Well it has been some time since we last talked. Partly because not a whole lot has been happening around here. Things have slowed and we are now on the outlook towards home. Kelly and I don't plan on doing anymore traveling for the school year to focus our funds on summer time fun in Manitoba. Weather has started to hit Canadian summertime temperatures like 35 C so we have been spending time poolside on weekends and frequently hitting the beach at our Beach Club. The Gulf has warmed up very nice over the past couple weeks and is beautiful to swim in now.
This past weekend was the Kuwait Track & Field championships for all international schools in Kuwait. Since I was helping coach the team I put in my time at the Qadsiah Sports Center on Friday. It was a balmy 27 C when we arrived at 7:15am, not to mention clear "BLUE" skies. We don't get too many blue skies around here, they are normally brown or beige. Our athletes did well as a whole coming out of the day with a 3rd place overall finish. There are some pictures attached.
We met some friends of friends this weekend who invited us out to their chalet this coming weekend to go quading in the desert. From what I understand these Kuwaiti boys have a fleet of Raptor's and Banshee's. YeeeeeeeeHaaaaaaaaw. Also the one fella showed me a picture of his boat on his cell phone. Nothing too crazy just a 25' bow-rider with 2- 225 hp outboards. He also wants to try and get me out waterskiing and wake-boarding with them. We will keep you posted on all that.
Another tentative plan for the coming weekend is to go camping in the desert with a group of people for a friends birthday. We figure a good spot would be out at the satellites, where I went paint-balling at the beginning of the year. Apparently no Kuwaitis go out there as there is some bad history with Iraq out there and they believe it is haunted? We may try and make a good day and night out of it but will also keep you posted on whether or not that pans out.
Student teachers have now arrived from Brandon University and there are about 12 more scheduled to arrive from Queens University in Toronto this week. We have a couple field trips planned for grade 7 over the next couple weeks and then spring break from April 12 -16. Kelly and I will stick around Kuwait and get some things taken care of around here as others leave for destinations unknown. We through the idea around of going to Bali, Indonesia for a few days during that break, as return airfare was $450Cdn, but decided against it and would rather save our money. Next year will be a big travel year so we are saving up for that.
We just finished our 3rd quarter reports and parent/teacher interviews last week. It was again a very interesting experience. My teacher partner and I do all interviews together, as we teach the exact same kids, and we had to stop for a second every once in awhile to think about how strange some of these interviews are. For some we have a translator that will sit in on interviews to translate in arabic to the parents. Then we have Mothers coming in with $5000 handbags and Fathers shaking our hands with $30,000 watches on their wrist. It is a crazy crazy world over here. All in all every interview went very well and all parents were very happy with what we are doing with their sons.
For now I leave you with some Track & Field pictures and hopefully we will be on here again in a week or so.
The boy on the right is the one I tutor
Little bugger (gr 6) ran 3kms against high school boys and came in 3rd.
Coach Ryan with the middle school crew
Girls from different schools
Coaches and the man in the pants is the one who gave me the Porsche. He came out to cheer on his son
Coach Ryan giving a pep-talk
This boy ran really hard for us
As you can see he dropped at the finish line..he's awake don't worry
