Departure Day

After handling the logistics, and saying our final farewell through well worn cloth masks, the time for our departure finally came. We were set for a direct flight, which we wanted, to limit the total number of people we came across in the airport and on the plan for pandemic reasons. But that direct flight did mean the proposition of a daunting flight ahead of us. 

We woke up the morning (night) of our flight at 1am and got picked up by drivers from the school. We bundled up H in his jammies still and got in the car with our five suitcases containing all of our possessions. When we got to the airport, we checked everything in and got ourselves ready to roll. I was super nervous about a lot of things but I think I was most nervous about getting warm in the airport lacking A/C and showing temperature, or gettin a cough at the wrong time and being denied access to the plane for fear of having COVID. We were all in. There was no where to go back to. If something went wrong, we didn't have a home anymore to return to. But luckily, these were just anxiety fueled thoughts going through our heads. We got through check in and security just fine and our flight took off on time at 5:30am. 

Another concern I had, but knew I had no control over, was how H would do on the flight. He is at a stage (just shy of 2) now where he is extremely active. He runs, jumps, swims, climbs, and does almost everything he wants to physically now. To restrain him from any of this is an almost sure fire guarantee of toddler tantrum fit. We were asking him to sit in his seat, and not touch anything, and not put anything in his mouth for 15 hours. Flying with a toddler is insanity. Doing it while juggling the stress of moving is even worse. Doing it while still reeling from being laid off is even crazier. Add in the fact that Shannon is 6 months pregnant and we're out of our minds. Add in a pandemic and the real possibility that this travel day was going to expose us to a large gathering of people and all of their cumulative germs and you have a recipe for a nearly brain melting level of worry. But we got through it.

H was great on the plane. In a near miracle, he was content with the toys, snacks, stuffed animals, and stuff that we brought for him. With the exception of a few diaper changing meltdowns and a half dozen trips to the back of the plane to get out of our seats, he was a champion. It was enough to worry about that 50-60% of the passengers removed their masks (to no consequence) on the flight despite the warnings from the flight attendants. 

Finally, we arrived in D.C. This was the first time we had been to the U.S. in over a year. As soon as we stepped off the plane, all of our stresses about selling stuff, packing, losing our jobs, false temperature readings, toddler behavior on the plane, it all went away. Perhaps we should have waited a little longer to breathe our sigh of relief. In our judicious attempt to minimize our risk on the plane by not taking our masks off for anything, we forgot that we brought two oranges and two apples for snacks on the plane. This obviously meant that we were agricultural terrorists so we were taken into custody by customs upon arrival. I mean custody. We were taken into a room where we could not leave, with a deliriously exhausted son whose jet lag/body clock/lack of nap/effects from waking up at 1am were all wearing on us. We had to wait for the customs police to get our bags from the carousel which took over an hour and then go through all of our stuff. I realize this was our screw up, but come on guys?! Can't we just throw it out and move on with our days? No we could not. They did their jobs admirably and we dealt with the consequences of our own mistake. Moral of the story, don't bring a plane snack.

After AppleGate, we took a shuttle to the car rental place, waited another 45 minutes for our mini-van, and loaded up our five suitcases and made our way to the hotel. We stayed the night in D.C. to regroup, which was fine, and then left the next morning for the drive up to New Jersey. We stayed there in a hotel to keep our distance from people and get settled in. Aside from fighting jet lag and H waking up at 2am most days, we've made it through and settled in nicely. 

After a reasonable amount of time had passed, we started to see some friends and family while masked, outside, and it has been fantastic. I think I was mentally preparing to not see them all for the whole year when we decided not to come to the US for the summer and that kind of broke my heart a bit. I finally reconciled with it, but when we were able to see them all again, it really hit me hard. H only spent 2 weeks of his life around his family. His aunt, grandmother, and great grandmother have now seen him from a distance chasing squirrels and climbing park benches and I am incredibly grateful for it. We left the hotel yesterday and just settled into a beach house where we will spend another week to ten days before driving down south to Florida.

Things have been moving fast. Since the time we found out we were moving until right now, it has been a whirlwind. We've moved to new continents. We've had job interviews and offers from multiple places. We've finally seen our families, and now we can kick back for at least a week before seeing whatever comes next, and we're happy to take our feet off the gas, even if for just a moment.

Preparing to Ship Off

So this has been a crazy few weeks. As I mentioned in the last post, we knew it was a possibility that we would be laid off as the school made that clear to the entire staff early on. So in our minds we ran through a variety of scenarios over and over just in case. How would we react if X happened? What would the plan be if Y? So when the day finally came, we were ready for taking next steps pretty quickly. 

Despite our preparedness, when we found out we were leaving, we were left with a lot of questions still. The airport in Riyadh had been closed with no signs of opening. The US Embassy, along with the Saudi government had organized a few repatriation flights to get people home on one way flights, but at the time of our layoff, there were no flights scheduled. That left us in a sort of limbo state. We knew we were leaving. We didn't know when. We didn't know how quickly we would have to sell our stuff or get rid of it. We didn't know how long our insurance was going to last. We didn't know what to do when we got back to the states. Also due to the weird state of the world, we didn't know if/when/how we would be able to say our farewells to former students or friends in Riyadh. Normally all of this is done over a much longer time frame. The nature of international schools, hiring, shipping, etc. dictates that most teachers know they are leaving at least 7-8 months before they do so. That leads to a lot of time to sell stuff and prepare for a long farewell. We were left with an undetermined amount of time but knew it would likely be between a week and a month. 

The first step was getting Shannon and H to the doctors for vaccinations and one last prenatal check while we still had insurance. Once that was settled, without any knowledge of when we would leave, Shannon got to work doing what she does best, organizing. She quickly set up some photo staging areas and some docs with all of our stuff we were selling. She struck while the iron was hot. We knew it was a possibility we would be leaving so we were emotionally ready for that. So when we got the final word, Shannon got to work. I don't even know that we hung up on our Zoom call with the HR director to receive the news before she started selling stuff. It was a buyers market. New teachers hadn't arrived yet because...closed airport, and everyone who was left was well established, so no one needed furniture or new stuff. Plus there was about to be a huge influx of stuff to be sold since there were significant layoffs. But because Shannon got to it quick, we were able to sell nearly all of our things long before the tears had dried on the faces of others who found our they were jobless. It seems ruthless but hey, we were in the same boat and it's survival of the fittest out here. 

So Shannon ran her little resale boutique day and night and led a parade of purchases and pickups through the house up until the day we left. All of these had to be masked, gloved, and/or sanitized as we went.  I occupied H and handled a lot of the packing and errands around the city including closing down cell phones and keeping H busy. H was just himself which entails a lot of climbing around and occupying our undivided attention which...was...divided during this week leading up to our departure. 

So as we continued our aimless purge of all of our worldly possessions, I continued to call airlines and follow up on leads to get out of the country. Then it happened and we found out that an announcement about a repatriation flight was going to be made the following day and we could book it early. We weirdly found out via text from the Saudia Whatsapp number which was totally unhelpful and unresponsive to inquiries to the weeks ahead. Just a weird cryptic..."There's going to be a flight if you want to get tickets..." and we were off. I booked it without knowing if it were a real thing. Six days until takeoff. We finally had our timeline. 

Once we had that information, we knew what our baggage situation was going to look like. That led us to some idea of what we could keep and what had to go. Shannon continued her sale. I forget how quickly a house can become full of stuff. After only three years in Saudi we had a ton of stuff. I realize every time we do this how much stuff is just stuff. It's really freeing to get rid of things every few years. People are like goldfish, we grow our possessions to match our surroundings. Just like goldfish....or something. They grow in size to match the bowl? I don't know, I'm not a goldfish expert. This metaphor is now pretty botched but alas we go on!

While Shannon sold our things and managed the parade of purchasers through our home, I made a few trips to the bank which proved to be delightfully inefficient. After a few inopportune prayer time closures followed by outdoor mobbed masses disregarding social distancing (in 114 degree heat) upon opening, I was told that they simply could not help me close my account because I had 7 dollars in it. I would have to go to a different area of the bank, withdraw 7 dollars and get back in line. But it probably couldn't happen today because they were closing soon. After another equally unsuccessful attempt the next day and a different teller informing me that they would just close my account if inactive for 6 months, I decided that was the best fit for me.

Then I was off to the cell phone store to close those accounts. This was a little easier from a timing standpoint but I ran into a problem when the one person in the store told me they couldn't accept a credit card payment because they were out or receipt paper. After inquiring why they didn't have multiple credit card POS systems or multiple rolls of paper I asked the clerk if he could go get one from a storage room or go buy one. I was told that no I would have to go to another branch. I don't mean to impose presuppositions on this gentleman, but if my experience abroad, and in Saudi specifically, taught me anything, it's that the first, second, and third answer from customer service reps are, "I can't. Go to another branch or come back tomorrow." So I decided this was not going to be good enough. I was moving in three days after all! We then had an awkward standoff where I made it clear I was not leaving until he fixed the problem or found a solution. He pretended to ignore me for five minutes. Then another clerk went out and got some receipt paper from another store and returned two minutes later. He tried to lecture me on how I was behaving inappropriately. We had a polite exchange of words that I would describe as a nice punctuation point on my time in Saudi. 

Once our stuff was sold and our accounts were handled, we moved on to the packing and shipping portion of our adventure. We were planning on selling everything but we did have some artwork and larger stuff we wanted to keep. During this whole transition, many of the teachers who traveled to the US for the summer were placed in a similar situation of selling or shipping all of their possessions, but they couldn't even be in the country to do so. Our community of teachers were incredibly helpful in taking care of a lot of that. We even had multiple colleagues doing FaceTime and Skype calls through their friends houses running the camera over their friends stuff so they could pick out what they could keep. It was heartbreaking to hear about, but a nice reminder of the support our community offered to each other. One of our friends, who was arranging for a shipping company to take care of things for another fallen comrade, offered to send the shipper over to our house for a quote. We had set aside two small boxes, roughly three feet by three feet and three feet tall. It took a few days and we got a quote back for $5,000. HA!?!

We were just about resigned to throwing it all out when I took it all on a whim to the local version of UPS. I took the boxes out of the car and ran up to the door, only to hear the faint but familiar sound of prayer call. I arrived at the door just in time for the door to lock. After they opened up again after prayer time to a moist me holding a box and sweating in the 100 degree weather, I got it all sent off for under $400 for both boxes. Shipping is a scam! I later got home with the paperwork to see a typo on the address. So it'll either get there for a tenth of the cost, or someone else in the neighborhood just got a bunch of free, cool stuff. Oh well. Stuff is just stuff. 

Onward we go, back to the US. 

Shark Tooth Wadi

 The morning after we were laid off, we decided on a whim to take a trip out to the Khurais desert, also known as the “Shark Tooth Wadi” to see a little bit more of Saudi and to take our minds off of things for a little while. Apparently, this area of Saudi was an ocean bed 30-50 million years ago! And as such, it is a known spot for hunting for fossilized shells, coral and shark teeth.

With a cooler full of snacks and a backseat full of books, we made an early departure at 5:30 am and caravaned with another family for the roughly 2 hour drive out of Riyadh. Once we got to the highway it was pretty much a straight shot all the way out East. Then, we made a u-turn and essentially drove off the road and into the desert. There was no signage to speak of, just a pin we used that we had found on the internet. We drove about ¼ mile into the sand and parked our cars. By that time, although it was only 7:30 in the morning, the temperature was already climbing past the 90s and the sun was blazing overhead. H immediately ran for the dunes and had a great time exploring the expanse and picking up and dropping little rocks and shells.

It’s surreal to think that we were walking around on what was once the bottom of the ocean, but sure enough almost as soon as you begin walking, you notice crushed shells and fossilized coral all around your feet. We weren’t too lucky with finding shark teeth, but we did find several cool looking shells, coral and imprint fossils and some interesting sort of crystalline rock. Justin found a tiny fossilized scallop shell in pristine condition. 

Meanwhile, it was getting hotter and hotter and H and I had to take frequent breaks to the car - the only place we could get a little shade to drink water and cool down. After about an hour of sifting around in the sand, we were pretty spent. Just when we were about to call it quits, our neighbors’ daughter found the first and only shark tooth of our whole excavation! It was tiny and very sharp and remarkably well preserved. She said she just found lying right on the surface, didn’t even have to dig to find it. 

On our way home we stopped off the side of the road to take a few family pictures in the rolling red sand dunes and then we passed the drive back doing one of H’s favorite car ride pastimes - counting all the tanker trucks and dump trucks on the road the rest of the way home.

Despite the sun and heat and long drive, we were really happy that we got to take this little trip with our friends as part of our farewell Saudi tour, and we got some neat fossils to add to my rock collection.

The End of This Chapter

 Well we're no longer in limbo anymore. We were made aware about four days ago that school had to let us go, along with roughly 28 other teachers. It is disappointing to us and we were disheartened to hear about their decision at first. But we have decided to look at the bright side of things. First we want to express our empathy for the other teachers at our school and all over the world who have been laid off due to enrollment issues due to COVID-19. This year has certainly been one for the ages in terms of negativity as far as I am concerned, but it's also one of great opportunity for resiliency. To me, the myriad of challenges, events, and global catastrophes that have taken place this year is emblematic of a changing world and these problems are symptoms of a greater illness facing society. However, each and every one of these issues is an opportunity for growth, togetherness and improvement. 

We are very much looking forward our next steps professionally, but personally we are thrilled to say we have something in our lives to give us hope and strength and to look forward to. Shannon and I are expecting our next child in January and we are blessed to be able to say that. But information on that is for a future post. Today's is about reflecting on our time in Saudi Arabia. After expressing our condolences to those whose lives are changing along with ours, I feel that the next step is to be thankful to the community here in Saudi Arabia and at our school for being so welcoming to us, so generous, and for reaching out to make our experience here as authentic as possible. We've had some major family milestones take place

here such as having our first child and spending his first two years here. Additionally we have been able to be in the Kingdom for some fantastic milestones in the community such as women gaining the right to drive, huge economic diversification projects, the opening of movie theaters, and the restricting of some cultural expectations for women. It was like being in the front row of the history of this region! We were able to learn a lot about the culture of Saudi Arabia and the Middle East as a region, and while there is still so much more we wish we could have learned, we are grateful for having been exposed to the things we have. Additionally, living here has allowed us to meet and work with some of the finest educators and students we have ever had the pleasure of knowing. People who have truly changed our lives. Some of our coolest adventures here included playing basketball against the Saudi National Team, Shannon tutoring a princess in a palace, navigating all that is Saudi construction, being invited to personal family meals and holidays, and celebrating various events with people we grew quite close with. 

Additionally, living so centrally to the world, we were able to take some amazing trips during our time here including trips to Cuba, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy (twice), Austria, Czech Republic, Jordan, Egypt, Bahrain, Philippines, India, Ireland, the UK, UAE, and maybe even a few more we're forgetting. That's pretty incredible for a three year stretch!

Now we are in the process of dealing with the fallout of the decision which includes making sure we reach out to those whose friendship we have cherished the most, closing bank accounts and cell phone accounts, selling all of our possessions (stressful but freeing!), sorting out travel arrangements, making final doctors' appointments, and seeing some final things in Saudi while we can.

As a parting thought, I want to say a special thank you to the students and colleagues who have reached out to us to offer their support, express their wishes that we could have stayed, and to offer their help as we try to transition into a very short term move. Those sentiments are greatly appreciated. Thank you to our school for giving us the opportunities we have been afforded during our time here, to the community for welcoming us so warmly, and best wishes to all students/parents/teachers/workers who remain. Thanks for everything.

In Limbo

Well here we are at the end of our summer and still in the middle of a global pandemic. As we mentioned before the end of the school year and our final posts, we made a decision to stay in Saudi for the summer due to a variety of circumstances including healthcare concerns, confidence in our ability to get back into the country, possible occupational concerns that come with that, and the presence of a viable alternative for us. When we first set out on our summer, with full intentions to hunker down and prepare for the scalding heat of a Saudi summer, and 120+ days of time to occupy ourselves without the recharging reprieve of seeing our family and closest friends in the states, we were overwhelmed. Including the quarantine and distance learning plan we were on to finish our our year, we've been in quarantine for about 160 days total. It's kind of crazy. I look back at some of our first posts that mentioned COVID19 and I find them a little ridiculous that many of my own personal connections to it included lost vacations. Without a doubt, I believe we will get through this collective global catastrophe and that it will be a defining period in our lives. But in the meantime, we made the most of our summer and really enjoyed ourselves.

Again I feel like it would be flippant or narcissistic to talk about our experiences as a family without first mentioning the 21 million people worldwide of have contracted the virus or the 765 thousand people who have died as of the writing of this post. It is truly tragic and I fully acknowledge my privilege as someone whose experience with COVID has mostly been knowing a few people who had it, and the minor discomforts associated with lockdown, social distancing, and travel disruption. Luckily for me, my family and friends are all healthy and coping well with the circumstances in whatever countries they live in. Now that the required contextual focus has been applied, this post is about our summer and our uncertainty about the upcoming school year. 

To begin with our summer, we spent some time investing in our home and making it a more comfortable place in anticipation of 115 degree heat. We installed misters in our back yard, upgraded our patchy grass that never got sunlight to a concrete tile setup to minimize bugs, added some plants and flowers to spruce up the green in our lives, and put a fence around our back yard to maintain a confined space for us to hang out with H with minimal worry. All of that, in conjunction with some creative planning, and H's own routine have kept us sane. Not to be dismissive of our compound opening the gyms and pools for us, with socially responsible caveats. 

Most of our summer days have been spent waking up with H, playing in our back yard, going to the local compound splashpad, or soccer fields and letting him run around. Shannon and I usually take turns going to the gym. After all of that is done, we usually put him down for a nap and spend that time either preparing something for dinner later on, reading, or occasionally taking turns going to the pool ourselves for some reading time. After H wakes from his naps, we often drive around Riyadh to get out of the house, and for him to explore the myriad of trucks around the country. He has recently been very into identifying concrete mixers, digger trucks, bulldozers and the like. Our late afternoon is usually centered around going to the pool or playing with his vast array of toys or books in the house, or going for bike rides when it isn't too hot. It's just

enough routine to help him and us break up the day but enough different options to make it feel a little less like we're on a time loop. When he goes to bed we have been catching up on lots of movies and shows. We've even kept our friend group movie night going where we take turns picking movies and making a dinner to go with it. We watch it from our own homes though due to COVID concerns. We've have even mixed it up with a few themed nights. This summer we had a drive in movie night where we set up our projector, got some movie snacks, and made the couches into the bed of a pickup truck to watch a movie. We turned the house into a boardwalk including a live feed of a boardwalk we would have gone to had we been able to see the US, and turned some of H's toys into carnival games. We had a few other good themed nights in there too but those were among the best. 

So now as our summer is coming to an end, we are beginning to wrap our minds around what school this year is going to look like. Unfortunately, with the global pandemic and many people understandably traveling home, or losing their jobs, our own jobs are in a bit of limbo at the moment. As like most international schools, ours charges tuition. Layoffs around the country, and people returning to their home countries with no ability to return due to airport closures, have led to an anticipated significant decrease in our school's enrollment. Subsequently, they are going to have to make some staffing changes and that includes everyone from admin to teachers. Our school wisely pushed back the start of our school year in anticipation of the need to see some things play out. At the moment we, and our colleagues are kind of all in a state of limbo where we don't know if teachers who have remained in KSA, or those who have returned home, or our students abroad, or our students in KSA will be able to return. There are a lot of considerations up in the air. The airport has made no announcement yet about reopening for international flights, nor has the Ministry of Education made any announcement about the return to school being in person or online. We are personally hoping for an online return that would allow our students abroad to re-enroll, and that would provide us with some assurances of medical safety. In person schooling has been a hot topic around the world. We know quite a few people who have started in person, and started online, and started in person only to have COVID cases in their schools shut down schools. We have no idea whether we are going to be going back to school in person. I feel confident in our school's ability to make it as safe a place as possible, but in a pandemic that is challenging. Furthermore, we don't know whether we will have jobs to return to or not. So these concerns, along with balancing our time and attitudes and mindsets have been our major focus. Hopefully there will be more information coming to us soon.

In the meantime, I plan on enjoying the rest of the summer that we have with H and with Shannon. I look forward to spending the dog days of summer with my family at the pool and watching movies together. This pandemic, while unquestionably negative economically, in terms of health, and in terms of political divisiveness and discourse has been horrible. The effects will be felt for generations to come. But in the meantime, we have been blessed to have had this much time to spend together, with ample options for entertainment, safety, and healthcare. When we are through this, I will look back fondly on my morning bike rides with our 1 year old, and our evening theme nights born out of necessity. Until then, I'll enjoy the limbo and take on whatever comes next with as much positivity as I can.

Year 3 in Review (Shannon)

Well it’s that time of year again where we take a moment to reflect on our school year - the successes, the challenges, the new learnings, the ups and downs. Having completed our third year here in Saudi and my 13th year teaching, I can say that I have settled into a secure feeling of pride and confidence with my craft. I’m feeling myself to be in a professional stride right now and have enjoyed the experience of teaching 9th and 12th graders simultaneously because I can see the beginning and ending stages of the high school life cycle. What I love about teaching 9th grade is the freedom and flexibility of topics to teach, more opportunities for creative writing and watching students develop some skills for the first time. What I love about teaching seniors is the intellectual engagement and the opportunity to watch students on the cusp of adulthood coming into their own. After three years in Saudi I can say that I am comfortably settled in, if not a little bored most of the time.

As of this moment we’ve decided to stay put for the foreseeable future and not make our usual summer journey home to the States - at least not right now. There are so many complicated factors that factored into that decision, but it’s still very difficult to accept. When I think of not getting to go home and spend the summer with my friends and family, I’m overwhelmed with sadness, so mainly I’ve been trying to not think about it too much and just tell myself it’s “not yet.”

When looking to the silver linings of the quarantine situation, I can say I’ve been getting to read more
often; I will get to put some extra time and care into curriculum planning for next year, many organization and beautification projects around our house; and of course a great amount of extra family time. And this has been the best part, obviously. We both get to spend the whole day with H, we are watching him learn new skills and new words every day; and we are just really enjoying our extra time together as a family. When I see and read about what’s happening to other families in other parts of the world, I realize what a blessing this time is and so I’m make a conscious effort to enjoy every moment because eventually there will be a day when we must go to work all day and then we will look back to this time in our lives with nostalgia.

I think our school did an excellent job of rolling out our distance learning plan and maintaining academic continuity for our students - at least for those students that tried to stay engaged. And I can say I’ve learned a few new skills in terms of recording lessons and holding virtual meetings. But virtual teaching is not fun and I don’t like it. I miss the students and their energy, and the dynamic of a classroom that just cannot be replicated online. I miss popping my head into my colleague’s classroom to ask a quick question or tell her a funny story. I miss my beautiful classroom that I spent so much time designing and decorating and making it just right for students to feel happy and comfortable and open to learning. And I just miss “going” to work every day. I do hope that when the next school year begins we can go back to campus and start off on the right foot. I can’t imagine doing the first day of school routine online. But I guess if this experience has taught us anything it's that we need to be prepared for anything and be able to think and adapt on our feet.

Of all the trips we went on this year - Ireland, Florence, Turkey and Greece - I would rank Ireland as being the most beautiful, Florence as having the best food, Turkey as having the coolest vibe and energy, and Greece as being wonderful simply for the fact that my family was there.

And since we will have to keep ourselves occupied for a while, I have some new baking frontiers attempt including: tiramisu, strawberry shortcake, eclairs and continuing to experiment with bagels. We’ve also been on a roll with our family fitness routine of running two to three 5Ks each week, so we’ll need to keep up with this as well, especially if I”m going to be doing a lot of extra baking!
to

All in all, I’m feeling good about the end of this year. And while I wish we could have had a proper ending to the year, and be on a plane home to the US for the summer, I’m just feeling so thankful that I and my family are healthy and safe and comfortable and I know that we will get to be together again soon.

Year 3 in Review (Justin)

What a year huh? Every year since we've began our journey living and teaching overseas has ended with a year in review post where we take a moment to reflect on the events, people, and adventures that have mattered most to us. I have come to think of it as my most favorite post every year because it allows me to/forces me to reconcile with the positives and negatives and really take a break from the day to day task managing that life often becomes and forces me to paint in a broad brush that provides great perspective. It has been an exercise in reflection and the journey that has brought us here. Each school year serves as a natural breaking point, a measurable chapter in our story to reflect upon. So that brings me to this year's reflection; what a doozy.

So when we came back from last summer, we were in great spirits. We had just spent some time in the UK and Ireland and with family. We did the beach house thing, spent some time in Florida and got to introduce H to so many of his family members and friends.

When we got home, we returned to a home that was set up. We had our furniture, we knew our compound facilities well, we knew the local area and had our favorite spots to shop, eat, and hang out. We had friends here and for the most part, we were teaching the same courses, and many of the same students as the year before. In fact, for me I had the opportunity to teach a cohort of students for the third straight year, which was new for me and something I really relished. I had grown quite close to the senior class and was ready for a great year. Yet, not everything was stagnant. Shannon and I each had some slightly modified roles at work with regards to differentiation and leadership opportunities. It was just enough "new" to keep it interesting and enough or returning normalcy to make it a smooth transition. The mere notion of revisiting this idea of stability is laughable to me right now.

But alas the year went on. We had H's first birthday and celebrated with tons of cake and friends and

had a great time. Then we had his first Halloween. Then he learned to walk! All was normal in our little bubble of child rearing suburban bliss. Then our first suggestion of a weird year kicked up and we had a trip planned to Beirut cancelled due to political unrest and country wide protests. We quickly rebounded and set up a lovely trip to Italy where we had a great time, amid some stress and difficulties. Still, we had some great food, got to see some sights, and explore more of Italy that we hadn't seen in the past.

The following months brought us to Turkey where we got to explore Istanbul with H and see some truly amazing things. We were floored by the food and how friendly the people were. After we left Turkey we were able to meet up with family in Greece and see even more stuff. Spending Christmas with family was an absolute highlight for me. Little did we know that would be our last trip for a while.

During January and February we watched the COVID crisis from afar, as a news headline like any other. Then we kept watching as it morphed into something that could potentially impact us on the periphery by canceling trips to East Asia then more and more as it turned into something that was present in Saudi and then we were on 24 hour lockdown. In retrospect, it was like watching a storm from far away, imagining what it would be like to be under its cloud until the moment where the first rain drop hit and even though we were watching the whole time, the rain surprised us.

The months that followed were a little hectic. Our jobs changed. We went from teachers in a classroom feeding off of the energy, enthusiasm, and curiosity of our students to something else. Our school handled this challenge as well as any school I've heard about to their credit. The plan was laid out before school stopped for us, and we never had to revisit it and start over from scratch. It is to admin's credit that our school handled it so well. Still it was hard for us. It was hard to be sapped of that energy of being in a room with curious students. I miss the ancillary stuff. I miss talking to a kid about their performance in a sporting event, concert, play, or even just what they liked on Netflix. The casual, relationship building stuff fell by the wayside in favor of module writing and written feedback. It turned the teacher-student relationship into exclusively an academic transaction based relationship. That sucks. I look forward to that going away.

But we adjusted. We adjusted as our roles and positions in school changed and the challenges of going to a distance learning plan. We adjusted in going from full time teachers with daycare help to full time teachers without daycare help.  We made schedules, we adjusted as our access to parks, gyms, playgrounds, restaurants,  weekly pickup games, and running clubs went away. And a weird thing happened. We had this resurgence in resolve and closeness with the family. Maybe that's not the best way to put it because we never really lost that or had it wane. But maybe an amplification of those things is a better way to phrase it. Every day is exhausting but rewarding. We lost the freedom to go where we want when we want and to be close to people but now we have the unique opportunity to spend time with family in such pivotal years. We won't look back one day and say "Should I have taken more time off when H was 1?"

We've taken our resolve as a chance to focus on helping each other get through these weird times. We've taken it as a chance to upgrade our living space, while finding fun ways to bridge the gaps lost to quarantine. We still have weekly movie nights with friends. But now instead of watching together and laughing, we deliver dinner to each other and watch at the same time and text our way through the movie making jokes and sharing in the experience and absurdity of it all.

As the weeks of the school year wound down, we struggled a lot with the decision whether or not we
wanted to go on one of the many repatriation flights back to the US for the summer. There were a ton of things to consider like cost, quarantine measures, the health of family members we wanted to visit, additional quarantine, socially distanced visits, day to day outlooks, the consideration of what a quarantine in a hotel room would look like for 2 weeks with a 1 year old, and the outlook of the healthcare system in the US and COVID19. It is super tough and we went back and forth on the decision. For now we are planning on seeing how things plan out. The idea of not seeing our families and friends breaks our hearts. The idea that they will go another year potentially without seeing H is even worse. But given the circumstances, we decided that it's best to wait and see how this all plays out, and to take solace in the recently discovered resolve and appreciation for the things that are going well.

In final thoughts, we have been somehow simultaneously thriving and struggling. We miss our families and friends in the states. We are going to miss out on farewells with friends we've made who are departing for other schools and other countries. We feel a significant sense of loss for the unceremonious departures of students, teachers, community members who deserve to be celebrated. With that perspective, our challenges are not as bad.

For now, we look forward to continuing to build on the progress we've made and in the challenge of continuing to navigate this global pandemic together. We count the blessings we have of a home, our health, and the happiness of our little family. We're thankful for the adventures that we had this year, and here's hoping for a fun summer and a better year next year.

Quarantine Chronicles (pt. 4)

As the curfew has been moved up and up over the last few weeks and the pools remained closed, the temperature has been slowly creeping up and we are now hitting daily temps of 100-103 degrees. It’s a great time to be in the inflatable pool business as I have seen pools of various shapes, sizes and depths popping up in every single backyard around the compound. I’ve also seen several families buy a modest-sized pool, and then within days post it on the sales chat to upgrade for a larger model. Several families even have a semi-permanent situation now - complete with pool pump and chlorine! After springing a leak in our first inflatable pool, Justin quickly upgraded us to a tarp-lined model and we bought a second cheap inflatable pool to keep as an emergency backup! Although H isn’t much into swimming per se, he does enjoy standing in the middle of the pool and playing with the hose, discreetly sneaking drinks from it every once in a while when he thinks we aren’t looking.

Basketball hoops are also a top item in the summer quarantine survival kit and I’ve seen about half a dozen adult-sized hoops go up around the neighborhood. So H also has a mini-hoop currently sitting in our living room. Justin has been trying to get him to work on his jump shot lately and progress is slow but coming.

When we were afraid that we were going to be cut off soon from delivery
services as well, we did a panic order on Amazon to stock up on toys and activities to keep the little sir busy. Puzzles, wooden toy cars, a magnetic fishing game, a play kitchen, and a teepee are among our latest additions and we have dedicated a corner of the living room to a play area for him. It seems that we got our order just in time because Amazon is no longer delivering to Saudi and even local carriers like Souq are now estimating delivery times of 30 business days.

So we’ve set up our play areas and our swimming pool and we are ready to stay hunkered down until things clear up.

Quarantine Chronicles (pt. 3)

We are now approaching week 6 of virtual learning and working from home. And governmental guidelines and mandates regarding curfew and quarantine have been steadily growing more strict in the last 2 weeks, with the decision being made March 5th that Riyadh is now in a 24-hour curfew situation until further notice. With these mounting restrictions and the continuing challenges of working full time from home while simultaneously entertaining and educating their own children, stress, anxiety and cabin fever have been taking their toll on all of us. However, it is said that necessity is the mother of invention and while there are certainly some new stresses to manage, we have also seen a wonderful bubbling of innovation and creativity from our community members. Our community started a daily challenge game to keep families active and entertained and to foster a sense of togetherness while still maintaining our social distance. 

One of the first events was the “Bear Challenge” where families placed a teddy bear in one of their villa windows or doors. Then, either on family walks or bike rides, the kids would circle around the neighborhood hunting for bears. The kids get very excited that they are finding the “hidden” bears and the parents are happy because it's getting everybody out of the house for a little while. We walked Harris up and down our little street and showed him the bears in the windows which he found thoroughly exciting. One one door he spied a bear that looked almost identical to his bear and this caused a slight scuffle as he kept walking up to their door, removing the bear and trying to take it home. We had to bring his own bear outside to prove to him that his bear had not been kidnapped but he seemed unconvinced. 

Another event was the “Rainbow Challenge” where families put a rainbow somewhere outside of their villa. Some popular choices were watercolor paintings hung on front doors and giant rainbows drawn in sidewalk chalk on front porches and patios.

The “Joke Challenge” had families post a silly joke on their doors and kids could walk up to the paper and flip it up to see the answer revealed. A “Door Decorating Challenge” had families design quarantine-themed displays for their front doors. What’s so fun about these challenges is that it gets the whole family involved, gives them something new to look forward to each day, and at different points throughout the morning and afternoon you can find several families on bike rides going around the compound and checking out the living art displays. 

Not all of the challenges are outdoors, however. There is a WhatsApp chat group where families can post pictures and videos of their daily entries and some of these challenges have included a cupcake decorating contest and even a live talent show hosted through Zoom!

I’ve realized that if you’re going to be quarantined and curfewed, a fully-appointed compound is not a bad place to be locked down. And while the facilities like the gym, sports courts, pools and playgrounds have all been closed, we fortunately still have the ability to walk the sidewalks around the compound (about 1.5 miles around) and we have something to look at while we walk. We are also incredibly fortunate to have a small grocery store, bakery and coffee shop on compound that are all still operating so I think that our situation is probably a lot more comfortable than most people’s and we are grateful for this.

Quarantine Chronicles (pt. 2)

As we're concluding week two of our distance learning program and our new normal system. We're beginning to settle into a new normal with our schedules and the expectations that come with that. It's a little difficult to find time to get in 8 hours of work per day, but we have been purposeful about sticking to a strict schedule or sorts and that has helped us find a system that works. Since we have some flexibility with when we get our work done, we have been able to take advantage of the idea of alternating days to sleep in since only one of us goes into work early every morning. So yay for silver linings in a pandemic ridden world. I usually go take on the morning work routine and Shannon does morning baby duty. I have been able to get into a pretty consistent workout routine in the mornings as our school's gym has been available to us, and kept super clean. I have never been in there for more than 20 minutes without having seen someone from our school's custodian staff come in and clean. Plus, there are lots of cleaning solution bottles around for those civilized among us to clean up after ourselves. Having an option for exercise has been huge as there are definitely times where we go a little stir crazy. So I'm thankful for that. The rest of my routine usually involves me going in to work at 8 and working until 12. During that time, I have virtual meetings, lesson plan writing time, grading time, or video office hours so students can check in with me if they need to talk face to face (on the internet). Physically going in to work to do that is super convenient because a home with a one year old running around is not a quiet place. It's also convenient because we live about 30 yards from work. School has been doing a pretty great job of disinfecting, fumigating, wiping down, bleaching, and cleaning any and everything. So I don't feel like being there has been a safety concern at all so far. Plus I don't really see many people along the way, and I definitely don't see anyone in close quarters. 

We are doing our lessons in a week by week module style now rather than trying to adhere to our previous schedules. That makes sense to me and my students have been receptive to that for the most part. It is hard though as the best part of teaching, and the most fun part about teaching is the interaction with students. We have been deprived that to an extent. We record video tutorials for our lessons and provide feedback but the interpersonal connections have been difficult. I recently began the process of emailing check ins with students and I have found them to be in dire need of that so far. Many of my students are really struggling with the lack of socialization and boredom, which is a totally fair complaint. They have been rising to the occasion however on their academic expectations. I have had students doing their work for the most part, and completing it all at a high level. They have really pleasantly surprised me with their self-management and their maturity in all of this. It really brings to light the fact that many of them are deserving of more autonomy like this all of the time. 

When I go home at noon, I have lunch with Shannon and the baby and then she goes off to do the same at work. I have really enjoyed having so much extra time to be with him. During the school day, when things are normal, I see him for an hour or two in the morning before work and an hour or two at night before he goes to sleep. With him being at such an interesting and fun age, it's been great to see him for like 8 hours a day. I've been able to show him new things, teach him new words, play with him, and really get to enjoy the highs and lows of spending quality time with him. It's not always easy, obviously, but I feel pretty confident that I'm going to look back at this time fondly and without regrets and not being able to be around him. 

During our time together, our routine usually consists of eating lunch together and then going to play outside. Right now, for us, playing outside involves walking around and exploring things like trees, neighborhood cats, kicking a ball, sometimes running, and pointing out things he knows, like cars. Occasionally, he'll spot a little basketball hoop and we spend twenty minutes with me lifting him up to dunk various objects through the hoop. Then we go back inside and try to take a nap, to varying degrees of success. After our nap, we usually go on a walk (with him in his stroller) around the neighborhood. Unfortunately, the playgrounds in our neighborhood have been barricaded off as a precaution so we are mostly left to our own devices with regards to what we can play with and how. Recently, we have been going to the school's track, and soccer field to provide him with a giant open space to kick a ball around or run around on soft grass. But aside from that it's been a lot of reading and playing inside. It has recently started to creep up in terms of temperature, so that has me worried about the long term viability of outside spaces as this thing continues to go on, but for now so far so good. On a few rare occasions, we have gone over to play with one of his friends who lives down the street, whose family is in a similarly isolated situation. We're doing the best we can. 

When Shannon gets home we all eat dinner together and after the baby goes to bed, we have been continuing our work at home emailing kids, grading things, providing feedback, and lesson planning. We have found some time on occasion to get some movie time in together. For the near future, this seems to be what our lives will be like. But on the whole, I would say we are settling into the new expectations we have and we are making the most of it. 

COVID-19

So as I mentioned in our previous blog post, we began seeing the impact of the COVID-19 virus a month plus ago. At the time, we did not really have any idea how widespread it would be become or what the impact would turn into for us. Similar to last post, I won't use this space to summarize the entirety of the case except to clarify that I take the recent developments of the virus seriously. I recognize and empathize with those afflicted with the virus. I also empathize with those who have been directly impacted by the effects of the virus as I can now say that I have as well. At the time of this post, there are over 156,000 cases confirmed, with hundreds of thousands more suspected but not reported. Over 5,800 people have died and 75,000 have been confirmed as having the virus, but have fully recovered. Over 140 countries have reported cases as well. For live stats, this site is very helpful. The virus is very serious. For the purposes of this post, I am going to write down, for posterity's sake, our own specific experiences as I imagine this is something we will want to remember in detail later.

Speaking for myself, I can say that I largely experienced the COVID-19 case with some distance. I was following the news, and intellectually aware of what was happening. Yet to me, my concern still mostly remained on my own experiences with an underlying assumption that it would all go away soon. I spent time expressing frustrations and hopes that the virus would be finished spreading in time for me to take my Spring Break vacation. Then as cases kept spreading, my focus shifted more towards the inevitable loss of that time and more towards a wary observation of the stats and spread. Now I find myself jumping back and forth between my responsibilities and worries as a parent, my role as a teacher having to figure out distance learning for the first time, a partner to my wife with all of the roles that come with family responsibilities and I find myself compartmentalizing. I feel that I am shifting my focus, roles, perspectives, and responsibilities to each of the groups of people I am committed to, and care about. It's a surreal experience to be responsible for the life and entertainment of a toddler in a time like this, to be in charge of planning and food procurement as the only driver in our home, worrying about the health of my wife and child, and also worrying about the educational experience of my 120+ students. All while being aware of my shift in responsibilities depending on the context of my tasks at hand. Previously, it seemed like these things were automatically sorted for me by location. In school I am the teacher. At home, I am the father and husband. But with this new blended approach to working from home and balancing child care duties with work responsibilities, all while surrounded by the same things, I have found it odd code switching between perspectives.

To briefly summarize our experiences so far after the cancellation of our 'Week Without Walls' trip, I can summarize it best in order of events. As news continued to trickle in about the spread of the virus, the government Saudi closed religious tourist visits. That's a big deal for the government of Saudi Arabia as those visits are of significant religious importance in addition to the economic boom they provide. It signaled to us that the government was taking their responsibilities seriously. If anything, at that point, I felt a little relieved to be living on a compound, in a country with a somewhat restrictive access to visas. Basically we are living in a country with walls, inside a community with walls and all along, at every checkpoint, there are restrictions to get in.

Shortly after that, the first case in Saudi was reported. It was reported in Jeddah, which is a flight away but it was a shock to the system that it had arrived in the same country we were in, although we were aware with our surrounding countries all involved that it would happen here too. Not long after that, our school cancelled after school activities as per Ministry of Health and Education requirements. At that point it seemed inevitable that we would be taking alternate precautions at school. We had a planned 'Virtual Day' that was moved up so we could practice, and well, regroup and come up with a plan. Shortly after, we started virtual school. This is a practice our school isn't new to. As I mentioned, we've been conducting virtual school days twice per year since long before I got here, so that gave us a helpful framework of systems that work and don't work. I read about and hear about schools trying these systems for the first time now and I am grateful for the opportunity to work at a school that has experience with these systems. As someone who regularly follows the happenings at other schools around the world, I was seeing all kinds of plans. Some schools sent their teachers and students home. Some teachers left the countries. Others were required to go to school. Some decided to try to hold daily lessons virtually. Then, as the school anticipated government mandated shut downs of schools, we re-worked a lot of our systems and procedures for online school, meetings, etc. We spent a week or so fine tuning our online program while providing lessons, and figuring all of that stuff out. While it was nerve-wracking, it was an exciting and fulfilling time as I love the creative aspect of problem-solving. At least exciting from that standpoint; I don't mean to misrepresent my intentions and imply that I was looking forward to this. It just put me into a mindset of problem-solving in an authentic way. Something needed to be done, and I had to help figure it out.

During this time, Shannon and I would cope with the stress and anxiety of this transition period with lots of walks around the compound while talking out our thoughts. Then, as we watched the cases continue to grow within Saudi, I started stocking up on groceries and medicine and baby products. I made frozen breakfasts, emergency frozen dinners, and loaded up on as much as we could regarding supplies in case things ran low or we were prevented from getting out later. Then this past weekend we woke up to the government shutting down the borders. There are no international flights now for the next two weeks at least. That's a whole new situation too as we have never been in a position where we COULDN"T leave even if we wanted to. There is a level of peaceful resignation to the fact that one of the possible scenarios has been taken off of the table, so we're left to deal with our current reality. Again, I'm not happy about it or excited about it, just aware of how these changes and decisions are impacting me personally.

Now we're somewhere in the middle of this process. We have officially begun our long term plan for distance learning. Shannon and I have worked out a system of shifts to rotate and cover all of our required responsibilities at work, with the baby, with our students, and everything else. It's going to be a time where we need to be flexible, and one where we wish we had some extra childcare help. But one day, we will hopefully look back at this and view it as the happy medium between being stay at home parents, and working full time. We are certainly going to be getting a lot of stress relieving (and inducing) playtime with the little guy.

Now as recently as last night, there has been a confirmed case in the compound. I hope that person recovers quickly. But I would be lying if I didn't say that news made me a little nervous. My previously held facade of walls creating a proverbial nesting doll structure, a protective cocoon, is shattered. Most of the compound facilities including stores, gyms, etc. are all shut down as a precaution.

So that brings us to here and now. We are doing the best we can with what we can. We are taking care of each other. We are taking care of our responsibilities. We are hoping for the best. We are hunkered down if need be with all of the resources we need and we know as much as anyone about how we need to treat this from a preventative standpoint. So until otherwise noted, we will be sitting in our homes, doing our jobs, and entertaining our one year old to the best of our ability, all while trying to take it all in stride.

Week Without Walls...Just not how I expected...

What a weird year we’ve had with regards to travel. Mind you, we’re still incredibly lucky to be in the position we are in and to travel as we do. I acknowledge that but I can still complain about the way this year has been a total mess. For our fall break, we had to cancel a long-anticipated trip to Beirut due to political unrest. We made that up with a wonderful trip to Florence, that we were totally under-prepared for, and got caught with some weird weather and some serious baby teething issues. Then, on a delightful trip to Istanbul and Athens, we ran into some other severe baby sickness combined with even more serious baby teething issues. Now we’ve got the CoronaVirus. I don’t mean to make light of this topic as I recognize and acknowledge that as of the writing of this post, there have been over 72,000 cases confirmed, and nearly 2,000 deaths. I empathize for those who are living in areas that are more directly affected and whose lives are being permanently changed by this virus. I also intend to use this space as a way to discuss how the virus has impacted Shannon and my life, at a significantly smaller scale of impact.

Every year, most international schools participate in a “Week Without Walls” experience. For some schools, that includes local camping trips, or local community service oriented trips. Other schools offer international trips to students as a way to experience the cultures of new places and to engage in community service in a host country. On this blog, I have highlighted past Week Without Walls trips that I have had that featured camping at 15,000 feet on the edge of a volcano, getting lost in a jungle, and building houses in the Philippines. The programs are wonderful, fulfilling for students, and usually quite enjoyable for the supervising teachers as well.

When the time came this year for volunteers to offer supervision on specific trips, I was chosen to help chaperone a trip to Thailand. As the weeks passed, our trip itinerary was built up and our tickets booked. Then the Corona Virus hit. As it continued to spread, our school, to their credit, did their due diligence and kept in contact with the local embassy, other international schools, and kept up to date on World Health Organization recommendations. Ultimately, our school decided to cancel all of our trips we had planned to Thailand, Cambodia, and Nepal.

Our students were disappointed, but the inability for the international community to get this virus under control makes it a decision of caution. Our school rightfully, didn’t want to get stuck in a situation where we were exposing students (and teacher chaperones) to any heightened level of risk by traveling through airports and other bustling locations with many travelers. While disappointing to me and to our school as a whole, it was the right call. It was also a nice wake up call. People tend to think of their own perspectives from the scope and context of their own experiences. If they aren’t in a position to face an international crisis, it’s easy to put it from the forefront of their mind. Whether those events are earthquakes in South America, Tsunamis in the Pacific Islands, or a sweeping virus. But being faced with the realities of those situations forces us to confront those problems, or at least acknowledge them, in ways that go beyond simple awareness in a news feed.

Now I am spending my week driving around Riyadh, checking in on students as they intern at various local and international businesses. For many of them, they were forced to forego their trips to various countries, only to be thrust into the workforce for the week. But regardless, I think the learning that they will take with them from this week will benefit them greatly in the long run.

Now here's to hoping that we don't have some other weird obstacles to overcome before our spring break trip we have planned...

Call to Attention

This blog has been a great sounding board for me personally to vent on things I have found frustrating while living abroad. Often, these frustrations belong to me and how living within the parameters of a new culture can be challenging only because of expectations formed by my own previous experiences. There were language barrier issues, and pace of live concerns  in Ecuador. Living in Saudi has been a different set of circumstances, again, defined by my own expectation to living in a new culture. Keeping a running log of the singular moments and details that coalesce into our lives here is something I value greatly. I don’t want to look back in 40 years at the amazing things we’ve been able to experience with no memory of anything beyond the broad strokes of our experiences. Writing my thoughts in this way serves as a reference point to the individual moments that will inevitably slip through my fingers like sand, faster and faster the harder I try to hold on to it. So I hope that writing here will serve as my record of all things wonderful and frustrating that make up my (and our) lives abroad.

One such frustration that I have expressed, yet understood, has been the closing of businesses for prayer time multiple times per day. I won’t go into it at length now, but my frustration has taken on a new tone and context. Recently, a new mosque near our home was built. It was under construction before we got here, but it is now in operation. I think this is a great thing, and having more, and more abundant places of worship for people to pursue their relationship with God is a good thing, especially when the land wasn’t being used for anything constructive previously. My new qualm is that the calls to prayer from our new neighborhood mosque are quite loud. From a cultural standpoint, I can see the rationality to a communal call to do something, especially a collective act. From a personal standpoint, that 4:50-5:05am prayer call that interrupts the dark silence of the night is super inconvenient with a baby. I have obviously learned to live with it and sleep through it, but apparently the toddler cannot. I realize that is my own problem to own, but since this blog is a place to vent my frustrations, and a way to record my experiences after we leave here one day, I really needed to get this written down. Those peaceful mornings fading in and out of sleep as the morning takes me over and prepares me for a new day aren’t really ideal when started with the exclamation point that is a 5:00am mandatory wake-up call. This particular problem may fade away when H learns to sleep through it, or maybe not. But in the meantime, that’s a grain of sand that I anticipate I’ll remember long after we are gone.

Sri Lankan Guest of Honor

I recently had the privilege of being invited to attend a debate competition held at the Sri Lankan International School here in Riyadh and act as an official judge. I went with the activities director from my school. We left our campus first thing in the morning and arrived at the Sri Lankan school about 30 minutes later. The school has about 700 students ranging from grades K-12 and is segregated into a boys section and a girls section. As our driver pulled up to the front of the boys school, we noticed a stream of female students and teachers walking over from the girls school. This debate, it turns out, was to be the main event in a multi-act annual literary festival and was to be attended by all students from Grade 3 and up.

My colleague and I were greeted at the door by the school’s superintendent and brought directly to his office where we chatted about his school and their recent athletic and academic awards. Competition, ceremony and recognition, he explained to us, are extremely important to their school community. The event was also to be attended by the Sri Lankan ambassador, the guest of honor. When the ambassador arrived, he was greeted to warm applause and presented with a flower necklace. Having received no information prior to the event and not having a ton of experience with official debate rules, I was a little nervous to see what a big deal this event was to be.

The acts began at about 9:30 in the morning and did not conclude until after 1:00. Students performed cultural dances and musical numbers, comedy acts and sketches, all with a focus on showcasing their understanding of and the nuances of the English language as well as their own native tongues. It seemed that each grade level had some sort of performance so that in effect, the entire school was represented in the fair.

The venue was what had once been the paved plot between two of the school buildings that had been covered with a corrugated metal roof and made into a gymnasium. An elevated wooden stage was constructed in the front and rows of chairs with an aisle dividing the boys section from the girls section filled two thirds of the floor. I got to sit in the front row of the girls section with the other female teachers and occasionally looked back to smile at the tiny little 3rd grade girls whispering and giggling in the row behind mine - all of them wearing in cultural dress and adorned with flowers and even lipstick on a few.

When it was time for the main event, my colleague and I were each handed a manila folder with an official scoring sheet and the lead English teacher explained to us the format. Each team was made up of four students - mixed grades - one girl on each team. There was a team captain whose job it was to go first, then a rebuttal given by the opposing captain, then the first team’s second member, followed by the opposing team’s second member, and so on and so forth until a final closing argument at the end. There was strict 4 minute speaking time for each member. The students had only been assigned the topic the week before and had just a few days to research, prepare their arguments and collect supporting evidence. The topic was “Global Warming is Not a Crisis.” Points were to be awarded for criteria such as as argument, presentation, clarity, delivery, rebuttal, and spontaneity (being able to think on the spot).

The debate began and my partner and rapidly scribbled notes into our folders. Every single student spoke with a passion and fervor that I have not seen in some time. Their command of English vocabulary, clarity of argument and confidence, eye contact and body language was exceptional - all of this, mind you, performed in their second or third language! The performance was beyond impressive and my partner and I could barely keep up with scoring, so enthralled were we in the debate.

When the debate had concluded, the student audience cheered and chanted their favored house name (this school runs on the house system, so imagine Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff). Students held homemade signs and banners touting the colors of the two house names. As my partner and I were going over our notes, I heard my name called over the speaker - I was being asked to say a few words about the performance without revealing the winner. Cue internal screaming! I was NOT prepared for this in the least and was already sweating trying to figure out the complex scoring rubric. Mercifully, the high school principal noticed my discomfort and bought me a few more minutes while I hastily scratched some speaking points onto the pack of my scoring folder. Then, with what I hope was not a noticeably shaky voice, I congratulated both teams on the amount of preparation and commitment they showed today, the confidence and passion with which they spoke and the generosity of the school for entrusting me with the honor of judging such a high profile event. The audience clapped and I happily sat back down.

Rejoining my colleague, we realized we had quite the task ahead of us. Without a true grading scale we just had to decide on a number for each student on each criteria (1-5, 1-7, 1-10) etc. Though we were in agreement that there was a clear winner. We finished up our scoring and with much pomp and ceremony, our folders were collected by the principal and handed to the two-person accounting department seated on the sidelines whose job it was to tally and verify our scores. The anticipation in the gym was palpable. The high school principal fed off of this excitement and really drew out the announcing of the winners. We were not prepared for what happened next. Screams. Literal screams of joy, surprise, outrage and various other emotions filled the gym. Out of nowhere a giant flag of the winning house produced itself from the crowd and was being waved up and down the aisles. High-fives, embraces, claps on the back were awarded to the winning team while the losing team crumbled into a heap of tears and sobbing as they attempted to comfort one another.

The winning team, we had judged, was the team who argued that global warming was in fact, NOT a crisis. And while I personally disagree with that statement, I could not deny that their team had collected more evidence, better evidence, and had presented their claims in a more effective way.
As the celebration continued, the principal and superintendent escorted my colleague and I back to the administration offices where we enjoyed a little banquet together consisting of salads and fried spring rolls and a delicious fluffy vanilla cake with pink icing. And as if this wasn’t enough, we were then presented with award plaques commemorating the date of the event and our participation as judges. The treatment we received was just over the top and incredibly kind and generous and I was so impressed with the prestige and formality with which this event was held, as well as the incredible school spirit around the entire competition.

I look forward to our continuing partnership with this school, especially when we will welcome them to our campus in February for a community-building day.