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.