Author Archives: lornaofarabia

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About lornaofarabia

I am a teacher from Medford, Oregon. I currently live and work in Bangkok, Thailand.

Wardrobe malfunction

Everything in our house here has a lock on it. The desks, the cupboards, even the refrigerator. We don’t use most of the locks (if you can’t trust your guards and housekeeper, who can you trust?), but there are a … Continue reading

Posted in Home life | 4 Comments

5:2

I know that for many people there is nothing duller than a diet blog. If you feel that way, I recommend you just skip this post, and I promise I won’t talk about it again for a long time. But … Continue reading

Posted in Food | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

1:1

ICS is what’s called a one-to-one laptop school. Here, that means that every kid in grade 6 is entitled to his own school-issued computer. It’s funny to think how normal this seems to me now in Addis Ababa, yet how … Continue reading

Posted in International Community School, Teaching | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

One does not simply walk into Mordor

About two years ago I wrote a post with almost the same title. I wanted to use it again because this time there really WAS a volcano. After another early breakfast, we hung around while the local hires broke camp. … Continue reading

Posted in Around Ethiopia, Ethiopia | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Sunset at the lake

Danakil day 2, afternoon The tour company advised us to bring a book and a diary for Saturday afternoon, when it would be too hot to go anywhere. The temperature reached 50 C, which is about 122F. Indeed, that is … Continue reading

Posted in Around Ethiopia, Ethiopia | Tagged , | 1 Comment

To the moon, Alice

Danakil day 2, morning. Alice said she was feeling envious when I told her we were going to Danakil. She researched it on line and said it looked like the moon. Now that I’ve been there, I would agree. Not that … Continue reading

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An awfully big adventure

Danakil day 1: getting there Over the four-day Easter weekend, Andreas and I traveled with eight other ICS teachers to an area called the Danakil Depression in the Afar region of northwestern Ethiopia. It’s taken me a few days to … Continue reading

Posted in Around Ethiopia, Ethiopia | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

Our daughter Alice might have thought she was getting a bargain when we went overseas and she moved into the big old house. But then about a month into her residency, the kitchen caught fire and the whole first floor … Continue reading

Posted in Elsewhere, Family | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Continuity

Our school is 50 years old this year. It’s hard for me to picture what this school would have been like in 1964. That year I was in kindergarten at Merriewood Elementary School in Lafayette, California, where Mrs. Collins taught … Continue reading

Posted in International Community School, Teaching | Leave a comment

Holiday in hell? Sign me up!

Pursuant to Tuesday’s “don’t go there” post… Some ICS teachers spent last October break in the Danakil Depression in northern Ethiopia, the place National Geographic called the “cruelest environment on earth.” I was sorry to miss that excursion, but we’d … Continue reading

Posted in Around Ethiopia, Ethiopia | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment