Jakob’s Growing Up

Hi Friends,

 Life here is just starting to settle into a bit of a rythm and we’re finding that, on the whole, it’s pretty relaxed and easy (easy for me to say when I’ve got 4 hours of grading waiting at home for me!)  The cultural adjustment has been pretty easy so far, mainly because we are so sheltered from the outside world inside our compound bubble.  (am I repeating myself?  I can’t recall what I’ve actually written before…)  Anyway, tommorow we plan on going on a desert mountain excursion in a caravan of 4X4’s.  That should be good for exposing us to more of what’s out there beyond the cee-ment ponds, palm trees and flowering plants of our compound.  We also have a week off in 2 weeks during which we may fly to the capital, Riyadh, and visit the Munson’s.  For those of you who don’t know, we worked with them at TCIS for 3 years.  But, we’ll have to see if we can work out the details!  Other things on our minds these days?  We are still waiting for our shipment from Korea to clear customs and finally arrive.  And we’re also thinking about what kind of 4X4 we’re going to buy.  A car is pretty important out here, because without one, our world is terribly small!

Well, that’s life in nut shell.  The real reason I’m posting today is so to provide a “grandparents delight” video of Jakob.  So, here’s a 2 and a half minute video update of Jakob. 

Tour of the Crib

Petit Prince on Kingsize bed!

Here’s a quick tour of our home and a bit of footage from our compound.
[ youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KWhnGBFuow]

This is mommy and Jakob relaxing in the Toronto Airport

Jakob on our bed

Cool Shades, dude! Jakob doesn’t really know what to do in the swimming pool just yet. He’s kind of zoned out when we swim together.

Here’s a video tour of our place.

We Made It!

The question in both Elisha and my minds, as we waited for our work visas to arrive when we were wrapping up the summer in Canada, was how we were going to survive the first week in Saudi Arabia.  We looked at the fact that we would be arriving exhausted and jet lagged into a new country with a 4 month old and new jobs and we wondered how we’d ever manage.  Seven days after arriving, we are now at a point where we can say that we’ve survived our first week! 

The Journey

Our total travel time amounted to 33 hours, including long layovers in Toronto and Frankfurt.  All in all, our journey went very well, with the exception of the Frankfurt airport, which is lacking in sitting and resting space to say the least.  Jakob was terrific on the journey.  In fact, I think he kind of enjoyed it because we were with him every waking moment and this gave him plenty of time to talk and play with us!  He also got busy trying to befriend the bearded, robed, muslim man that sat beside him from Frankfurt to Jeddah!  Jakob really is a blessing and such a great baby. 

I have to admit that I felt quite nervous while waiting to disembark the airplane on the tarmac in Jeddah.  My fears were rooted in the uncertainty of what awaited us in this new country and in particular, the grilling I expected to received at customs.  I was told to expect to have our belongings rifled through in search of any offensive materials.  My anxiety was compounded by the reality that I was not fully rested.  But, at that point, there was no turning back, and we had to push forward.  It turned out that my anxiety was unwarranted and we went through customs without the slightest hitch.

Our Home

We have a terrific living situation.  Our townhouse is two storeys and totals about 1800 square feet with 3 bedrooms upstairs, and a den downstairs.  It was repainted and newly carpeted before our arrival.  The nearest swimming pool is 100 feet away and is not right out our door, which is probably for the best, considering we’ll have a toddler pretty soon.  Our compound has a good little grocery store, a decent restaurant that has been delivering our suppers since we’ve arrived, and a nice workout facility.  All in all, it’s awesome. 

Our Job

Elisha and I are each teaching 6 courses.  Yes.  6 different courses.  If you are a teacher, you probably realize that course load is less than ideal.  In fact, it’s very heavy.  Having said that, Elisha and I are managing pretty well.  It helps a lot that we work on an A/B schedule, so that we only have to prepare for 3 classes per day and see them every other day.  The staff at our new school have warmly welcomed us and we really appreciate that.  The students are living up to their billing and are proving to be very nice and so far they are showing that they are pretty conscientious. 

Country and Culture

To be fair, we haven’t seen very much of the country or culture so far.  The weather is hot, of course.  But, moving from car to compound to school means that we don’t ever really experience the full brunt of it.  As for the culture, we’ll let you know more as we see more.  One thing that does stick out is the fact that so many of our female students wear their black abayas in school.  Black is a colour that has a different connotation in Western society, and to look down a hallway and see a quarter of the students dressed in floor length black dresses takes a bit of getting used to! 

Well, that’s about it for now.  Our internet situation is a far cry from what we are used to, so updates may be a little less frequent in the future.  But, we’ll see how that all shakes out. 

 I’ll try and get some photos and a video tour of our digs up here in the next week or so.