Worker housing

Today I drove home one of my friends from church. He works as an electrical contractor, and he's from the Philippines. He lives in a trailer on this compound, which is 40 minutes walking distance from a public bus stop, and about that far from any paved road. The only vehicles that go there are the busses that deliver the workers to and from work. To get a good sense of the isolation of his housing compound, click on that link above, make sure you're on satellite view, and just zoom out one step at a time.

Here's a video of the drive back out from his compound. You might not want to watch it if you get motion sickness. Driving over unpaved, rocky, barren waste with a camera phone in one hand doesn't lend itself to steady camera work.

Qatar National Day

We observed Qatar National Day in our own quiet way yesterday: by hardly leaving the house. Most of the city was closed, so there wasn't much point in going anywhere, and most of the streets were blocked with traffic, so we couldn't have gone much anywhere if we wanted to. So instead we walked to the playground in the next housing compound over, cleaned the house, sang some Christmas carols to my guitar's accompaniment, and had some homemade fried rice for dinner. Rachel and I watched parts of the parade on TV. The parade consisted exclusively of Qatar's military might (most of its hardware comes from the US--but only at a price!) marching and rolling down the corniche road in front of a stand where the Emir and lots of other dignitaries sat. It also involved some precision paratroopers landing right on the median of the corniche road in front of the grandstand, a Qatar flag being raised out of the sea by a navy helicopter, and flyovers by their jets. The fireworks in the evening were all at the corniche, 6.5 miles away as the crow flies, but we could hear them inside our house as we put the kids to bed. When we turned on the TV, we almost wished we'd gone, because... wow. Nothing makes a good fireworks display like billions of dollars of LNG/petroleum money to throw at it! Have a look at the video here.

Singing Sand Dunes

Rachel is posting this same story, but I feel like giving my take on it anyway. We went to the singing sand dunes, to this sand dune specifically, for our ward Christmas party. The drive there was all on paved roads until about the last 600m, which were all off-road on hard packed earth strewn with rocks up to about the size of a loaf of bread or a basketball. I think that accurately describes most of Qatar's terrain.

Fortunately, our van had high enough clearance, so we made it into the lee of the dune and started exploring. There were broken glass and garbage and rusty nails and tiny thorn bushes scattered amongst the rocks, so we headed straight for the sand. Elliott immediately kicked off his shoes and sat down to play with some sand toys another kid had brought.

Meanwhile, I kicked off my shoes and headed up the dune because I've never been on a sand dune before. It was about as tough to climb as I expected, but a lot easier when I skittered up like a crab on my hands and feet rather than standing straight up and down.
And now, Elliott will tell you about the sand dunes: nbnlvdsndvm,cxvnmv≈çµ√ç≈µ≤ç√≈˜˚¬.zvnk;dzbj;
kufrgkuwehguvewbfegwyfewyvgvewt3s1tb1tyvefsieegy43t43 3cdjfyotu3q44eyyyyyy54yh3fwuhrgrsjgkersukfvgggfyiessgersg..e,fe s gfq2tfr365q34ff3r3w76q3tq3tfr3fqrgfewgk3iof vygiv3qgvglgq3vi3qgy3frewgvewkgvjfvkfvbhvewgyewhg
This is what he types when he types the way mommy and daddy do.

Here was my first go down the dune. I'd been told before that it doesn't hurt a bit, no matter how you fling yourself down, and I was eager to test that.

Next Rachel and Elliott climbed up and scooted down. They got the dune singing -- or more accurately humming like a large propeller-driven plane off in the distance.

Then we all went up and had our family photo taken, as well as some nice shots of scenery to remember it by.

Of course, they don't really do it justice, but it was pretty spectacular. We played some more, up and down the dunes, then talked with friends, ate a potluck dinner after dark, and enjoyed feeling chilly for the first time since we got here. It was great to warm up around the bonfire, too. Once the marshmallows came out for roasting, we finally started singing some carols. About that time, Elliott decided he wanted to climb the dune and see the stars (another first in Doha), so he and I climbed up and sat on the dune and sang carols together along with the ward members far below. The Spanish-speakers among us sang Feliz Navidad first, then the Nigerians in our ward sang one of their songs for us. Next we moved into some of the bouncier Christmas songs, and finished off with Silent Night. We all went home worn out and happy. 

Qatar National Day (Observed)

According to the official website of Qatar National Day, "Every December 18th, we celebrate our National Day in commemoration of the historic day in 1878 when Shaikh Jasim, the founder of the State of Qatar, succeeded his father, Shaikh Muhammad Bin Thani, as the ruler and led the country toward unity." Since we don't have school on that day, we celebrated it a few days early, on the 13th (yesterday). The students put on a dramatic production depicting (as far as I could tell -- it was entirely in Arabic) some important historical events, some cultural performances, and some military might in the form of 6-year-olds marching around on stage dressed in combat fatigues. Then we all went outside to the football pitch and stood around for the rest of the day (about 5 hours) while the little kids rode ponies from Al Shaqab, a lady did henna decorations on women's hands and arms, a traditional music group sang, and the students performed traditional sword dances with flat-edged swords. Oh, and there was lunch, too.

We were vaguely encouraged to wear typical Qatari male daywear, which for the men meant a thobe and a gutra. I wasn't sure I wanted to drop several hundred QR on a nice one quite yet, but when I mentioned that to one of my coworkers, she decided I should just borrow one from our male PE teacher. The only problem with that idea is that he's about six inches shorter than I am, and about eight inches smaller than me around the shoulders. Needless to say, it didn't fit when I tried it on. But the female PE teacher, when she heard this, said she'd have her maid send her son's extra outfit for me, and it fit fine... mostly. It was still about four inches too short. But no matter! I wore it for the rest of the day and enjoyed the chance to wear it. I could have passed for Lebanese, maybe. At least six different people stopped me to adjust my headwear, though, each insisting that their way of doing it was the right way--despite my having had it arranged by a Qatari in the first place.

I also enjoyed holding several falcons, which students brought with them. Just because. No, they didn't ask permission, but then no one does for anything here, so... FALCONS!

Christmas preparations picture and movie dump!

First: yes, we have Christmas decorations here, and we had a very nice time decorating together.

 Elliott is making good progress learning to read with Rachel, who diligently teaches him another reading lesson every day (except Fridays) when Amelia is napping.

 Rachel made an advent calendar from scratch, and one of the fun things to do on it was making snowflakes. Goodness knows we won't be seeing any snow unless we take the matter into our own hands!

Elliott wanted to take pictures of me just like I took pictures of him. He was a bit more shutter-happy than I was.

Amelia likes to have a nice drink of warm milk before bed each night.

Elliott enjoying our felt nativity set, the only one we thought we could get through customs (turns out we could have brought pretty much anything we wanted).

Another night, we made snowmen ornaments out of cottonballs and scotch tape, and decorated them with markers. Hardly worthy of Etsy or Pintrest, but they add some cheer to the tree!

Rachel posted a more thorough account of our visit to the horseraces, but here are the photos again, anyway.

 Elliott's first cotton candy

 Elliott's first pony ride.

 Amelia's first pony ride (not as excited about it as Elliott was).

"The horses sound like thunder!" Elliott said at one point.

 We enjoyed the First Presidency Christmas Devotional a week late.

 And Amelia took her first steps on Dec. 7! This is actually an encore performance just moments after the first.

Merry Christmas, everyone!