Saturday morning

It's my Saturday morning (written on 8th November)(Friday here) and life feels quite normal. Roger has gone out birding with friends ( I declined the invitation). They will see Flamingos among many other species. This morning we slept in until nearly 6 am. and had good Bodum coffee (Starbucks). We really can get almost anything we want or need at the big stores here.
One, The Family Food Center, is our current favorite...we drive over when the traffic isn't at its worst and buy a bag of chips or something like milk....the other day a completely covered woman asked me for help finding some sour cream. Her English was excellent but we never found sour cream...not this week I guess. Their choice of nuts is the best we have found. That's something I suppose. It is around what we call the 'scary roundabout' though so it takes lots of courage
to make the trip and we always breath sighs of relief when we get home. We prefer here to the big malls (3 of them) that rival malls anywhere. We are actually uncomfortable going to them because they have what are called "Family Days" when the 'bachelors' who are the labour force are not allowed in. The security stops them at the door. We think we should each bring them in as a part of our 'family'. The maids and servants have to go in though to carry bags.

Last night after school Roger and I drove downtown (the traffic, the traffic) to the Tennis matches. The top 8 women in the world are playing here in a new stadium finished almost overnight because construction wasn't even close to being completed 2 weeks ago! They do work 24 hours, 7 days a week. Luckily Roger knew where he was going because the parking was a mess. We got lucky though and parked fairly closely to the ticket booth. Tickets were only 10 Rihals (about 3 $) because all the best seats were reserved. When we asked to buy tickets they sent us and many others in free. They had airport security inside but none of us had tickets. However, they had forgotten to let the ushers know that we didn't need tickets so we had to explain over and over again why we were allowed to find a seat and watch the matches without tickets. It was bizarre. Our seats were great. We were able to see the sweat and hear the grunts. So we watched Jancovic and Kusnetsova play and then Venus and Serena Williams...free! The tickets for the semi-finals (Saturday) and the finals (Sunday) are apparently sold out, but I think we could go down and get in easily. It was the biggest party atmosphere we have felt here. It was almost as chaotic as Trinidad but was missing the music and the rum.

We watched the election results at school with our students who were mostly Obama supporters because he will take the troops out of Iraq. They also worry a little bit about a war with Iran that would be catastrophic for the Gulf area. Their fathers are hugely wealthy businessmen mostly with holdings all over the world. A couple of them are major shareholders in Bombardier for instance and the students have spent time in Quebec with their parents. The class system is
entrenched and everyone knows and accepts their place in it. They are so amazingly aware of the need for education in order to retain their position in the world. They know that money is not going to be enough when their oil and gas supply is gone but they also know how much money they have. They talk (the students) about their 30 Land cruisers and their Rolls Royces and show us their gold watches and cell phones (over $10,000 US) and talk about never having to line up for a plane...they get driven out to the plane on the runways. It would be impossible for them to fly economy anywhere. There are so many rules and prohibitions.

This morning, I am sitting near an open window listening to the birds. It is so very quiet most of the time and now the heat is gone. It's about 25 degrees and the wind is gentle. Now, when I leave for school around 5:30 am the sky is bright pink and red and the air is, if not cool...at least not hot. The only sounds we will hear this morning are the sounds of the call to prayer. There has to be a mosque within a 5-minute walk from your home so there are many mosques within our view. A lot of people have their own mosque within their compound which also has 2 or 3 smaller homes for the wives. Each wife has her own home that is a replica of the main house. There are many things that are not a part of our culture but we are not here to change theirs. The system runs well for them. We are definitely not part of their world. It is next to impossible to become friends with one of the 'families'...to get to know them. They value their traditions and guard against change.

The situation at school is not much different from any school I've been in. The admin team is usually wrong,etc. The teachers are overworked, underpaid, underappreciated, and generally perfect!!! I try to stay under the radar as much as I can but being me I can't help getting involved in some of it. I am trying to back away from conflicts though...smiling lots. The teaching is hard. Some of my grade 12 students have reading comprehension scores at the kindergarten level! No one has a comprehension score above grade 6. They don't want 'baby' stuff to read... but they can't read text that is even newspaper level. I am working on sentence structures and verb tenses right now. It's a tough job. I do like teaching though!

I miss you all....We'll be home in less than a month now.