A Weekend by the Inland Sea, and more!



The end of next week will mark the 1st full month that I have been blessed to spend in Qatar. It amazes me what has happened over that short time period. For example, just over the past week:

• Caleb has grown to be such a big boy! He's on the verge of crawling and teething, we think!
• I had some hilarious moments at a mother's Infant Music Class that Caleb attends just down the road. I'll include pictures one day, walla (I promise).
• Darren took me to the Women's Tennis Association Semi-Finals in downtown Doha(!). Beau, I thought of you! Here are some pics:

  

  You may notice that the advertisements for the women's tennis cut off modestly at the waist.

   

  

  These next pictures are our veiw from within the tennis stadium from left to right.
  In the far left of this picture, you can see the two "ZigZag Towers"

  



Downtown District, near the Corniche.






The Qatar Central Post Office in the forground; Far end of the bay in the background.

• I began a volunteer position with early school-age children, which refreshes my soul!
• The Conleys + Auntie Leona attended the Doha Tribecca Film Festival for a showing of "Just Like Us" [I highly recommend it!]. Here's more info: http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/just-like-us/trailer
• My friends Matthias, Miguel & Kahla, and Joel travelled through the Desert to the Inland Sea, where we spent a glorious Friday afternoon & evening. We even caught a glimpse of Saudi Arabia!

In particular, the experience of travelling out to the beach/desert is one that I wish I could literally share with each of you. I’ll try to paint you a picture with words, but I warn you that I can do no justice to it here. Nonetheless:

Unconscious to how much planning and care went into such a trip, I gratefully accepted when my friend proposed a college-age crowd trip to the beach. Later I hear it was a trip to the desert... were we going to be driving up sand dunes or swimming in them? I wasn’t sure but was excited to find out! We started the adventure with lunch at an American restaurant in Doha (Seriously, I eat more American food than Qatari food in Doha, but it makes me so happy to see the Texans enjoying homestyle grub! Us blondies don’t exactly blend in all the time, so the ‘normalness’ of seeing a small crowd gathered around mashed potatoes and gravy strangely warms my heart.) Anyways, after lunch most of the Texas A&Mers actually had to split to fulfill some volunteering or academic commitments... we missed them!). So our reduced group zipped through the city to meet up with a family that was new to me (but I now feel so blessed to know), who own a land rover [note: land rovers are imperative to the facilitation of an Inland Sea day]. This family is originally from Mexico City, and had taken the time to prepare a full beach BBQ spread for us all, complete with sweet roasted bananas for dessert!! We quickly changed out of our Church clothes and into ‘bathing suit/adventure’ gear, land oaded up the land rover with coal, ice, the BBQ, towels, drinks, a soccer ball, a small jambe and of course ourselves. Anticipation mounting, we headed South (keep in mind, up until this point, Leona’s limited working-knowledge of Doha geography has included the downtown bay (around which the major downtown hotels, offices, corniche, and Islamic Museum of Art find their homes), and the general assumption that if you drive south in Qatar, you will hit Saudi Arabia. Since I am neither married nor accompanied by my father, visiting Saudi for a beach dip was out of the question. So, happily unaware of the end goal, I settled back to enjoy the wild camels roaming along the highway and the seemingly out-of-nowhere petrol (gas) stations where we filled up before our flight out of civilization. [Another side note: we can fill up a small gas tank for about 50 riel, which generously equates to about 15$ Canadian... isn’t that disgustingly fabulous!]. I suppose it helps that a large scale Qatar ‘chemical valley’ was located just a few more miles down the road.

About 45 minutes outside of Doha we stopped at a sort of unmarked parking lot where the men popped out of the car to release air from our tires. After rearranging the desert-savvy passengers to the front seats of the land rover, we were off. By off, I mean to say that we suddenly took a ‘right’ directly up and over a 50 foot sand dune. This is when the fun really began. For about an hour we flew up, down, around and through one of the most breathtaking environments I have visited yet in life – pure desert. We were indeed sand duning. It has got to be one of the most worthwhile adrenaline rushes available in Qatar. At one point, my sister called on my cell phone to check in on how/where we were: I peeked out my window to the 40 foot drop that our vehicle was skidding around the ridge of and squeaked, “I have no idea, but I think we’re fine”. Reversing, speeding up, cresting over sand rims with little idea of what lay on the other side, a friend of mine in the front seat nonchalantly guided us through the maze of sand (there are no markers, it is just sand) until we reach a clearing. Here is a very, *very* mild version of the first sets of dunes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpARjmEB7Uk&NR=1.

“If you look to your left you will see flamingos... yes. There they are.”

“FLAMINGOS!!! In their natural habitat?” I squealed.

“Well, their habitat changes of course,” he added... pointing out that there was a new sand dune blocking the pathway around the flamingos’ pond of rest. The desert is apparently always changing.  Haha! Talk about spontaneous!

After about another half hour we reached... (do do do doo!!) the end of Doha... the Inland Sea! I am not sure that I have seen an equal to it. All of the tire-tracked desert sand dunes suddenly roll into a narrow strait of clear, widely-currented salt water. In the near distance, on the opposing side of the strait, a magnificent view of Saudi’s (rocky?) mountain ridge extends for a good couple of miles. If seeing camels and flamingos in the wild was not enough, seeing Saudi was too surreal. We arrived at this location at around 4pm – a beautiful time of day in Qatari October/November (temperature wise), and had about an hour of daylight left to spare. We selected a piece of beach void of people, scouted out the dunes and valleys that would make for the best ‘diving board platforms’ and then waltzed right into the 30 degree Celsius water. The current was incredibly strong, and the Sea itself exceptionally deep (compared to dear Lake Huron; I was treading water 5 feet from shore!). I thought of my parents and how much they would love to be at that beach (the Saudi Mountains give the whole thing a ‘Lawrence of Arabia’-type feel, and the salt content in the sea is so high that it wasn’t difficult to imagine we were floating in the notorious Dead Sea). After about 45 minutes of this delight (and some sea snail catching with my new child-friend David!), we watched the sun set behind a sand dune on land. Then, as if on cue, I felt a sharp sting on my right arm and looked down to see a billowy, faint pink jellyfish loosen and swim off. Yes indeed! I was stung by a jellyfish in the Inland Sea. One by one, each person in our group excepting an Indian friend (I was definitely skin jealous... in fact, we used him as a human shield!) was stung by a jelly! In the very dark a few hours later we would discover that we had essentially been swimming in a current of jellyfish, brought about by seasonal climate changes. The guys actually caught one and gave it to me as a pet (we named it Paul in honour of the recently deceased German football amulet... Paul has since passed and I am quite sorry for removing him from his original home).

After swimming, the dear family who hosted our trip broke out the burgers, hot chillies and (beef) bacon! Oh it was delicious. We kicked around the soccer ball as the stars quietly covered the night sky. Then it was finally time for the boys to reveal a desert surprise they had kept from us all day - they call it magic and it is a truly beautiful phenomenon. It was so special. I am actually going to hold that memory close without revealing it to “y’all”. Then we found spots to lay down on the sand and waited patiently for shooting stars to make their treks across the universe. Out came the jambe, and we softly sang a few worship songs together. It was such a humbling experience of completeness and unity, I remember thinking: “I don’t want to live for something other than this; I don’t ever want to be more presumptuous or assuming than I feel in this moment.”

We packed up and began the trip home fairly late (which is really not that late according to Qatari time). We became stuck in the sand twice, which was super fun with all the digging, pushing and collaborating that entailed. At one point a group of cruisers filled with French-speakers suddenly appeared to generously pull us out of a spot. English, French, and Spanish phrases were floating around amidst the horsepower, and it was a bon journey for sure (Thanks to Laura Flick for keeping la langue Francaise on my radar for the past couple of years through her Facebook statuses)!

Not to be outdone, when we reached Doha at midnight, we woke up little David for a PLANNED final stop at a fresh juice joint. 1^st of all, I am friends with a family of middle-school age children who stop for snacks in the middle of the night simply because they are delicious. That is how cool I want to be at 35/40! 2^nd of all, juice bars in Qatar (a country where alcohol is strongly regulated) are FABULOUS! We sampled avocado-mango, carrot-cocktail, kiwi puree, fresh lemonade, some whopper of fruit parfait, frosted milkshakes... you name it, and they make it! I think Canada could do well to follow their model for the end that sweet, decorative, fresh, inexpensive, and nutritiously-strong cocktails are deeply imbibed upon. It goes beyond a Booster Juice experience. It is just so good! [I also learned that nana is the Arabic word for mint. Huh, eh?]

At 2am I crawled into bed back in our happy little compound with a heart just swimming with memories I hope to never forget. I will post a few photos of the trip as I get them. Oh, you will just fall in love with the Middle East when you see it all! It’s impossible not to!



I'm going to Nepal!

Since settling in Doha I have been blessed with a small group of very hospitable, adventurous friends from Texas A&M University. Although it has only been a 1.5 weeks since we first met, in light of my foreigner status and how often we have opportunity to get together, it feels like I have known them for longer than that. Tonight we booked tickets to travel to Nepal for Eid (a Muslim Holiday for which we are all given time off). Isn't that delightful? Nepal is full of traditions and places that I am completely unfamiliar with, not to mention Mount Everest! Vacationing in BC this past summer after my sister's wedding, plus other friends' recent hiking trips have inspired me to head to the mountains, or at least head to something tall! I trust that in the next few days as we arrange our travel plans that I will be channelling even more anticipation. It is such a treat, for the short term, to live relatively close to countries that are dramatically different from North America... and then to have opportunity to actually see them!

Everest

Kathmandu Valley

My Qatari Rite of Passage

One of my favourite parts of Qatar is its newness. Another aspect that I find charming is its straightforwardness. For example, there are about 6-7 universities in Qatar: Qatar University, Texas A&M (which teaches Engineering only), Cornell (Medical school) Virginia Commonwealth University (Fine Arts), the University of Calgary (for Nursing), Carnegie Mellon University (Business Admin. and Computer Science) and a few others. If I wanted to visit any of these campuses, where would I go? 'Education City' of course! Education City is a beautiful section of Doha: the art and architecture of this desert investment is bright and creative. Lines of palm-trees beckon students from one university building to another university's building along  pathways which are dramatically lit at night. (This reminds me, Qatar comes ALIVE at night time. At 11pm on a Thursday, the major downtown boardwalk - the corniche -  has playgrounds full of picnicking families!). I will do my best to take a few pictures of the campus and the corniche in due time.

Now, Leona is not a student of Education City... simply an admirer. What she is a student of is the fantastical rite of passage that is the Qatari health exam for incoming foreigners. A few days ago I had the privilege of diving head first into an entertaining round of this: here I will record a play by play of that evening. Larissa & Darren wished me luck as I whisked out the door to meet my driver/experience facilitator. I called from the stairs - "Do I need my Passport?" To all of our surprise, the DRIVER pipes up: "I've got it.". Great. Well, at least we are keeping track of our documentation. I theorized that it would be better to be on familiar terms with any potential human-trafficker looking my way, so I initiated with: "Nice to meet you. I'm Leona!" Silence.

"Don't worrry. He gave me the same response when I asked him earlier." a friendly voice popped from inside the taxi. This was the redemptive feature of my dinner-timed health exam: a fellow foreigner about to be healthfully examined! Thankfully, she had been through this process before. Actually, the more pertinant quality of my new friend is her female-ness. (I realized this as I tried to explain the hilarity of all this to my 3 new ex-pat guy friends. In retrospect their chest x-rays probably were much less of an orchestration then ours were.) So: unnamed driver, fellow female and I buzz along the mediocre Qatar-at-4pm traffic.


Everyone's story here in Doha is quite interesting (I call it self selection of the travel-happy), and my new girl friend’s story proved to be no exception to my rule. So the comic relief continued, combined with some life history swapping and small attempts to master our new ghetto cell phones (I being the only one really struggling... the tiled floors here make cell-phone dropping more technically-homicidal). When we arrived at the public hospital (which is decidedly night and day different on the Rtitzy scale from the private hospital in Doha -- check out my sister's post-natal buffet on facebook if you want propaganda for birthing babies internationally... Seriously! Fly me out to Qatar for the delivery of my children. But I digress.)... When we arrived at the public hospital our escort roughly educated us on the presence of separate gender hospital entrances; however, true to style, he didn't elaborate on which was which, or the fact that there exists additional waiting rooms that are unofficially co-ed/family oriented. That might have made my accidental galluping into a room of only men [at the time] (honest, I was following signs!) a little less like a playing a doomed round of "MouseTrap" (the board game). Round and round the building we went. Two girls? "Nope. You can get your finger pricked at the other back door.” (Note: I'm completely inferring the conversation based on the direction we walked... whether the real negotiations went on in Arabic or Security Guard Hindi is beyond me.)

Next came the waiting room with its unnecessarily insistent security guards (I truly feel that a pack of tired ex-pat women will manage their own line formation a little more succesfully than my co-Economy flyers in Dubai from a couple weeks ago) and a child that insisted on sucking at the metal junctures of the hospital wall and making honking noises.

Then came the x-ray. Those lucky enough to find the x-ray room in the face of tricky-inaccurate signage (although I'll hand it to you, facilitating the use of the same medical equipment for the genders to access separately takes some coordination) would encounter a tall, burlesque woman in a white lab coat. "From here up (she motioned with her hands) EVERYTHING COMES OFF! Put one of these gowns on." she barked. Pretty straightforward stuff. We started to form our line to the change room while the lab coat lady moved in and out of the waiting room roping up whoever was changed to hit the machine. You could hear that she was coming according to her category 5 volumed "FINISHED", and then the click of the door closing behind her. Happily aware of being in the right place for the procedure my new friend and I waited patiently among the women with shrugged shoulders and (for a few women) clutched abbayas. To go from having never seen an outright Qatari woman without her black covering in my life to being half-exposed in little gowns next to one was quite a surreal experience. To heighten the oddity of it all the beefy lab technician reutrned one more time to "help" us with our undressing. "YOU." she shouted as she called an unsuspecting ex-pat out of line for the changeroom "Take off your shirt, your bra, this, that..." My giggle reflex kicked in (which, if you know about my terribly sad Bollywood Dance Class fiasco would inform you of how quickly I explained the reaction to the poor girl afterward). After a few chats with women about where to find the most authentic Qatari embroidery, and the actual radiation, the x-ray was over. 

For the sake of time, I will not elaborate on the drama of reassuring a woman from the U.K. that the blood drawing system did indeed seem to be according to protocol, minus the fact that we had to elbow through a hallway of 50 young Sri Lankan men to have it done; the fun we had when our driver did eventually tell us his name; and the cookies and Pepsis which sweetened up the irony of the whole experience as we went along. I thought at one point that night that I should probably turn my cell phone off since we were in a hospital. Then I thought of the boy essentially teething on the waiting room appliances and felt that my caution would be a little excessive. 

This country that is my temporary home is so loveable. Also, I had forgotten how humbling it is to bumble around making cultural errors... with the mix of ethnicities present in Qatar, I am sure to (quite) accidentally offend more than one group!  At the very least, my Qatari health exam makes the considerately-sterile hospitals of Canada seem boring in comparison.

Arabic Word of the Day, and I want to be a Newfoundlander!

My EFL-teaching brother-in-law and sister have been helping me break through my uni-lingual-ness with an "Arabic Word of the Day" program. Here's the formal list of what we've succeeded with so far. (Thanks wikibook!)

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       as salaamu alaikum

        Syllable breakdown: as-sa-laa-mu a-lai-kum

        May Peace be with you Islamic Religious origins and a very common greeting.

wa alaikumu èl salaamu

Syllable breakdown: wa-a-lai-ku-mus-sa-laam

And may peace be with you. It is the response to the above phrase.

 

sħukrân

Syllable breakdown: sħuk-ran

Thank You

yalla

Syllable breakdown: yell-a

Hurry Up!/Let's go

 

kaifa hžaalu-ka

Syllable breakdown: kay-fa-haa-luk

How are you? (informal)

        1 - wahid (١), 2 - ithnan (٢), 3 - thalatha (٣), 4 - arba'a (٤), 5 - khamsa (٥) 

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We also succeeded in using the wrap this week - kangaroo style! I felt that I took one small step to becoming a nanny as baby-savvy as Emilie Taylor, which is a big dream of mine. This is Caleb & I post-afternoon nap. (You know life is pretty sweet when Leona gets a regular afternoon nap!)

Another interesting quality of life in Qatar is the difference in weekly schedules: Friday and Saturday make up the weekend, and Friday is the day when most religious gatherings occur. Isn't that nice! So today we shared a delicious turkey potluck lunch in the home of some of my sister & her husband's colleagues from the College of the North Atlantic. Many/most of those gathered are from Newfoundland (pronounced "NufunLAND"), and I fell deeply in love with Newfoundlander hospitality within the first few minutes of meeting them. The Newfoundlander accents were also pretty charming.
Great conversation. Great turkey (with gravy... mmm!). Great pumpkin pie.

As we sipped freshly ground Starbucks coffee and washed our hands with personally-imported Bath & Body Works hand soap, I marvelled as how much a Canadian world can be re-created in a country as dissimilar to it as Qatar. Several families I am meeting have more than "stinted" in Doha - actually raising their children as ex-pats. It is an interesting experience to learn about Canadian & American schools, and how the sweet children here have responded to relative culture change. I actually have yet to speak with a citizen of Qatar, although I have met Moms from Denmark, the U.K., TEXAS (self-differentiated highlighting is intentional on that one), France and across Canada. Quite neat.

Things we Love and are Anticipating this October

There are several features of the compound where we live that are "Green Zone (the movie)-esque"... and I am so grateful for them! A beautiful pool, gym, and corner store are just a hop, skip & jump from our front door. More than that, once 4 o'clock hits (and the sun loses a bit of its intensity), our little village becomes family-central! Mom's and babies, people my parents' ages, and school age children make up our happy world. Ooh, I should count the plentifully ferrel cats too (because they are pretty cute. They definitely increase my life satisfaction)! I tried to make friends with a ferrel cat from a distance the other day actaully... it is sort of my new Cricket, but wild and orange. However, I don't think we will get to stay friends unless I feed it, which is against my value system. Mind you it could be a great (and by great I mean 'desensitizing') trial run for my back up Cleveland security plan.

While the 100 degree F. weather had me concerned upon arrival, it is now more believable that winter could happen in someone's lifetime in Doha; it feels like "Autumn in the Desert". Can you believe it! Autumn in the desert is hard to describe, but I think it is going to be really nice. Cooler, comfortable breeze is about the only major difference I percieve so far. Thin films of dust will still settle on anything outdoors whatever the season, so that will remain our pleasant reminder of where we are! Maybe the humidity will stay below 75% though... That would be a non-summer change for Doha (J/K. I'm exaggerating... it's actually only 50% humidity in the evenings, and it is usually less humid than that during the day). The crowning event of the new climatal season (since I have decided that it has started) is Halloween at our Canadian Compound. I know! Isn't that fun? The only thing that can out-cute kids in little towel-animal house-coats at the pool is kids in little halloween animal costumes at our front door! Seriously. Our unit is going to be handing out 'spider' treats while the neighbours come knocking. It will be my first time handing out candy at Halloween, and I am very excited.

Another reason to love the cooler but still golden rays of Doha October is the fact that our beans are germinating at a visable rate! After only one day of being planted, we can see a couple breaking out of their seed coats!

As promised, here is the cutie! We started customizing our sign language plan of attack today, which has me revv'ed up in anticipation: mom, dad, auntie, more, drink, eat, fruit, cat, hat, hot, bed and diaper are our starter words. Will let you know how it goes. I found it super entertaining when non-vocal toddlers at the children's garden could sign, so like I tell Caleb, let's make some communication-development hay while the sun shines! This fellow is going to be my equivalent to morning coffee now that Larissa is officially off to work. I know! He starts that cute and stays that way all day. It's awesome!

For the First Time







  

 



I peered into other compound units to take pictures and met some friendly neighbours
from both Cape Breton and (I think) Europe.
Isn't the bougainvillea (seen here on the left) enchanting?
My dream is to find a yellow variety, as well as jasmine and aloe.





In full sun, our laundry takes about 30 minutes to dry. How fabulous! Perhaps our pure solar power use makes up for all the energy-heavy water desalination processing that we cause...


We also put in the start of a back patio vegetable garden: carrots, beans, beets, lettuce and cucumbers.
We hope to add tomatoes, a few potted trees (?), herbs, and of course a trellis for our expected beans. If my non-GMO seeds pass through the mail, we also hope to make room for heirloom squash, watermelon and canteloupe. The real test of plant affection will be whether we can make our desert climate a temporary "Mediterranean" one through botany-minded watering and my most enthusing personal project:
soil amendment via Qatari composting!

Today was another bright and beautiful day in Doha: As you can see, I did a bit of camera work around the compound as we began our plan of attack on the house gardens. I also wore baby vomit to a get-together at the (stunning) College where my sister and her husband work... [Larissa calls it a mother's outfit or something. I'm not so sure how I feel about all this vomit business. At the very least, I'm putting a cease-fire on dance parties for Caleb and I for the for-seeable future.] Another observation that was interesting to me was Caleb's fascination with windows. He enjoys looking out at them, and so do I. Smooth Arabic architecture is a lovely relief against the sandy 5:30pm sunset. I'm fairly confident that he could be engaged this way for nearly half an hour if the timing was right. I tried sneaking in a bit of journal-reading while I held him at the window but he became too engrossed with my papers. In lieu of telling my professors that "My nephew ate my homework", I am taking Caleb's new hobby as a nice time to pray for all the friends that I usually try (fairly unsuccessfully, when I am operating on Eastern Standard Time) to fit in at bedtime. What a blessing.

Earlier today the Lord reminded me of a main speaker at Campus for Christ's Eastern 2007 Winter Conference (I've searched around for the accurate title of the speaker that year, and want to say that it was Steve Mitchell but the dates don't add up). In any case, the speaker at that conference was one of the most focused, respectable men I have ever heard. He taught the crowd like a father, sharing deeply from his heart (and without ridiculous End Times cafflufle) of the burden he felt to help us understand the Biblical book of Revelation. He was clear and methodical in his move through the text; he seemed to understand the broader context of the whole Bible, and Revelation's words made quiet sense to me for perhaps the first time. Then, near the end of the conference the speaker shared a video of his son who was killed in modern day conflict in Iraq or Afghanistan earlier that year. I was stunned by it all. 

It was all these memories that brought me in reflection to Revelation 22 this evening.  Its images almost bring me to tears: a tree with leaves that are for the healing of the nations, the welcome that 'the one who wishes to take the water of life without cost' may do so, and Christ's claim to be the 'Bright Morning Star (BrightMS)'. While I have heard BrightMS as a reference in music before, and have asked a few people about it, I never felt satisfied with referring lovingly to Jesus by a term that few people could give me clear reason for. [Revelation is such a large and complex text, but I see now that it is where I should have started in my search for understanding the reference]. It could be said that Christ revealing Himself as the Bright Morning Star in chapter 22, verse 16 means that Christ claims to be the precursor of the new day. He ushers in an entirely new life. To me, Christ was the first piece of sunlight in the fading night of my life - When I trusted Him for the forgiveness of my sin, the guilt inside me disappeared. It literally felt as though everything inside me changed. And so I am more than happy to sing love songs to my Savior reminding us both of His piercing position in my heart. In the context of Revelation, Christ's claim to be the BrightMS may also be reasonably applied to the understanding that He will usher in a yet-to-happen world that is brand new and beautiful.

Here are a couple other verses (Rev. 22:16-17) that I can hardly take the time to reflect on now:
"Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."

Until next time, when I promise to include a few pictures of my adorable nephew,
L

Life Means so Much - Chris Rice

There are a few pieces of music that have lingered in the back of my mind since I was a little girl. Mostly they are Christian songs that my caring oldest sisters listened to or made up in the early 1990s. Some of the made up ones don't even have titles, but I can sing enthusiastically by heart. In fact, as preparation for my current nannying stint (and in addition to the outrageous children's garden storytime songs I learned at CBG) I performed a brief review of the rhymes I intend to socialize my little nephew with. Music Machine's "Be Patient", Psalty the Singing Songbook's "I Cast All my Cares Upon You", "Jacob Fooled His Father With His Craftiness" (definitely an unknown author on that one J), and Larissa Conley's very own "Surely Your Goodness and Love" have made the cut. What songs will I not teach to that precious boy? The song about squishing baby bumble bees - for sure (bees are more important to modern agriculture that the general population gives them credit for)! Also "Hush Little Baby"... materialism as a soothing strategy? Hmm. 

I am super up for suggestions if you have favorites!

I sort of wonder if my young adult musical moods might get translated to my poor charge... today I caught myself trying to calm Caleb down with T-Swift's "Stay Beautiful". I'm also fairly certain that Michael Buble's "Put Your Head On My Shoulder", Mariah Carey's "You'll Always Be My Baby", and Switchfoot's "Dare You to Move" are going to get busted out a few times while I'm in the Middle East. (Get busted out... is that even the correct ghetto slang? Cleveland, maybe you can help me out!) I also developed quite a penchant for 2-minute Spice Girl study break dance parties in college... Ooh, and let's not talk about Glee.



Back to the songs that my sisters taught me: I usually only remember a stanza or two from the oldest ones. In the absence of an Apple App., this has been quite satisfactory. I will always appreciate the countless after-school moments and evenings that my sisters sacrificed to 'mother' and shape the young person I was, unconscious to me at that time. This is what I am reminded of each time Alicia's clear, sweet voice echoes in my memory. However, it is a delightful gift from the Lord when I am re-introduced to each haunting tune. The chorus of Chris Rice's “Life Means So Much” is one of these songs (I've included the first verse below as well). My thanks go to Mike & Kristina Loomis who shared Rice's Short Term Memories album with me, and especially to Mike who played "Deep Enough to Dream" from the same album as a sweet acoustic summer backdrop during the time I lived as a guest at the Loomis' home.

Every day is a journal page

Every man holds a quill and ink

And there's plenty of room for writing in

All we do is believe and think

So will you compose a curse

Or will today bring the blessing

Fill the page with rhyming verse

Or some random sketching

Teach us to count the days

Teach us to make the days count

Lead us in better ways

Somehow our souls forgot

Life means so much

Life means so much

Life means so much

Setting foot on this ancient world has been my dream since December of 2008. Now I feel a mixed bag of emotions... like it’s the beginning of Sunday and the challenges & joys of Monday morning are around the corner, but I want to savor every breath of rest. Perhaps you can relate: butterflies, a heightened awareness of how quickly days can go by... or of how precious a moment is (which is what I feel when I give Caleb’s little baby head a kiss). In some sense, the Middle East has been my counted-down paradise vacation, and just being here makes me cautious that it might all be over too soon.

I’ve always been a girl to get ahead of herself. In my soul I hear

Proverbs 19:21, followed by Ephesians 5:15-16.

Lord Jesus, teach me to count the days.

And I'm here!

After all the summer anticipation in Cleveland, the beautiful weddings of 2 fabulous friends, a visit with those I hold dear in Guelph (Ontario), a couple of nights on my most familiar couch, pumpkin pie, premature Halloween candy, and one very large batch of cookies from the Cone Shop, I was ready to board the largest civil airplane-type in the world and travel to Doha, Qatar! Natalie Robertson, friend and prayer extraordinaire was kind enough to drive me to the airport. Beyond the security check-point at Pearson I accidentally met a group of well-seasoned Canadian and U.S. Military Professionals (self-titled "Bills").  My academic interest in P.T.S.D. and Horticultural Therapy among this population made the meeting a real treat for me. Next group to meet was my deeply-wonderful airplane seat-mates - a fresh UoT grad on his way to Kolkata, and a Pakistani gentleman on his way to Dubai. With Leona tucked in the middle seat, we teased, napped and entertained ourselves for the entire 14 hour flight. The discovery of a new music-genre [that's a shout-out to House, Romet], pretty decent cabin-fare, honest spiritual conversations, delightful stewards/esses & a seemingly endless supply of chick flicks (well, I was the only one with that specific movie selection... although the guys did show me how to work all the remotes & touch screens!) made the fun quite unforgettable.



A modest hallway of DIA's Arrivals Section;
A huge moss-covered water feature in Terminal 3 gives
in-transit visitors a place for reflection and quiet.



I then did my very best to not miss my connecting flight due to either a poorly-timed chat with Kenyans or a desire to purchase a celebratory sweet tea (those who experienced my latest distate for Newark as a part of my overall Calgary-L.A.-Cleveland Adventure this past July may applaud a decision of such personal growth). Thankfully, I also had 3.5 hours in my favor, and made the most of my time in Dubai International Airport peeking though duty-free non-fiction novels (eventually landing on Iran Awakening by Shirin Ebadi), making sure that I did not purchase any alcohol (as it would have been confiscated upon entry to Doha), taking in the thoughtfully designed interior landscape of DIA's spacious Terminal 3, and doing my new, assertive, American best to keep a bit of distance between myself and the many unnecessarily-crammed-together Indian nationals boarding my connecting flight. By assertive, I mean to say that I silently observed the ruckus of a line formation until I literally put my foot down to stop the Indian gent behind me from squeezing a bit too far into my Canadian-standard personal space. Even then, the guy merely stepped on my foot. Haha! On board I was twice mistaken for a member of the Emirates crew, (my particular favourite was the elderly lady who asked me for a wheelchair to disembark the plane) which really befuddled me at first, because I lack one of those super cool hat-veil thingies. Anywhoo! As our plane landed in Doha, a new Yemeni engineer friend gave me a brief tour of the expanding Doha Airport; then I was quickly whisked though immigration and baggage with the help of a lovely Airport Concierge, originally from Sri Lanka (Doesn’t this mix of nationalities sound like fun!). From there, we met up with my Brother-in-Law Darren who offered a brief hug, loaded my bags into the car and gave me a short tour of this gorgeous city along the drive back to the house. My beautiful sister Larissa had waited up for us (although Caleb didn’t quite make it!), and with a warm greeting showed me around their nice home. And that was that!



Ladus (sometimes spelled laddus) are delicious milk
and flour based confections that are rolled into balls...
Deliciously rich like any Indian sweet!



Today my sister and her husband did even more to acquaint me with our part of Doha – the community that is our compound, neighbouring compounds, roller-coaster-esque roundabouts (which define urban Qatari highways), and the Lulu Hypermarket (essentially an International Wal-mart but way more exciting!). Haven’t seen too many white people, but I have seen a lot of Indians!! (Although I regretfully left Hyderabad in the late summer of 2007 without a working knowledge of Hindi vocabulary, I am still widely delighted by saris, biriyani, butter chicken, ladus, and head bobbles. As it turns out, there is a huge market for all of these things in Doha... So I am having a hayday!)



Here is a a taste of the Doha skyline at night.



First thoughts: It is Hot... delightfully so. But it is hot!

This week: Larissa and Caleb will be teaching me their schedules & getting ready for Larissa’s shift back to work, while I do my best to work out mine. (Kansas State is feeding my curiosity as much as ever and I am loving it!). Meeting a few of Larissa & Darren’s friends will also be on the agenda.



Closing thoughts: That is a sizable update! Friends, don’t believe everything the media tells you – the Middle East has been nothing but wonderful to me so far, and it looks like this is just the beginning.

The building on the far right is the Museum of Islamic Art.



TTYL, with love. Leona