School Life at YIS (and more)

Yanbu International School really is quite international, particularly when you consider the nationalities of our students. Here, for instance is the bulletin board in my classroom, a work in progress, and you can see from the flags I posted that students from at least 13 different nations are in my classes.

And it's pretty much the same in Rose's grades 7 and 8 classes. One day last week, I was surprised to find that several on my grade 10s were wearing traditional clothes from Pakistan, their home country, so I took this picture which they were shy about standing for but were delighted to say "yes" to when I asked if I could use it on my blog. Their first names have a very poetic sound to an ear used only to English: from left to right you see Tathir (tath-EAR),Shanzay, Nabeel, Fakiha (fah-KEY-ha), Abdullah, and Osama. Colourful native dress, colourful names. The roll call each day is like a song in another language.

Our class sizes are much smaller than classes at home. I have two grade 9 classes, each with 12 students; a grade 10 with 20, which I see for History as well as English; and a grade 11 class with 18. Rose's grade 7 has 22 and grade 8s of 13 and 14. If a class reaches 26 students, it gets split into two. So we're not overwhelmed by classes of 35; in our case, we're not even mildly whelmed with our class sizes. Here's Rose's desk and some of the photos of her students along

with the outline left when some whiteboards and bulletin boards were removed early in the summer for the move to our new school, a process which has hit a few snags but which we are hoping will be cleared up soon so we can actually move, inshallah.

There are only about 350 students in the school and it runs from Kindergarten up to grade 12, so there aren't a lot of students to draw from when it comes to having teams and clubs. Right now we have four volleyball teams and according to our new friend Rob from Oregon the senior team is quite good, so much so that he says we shouldn't have a staff vs students game because we'll get whupped. I organized a staff vs students basketball game a couple of weeks ago and it went over very well. We managed to hold them to a 2-2 tie for about 8 of the 20 minutes, but then they went on a bit of a rampage and beat us 20 to 8. Here's Mr Grant (Olly) Olson's grade two class leading the cheering followed by the post-game team photo.

If you look closely you'll see that the boy to my left, Ehsen (pronounced as is Esso, but with an 'n' sound instead of that 'o')has managed to single-handedly bring his own English mark down several points.

For about 25 dollars a week, the fellow who runs the cafeteria will bring lunches for the two of us from his restaurant. Each day is a bit different, but the weekly menu repeats, but for $2.50 a lunch, we get to eat really well. This is just one of the perks that come with being at YIS. There's a nurse on staff, a nursery for those staff with children, quite a few teaching assistants, two computer labs each with about 25 computers, a full-time computer tech guy (Mr Geegee), and many of the other standard things you'd expect in a school. There is no drama class, nor a band, but there is a choir. And there's a cat. Elizabeth, pictured below, usually greets us each morning at the door, often with a scowly look as if to say "What took you so long?". She comes in with us, strolls through the staff room looking for food, and then often curls up on a bench in the foyer.

Just one or two quick things. We, the Phelpses and Morleys, had most of the teaching staff over for dinner to say thanks for all the help with our adjusting to life in Yanbu and also for helping us make the adjustment into our new school. The local restaurant catered and we sat by the pool just outside our front door. You can see most of them in this photo. Our new neighbours and friends Marsha and Rob Phelps, from the small town of Sisters in Oregon, are second and third from the left. Marsha is teaching grade 6 and Rob has a mixed bag of things including Health, Arabic History, American History to HS, and Social Studies to gr 7 & 8. He's a track guy from University of Arizona (note the chicken legs) and has coached his entire teaching career so he and I have had lots to talk about. The three boys up on the low wall are Zinzan, Beau, and Noah, and they are about to count to ten and then tear off on some game.

Finally, today we went snorkeling again and Rose got a chance to swim out over the reef for the first time. She loved it, despite never having been in deeper water in her life. She marveled about how nature managed to get so many colours to go so beautifully together. Here she is just after the experience, coming out of the sea with our friend Borden, the chemistry teacher. That other pic is of a female we met on the road from the beach back to the highway. She strolled quite happily over to the car when we stopped and gave us a good deal of friendly attention. Her gorgeous eyelashes and sparkling personality make up for an otherwise pretty unfortunate face.




So that's it: our school, a bit of a staff party, and another day of life by the Red Sea.