January Update

Wow! It’s been quite a while . . . . and I can’t believe we’re already near the end of January! It’s been a very busy month since my return from Sri Lanka. Work has been crazy busy and I am loving it!

I had the privilege of attending the Doha Debates earlier this month. The Doha Debates are funded by the Qatar Foundation and are held in their headquarters building in Education City which is where the many institutions that are under contract have their campuses (Georgetown, Texas A&M, Cornell, University of Virginia, etc.) It is an amazing campus with many beautiful buildings, and they are building a huge new convention facility that is beautiful.

Convention centre at Education City, Doha

Anyway, back to the debate. The debate topics are pertinent to the Middle East. The motion for the one I attended was: “This House Believes that this Afghan Government is NOT Worth Fighting For.” The format is that there are two panelists who support the motion and two who are against the motion. Each is given two minutes to state their case after which the moderator asks questions and argues a bit with them. After all four have had their say, there is some general back-and-forth between the panelists and the moderator, and then the floor is open for questions. I was so impressed with the eagerness of the young audience members and the questions they asked. The student who attended with me from UCQ is Pakistani and had a very strong interest in the debate. She had a question, but unfortunately was not called upon. There were so many people with questions there is no way they could get to them all. Here’s the web-site for the Doha Debates where you can view videos of past debates: http://www.thedohadebates.com/index.asp. The one I attended isn’t up yet, but keep checking back; it was very interesting.

I attended a meeting of the Qatar Natural History Group where a fellow who was organizing an exhibit on pearls and pearling at the Museum of Islamic Art spoke about pearls in general, and about the joys and frustrations (there are many of those) of getting the exhibit up and running. The VIP opening is Jan. 29^th, the public opening is January 30^th, but he advised us not to come until February 5^th when it might actually be complete!

The Natural History Group also coordinates ‘rambles’ on the weekends which provide an opportunity to explore some of the wonders of Qatar beyond the Doha city limits, giving a chance to get out of the city and explore the rest of the country. I went on a recent one to Fort Zubara which is a former police outpost on the west end of the country. About a kilometer away from the Fort is a deserted town site. Both sites are presently undergoing an archaeological excavation. There are plans for this to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Well, they have a heck of a long way to go. The fort is also a museum – but without much to display yet; in fact, there were empty display cases! The day started out to be a pretty lame trip, but then our leader found the head of the archaeological dig and he gave us a tour of the two sites. It was very interesting and he saved the day - it ended up being rather interesting after all! The site is on the other side of Qatar – and it only took us about an hour to get there. You can pretty well cover the entire country in a day!

Fort Zubara - outside and in

Excavation site at Zubara town site

One morning we woke up to fog! It was so odd to see, and the driving was even more interesting than usual! Most drivers did not turn on their headlights – daytime running light are not required or even available here. Some, however, turned on their hazard lights, some their brights, and some just their regular lights. It was an eerie morning, but the fog burned off by about 9:30. We had a Welcome Back Barbeque for students, faculty and staff at the University that day, and it turned out to be beautiful!

A foggy day in Doha town!

I have joined the Doha Singers! I sang in a choir in high school (just a few years ago) and really enjoyed it, so when a couple of women at work told me about the choir, I thought I’d give it a try. I sat in the soprano section and found that I just can’t screech that high any more. This week I will try the alto section! It was fun to do the warm ups and read through the music. I met some really nice people, too!

This past weekend four of us went to the camel races. It was so much fun. I had expected it to be sort of like horse racing, but it is nothing at all like that at all!! I tried to get a video to upload, but I kept getting an error so I'll have to let these photos tell the story for now.

The starting line - There is no starting horn or gun or "Theeeeere off!" It is just a mad scramble when the green curtain is raised. The camels start running, and the handlers are flying out of the way - right into the area where we were standing to watch. At least a couple of camels fall at the start of each race, but they get right up an run on. However, we did see one or two camels turn around and run the other way part way through the race. The race track is 4 kilometers long!

Below you will see a video that will show you how hilarious it was. I took the photos from a bus that we were on. The vehicles (mostly Land Cruisers) hold the race spectators - they ride along on either side of the camel track honking their horns and yelling and trying to avoid crashing into each other. We could not stop laughing!

This is a close-up of the 'jockey' on the camel - it's a robot! They used to use little boys - some as young as 4 who were not fed much in order that they wouldn't weigh much, but due to heavy criticism from human rights advocates (quite justifiable) they changed to using robots. They are controlled by remote and have these small whips that spin around and whack the camels on the rump to spur them on. PETA will be marching here next

After the second race we watched as these long carpets were rolled out. We thought there might be some dignitary, but it turned out the rugs were for prayers. The man in the front of this line is the iman who was doing the call to prayer. After the prayers (which lasted less than 5 minutes) it was back to the races!

This is (from left to right) Virginia, Jackie, and Cathy (all instructors at UCQ) on the bus that carried us around the track.

Here's the video:

Sri Lanka – The final week and back home

We made our way slowly . . . very slowly . . . to the beach resort at which we were to spend the final 6 days of our holiday. Along the way we visited the historic city of Galle which has an old Dutch fort that we visited.

Lighthouse and walls of Dutch fort at Galle

We also stopped at a sea turtle reserve where we saw this albino sea turtle:

When we were checking in to our beach resort hotel it became obvious that there was a problem since they couldn’t find our reservation. With the language difficulties, it took some time and the help of our driver before we discovered that the tour company hadn’t finalized our reservation. After contacting the tour company, they faxed the reservation and we were checked in – but for only 4 days instead of 6 days. We had to work with the tour company to straighten things out. In the meantime, we had to bid our wonderful driver goodbye, but not before we got a photo of us all with our vehicle:

CJ, Tuwon, Kathy & Lisa with our trusty tour vehicle

The rooms were pretty nice and the cleaning staff surprised us each day with a different towel sculpture on our beds each day:

We did enjoy our time in the Indian Ocean, but we quickly realized that we were not enjoying ourselves as much as we had hoped, s0 when our discussions with the tour operator to get the last two days of our reservation straightened out led us to the fact that there was indeed no room at the inn for the last two nights, the suggestion to move us to Colombo seemed a good one. Well, not so much . . . the only good thing we can say about Colombo is that when I am having a bad day in Doha, I can say, “At least I’m not living in Colombo!”

Crazy Colombo street

But we couldn't leave without having a ride in a tuk-tuk:

Self portrait in a tuk-tuk (can you tell I'm holding the camera?)

On New Year’s Day we headed home to Doha; and yes, I’m thinking of Doha as “home” now. Doha is lacking the family and friends that make Calgary and North America my true home, but for now Doha is where I am making a pretty interesting life. In fact, as we drove from the airport to the apartment I was struck by how pretty and modern Doha looked. In comparison to Colombo, Doha is pristine! As we drove onto our street we were pleased and surprised to see that they had graded and were re-paving the street! All three of us said very loudly, “Oh, my god!” and the taxi driver wasn’t quite sure what was going on . . . I think he nearly drove off the road.

We headed back to work on Sunday, and everyone has been sharing stories of their travels – Thailand, Greece, Switzerland, Spain, France, Nepal, Oman, Dubai, the Seychelles, Bali, and Germany were some of the destinations my colleagues visited. The chatter in the lunchroom for the past two days has been non-stop with everyone exchanging stories and information. Indeed, it is all about travel here!

So 2010 has begun. It is so hard to believe that Y2K was 10 years ago. I am looking forward to getting more knowledgeable about my work, getting to know the students better, singing in a choir – practice starts in two weeks, sailing lessons, golf, and a trip to Chicago in March. Lots to look forward to. I hope 2010 will be a healthy, happy and prosperous year for all!