Glancing Back at October

October was an especially busy--but especially fun--month.  However, because we were gone for a week and a half, and when we were home our internet often wasn’t working, I didn’t have a chance to post about anything we did.  So here’s a quick glance at October in the rearview mirror.

Because of how frantic the pace can be at ASOY, I don’t take the time I should to reflect on my students, so I’ll try to include a bit more about them in this post.  They are fabulous.  Yes, they are still teenagers with mood swings, excuses, and insecurities, but these kids are also some of the most interesting, motivated, thoughtful, open-minded, creative people I have ever met, let alone had the pleasure to teach.  They more than make all the hard work worth it. 

Their creative side was given a chance to shine in early October during the school’s Spirit Week (similar to homecoming back in the U.S.).  Student council (for which I’m one of the advisors) planned a full week of activities, contests, and dress-up days to let the kids lighten up a bit.  It took a lot of effort, but all the grades tried to outdo each other, which made it a great success.  One of the best parts about ASOY is that it goes from preschool to grade 12, so for things like spirit week you get to see little four-year-olds running around in costumes with all the high school kids—very entertaining.  Here’s a picture of my AP Lang class on Crazy Day; Lydia, the girl in the Statue of Liberty crown, won the prize for the day, but there were many runners-up. 

The Wednesday of that week was a Saudi Arabian holiday, and the teachers were invited to a big celebration at the Hilton.  From what I’ve seen since living here, the Saudis don’t do anything on a small scale, and this was no exception.  The buffet overwhelmed me so much that I just stood there looking at it for a while before finally taking a breath and getting in line—I’d never seen entire sides of animals being carved up like that before.  The drinks were also a bit over-the-top and were served in whole pineapples; Lara and I enjoyed them immensely. 
It was also fun to see everyone dressed up (although the container hadn’t arrived yet at that point, so Brian and I had to sortof fake it).  In this photo I’m with Emmanuel (teacher’s aid for 5th grade), Anjana, Lara, and Dusty. 
The Saudi Arabian ambassador was hosting the event, so his son, Hussein, was bustling around the whole evening.  We did manage to slow him down long enough to get a picture with us, though. (I have him in 8th grade English, and Brian has him for MS Drama, which he always laughs could be the name for all MS classes.)  He’s pretty squirrely in school, but he was all business at this event and has future-ambassador written all over him by the looks of his meet-and-greet skills. 

Near the end of spirit week, the school put on Thursday Night Live, a school-wide talent show.  I’ve been to a lot of school talent shows, and they’re usually enjoyable but fairly predictable, so I expected this one to be the same.  I clearly forgot I work at an international school now—it has its own set of problems, but predictability is not one of them.

The evening began with a group of 4^th graders doing an entire dance routine on “heelies,” those big tennis shoes with wheels in them.

This was followed by what was by far the most adorable act of the night.  Marie, a first grader who is the daughter of one of the French teachers (and one of my favorite swim-lesson students), sang an original song called “I Love My Kitchen.”  Her mom explained to me that she had just learned that word in her ESL class and decided to write a little song about it.  It consisted of her dancing around in what looked like a first communion dress, repeating “I love my kitchen, my kitchen, my kitchen.  I love my kitchen.  My kitchen is only for me.”  Let’s just say she got a standing ovation. 
A close second in terms of cuteness was the Swaneys’ drumming number.  Kristie is the 4^th grade teacher at ASOY, and her husband, Bill, works for the embassy.  (I remember when we first arrived, another teacher who was here last year explained that Kristie was the kind of person who was so sweet that you kept thinking either she would get annoying or she must be hiding some petty alter-ego; eventually, though, you realize that she truly is that nice!)  Her boys are equally wonderful, and since they all take drumming lessons, she made them matching outfits and they put together a family routine.  Cameroon’s own Von Trapps. 

There were more than twenty acts over the course of the evening, so I’ll just give you a taste of the variety they represented.  We had everything from “Zorba the Greek” (one of the girls is the sister of my seventh grader Konstantinos Tzartzas—isn’t that the best Greek name?)… 
…to the good old American Cheetah Girls (some things truly are universal)… 
…from two of my AP Lang students from India (Nakaashi and Samrah) singing one of their favorite Bollywood songs… 
…to the Cameroonian Narcisse crooning “My African Queen.” 
There are some amazing dancers at ASOY, with Ludwe and Amadou (from South Africa and Mali) at the top of the list. 
In addition to the dance in the above photo, they also teamed up with three of their friends (Maurice, from Germany; Itu, from South Africa; and Kelo, from Nigeria) to perform the night’s finale.  These guys are always dancing on the basketball court during breaks, and they’re really, really talented.  If you’ve ever seen the movie “Stomp the Yard,” you’ll recognize the style they perform here.  The amount of energy and the way their goofy personalities came through was incredible.  The video was too big to load directly onto our blog, but they gave me permission to upload it onto YouTube.  Watch it for yourself, and enjoy!   

I’ve mentioned that we’ve been taking African drumming lessons on Wednesday nights, and the administration convinced us to perform in the show as a way to plug the program (they’re trying to get more embassy people involved.)  We eventually agreed but were pretty nervous because we’d only had two lessons at that point.  Our teacher, Patrick, went up there with us, though, and we did a kind of call and response routine. 

At the end, we had to hit our drums, put our hands in the air, and yell, “Hey!” 
We didn’t steal the show, but we didn’t make total fools of ourselves either, so we considered it a resounding success.

Another fun October event was the chance to attend a Lions soccer (sorry, football) game.  The Indomitable Lions are the Cameroonian’s national team, but some of their players also play for European club teams.  Eto’o is their top player and plays for Barcelona most of the time, but since this was an important game in terms of deciding who’ll be in the next World Cup, he and the others all came back to help out.  Because of that, the place was even more packed than usual. 

The game ended up being a blow-out (in Cameroon’s favor) because poor Mauritius just couldn’t keep up.  Indomitable indeed. 
The cell phone company, Orange, is the official sponsor of the team, and they had some interesting advertising techniques.  The most memorable of these was a pack of guys on roller blades whipping around the outside of the field with Orange signs. 
This place never ceases to surprise me.   

The game was something of a sensory overload (Brian struggled) :) but we were definitely glad we went.  On the way home, we ended up getting totally lost, but it was a beautiful evening, so I took some photos as we drove around.  The skies are amazing here, and the clouds that night were especially striking.  I’m also posting these because I don’t usually have my camera with me in the car, so this was a chance to capture a bit of the typical scenery: very lush with lots of rolling hills in the background. 



After driving around for nearly a half hour (some of which was intentional because we’d never been that far out on that side of town and were enjoying the new views), we found some landmarks and made our way home.  It was great to realize we are finally able to orient ourselves with the radio towers, major buildings, etc., since even a month ago we would have been pretty clueless.

The only other big event in October was our Uganda trip, which obviously needs its own post.  We’ll get to that as soon as possible.  In the meantime, hope everyone is enjoying the fall weather back home—we miss it (and all of you) very much!