Desert Safari

When you feel like escaping the city and hitting the dunes, one way to do it is with a desert safari evening. You let an experienced driver pick you up in the Land Cruiser and take you out into crazy cool dunes. And then you essentially "car surf" out to a "Bedouin Camp" for dinner. The camp is a touristy set up with buffet, henna, camel rides, sand boarding on snow boards, hukah pipes, a bar, Arabian dress up and a belly dancing show. It's pretty good fun, if not all that authentic!

The rest stop on the edge of the desert: where the streets have no name.

Last chance toilet

Last Chance Rubber: Tire repair on the fringes of the desert

The sands of time

Rosie runs, Rosie jumps!

Sean kicking it phat

"So whatcha, whatcha, whatcha want?"

Bella dune jumps eating popcorn with the bag in hand. 

I am sure this is some type of choking hazard.

Trippy sand close-up. Great screen saver material.

It's easy to imagine that this was once the bottom of the ocean

Crystal and the family sit atop the gorgeous dunes

Bella and our Omani driver, Mahmoud-

His best joke? "This is my first time driving in sand."

"Hi, I'm Bella and this is my new friend!"

Bella readies for the camel ride

Silhouetted Bella and Dad on the camel ride

Bella and her camel friend; the muzzle is appreciated as they like to spit

The "Henna Lady" works her magic tattoo in a tube

Pretty henna design

Henna designs- the tattoos stay visible for 2 weeks

Sean, Doug, Heinekens and hukahs. Happy weekend!

Bella inside the handle of the giant tea pot showing off her henna

 Crytsal sand boarding down the dune

 Buddha Bella yoga poses in front of the "Falcon Guy"

Belly Dancing ends the evening festivities

*as always on the blog, click on any photo for full size image

On Top of the World

The Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world. Compare it to other buildings and you will see that it is really tall. Burj means "tower" and it is named after Sheik Khalifa of Abu Dhabi who kicked in the needed funds to complete the project. In translation: "Khalifa's Tower".

We recently went to the top for the first time. Wow. It inspired me to become Einstein and spout an original poem in my Einsteinian cyber voice. (Xtranormal is way too fun!)

There is another poem related to the Burj Khalifa besides my original writing. It is inscribed on the walls as you enter the visitor center really sets the stage for your journey up the world's highest (and one of the fastest) elevators.

"I am the power that lifts the world's head proudly skywards,

surpassing limits and expectations."

 The poem is a bilingual personification poem spoken from the Burj Khalifa's perspective.

 Tourists await their elevator ride.

 Rosie and Bella atop the world on the highest outdoor observation deck in the world.

 The long shadow of the Burj over the roof of the Dubai Mall and beyond.

 You can't get higher in Dubai.

 The city by the Gulf in the sand. Pretty buildings shine in the sun.

 Me, in the glass, reflecting on the height, the sand and the man-made Palm in the hazy distance. The Burj Al-Arab (famous sail hotel) is also in the distance as is our villa.

 Crystal and the girls hanging at the top near the digital "coolest ever" telescopes.

Bella likes cameras and took a shot of the fountains from above. The fountains play every half hour and it is neat to see them from a bird's eye view!

Sleep well, my tall friend. Stand guard over your city.

Random Thoughts on a Tuesday

In Dubai, we work Sunday to Thursday with Friday/Saturday weekends.  So my Tuesday is my Wednesday. It's hump day. Like get over the hump and three days of work done with two to go. Tuesday is Wednesday like everyday is Sundae at Carvel.

Told the kids it was hump day today and they wondered what sort of camel joke I was invoking.

If I taught high school, I am sure hump would have evoked a different response.

Mr. Cat at his desk pondering life.

I can't get this song out of my head. It's a former student of mine who makes tunes. He's like Moby meets Beck but way different from them too. He had Mr. Cat for eighth grade language arts in NY which clearly altered his landscape enough to foster the creative spirit. Go Mark, go.

The coolest thing possible about teaching is turning on light bulbs for kids to analyze and then watching them use those skills. Amazing when you stop to reflect upon all the students you helped along the way and how much they reenergized your own life. In the words of Ad Rock: "My job ain't a job it's a damn good time- [school to school]- I'm rocking my rhyme."

This week I am also amazed at all the cosmic karma and people that swirl around the Cat-Egan vortex. Notes from former students in Saudi Arabia drift in with posts from colleagues around the globe. Last weekend, a former colleague from Norway, now in Singapore, stopped through on her way back from Russia. That alone is a wacky sentence.

But when you look further and find that she visited our former Norwegian colleagues who now live in Russia, who know our friends teaching in Cairo- and that Crystal was going back to Singapore to teach with my college roommate and his wife, the first colleague I ever knew on Maui- along with a teaching couple we worked with in Aramco and NH- it's a headache inducing round of "It's a small world." And amazingly, another former colleague from Stavanger is en route to Dubai from Jordan on his way to Nepal. He is spending 22 hours with us as his layover.

And then at school, we prepared to make recycled plastic bottle "rafts" to race on earth day in April. And the lessons of the past collide with the present. I am reminded of of different raft riding in the gulf on empty oil drums with Aramco crystal ware at stake. I still think Team Manila cheated us at the midway point in the race when they cut into our lane, but it's old news. July in Arabia means delirious heat and hot tub temperature water.

The Abqaiq Bulldogs Raft Race Team, circa 1998

[from left to right, KB, Cheesester, Double D, Hobbsy, Pratt, Hobson, Cat, Iggs]

Later this week, our spring break will begin and we are off to Uganda. The trip is run by an organization our friend here in Dubai started called SEENAH. We are going to help build a health center at a school there and bring gifts and supplies to the school children. Rosie and Bella are going to be introduced to service learning and helping other kids first hand. The journals, conversations and memories will be amazing. But meeting, helping and playing with the children will bring us all the greatest joy. Afterward we will go on safari and see the natural beauty of Uganda as well. And so the journey continues.

Happy Tuesday. Get over that hump and smile.

My Big Fat Greek Dancing!

The ending to our week without walls trip to Greece is a night out for a "traditional dinner and dance show." It is similar to a luau in Hawaii or a belly dancing show in Turkey or a "Desert Safari" here in the UAE.

It is also traditional that the new teachers get to be the people selected by the dancers to appear onstage in the little "how to" dance sections of the program. This year I was "lucky" enough to be picked not only as a representative with the male dancers but I was also picked to learn from the belly dancer.

Throughout the night, yelling out opa at any point is encouraged. Near as we could get in translation is that opa means to party, get down or dance. But most Greeks say it really doesn't mean anything and that it's just an exclamation like hooray or yee-haw!

Opa!

In addition to my gyrating hips, I was asked to raise my shirt and let out the belly...

One fancy dance is to boogie with the glass on your head...

Then, after downing the drink, the dance is finished by jumping up on the overturned cup! Opa!

Here we have a round of monkey see, monkey do where I learn more moves with cups involved.

My hamstring put to the limits before we toasted. Opa!

Hey 6th grade, let me see you get down!

Greece is the Word (Olympia)

Olympia

Under the warming sun, I run.

In ancient feet and over 2,500 years- I run.

The columns align the blueprint of the gymnasium and baths.

Merged corners meet the site of the original Olympic torch.

Doric columns stand in line, awaiting their race through time.

I walk, live, breathe the ancient world-

a world of symmetry, endurance

and towering strength.