Taj's First Day of School

Last Monday, Taj went to school for the first time. His classroom is called EC (Early Childhood) 1. There are 13 children (from 8 different countries) in his class and there are 3.5 teacher/assistants working with them. His first day of school was actually a day after the rest of the school. This was because, there was a coordinator that wanted to spend the whole first day with EC 2 and then the next with EC1.

Taj was very excited to start school. He biked the 100 meters to the school entrance, skipped to class, and was happy to be left with all the new faces and toys. Little does he know, he has just jumped through the first of many hopes offerd by education. Soon, he will be petitioning his High School Counselor trying to wiggle out of calculus.

The morning of his first day, Ellen and I were okay, but teary-eyed as we thought of our little boy growing up too fast. We had composed ourselves again until we entered school and one of our fellow teachers become all choked up as she saw us in the hallway. Every teacher we saw gave Taj high-fives, which encouraged him, but made me feel heavy with the weight of the situation. There were some sreaming kids as we entered the room and Mrs. Julie (the coordinator of both ECs) expertly shooed us out in case Taj had second thoughts. Actually her directions were probably as much for us as they were for Taj.

At 12:30, I picked Taj up and he and I talked as we headed home for lunch. He was all smiles and recounted playing with cars and trains, but could not recall any of the other children he played with:).

The second day of school seemed to start the same, but when we arrived at the classroomo, Taj looked at us and said, "I am not going in there". We had to leave him in the hall with the teachers and rush off to our own responsibilities. There were no tears and later, Mrs. Julie told us all had gone well. His third day of school is tomorrow, we shall see how this transition evolves.

Gonu

When we left Oman last June the last several roads around the city were destroyed, people's cars were washed into the sea, and the wadi behind our house was scoured free of trees and seemingly life. Cyclone Gonu had definitly left its ugly mark. Getting a flight out of Muscat was a headache. There were delays, cancellations, and the customer service desk for Gulf Air was underwater in Ruwi. However after a few days of sleep deprivations and high levels of stress, we did arrive in lush Minneosta and soon Gonu seemed like a distant memory.

Upon arriving back to Oman for our third year, we were excited to be back to the place we are most likely to call home. The familiarity of the surroundings is comforting even though it was 96 degrees and really humid. The country has done a seemingly fantastic job of reconstructing municipalities, roads, and bridges. As you drive around, there are still random destroyed cars that have not been removed from their resting places or pieces of road from villages "upstream". These monuments serve as constant reminders of the unprecedented storm that hit Oman last June. However, life goes on. Our school will open its doors next week for the students. There has even been a new gym, library, and cafeteria built over the past several months.

This year, Taj will start in the Early Childhood Program, Ellen will increase her part time status to 85%, and I will coordinate the Experiential Education Program at the school. The pace of our life has shifted with the seasons and now we are once again in work mode.