Its All About Communication

Weather in Edmonton has been on my mind lately
Weather here has improved markedly since our flood.  I hear that there are many places getting the white stuff – even in the EU where high-speed trains are shut down.  Tonight is the first time it has rained since the flood we had before I left for Jordan.  I have the patio door open beside me and listen to the thunder as it lightly rains.  Nice!

Last week I was invited over for a ‘brunch’ at Arindam’s place with Kannan and his wife.  Arindam’s family is here now and he is definitely a happy man.  His spouse cooked a wonderful Indian dinner (not spicy at all!) and we were entertained by his 5 yr old son who is VERY excited about starting school here and now knows that his class is the best class in the whole world – at least according to his teacher and their class chant.

Before we ate and during, there was a man just outside the patio doors.  We talked about him a bit and Arindam and wife did not see that he was harming anything so had let him be.  But to me, it was an opportunity to reflect on my Canadian values.  I wondered what I would do if a person was taking his daily sleep on my patio in my back yard.  As we prepared for lunch, we watched him get up from his rest, spread his carpet out in a different direction and do his prayers.  After this, he just sort of hung out for a bit and then left.  I am not sure if he takes an extended lunch or if he actually has as much time off as he appears to have.  But… on my property, three feet from my couch? A man I do not know?  After he left we checked from outside if he could see in, and determined that he could not, unless the sheers were pulled aside or if the lights were on and the TV on.  Still…. where else could he find a safe, quiet and clean place for a rest?

Exam week has come and gone now and students are leaving as well as teaching/research faculty.  Last week I was in the library and one of the students I know came up to me and waved a plastic bound book in the air and let out a whoop!  He told me that he had finally got his text book – one day before his exam.  This is what life is like for students here.  Ordering through Amazon.com is sometimes faster than ordering from textbook printing companies.  I guess this semester was a tough one for faculty and students regarding texts.  I understand that many of the faculty were providing digital access to texts, providing detailed lecture notes online and scanning portions of texts in a stop-gap process until the teaching resources arrived.

I was asked by a colleague in Canada if I was interested in participating in some contract work that might come up as a result of a ‘call for proposals submission’.  She asked me to pass her my resume so I took the opportunity to update it with the work that I have been doing here.  So, for those who wonder what I do… here it is.

2009 -  Research and Instructional Technologist, Department of Research & Instructional Tech Management, KAUST, Saudi Arabia

Deployment, implementation and troubleshooting of an eLearning system for a brand new purpose-built Research University, from: the learning management system (Blackboard 9), policy & procedure development, interactive eLearning application deployment, building the unit’s HR capacity, to eLearning training and content development.

Garnet:

The most exciting thing this past week has been the result of a long phone call to my son Garnet.  I called him on his new phone and we talked about something that we had briefly discussed before I left.  It had been bandied about between Donna and I that Garnet might like to come to be with me.  So, my phone call to him laid out the groundwork.  I suggested that he might consider coming and that he could use Aven and his planned visit here during their Spring Break as an opportunity to scope out the place and decide if he wanted to attend next year (his grade 8) here with me.

The next day, I went and visited the high school to talk to someone.  I got a bit of time with the councilor who told me that Gr. 8 is the second year of the preparatory program for the IB (International Bachelorette Program) which is the curriculum for the school.  But the most valuable was when I ventured into the library.  Being a teacher and having a basic understanding of cultures in schools, I know that the library is the heart of the institution.  What I found was a library that was practically humming with activity!  There were three teachers (seemed like more as there were other adults there too) volunteering their time with a homework/study session for students of all grades.  These study sessions occur three times a week I was told.  The library!  What can I say but that there was not a space that was not full of books – table tops and shelves.  This library can be said to be ‘fully stocked’ and in many ways, so much better stocked than many of the school libraries that I have been in with Edmonton Public Schools. 

After talking for a short time with one of the adults (Librarian?) and after doing the obligatory expatriate introduction of ‘where are you from’, a young boy was pointed out to me.  He was sitting with a group of other boys busily working on some report or something.  He was very welcoming when I told him about Garnet and found that he is in the same grade as Garnet – that his family (two teachers at the school) came here from Dubai and that they are from Wainwright Alberta.  Sounds like a familiar path to me!  Donna says that Garnet feels like he has a friend here already.

And talking about phones!

In a surreal situation I answered my mobile phone while at work last week and it was Garnet.  He called as and must have been standing in his school’s office.  He asked me if he could go home early.  To say that I had to think fast was an understatement! He said that the school boiler had quit overnight and that the school was cold and all the other kids were going home but had to have permission from their parents.  I asked if he had his house key, just to make sure – typical parent question! He said he had tried to call Donna but she had not answered, so he called me in Saudi Arabia.  “Sure!” I said, as I thought to myself.  Like, what could the teacher do to me eh?  8-)

Continuing the phone call theme, the following are a series of texts between Garnet and I as he started to think about what life would be like here.

Garnet:  “Please Check if there is a pet store, or will be one at you compound or in the town then check if they 'house' rats J or at least mice.”

Mark:  “Yes they have pet stores in Jeddah. When u are here we can go check them out for something to do.”

Garnet:  “Yay! I hope u have nutin agenst rats,il take care of them-i need 2 get 2 cause they are best in pairs”

Mark:  “U can catch a rat outside the house! There is a pest problem here with them. None ever in my home tho. U shud wait 2 c what they have in the shops here.”

Garnet:  “Hmm no i need a store rat -they dont bite,if ther isnt rats at shop we will catch 1”

Mark:  “Maybe there is something better at the store! Who knows?”

My back yard:
I have a BBQ now, a small red one.  I have found out that I have to use quite a bit of charcoal to get it up to cooking heat as the bottom tray is quite a ways from the cooking grill.  I went and got a small ‘hibachi’ style one for $5 so that I can cook for one.  I hope to have some friends over for a bite to eat this weekend.   
I have an instant garden outside.  I swear, the gardeners who planted the grass and flowers were out there just three weeks ago and I have a fully green soft grass yard and flowering plants sprinkled sparsely around the edges.  This is like -- just wave a plant over the earth and it grows.  

Scuba Video:

And to finish this off, here is a video I have been waiting to get of my scuba training.  You will see about 12 other divers in my group of which 4 were involved in either photography of the event or the training.  The metal grid has been set up for a training platform so that we do not thrash the coral.  Note the coral wall beside us.  We are at about 45 feet below the surface at the platform.  The angel fish that you see at the end are about 10 inches top to bottom.  The platform must have been their home as they seemed to want to protect the area and came very close to us.