Early Morning Muezzin Musings

It's 4:21 a.m. and the muezzins at the nearby mosques have begun their morning call to prayer. It's more a religious battle of the bands (battle of the "brands"?) and occurs several times during the day. The fellow at the Shi'a mosque -- the Iranian mosque with the minarets that light up in green at night -- has the better voice: fluid and mysterious. His call evokes images of crowded bazaars in the casbah, women veiled from head to toe, and Sufis whirling like dust storms in the desert.

The Sunni guy from just down the street bellows like a cow giving birth. This tends to dispel the romantic visions which would otherwise be my payoff for getting up so early to work on this post.

I am drinking a cup of coffee flavored with cardamom. One of my colleagues (Ahmed) suggested that I try this Turkish style of coffee. It has an interesting flavor -- something Starbucks might try as a special for a month and then decide not to offer for several years. I drink it mostly for the caffeine. It probably also works as a breath freshener.

Soon I will have to end this post and get some material prepared for today's classes. At the American International School of Kuwait, classes start at 7:40 in the morning. School ends at 2:30 p.m. There are six periods a day with only a half-hour for lunch. There is also one 15-minute "nutritional break" in the morning for the high schoolers. Classes are about an hour in length and there are no study halls.

These folks are serious about pushing the curriculum, believe me. Because of this, I have yet to find a time that will work for starting a SEALS franchise here. Maybe later in the year. I've already been drafted to coach several events for the school's Forensics team. (Here, "Forensics" means "Speech and Debate", although with the number of kids I'm coaching — more than half the team of 20 — it may take on the CSI meaning if I don't survive all of the after-school practices.)

In less than two weeks, I will have another birthday. Since Oct. 12 this year falls within the Eid al Adha holiday, I'm flying off to Luxor, Egypt for a week. This is where, I'm told, the original inspiration for Shelley's "Ozymandias" poem can be found. Apparently, the poem has recently been used in "Breaking Bad," so I'm pleased that I will have a pop-culture reference to put onto Facebook for those who think that Luxor originated in Las Vegas.

Just so you know, SEALS also changed my life, but in ways that are hard for me to explain. Things like getting up at 5:30 a.m. so I could speed over to Safeway to buy doughnuts and bread before school started -- why would I do that? Craziness. Giving up three lunch hours a cycle so that I could meet with weird kids who did things like giving birth on the floor, blabbered in strange accents, and escaped from islands using spatulas and thumb tacks. Craziness. Continually having to put props back into the Prop Box because some of you just had to play with my toys, even after I'd already put them away. Craziness. An initiation ceremony that vacillated between a medieval inquisition and a sketch by Monty Python, topped off with the chicken dance.

Craziness.

I'm missing me some crazy, can't you tell? Keep posting. I can't say that your posts keep me sane, but I never was all that sane to begin with.

Missing you all very much.

Mr. W.