Jordan

The last country on the list of places I wanted to see before I leave my Middle East adventure is Jordan, and I got to cross that country off my list a couple of weeks ago. I went with 5 other ladies for the first 4 days and then spent a couple more days - one with one of my colleagues and the other on my own.

We first went to the Dead Sea where we spent two nights at the Kempinski Hotel and Resort.  It was lovely and I was fortunate enough to have my room upgraded to a junior suite! I don't know what I did to deserve that, but I wasn't arguing! We had so much fun 'bobbing' in the salty water - which tastes terrible, so you don't want to get it in your mouth if you can avoid it! We then slathered on the mineral-rich mud, let it dry and then went back in the sea to rub the mud off. Then we showered off in fresh water and our skin felt so smooth!

Here are Donna, me and Jackie all muddied up! That's Israel on the other side of the water.









It was a relaxing way to spend a couple of days following a very hectic winter semester at UCQ.

We then drove to Petra where we spent 2 nights and one day. Petra is the ancient capital city of the Nabataeans which dates back to the 4th century BC, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and in a word, AMAZING! It is well hidden in the mountains and is quite a hike (albeit an easy one) back into the site. It was surprisingly cold in the morning when we started out, but the sun came out and warmed things up nicely - it was a perfect day to wander the site. Unfortunately, we didn't plan our time well and ended up without enough time to see everything we wanted to see (the Monastery for one thing). It would have been nice to have another day to come back and explore more - but we did see the main sights.

The Treasury at Petra. There were lots of camels and donkeys around to take you around the site. All the camel and donkey tenders looked like Johnny Depp in his Captain Jack Sparrow role from Pirates of the Caribbean - all very good looking!














The next day we drove back to Amman where 4 of the group headed back to Doha. Wieslawa and I were able to visit the Citadel and the Roman Theatre which were interesting. Amman is built on 7 mountains (well, big hills by Alberta standards) and, with the huge population of the city, I didn't really expect to find it as attractive as it is. Houses cover the hillsides, so it is a mass of buildings, but it has a certain appeal.

City of Amman from the Citadel (ruins in foreground, Roman Theatre in centre)












The next day Wieslawa and I visited the Roman ruins in Jerash - a city about an hour's drive north of Amman. It was a huge site which was so interesting; but our experience was marred by masses of adolescent boys who were on school field trips and who harassed us quite a bit. It was unnerving and at one point I actually felt swarmed and very uncomfortable. The ruins are extensive and it would have been nice to wander around it more, but we had to leave to get Wieslawa to the airport for her flight back to Doha.

The last day I went to Mt. Nebo and stood where Moses did as he saw The Promised Land.

What an amazing amount of history surrounds the area. Not far from here is the site where Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist.

From here I went to Madaba which is known as Mosaic City because of the many mosaics that have been unearthed in excavations. Two churches in Madaba are renown for their mosaics, but my driver knew of a man who had a site that has been closed by the government. The driver said his friend would be happy to show me the mosaic for a couple of dinar. I am glad we stopped there as it was very large and beautiful and more well-preserved than the others I saw later.  Of course, the others didn't have tons of tourists traipsing around them every day either!

The most famous mosaic is the map of the world as it was thought to be in about the 6th century.  It is in St. George Greek Orthodox Church:

As you can see, not as well preserved as the one above, but very cool to look at all the work that went into this piece.


















Then it was back to Amman where I caught my flight back to Doha.  It was a great trip to a country that is rich with history.

I'm now in the last months of my time in Doha. I am going to Calgary for summer vacation on July 12th, and it is uncertain at this point whether I will be returning to Doha or not. My contract is officially over in mid-October, but if they find a replacement for my position who can start in August when the other new faculty and staff arrive, then I won't need to return. I expect I will know for sure by the beginning of June, but the uncertainty is hard to take right now.

I am very much looking forward to being home with my family and to reconnecting with friends and activities in Calgary that I have missed. I know how blessed I am to have had this opportunity, but now it is time to go. They say you know when it is time and I certainly concur as I definitely feel the call of home. 

A couple of links to articles that might enlighten you a bit more about life in Qatar:

http://thebillfold.com/2013/04/the-cost-of-things-in-qatar/

In the following article, I can say that #5 and #11spoke to me:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/9990816/Fifteen-signs-you-have-lived-in-Qatar-too-long.html

Phabulous Philippines

In mid-January my friend, Isabelle, who is Canadian but originally from the Philippines, asked me if I wanted to spend ReadingWeek (Feb. 17-21) in the Philippines. She had to go to take care of some family business. I accepted her invitation without hesitation and I am so happy that I did. The Philippines is a country I never imagined I would visit. Of course, 4 years ago I never thought I'd see anything outside of North America!

We spent 2 nights in Manila, then 2 nights at Isabelle's brothers' dive resort in Anilau which is in the province of Batangas, south of Manila. We then returned to Manila for another couple of nights.

We started with a great walking tour of Intramuros - the old, old part of Manila. It is the old walled city which survived a number of earthquakes, typhoons, fires and wars and finally was destroyed when the Americans liberated the Philippines from Japan at the end of World War II in 1945.  In 1979 a degree was issued creating the Intramuros Administration which undertook the restoration and development of Intramuros as a historic site. The tour was guided by an actor who is passionate about the history of the country and also about sharing that history with his fellow Filipinos and visitors to the country. He is equally irreverent in his delivery taking jabs at the various invaders, Filipino leaders and the church. It was equal parts entertainment and education!

Shopping in Manila is as much a national pastime as it is in Qatar. The malls are huge and you can get anything there. In one of the malls there is an entire floor of spa, beauty and medico-cosmetic services. You could get anything waxed, massaged, injected, etc. - you could go in looking like Godzilla and come outlooking like Jennifer Aniston! The knock-off market where you can get knock-offs of shoes, clothes, purses, technology was also huge. When you have a population the size of the Philippines I guess you need a lot of markets.

We got up at 4:30 am to beat the traffic to get out of Manila to head down to Anilau.  It's about a 2 hour drive, but if we had started much later it would have take double that amount of time or more. The two days we spent at Planet Dive (Isabelle's brother's dive resort) were restful and relaxing. The staff there were wonderful to us, the food was plentiful and delicious, and I went scuba diving for the very first time ever!

Getting some last-minute instruction
















A smiling face after the dive.  I did it!













The resort is right in front of an area called Twin Rocks which is a world renown sanctuary for coral and sea life. I saw so many beautiful creatures and the colors of the fish and coral were amazing.

View from Planet Dive - reminds me of a tropical version of my friend Jean's cabin on Shuswap Lake









We drove up a mountain to catch a sunset view and along the way we saw this typical house. Even the most humble of homes has lots off flowers around them.

After another day of relaxing, touring some islands in the area and snorkelling, we headed back to Manila by way of a city called Taal which has retained many of its heritage homes and the traditional city square built during the Spanish colonial period.  We visited the market where they sell many of the national costumes from fabric make from bananas and pineapples.  From there we went up into the mountains to Tagaytay where we overlooked Taal Lake and the Taal Vocano Island which is in the middle of the lake. Tagaytay is a lovely resort area - a great place to escape the heat of Manila, so many wealthy Filipinos own property there. There is a lot of building of resort property going on there now.

Back in Manila, we went to the Ayala Museum which is an art and history museum where we saw exhibits of gold, ceramics, and textiles, as well as an exhibit of 60 dioramas that depict the history of the Philippines. There were also collections of paintings by two Filipinos artists. 

That evening we attended a play entitled “Livin’ La Vida Imelda” a play by the same actor who was our guide on the walking tour of Intramuros. The play chronicles the rise and fall of Imelda Marcos – another great history lesson; and quite hilarious!

The weather was wonderful – warm and humid, but not too humid.  Isabelle is a wonderful guide.  It was definitely helpful to have someone who spoke the language.  Even tho English is taught in the school system in the Philippines, when we got out of Manila not many people get to school and thus have very little, if any, English.

Now back in Doha . . .  awaiting the next adventure which will be Jordan in April. Can't wait for that!

Update

Yes, it's been a while . . . and I've had a few people ask for an update of what has happened in my life since I last posted on this blog. I have to admit that my life seems to have settled into such a routine that it doesn't seem interesting enough to write about; but here goes . . . (I hope I can remember what has happened in the last 7 months).

This past summer I was determined not to spend much time in the summer heat of Doha, nor to be here during Ramadan.  I was able to schedule my 4-weeks of vacation to coincide with Ramadan and butt up to the Eid holiday (the week of holidays at the end of Ramadan), so I was able to have 5 weeks off.  I first flew to San Diego to see my mom for a week. We had a wonderful time talking, shopping, visiting with her friends (most of whom I have gotten to know fairly well over the years my parents have lived in San Diego) and, of course, eating. Whenever I go to San Diego I have my favourite things I have to eat that I can't get in Doha. Wonderful reuben sandwiches and the amazing dill pickles at the Jewish deli, Italian beef sandwiches, ravioli at Dad's favourite Italian restaurant (Bruno's), etc., etc. Mom and I managed not to drive each other completely crazy. At the end of that week I went to Calgary.  Despite falling down the stairs and badly spraining my ankle the first morning I was home, and subsequently sliding into the back of a love seat on which I broke a rib, I enjoyed 4 weeks of wonderful weather, seeing family and lots of friends, and just being in my house.  My wonderful neighbours surprised me by weeding the very overgrown garden, and planting some pots and hanging baskets so I would have some lovely colour in my yard when I got home.  I surprised them with my much longer, straight hair.  I had such a giggle when the doorbell rang and I opened it two my neighbours, Janet and Glenys, who could only stare at me in disbelief wondering who this woman with the long straight hair was!

I arrived back in Doha a week before most of my friends came back, and we (the staff in Student Services) all hit the ground running to prepare for all the new and returning students. When I first came here we had only about 65 students, and we were struggling to find more. The main problem was that most of our students are sponsored - meaning that their tuition is paid by an organization (usually a hospital) for which the student will work following graduation (a sort of indentured service arrangement).  Because of Qatarization, whereby the emphasis is on training Qatar citizens for nursing positions, there was reluctance to sponsor permanent residents of Qatar who are not Qatar nationals. The problem is that there aren't that many Qataris (of a present population of 1.8 million in Qatar, only about 300,000 are Qatari) who want to be nurses!  Slowly, the powers that be have figured out that if they are to have enough nurses to look after this enormous population, they will need to sponsor non-Qataris. This has resulted in tremendous growth for UCQ. In the Fall 2012 term we had 292 students registered! Still a small number in comparison to UofC's 30,000, but it's huge for us. There has been growth in my department as well. When I arrived here there was a Director and 4 staff.  Now, in addition to the Director (me!) there are 8 staff and they are doing wonderful work to recruit, admit and support students. I will tell anyone who will listen that Student Services has the best team on campus and that it is the 'heartbeat of the university". Everyone is quite tired of me saying that, but I truly believe it!

In October I met my son, Ian; his wife, Rachel; and her mother Mary Ann in Greece. We spent two days in Athens and then did a 4-day tour of the Peloponese - Corinth and Mycenae, Olympia, Delphi and Meteora. We were all blown away by everything we saw, the incredible history and the beautiful country-side of Greece.

View of Athens from the Acropolis

Ian, Mary Ann and Rachel at Delphi

Three goddesses (Mary Ann, Rachel & Kathy) at Mycenae

Temple of Athena at Delphi

View of monastaries at Metora

After our tour of the Peloponese we flew to the Greek island of Santorini for 6 days of complete relaxation. It was end of the tourist season so many hotels and restaurants were closed. In fact, the hotel we reserved was closed but there was a sign on the gate directing us to go to the hotel next door.  It was owned by the owner of our original hotel's brother! I think we lucked out - it was a great family-run hotel and we were the only guests! They treated us so well. We all agreed we would go back in a heart-beat.

Rachel & Ian in Fira

View from Fira

Hotel Matina in Kamari, Santorini

Sunrise in Santorini

Mary Ann in Fira

Once back in Doha it was time to prepare for the Convocation ceremony for our graduates. UCQ's convocation ceremony takes place in late November each year. This year we had only 11 grads, so we hoped it would be a low-key affair. But, it was not to be since Her Highness Sheika Moza decided to attend. This required that we change the date of the ceremony - moving it up a day. Fortunately, the hotel where we were holding the ceremony was able to accommodate that change and all the other demands that were placed on them. It was actually quite a circus, with may glitches that only the organizers were actually aware of. For the graduates and their families it was fabulous! They were all so pleased that Her Highness attended - and she came up on stage, shook each of their hands and had a short personal conversation with each of them as well.

President Elizabeth Cannon, Sheikha Moza Bint Nasser, Chancellor Jim Dinning
with some  of the grads at UCQ's November Convocation Ceremony

For the winter break, I went to Calgary for nine days and then to San Diego for 4 days. It was entirely too short a time to travel that far/much. There was a method to my madness, tho, as I wanted to see if I could hack cold weather in Calgary. I had been having feelings of wanting to go back to Calgary and had been asked to state my intentions about whether I would renew my contract beyond October 2013. I knew the test would be whether I could take the cold in Calgary or not. I actually enjoyed the cold and that helped me to make the decision to not renew my contract. There were several other factors that led to the decision, and, although the experience in Doha is incredible, I am very much looking forward to the next stage of life when I return to Calgary.

But that's more than 8 months away and between now and then I will be traveling to the Philippines in February with my friend Isabelle. She is originally from the Philippines so I will have a native guide to show me around. We will go to her brother's dive resort where, if I chicken out on learning to scuba dive I will at least do some snorkelling in some of the part of the world for diving and snorkelling. In March I hope my friend, Chris, will come for a visit; and there are preliminary plans for a trip to Poland in late June. Then I will have to start thinking about packing up my life here in Doha. It amazes me that I moved here with my life in only two suitcases, and now I have an apartment full of stuff that I will have to sell or ship. Not looking forward to that at all! I hope I will have more interesting things to share before then.