May 2013 – robinchartier

Miler

As part of the swim team, Carter participated in the Mile Challenge yesterday.

Yes, he actually swam a mile. 32 laps/64 lengths.

His faithful cheerleaders

He swam a mix of breaststroke (his favorite)

and freestyle

He does a pretty great kickturn too.

41 minutes later, challenge completed!

That was good enough for me, but of course all the boys wanted to know (including the biggest boy) what place he finished, how many other people he beat and all sorts of other competitive details. Supposedly he finished 3rd overall, but since it wasn’t a race, I wasn’t keeping track.

We should have gotten him some goggles. I forget that just because we didn’t wear goggles back in the dark ages (something about our parents wanting us to learn to swim with our eyes open without using a crutch), that goggles are actually really useful for swim team to keep your eyes from all that extra chlorine exposure.

Otherwise your eyes might be so sensitive on the way home that you have to resort to wearing your mom’s sunglasses.

She knows she’s cute: “Take a picture of me!”

Um, super excited about seeing the Bahraini flag flying outside of school. Not sure what that’s about.

Later that evening at Calvin’s band concert. I love trying to watch a concert through a sea of screens. Please sit in the front row and hold your big old phone up above your head the entire time. (She did. For over an hour. Good thing Calvin was playing saxophone in the back and I couldn’t see him anyway.)

Same family, two screens. Seriously? And are you really going to go back and watch your shaky, dimly lit video of mediocre middle school/high school band music at a later date? People puzzle me. Often.

I couldn’t get any photos of him during the concert, but afterwards he was showing off his new earrings. No worries, they’re just magnets (and they aren’t even his). There must be something wrong with me, because I think they actually look good on him.

So long, farewell . . .

ma’a salama, goodnight!
We hate to go, and leave this pretty sight!

Last day at Atlantis. Hopefully not for forever.

New game: throw the shoes in the pool and retrieve them.

I really admire the women who are required to be covered but find a way to swim anyway. In all my times at the pool all over the Middle East, I’ve never seen a woman in a burkini and a swimming niquab (the face veil). That is serious dedication (either to her religion or to her love of water sports!).

Fun with our dear friends

Even cuter is that Camille is wearing Meredith’s old swimsuit

She had no fear of going down all the slides. It was kind of crazy. She did everything she was tall enough to do and rode the rapids on the lazy river countless times. We had so much more fun with her this time than on our previous visits. It was also a lot more work keeping up with her — not like last time when I could sit back and post on Facebook while reading “Hello!” magazine.

Photo Credit: Macfadyen

OK, so I guess I got to do a little of that.

Photo Credit: Macfadyen

Best friends

Photo Credit: Macfadyen

Fun on the lazy river — don’t miss Carter on the far left.

Photo Credit: Macfadyen

The joys of having teenager who babysat Camille while we rode a few rides together. (Again, Carter poking his head in between us.)

Photo Credit: Macfadyen

Carter FINALLY went down the Leap of Faith. It only took 3 years of talking about it. He said he didn’t like it that much.

The Shark Tank ride goes right through this aquarium filled with sharks and rays. Camille yelled out, “He’s smiling!” and now I can’t see a ray without noticing their “smile.”

This one looks a little frowny

After finishing our day at the waterpark, we hopped in a cab and headed to downtown Dubai for the second half of our vacation.

Goodbye . . . Goodbye . . . Goodbye . . . (To be continued)

good times in Dubai

After 4 times at Atlantis, there isn’t much left to say that I haven’t said in previous posts except now that baby girl is older, I spent 3 solid days in the pool and a week later my skin is still dry and itchy from all the chlorine exposure. It was totally worth it though.

Running to get to the slides.

We thought this was a big deal

And then she insisted on going by herself

At dinner

The 10 meter tall glass sculpture in the lobby doesn’t get old

Neither does the huge aquarium

I loved this poster. So Middle East.

I have a few more days of photos to go through, but time keeps slipping away from me. I’m not sure if it’s the end of year rush, the new knitting project I’ve been working on, or the release of the newest Arrested Development on Netflix that has been eating up all of my time, but every time I blink, another day is over. That’s good news though when it comes to counting down the days until we head to the US! (Family members who are wondering: still don’t have tickets, so no confirmed dates.)

The Father of our Nation

The day before we left for vacation, Carter took part in the 5th grade “wax museum.” A few months ago everyone had to pick a famous person in history to research and write a report about. (Remember, Carter switched to George Washington because he “couldn’t find any information on Albert Einstein.”)

Fifty million steps later (the written report, timeline, hand drawn illustrations, compose 10 questions about, etc) the final piece of the project was to create a 5 minute first-person oral presentation/speech about your person. The wax museum format had each of the kids stationed in front of their table with visual displays and props, including a red “push me” button. Over a two hour period, every time someone came by their display and pushed their start button, they were to give their prepared speech.

(The yarn braid and baby powder was my doing. The suit is from Wendy’s wedding — all 3 have been used as costumes over and over again these past two years.)

Teachers took turns taking their elementary school classes to visit the wax museum. Carter gave his speech 15 to 20 times.

I never knew that when George Washington married Martha she brought two kids into the marriage (and was the wealthiest woman in Virginia at the time), but he never had any kids of his own. I also learned (from another kid) that Henry Ford was an anti-Semite, which sounded especially funny in the first person format when the kid said “I hated Jews.”

trafficking

I sat down today to post some more pool photos from our fabulous vacation, but as I was scrolling through from the beginning, I saw these.

Stylin’ as always, excited for the ride to the airport.

Our cab driver had an American flag air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror and spent the drive talking to Josh (in Arabic) about how he liked George Bush and Bush’s mission to get rid of terrorists. (I was more than a little proud of the fact that I could decipher some of what he was saying, though “George Boosh!” was hard to miss.)

Breakfast at the airport. Not for me — I generally don’t eat when I fly. A decaf cappuccino and half of a yellow pill are enough for me. (I was actually relaxed about going on this trip, but when something works, I don’t like to deviate from the routine.)

Two different cultures, two different languages, one love of electronics.

(It was the little boy’s tablet, but he kept wanting Caleb to play with him.)

Then I got to these pictures. And I remembered.

While waiting to board our plane there were over a hundred women like these all around us. From our experience in the region, I know that these women are on their way to various countries to work as housemaids, nannies, and other household help. They are all leaving home to try to provide for the families they’ve left behind. Some have even paid enormous sums of money to “agents” to get visas to work in these countries. Some of these women will be kept under lock and key, some will end up in an indentured servant type of situation where they never earn enough to repay the costs of their travel/visa and living expenses, and the ones in “good” situations will work only 6 1/2 days per week (but those work days will be from the time they wake up until the time they go to sleep).

I watched a man walking around checking tickets and directing certain ones to this line that was getting ready to board.

When I saw on the monitor that they were going to Riyadh, I felt sick to my stomach. Saudi Arabia is not a nice place for a housemaid. None of the countries in this region are particularly known for their kindness to household help, but Saudi is notorious. The Sri Lankan government even started limiting their citizens from going to Saudi on these types of visas after a Sri Lankan housemaid/nanny was beheaded earlier this year.

Now how am I supposed to get on a plane and enjoy my vacation? A friend reminded me that God loves these women even more than I do and that I’m not responsible for saving them. I left our housemaid with plenty of money, access to our entire house, and a week with nothing to do but make sure the dog was fed and happy. That is the best I can do.