Two of our BGA folks will be spending Thanksgiving this year across the Atlantic. Ross and Grif are in Dubai for almost two weeks instructing BPA I and BPA II as back-to-back classes for the Dubai P.D. They left the U.S. last Friday and arrived in Dubai on Saturday and began the first class the next day. The work week in Dubai is Sunday through Thursday. Classes are being conducted at the new building housing the General Department of Forensic Science and Criminology which opened a few months ago.

There are 19 students in the class who are from both the Dubai P.D. Crime Scene Department and the forensic laboratory. The students understand English and most of them are quite fluent in it which is good as neither Ross nor Grif speak Arabic – at least not yet. There have only been a few occasions when some of the students helped translated words and phrases for other class members. This happened, and will probably continue to happen, when scientific terminology is used and American idioms, such as talking about “not seeing the forest for the trees” for example.

Our hosts are wonderful and everyone in class is enthusiastic as was evidenced how all actively participated in the bloodstain lab experiments that ran all day Monday. This class provided a first for BGA bloodstain classes. Camel blood is being used! It is available in sufficient quantity for a week, so getting through hump day will not be a problem.