Hello everyone by way of Bahrain. I think it has been a couple of weeks since
my last post and of course quite a bit has happened in the world since
then. Yes, there has been some
protesting here but there has never been any violence, and life has for the
most part gone on as usual. The vibe
that I have gotten from my students is that the people here really enjoy
Western culture and the people but are not big fans of our government. I have zero intentions of going political on
this blog but wanted help you understand what the general mood is here.
My
classes have continued to feel like a whirlwind but things should start to slow
down as I have an IB conference next weekend.
I am hoping it will give me some more specifics on what the outcome
should be for the students and some direction for my lesson plans. Oh yeah, did I mention it’s in Dubai? Yeah that should be pretty terrible but my
cross to bare.
One
more piece of shop talk before I can get to the more adventurous aspects of the
past two weeks is that basketball season started here last week. Now we only practice twice a week and then for
under two hours which is so not American!
So we won’t have a lot of time, but we have a bunch of good kids that
will show up and work hard. My coaching
career has not began with flashes of John Wooden. My greatest hurdle to this point has been the
coaches insistence on speaking in Arabic to the players. To start the first practice he gave an
opening spiel and I am hearing all of this nothing and then Michael Jordan and
then a bunch more of intense nothingness, but very intense. So of course I am nodding my head like yep, uh
huh, that’s what I think too, until he turns to me and says, “Do you have
anything to add coach?” My first thought
was, well considering I have no clue what you said, nope. But then I like blacked out and gave the,
this is your senior year speech and prayed I didn’t double up on too much what
was covered during my intense bobbleheading.
Our first two practices went well and we have our first game on Sunday
already! In order to get a little work
the varsity usually plays the teachers before the first game. Now I am by no means an NBA super star but I
am like Yao Ming here, everyone is up to my shoulders. During the game itself nothing too exciting
happened but we will just that my team made up of mostly former drama stars
beat a team with two of Bahrain’s National team players……..ballin!
The
next morning brought the fish market, and I was not prepared for this. I love seafood as much as anyone I know and Bahrain
has a farmers market committed to that love.
However, it is inside and I have never smelled such distinctive
smells. All of these smells which I
found to not be completely ideal after a night of refreshments. All fish tang aside, this place was amazing! There were so many varieties of different fish
that we just had to walk around awhile to get a feel for prices and what we
even wanted. By the end we ended up with
jumbo shrimp and some squid (not calamari, like whole squids). After you have finished making you selections
and paid, you take your bags to a room connected to the market, where you can
find the real men. There is a U-shaped
table of guys just hacking at fish and peeling shrimp like crazy. They are all covered in scales and skin and
look like they were doing it with their eyes closed (which impressed/terrified
me). I had one kilo of shrimp which they
of course peeled in like two minutes, where it would have taken me 30 for
sure. Perhaps the most potent reason to
remember my market experience clings to my sandals. After three washing it is still a very
noticeable addition to the ambiance of my room.
I
apologize that there was no real rhyme or reason to this week’s blog besides
keep you all abreast of what’s going on here.
I hope it finds you all well and I look forward to hearing from
you. Shukran, for reading my blog and I
hope to have another blog about Dubai next week.
Awesome dude!
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