Kenya Trip: Part 1

Our trip began late thursday night as we headed to the airport at 11:30pm. We signed in made our way to the gate and took off somewhere in the range of 2am. I slept the whole way to Ethiopia. During our layover we located the only airport bar where several of my colleagues took part in an early morning beer. Much need after two months living in a dry country dealing with the stress of back to school. Flight number two went off without a hitch and we landed in Mombasa at 1 on the afternoon. 

Now when we finally got the go ahead on our vacation our main concern was finding a location that was cheap and awesome. This was a problem because everyone was jacking the prices, and flights that were normal $300 round trip, were now closed to $1000. Luckily we came across the flights to Mombasa for fairly cheap. Kenya's awesome, there's beaches and elephants and safaris! What we failed to see while planning and booking it was that Mombasa is actually one of the most dangerous cities in East Africa. Needless to say we didn't spend much time there. We had arranged for car to pick us up and drive us straight to Dianni beach, on the southern part of the coast.  Our drive took us about 2 hours to get to our hostel. One of the most interesting parts of the drive was the barge which ushers people back and forth across the river connect the west and east bank of Mombasa. There are no bridges that connect the sides, just ferries that traverse the 200 foot width. Cars pay a tolls, but pedestrians walk on free. Our driver, Mike, warned us to stay in the car as pick pockets are very common here. 

 

At the hostel we saw to our rooms, and i quickly changed out of my fully covered Kuwait friendly garb into a bathing suit. Very little has felt more liberating in my life. We didn't leave the hostel for the rest on the night. I had called it an early evening because of the hectic week and long flight. Others choose to head out from the poolside bar to some of the others in town. I spent the following day lounging by the pool, others slept off their hangover. I managed to get one of the worst burns I've ever had from a combination of expired sunscreen and sun sensitivity because of the anti-milaria medication. In fact as I write this weeks later (I know, I should have blogged sooner) I'm still slightly red and peeling. 

The next day was overcast, which I was secretly very thankful for. Around noon some of us made our way down to the beach. It was less than a five minute walk down the road. However, we took the matatu (the local public transport) down the road to a restaurant with lounge chairs and food options. The matatu is exactly the same as a dala dala, for those who are familiar with Tanzanian public transport. For everyone else they're basically like a van that drives around picks up people, where you cram into tiny seats and there may or may not be chickens on there. All for the low cost of 10 shillings (about 10 cents). Our matatu did not chicken, which was nice but I had secretly hoped for them so Haley and Joan would get the full experience. 

We spent the afternoon at the beach and as it started to cool off and spit rain we headed back to the hostel. 

The camels of Dianni Beach. These are left over from when arab traders controlled the spice trade in East Africa. Now they provide rides for tourists.  

The road heading back to the hostel.

 That night we headed down to the beach for dinner were we ordered far too much food for the five  of us. It include 2 snappers, 1 lobster, a mountain of rice, potatoes coleslaw and salad. All for about $15.

KENYA!!!

It was finally announced today that we will be getting a week off for Eid break, like every other international school here in Kuwait.

So thanks to skyscanner (its a wonderful website, it promotes the travel junkie in all of us and if you haven't used it yet you should try, its life changing) myself and some other teacher friends have found some last minute deals to Kenya! Which was far more intriguing than some of the other options like Iraq.

So on October 3rd I will be leaving for a week to go to Mombasa and travel beaches and go on safari!  Now, I realize that I may have already been on safari before, but can you really go on too many safaris? The only acceptable answer here is 'no.' Besides that was in Tanzania and in June, this maybe completely different... or equally as awesome.

House of Mirrors

On Saturday I went with a group of teachers to the House of Mirrors in Kuwait. This unusual art museum is a giant installation created by an Italian woman who slowly, over a series of years, transformed her home by constructing mirror mosaics to cover every surface. Lidia al-Qattan came to Kuwait for the dry weather. Married to a Kuwaiti artist, she began to create her own art in the form of mosaics. Inspired to cover up the mess that her daughter had left after she got into enamel paint, it soon spread from the one room throughout her home.  She said that it took 91 tonnes of mirror to create what we there saw today. 

Lidia, is an eccentric artist, but is very welcoming as she gives you snacks when you first arrive, and then takes you an a tour of them place. Her home revolves around the idea of the earth and the universe. All of the rooms have themes, from the reception room which is inspired by the sea, the kitchen which looks at the bounty of the earth, or her daughter's old bedroom which looks at astrology. She share with us her fascination of the origin of the universe, and space exploration. 

She took us upstairs where things got a little more "interactive" and delved more experiential art. Not my personal favourite type of art but never the less something as art educator I should always keep an open mind to. First came the game. Hanging from the walls and ceiling were cheap carpet that she had painted. She handed all of us on the tour small tiles which she had painted and on the back attached velcro to. We were to throw the tiles at the carpet and attempt to get the images facing right side up in order to score a point for out team. My team won 2 out of the 3 series. Next we were taken into the art therapy room, where a dark setting, light installations and music were meant to calm you and make you self aware. 

The next room we were taken into was our experience in entering into the universe. She had a dark room where glow in the dark stars surrounded us, and timed to music various lights and images played. You could tell that there was a lot of thought and dedication put into it. And although it wasn't my favourite art installation, after got over the feeling that this is really weird, I did enjoy it. To the point where when she open the door and told us it was time to move on, we all a little slow to leave. Although some of the participants may have been more hesitant to find out what odd art experience we were going to have next. 

She took us down an elevator to her gallery of painting were she made us spin a wheel of chance to see if we could win a prize of one of her jewellery designs. However some people did walk away with some large broaches and earrings. She took us back the reception room where she gave us more drinks and food, and talked about her art and life in Kuwait some more. She was a fascinating woman, but once again confirmed to me that I am no where weird enough to be an artist. 

Understanding 'Haraam' in Art

I'm one month into living in Kuwait, and finished two weeks of teaching here. In that time I've learn new things and had to adapt some of the ways I teach to better this new culture I'm now working with.

One of the new words I've learned is "Haraam" which in a loose translation means sinful. Basically it has to do with anything that goes against Islamic values. Most of them to an outsider make a lot of sense, things like not wasting food, or showing respect to the elders of your family. Somethings although foreign to westerners we're still familiar with like dressing conservatively.

As an art teacher I have a whole list of things that are haraam. My school follows closely Islamic values so, I end up with a larger haraam list than teachers at other international schools. I was already prepared for the no showing of nudes. And as an art teacher, especially working internationally you're already familiar with the sensitivity around nudes, what age is it appropriate to show them at, which students have religions or backgrounds that is may offend. So I was already prepare for the no naked people in art. Which maybe difficult, but still able to work around it. What I wasn't really prepare is the other things on the list. Which includes, but not limited to, displaying religious figures that appear in the Quran. Obviously I wouldn't be showing depictions of Mohammed, because that's against the rules, and there are basically no pictures of him because of this anyways. But other people like, God, Jesus, Moses, David, are all apart of the Quran. So there goes the renaissance. Which I will now teach about using the Mona Lisa.

We also have: art pieces that are political, are Israeli or jewish(sort of), art that talks about the Holocaust, depict Muslims doing bad things, show inappropriate relationships, display drinking or drug use, in any way encourage pigs to be seen as food.

So far I've shown them images of the Lascaux Caves, which in retrospect I'm really hoping that saying that there was humans 17,000 years ago is not against the Quran.... Needless to say as apart of this new adventure in my art teaching career I now need to find art resources that mostly talk about landscapes.

One Month In

Thursday night! 

Two weeks of teaching in Kuwait done, one month here. Its been a little bumpy, but things are starting to get settled. Mind you I did get a new schedule again today... Oh well I go paid today!

Happy Birthday to Me!

My birthday was on Friday, which here is the first day of the weekend. So today at the end of class my Grade 12 IB students surprised me with a giant birthday cookie, and sang happy birthday to me in both english and arabic. It was the perfect start to the week.

The Classroom

It took a while, put the classroom is now organized and somewhat working order.

Imagine this, I walk into my class to find boxes of things, shelves, tables, and chairs all just piled in the middle of the room. It took days to get things sorted and as of today the projector finally works!

Completed the first week of school with some success. I'm exhausted and covered in charcoal dust, but now starting to look forward to the year!