Let The Games Begin!

Happy New Year from the Middle East!

Here I am at the camel races.  What an experience!  I will fill you in more later.....

I took a little hiatus from blogging.  December was extremely busy as it is for any music teacher and when school was out for two weeks, I decided to not to do anything that was mentally taxing!  School is back in session now, so I'm back in the saddle (no pun intended for any camel race fans!) and I'm ready to give my readers another slice of life on the other side of the planet.

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a beautiful tree at The Lighthouse Church of Kuwait

I spent a pretty quiet winter break here at the apartments in Kuwait.  Most people traveled to exotic locales and many went home.  I chose to stay here because I have some financial goals I would like to reach.  I will do some traveling before I leave Kuwait because the airfares to many of the countries in the region are quite reasonable, but this was not the time.  Instead, I bought a nice Singer sewing machine and began some projects to help turn my apartment into more of a reflection of my own tastes rather than an advertisement for Ikea!  I invited a friend who had just returned from a scuba diving adventure in Egypt to share a quiet Christmas dinner with me in my apartment.  My daughter FacetTimed us that evening and played Christmas carols for us on the piano while Natalie and I harmonized.  Maybe not quite as exciting as visiting Bethlehem on Christmas Eve, but equally as memorable.

A Day At The Camel Races!

My fellow camel rider

I think this camel was weary of the whole business 

Can you see the mechanical jockeys on the rear ends of the camels?  They are radio controlled by guys in those pickup trucks you see in the distance.

Mmmmmmm, camel's milk!

Inside view of one of the Bedouin tents set up where we were treated to a beautiful buffet dinner.

Last month some friends and I took advantage of an opportunity to go to the camel races, so we,  along with about seventy other expats climbed aboard a couple of buses and were on our way out of the city into the Kuwaiti desert.  We stopped at a local farm and they fed us a beautiful buffet meal.

I couldn't tell you what most of the dishes were, but I'm becoming a fan of Arabic coffee!

We thought they were setting up for a wedding and were pleasantly surprised that it was for us!

The camel races itself were somewhat anticlimatic, but now I can take "riding a camel" off my bucket list!  Oh, and in the interest of full disclosure, I'll have to admit to you that I really didn't take a sip of camel's milk from the communal bowl.  I thought it looked like a great photo "op," so I couldn't resist posing for the camera!

UAS Singers

My school has relaxed some of their restrictions on photos that can be published on social media, so I'm very happy to be able to allow you a glmpse of some of my students.

a class of preschoolers

At the last three schools I have taught, I've had a children's chorus which would meet outside the school day.  I decided to continue the tradition with my third and fourth graders here at the Universal American School.  I had no idea if there would be any interest at all in a children's chorus here, but since all teachers at UAS are required to volunteer eight hours of their time to some outside activity involving our students, it was just logical that I would start a choir.  I wrote up a letter to be sent to the parents explaining that I was going to start a children's choir.  The band director asked if I would like them to perform with the band at the Christmas concerts they present to the school. It sounded like a great idea, so I went with it.  Since this activity was part of my required service project, letters to the parents had to go through the activities director.  I gave her my letter that was to go home to the parents explaining that I was starting a children's choir and that we would perfom with the band in December. Both the activities director and her assistant are Arabic, which means that of course, Arabic is their native language.  Apparantly, neither one of them understood the difference between a choir and a band and for some reason they decided to change the wording of my letter that went out to over three hundred sets of parents. The letter they composed also had some punctuation issues.  After the letter was sent out, I kept getting kids asking me about a third and fourth grade band I was starting.  You can imagine my surprise when one of my students handed me the permission slip with the letter to the parents attached which read:  "Third and fourth grade parents interested in joining a band...."  I about fainted!  By that time I'd already had over fifty signed permission slips and my principal set a cap (thank goodness!) at fifty students.  You got to love the Middle East!  I was a little disappointed that no parents signed up for my third and fourth grade parents band!

When all was said and done, I had a choir of forty-three voices.  I had to turn many students away, because it was getting too big, so this semester there will be separate third and fourth grade choirs.

These kids seem to be hungry for more music in their lives which I am happy to accomodate.  They are such beautiful singers.  It blew me away!   It is too bad that we can only give them music once in a six-day cycle.  This at least helps fill that need.

When December came we gave ten concerts in two days for parents and students in the elementary, middle school and high school.  Oh my!  We performed four songs with the band and one on our own.  Our favorite number was a Carribean version of the Twelve Days of Christmas.  We did choir choreogrphy with the song and got the audience to participate with us.  It was great to see so many people dancing in the aisles!  My favorite comments were how the voices of the children had finally brought some Christmas spirit into their hearts.  That is saying a lot in this desert country where you see very few Christmas lights and certainly not a dusting of snow anywhere!  I think that is why I love what I do.

We took this back in my classroom between concerts.  Couldn't fit them all the the picture, but aren't they beautiful children?

May 2014 be a year of wonder and blessings to all of my dear family and friends!

Charlotte