A Holiday Letter

Okay, so I meant to get this printed and sent out to people, but I can't seem to find color ink that goes with my printer anywhere in Kuwait so that did not happen. I thought this was the next best way to share it with all of you lovely people instead.

December 22, 2016

My friends and family,

                It is hard to believe that 2016 is coming to a close. As I look back on this year I can’t believe everything that has happened in my life. I have lived on three continents, worked for four schools, made countless new friends, and logged a lot of air miles (I guess I should have signed up for frequent flyer miles).

                In January I found myself getting back on a plane to return to Guyana and the Guyana Lutheran Music Academy for year two teaching percussion and brass. I was very happy to return to GLMA, see my former students, and welcome new students to the GLMA family.  I had the opportunity to work with both first and second year students and help get ready for year three to begin. It has been a wonderful experience for me to see this program grow and develop over the last three years.

                I returned to Iowa in June where I went back to work with Mosaic. I was in the same home with the clients and staff that I worked with before I left for Guyana. They make my job so fun. My co-workers from Mosaic are like another family to me. Mosaic is a great organization that I have been blessed to work with over the past three years. I really enjoy being able to FaceTime with the home from overseas to check in and still be a part of their lives. They helped me through quite a bit while I was substitute teaching and waiting for my paperwork for Kuwait to get sorted out.

                Since September I have been living and working in Kuwait. I started teaching 5^th and 6^th grade general music at the American Academy for Girls. This is definitely an adjustment from GLMA. It has been an experience to say the least. I work with a wonderful staff who have helped me adjust to living and working in Kuwait. Another reason why Kuwait is fun is because one of my closest friends lives here. In fact, I have the job she has had for the past two years. I haven’t seen her a whole lot, but I have seen her a handful of times since I got here.

                While in Kuwait I have also taken another first step in my life. I have adopted a cat. I got here when she was nine months old. She is a handful, but I love her. She has helped me through some tough times over the past couple months. I am looking forward to getting to know her better and watching her grow up. My Christmas tree has only come down once from Nala which I feel like is an accomplishment at this point.

                The real treat of the year is that I am sending you this from Iowa! I have made a surprise trip home for the holidays to visit family. Hopefully I can survive this cold. J Wishing you and yours a very merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Yours,

Kelli J. Lair

My percussion 1 class on our last day of classes back in June. This was a really fun class to teach! I miss that group! (Don't get me wrong, I miss all of my classes.)

At the 2016 20th Anniversary SSDB with Sheltered Reality in Minneapolis, MN!

#mamaduck (a.k.a. my boss/friend Holly), myself, and Jeri went to watch Skye perform in Mason City this summer. I love how much 105 supports each other!

Nala and I hanging out. She very much likes to cuddle on the arm of the couch when I am watching something.

Teacher team volleyball. This was the Thursday we had parent-teacher conferences so it was teacher vs. teacher volleyball, but we had a great time anyways!

Pulling Out of Survival Mode

Okay, I know that this blog is long overdue, but give me a break! When you come to a new country a month late (read school started before you arrived as well) you have to hit the ground running and try to catch up. I’m still trying to do this, and I probably won’t actually feel like I have caught up until Winter break, but I am on my way to thriving instead of surviving. There has been a lot going on since I landed in Kuwait a month and a half ago. I’m not really sure what all I want to tell you about now, and what I want to wait and talk about in its own special blog, but I hope you are ready for a brain dump!

Let’s start with the most obvious, school. If you don’t already know I teach grades 5 and 6 at an all-girls school. This is very different from my last teaching position in Guyana and has been quite an adjustment. I see each 6^th grade class every day and 5^th grade every other day. I will only have the 5^th grade for first semester, but I have 6^th grade all year. I am really excited about the possibilities with the 6^th grade class. We have been working on the boring stuff of reading rhythms and notes since I got here so that we can move on to recorders. We will see how much I enjoy recorders after the next month and a half, but so far it has not been horrible with 6^th grade. Last week we had the quarter 1 field trip where we went to Kidzania. This place was something I would have really enjoyed when I was younger. It is a small city where the students got to earn money by doing different jobs, go to college to get a diploma, and of course spend the money they earned. I was talking to one of the girls and she told me that her bank account had over 3,000 kidzos (the currency of the city) because she goes there so often. It seems like most of the girls enjoyed it and it was nice to have a day be a little different. This Thursday is sports day. I don’t know a whole lot about this day, but what I do know is that each class is a different team and there are a handful of sports that they are going to compete in. At the end of the day the teachers are going to play dodgeball against a team of 8^th graders. This should be interesting.

Since I teach grades 5 and 6 I am a part of both grade teams. I must say, I really do love my teams. They have been a huge help to me, especially Laura and Emily from the 5^th grade team. There have been several times when I have been sitting at home and I think, “wow, I ask those two a lot of questions. I wonder if I am bugging them?” They both say I am not, but I don’t know if they are just saying that to be nice or not, so I decided to make them some blueberry bread and a little card to thank them for all of their help. Both of these teams have welcomed me to Kuwait, helped me figure out school things, and have become my friends. I look forward to getting to know my teams better as the year go on.

Speaking of Laura ( #Iowa ) she has started something this year that I have really come to enjoy and look forward to every week. She is the high school volleyball coach for AAG, and she decided to invite any and all teachers to come play volleyball against the girls on Thursdays (the last day of our school week).  This has now become a weekly thing, and there is a small group of us that come every week with others who will come once in a while. This has been a great way for me to get to know some of the other teachers who are not a part of the group I see often. The Thursday of parent/teacher conferences the students did not have school, so we decided to do teacher vs. teacher volleyball. We had a pretty good turn out and it was a great way to end the week. The varsity team has decided that even though their season is over they want to continue with teacher/student volleyball throughout the year. All the teachers were hoping that we could continue this, so when Laura told us the girls wanted to keep going we were super excited.

I promise I do things outside of school even though it may seem like I live there. If you haven’t seen it go check out the Facebook Live videos that I posted early on when I got here. The first video was a tour of my apartment the night I arrived in Kuwait (warning: I had been traveling for 24 hours so I am a mess), and the other is of a walk I did around the area I live. I enjoy my apartment. I live on the top floor(12), so I have a great view of the gulf and if I lean over the balcony ledge I can see Kuwait City. Emily Bell left me a fully furnished apartment so I haven’t needed to go shopping much for furniture, and I have started to make it my own by changing up the layout a bit. I’m thinking about really changing it up soon, I just don’t know if my idea will work or not (I really need to get a hold of a measuring tape). Maybe I will work on that this weekend.

One large change I have made is the fact that I have added a family member. I adopted a 9-month old cat about a week and a half ago. Her name is Nala, like the Lion King. She is certainly a handful. She likes to scratch up the furniture which is okay because Emily’s cat had already done that so it isn’t that big of a deal. I did have to put a bell on her though, because I kept tripping on her. Dang cats and their ninja skills! We are certainly starting to get used to each other, and she seems to enjoy having the entire apartment to herself without other cats. She is starting to explore more and seeing how high up she can get. The other night she jumped up from a shelf in my bathroom and perched on the door. Her jump made the door moved and she gave a look of horror as the door started to close shut and she really didn’t have an escape route. So where did she go? She jumped into the sink (with water running because I was using it) and bolted after getting wet.

I had the realization a few weeks back that this is the first time in my life that I am really living on my own. I have always had roommates or shared bathrooms with a hall. I realized that I was living a really secluded life. My classroom is disconnected from the rest of the school so I don’t see other teachers unless I make an effort to go see people during lunch or my prep period, and then I come home to an empty apartment day in and day out. I decided I needed some companionship.  Getting a dog (which would be my first choice) seemed rather impractical here with the amount of time that I am gone and the lack of space for a dog to go out and play. With the help of Emily Bell, I found this little girl and I was able to bring her home with me. I definitely don’t feel quite as alone anymore and it is nice to be able to bond with someone. If you are my follower on Snapchat I am sorry for how many cat snaps you may receive from me. I promise I will not become a crazy cat lady, but just realize she is one of my main sources of entertainment right now.

Something else that has helped me with my transition to Kuwait has been connecting with my church community here. The Kuwait LDS ward is very unique. When I was talking to the bishop this summer he said they had 8 members. He did not mention that 8 is the number of members during the summer, but during the rest of the year the ward grows to over 100 and we continue to find more members hiding in different places around the city. This is my first experience with a multilingual ward which is kind of cool. It has been a really great experience getting to know, and worshiping with, people from all over the world. They have also been a source of strength for me with all of the health and death situations that have been happening back home in my family. In a single day my family lost two people, my great-uncle on my dad’s side and my grandfather on my mom’s side. I have dealt with death while living overseas, however, it was not direct family members. That week was extremely hard for me, and my church family (as well as my co-workers) helped me a lot.

I have always been thankful for technology while living overseas, but the month of October really drove that home for me. Mom recently joined the smartphone world and we are now able to text and FaceTime. I was able to FaceTime in to my grandpa’s service thanks to Mom’s cousin, Bev. Dad and I have even communicated via e-mail which is a big step if you know him! I look forward to being able to teach both of my parents new things with their updated technology when I am home this summer. I am also able to stay connected to my Mosaic individuals and staff with all of this technology. Let me tell you, some of the Snapchats I receive are hilarious!

One of the really cool things about my living situation is that most of the staff from my school live in the same building. We sort of become an extended family, which means that some of us have been celebrating different holidays together. So far this year I have attended two Thanksgiving celebrations, and I have one more coming up! I had the opportunity to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving with the 5^th grade teacher Emily (I know a lot of people named Emily, sorry) and a few other people in the building. Last week one of the new teachers threw a “North American Thanksgiving” to recognize both the Canadian and American celebrations. On the 25^th we will be celebrating “Friendsgiving” with not only the building but other people that different teachers know around Kuwait. I have really enjoyed the chance to share meals with my co-workers and get to know them better through these celebrations.

Once again, I’m sorry about the delay in this post, but I have been in survival mode. One of the things Eric talked about in Guyana is that we were not just surviving, but thriving and that really stuck with me. I look forward to being able to say the same thing about my time in Kuwait and I know it should be here sooner than later. I hope to be a little better about posting, but I am not going to make any promises. Please keep sending me questions, I love to share my experiences with all of you. Ron, I have pictures of the money for you. I just have to pull them off of my actual camera unlike all of my other pictures that have been taken on my phone and I can upload right then and there. I hope you all have had a chance, or plan to, go out and vote. Please stay safe and healthy everyone! I look forward to posting my next blog soon (hopefully). Enjoy the picture dump on top of this massive brain dump of a post!

Teacher vs. Teacher Volleyball

 

North American Thanksgiving

Snaps from Home

 

Mandatory Cat Photos

 

 

An Update from Iowa

As you probably know I have been not so patiently waiting to get my visa put together so I can leave for Kuwait. I was supposed to leave on August 19, two months exactly to the day from when I returned from Guyana. It is now August 30 and I am still in Lake Mills, IA. I have been working at Mosaic and drumming with Sheltered Reality all summer. I have also recently been put on the substitute teacher list at a couple schools in the area. I have been doing everything in my power to stop myself from going crazy. My fellow international music teacher friends have all left to their respective countries, other friends have returned to school for the year or their jobs, and then there is me.

Lately, I have been waiting for paperwork to return from the US State Department. After that paperwork gets to me I can then gather everything I need for my visa to get sent out to Californian to the consulate of Kuwait to get my visa. I have been checking my tracking number three times a day for the past two weeks looking for the return of papers. Well, tonight I finally had a hit! My papers are on their way back from D.C! I am almost one step closer!

I will continue to update you guys on the process, but I hope there is not a whole lot of updates to make. I hope everything goes quickly and you can soon start getting updates from Kuwait! Thank you all for your support over this very trying summer.

Ending the Year and Saying Goodbye

It’s June 13^th. The final concert, awards ceremony, and the end of the year party are completed. We are now sitting in meetings, debriefing, planning for next year, doing inventory, decorating the house, cleaning the house, and saying see you later to many great friends we have made here. It has been a crazy few weeks, and the next five days are going to go quickly, but I will cherish every little bit of time I have left here in Guyana.

We held our final concert for the year this past Thursday. We had a great turn out and the audience was really receptive to all of the different groups we had. At this concert we had many collaborative pieces between classes which was neat to see. My brass classes stepped up to the challenge with the piece I arranged for them titled “Cheers for Guyana.” This piece was arranged in honor of Guyana’s 50^th anniversary of independence. It was a tough piece, but they did very well. All of the classes did a great job!

On Friday we held our awards ceremony. We were able to celebrate all of the hard work our students have done throughout the year. We spent a little under an hour presenting completion certificates and a few special awards such as band karate and perfect attendance.  The next two hours or so were spent with special presentations from our students. Many of our students wanted to say something to the teachers, perform a song for us, or present us with a small token. This was the year of jewelry, which is great! That is so much easier to pack then some of the things that we received last year. The choir had special GLMA pin. This pin was made even more special to me yesterday when I found out that my New Amsterdam branch president was the jeweler who hand made these pins! The items students gave me are all very special and are a great way to bring back memories down the road. I have already decided some of these gifts will come with me to Kuwait next year!

Saturday brought our end of the year party. This was just a fun was to wrap up the year. Everyone brought something to share, we had music and board games, and we even had karaoke! (Karaoke wasn’t my idea by the way. J ) Towards the end of the night there was an intense game of musical chairs played by students of all ages. It was great to see our students interacting and a fun was for us to see our students one last time.

Now we are getting into all of our meetings and wrapping up the year. We have to occasionally stop because students will stop by to bring back instruments, bring gifts/food, or to just say goodbye one last time. It is kind of like a week-long Lair goodbye. It is insane! We never know if it is actually the last time we will see them or not. This year is almost harder for me saying goodbye then last year was. Both years I will have left not knowing when for sure I was going to return. I left last year determined that I would return for the 2016-2017 if I could not find myself back there for this semester. This year I leave knowing I won’t be able to come back until 2018 at the earliest, and it is making it hard to say goodbye. Guyana feels like home to me. This is the first place I have lived out on my own after college. I’m sure I will be able to make Kuwait feel like home as well, but relationships will be different. In a way I guess it feels a little like I am closing another chapter of my life yet again and to me it feels like it has been a short chapter.

I am excited to see and hear about what happens at the school next school year. The students are ready for new challenges and the new teachers are eager to start something new as well. This will be my last blog from Guyana, however, it will not be my last blog. Sometime over the summer I will be changing the URL for this blog to continue blogging my adventures of being a music teacher abroad. I hope you will all continue to check out my journey every once in a while.

Movie/Game night

2nd Year Violin on their last day of class

1st Year Percussion on the last day of class

Some of the game night grew after the dress rehearsal

Karaoke after the awards ceremony

Obena on her last day of violin

Monece and Tiara at the party

Marissa's Sweet 16 Party

A Student Story

It’s been a while since I last posted a blog. That just means that I am busy living life and enjoying the little time I have left in Guyana. It feels like just last week I returned to New Amsterdam and now I have just a little over a month before I am back in Iowa. I have lots of plans for this summer before I leave for my next adventure, but I plan to work at Mosaic again this summer. I look forward to seeing those amazing clients and wonderful staff again. I miss them quite a bit. If you want to see me during my short two-month time period of being back in the States let me know. My schedule is getting quite full!

In this blog I want to highlight one of my students. I have talked to her and she has given me full permission to use her name, photo, and story in the blog. Her name is Enyce and she is in my first year brass class. As it stands now, she is the only female in the class (other than myself) and she is the youngest student by about five years. She has struggled this semester quite a bit, and I want to share a little bit about why she is so near and dear to my heart this year.

For those of you who do not know, in order to play a brass instrument your lips need to buzz into a mouthpiece in order to produce sound. Many small children do something like this when making elephant sounds or when trying to imitate a horse sound. I explain this in the first couple classes in my brass class. We all get a good laugh at the sounds we make, and anyone who happens to walk by the classroom gets confused and we laugh even harder. This was the first hard thing for Enyce, she could not get her lips to work how she wanted it to. I then tried a new method for buzz production that I learned from a band director group on Facebook last year. I got small straws (in the States I would go find a bunch of coffee straws) so that we could use them in class. We would blow through the straws and then while we blow slowly pull out the straw from our mouths, this helped to jumpstart our buzz. Seriously, if you don’t believe me go try it for yourself! J We then put the straw through the mouthpiece and did the same thing. It helped quite a few people solidify their buzz on their mouthpiece. This helped her a little, but it was still a struggle.

We started working on playing our first notes in the class. After we got through the first couple pages on playing (through the first five notes) I had a playing test. I wanted to use this playing test in order to create a baseline of their playing for me to use in data collection for the rest of they. Enyce was one of the last students to take the playing test. She walked into the office and all of a sudden burst into tears. I must say, this was a first for me. After we talked for a little bit and I explained that this was only being used as a way for me to track her progress throughout the semester and she was not getting a grade she had calmed down enough to at least attempt to play though her test.

Enyce is a girl who does not want attention drawn to herself in anyway, especially if it might be potentially embarrassing. We sat and talked one day during open practice time and I told her that I recognized her struggles in class, but I also knew she did not want me to call them out in class. She agreed and thanked me for that. We made a deal that as long as she came in to open practice times or early for class I would help her one on one in an environment where she felt safe. She has been working very hard and has improved greatly.

During that first playing test she played one note, but all of the rhythms. She now has worked up to playing about six-ten notes. She really has to think hard about each note, but she can get there. She can tell you any fingering or rhythm we have worked on though. I believe once she figures out the mechanics of her buzz more she could go flying on trumpet. She has never given up on me and is always working hard. Her hard worked has paid off in her playing ability and she was recognized for that as being named the GLMA Female Student of the Month for the month of March.

I am so proud of Enyce and all of the work she has put in this semester. I hope that she continues in the music academy, even if it is not on trumpet. She is certainly one of those students who has taught me more than I think I have taught her. She has challenged me to think about my teaching and how I address different playing difficulties. Enyce is one of those students who I will remember for many years down the road.

Enyce, I don’t know if you are reading this blog post or not, but I want to thank you for being my student this year. You have taught me a great deal about myself, and challenge me just like I have challenged you. I hope and pray that you continue to develop your musical abilities, and I wish you all the best in the coming years.

                                               

Enyce

First day of Brass 1 back in January (Enyce is the one behind the boy in blue and white stripes) We started with four girls in the class, now we are down to Enyce.

A Quick Update

There has been so much that has happened since my last post. I have become super busy teaching, traveling, and preparing for the end of the year. I just got here, and now we are preparing to leave again. We have less than 75 days left in country. Holy Cow. This will give a brief overview of what has happened since my last post, but will have very little detail, sorry. There has been too much time since some of this has happened that I can’t give much detail.

We held a talent show at the last weekend before Easter break. Many students performed on the instruments that they have been learning as well as other instruments they can play. We had a full house for the two-hour show. It was awesome to see how much our students have grown! I took a day to myself and explored Georgetown on my own. I did this last year as well and it was a great way for me to have some personal time and explore new places I have not been able to go to yet. The teachers spent a week in Suriname. For those of you that don’t know Suriname is a Dutch speaking country, and none of the teachers speak Dutch. We did two days with two music workshops each. It was fun to see friends we made last year again, and to make new friends. We spent some time sightseeing, swimming, went to a birthday celebration, celebrated Phagwah, and saw Kung Fu Panda 3 in 3D. The week of Easter Eric was in country. We had lots of meetings as well as some time just to hang out. We were supposed to go visit Kaieteur Falls, but that fell through, multiple times. Long story… We also spent four days in Georgetown. While in Georgetown we saw the newest Divergent series movie. Two movies, in two weeks, in two countries, whoa! Classes have resumed in New Amsterdam. Not teaching for two weeks and then coming back to a full week is rough. Especially when you teach six days a week. We have almost made it to Sunday though!

For those of you who have not heard yet, I have accepted a teaching position with the American Academy for Girls in Kuwait teaching middle school music. This blog will continue while I spend two years there. The web address will be changing, but I will let you all know when that happens.

This is all the time I have to write now, but I will write again soon. I promise!

Peace and love to you all!

Beautiful Guyana

This afternoon, after the heat of the day had mostly worn off and a coolness fell over New Amsterdam, I decided I needed to take a walk for a while to try to clear my head. It has been a rather rough week for multiple reasons, and I needed to get things out of my mind. Earlier this afternoon Claire and I had the opportunity to FaceTime with Dan. During that time, we talked about things that had changed since we all left eight months ago. While on my walk I decided to take some pictures of some of the buildings that we had seen a lot of change in to send to him so he could fully understand what we were describing. Then, what I was taking pictures of started to change and I started to add all sorts pictures to my camera roll. While on this walk a Guyana national song came to my mind.

Part of the song goes like this:

         “There’s a land just off the Atlantic. Land of jungles, waterfalls, and sweet scenery. Where poor people farm the lands and hunt the waters, and all live in peace and harmony. This is Guyana, beautiful Guyana (3x).” There is much more to the song, but this is the part that kept going through my head during my walk. I honestly don’t know an exact reason as to why I am getting so emotional about Guyana right now. Is it because I know for the next two years I will for sure not be here, or I’m stressed about life, or am I being really reflective about my life as a whole right now? I don’t have an answer for you. Most likely? It is a combination of all of the above and then some…

Something that I really appreciate about Guyana is the beauty. Everywhere I look I see the beauty of this country. The people, the wild life, the scenery, I can see the beauty of God’s creation. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of trash and animals everywhere, but they are working on that. While I was thinking about all of this my mind wandered back to a conversation I had with a student back in July. I had just told him that I was excited because I had just accepted the position to come back to Guyana. He responded, “I don’t get it, everybody is trying to get out of Guyana and you are trying to get back in.” Many people in Guyana believe that if it comes from Guyana it is bad and if it comes from anywhere else, especially the US, than it is good. It has been really hard for me to comprehend that during my interactions with Guyanese. I never cease to be amazed at the amazing things Guyana is producing.

Something else I am learning to love about Guyana is the pace of life. It seems to be a slower pace of life here. Don’t get me wrong, these people work really hard for very little in return. It is nice to be able to take a step out of life and focus on the things that are most important to me instead of what is usually focused on in the States. Back home my focus is always get everything on this list done as quickly as possible so I can keep getting everything else done. I don’t usually have “me time” or time to relax and focus on other things. If I was in the same state of mind back home as I was tonight, I would not have been able to spend an hour and a half just out on a walk without worrying about what else needs to get done. I work a lot in Guyana, and I have many to do lists, but at the same time I am reminded here to look at what really is the most important and to take care of that first.

This walk I had tonight was meant to clear my mind. In hindsight, it did the exact opposite. I thought about so much more than I ever expected; sadness, sickness, the future, where I am, who I am, where I have been, where I have come from, and so much more. I cannot be more thankful for that walk I took this evening though. It gave me the opportunity to stop and really look at the beauty of this world. For the beauty of the Earth everyone.

"Beautiful Guyana" YouTube Clips:
This is a wonderful arrangement, but not the whole song. It is rather quiet so make sure to put on headphones or turn your computer all the way up.
       Men's Group

This a solo version and is the whole song.
       Female Solo


Pictures from my walk this evening.