As we have mentioned before, my kids are attending a local school. We were incredibly lucky to get a slot only a few weeks before school started and the longer we are here, we have realized how lucky we are. Their school is easily one of the top schools in the area and many people say it is in the top 2. At their school, they each take a long list of classes: English Arabic English Math Arabic Math English…
The great thing about the busy social calendar is that we meet a lot of people. One of the luckiest breaks in my research has been that two of my kids’ friends have both an uncle AND an aunt who are supervisors at the Ministry of Education (MOE). They were really helpful in giving me an overview of the educational system in the area. Plus, my advisor at the university was able to get appointments for me with the principals…
I have hit a rhythm now with my research. I had a little hiccup this week since I caught a stomach bug and had to stay home an extra day because the servee ride to the university makes me carsick on a good day! But I have successfully had 8 observations days, with multiple classes each day, and 4 on-the-record interviews. Considering I didn’t really get to “start” until September 24, I’m counting that as a win. My day starts (Monday-Thursday)…
I went on another school sponsored excursion recently. This time we went to a local town. I thought for sure that we wouldn’t be home until later because of the long list of things that would see, but it actually made for a very relaxing day! Our first stop was the local community center. They have a lot of neat things going on there. One summer they did a kid’s camp using reclaimed doors from houses that had been demolished….
So today I’m going to talk about my school. School is so fun, but we have a holiday today. I love school. But not really here because it is mostly Arabic. It is just not as fun as America where we get 2 recesses. Here we only get one and there is no play equipment. <Maggie knows the word for play equipment.> But the good thing about it is there is a lot of kids who know a lot of…
We went to Petra. There were donkeys, camels and, unfortunately, no red pandas. I’m very disappointed in the lack of red pandas. <in the desert> Though there was a very big staircase 950 steps <the step count varies from 850-950>. On the way to Petra we saw many, many Ibex and there was a baby one. This is immensely cute. We saw some random building and Maggie insisted on taking a picture in front of it. Then we went through…
Last weekend, we had the opportunity to participate in that most Palestinian of traditions — olive picking! Our friends from the kid’s school invited us to their family village about 30 minutes outside of town for the adventure. His family has about 800 olive trees in the hills surrounding the village, so they’ve been picking for a few weeks now. I can’t tell you what a special moment that was for me to be in the orchards with our families….
The Sid Meiers fans among you will recognize the image above as one of the title screens from Civ V (Civ VI’s release is only a week away, but sadly, my Macbook is too old to run it — it’s upgrade time, I think). It’s one of those magical places that conjures up images of adventure and romance. And it’s now a UNESCO site and one of the 7 new wonders of the world. Before we dive in, here’s my…
I realized I didn’t have an adblocker in Chrome, but after seeing this commercial over the past couple of days, I don’t think I’ll install one. This is from our local cell phone company. The commercials here are much more narrative driven, I think. Lots of symbolism packed into 54 seconds…
As promised to some of my students, here is a video of me speaking Arabic. I am reading off my homework sentences for all to hear. My homework for this evening is practicing reading some conversations, but honestly I am terrible at reading Arabic script so I skipped videoing that one! Give me a few more weeks! For those of you wondering if I am forgetting my Spanish. No. I actually keep tossing Spanish words in accidentally when I forget…