Merry Christmas from us!  Sending you joy, love & peace!

Day 125 in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, December 16th, 2016

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas! Today marks the first day of our 3 week Winter Break Vacation! Jake and I are spending the day packing and preparing for our upcoming adventure. Our driver picks us up at 12:30 AM and we're headed to the airport for our 4:15 AM Omar Air flight to Bangkok via Muscat. We'll be exploring Thailand from December 17th to January 2nd, 2017!

First news item: Basketball. I resigned as head coach of the basketball team on November 27th. This is the letter I wrote to the girls. "Dear BB Team:  Earlier this evening I had a face-to-face conversation with Mr. DuToit and feel grateful for his friendship, understanding and support as I have been agonizing over making a decision for the past 2 weeks. I was very nervous to have this conversation with him, but I have always felt that being upfront, open and honest is the best way to handle difficult conversations.  I have been reflecting on my life priorities because lately I have felt stress and pressure, and I do not enjoy feeling this way.  This message is to explain to you my decision and hopefully share with you some wisdom from my life.  When I was younger, I was a workaholic, sometimes pushing myself to exhaustion and afraid to let other people down.  Through the years, I have developed an appreciation for life balance and have committed to and been working on living an authentic, healthy and more simple life.  What this means to me is a life where I feel calm and rested most of the time.  A life where I work very hard at my professional job and equally as hard having fun and relaxing, accepting that it just fine for me to do nothing for an hour, if that’s what I want or even more importantly, what I need at the time.  A life where I strive to take care of my physical body, [which gets more challenging as I age], emotional wellbeing and spiritual health.  For years, Mr. Jacob and I have prioritized our lives around raising our four beautiful children.  Those were great years and now that we are in a new “chapter” of our life, where it’s just the two of us, we can live more adventures and explore life in new and amazing ways.  As I write this, I truly hope that each of you find the love of your life, like I have.  Our decision to teach at Dammam was the first step in starting this new “chapter” of our lives.  I was hired to teach Language Arts and was quite uncertain as to how my teaching responsibilities were going to unfold.  Now that I have been in this country for exactly 106 days, I have complete clarity as to how my life needs to be in regards to my dedicated work time [while at school and many evenings at home], play time, exercise time, wife time, friend time, far-away family time, vacation time, hobby time and “just me” time.  There are only so many hours in each day, and only one life to live.  So, for these reasons, I have informed Mr. Du Toit of my resignation from coaching effective today, which I need to free up time needed for my other life priorities.   In the short time that I have spent with you, I have truly enjoyed being with and coaching you.  I hope you have learned something new and also felt happy to be together.   Mr. Du Toit will assume the new direction for the team.  In closing, I am sending you a big hug through this message.  I wish you the best with your season, school year and life.  Remember, it’s extremely important to listen to your inner voice and honor what you need to live the life you were meant to live. As much I feel that I am disappointing many of you, I must be true to myself and my life first. Love, Coach Wyant"

Once I made the decision, the weight was instantly lifted. Then, I truly knew, it was the right decision.

Second news items: Friends. We're making great friends here in the Kingdom. We hosted our Patio Warming Party on November 28th and guess what? The FIRST rain storm, the very first drop of rain since arriving in this desert, decided to downpour on the afternoon and evening of our party. Seriously, this was unbelievable. So, we moved the party inside our villa, live music and all! The highlight of our party was when our friend, Chris Kurtz, 3rd grade teacher from Oregon, started playing his guitar and everyone BELTED OUT, "Almost heaven, West Virginia, Blue Ridge Mountains........" What makes this hiliarious is that EVERYONE was singing......and the people in this photo are also from: Canada, England, Ireland and South Africa!

Our Friend, Chris, the musician and writer.

This is a photo of the people we spend 1 hour every day with riding to and from school. I have several pages of notes for a book containing our stories of this most unqiue and bizzard shared life experience, which I shall call, "Lost In Transporation." Book title credited to Gary.

Lorna-Literacy coach for elementary and middle school, Kim-8th grade Language Arts teacher, Gary-high school social studies, Ann-high school psychology and counselor

Clay-high school social studies teacher and Jake!

We attended our first fondue party at Kat's villa with our friends Chris & Carolyn and Scott Miller [from Wisconsin]. It was a beautiful Saudi evening as we sat underneath the starry sky and visited about our travels and international teaching.

Caryoln & Chris

Kat!  She is the director of the Learning Resource Center on the Dhahran campus
and also lives on our compound.

Third news item: Christmas Kick-off on the compound. Wow, these Brits really know how to kick off the holiday season! Our pool-side restaurant, Bo-Diddly's, hosted the Dhahran Big Band for the lighting of the compound Christmas trees followed up with a rock-n-roll band playing later at Harley's, which is another hang-out here. We had a blast dining on steak, listening to great music and dancing until midnight.

Main road on our compound!

This is our super cheesy dumb photo in front of the electronic Christmas tree!

Fourth news item: Students. This teaching experience is amazing. I am learning so much about writing and enjoying being with my 6th graders. We just finished a big unit which pushed the students into research centered around activism in the following 5 areas: bullying, child labor, girls education around the globe, pet abandonment and the environment. We celebrated their work at the Youth Summit 2016 which showcased their published books, a powerpoint featuring each student holding up a sign stating what they cared about and how they want to change the world. It was powerful. Our theme song "Change The World" was written and performed by Colby and Awu. Colby ACTUALLY sent me a message on Facebook because he was inspired that we were using his music! Then, we made a video for him! The music comes out of South Africa. Watch the video here: Youth Summit 2016 Theme Song.

Working in the library on research!

Another work day with my girls!

Fifth news item: Special Saudi Stuff.

Palm tree?  NOPE, a secret antennae

Typical decorations at the entry of a school?  Um, yup.  

Sixth news item: The Abaya Photo.

My friend, Alanna, took this photo of me last week.  Anytime I am off the
compound or off the school property, I have to wear the abaya.

Seventh news item: The 50th Birthday.

The 50th Birthday Party with my 6A Class!  

With Jake on my 50th!  I am wearing the earrings from him!

Well, I was feeling a bit weird about turning 50, but now that I look back on the day, my God, it was amazing. One of THE BEST birth-days ever. It started off with Jake's letter, a copy of our wedding vows and a beautiful silver jewelry set with the Arabic words designed into the pieces: love, life, happiness, fulfillment and affection. The "Lost In Transportation" van pulled up and they sang "Happy Birthday" and then the all day celebration at school began that both of my classes had been planning for weeks. I knew nothing. They truly surprised me, complete with a personalized cake and unique cupcakes, a school day filled with hugs, homemade cards, letters, gifts and playing outside with my 6th graders. The day was wrapped up with a compound celebration with our new friends.

Compound Birthday Party with Konstant [from South Africa] and Alanna [from Canada]
I'm going to be their wedding planner for the event in Calgary!

 

On the morning that I woke up, I listened to the Sturgill Simpson song "Just Let Go."  The first two lines played over and over and over in mind:  "Woke up today and decided to kill my ego.  It ain't ever done me no good no how......."  Listen to the song here:  My 50th Birthday Anthem.  
The day before, in class 6D, the students started their free writing dedicated time.  During this 30 minutes, students can choose from many writing prompts and then they write.  I was going to work on grading with my laptop and this very strong feeling overcame me to STOP and also write.........so I did. Here's an excerpt from my journal entry.

"December 12, 2016.....When I'm old......Well, I'm almost officially old, almost half a century old. Old enough to have grown children.  Old enough to realize that I'm just beginning to understand so many things about life, about people, about myself.  What do I really know?  Is that even an important question to ask?  I think I know how to be a good Mom.  Of all the things that I am-that is my best performance thus far in this soon to be golden life of mine.  I hope that all I am so far and who I am becoming will be a person my children are proud of........I find myself in this strange place, in the opposite side of a situation, observing from the sidelines and truly realizing the errors of my younger, more arrogant self-of my larger ego that sabotaged my career and some relationships-the problems I created for myself because I didn't find a better, more mature way.  I now know that I will not engage in combat and pass it off as "authenticity."  That's weak.  I am no longer so one-dimensional.  I can feel the shift.  I can feel the expansion into a better version of myself.  I see who I was was.  The reflection bothers me.  How do I go on with this new knowledge and forgive myself for how I used to be-----I think about those I have left in my wake and feel remorse.  I see the lesson.  I feel the education.   I feel the growth and the softening.  Guess I'm a slow learner or maybe I've needed all these lessons to finally learn mine.  So there it is, the cold hard truth is staring right back at me and I see it.  I feel good.  I feel calm.  I feel present.  I feel that the best 50 are right in front of me now I am better than ever, stronger, wiser, ready and most importantly, softer.........."

Over and out 2016.