KK & Chris' Kenya Adventure

  Greetings to all our family and friends from Mt. Kenya Academy Secondary School! We arrived 3 weeks ago and have 3 weeks of school under our belts. We have learned so much about an entirely different education system and we're managing to keep our heads above water. As Chris says, they haven't fired us yet! The staff and students are absolutely wonderful! And I must say it's very refreshing to be teaching without the daily intrusion of school politics which had been such a big part of my last few years teaching in Seattle. This photo shows the interior of the campus with the dining room on the left and classrooms, computer and science labs, offices, and a library on the other 3 sides. The secondary school has grades 7-12, split into two groups following two different curricula. The Kenyan system is 9-12 but they are called Form 1-Form 4. The Cambridge International system are grades 7-11, called Year 7-Year 11.  From the 3rd floor balcony of the school, You can see Mt Ken

  Chris and I visited the Diplomatic Quarter in Riyadh. Not so long ago, westerners were required to stay in this quarter. That's not true anymore. We walked through some beautiful parks, one on the edge of a large ravine that cuts through the city. We also walked past many embassies. Uber got us there and got us back to Mohammed's house, even though we entered an incorrect address for our destination and the driver didn't speak English! The houses we saw in Riyadh all had tall, concrete walls around them. Behind the walls, the homes were beautiful. We had a wonderful time hanging out with Mohammed's children. Abdullah (7) Fahad (4) Almuhra (1) On our last night, we ate dinner with Mohammed's family and then went out for tea and ice cream with Abdulaziz and Mohammed. The blue tower in the background is the building where Mohammed's new office is. Enjoying each other's company along with the ice cream Cranes in an area of Riyadh with a new project underway. T

 Our visit to Abdulaziz's Grandfather's Farm The farm was about a 1.5 hour drive north of Riyadh. We made two stops along the way. The first was at this restored lookout tower. Back when traders and marauders roamed the Arabian peninsula, lookout towers helped protect a village. We climbed to the top on a windy staircase that became narrower and narrower as it went up. KK, Chris, and Abdulaziz at the top of the tower. Looking southwest (I think) from the top of the tower. The next stop was down a very muddy road to a salt mine.           The rock and ground water in this area contain a lot of salt. The process involves digging numerous rectangular holding ponds, each roughly the size of two football fields side by side and 5-6 feet deep. The ponds are filled with water and left for the water to evaporate off. The filling/evaporating process is repeated multiple times until there is about a foot of salt across the bottom of the pond. Then, an excavator tractor scoops up the salt