Ksara Caves return to Beirut cinema

Zahle morning walk until a taxi comes along to take us 10km south to Ksara Winery, a well-kept beautiful operation where several staff are waiting to show tourists through the real limestone caves where the wine is aged. Then a sparkling new tasting room -- all good-tasting wine (but maybe my tastebuds are out of practice) and gift shoppe.
We walk a few minutes out to the main highway and rapidly flag down a shared "service" minivan. We realize that our earlier ride to Baalbek on a nice new minivan was an anomaly -- this one is a smoky rattletrap (the smoke emanated mostly from the driver and passengers) that careened down the mountain, regularly squealing to a stop in hopes of gathering new paying passengers. At one point the driver held on to a lady's package in order to keep her from getting out of the van to take a competitor's ride. Although he tried to get us to pay double for a ride directly to our hotel, he dropped us at the Kuwaiti embassy where we got a regular taxi, freshened up at the hotel, then walked out to the cinema to see Adjustment Bureau. Always nice to see Matt Damon (Cole's lookalike), and I enjoy such intriguing sci-fi premises; and the NYC location was familiar, too.
After the movie, we walked back to American University of Beirut for a free concert hosted by the German embassy: a wind quintet of superb quality....

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Where we are working now

ISG Jubail School is the Anglo-American school for this area: Jubail is one of two planned industrial cities in Saudi Arabia, given a special royal commission for development and planning. Our district, the seven schools of International Schools Group, runs the school in the other industrial city -- Yanbu -- as well. Jubail is on the east coast, between Dhahran and Kuwait. Our nearby "big city" is the tri-city metropolis of Dhahran-Khobar-Dammam, where all the big shopping malls and quaint old markets are, along with the central 3 schools of our district, where Coleman attends high school. ISG Jubail has 410 students -- an average of 2 homerooms for each grade, K-10. Class size varies, up to 22. I have 12 in my required course "Computers & Information Management"; Barb has 12 students in her first-grade class. Most of the teaching staff come from the U.S., some from the Commonwealth. Several teachers are wives of engineers an...

Riding the Bus often

From 201010 Saudi scenes It is ironic that this land of cheap gasoline has so much group transport -- buses. From 201010 Saudi scenes Our housing compound has a Toyota-Coaster bus that takes some to/from school (we usually go earlier and return later, on a similar bus that the school provides). Driver Yahya takes residents on the 90-minute trip down to the Big City shopping every Thursday morning. The above picture shows our group one Thursday, usually going to Ikea or the new Lulu's Hypermarket , or the Dhahran Mall. Coleman rides a different bus every day to and from school -- usually 100 minutes there, 80 minutes back. His bus is evidently an old tourist bus, usually comfortable but a bit dusty. The air-conditioning usually works too well. I've ridden it with him several times, to attend business meetings at the district office. From 201010 Saudi scenes There he is, at 5:45am every morning, at the start of the bus run. Fortunately only about 20 stu...

Reservoir of European Youth, Parliament

A few days ago I walked to the nearby Pasteleira Park, planning to visit the city museum at the Reservoir. Walking through the park I noticed a large group of young people gathered in a circle, engaged in team-building activities. My days in education attuned me to the spectacle and piqued my interest, so I sat on a nearby bench and watched as a succession of enthusiastic students ran to the center and started an activity, which all the others joined enthusiastically. What sort of group would this be? A typical high school class would include a portion of disinterested teens, and others only half-heartedly participating. This crowd was unanimous in their excitement. I also noted that the leaders were speaking in English, though the breeze muffled the words. I walked around, found a couple of older participants on the side, with official-looking lanyards, and asked: this was an activity of European Youth Parliament , simil...

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