Short Subjects & Current Events

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The Winter Holiday has begun, just in the nick of time.

We are leaving for Israel tonight, via Madrid, staying in Herzylia Pituach, where we lived in the early 90s.  I have several personal goals for the holiday:  visit with old friends and former colleagues, particularly Eva, Robyn and Loretta;  visit Maktesh Gadol (photo 1), a rich fossil site in the Negev Desert (where you are able to walk on a coral reef dating to the Jurassic);  visit the grotto beneath the Dome of the Rock;  wander through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem;  look for a hardware store for ROV parts;  and dive Apollonia.  

I'm bringing my dive gear and underwater housing on the chance that the Med calms and clears.  Eighteen years ago, I had the remarkable pleasure of assisting marine archaeologist Eva Grossman in her survey of the former Byzantine harbor of Apollonia.  Ironically, no serious research has taken place since this survey.  The opportunity of returning to Apollonia with underwater video gear is remarkable.  The sea, however, is changeable this time of year.  Finding clear, calm water will require some luck.

It is the nature of international schools that students come and go, as their parents' work assignments change.  We lost two students last week, Jade and Kesina.  Jade's father was reassigned to Jakarta, Indonesia;  Kesina is rejoining her mum, who is training in the Washington, DC area.  Kesina had a tearful departure after the ISD Holiday Program last Thursday night, as photo 2 shows.  Thankfully, the internet allows us to stay in touch, whether by email, instant messaging, Skype, or our class website.

Students performed for their families on Thursday night at the ISD Holiday Program.  Photographs, audio and video clips are available for viewing/listening at 

http://www.becauseoftime.org/ISD/PhotoVideoTRI2.html 

(Gallery 8).

Our current inquiry unit, entitled Lucy's Locking Knees, explores our human ancestry.  In photo 4 students -- Momodou (Gambia), Emily (USA), Filipa (Portugal), Charbel (Burkina Faso) and Anthea (Australia) -- perform a skit demonstrating their understanding of taphonomy, or how fossils are, or are not, created.  Photographs of the skits are available at

http://www.becauseoftime.org/ISD/PhotoVideoTRI2.html 

(Gallery 7).

Anthea's mum, Wendy, operates a little import/export business, trading in Africana.  She knows of my interest in creepy stuff, as juju-rich fetishes, and recently acquired two undeniably creepy objects, both from Congo, both with primate skulls (one is a baboon) incorporated into a closed woven basket (note photo 5).  Evidently, the objects were used for divination, as one might use the more familiar crystal ball.  They are certainly provoking, and led to much discussion in class.