Camel kisses

We have some lovely friends, Robert and Jenny, who we socialise with pretty regularly. I've been going through some old emails that I skimmed over when it was really busy over the Christmas period and found this wonderful general email from Robert, sent to us and other friends of theirs after they went to see a camel race. The email was so good I just had ask them if I could post it here, feeling a bit envious that I haven't been along to see it for myself yet. Maybe in October...

"Today I received sweet kisses from ...................... a camel.

Today we went on a field trip to the camel races with the Qatar Natural History Society. What an experience !!!!. There were about 150 people on the trip..................First we visited the saddling area where we received a talk on camels. Then we were allowed to touch and feed the racing camels ............ remember folks that a racing camel can cost as much as ZAR400,000. [South African Rand400,000 ~ NZ$64,000]......... but no problem for the owners .... they were very nice and encouraged us to interact with the camels. Part of the talk was about the temperament of camels and their reputation for spitting and biting people. The owners assured us that the temperament of a racing camel is very mild and that in fact they like to greet you “face to face” so to speak. Racing camels tend to be smaller than working camels. These camels are pampered ..... they get hand washed each day after training, not just a spray with a garden hose. The top class camels are shipped between the various Gulf states to participates in camel races. A SHORT camel race is 3 km with the average race being 5km or 8km. The Qatar camel racing season is from October to January with 5 or 6 races taking place each day of the week starting from 2 pm.

We were told that if you put your face forward, they will reach forward to smell and interact with you. So yours truly decided to try .............. see the photo .......... I leant forward and the camel responded ............I must tell you that they have a very hairy area (long whiskers that tickle) around their mouths but ............. ohhhhh ............ soft lips.

Very interesting ............. then on to the camel race track itself. Again, What an experience ............... the race is a combination between a horse race and a formula one race.

Let me explain .....................Firstly when you arrive at the track it looks very un-organised as there are camels everywhere ...... we were told that there were 3,000 racing camels in the complex. .......... but it works. The race track itself is sand and running parallel to and on either side of the race track is a tarred road. There are no “jockeys” in camel racing. A special “robot” is fitted as the rider of the camel. The robot has a whip and a loud speaker. During the race, the owner / trainer rides in a 4x4 next to the race track on the tarred road watching how their camel is doing and talking to it through the loudspeaker and activating the robot whip as necessary.

Now each race has 20 to 30 camels participating .............. so what you get is somewhere between 30 and 40 cars (including spectators who do not want to sit in the stands) driving like Michael Shumacher (but at +/- 60 km per hour) jockeying for positions to keep close to the camels ............ very hair-raising – how the hang they do not have accidents I do not know ............ because they are watching the camels not the road .......... so if someone slows down or stops because their camel is not doing well ????? ................ but it works because we did not see any accidents.

We met the manager of the race course who offered to arrange a bus for us ............... to take us so that we could be part of the “camel drive”. Wow ............. 30 people in a bus ............... in places doing 60 km per hour on SAND ( we were “forced” off the road by cars on some of the corners) watching the camels and their owners ............. quite a different but exciting and entertaining experience.

The end of the race is different .................... you get the lead camels coming down the main straight .......... with these cars on either side ......... honking their horns and with people hanging out the windows or up through the sun roofs shouting and waving flags etc. to encourage their camel. Definitely worth another visit ............ but ............ as we were informed by the course manager, this year the Qatari Camel Racing season ends on ............ 28th January. ............ so we will have to wait until October before going again."

Valentine Birthday

Valentines Day is a remarkably big deal here. It seems to bring out the romantic side of the locals. There's lots of roses and hearts everywhere. I bought Ian his pressie (A helium heart balloon that said "I Love You " on one side and "I'm Crazy About You!" on the other). And a voucher from Virgin Megastore, fount of all good books and music. And a card, contents classified. He bought me two dozen red roses....beautiful.


Our friends Oussama and Leila threw a valentines day bash for a few couples. Bring a plate they said, came and have a few fun games, find out how much your spouse really knows about you, that kind of evening. As Nanna was here, we seized the opportunity to go off and have fun. However the randomness that is such a feature of Ian's and my life together reared its head. We turned up, full of anticipation, with a plate of savouries; of course twenty minutes late with me berating Ian on the way. To our surprise, there were no other cars there and Leila and Sam appeared to be getting into their car to go out for the evening. When they spied us Sam immediately said "Sorry, I'm so sorry", while Leila shouted "Tomorrow! It's tomorrow night!" Why Sam apologised I'm really not sure, it should have been us apologising. So off we went back home with our tail between our legs and our plate of savouries and had a feast with Nanna.

The next night we set off again, with a new plate of savouries, ready to tell the story of how we arrived 23 hours early the night before. There was a wondrous crowd there and some new people we hadn't met before. As always over here, there were people from all corners; Canada, Lebanon, USA, South Africa, Germany, Uzbekistan, the Ukraine. There were all kinds of games - dancing, a blindfolded obstacle course where your partner had to tell you where to go, balloon popping, general knowledge. Ian and I won the prize for how well we knew each other, but they reckoned that we had an advantage because we have only been married for a year; they were all having to remember 20 years or more back.

Lina, Sam and Leila's maid who is from Indonesia, was unobtrusively around. She has left a child and husband behind in Indonesia. Despite earning a pittance by our standards, she will be able to buy property when she goes home in two years time. Lina does the housework and some childcare for Sam and Leila - they have a little three-year old daughter.

In the end the evening turned into a great old hooley with lots of dancing. But not any old dancing. Leila is a fantastic arabic dancer, so she put on her music and taught all the women a few belly dancing moves, and also some dances where you move around together in a circle - kind of like arabic linedancing, if you can imagine that. Then, not to be outdone, the men got up and learned how to do arabic dancing too. So we danced separately, as they do in this part of the world, men with men, women with women. In the end the only one left standing was Alain, a Lebanese guy, who was energetically shaking his tail feather long after we had all collapsed. "This is such FUN", he shouted to us all, his teeth flashing, "I feel like going to a nightie club!"

"Good-bye", we said finally to our hosts. We'd had such fun.

"Happy birthday", said Lina solemnly to everyone as they left.

Bon voyage Nanna

Shirl left a few days ago after a couple of weeks that went too soon. The last thing we did was to go and watch the boys play hockey and to deliver the hockey bibs that she had made very beautifully for the team during the time she was here. Here's a photo of her with the team:

Here are some more photos:

Unfortunately the trip home didn't go as smoothly as it could have. We ended up delivering her to the airport 24 hours later than we should have. The staff were very good and rebooked her instantly with no penalty, thank goodness. It was almost inevitable that it happened sooner or later with someone visiting - most of the flights leave here in the very early hours of the morning and it is an easy thing to get wrong. Anyway she's home in NZ safely.

Nanna

Shirley, the boy's grandmother and my ex-mother-in-law, has been staying with us over the past week. There has been a joyous reunion and she and the boys have settled straight back into their usual routines; rummikub, outings, cooking together as well as some new activities like Nintendo Wii. It has been great for me catching up with Shirl and what is happening at home, and she and Ian have started to get to know each other while she has been here. It's all good. The trip has coincided with mid-term break for the boys and the cooler weather. Actually while she has been here the winter has made a sudden transition into spring. One day temperatures of 14 degrees, the next day 24, today 31.

We have been doing the rounds with Nanna; to the souk, into the desert, and other various middle eastern delights. We've organised taxis hither and yon during the day while Ian and I are at work and she declares that the boys have been looking after her magnificently. Scarily, the boys seem to have taken enthusiastically to the taxi idea, suddenly sensing freedom of movement unhampered by inconvenient parental restrictions. She's enjoyed the different kinds of people all around her, their different ways, the different languages.

Speaking of language, there have been some funny examples of english again lately. I had a wonderful coup and found another international supermarket in a neighbouring compound - one even tinier than the one in our compound, but it sells decent bread. The Indian guy behind the counter used to work in our own international supermarket and we greeted each other like long-lost friends. He gave me an order form and assured me that they would deliver to my house if I ordered bread from him. I looked at the top of the order form:

"SUPER.MARKET.BEVERLEY HILLS GARDEN
Every tody order
Tomorrow cuming"

The transition back to work has been proceeding pretty well. There's the occasional glitch. I got a text the other day from our Dina, our wonderful maid.

"Gud am! mam mairi s0ry i wil n0t cme 2day, im n0t feling 0k b'c0z im n0t slep d wh0le night. i dnt kn0w why? n0w feel dizzy nd all my b0dy was wiggle cn't work until afterno0n! s0ry mam mairi but 2mrw prmise i will. thank u! see y0u tmrw. tnx again..dina

Tonight Ian and I are going to our friends Leila and Oussama's house. They are throwing a valentine's bash and there will be quite a few couples. Nanna and the boys will be staying in, doing non-valentines things. We've all got a busy day lined up tomorrow. We're going to show Nanna the golf course, and then drop into the tennis stadium. There's a women's tennis tournament starting next week, unfortunately just as Shirl leaves to go back to New Zealand, but we are going to try to catch a glimpse of the big seeds if we can; hopefully they will be practising. Then we will go to the souq. Let's hope all our bodies don't feel too wiggle from the night before.

It's off to work I go

The last week has been full of transitional family adjustments as I get back to work. I have enjoyed the last few months so much, especially being able to have so much time with Leo and Robbie before they go back home to New Zealand in July. I will always be grateful for this time. However, I've always worked and when I really started to crave employment, I put on my sympathetic face and asked the boys how they felt about me going back to work.

"Go back to work, Mum", they told me briskly, "you're kind of grumpy when you're always at home".

Well, the first week has seen an even grumpier mother as I struggle to get the boys and myself out the door by 6.30. And it's been really cold and wintry. However after the first few days we are getting better. And I have the able assistance of Dina, who now works four hours a day with us and looks after the house and the boys when they come home from school. What luxury.

The Sidra project is going to be an exciting, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The Sidra Medical and Research Centre has the biggest endowment in health history, and is aiming to be a world-best service for women and children. It is an amazing feeling working in a health service where money is not an issue. The project is well-resourced and the Sidra team has been tasked with finding and implementing best practice in both clinical practice and technology.

Here are a couple of architect drawings of how Sidra will look when it is finished.

Margie

Margie, my beloved sister came to stay over Christmas and New Year. It was an exceptionally busy time, very sociable with lots of events - it almost made up for not being at home for Christmas. We had 20 people around for Christmas brunch, and got out to see things we hadn't seen before like Sheikh Faisal's museum - a private museum full of priceless Islamic art and artifacts, fossils, and old cars, with an oryx farm close by. The oryx is the national animal of Qatar, like a big gazelle.



Here's a picture of Margie trying on the traditional gutra and agool for size, when we shopped at the souq for traditional clothes for her son Joshua, who is 12.
Here we are at Nando's with lemon and mint juice - looks lurid and tastes lovely. The oddest meal we found while she was here was at a little local cafe next to our local service station. We had been out and about and there was no food to feed the boys after school, so we guiltily thought we'd better buy something to take home with us to feed them. To our delight we found a meal called "Doha Dum Dum", which we ordered. While we were waiting inside in great anticipation, we also saw under the extensive juice menu two mystery drinks - one called "Computer" and one called "Rolex" juice. We didn't order those. The meal turned out to be club sandwiches and salad vegetables. That wee cafe gets first prize for imaginative food branding.

The other place which really caught Margie's imagination was the animal souq. It's a saleyards filled with camels, goats and donkeys. Occasionally when I drive around there I look out my drivers window in the traffic and see a donkey standing on the back of a ute, surveying the inside of my car.

Margie's trip came to an end all too quickly. I loved the feeling of utter familiarity and comfort that you have with someone you adore and have known for ever; the feeling you miss when you are surrounded by people who are all new to you, who you don't have a long history with.

Wet Weather and Potholes the size of Moon Craters

City experiences a complete wet day Monday, January 14, 2008-->Web posted at: 1/14/2008 4:26:14

Source ::: The Peninsula

DOHA • Windshield wipers moved rhythmically like metronomes yesterday as the city was hit by the first major rain of the season. The rain fluctuated between heavy to a nagging drizzle with a few small breaks in-between. The sky remained a forbidding slate-grey throughout the day and turned a reddish hue in the evening due to the rain clouds.

Parts of the city, especially some of the inner roads, were flooded. The Mountazeh area saw near knee-deep water and several vehicles' packed up as water crept into engine blocks. People could be seen pushing stalled vehicles as the four-wheel drives had a field day.

Pedestrians had to keep a watchful eye out on puddles and worse, inconsiderate drivers insisting on driving through flooded streets at speed kicking up spumes of water. On occasion, pedestrians got drenched as did other vehicles.

Another hazard for motorists was the many potholes covered by water. Some of these are the size of moon craters and many a driver ran afoul to these axle-breakers. Schoolchildren could be seen bundled up in raincoats and woolies as they made their way into school premises. Hooded jackets were all the rage among adults.

The municipalities pressed water pumps into action throughout the country. In total, water pumping vehicles made 1,000 trips throughout the day in Doha and work was going on through the night.

The Department of Meteorology said yesterday the rains will continue until Tuesday, following which there will be strong winds which will bring the minimum temperature down to 10 degrees Celsius from Wednesday. Wind speeds yesterday ranged between 17 to 25 knots.
For today, the Met has also warned of strong winds and rough seas offshore. Yesterday was relatively warm with high humidity of 75 per cent, a Met official said.

There were reports of traffic snarls caused by malfunctioning traffic lights. However, the Accident and Emergency Department of Hamad General Hospital said there was no increase in the number of patients brought in due to traffic accidents.

There were a few minor fender-benders on the city streets. Qatar Telecom (Qtel) said there was no disturbance in its network due to rain. Flight activity at Doha International Airport was also normal.