GULF NEWS

"High-technology services across large tracts of Asia, the Middle East and North Africa were crippled Thursday following a widespread Internet failure which brought many businesses to a standstill and left others struggling to cope.
Hi-tech Dubai has been hit hard by an Internet outage apparently caused by a cut undersea cable.
Industry experts are blaming damage to two undersea cables but it is not known what caused the damage.
Reports say that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain Pakistan and India, are all experiencing severe problems."'

Here in Doha the internet was down on Thursday morning, and up (but slow) in the afternoon. It is up today (Friday) but slow. Very Frustrating! And, my laptop is dying. Guess I shouldn't be surprised, it has seen 3 1/2 years of hard use. Occasionally the screen will go screwy and then black out. Need to go laptop shopping!

Another interesting article today about the large number of imported workers in the Gulf countries. There are about 17 million foreign workers in the Gulf - mostly from the sub-Asian continent (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Phillipines and, soon, Vietnam) There are about 1 million people in Qatar, but only about 200,000 are Qatari - rest are imported workers. As the article states (and was written by a Gulf native) there is a " reliance of "lazy" Gulf Arabs on foreign labour to carry out even the simplest tasks." This is true in Qatar - the foreign workers do all the hard work here. I have talked with some people here - who tell me they like to work for "English" people (by "English" they mean American, Australian, European - Westerners) because they are treated much better by the English, and they aren't expected to do all the work - the English don't leave dirty food dishes all over the house and their clothes all over the floor and expect the maid to clean them up, etc; Sad that children here are being raised to expect such royal treatment. Can tell you this - I'm glad I wasn't raised that way!

Speaking of royal treatment I do get some - without asking for it or expecting it. The workers on the compound (all foreign, of course) call me "Madam. " The gate guard salutes as we drive our car in. Yesterday, as I was leaving the clubhouse, the man who was mopping the floor opened the door for me and bowed. What am I to do? I want to say - "Hey guys, take it down a notch will ya? I'm not royalty!" But don't want to offend them, make them think they have offended me, or have them get in trouble when they don't do that to someone else who expects it. Life is complicated.

I DON'T READ ARABIC!

What do you do when your mosque is under construction? Bring in a trailer mosque!

The blogger.com homepage announces the addition of 3 new languages - Arabic, Perisan and Hebrew. That's great, except blogger has figured out where I am posting from, and has the Arabic version of their "boilerplate" language on my blog page! Took me a while to figure out how to get to the log-in page.

Still celebrating International Week at the American School. Spent yesterday working at the International Buffet - lunch for the kids and staff. Every family was asked to contribute a dish from their home country (there are about 1,200 kids). I worked at the Canadian table (no Canadians able to volunteer) and served pancakes, maple syrup, maple muffins, sugar cookies in the shape of maple leaves, etc; So much food at this buffet! Everyone tried to "outdo" everyone else. The Qatar royal family donated a roasted lamb - the entire lamb, on a large round platter, surrounded by rice and vegetables. (Before the kids came in volunteers removed the lamb's head.) I had some - it was very good. One woman brought 300 pieces of sushi. The European table had a waffle iron set up and made Belgian waffles with strawberry sauce and whipped cream. At the American table we had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, orange slices, mac and cheese, chocolate chip cookies, corn bread, hot dogs, McDonald's cheeseburgers, Dunkin Donuts, brownies, a large USA flag cake, franks and beans, jambalaya, 6 large buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken, etc; I worked for 3 hours, left for my Girl Scout meeting, and came back when the event was over to pick up my dish. There was so much food left over that the organizers invited the school construction workers in to eat - good, those people have a hard life. Erin stuck to the traditional foods, but Grant tried octopus and cuttle fish at the Asian table, and chicken pudding from South Africa - he didn't really care for it but at least he tried it!

Other food news here is that Krispy Kreme is coming to Doha! Will open a store just down the street from us. Just what we (don't) need!

Have a good weekend!

INTERNATIONAL SIGHTS!

A Food Wholesaler

Why have unhappy furniture?

The

Souq

What, exactly, is a "chickenator?"

Our trip to the "beach." Our sand castle, with The Pearl project in the background. (The Pearl is a small city being built on manmade islands in the shape of a pearl necklace. Twenty-thousand workers are laboring on this project.)

Hello to all! It did stop raining, got a bit cold (in the 40's), but is back up near 70. A few sprinkles today, nothing to get excited about. This is International Week at the American School of Doha. Opening ceremonies were held on Sunday - each nationality had their oldest and youngest child in the school carry their country's flag in an opening parade. Kids from 60 countries attend the school - majority are American, Canadian and Qatari, but countries such as Iceland, Equatorial Guinea, South Africa, Malaysia are also represented. Great experience for our kids!

ENOUGH ALREADY!

Four days of rain - enough! It's not all that cold here (lows in the 40's) but, remember, we do not have heat in the house. Also have marble and tile floors - get cold very quickly. Have gotten out the space heaters but......couple of people on the compound have had melted/smoking plug adapters. (Qatar seems to have a plug configuration all its own. We have to use a plug adapter on just about everything.) So cannot leave the heaters unattended or have them on overnight. Understand the Embassy will be changing the plugs on our heaters - but lots of people to take care of.

Fortunately, according to weather.com, we should be done with the rain by tomorrow (Wednesday).

Stay warm and dry!

RAIN!

It's raining! Wow! (We haven't seen any sort of precipitation in almost 5 months.) And my house isn't leaking very much - Wow again! These houses were finished last May, so before today had not experienced rain. There is a little water coming in under the kitchen door, but so far the roof is keeping us dry. The big excitement on the Compound now is our kitchen cabinets - one family had one of the cabinets fall off the wall. I checked that cabinet in our kitchen, and sure enough there is gap opening up - need to get maintenance over here.

Have been working this week on transcribing obituaries. (I am working for the Monroe County, Ohio Historical Society - they send me photos of old newspapers on CD and I retype the obits into a Word file - they will post the obits on-line.) I am working on the year 1894 - fascinating!

DOHA - THE AERIAL VIEW

Doha - The Corniche
Entrance to our Compound

Our Compound Pool & Clubhouse

Sports City - Site of the 2006 Asian Games


Neighbor of ours shared these pictures. He is a helicopter pilot and often "buzzes" the compound. As you can see, our compound doesn't have much green. Viewing this, I hope you will have patience with me when I come to visit this summer and keep exclaiming, "Look at all the trees! And the grass! And the flowers! And the water!" The Corniche picture is a good view of downtown Doha. Finally Sports City, with the Aspire Tower, is just down the street from us. Right next to Sports City is the Villiagio Mall - a copy of the Bellagio in Las Vegas with a painted ceiling, indoor canal and gondola rides, also has an indoor ice skating rink. Normally one can see the Aspire tower from all over Doha. Sunday night we had a sandstorm, and we couldn't see the tower from our Compound! Really incredible - we had all the windows shut but I still woke up in the night, with a dusty taste in my mouth. Fine layer of dust on everything the next day. We really don't have sand here - we have a fine, white chalky soil and dust.

School started today, and I subbed in a preschool class. Spent the morning talking about winter - snow, ice, mittens, hats, boots, overcoats and hibernating animals. Things you simply do not see in Doha! Too funny.

THE VEIL ENCOUNTER

Have had quite a few comments and e-mails regarding my recent encounter with the Qatari woman who tried to veil me. Here is an actual photo of me walking away from the event. As you can see, I have the camera - this photo was taken by an American friend who was traveling with us that day. I had my encounter by the white car in the foreground. The black "shapes" are women, veiled from head to toe. I am wearing a sleeveless top - not totally politically correct. I had a shirt to wear on top of it, but we were alone when we arrived at the fort so had left it in the car. The white robed people are Qatari men.

A DOHA MILE

Happy New Year Everyone! We had a great party at the compound clubhouse - food, champagne, party poppers, noisemakers (including the kids), music, and a dip in the hot tub. Nice to be able to walk home from the party. New Year's Day Andy got stuck at the gas station. He took the car there to get it cleaned and the workers locked his keys in the car! I didn't want to wake anyone up so early (about 10:15 am) for a "rescue" ride, so Grant and I walked to the gas station with my keys. It was a lovely day, sunny and warm, for the 1 mile walk. Which brings me to the title of this post...

What do you see in a Doha mile? I should have taken the video camera! We saw: 1) a flood. Obviously a broken water pipe. Weird to see standing water here (no rain since our arrival in mid-August). Three people were digging up the street in front of the villa (not on our compound, though that is not an uncommon problem on our compound) so hope they got it fixed. 2) A construction site - where people were actually working! So many construction sites in Doha, and not enough workers. Many sites are worked on infrequently - and that includes road construction. They are trying to build so much, so fast, that things just don't get finished. Anyway, Grant and I had to dodge a front loader filled with sand at this site. 3) A polite Qatari - who stopped and let us cross in the pedestrian crosswalk. There is hope! ; and 4) a car accident - saw one car rear end another at a light. Didn't look like either person, or car, was damaged. Of course those involved didn't move their cars, they stood in the street "discussing" the matter. While we were witnessing this accident, Andy saw a car rear end another at the gas station. So, really, that makes 2 accidents in our 20 minute mile.

It was an interesting walk, but not one I would do everyday. (I miss walking around the block in Burke - going through the woods and around the pond. Seeing the geese, turtles, squirrels, trees, flowers - nature! And, not fearing for my life while crossing the road.) Doha is not made for walking.

Make it a Great 2008!