JOSTI 2006 -part 3

JOSTI was a very interesting experience for me, not just in terms of meeting new people from other international schools, like Carlos from Discovery School (Honduras) or John and Susana from the American School of Mozambique. Those were moments I'll never forget, like showing my latino pride with my colleagues

and simple and yer great things from lending my phone to Sandra (Union School, Haiti) to let her call her family (and listen to her speaking kreyòl aysyen) to being shocked at seeing all of the guys from Pakistan (yes, all muslims and all long-bearded like ayatollahs) in the same bathroom brushing their teeth at the same time I did, to watch a movie in the laptop with Mazen and Khalil until the three of us fell aslept on the chairs while the movie was still running, to share beers and joke with Mazen and Michel about having him wear an israeli t-shirt in the streets of Beirut, to going shopping with Monday (Kenyan, American School of Tunis) and going downtown to the museums with Khalil, and of course, going to the National Mall and take pics with Nili (Israeli, Walborth Barboud American International School, Tel Aviv) as though she was my mom, or my sweet bube :-)


















But one thing I would never forget about JOSTI was realising that ECA is one of the most advanced international schools in terms of technology, if not the most advanced one; when some schools are still thinking of going wireless, we have been a wireless school for 6 years!

Something I also enjoyed a lot was learning PHP and MySQL with a kid (literally -he's 21) from Apple Computer and .. finding my darbouka on the top of several bags of junk and it even had the price tag on it! (albeit blurry) That was definitely a gift from G'd, because He knows how badly I wanted to have one for my moroccan-style apartment, and of course that was something I was never going to be able to get in Caracas. A few days after I got it, I saw one very similar at a store, with a price tag of US$40. Now that's a gift from heavens!

I come from a family of musicians and singers (on my mother's side) and I had always been told I was musically deaf, but I started pretending I was playing it (and getting lots of smiles and attention) while waiting at the airports (Washington-Dulles, Boston-Logan, Washington-Reagan and Atlanta-Harstfield) and now I can proudly boast of being a decent darbouka player, though a very basic one. Time will tell :-)