Classroom Prep!

As I mentioned before, I am teaching 2nd grade on the boys' campus! Here are a few "before" photos of my classroom:

Main entrance to the Boys' Campus

One of the entrances in the school.
The sign says "Our goal is for a creative and gracious generation
that loves its religion and country."

My classroom!

Playground, under a canopy but still very hot.

Hallway to my room. The signs are in Arabic on one side and English on the other.
They say things like "Our language is Arabic."

The first day was overwhelming! Of course, as a first year teacher, setting up my classroom is a slow process! Fortunately, I have a wonderful teacher assistant!!! Eman (pronounced e-mon) came in, started getting things done right away, and helped me figure out what to start with and what can wait a few days. She is bilingual and she helps communicate with the Arabic and Islam teachers and maids.

First day's progress.

Check out the top left hand corner-they installed an interactive projector!

Me and Eman

The bus that takes us to our apartment.

The early bus gets pretty full!

Sorting through boxes and filing cabinets can be a nightmare...but today it was like a treasure hunt! Teacher friends will appreciate my find: Reading A to Z books, all assembled with coordinating lessons, and all are organized! For a first year teacher excited to implement literacy stations this is a great resource!!

I was also given my schedule with Arabic, Islam and specials included. We're assigned periods that are blank, and we decide what they are used for.  For example, periods 1 and 2 are for my instruction, so I chose to teach Language Arts for both. We have 10 Language Arts periods (one being library), 5 Math and 5 Science/Social Studies. Here's my schedule!

If you can't see it, yellow is LA, green is S/SS, and blue is Math. And if you really can't see it, let me summarize....I have so much planning time!!!

So, I have TWO days left to get ready for Parent Orientation on Sunday : ) Don't forget, the weeks are Sunday to Thursday! Can't wait to show some "After" photos!

Last bit of Orientation

As I mentioned last post, we went to the Grand Mosque! Here are the photos I promised! Michael and I took one together, but learned after that it's inappropriate for one male and one female to take a photo standing close together in the mosque....whoops!

While visiting a mosque, all women need to cover their hair.
They give you abayas to cover your clothes and hijabs to cover your hair.
In Kuwait, both are traditionally black.  

Friday is the holy day. In fact, the US embassy has church services on Friday for Christian Americans in the area, since the work week is Sunday to Thursday. Basically nothing is open on Friday until later in the day, so we took advantage of the free time by cleaning and organizing our apartment!

That night we went to the souk. It’s an old Kuwaiti market that sells pretty much everything and is very inexpensive. I bought a scarf and we ate hummus and hot, fresh pita.

Later Friday night we went on a boat ride for our friend Laura’s birthday. And by boat, I mean three million dollar yacht. It was very eye opening. We’ve seen the expensive houses, heard how the students have drivers, nannies and maids, but going on a coworker’s friend’s 85 foot yacht is a different story. Of course, he is getting a new yacht soon, because he just bought a helicopter and wants his new one to have a landing pad. 

You might have noticed my scandalous shorts.
Since we were hanging out with friends we didn't need to cover up.
Kind of like how we can wear what we want in the apartment building. 

Dancing!

Cooking dinner

Saturday we went to The Palms. It’s a western health club on the beach with swimming pools, workout areas, and a spa. I got to wear a bikini! The water was very very salty and hot, and in no way was it refreshing. It was nice though to lounge under the umbrella with a little sea breeze!

Sunday was my first day of work!! It was wonderful! We finished up paperwork, took tours of the campus and met with our staff. While we were all in the auditorium for our very first meeting, servers came around with wine glasses of juice, followed by Arabic coffee. I tried to imagine being in a public school in the US listening to the principle in a staff meeting with servers weaving through the teachers with silver trays of juice and coffee...maybe plastic cups of in the back for you to grab yourselves! After that we had breakfast/brunch. There was an unbelievable amount of food! Hummus, falafel, omelets, wraps, fruit and desserts! ACA definitely makes a great first impression. Looking forward to a  productive week preparing the classroom!

Getting Settled

The past three days have flown by!

Monday night we went to the marina mall and ate at an Indian restaurant with a group of new hires. It was my first taxi ride in Kuwait City. I've decided I need to take a video of a cab ride. To call it "aggressive driving" would be an understatement!

The cab ride back ended up being an adventure! The school has a couple of cab drivers that have worked with the teachers for a while, so we called one of them. He showed up at the mall to pick us up and was supposed to bring another driver since there were 7 of us. The other driver didn't show up so he said just grab a taxi and he would give the driver directions. Imagine watching your cab driver get directions...in another language...and you don't know how to get there either! He said he understood, so we got in drove to Hawally.

Any guesses what happened? Yep..we got lost! No cell phones, no landmarks to describe where we live, and no address (the buildings don't have addresses like we do in the states). Fortunately we had a VERY patient cab driver who drove us around until we finally made it home!!

Tuesday we ate lunch at a Lebanese restaurant with all of the new hires for ACA and ICA. It was absolutely delicious!! All but two of the dishes were vegan and served family style. Just when we thought, okay, they're done bringing out food, the servers would shift our plates on the table to make room for another dish! There was salad, hummus, pita, grape leaves, olives, potatoes, lamb, some type of pastry, chicken wings (well we think it was chicken) and then tea, coffee and watermelon!

After that we went to the Sultan Center which is a huge grocery store with local and American food! They also had home goods so we were able to get a few things for the apartment.

Yesterday we went to Avenues Mall. I recognized a lot of the stores, and they have my favorite-Forever 21! We went to Carrefour (similar to Wal-mart) for the rest of our apartment stuff and IKEA. After that we visited the Grand Mosque, which is the largest mosque in Kuwait. During our visit we wore abayas and hijabs (photos coming soon!)

Tonight we head to the Souk, and tomorrow we're going to The Palms to relax by the pool!
Hope this updated everyone! I'll put photos up on my next post. Like I said it's been a crazy 3 days!

Greetings from Kuwait!

We arrived yesterday around 4pm. Flights were easy, customs and visa issuing-easy, we got ALL of our luggage, and there were no delays! Everything was in Arabic and English, including updates from the captain and signs in the airport! We couldn't have asked for an easier trip!  So thank you for all of your prayers.

On the plane to Kuwait, we were fed a dinner and a lunch. I ordered the vegetarian for both which was daal makhami and kofta makamali with basmati rice and gongura vegetables with yellow dal and rice. Any idea what those are?? I didn't know either, but they tasted great!

We were picked up from the airport by  two ACA teachers and felt 120 degrees for the very first time. The heat itself isn't bad. Like everyone says-it's a dry heat. The part I don't like is the wind-it hurts my eyes! 

It's like a holding a hair dryer in your face...literally-we ventured outside after I got out of the shower and my hair was dry in 5 minutes! 

Our apartment complex is awesome! We've got a gym, indoor pool, outdoor pool (that's fenced off so I can wear a bathing suit!) and for all you worry warts-24 hour security and a personnel manager. 

Here are photos from our apartment...please keep in mind we took them after an hour of being here! I'll take more photos after we visit IKEA!

Living Room

Kitchen

Bathroom

Bedroom

View from our bedroom!

Our first dinner. Eggs for Michael, toast and jam for me!

ACA has done a great job helping us settle in. We had some basics when we got to the apartment (breakfast food, coffee, dish soap, matches for the stove, toilet paper, sheets etc.) Tomorrow, orientation will begin with a meeting, lunch, and our first trip to the grocery store!

First Post!

I am so excited to introduce my new blog- Peace, Love, Teach!

I decided to start a blog for a few reasons, the first and most important-to keep family and friends updated!  I'll try to make my entries short and sweet with lots of pictures and videos!

Blogs and Pinterest have been key to planning my very first classroom, so I will also share education ideas in the "Classroom" section. Hopefully I can get my tabs working so that you can easily navigate the different sections!

Of course, there is a "Faith" tab.  Traveling so far away from home would be impossible without putting my faith in God. I'm excited to see how I will grow spiritually through this travel experience.

In case you haven't heard: We're leaving for Kuwait City August 19th! I'll be teaching second grade on the Boy's Campus of American Creativity Academy. It's a private international school for Kuwaiti students. The teachers are American/Canadian and the curriculum is American. I learned about the opportunity through UNCW. Kuwait is a study abroad destination for senior education majors. ACA is the school where the UNCW students complete their internship/student teaching.
We're hoping Michael will find a job in diving-so say a prayer!

Our plan right now is to take the next few years to travel. Since Michael is a dive instructor all we need for our next destination is a place with water and kids!

With 6 days until we fly to JFK then Kuwait City, I will be packing, planning and of course making time to soak up some rays on the NC coast!