First Day of School

Our work week actually begins on Saturdays, so while most of the world is taking a weekend those days, we will be going to work. Our work week goes from Saturday through Wednesday, so the Muslims have Thursday and Friday (holy day) as their “weekend.”

We woke up early and worked out and caught the bus to school. The drive takes about 20 minutes, but then you have to go through the security at the U.S. Consulate. Our school is actually right next to the U.S. Consulate, so security is tight with what we were told were brand new, more powerful machine guns.

After meeting administration, we were taken to the local hospital to receive our medical exams necessary for our all important Iqamas (green card). It was easy enough and the school was excited we were able to complete it so early in the process. We still won’t receive our Iqamas until after Ramadan anyway, but it was nice to get it out of the way.

Jamie and I then split up into our respective schools and had the typical first day of school stuff to do. We saw our classrooms and toured around the school a bit. It is an older school built in the 1960s, so the most of the buildings have that style, but are well kept and clean.
We left promptly at 3:30. We have to vacate the school at 5:00 anyway, so there won’t be any late nights working at the school. We then immediately fell asleep because of sheer exhaustion, but as I type this, Jamie is preparing a wonderful meal of grouper, rice, and steamed veggies. We’ll relax tonight and hit the grind again tomorrow.