Sand Storm

We have had several sandstorms in the past two months. This was how we found our house when we got back from church. Everything was covered in a thin layer of very fine sand. The picture is of my notebook after I picked up the pen that was resting on it. This amount of sand gathered in our house over a three hour period with all of our doors and windows CLOSED. After this Jon did a lot of work to add extra weather-stripping to the doors, but it only helps a little. When sand storms are going, you just want to climb in bed and cover your mouth with the sheet. You can feel the dust as you breath and your lungs end up feeling like sandpaper.

Young Women's Day Camp

Today we had our second Young Women’s day camp. Because we can not do an actual Girls Camp here, we hold two different Saturday activities. At this Day Camp we did certification and cooked Dutch oven peach cobbler. It was a poor substitute for actual camping, but we had fun. We have ten young women: 1 Canadian, 3 Filipinos, and 6 Americans.

My Muse: Steve

Our friend, Steve Muse (husband of Susan--my old roommate), sent us a list of questions about Qatar. I tried to find a good picture of Steve to go along with this post, but this was the best I could do. Apparently, everytime we are with Steve and Susan we only take pictures of their dogs. Here is a picture I have of their "family" visiting us right before we moved: Susan is in the chair, Jon is playing with their dogs, and those sexy legs on the side are Steve. :)

In response to the posting with the questions from my neices and nephews, Steve said:

Well I really like the Q&A session so I have a few of my own:

Do the people in Qatar think that O.J. is guilty or innocent?
I doubt they care. Although, ironically, an old Oprah was on last night that had the assistant district attorney that prosecuted OJ on as a guest. I will see if can get the ratings from the TV network to see how it did. :)

Are American sports a big deal there? Do they have ESPN? Or are they playing Cricket and Soccer all the time?
They have ESPN and Fox Sports and a couple other sports channels available by satellite, but we don’t get them because it is too expensive for it to be worth it. I don’t think American sports are very popular. Americans will get together here to play basketball—there are several courts. I think the Young Men in our ward have played basketball for mutual activity for the last 3 months at least. Occasionally you will see a couple of people in a field playing Cricket. Soccer is HUGE. Every neighborhood has a sport club, which (as far as I can tell) is just a soccer club. I haven’t counted how many stadiums there are in Qatar, but I would say there are at least 10 in Doha alone. They are huge. I have no idea what supports them or keeps them going. I am working on a good conspiracy theory on world domination through soccer.

Do you think we could make a fortune selling water sealant in Qatar?
Jon and I joke around all the time about starting a plumbing business and becoming millionaires. Put together a business plan and we can be partners.

What do the people of Qatar call themselves? Qatens? Qatarians?
Qataris. Qatari is used as an adjective and as a noun. For example: The Qatari food is really good—and—Our neighbor is Qatari.

Do they have different types of sand there? Or does it seem like the sand came for one giant rock?
When you look at the landscape, it does looks like it all came from one giant rock. However, Hallmark and local souvenir places sell cool frames that have 10 different kinds of Qatari sand layered together. (Like the sand art project you made in elementary school or summer camp.) It is amazing how different all the kinds of sands are.

The Movie theaters, do they show mostly U.S. movies, or is there a popular underground independent Qatarian movie making scene?
Both. Last night we went and saw “Hoodwinked” It cracked me up. It was a dumb/funny movie, but worth seeing for the Fletch references. I highly recommend it to any true Fletch fan. Sometimes we have current movies, most of the time though we are about 3-6 months behind the US. Arabic movies make up about a third of what is playing at the theaters. From the posters they look like soap operas. I am not sure where they come from…too underground for me. Other interesting movie fact: Movies are edited here, but not always like you think. I was surprise that they have played Munich, Passion of the Christ, Jarhead, Duce Bigelow, etc. They don’t edit them for political ideas or language at all, just kissing (and probably nudity.) Public displays of affection are not really seen as appropriate. It cracks us up to see how they edit out the kissing scenes, but it is nice not to have to worry about sex scenes either.

What is popular music there?
American, Arabic, French, Indian…they have it from all over. I am trying to find some good local garage bands…but no luck yet. There is not enough good music that comes from the US. It is mostly Brittany Spears and bad R&B/Rap.

Are the people of Qatar as concerned with our politics and what happens here, as we in the U.S. are concerned with their politics?
Even more so. Qataris have a much better understanding of the US than we do of the Middle East. Most Americans have never even heard of Qatar….but then again a lot of American’s couldn’t pick Utah off of a map either. They pride themselves on being really educated about world politics. The US actually has pretty filtered reporting about the Middle East. All we (as Americans) “know” about the Middle East is that it is hot, has terrorists, and is always at war. While some of this is true for certain regions, there are a lot of different “worlds” and cultures that make up the Middle East. I think that most Americans that visit Doha are pleasantly surprised because it is so much nicer than what they were expecting.

Do they have pets like bulldogs and stuff? Or do they mostly have lizards and stuff like that?
There are a lot of stray cats everywhere. They seem pretty clean, so at first I thought they were pets. Apparently they are left alone because they keep the rodent population in check. I have seen very few dogs and when I do, they belong to Americans/Europeans. I don’t think Arabs usually have dogs as pets—I need to find out why. I have seen fish and bird pet stores, but that is about it. I found a cockroach in our kitchen the other day…does that count?

Are the cell phones they use there cooler than the ones they have here?
Yes, but they are more expensive. Cell phone plans are a lot more flexible here because you don’t have to sign up for a two year contract. You can pay by usage or by monthly or yearly plans. The downside of that is that you don’t get a free or discounted phone when you sign up. You have to buy them at full price. You will understand if you have ever tried to buy a cell phone without a cell phone plan—the prices are about the same. Jon and I both have the really simple Nokia model (which is like the first cell phone I ever owned.) It was about $50.00. The next cheapest phone is about $150.00 and then they go up exponentially from there. EVERYONE has a cell phone, only they call them mobiles. Everyone looks at me crazy when I refer to my “cell” phone.

Thanks for all the questions Steve. You and Susan both are "true friends." We miss you!

My Prayer Rug

Ever since I got here, I have been thinking about a passage in Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. It is where Pi is talking about how much he loves his prayer rug. It was one of my favorite parts of the book. I really like the idea of daily meditation, so I have been on the look out for a prayer rug to buy. I didn't want to spend a lot of money, since this was more for novelty than anything else. I found one last night at Carrefour (our "Wal-mart") for 12 Riyals ($3.28 USD), so I got it.

In honor of the occasion, here is the quote from Pi:

"I loved my prayer rug. Ordinary in quality though it was, it glowed with a beauty in my eyes. I am sorry I lost it. Wherever I laid it I felt special affection for the patch of ground beneath it and the immediate surrounding, which to me is a clear indication that it was a good prayer rug because it helped me remember that the earth is the creation of God and sacred the same all over...When I prayed, the short unknotted tassels were inches from the tip of my forehead at one end of the carpet and inches from the tip of my toes at the other, a cozy size to make you feel at home anywhere upon this vast earth."

--Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, ch. 27 page 76

Happy Easter Everyone!

Happy Easter everyone! It made me really homesick to see the pictures my family sent of blossoms on the trees in Utah and of the family all gathered together. I looked everywhere in Doha for signs of spring. This flowering tree was the closest I could find to "popcorn popping."

This Easter was a little different for us because it isn't celebrated openly here and because Friday is our "Sunday." So, for the first time on Easter, I went out to eat...twice. I met some Qatari friends for lunch at the Diplomatic Club. They had an Easter Brunch. It wasn't very "Eastery" or "Brunchy"....all the food was Lebanese. They did have hardboiled colored eggs as an appetizer, but that was about it. It was really good though and it was fun to see friends. Jon and I went to dinner with Kaylene and Steve Murray (friends from the ward). We had a good time.

We are very grateful this Easter for the many blessing in our life. The past 4 months have made us realize how much we have to rejoice about.

It's good to be a local

Beach at Al Khor

Park on the Beach at Al Khor

Museum at Al Khor (in the old police station)

Traditional fishing boat and fort tower at Al Khor

Greenest part of the the public gardens--THE PARKING LOT!

Camels on the side of the road.

The most exciting news for this week is that we rented a car! I don't know why we didn't do it sooner, except that we keep getting told that we will get our work cars "soon." It is so nice to have some freedom and not have to worry about accommodating everyone else's schedule. We celebrated by driving to Al Khor, an old fishing town north of Doha. We visited the beach, a small museum and the public park. We also saw a guy feeding his camels on the side of the highway. (Talk about a double take.) I am pretty sure we were the only westerners in the whole city. It was nice to do some touring outside the touristy area. I also got my haircut at a local shop. It was really nice to have it done finally and I like the cut.

On the drive to Al Khor, we made a list of the top 10 things we like about Doha and the top 10 things we don't:

10 THINGS WE LIKE: (in no particularly order)
1. You can withdraw money from any ATM (any Bank) with no fees or penalties. No more searching for your bank's ATMs. It is really convenient.
2. Traffic laws are mere suggestions. Traffic laws, roads, lanes, stop signs, speed limits, etc are really more just suggestions for good driving. Everyone tends to do what I call "Creative Driving." Forget driving straight down the road! The possibilities are endless. You won't even be pulled over for speeding. If you are caught speeding (by radar), they just mail the ticket to you. You can pay them online or at the airport (or else you can't leave the country.)
3. Everyone is really friendly. Especially in our area (where I think we are a bit of a novelty), everyone goes out of their way to help you and say hello. Even if they don't speak English very well, they will always do what they can.
4. I am considered beautiful here. I have had several people (women mostly) stop me on the street and tell me how beautiful I am. It is a nice ego boost. I really think it is because I have such fair skin. Instead of self-tanning cream, the stores carry cream to make your skin whiter. In the U.S. I am pastey--In Qatar I am pretty. I love this country.
5. Hummus. Just about everywhere you eat serves hummus with Arabic (pita) bread. Yum. Jon would never eat it when I bought it at home, but he loves it here.
6. Cheap Taxis. The taxi drivers are friendly (usually) and cheap. For more details, see past post.
7. No snow. This one is for Jon, NOT me. He has liked that it is so warm. Only problem is that it keeps getting hotter!
8. Souqs. Souqs are what the local markets are called. They have a lot of character and you can get some good deals. All the shops here are gathered together into categories. All the car shops together, book stores together, jewelry together, fish markets together, etc. If you want something, you just go to that area and pick from a number of stores. Bartering is expected.
9. Cute Coke Cans and KinderSuprise. This is a dumb one, but we love it. You can buy regular sized pop cans, but they also have smaller ones that are half the size. For people like me who can't handle a lot at once, they are great. I also love the KinderSuprise eggs. I first discovered these when I was living in Austria. They are chocolate eggs with little plastic eggs inside that hold toys. I love them because the toys come in parts and you have to put them together. Sure they are a choking hazard, but they are great fun.
10. It is a small city/country. No matter how lost you get, you can't ever get that lost. Everything is relatively close. You can get anywhere (in the city) you want in less than 45 minutes. A nice change from trying to get from one end of Sacramento to the other.

10 THINGS WE DON'T LIKE (in no particular order)
1. No plugs in the Bathrooms. There are NO electrical outlets in ANY bathrooms. Very annoying for trying to get ready in the morning. There are also no light switches in the bathroom. I can't tell you how many times I have been in a hurry and ended up there in the dark!
2. Never-ending construction. I have complained about this enough already. It is everywhere.
3. Shoddy plumbing. Ditto to the above.
4. Being stared at. Although there are some benefits to "standing out", I am very self-conscious about being stared at. Apparently no one was ever taught as a child not to stare.
5. TV and Cable. We don't watch much TV here, but we miss variety when we do. I don't want to hear anyone in the US complain about "50-100 channels and nothing to watch!" We get 3 English channels. As much as we love Dr. Phil and Oprah (sense subtle sarcasm), it gets a little old after a while.
6. No mountains or grass. I have started being able to find directions without mountains for reference, but I miss the green. There are some nicely planted areas, but I miss wildlife. Also, there is very little grass here. I try to take a picture anytime I see it.
7. Most parents don't make their kids sit in car seats. It drives me crazy to be driving down the street and see so many kids bouncing around in the back of cars. I can't believe that they don't take child safety in cars more seriously. We like the "creative driving" here, but it does cause a lot of accidents.
8. "In Shallah" This is a very nice phrase that means God Willing. It is nice in theory, but we always seem to hear it in relation to broken promises. I would vent more about this, but it just comes out blasphemous.
9. Trying to call any business on the phone. Part of it may be the language barrier, part of it is cultural norms, but very few people will do business with you over the phone. There is no such thing as calling a store to see if something is in stock or to ask a question. You could try, but inevitably, they will ask you to just come in.
10. Speed beeps. While no one really pays attention to the speed limit, your car does. If you go above 120 KM per hour (the highest speed limit), your car will beep at you. It is a warning sound like when you haven't buckled your seat belt or when you leave the door open. Can you guess who is annoyed by this most? Jon or me?

That's all for now. Crazy weekend. Early Bedtime.

Jon, The Teacher

Yeah! Today was a great day--Jon worked! He substituted at the American School of Doha for their speech and English classes. He loved it. He was so excited when they called that he did two Toyota jumps before he even hung up the phone. He is still waiting to hear on several jobs, but this should keep him busy in the mean time. It is an answer to our prayers.

Jon laughed at me because I made him stop and take a "first day of school" picture on the way out the door. I couldn't help it. He looked so cute in his shirt and tie.

Dancing in the River...

Last week I went with some friends here to a dance concert. The concert was part of a cultural festival held in Doha. It showcased dance groups from around the world—some of the groups were a local traditional drum group, Riverdance (Ireland), Tap Dogs (Australia, US, Canada), Night of the Sultans (Turkey), Yamato (drummers from Japan), Ballet Teatro Espanol (Flamenco dance from Spain), and the German Ballet Company (which in my opinion was neither German nor ballet.)

Although the hosts were painfully cheesy and their script was terrible, the dancing was pretty good. We enjoyed the show. Riverdance and Tap Dogs were my favorite. The stage was really cool. It was out on the golf course.

The show was supposed to be the night after our big thunderstorm, but the storm destroyed the stage. They postponed it a night and rebuilt what they could. In some of the pictures, you can see plastic covering the left third of the background. I am amazed they pulled it off in such short time. I have posted more pictures of the night to emilyparks.shutterfly.com

Water, taken in moderation...

We hope you all are doing well. Things are going well on this side of the world. I just can’t believe it is April already!! March went by SO fast.

I am going to start posting updates to the blog everyday or at least several times a week. These will just be short daily entries. You can check then whenever you like, I am not going to send these out by email. I will still send out an email every few weeks with general updates. I just feel like I put off writing things down because it takes so long and I feel like I have to include everything in these emails—even though I never do. There are some nights where I just want to post a thought.

I turned 27 on March 19th. For my birthday Jon, Marya and I went to a sushi restaurant at the Ramada Hotel. It was really good. They didn’t have a very large menu, but everything they had was great. They also had a hibachi grill where they cooked food in front of you, so Jon was happy too. (Jon doesn’t like sushi, so I only get it on special occasions or when he is in trouble.) When we got home, Jon surprised me with a really cool table. I saw it the other day at an Iranian carpet store and fell in love with it. It is a long sofa table. The top is made from an old door. I wanted it for our living room so that I would have somewhere to put out photos of family and friends. Jon bargained with the store owner and got it for a great deal. It isn’t the most practical gift, but hey, what else are birthdays are for?! I love it. It is beautiful. Marya gave me a really cool Indian blanket from the same store. It has appliqué of a large tree and a couple of other animals. It is unlike anything I have ever seen. Jon also surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers. It was a great birthday over all. Thanks to everyone for sending me ecards and emails. It was really nice to hear from everyone on my birthday. It made me feel loved and not so homesick.

March is a great month for birthdays. Marya turned 50 about a week after me. We threw her a surprise party. We did a double surprise party because one of our friends in the ward was also turning 50 that week. Half the ward showed up. I seriously think we had 40-50 people at our place. It was a lot of fun. We had a big dinner buffet and played a true/false game about each birthday boy/girl. It was really funny. I have known Marya for about 8 years now, but even I learned some things! Marya said she is going to kill me (which I knew she would), but I think she had a good time.

You have heard me talk before about the construction in Qatar. I think I may have complained to some of you that EVERYTHING is tile and that I miss having carpet. Well…in the last two weeks we have figured out why they always use tile—and it isn’t just because of the sand. A couple of Friday’s ago we came home from church to find our two area rugs and a couple of other things out on the sidewalk. While we were at church, the pipe under the sink broke (actually, a plug just popped off because it was never sealed properly.) Water from the hot water pipes flooded from the sink at the back of the house through the kitchen, down the hall, into the TV room, into the dining room, through the entryway, and out the front door. The guards in our compound noticed the water flowing out the front door and ran and got our neighbor. They came in and shut the water off and pulled everything out into the sun to dry. Luckily our furniture sits up on wooden legs so nothing was ruined. The rugs smelled pretty bad, but a few days out in the sun cured that. We just smiled, laughed about it, and were grateful that it wasn’t worse.

Last night we had a HUGE rain storm—monsoon like. It rarely rains in Qatar—only a few times a year. When it does rain the city is totally unprepared for it because there are very few drains or gutters in the city. The water just runs down the streets. Last night the storm started with a fantastic lightning show. It must have gone on for at least an hour. It was a really nice night, so we went out onto the roof to watch. It was amazing. They just kept coming. The whole sky behind our compound lit up with one lightning bolt after another. I finally came back in to spend some time on the computer catching up on emails. After a few minutes I heard the rainstorm starting outside. I was so excited to hear rain that I ran to the front door with the camera. It was out of control. I have rarely seen so much rain come down at once. In a matter of minutes our street had turned into a river. I tried to take pictures, but couldn’t get enough light to really do it justice. I love storms. I love the sound, the smell, and the changes that a great storm brings. This definitely was a great one—especially since we have two kinds of weather here: hot and muggy and occasionally sand and windy. In the middle of my excitement, I heard a strange sound behind me. It was a drip, drip, drip—a common sound in a storm, but strange because it was coming from behind me—from INSIDE the house. The window at the top of the house (the one that goes out to the roof) was leaking. It leaked down the wall of the stairwell and was dripping to the first floor. The good news is that it was dripping directly into one of our potted plants. The bad news is it was a plant with big leaves—it was hitting the leaves and splashing onto the TV and speakers. I grabbed a bucket and stuck it under it. We had one or two other leaks, but they were in areas where it didn’t really matter. Two of my coworkers are out of town right now, so we ran (in the middle of the monsoon) to their houses to make sure everything was OK. In one house, the water was leaking from the door to the roof all the way down the stairs to the first floor. There was a huge puddle at the bottom of the stairs, but no water damage to anything. In the second house there was a bad leak in the kitchen and a really bad leak in the office. When I walked into the office, water was dripping from the AC unit directly onto their wireless router. There was a huge puddle of water on the floor, right around the desk and all the electrical equipment. We quickly turned off the plugs, unplugged everything and pulled it to dry ground. Today, everything is dried out and I think it survived. We just had a good laugh. I have a friend here that has a phrase for times like these: “T.I.Q.”—this is Qatar. It just cracks me up because our place is really nice, but nobody thought about water proofing the house. Who needs their windows and air conditioning units sealed? Not us! Mark Twain said, "Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody." I am not sure I agree.

Last email I asked people to send me questions they had about Qatar. The Hampton family (my oldest sister’s family) sent me the following questions. My answers are in blue:

Daniel (age 8): How is Uncle Jon? He is doing really well. He misses all of his nieces and nephews though. Is there any video games there? There are video games here, but we don’t have any. There are a lot of stores that sell video games and I think a lot of kids play them. How is the food? The food is really good. One of our favorite kinds of food here is called Hummus. It is made from garbanzo beans and you eat it with flat bread.

Laura (age 12): Question #1: What kind of clothes do they wear there? The women here wear robes called abayas. They are like black graduation gowns that you wear over your clothes. They also wear black scarves over their heads. Underneath the abaya, they wear clothes just like you and me. The men wear long white gowns that look like dress shirts, but are long and reach all the way to the floor. They wear white or red-checkered scarves over their heads. Question #2: What is their favorite thing to eat? They eat a lot of grilled meat, flat bread, hummus, and other dips for bread. Question #3: What is the land like there, are there any mountains, if so, what do they look like? The land is flat and sandy. It is a desert. There are no mountains. The highest point is 300 feet above sea level. Besides our family and friends, I think I miss mountains most. Question #4: What is the humidity and temperature usually like? Lately it has been around 80-85 degrees. It will get very hot in the summer and very humid. It isn’t too humid yet. It just feels muggy like just before a rainstorm, only it usually doesn’t rain. Question #5: Is it difficult getting used to the major time change and having Church on a Friday, instead of a Sunday? We adjusted to the time change really quickly. It is strange going to church on Friday, mostly because Saturday isn’t until the day after church. Question #6: Are you getting tired of all these questions? 'Cause I'm just doing what you asked, asking questions. Never. I love questions. Question #7: Could you send us some pictures of some of your favorite things, and some other pictures of what your house likes? I have posted a lot of pictures on the web on shutterfly.com. Everyone should be able to look at them at: emilyparks.shutterfly.com (There are 9 albums posted right now, you just have to scroll down to view them. It also helps to view the pictures in slideshow mode.)

Matthew (age 4): Are you having fun in Qatar? We are having a lot of fun. We just wish you could be here to have fun with us. Do you see any kids there? We see a lot of kids here. They are really cute and funny. They have families and play with friends and go to school just like kids you know.

We love and miss you all! Send us emails and pictures. We love getting them! Love, Em and Jon