August 20, 2016

Welcome to my blog.  I'm Chris Kurtz, a third grade teacher in a school called DEMS in Saudi Arabia. I have never taught at an international school before although I lived overseas as a child.

A blog is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, and now that I’m living in a place people are curious about, the time has arrived.  I feel a sense of urgency in getting started since I want to strike while all of my senses are still a little raw and my point of view hasn’t settled into normalcy.  I know that is a necessary evolution in my psyche for the sake of comfort and stability, but this off-balance feeling can be an interesting time as well.

It is just one day short of a week since we arrived as I write this first entry.  Carolyn and I were hired in December to teach at DEMS. It was a long arduous wait with lots of packing and moving chores that seemed to never end. Here is us on the plane. But we're here now.

Boarded and ready to fly into the unknown.

Just after landing, we were met on the sky bridge and whisked out of a side door into a luxurious black sedan, across the tarmac and then into a special VIP room where we waited for our bags to clear customs.  It is the only time we will be met in such pomp and circumstance but it was lovely to walk into the air conditioned room and see our school principal waiting for us with a big hug and comfortable chairs.  

Still smiling at our destination. Lots of gold trim in the VIP area of the airport.  Carolyn trying out her new abaya.

Let me just take a moment to say that the short walk down the stairs of the jetway to the aforementioned luxurious black sedan was taken through the sort of heat you feel you need to swim through.  Our glasses instantaneously fogged up and the air we were forced to breathe felt as if it might be doing damage to our lungs.  You know how you hold your breath as you open the oven door to check on a pie or the tray of roast vegetables?  It was like that...only you can’t hold your breath that long.  

But more on the heat later.  It is certainly the most in-your-face aspect of living here in Saudi Arabia, but it hardly gets mentioned in regular conversation because...why?  There just isn’t any point to talking about it.  But the heat definitely shapes and narrows your life here in a number of ways, the biggest of which is that it keeps everyone indoors and hidden from everyone else.

The view from our apartment out the living room window.

The humidity increases the sense of heat dramatically.  It is regularly above 110 F and 70+ percent humidity. 

Which brings me to the point that is topmost on my mind every day - how to make a community here for ourselves.  We live on a compound with hundreds of other people, but no one who works in our school.  Reaching out to others with ease and being outgoing and gregarious just doesn’t come natural for Carolyn and I, so these leopards are going to have to grow some new spots.  But you know how friends often seem to fall randomly into your life?  That happened to us on the first day when we went to get our Saudi physical.  The two couples who were thrown into the same process also live on our campus, also are experiencing everything new, also are teachers (although not at our school) and are super friendly.   So that has given us a jump start on the friendship front and hope for the future.

School and a solid, steadying routine is just a few days hence.  I’m sure that will change our feelings and our experiences in the near future, so stay tuned.  In the meantime, I would REALLY like to hear your thoughts and reactions to this blog so that I can get the feeling that I’m connecting with those of you who are reading.  Please keep in touch.