Is Love Alive?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=d2WlwKmBRDU&feature=endscreen

To all of the poor babies who were killed at school in Connecticut, to the adults, to the families.  No matter where we are in the world, fear can lead to anger, anger to hate and hate to violence.  All of us who love also fear losing what we love, and while this horrendous event reminds us that our fear of losing is so very real, please let it also remind all of us how important it is to love in the first place- how important it is to continue holding each other through the pain.  Even in this scary and unfair storm rolling through, love is alive.  Love is alive in all of us.  It is alive.  It is.        

Happy Anniversary, Sweetie Bahrain-i-pie!

It's been practically five months since I touched down here (happy anniversary!).  But, I haven't been wholly  faithful to here the whole time - it's okay - we've talked.  I've touched off twice to try out new sights and new soil.  And they were good times.  

First, I flew solo to another archipelago.  Though colder, (yet warmer, thanks to a borrowed cap and Tove's warm heart), Stockholm was almost just like Bahrain.  Almost.  Except not really much at all.  It was nice to flip my surroundings upside down.  I went to a birthday party with hanging orange peels, Swedish conversation, very friendly people, dancing, and friendly music; I had dumplings, delicious soup with Jerusalem artichokes boiled in cream, called jordartskocksoppa, risotto, lasagna, and many scrumptious breakfasts of yogurt, bread with cheese, eggs, and juice.  It was a delicious trip, and it fed my soul to have so many good conversations over these tasty treats.  Thank you, Tove.  

Fika (a break in mid-afternoon when you stop to drink a hot drink and a tasty, buttery, cardamommy roll)

I also went to Oman with a group of trooper, adventurous teachers.  This was take-off from Bahrain number two.  We rode around the country in a land cruiser, and we loved it.  Fish markets, "modern" art museums with dioramas of  old Oman, a palace, marigolds, a Grand Mosque with a towel on my head and fleece on my arms (making due with what I had), a wadi (valley) with a secret blue door, a sink hole to jump into, a beach at sunrise with a mama turtle and her little scurrying babies, corniches by the seaside, topography!!, laughing!!  Shukran, habibis - it was fun.

 

Then, I came back to Bahrain, and I have been settling in again since then.  We had a concert with the Manama Singers, and it was really fun to harmonize with people again.  I went to a play at St. Christopher's school, "Arabian Nights," and it was awesome.  The students did fantastically and I laughed so hard.  I've finished the dark novel, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding in my class.  Their assignment over break is to find an article about the GOOD things people can do together.  I think it will be good for their hearts.  There have been some bullying issues, as well, and it has sometimes been frustrating to know how to get them to see that they need to pass the conch much better in class, and to respect each other more, just like the boys in the novel.  It's a challenge to know exactly how to make that connection, but hope is not lost - it's kindling.

Now, I have a few more days until winter break.  AND MY FAMILY IS COMING!  I am so excited to see them!  Best Christmas present ever.

Well, though this might seem like a long post, it feels quite short for me as I'm missing SO many things - events, ponderings, nummy food, and other things - with it being such a long time.  But, I wanted to send a little piece of what life has been like for those who would like a small bite.  I am learning, I am living, and for every challenge, I would say there is also something that makes me thankful, makes me smile, and makes me hopeful.  This is good.  

Thinking of all of you - whether in snow or sunshine!  xoxox

Layers, Cats and Victorian Hats

Here are some photos from a walk I took a bit ago, from one night when cats interrupted my lesson planning, and from my classroom.   

Layers and layers of paint.  Like in a school bathroom where people etch their thoughts and then they are covered repeatedly with some solid color. Here, it goes like this: People. Government. People. Other people. Government. Layers and layers still.  There are many walls like this in Bahrain, but this one is so blue, and there are more layers here than on others, I'd say. The walls around the courtyard at school have paint layers one and two: People, then Government.  I wonder what those school walls will look like five years from now.      

A different brain image of "desert," don't you think?  This is what I see.
  

Bougainvillea, rubbish, and blue.  Near our apartment building.

Peeking inside an entrance-way to a becoming villa, where Indian men construct new parts of the place every day.  There is construction everywhere.  Cinder blocks, cranes, dumpsters, scaffolding, around every corner.      

"Yield."  Another popular form of traffic control, not pictured here, is the speed bump.  It makes driving in a presumably flat desert much bumpier and I think more exciting.      

The cats have secrets, here.  I always hope to see them when I walk.  It's a bad sign when I hear them, though.  They meow and scream back and forth.  It must mean one alley cat has crossed a territory of another alley cat, or something like this.  I wonder why they have territories in the first place.  Maybe the prime dumpsters and the less-frequented dumpsters create an imbalance of where a cat would want to live.  And, when they are hungry, those cats with skinnier dumpsters risk their lives by stepping paw on the fat cat's turf.    

School scene: Yikes.  If I assign a poster project again, it will be worth more points, and they just might work in groups.  Huge pile-o-posters.  Thankfully, they are now graded and waiting to be taken home.  Also, one of my classes affirmed for me this week a general idea I heard about Bahrain: it really does not have copyright laws.  We use many copied *Lord of the Flies* novels in class, and the students explained to me that there are no organizations that regulate copyright.  It is okay in Bahrain.      

"Victorian Aged Ms. Laura" - a gift from one of my students.  I especially like the hat.  

I also floated in the Arabian Gulf, yesterday.  The salt lifted me up, and the water was shallow and clear.  Not too far away, or very, very far away, in that same water, there you were, everyone!  That blue connects us all.  And so I said "helllllooo!" to you.

Hello World

Hello World!

Weeks 1, 2, and 3 at Modern Knowledge Schools are under my belt, now, and I am happily ready for more weeks to come.  It looks like a big Thanksgiving meal in front of me.  

I am not necessarily ready in the sense that I feel totally able as an organized English teacher, but I do feel ready as a growing taker-inner-and-carer-for-students-er.  I feel ready as an experimenter and try-er-outer. It is amazing how much there is to try - how many different ways a teacher can interact with students in class to make something of the time spent together and apart.  It makes me excited to be human.  Sometimes, it makes me tired to be human, but this is why humans sleep.  And, I like sleep.  If there's not quite enough of it during the week, then there is enough during the sunny weekends.  One weeknight when I was quite sleepy, some words of Octavio Paz that I heard sung before and that I used to keep over my bed at school came to mind, and I looked them up again to remember their order: "we must sleep with open eyes, we must dream with our hands, we must dream the dreams of a river seeking its course."  

Yes, Octavio.  Just seeking a course and feeling my way.

And this dreamer's definitely happy she has such soft and loving support around her in school and outside of school.

And I sang last Tuesday!  A lovely couple of musical, scientific teachers named Katrina and Joe drove Deena and me to a rehearsal with the Manama Singers.  It felt so good to harmonize with people, and to hear the multitude of accents in the choir between songs or during the "10 minute" break that included coffee, water, or tea vended from a little window outside of the Catholic church where we rehearsed. We're singing some pretty songs that I'll hopefully have in my hands this week.

Another highlight of the last few weeks was meeting Sara - an absolutely gorgeous and intelligent woman of the world who was born in Bahrain and has traveled all over, who knows her delicious foods, and who very kindly took me out to lunch.  We went to a restaurant called "Fast Food" that has cuisine from the Philippines, and I tried fish again!  It was called milk fish, and it was absolutely mmm.  (What's not mmmm that has milk in its name?)  It was strange to work with bones in my food - vegetables done't have bones - but I got some good vit d, and my mouth was happy.  It was so good to talk with Sara about many things Bahraini, American, and human.  Thanks to U. Girard, Fulbright, and the stars for this meeting!  Thank you for the lunch, Sara!

I am told I should take more photos of where I am, and I will work on this.  For now, I have a few that are not too spectacular but that are parts of my life.

It is very dusty when you walk around, here.  I get what used to be the ocean in my sweaty sandals all the time.  So, I get to clap them out outside and let them take a shower pretty regularly.  I think they're growing accustomed to the custom.           

Our washing machine had enough and left.  I hardly got to know him.  Pity.  

What my desk looks like at school.  Hopefully the students feel welcome.  

The glass window art that mom gave me before I left.  Queen Anne's Lace is squished in there, and I've told students the story of the flower and how it's from my home, and they nodded.  Outside is the courtyard.  It's a challenge to my students to stay focused during breaks when other students are on break and checking themselves out in the window glass.  My room gets nice sun.

Our TV works, now, so I can watch AlJazeera and know a little more about what happens in the world.  Sometimes it is frustrating to have this window, but always important.  

    

xoxoxo from the Gulf!

Now that we've met...

One of the five rules in my (my!) classroom is that there are no electronics allowed in class.  So, I did not bring my camera to school and take pictures of the many, many, very alive moments I lived through with 160 new students this past week, which was, by the way, my very first one ever as a high school English teacher.  Juggling a camera along with attendance, learning names, hearing 'miss? miss? miss? miss?' many times, and teaching would have been a pretty gnarly task, too...just know that there were three basic images: BUSINESS - practicing my stern teacher face and voice with some success, some non-success, LAUGHTER -cracking up with students over mistaking meteors for metaphors, smiles for similes, doing the robot, stories about ducks, clams, lions, and sheep, and SWIMMING - trying to figure out the pattern of kicking hard in my work, breathing, and the pace of lesson planning.  Oh - add to these images, one of so many beautiful eyes looking up (or down, or at their neighbor, or out the window) with questions, challenges, and curiosity as to what their relationship with English 10 will be like, this year.  It was a good week, and I'm glad it is Thursday.  Cheers to the first week, (a blossoming juicy pear, it was) and here's to the next few to come!

  

Oh!  And a belated Happy Anniversary to mom and dad!  So glad you had that first malt, you two.  Love you! xoxo

Naughty Teachers and Rooftop Dinners

.This made me chuckle: "Do you want to experience another user name?"  yes, please

  Awesome teachers being totally disrespectful and eating/drinking in my new classroom. Thanks! 

 When I have all of my students this coming week, I will meet 11 Ahmeds, 13 Alis, 7 Fatimas, and 14 Mohameds.  Good thing they each have at least two more names printed on my rosters that will help me differentiate their names from each other.  Ready, brain?  Yesss.    

 On the rooftops of Bahrain...coo, what a sight.  Eating halloumi cheese/nummy sauce wraps up where there's a breeze with my lovely and brave roomie, Deena Baskin.    

Spices and My First Pear (Blossom)

 Here is my first souk (open air market) purchase chilling on my violin: a special Bahraini curry (with each of its spicy components coming from India), lentils (GOLD!) and cardamom for some tummy tea

  

   Look!  I found my first pear in Bahrain on a bulletin board at school  Actually, It's not a real pear. It's a poem by my main girl, HD, that describes the bud of the pear: "...your flower tufts - thick on the branch, bring summer and ripe fruit..." O 

The blossom will increase its pear-i-fying speed on Sunday, when the students flood the school and we finally meet.  Hurrah!   

   

A Few Peeks of What I See Here

 

At the Grand Mosque with bare feet and admiration

 

View from my window, complete with green in the neighboring villa, much tan in the architecture, and blue gulf in the distance

 

Visited the King's camels.  I spotted his royal pigeons and mourning doves, too.     

 Look!  Maybe it's a sister of the purslane from home

 

Calling Juffair to prayer. Beautifully haunting 

 

 

Our welcome team stocked our rooms with some essential food stuffs for our first night and morning, and they included peanut butter.  Comfort in a jar.  So far, finding familiar foods is easy as cake - trying to make an effort to find unfamiliar foods - like halloumi cheese, which I love a lot 

This little documentation is a feat because I've been typing right to left and guessing at buttons because my blog site is in Arabic.  This will not be forever, but I am not tech savvy enough to figure out how to English-i-fy this site on my own right now.  No judging.  It's been fun, though.  I think my brain grew in the process in an Arabic way.  Now, I'm done with my coffee and done with my internet time  Sunshine and warmth to you all.  . 

Letter to an Old Friend Before I Go

Dear Kermit the Frog,             

It’s been a while, little man!  Last we saw each other, I was most likely sitting in front of my parents’ television set after a tiring half day of writing stories and finger painting at kindergarten.  I might have been eating my one-time-a-week allowance of Hardee’s chicken fingers with ketchup, which I liked a lot, and you might have been singing me a croaky song about rainbows, dreamers, and sailors. 

Well, a few things have changed since days like these.  For example, I’m not in kindergarten anymore, I no longer eat chicken fingers, and I have a different set of teeth than before.  Some things are the same, though.  For example, I do still eat ketchup because I still like it a lot. 

Alright, well, I hope you might have some time to read what I write, because I recently read something you wrote.  I mean, for real, you didn't really write it; you said it.  But, someone else must have scribbled it down, so it's kind of like you wrote it.  It went like this: “Anywhere I am is here.  Anywhere I am not is there.”  Remember when you said it?  I don’t remember, either.  But I think it's real honest and nice, and I'm glad someone wrote it down.

It's stuck on repeat in my brain now.  I think that's because I’m about to change my here and my there for a little while when I move from La Crosse, Wisconsin to Juffair, in the Kingdom of Bahrain.  When I think about it, I’ve come to really like the here I know, yet I’ve also gotten more and more antsy about the there I don't.  I figure the best way to get to know any there is to make some new place a here, and what you said makes me want to jump to make that happen.  Of course, I will miss the here I know.  I think, though, that what I see as here will keep growing, will become stronger, become more me, somehow, no matter the there I find.  This is the coolest, sagest, and amphibianest part I see in the words you said and that are in my brain: heres and theres don't have to be so far apart; they might even be the same thing sometimes.  Right? 

How about this: I’ll write little unfinished stories and thoughts about different places I go and different people I meet on my Bahraineous adventure.  Then, I’ll store them here in this bloggy blog with your letter.  This way, other lovely people I know can read them if they want, because I'll be thinking about them as I make my way around, and they might be curious about new heres and theres and juicy Bahraini pears.  If they have Bahraini pears, I mean.  I don’t know if they do.  If they do, I'll let you know.  For sure they have dates, which are sort of squishy, wrinkly looking and very, very sweet.

I hope Sesame Street is still chasing your clouds away, Kermit, and that you are spending lots of time with your pink-snouted and sassy love interest.

Peace and Good Things From Here to There,

Laura