Friday, February 28th - Back from Sri Lanka

Our Sri Lanka trip was wonderful. We didn't seem to do much but still saw a lot of things. The country is pretty poor, people don't have a very high income. A lot of people walk around bare feet, which makes it kind of weird when you have someone without shoes serving you in a store. The weather is beautiful, even though it can sometimes feel "too much hot" like they would say. The food was very good and the juices served at breakfast were very different then what we are used to - carrot juice, pineapple juice, papaya, watermelon, mixed fruit. Their local beer, the Lion Lager was very nice and Jacqui liked their local drink, the Arack. Straight up, it tasted like scotch, so she'd have it in a cocktail. We went to look at Gem stones; a lot of them are mined in Sri Lanka. The mines are basically a square hole in the ground, and workers go down and fill buckets with rocks. The buckets are lifted to the surface and the rocks are cut and treated to extract the gems. Obviously, everything is done by hand. Practically all the wood used in buildings is Teak, which is beautiful. It was really a great trip. But now, we're back in Kuwait, and will start teaching on Sunday for three weeks and then it's off to Abu Dhabi for a weekend. Temperatures have warmed up since we left last week; I was wearing shorts and T-shirt today.

Jacqueline cooking a skewer of shrimps on a hot plate - and yes, both glasses on the table are hers!

The biggest of the three pools at the resort, with the Indian Ocean in the background.

One of a few gazebos used for lunch or dinner - also to relax in the afternoon

Having a Lion Beer - a local brew

Jacqui having an Arack sour - Arack is a local drink made from the sap of the coconut tree

Sitting in a tuk-tuk - cheaper and more fun than a taxi

Inside the grocery store in Beruwala - sugar, salt, grains sold in bulk

The main street in Beruwala

Traffic in town!

Sunset on the Indian Ocean

Gems stones in their brut stage - mined in Sri Lanka

Finished products - sapphires (blue) and topaz (white)

Monday, February 24th - Loving Sri Lanka

We flew out of Kuwait shortly after 10 pm on Thursday night. A 5½ hour flight plus 2½ hour time difference got us to Colombo by 6h30 am. From there, we had a 3 hour drive to get to our resort. It's not that far distance wise, but you can't travel very fast. There are no highways like the 401; it's all oncoming traffic, and lots of it. You seem to always be in town, therefore you can't drive very fast. We thought that driving in Kuwait was a challenge; it's a lot worse here. First off, they drive on the other side of the road, like in England. Unlike Kuwait, nobody drives fast - if they did, they would kill someone every two minutes. We were on a four lane road (two lanes going each way) but the oncoming motorcycles and tuk tuks would drive on our side of the road all the time. Intersections were also interesting as it seemed that whoever felt like turning was doing so, hoping that everybody else would let them.

Friday was pretty much a wasted day, as we slept on and off. Saturday and Sunday were fine. We were rested and ready to do nothing at all - and we do it well! We took a tuk tuk to Beruwala on Sunday. The place is pretty poor and there isn't much there. Other than that, we have been at the resort all the time. Cinnamon Bey resort is very nice and pretty quiet. There were more people on the weekend but Monday wasn't very busy. People are very friendly. We sit in the shade, watching and listening to the ocean; it's pretty relaxing. Speaking of relaxing, we went for a 2 hour Spa treatment on Saturday; it was amazing. The body rub was cool and the massage was by far the best we've ever had.
We did manage to watch the gold medal game from a bar in the hotel. Jacqui and I were the only ones watching; we even had possession of the remote control! It was great!

A tuk tuk - our local taxi

Good luck reading it!

The right hand side of our balcony!

The left hand side of our balcony!

Sunset on Sri Lanka

Thursday, February 20th - Off to Sri Lanka

Today was a non teaching day as most schools were celebrating National Day (the holiday itself is next week, combined with Liberation Day which is the next day). There were many activities at school and parents were invited for the day. There was music, traditional dances, a lot of people wearing the traditional Kuwaiti costumes (abayas and dishdashas); it was really cool. There was also a lot of food.. It also represented our last day at school for the month of February, as we are off next week and therefore do not go back until March 2nd.

We are travelling to Sri Lanka for our week off. We will be in a resort about two hours south of Colombo (the capital of the country). We checked the weather forecast today and their daytime highs are in the low 30's, with humidex in the low 40's, while the daily lows are in the mid 20's. It should be nice - hot enough to make you thirsty! We are really looking forward to it, we both need a break and a little R n R.

Here are pictures of National Day at Jacqui's school (Gulf English School)

Saturday, February 15th - Olympics, and Valentine's Day

My work week was short; I didn't go in on Sunday and Monday due to a cold. I started feeling better by midweek and feel 100 % now. Jacqui has been tutoring everyday, even today. She enjoys it as it's keeping her busy (and the money is good).

We have been watching the Olympic Games on TV - can't really watch online as CBC is limited to Canadian territory, and NBC to the States. Olympics aren't very big in Kuwait; most of the people we talk to don't even know that the games are going on. We managed to find three different stations that carry a fair amount of events live as there is only one hour difference between us and Sochi (two of the stations are in Arabic and the third one is in English). The arabic stations are pretty cool. There is only one announcer, sitting in a studio somewhere as he seems to do all the events. It's kind of cool to watch a hockey game in arabic. He gets excited doing the play by play but we don't have a clue of what he's saying. The feed is coming directly from Olypic Broadcast Services, so there are no commercials either. Between periods of hockey games, we see the Zambonis go by and the cameras just go around showing people in the crowd. It's like sitting in the stands at the game itself! But they are also unpredictable - they just switched from hockey (Russia - USA) after the first period to a soccer game. Crap. No more coverage for now as the other two stations are showing camel races and some kind of horses' competition.

On Valentine's day, we were invited for dinner, with another couple, at one of Jacqui's colleagues' place. They have a beautiful apartment with a big patio, overlooking the gulf. All six of us sat there for a while and there was still lots of room for more people. We sure couldn't do that at our place. The meal was very good, and they also had some homemade beverages, which were also very good. It felt like a normal outing, like something we would do back in Canada. It was very nice.

By this time next week, we will be in Sri Lanka. We are leaving Thursday night and getting to Colombo on Friday morning. It's a two hour drive to our resort, which means we should be there late morning. We are staying for a week; we are really looking forward to it.

For friends and family in Ontario: enjoy your long weekend!

Friday, February 7th - Winter is back

I guess my message that winter was over was premature; it's back. It's f...n cold. We had 2 degrees this morning. Now before you get all excited and start calling us whimps because you're freezing your butts back home at -25 or -30, read the rest. Our building is made of cement and every room has an outside wall. The only thing that separates inside from outside is about 6 inches of cement. That's it. Nothing else. There's no mineral wool insulation or foam or styrofoam on the walls; there basically a coat of paint, which has an R factor of not much. Our floor covering is ceramic tiles, placed on a cement floor. That too gets pretty cold. There are no carpets or hardwood floors or linoleum that can act as insulation from the cold cement. Add to this that there are no furnaces in the building. We do not have that big Lennox forced air natural gas furnace to warm up the place like you do. We have a small space heater with a little fan that tries to blow warm air in the apartment. It works OK when the temperature is around 10 degrees - it does take the chill out, but when its colder than that, it's just not powerful enough to heat the place. Go spend some time in your cold room if you have one, feel the walls, and let me know what you think. OK, our walls aren't that cold but hopefully you get the picture. So yes, we are wearing long sleeved shirts and sweaters in the apartment, and it's still chilly. We also know that in a few months, when its 40 degrees outside, we'll look back at days like today and wish we could have a bit of that cold air. But for now, it's cold!

The work week was fine. Jacqui joined the teachers and students from her school that went to Kidzania on Thursday; she thought it was a pretty cool place (click on the link to see their video). She is still tutoring a few kids and really enjoys it.

The winter games don't seem to be a big priority in Kuwait - I don't even think that they are aware of this event. We will try to follow online, but we can't stream from the CBC website. It will be a challenge to watch the games. I'm sure someone at school will figure something out. In the meantime, Let the Games Begin!

Friday, January 31st - Busy, busy, busy

Our week was busier than normal -but it still didn't make it very busy! I started semester 2 at school. I'm now teaching math to the grade 7, 8, 9, 10 and part of the grade 11 kids. So ya, I'm teaching just about every kid in the school! My workload had increased but I had negotiated a pay raise with management before Christmas for this situation, so everything is OK. Jacqui tutored on Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday. She will start this week with another student so she'll be tutoring practically from Sunday to Thursday. Jacqui loves her job. It's pretty much stress free; all she has to do is show up. She never had a job like this where she didn't have to prepare, to assess, to mark, to deal with parents, to decorate a class, to do report cards, ... She is now enjoying her stay in Kuwait. It's turning out to be a positive experience for her.

We booked our trip for the last week of February. We are going to a resort in Sri Lanka. It will be nice to get away for a bit. We also booked our tickets to go to Ottawa in May for Julie's graduation. That will however be a short trip - getting there on Wednesday afternoon and leaving to come back to Kuwait on Sunday afternoon. We will therefore not have time to visit our friends in the KW region; that will have to wait until we get back in June! But time flies, June will be here before we know it.

We hope that February treats you better than January did! We wish you warmth and sunny skies!