Dead 2 Red Relay

As I mentioned before I had the privilege of traveling to Jordan with 22 NYUAD students and 6 other faculty and staff as part of our Dead Sea to Red Sea 150 mile relay teams. There really were three parts of the trip, the Road to the Dead Sea, Dead 2 Red and Petra.

We left on Wednesday, March 2nd in the afternoon and flew through Manama, Bahrain to Amman, Jordan. Spent the night at a hotel in Amman and visited Columbia University's Research Center on Thursday morning and then went to a community center built in Jordan by a university professor and his students. They go into neighborhoods and literally start building a center and eventually the neighbors come out to help. Once it's built they offer programming for children and skills training and educational opportunities for women in the neighborhood.

One thing our Athletic Department does is purchase Futbol's to pass out to needy children when we travel to different locations. Here's a shot of a few of our students giving a ball to this little guy. He may not look it, but he was thrilled. The beauty of the balls is that they don't require air, they have a device on them that you can press and it sucks in air. So kids can kick and play with these for a long time. They are actually made out of the same material as Crocs and we all know how indestructible Croc's are.

Kids around the world play futbol with anything they can find to shape into a ball of some type so this will provide them with something for a long time.

Then we headed out of Amman towards the Dead Sea and traveled through some beautiful country, high mountains and deep valleys. My camera certainly doesn't grasp the magnitude of the landscape, but it gives you an idea of the natural beauty Jordan possesses.

A quick stop on the trip down allowed us to capture a shot of our students who were taking part in this athletic and cultural trip.

Finally got to the Dead Sea for a buffet lunch at a hotel. Some of the students ended up going for a dip in the water. The Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth, 400 or so meters below sea level. The water is very salty and oily, but they wanted the experience. Us staff members didn't have the time we were packing up our 4 vans (2 for each team of 10 runners and 4 support people). 7 people per van for a 242 kilometer (150 mile) ride of course once in a while it was only 6 people because one was out running. The race started at 4:00pm on Thursday afternoon, the end of the work week. Everyone in every van got to know each other real well between listening to music, sweating, snoring, sleeping and using the desert as a bathroom we became pretty close.

One of our guys knocking out his leg just as the sun was rising.

Here's a shot of three of our students from our Hyundai mini-van on the side of the road about 8:00am on Friday after 16 hrs of the event. I don't know what was so funny, but they were enjoying themselves. We still had about 20 kilometers to go at this point.

Each of the 40 or so running teams that enter have 24 hrs to obtain an official finish. Our NYUAD Purple team finished in 17 hrs and 48 minutes while our NYUAD Black team finished in 18:48. Both teams had a great time and enjoyed the whole time we were on the road. Then to finish at the Red Sea a true seaside resort and to be able to go swimming in refreshing water and nice weather was an extra treat. Here's a nice shot of the Red Sea resort and that is in fact my right foot in the photo.

Students, staff and faculty involved really got to know each other on different levels. We got to run through a beautiful country and meet some wonderful people. There was a big celebration dinner to honor all the participants and pass out awards. Our NYUAD Purple team won the award for 1st International Team. As would be expected the staff all went to bed after dinner just to get some sleep. Some of us had been up all night driving the teams and we were beat. I think most of the students went out for a while.

This trip is still being talked about by the students that went and all the ones, along with staff, that want to join us next year. The students we did have running had to qualify based on standards I set since there was a time limit on the teams I wanted to make sure everyone we brought was going to be able to last the distance. They all came through with flying colors.

Interestingly we were considered an international team in Jordan because we came from outside the country, but our teams consisted of citizens of the US, UK, Russia, Ecuador, Lebanon, Korea, Bulgaria, Thailand, South Africa, Australia, India and Argentina. A very interesting group of students and staff.

I promise a blog about Petra is next, but I've been trying to get my taxes done today while following the news about Japan and the tsunami moving across the Pacific. It sure makes you think when you get an earthquake in New Zealand (actually 2 in 5 months), the volcano erupting in Hawaii and now this in Japan. The Ring of Fire is on fire.

If the earth cracks in an earthquake how much of the ocean disappears down into the void?

QOB: "Love yourself for who you are not who you one day hope to be..." Erin Brockovich
This is meant for a good friend of mine that reads my blog faithfully.

Stay warm, stay cool and stay dry.

Wayne