Happy Easter!

Don't worry--there are pictures to follow this note...

Our apologies for being so slack at maintaining the site. What happened, you ask? Well a few things: one, just when Brent settled in to write a quick update, the computer picked up a spyware-hijacker that sidelines us for a number of days; two, Brent coached softball with 3/4 practices a week, and lastly, other areas of professional and home life became incredibly hectic in all sorts of other ways. Mostly, though, what it came down to was changing our wake-up time from 0530 to 0600, and a lack of drive in the evenings to sit and blog.

Thanks for your patience.

Rosalee was sick for all of our Easter break, which resulted in, as you can imagine, a very "forced rest" kind of weekend. We did rent a car on the last day when she was feeling a bit better and boot around southern Kuwait, and you can see some of the pictures from that below this posting.

School goes well. We're in course-selection season, which sees students choosing the classes they need/would like to take and teachers finding out what course they will be instructing next year. This will determine our course-load and also should help sort out what and when training will look like for us. We'll be sure to let everyone know as soon as we can.

On top of all that logistical stuff, Brent coached the JV boys softball squad in the EMAC (Eastern Med. Athletic Conf.) tournament here in Kuwait. Most of the boys (all but one) had never played organized baseball before, 70% had to purchase their first ball glove, and about 2/3 had never stepped on a ball diamond before the tourney. Quite the challenge, it was, with only two months to practice basic skills and learn the rules. The other teams were composed mostly of Canadian and American boys, so as you can imagine the skill level of the competition was very high. But Brent's boys did very well, and even managed even to score four runs in their final game and keep the loss to a very respectable 17-4.

And in a surprise show of support from our fellow churchfolks, we were elected to our church's parish council. We're part of Ahmadi Anglican Church's satellite congregation and have come to know and love our church community, meeting on Fridays, attending Bible Studies, helping with the Chinese ministry, and Rosalee helping with children's church (can't really call it "Sunday School"...). We knew how fond we were of our fellow parishoners--what a concrete way to know that they feel the same way about us! We certainly look forward to building our relationships at church even further.

Anyhow, that's the bare bones of B&R's recent doings. Check out the new pictures below. Wow, summer's almost here--we can't wait to connect with you all again.

B&R

 

 

Here, a group of Kuwaiti women protest the treatment of POW's during the invasion and occupation, opposed by somewhat smaller GI Joe figures representing the "Barbarian Invaders." 

The museum is an interesting study: dusty memorials, grisly occupation photos, leftover armaments, and perfectly-disproportional dioramas that document the invastion, occupation and liberation of Kuwait in '90-'91. 

 

 

Iraqi APC, Liberation Museum. 

After 15 years, in the spirit of reconciliation, the powers-that-be have decided to close the "Not To Forget Museum." Local opinion is mixed. 

Camel X'ing

...or, rather, "dromedary" x'ing, as there are no camels in this part of the MidEast. Notice the bullet-holes--bored rural youth are the same everywhere, eh? 

We encountered a mostly-empty housing settlement just outside of Wafra, which is Kuwait's farming community. Here, one finds hundreds of identical--and huge--houses in the middle of the desert, unoccupied save for a skeleton maintenence crew and the mosque staff. 

 

Desert scrub, Wafra, Kuwait. 

Radio tower, Wafra, Kuwait. You might recall our lunch pictures taken with Mom & Dad V at the bombed-out village in the northern Kuwait desert... well, remnants of the war linger southwards also, and here after the liberation they simply rebuilt the comm's tower and left the structure as is. 

Brent has his Kuwait license from driving Mom and Dad V. around, so he was behind the wheel for the excursion. This is a pic of him in a roundabout in the middle of nowhere. 

Treats

Unofrtunately, Rosalee spent most of our Easter/Mohammed's birthday (PBUH) long weekend in bed with a bout of something-or-other. She was feeling a little better on our last day, so we rented a car--for the whopping price of 3.5KD/$15 per day--and drove around southern Kuwait for the day. 

It's an original, too!

One of Rosalee's students brought in an original Henry Moore lithograph for Art 1 "Show and Tell."