Counting down

Only 6 more weeks till the end of our first contract and we'll be flying back to NZ. I'm getting very excited about seeing everyone again. I remember back to when I was making that hard decision to come up to Qatar and thinking that an 8 month contract wasn't that long and the time will fly - well I have to say a lot has happened in those 8 months and it seems like a long time ago since we were in NZ.
Today we woke up to a dust storm. Here is a before and after shot.
At 6.30 in the morning yesterday it was 38 degrees rising to an unofficial 45 during the day. It was hot but generally I'm working in air con so it's not too bad. When we leave the school, walking to the car the heat is OK because you feel like you need a bit of warming up after being inside all morning. Then after 10 mins or so the air con in the car starts to kick in.

Last weekend we went on a fishing trip on a big old dhow. Here are a couple of photos

Doha Panorama

Hi Folks - here are some recent photos taken on a clear day from the top of Golden Tower - about 35 storeys up. Golden is on the edge of the West Bay Building Area where most of the tallest buildings are being built.
From the start of the pictures you can see towards the old part of Doha where many of the Governmental buildings are and all the Bank head offices and also all of the " Souks " ( markets ). The photos then progress through West Bay then over the water to the Pearl ( see earlier blog ) and the two zig-zag wiggly towers. Lastly you then get to see the residential areas - inland from the built up coast - starting from the north through the west and on to the south.
It would certainly be very interesting to see this place in ten years time when it will be mostly finished as at present we are in the fairly early stages - most of these buildings weren't here five years ago.
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There are plans for all sorts of tourist attractions where the old port is now. Also planned is to be the tallest building in the world at just over a kilometer high ...just to out do the Burj Dubai...someone has to I guess. Dubai has come to a bit of a standstill with the economic sitaution hitting pretty hard. Many buildings have stopped mid construction and many are barely occupied and many totally empty. Qatar however with it's huge reserves of gas continues at pace. Large scale road systems are still underway - hence the current congestion problems, and there are plans for an impressive above ground ( I think ) mono-rail system linking the whole city and most of the outer industrial, power and gas towns.

Qatar is establishing itself as a major destination point for tourism, conferences and a major world Airport stopover to rival or probably overtake that of Dubai. For such a small country they are stamping out their place as a major player in the Middle East. They certainly have an impressive record for initiating and hosting peace initiatives in this part of the world.
So all in all it is an interesting time to be here - Hey you could always come and visit!!!!

Dip Club

The Dip Club is a place we go to to swim. It also has a gym which I try to get to a couple of times a week, my only exercise apart from walking up flights of stairs in the apartment block!

Check out this link and zoom out using the side bar, you will see that the Dip Club is opposite The Pearl which is a huge off-shore development with large scale building going on. The Dip Club has its own private beach overlooking The Pearl. It's a great place to spend the weekend relaxing away from the eyes of muslim men as it's not really the done thing for women to swim at the local beaches. If we drive out of Doha we are able to find deserted beaches to swim in but when you are living and working in the city and the weather is starting to heat up the Dip Club is truly wonderful.

Rain in Qatar

It was a real downpour.
Last weekend a group of us decided we would head 'up north' to spend the day picnicing, swimming and fishing. We woke up to dark clouds and light rain but thought we would go anyway - it doesn't usually rain in Qatar for long - wrong! We drove in convoy up to Zekreet, which will be the main highway to Bahrain in the future. They will be building a massive bridge to join the two

countries (at present it is under construction - in parts it has 4 lanes). It rained on and off for most of the day - but we did mange to set up our picnic and eat, it did get quite cold though. We were all in raincoats and had pasminas or towels wrapped around us for warmth - hard to believe. Ever optimistic and always keen to throw a rod in the water Brian went fishing for a short time.

The drainage system here is not used to rain hence the puddle - the round abouts were fun! - Brian used them as an excuse to clean the car of wet sandy mud after our off road excursion into the desert. This photo is outside our apartment - usually a dry dusty road.

Kurdish National Day - New Year Celebrations

We had the most interesting day yesterday - we were invited to the Kurdish National Day. The Kurds don't actually have a recognised homeland - they were orginally part of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria. You can read about Kurdistan here.
A social studies teacher at one of the schools I go to, who is Kurdish, invited the Cognition team that work at that school along for the day. The event was held in a 'zoo park' which actually was a very sad place - the animals were being kept in terrible small cages and the zoo itself was in disrepair. The park area was a large grassed area with trees for much needed shade.
They played music and we all eventually joined in dancing - Brian even got up and danced! There must have been over 500 people there - mainly men. They come to Doha without thier wives to earn the money. There were other nationalities there as well but we were the only westerners. We felt so wamrly welcomed that Joy, got up on stage and sang Pokarekareana. We joined her in song! They loved it.

Beetles

I thought I would show you this beetle that we stumbled upon out in the desert a week or so ago. I leapt in the air and screamed as I wasn't expecting to see something so big crawl out from under the rock! What do you think it is Ash - it was black with white dots on its back
We haven't seen many insects. There aren't even any cockroaches in this apartment building - thank goodness!!

Water, water, everywhere ...

......well not water that you can drink anyway. I thought I would show you our system for drinking water - we buy these large 25 litre water bottles for around $4NZ. We bought a pumping mechanism that we attach and voila fresh? drinking water. Not the same as just turning on the tap though. The tap water is desalinated and not so nice - full of things we're not sure about!
I'm drinking a lot of green tea and my favourite drink - lemon and mint blended with sugar and ice - divine. And of course one of us is keeping up their coffee intake......No points for guessing who that might be.

March already...

Golly it's about time I put something on my blog - it's been a while. Mr Brain seems to have had more time lately to spend composing ... hence the kiwi desserts entry.

Work has been progressing well - it's good to see some of the teachers putting into practice what you suggest and being happy to see you when you visit them again. A big step is getting schools using their 'grunty' IT infrastructure - they run around with flash drives infecting computers with their viruses! instead of saving onto the network to print etc. They're not really into sharing!! I have shown teachers how to record their student's talking (practising their English), with one making use of Voicethread, simple digital stories are being made, Activboards are starting to be used and two or three have had a play around with simple webquests. I love these two drawings - simple but cute, very Arabic.

I have been occupied organising my workshop at an ICT conference held last weekend. There were a few of us from work who presented which was good. It was only the second time that this particular conference has been run - the first time they have had hands-on workshops. They were very successful as it gave the teachers a chance to 'learn by doing'. There were a number of teachers from the schools we work in who were able to come - a great opportunity for them to hear the message about 21st century learners.
The food was excellent. They supplied breakfast as well as a huge lunch - lunch seems to be the main meal of the day here. It was free for teachers to attend. The presenters were invited to a meal at the Ritz, which was also a treat, the night before the conference. The overseas presenters were staying there - lucky them.

It's driving Jim ...but not as we know it

Driving continues to be a source of constant entertainment. Not an outing goes by without witnessing at least one act of total lunacy. I don’t know where some people obtain their licenses as there are no Woolworths here.
This photo shows an impatient driver in his LandCruiser driving up onto the traffic island to jump the cue (maybe a bit hard to see). I don't usually have my camera with me in the car...a classic shot!
The indicator seems to be something yet to be fathomed by most, yet all know where the horn is located. It is common to get headlight flashed from someone behind you to get out of their way. Often due to the inside lane being packed you can’t do anything about it and not being able move aside infuriates the flasher even more. At times like this, as you are most definitely not allowed to make any hand gestures ( or as it happens, flash your lights to make people get out of your way in the first place ) , I put on my hazard lights briefly as a visual substitute for a friendly hand gesture, hopefully infuriating the flasher even more. This practice requires utmost care as the flasher will more than likely cut dangerously in front of you, missing you by centimeters, if given the chance to get past you on the inside lane which he will do by pushing in and not using his indicators. On the open road however it is best to get out of the flashers way as he is very likely to be coming up behind you at well over the speed limit. Inevitably these drivers are locals in their huge 4 wheel drives. Extreme tail gating is common and you hear stories of them nudging the car in front from behind at 120+ kmph…..Not something you want to happen to you, having a big Land Cruiser right up your jacksy is bad enough..
Recently we saw a 4x4 get up onto two wheels and attain almost 45 degrees by attempting a roundabout at great speed. He was up for a good 2 seconds and quite how he didn’t flip over is beyond me, although it wouldn’t surprise me that this may have been an intentional stunt as there was a vehicle parked up that seemed to be waiting and watching. Tonight I was passed by someone doing at least 150kms in a 100 zone on a reasonably busy 3 lane road, he then proceeded to get sideways getting on to the roundabout and passing everyone on it.
You see crashed vehicles all too frequently on the side of the road and although I haven’t yet witnessed an accident happen I have come across plenty of very recent ones. A number of big trucks and tankers have overturned recently, apparently going too fast on roundabouts. There also appears to be a large boy racer fraternity judging by all the burn out marks on some of the roads. What else is a poor rich boy to do when he has Daddys ( or his own ) Maserati or Ferrari for the evening.
Luckily for everybody there is very little drinking, due largely to the limited availability of alcohol and the Koran which forbids partaking, else it would be carnage out there.
So far we have both managed to avoid any accidents although have had plenty of close calls. Roundabouts are a particular worry as many are 3 lanes and people just don’t keep to the lanes they should even though there are clear road markings. The trick is to avoid being next to anyone as they will more than likely be in the wrong lane and cut you and others off. Other important strategies are a. be prepared to go around again as you have just been cut off or forced away from your intended exit by someone in the wrong lane, b. be prepared to hit the brakes at any given moment, c. hope above all that you survive the roundabout unscathed and d. expect the unexpected as this is most likely to happen . A finely tuned mix of defensive and aggressive driving seems to be your best option if you want to get anywhere.

Weather

It’s the dust storm season now and instead of having the desert outside we now have it inside as well. The dust from the desert, and all the construction going on, is as fine as talc and finds its way everywhere. The nature of buildings here is that they are not especially well built and have many gaps, particularly around windows and doors, and that dust seems to find its way in. When a dust storm is in full swing you can hardly see more than 40-50 metres maximum. i.e. just being able to make a shape of a building out. Clarity ( if you can call it that ) is down to about 10 - 15 metres. On these occasions the wind is fair howling so the dust is coming at you more or less horizontally and can really sting. You also have to be mindful of not being hit by any airborne objects due to the unfortunate habit of people just dropping their rubbish wherever they happen to be. I saw a guys hard hat fly off and end up bouncing at least 100m down the road.

It is just starting to warm up a little after the last couple of months where it has been quite cool, ranging from around 6 – 10 degrees at night to the early 20’s during the day. Maybe because of this gradual warming we are also seeing a lot of heavy fog in the mornings. Makes for an interesting drive to work, more so for for Lynne, who, because she is going to many schools, and some in new locations, can get lost all too easily. It is very easy in thick fog to lose your bearings once you get away from any recognizable landmarks.

Arabian architecture

Thought I would have a go with a new way of sharing photos. Mostly old forts and mosques around Oman.

Camel facts

Some random facts found on the net....Did you know the camel has played such an important role in Arab culture that there are over 160 words for "camel" in the Arabic language. The Arabian camel has a single hump and the average life expectancy of a camel is forty to fifty years. Camels do not store water in their humps as is commonly believed; the humps are actually a reservoir of fatty tissue. Camels are able to withstand changes in body temperature and water content that would kill most other animals.
Photos courtesy of Panasonic Lumix....
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Man Oman

We had a fantastic time in Oman...What a stunning place it is. We arrived in the Capital city of Muscat which is a lovely city, quite different than here in Doha. No flashy highrise buildings to be seen but many beautiful older style buildings instead. The country is only about 30 years westernised if you can call it that, but they have opted by decree of the Sultan to not go in the Dubai/ Doha fashion of huge multi story buildings, rather they have opted for the more traditional Islamic style of architecture which is refreshingly pleasant.
Some friends of ours - Sue and Dave and Sues son Fraser arrived on the second day and travelled with us for three days which was great.
Muscat is a lovely city built on the coast amongst quite dramatic rocky terrain. On our second day we went to the Muscat Festival which was on at a large Nature park. Fantastic environment with thousands of Omani families out celebrating the festival. The Omanis are very friendly people and look stunning in their national dress. We spent a few hours there taking in the sights which included a traditional cultural area with song ,dance, food, traditional handcrafts and lifestyle. There was a large lake in the middle where a stunning water, fire and fireworks display was on. We were standing around at one point and a man approached us to say he was from a local radio station and would we like to be interviewed live on air. We said no problem and went through the interview with a very pleasant Omani woman interviewer asking us about our thoughts on the festival and Oman etc...after the interview she said would we like to go and stay at a desert resort for a night, which of course we said yes we would love to so the next day she dropped off a voucher for a one night stay ( worth approximately NZ$500 ). We were able to book a night with our friends Sue and Dave and Fraser.
On our way there we went to a place on the coast Called Ras al Hadd where nearby at Ras al Jinz there is a protected beach that Green Turtles come on to the beach every night to lay their eggs and also every night baby turtles emerge from the sand and make their way to the sea. We stayed at a lovely beach at Ras al Hadd in some traditional thatched style cottages and of course went one night to get the tour of the turtle beach. What an amazing experience to see them and such a beautiful relaxing place to stay right on the beach where the water was lovely and crystal clear and warm for swimming.
We then made our way to the desert camp which was an interesting drive. Luckily we had hired a four wheel drive Nissan otherwise wouldn't have been able to get there. Real sandy desert with sand hills and the most magical light especially evening and early morning.
After our one night free stay we headed back to Muscat via a city called Nizwa to see and visit the magnificent fort there. There are forts everywhere due to the occupation centuries ago by the Portuguese. Quite a long drive that day and after dropping Sue and Dave and Fraser off at the airport we then went up the coast and found a seaside resort at a place called Al Sawadi. Luck was with us and they had a special offer of two night accommodation for the price of one night at this fabulous and luxurious 4 star resort. Accommodation is very expensive with budget starting at about $200NZ a night. We spent much time by the pool and eating beautiful breakfasts and dinners and also driving around the local area.
We then decided to go to a place called Jabal Shams which is the highest point in Oman and also where they have what they call their own Grand Canyon. After asking directions from three separate sources we took advise on what was supposed to be the quickest way there. What a trip that was. I have never seen or driven on a road like it before. Lynne was beside herself with near panic as we made our way over huge mountainous hills on what would have been once a camel track and is now a one lane road. Unsealed and with the car in lo ratio 4 wheel drive we made our way zig zagging up and down for hours to cover about 40 kms. Imagine the old Napier Taupo road and multiply that by at least 10 times worse and you may have an idea what it was like. Crazily as we made it up to the top of the highest point there to our surprise was a brand new sealed road on the other side. We nearly got out and kissed the tarmac I can tell you. What a drive.
After that episode we visited some interesting caves on our way to Nizwa again.
At a restaurant in town we met a nice couple Michael and Sunok. He is Australian and she is from South Korea. We chatted for quite a while and they offered for us to stay the night at their place which was nice. He is teaching at the University there and she j hopes to get a job there also. Very nice people and lucky for us to have a night to stay without the expense of a hotel.
Then back to Muscat for two days where we stayed at a Dive Centre on the coast in lovely little beachside chalets.
We went back to the festival again as it was such good fun the first time and as Brian's pay had finally come through we were able to buy a few nice things at the Handicraft section where they had rooms of local crafts from many different Middle East countries...along with some very yummy preserves from the Croatia room.
So now it is holiday over and back to work in a couple of days.....that is always the problem with holidays .... they finish.....

A few random shots in no particular order Click on the slideshow to make the photos bigger
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Marhaba - hello

Hey Carlos - good to see you -now you'll have to send us an email as I've spied you following the blog. It's great to get those emails from you all - I love getting up in the morning, at the crack of dawn and checking my emails. It's always a nice surprise to start the day with a read of news back home.
Brian and I went for a walk to a local park not far from our apartment. It wasn't a big park but there was lots of green grass, tall trees, flowers, seats and a children's play area. We sat for a while to take in the scene and felt like we were back in NZ. Then the sound of the call to pray came loud and clear from the mosque next to the park - suddenly we were jolted back to reality. Not that it's an unpleasant sound but very much a muslim thing - 5 times a day starting at 5.00 (in the summer about 4.30) they sort of make this song/chant to encourage/remind all good people to come to the mosque to pray.
Only 3 more days before the end of semester one. The odd part is the kids are not at school, they are strangely missing. It seems that once the end of semester exams are finished they don't come to school. The teachers have to be around, planning for semester two with the help of Cognition advisors.
We're off to Oman for 10 days.

School life

I thought I would add an update about my work in the Qatar schools. We are coming to the end of Semester one and we will have a two week break. Semester two starts 8th Feb and goes through for 20 weeks without any breaks - no public holidays, no long weekends. It's going to be strange especially as the temperature will start to heat up.

My job has been about encouraging the ICT teachers to try out new software, adding projects as their focus rather than just skills and activity sheets. They are very positive and appreciative of new ideas and have commented that they have noticed student behaviour has changed. One said he felt like he was making the learning more relevant to the boys! (I love it!). Some are now keen to offer their support to the class teachers, working with the english, science and maths classes.
I ran a webquest workshop with teachers at one school in their ICT Lab- I need a translator for these sessions! Lots for them to learn and take in but it has meant that teachers are feeling a little more familiar with the Lab and are booking their classes in there, in curriculum class time. Some English teachers are making use of photos and movie footage to motivate writing - they were impressed with the boys ideas and said they had written more using this idea.
I have set up a wiki for use for all the Cognition teachers (Advisory Teachers - ATs) in Qatar -as a way to share online resources. The neat part is some of the ATs can see the usefulness of them and are setting up wikis for their schools and their particular curriculum area. A couple of local teachers have made themselves one as well. Yay - we're making a start with the Web 2.0!! - we are making progress.

The kids are great - they love it when you show an interest in what they are doing. They love it when you try to speak a little bit of Arabic. I get them to help me with new phrases.
Marhaba - hello or welcome or salam ali coom
Mumtaz - excellent (they laugh when you say their work is mumtaz!)
Kaif harlitch - how are you, to which the reply is - ahum dela la
Mar sa la ma - good bye
I'm getting over my shyness at speaking in Arabic - it's getting a little easier.

I had to take a photo of the classroom ruless.

2009

New years eve was a quiet affair. New Years Day was a work day. But we're off out to celebrate the start of the new year with a group of fellow apartment dwellers and colleagues from other apartment blocks tonight (day 2, 2009) We've booked for 30+ - not the easiest of tasks to book a place for that number. We'll raise a glass of lemon and mint to family and frinds back home.

I got my first parking ticket last week - I didn't think they did parking tickets over here - you don't see any parking meters or ticket wardens wondering around. I came back to my car to find a bl----y yellow sticker on my window, written in arabic. I went into the Cognition office after work and asked if anyone knew what these yellow stickers were!! They all laughed....$NZ150 for parking in the wrong place - not like back home - $20.
One of the teacher consultants here got a $NZ3,000 ticket for going through a red light - that's serious money.

It is a very weird day here today - very windy and cloudy - no blue sky. I have even got my Kathmandu jacket on inside cause it's a little chilly. It feels like there is going to be a big sand storm.
Yesterday I had to drive to work in very thick fog - that was a slow trip. It lifted at about 9.00.

A thought .... you don't see spiders or spider webs here. In fact I haven't seen many insects apart from large ants sometimes- no more cockroaches either (touch wood). There was a scorpion at one of the schools last week - a teacher showed me the photos - large and black - yuck.
I'm enjoying cooking - I made a pav for xmas dinner, we had a couple over for a curry the other night which was delish and I've just made some cheese scones for me and Brian - I'm off to eat them

Things to ponder

We hope everyone had a great Christmas and here's wishing you all a wonderful New Year and a fantastic 2009. Only one day to go...Who knows what the new year will bring for us but it is sure to be different and although hard work will be on the cards we do hope to get away for a bit of a holiday at the end of January/ early February as there are no holidays after that until Lynne's contract finishes at the end of June.

Christmas day was a little different for us this year - Xmas eve here we managed to skype Brian's Mum in Napier which was Xmas morning in NZ. We also woke Dan (sorry Sarah) up early on Xmas morning to have a wee chat. Then we went off to bed and woke to find it was Xmas afternoon - NZ time. So much had happened in that time that we had sadly missed.
We had a Christmas breakfast with some friends across town and then had a big get together for an afternoon/ evening meal ( and a few drinks ) here with many of the apartment dwellers in our block. So a good time was had even though we couldn't share it with our friends and family back home.

Celebrating the New Year is not a big deal here. I'm still not sure what we are doing as yet - we have work the next day ( Brian has the day off and is hoping to go Fishing and maybe even catching something). We could go to a flash hotel and enjoy an expensive drink or 2 with the many other expats here and then get a taxi home or get together with some of the folks here and have a few quiet ones up on the roof and watch the fireworks that are supposed to happen. They do good fireworks over here - We'll keep you posted as to what we got up to....

Felucca down the Nile

We spent 2 nights sailing - a very relaxing time except for the mozzies on the first night. We were joined by 3 young guys - 2 from Oz and 1 from UK. Check out the cooking facilities on the boat - he cooked and served all meals; breakfast, lunch and tea. Brian had a swim and I went in up to my waist! It was cold but like NZ waters you sooned warmed up. There were no toilet facilities on the boat - if you needed to go we just had to tell the crew ( 2 local Nubians) and they would pull over to land and off we'd go....an interesting experience. Luckily I didn't find out there were no toilets on the boat until we were just about to board!!
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Pyramids

Here are some classic shots of the pyramids - both at Giza and Saqara.
They are huge and impressive.

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Christmas is close...

It is feeling much cooler here now. I'm even having to wear socks around the house on the cold tile floors. We were standing on top of our apartment last night watching a big fireworks display with a group and we were all complaining how cold it was - we were all rugged up in jackets (I think it was around 16C). Mind you as someone said it's preferable to the 50c+ it gets in June/July.

We have a long weekend - Qatar is celebrating it's National Day. They have had a big parade along the Corniche (waterfront). Unfortunately we only watched it live on TV as we didn't want to get caught up in the crowds/traffic jam. It was impressive watching the camel army and funny seeing the marching band with bagpipes - the parade walked past the Emir and all the Arab dignatories sitting in a large open tent.

We will miss the whole family xmas festivities - we hope to skype everyone at home. We do get xmas day off and luckily it falls on a thursday which is the last day of the week over here so we'll enjoy xmas as a long weekend. We are having a late lunch/tea with a group of people at our apartment. It will be enjoyable but not the same as the company of family on this day.

Carry On Up The Nile

Technically that should be down the Nile ( or Neil as the locals often say....We opted for Neil as it sounded so much more friendly) but more on that later.

We started our trip in Cairo - what an eye-opener of a place. We had thought the driving in Doha was pretty crazy but Cairo takes that prize by a vast margin. We dont know why they bother with traffic lights or lanes as everybody ignores them - cars, motorbikes, donkey and horse drawn carts criss cross in all directions, quite how they don't have more accidents is beyond comprehension - as our driver from the Airport said you need ten eyes and a strong heart to survive the mayhem that is driving in Cairo.
By far the majority of cars were old Peugeot 504's along with the odd Renault 12 and Fiat 125. The cars like the city were old and crumbling.

Cairo has a population of over 20 million and is full on 24 hours a day. There are people everywhere and it is all close quartered stuff. Most of them seemed to be out on the street just outside our hotel at night. Kind of oppressing but not really scary. The place is old and looks it, with everything in a state of decay and rubbish everywhere.

The pyramids ( 2580 B.C. ) of course were very impressive and photos just dont do their magnificence justice. Also we visited the pyramids and tombs at Saqqara ( 3000 B.C. ) some of the oldest to be found.
A long ( 14 Hour ) train trip to Aswan took up day 3. Aswan is a beautiful small city on the banks of Neil far to the south of Cairo. Our hotel was right on the banks and very luxurious and very relaxing.
Days 4 to 5 found us on a Felucca, a local sailing boat, again relaxing as we travelled down river towards Luxor. That was a real highlight of our trip and we lay about just taking in the views and particularly enjoying the sunsets and sunrises and the onboard cuisine cooked by our two crew - a couple of affable fellows and big Bob Marley fans.

Luxor is another very pretty city on the banks of Neil. At Luxor we visited the Valleys of the Kings ( where Tutenkhamuns ( 1336 B.C. ) tomb is found ) and Queens as well as Queen Hatshepsuts Temple ( 1470 B.C. ) and the amazing Karnak Temple where they did a great line in Columns.

Egypt ( and Egyptians ) largely appear( s ) to be very poor. Farming seems to still be very much hard work done by hand and Bullock pulled ploughs. Country folk get around on donkeys and carts. Tractors were a rare sight and farm buildings were often of mud or brick construction and pretty run down looking , yet the country exports quite a lot of farm produce. Tourism is the biggest income earner and you get hassled a lot by sellers at all the temples and in any of the fascinating and colourful markets. Even resorting to physical restraint ( mostly harmless ) at one place where a leather belt was not purchased by a desperate vendor. Hard bargaining is a must and often you get something for a fraction of the first given price. You wonder after any purchase that you most probably could have got it for a lot less even if it seemed a bargain anyway. A lot of fun.

One week is not nearly enough time to visit this most interesting country and there are many places we just didnt have time to visit... Who knows, we may make it back sometime, probabaly not to Cairo though. We'd be quite happy to give that a miss. There are just so many countries to visit around this part of the world and high on the list of recommendations are Jordan, Turkey, Oman ( possibly Jan/ Feb ), Iran, Morrocco....the list goes on...Cant wait until the next Holiday break. After 30 years the old itchy travelling feet seem to have reoccurred.

Apartment living - no. 2

We've been in our new apartment block for a week now. It's much lighter and with a view, but in a seedier part of town across from a motorway. We have to leave the aircon going in the spare room to drown out the drone of the motorway at night!. It's comfortable - we're now on the third floor. I do like having a bit of a view. The roof is great especially at sunset - I'll take a photo tonight and post it. In the photo slideshow you can see the front of the building - with Brians green truck in the front and you can see the view across the motorway - a mosque and other family homes. No apartments across from us.

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Eid Mubarak

Happy Eid ( Eid Mubarak ) to all our blog followers.

Eid al-Adha is a religious festival celebrated by Muslims. The festivities last for two to three days or more depending on the country - the Emir has given us all a week holiday. Eid occurs the day after the pilgrims conducting Hajj ( the annual pilgrimage to Mecca by Muslims worldwide ) descend from Mt. Arafat. People go on the Hajj once in their lifetime and it's quite a big deal with a lot of preparation going into it. I think they can only wear white.

This year in Qatar Eid lasts from Sunday until Thursday and this means there is pretty much a week of public holidays. Yay - a well deserved break from the daily grind.

The desert Kiwis are off to Egypt for a week and are very excited about the thought of a bit of Pyramid and Sphynx spotting and a Felucca trip on the Nile. We start off in Cairo then train to Aswan and a sailing boat ( felucca ) trip ( hopefully - not yet organised ) to Luxor. Thanks Geoffrey for your help with our itineary.

So keep checking out the blog, when we get back we will post an article and some photos.