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 w
eek 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
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