Another Year of Teaching in the Books

Number 16 for me and number 5 for Lindsey!

As we wind down our first year in Saudi, it is best to reflect on the last few months of the school year; look ahead at the final month of school; and plan for our Summer Holidays.

A Final Trip to Bahrain

This past weekend, we took a final trip to Bahrain.  We had a long weekend before the start of Ramadan so we decided to get away again.  We didn’t end up doing that much.  Despite the haze of a sandstorm, we spent a majority of our time at the pool.  We did go on one unsuccessful excursion to the Muharraq souq (dusty, hot, and most of it closed), but we did end up finding a good bookstore and stocking up on books.  Simon was able to get a copy of the Gruffalo, amongst others.  We were also able to check out a couple of new restaurants, including a Mexican-style restaurant named Calexico.  Very yummy!

Despite one sleepless night, Simon continues to improve as a traveler.  Hopefully, our trip to Oman was an exception.  Fingers crossed that our trip home to the US this summer is as successful.

A Strange End to the School Year

This will mark one of the strangest ends of the school year that I have ever had.  Since the school we work at currently has limited exams (only a few AP tests and no IB exams yet!), it has been a much less hectic end of the year compared with last year and administering over 1800 IB exams.  Comparatively, life has been pretty easy.

Also, we started Ramadan.  Because Saudi labor laws dictate that the maximum working day during Ramadan is 6 hours, we have a shortened school day.  This is probably a good thing since many of our students are fasting.  Starting this week, we finish school at 12:45 every day.  Not a bad way to finish out the year! (Although it complicates final exams and may make future IB Exams difficult)

A Reflection on One Year in Saudi

So the question that inevitably comes up upon reflection is “Have you made the right decision in moving?” Overall, we would say yes.

A point that is hard to ignore is the impact this move has had on our financial situation.  Because many of our major expenses are covered (housing and child care), we are able to have a savings rate of near 70%.  This includes all of the trips that we take.  When thinking of retirement, while your overall salary is important, I think that the amount that you save is even more so.  Because we have little debt (just a bit of Lindsey’s student loan), we are able to make a good start towards retirement.

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Professionally, I know that I have a lot less stress than in my previous job, Lindsey maybe a bit more.  Overall, the school is pretty good.  It seems that we are on a positive upswing (although there is a lack of certain structures).  We have a two-year contract and need to make our decision quite early on next year about whether to stay or go (by November).  While it is still a bit too early to tell, I think we would both be comfortable staying on past our initial contract, all things considered.

Summer and Eid Plans

This year, summer is only 6 weeks for us (I know all of the non-teachers are rolling their eyes at the moment). We will be back in Michigan for all of the summer break.  One of the downsides of being away from family is the lack of available babysitters.  We hope to use the grandparents for a bit of adult time.  That is something we sorely miss here in Saudi Arabia!

We plan on making a trip up to the Upper Peninsula for a few days, and Lindsey and I have tickets to see Femi Kuti in concert in Detroit.  Other than that, relaxing and hanging out and visiting family is our main priority.

Another strange part to our school year, next year, is that when we get back to Saudi Arabia at the beginning of August, we have a week and a half of teacher workdays and then we have another week-long break for Eid.  We have already booked flights to Georgia (the European one) for a week.  We thought about going to Western Europe, but there is always time for that and we wanted to go someplace unusual!

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