (including David) left for Dubai and a training opportunity tonight, so school will start on Saturday without those teachers! We actually had some laughs in the group about that. After awhile, you just have to be able to laugh about the crazy and silly and frustrating things that happen.

We have gradually been unpacking our shipments from Seattle. It takes time to figure out where things should go, though we did not bring everything we own as many people had to. So far all looks well, except that the guy who packed up our bicycles didn't know anything about bikes, and he actually damaged Hayden's brand new bike by incorrectly (and unnecessarily) disassembling the rear derailleur. We found the only bike shop in Jeddah, called Wheels, and the mechanic there was able to fix the bike, though it's not as strong as it was. It was some tough moments for Hayden, who has been asking for his bike for weeks, but he has recovered and has been riding all around! Off to do more laundry. We seem to have a lot this weekend.

Thanks for reading. Jennifer

Going Underground in London

2009-09-26T21:50:00.006+03:00

Greetings all,

We have been home from London for less than 48 hours but have already moved into our house and slept here one night. Whew. More on that later ...

London was fantastic. I had not been there since a college abroad trip focused on English literature and its wonderful authors, so

this was a refreshing experience for me to visit again. I had such fond memories and now we all have fond memories. We stayed for three nights in a small hotel near Paddington station. We walked a lot each day and loved figuring out the Underground and the double-decker buses. We shopped and ate wonderful food, visited the Tower of London and walked across the Tower Bridge, went to the Imperial War Museum and the HMS Belfast (anchored on the Thames), and tried various pubs. At Covent Garden we had a delicious lunch and then watched David assist a street performer in getting tied up in his straight-jacket and climbing aboard a unicycle where he simultaneously rode the cycle and freed himself from the jacket! London seemed clean and fresh and, incredibly, it did not rain at all. After three days, we took the train to Walton-on-Thames and met up with my English family, Angela and Martin and their son and his wife and twin daughters. I had not seen Angela and Martin since 1987

and yet it felt as though I had just been there a couple of years ago. Their son Clive visited me in Vietnam many years ago and again he visited David and me in Michigan perhaps 10 years ago. The boys were so excited to play in a backyard, to try Martin's go-cart, and to be in house after all these months of hotels. It was a refreshing change for all of us, I think. Plus we were able to have afternoon tea with scones, cream, and jam. Heavenly!

Hayden loved that people spoke English and that it was so green. David loved that the city had such amazing public transportation. Logan loved the strawberry birthday cake for breakfast, that he got to have two pieces because he was the birthday boy, and that the flight attendants sang happy birthday to him. I loved reconnecting with my "English family" and with a city I have loved for a long time, particularly the parks and the pubs! We also spent a day at Hampton Court and learned so much more about King Henry VIII, his wives, his athleticism, and his legacy for England.

When we returned to London at 4 am, we received a text from a friend in Jeddah informing us that school was, again, being postponed by a week. It is giving us more time to move in, get settled, and set up class. We are ready to get started on the next part of our adventure. More on the house soon ... thanks for reading. Jennifer

Our house is ready!

2009-09-17T07:56:00.004+03:00

Greetings all,

We finally got notice that our house is ready; however, we have to wait 72 hours after receiving that notice to actually collect keys and do the walk-thru. And 72 hours from that notice is the day we leave for London. Fortunately, we have some friends who are willing to collect our keys and sign papers for us, and they have already gone through the process, so they totally know what to look for and what to try out. The greatest gift we have had so far is the amazing colleagues and friends we have met, many of whom have offered to help in any way possible for the families like us who have yet to move to KAUST.

We leave for a vacation in London tomorrow morning, as mentioned, and will return to Jeddah late on Thursday night, 24 September, which is Logan's 5th birthday! He was very sad to learn that he would have to be on an airplane on his birthday. I explained that he could spend most of his birthday in London with our lovely friends, the Marriotts, and that we would NOT forget to bring his special birthday jar of chocolate sauce given to him by his Evans grandparents in July. We also assured him we would have a small party after we returned to Jeddah and moved into our house with a couple of his friends. We bought a book about traveling to London with children, so that should help guide us to some great spots, perhaps even a Harry Potter tour!

When we return, we have one day to pack up our lives in the hotel, rent a car, and drive to KAUST where - inshallah - our house will be clean, rat-free, and ready for us! The day after that, school starts! Whew.

We will take photos of our home to post with our next posting about our house, so that we can share with you.

Enjoy the week and thanks for reading! And a very happy birthday to Grandpa/Dad/Gordon Evans ... still so young at heart.

Logan and Snorkeling

2009-09-11T15:12:00.003+03:00

Hello. As typical for our Fridays, we were at the beach this morning. Logan and a friend, who is five, went out to snorkel at the reef with his friend's parents. When he got back, he ran to me and said, "Momma, I touched the first sea cucumber of my whole life. It was slimy. It was really fun!" Both boys have really taken to snorkeling, and I think Hayden truly appreciates all those Ballard swimming lessons now.

Thanks for reading,

Jennifer

A Night on the Town, Ramadan Style

2009-09-10T12:36:00.003+03:00

Greetings all,

Last night, Wednesday, was the start to our weekend, so a group of families went out together to Chili's restaurant, a popular American chain. We were rather ready for a break from the hotel's offering during the iftar meal, and it seemed a perfect spot. During Ramadan in Saudi Arabia when Muslims are fasting during the day, restaurants are not open until evening. They begin to open to customers after 6 p.m. Though the tables at Chili's were set with iftar offerings of sweet dates and apricots, no one but children were eating and no one could order food until an announcement was made in the restaurant that iftar could begin. We spread out around a couple of large tables and enjoyed a delicious, though slightly different, American-style meal of hamburgers, fries, fajitas, buffalo wings, nachos ... After eating, the children all discovered a large outside eating area, complete with fountains and a play structure. Sweaty and red-faced, they climbed and jumped and ran, darting inside periodically for a quick drink. Logan at first thought it would be perfect to simply cool off himself in the fountain, but we didn't think it was particularly hygienic!

After much conversation and eating, the dads took the kids home for baths and bed, and several moms went to Starbucks. It must be difficult to do business as Starbucks in Jeddah right now because it is closed all day until 9 p.m. at which time it opens until 2 a.m. We nearly entered in the singles' door, which is really intended only for men, but then we discovered the family entrance for women, children, and men with spouses or families. No one was there except two young men behind the counter. The coffee was excellent, as always. About twenty minutes after opening, Starbucks must close again for the evening prayer. We were not asked to leave, but if we chose to stay, we could NOT leave for about 15 minutes. Since we were in the family section, the frosted windows prevented anyone from looking in at us, and we had a very quiet and enjoyable evening. The evening concluded with a hilarious and rather hair-raising taxi ride to ToysRUs, also open after 9 p.m., for a Monopoly game and some blocks. We tried out our minimal Arabic language skills with the Yemeni driver who laughed and then shushed us each time he received a phone call.

For the last week, we have been commuting to KAUST campus from the Marriott in Jeddah on large buses. It's about 1-1.5 hours each way, so a lot of reading gets done. The houses and schools are nearly finished, and we have set up the schools' libraries for the Secondary School, the Elementary School, and the Early Childhood School (3-5 year olds). Logan has visited his classroom and played blocks with his teachers (whom he already knew from 5 weeks in the hotel); Hayden too knows his teachers and visited his school for a writing sample 'test'. The boys are learning to call their teachers by Mr. and Ms. now, rather than the familiar first names we have been using. David and I have met many of our incoming students as they come in for interviews and math/writing tests in the secondary school, and we are now trying to piece together the details of our schedules based on student numbers and those students who are committed to single gender versus co-education. We have satisfying moments and days, as well as challenging ones. The hotel gets tiresome, of course, but some people who have moved have rat problems, and I would rather be in the hotel! We have seen our house, we think, and it's looking more and more complete. No one really anticipated we would be here in Jeddah this long, but at least we are not here alone. Some our colleagues have moved to campus, but many of the families are still here ...

We are off to London next weekend to spend three nights in the city and three nights in Surrey with a family I stayed with for a week during college; even in that short time such a long time ago, they became part of my family, and now I will get to introduce my own family to my "English family."

Thanks for reading. Jennifer

Hash Runs, Jeddah style

2009-09-03T15:37:00.004+03:00

As many of you know, Hash runs are informal runs held around the world. Part social hour, part jog/run, hash runs allow the more active folks in the typically expat community to get a better lay of the land by having them complete a pre-set route, usually something taking on the order of an hour or more to complete. Faster runners can run as much as they want by determining where the false leads are , thereby keeping those bringing up the rear on trail. What almost all hash runs have in common is a finish at a common watering hole; the ones I've done in NYC and Vientien, Laos, brought folks back together at pubs where, for many apparently, the real action started.

Not so in SA, as you could probably guess. Here, and solely based on my two outings with the hash running group in Jeddah, the program seems to revolve around getting out of busy Jeddah for a few hours, enjoying a bit of the barren and ruggedly beautiful escarpment to the east, sharing in some juice and water afterwards and, for the women, enjoying the one time in a week when they can run outside and in clothes that most of the running world would expect a person to wear in 100+ F heat. The terrain is too rocky and the pitch so up and down that most of the run is more like a fast hike, with the occasional tree with thorns, or barbed wire fence at knee high, to keep life interesting, yet we do run when we can, although it's the weather, and not the pace, that is ever sizzling.

Though close to the horizon, at 5 pm the day's sun is still blazing hot. Hashers load up on water just prior to leaving for the run, gulping down cup fulls in anticipation of the challenge ahead . Each carries a liter or more of water for the 1.5 hour"ish" run, which also includes a orange slice/extra water stop. At the end, much more water and juice is served up, with haggard, depleted finishing runners gulping down the liquid. Even so, many runners remain dehydrated and extra hydration is recommended throughout the evening and especially during the next day. On the run one hears English, Spanish, German, French, and Arabic. Since most of these folks have fairly demanding jobs and live in a culture substantially different from their own, the release of stress is palpable and a fun mood pervades the evening. Still, the barren beauty of the escarpment - geographically, the hills/low mountains that connect the huge, higher plain of the Arabian peninsula with its nearly sea-level bordering perimeter, especially along the Red Sea - captivates all of us. Ancient granitic outcroppings that have been pummeled by desert winds for millennia sport bowls, nobs, and holes not unlike ones you'd find in huge rocks in mountain streams, whether wind of water, each demonstrating the tremendous power of nature. Occasionally, the sand-borne winds of time had created such large openings that we could run through their resulting tunnels or climb over their impressive bridges.

Sometimes, folks stay afterwards, spread out the carpets on the flattest ground they can find, bring out the sandwich basket, light the houkkah pipe, and enjoy a magical evening under the stars. Opportunities for casual socializing within a mixed gender group being what they are in SA, I can imagine that this postlude is especially favored by the Arabic speakers in the group. Some time when I've grown a bit more accustomed to the heat, I hope to partake in this lingering, and when I do I'll let you know how the traditional hash pub finish really gets translated in SA. Bye for now, David

2009-08-28T15:11:00.004+03:00

Greetings friends and family,

Recently in a rather 'down' moment, we Evanses started talking about what we miss from home:

The mountains

Friends

Sledding on our hill (Logan - not sure he realizes it is still summer at home)

Skiing

Northwest microbrews and red wine

Backpacking

Running outside at Greenlake

Family visits

Then we talked about what we are grateful for here:

Friday beach days

Snorkeling

The vast array of food at the Marriott buffet

The comfortable beds

Our upcoming trip to London

The pool (for the males in the family)

Daily cleaning of our room and the friendly hotel staff

Indian and Lebanese restaurants

The beach

The kids who are Logan's age and more coming who are Hayden's age

Amazing colleagues and new friends

Did I mention the beach and snorkeling at the reef??

We must remember what we miss, mostly our friends and family, and all that we have to be grateful for!

The photos above show us enjoying room service dinner and play cars at the Mall of Arabia.

Thanks for reading. Jennifer