The Kebab Kid - written entirely by Will Mullin

December 18, 2012

My favourite resaurant in doha is Shujaa restaurant. It is a small place near the bird souq in the Souq Waqif. There you can eat kebabs. 2 or 1 plates. Chickin or beef. The kebabs come on metel sqers. Be carefel not to poke yourself! 

If you visit Doha you HAVE to go to Shujaa Restaurant. 

I can’t wait to eat it again -  yummy!!!

Will, Age 6

Ahmed The Camel Has....One Hump.

Today we ventured off to find the camel races, which are rumoured to occur on Fridays and Saturdays at 6am and 2pm. Camel racing, “the Sport of Sheikhs” is an old Bedouin tradition in Qatar, but the races have changed in recent years...for the better. Before 2004, children as young as three, four and five were used as jockeys for the camel races. Most disturbing is that these children were kidnapped and stolen from Africa and Asia and their “owners” starved them of food to keep their weight down. There are some enlightening and very upsetting documentaries on YouTube about this topic; an HBO Real Sports story convinced the governments of Qatar and UAE to stop using children in this sport. In 2004, the Emir of Qatar followed UAE’s actions, and banned child jockeys. Robot jockeys are now used.  

The start

robot jockeys

When we arrived, we saw the camel owners, all Qatari men, and camel trainers, Indian and Pakistani men, getting their camels and robot jockeys all organized for the races. The robot jockeys are operated by remote control and are also outfitted with a walkie talkie. It’s quite funny to see fifty or sixty camels all sitting down with little tiny robots strapped to their backs. We saw the start of the race and were then ushered into a bus which drove along the inside of the track to watch the camels race along the 6km course. We drove alongside the camel owners in their Landcruisers and listened to the camel race commentary at full volume in Arabic. Camels are not very graceful runners, but they can maintain 40km/h for quite a distance.

Camel trainer chatting on his mobile phone

After two laps on the bus, we decided to give it a go in our own little Suzuki. So off we went - it was crazy!! The camel owners drive on the road beside their camels and yell into their walkie talkies and beep their horns incessantly. It’s amazing that the cars didn’t bump into each other the way they were driving! What a crazy experience!

Click here to see a video of the camel racing!

From the boys: 

• Ben thought that the best part of the day was cheering for the camels, but the worst part was getting camel poo on his flip flop. 
• Will thought the whole thing was “awesome” and “cool”. Usually not a man of so few words...

Go Camel Go!

Fun Facts about Camels:

• Camels can cost as much as 1 million QR ($360,000)
• One hump = dromedary and two humps = bactarian
• Camels can be white, black or beige
• Camels have excellent memories.
• They can travel up to 160km in the desert without water; a thirsty camel can drink 135 litres in less than 15 minutes!
• They can run at speeds up to 65km/h
• A camel’s hump is not filled with water; it is filled with fat that is metabolized for energy and water when needed. But when all the fat is used up, the hump will become flabby or even look non-existent.
• The word "camel" comes from an Arabic word meaning "beauty" (?!)
• There are 17 million camels in the world (90% of them are dromedaries)
• A camel can weigh up to 1600lbs!

Thumbs up for camel racing!

And This Little Piggy Went to the Liquor Store

Back home in BC, it’s pretty exciting to turn 19 and legally buy alcohol for the first time, but from then on it’s a fairly typical and uneventful experience. Well, it’s been 20 years since I could first buy alcohol and it’s never been more challenging to buy wine than it is here in Doha. 

Since Qatar is an Islamic country, alcohol is not legal here, but there are rules in place for expats consuming alcohol:

1. It is illegal to import alcohol into the country. 

2. It is an offense to drink alcohol or to be drunk in a public place. People breaking this law may be deported, fined or imprisoned.

3. Alcohol should not be transported within the country, except to take it home from the distribution company.

Sports clubs and hotel bars serve alcohol to tourists and expats, but in order for people to purchase alcohol to have their homes, they must have a liquor permit. To qualify for a liquor permit, they must have their Resident Permit (RP), which, for us, took about 7 weeks to process (that’s another whole blog post!). Then they must obtain a letter from their work place stating their salary, marital status, religion and job title. The expat must pay a returnable deposit of 1000 QR (about $275CAD) before being issued a liquor permit. Based on your salary, the Qatar Distribution Company calculates what your alcohol quota is per month, and it cannot exceed 10% of the your basic salary. Yep, they tell you how much booze you can buy! 

So...we have the letter for Andy to get the liquor permit, but we haven’t gone yet. I did however tag along with our friends Glenn and Cathy on one of their recent trips to the liquor store. We decided that our story of me being Glenn’s second wife would probably not be believed, so he had to ask for special permission to bring in two women. He told them I was just looking...yeah, just browsing at the liquor store. 

I was surprised by the small size of the store; it really was no larger than one of the small liquor stores in BC. But it was packed and of course, everyone had a huge Costco-sized shopping cart because they were not just there for one bottle of wine or a six-pack. There was very little room to move around, but fortunately things were quite well-ordered and easy to find. Sadly, no Oyster Bay or NZ beer. But plenty of Bombay Sapphire. And Andy was excited to have some VB (Aussie beer) for the first time in a while. We filled up the cart, and Glenn had to buy his order, my order and another friend’s order. A hefty bill. 

And just because one shouldn’t be surprised by anything that happens in Qatar, I should tell you that there is a pork section in the liquor store. Pork. Yes, all kinds of pork products, including cans of “pork and beans” and packages of “pork rinds”. While this is not terribly exciting to me, as I don’t eat pork, I could see by how busy this section was, that many of my fellow expats were very excited about the bacon. 

Once you have visited the liquor store, you must drive straight home with the booze in the trunk. You may not stop to shop or visit with anyone. If you were to get in a car accident (which let’s be honest, is fairly likely here), and you had beer in the trunk of the  car, you would asked to produce the receipt. Of course, you would tell them that you were driving straight home from the liquor store, but they would check the time on the receipt to see if you were telling the truth. I have been told a story of a man who went to the liquor store and on the way home, stopped at work to pick up something he’d forgotten. He opened the trunk of his car to give a colleague at work a few beers from his purchase. A photo was snapped of this exchange and the man was sent home days later. 

I wonder if the same rule applies to pork?!

Sri Lanka - Part Deux

fallen power lines in the storm

The second half of our week in Sri Lanka was spent at the beach in Hikkaduwa. We had a hotel right on the beach with a balcony looking out to the beautiful Indian Ocean. Our two little beach babies enjoyed their time in the sand and the sun....and rain. We had a lot wind and rain on the first day/night we were there. In fact, when we got home we learned that Cyclone Nilam was passing by not too far from where we were. http://news.oneindia.in/2012/11/02/cyclone-nilam-shakes-india-but-ravages-sri-lanka-1092649.html  On our way from Kandy to Hikkaduwa, several roads had been closed due to flooding or fallen power lines. There was no talk of the cyclone there, and our internet access was unreliable, so we had no idea about the magnitude of the storm until we got home. 

After the first day, the weather improved and we spent a lot of time playing in the surf and building sand castles on the beach. The boys found coconut husks to dig with and then they decorated their sand castles with beautiful shells and coral. When they got hungry, we refueled with banana pancakes at Budde’s on the Beach.

Banana pancakes - yum!

Tsunami Memorial

Like many others around the world, I remember watching the tsunami on Boxing Day eight years ago and being shocked by the devastation. The destruction along the coast is still there, and many places have not been re-built; the ruins of houses, shops and boats remain. There are thousands of graves along the coastal road. Estimates say that 35,000 died in the tsunami in Sri Lanka, but Sri Lankans say the number is closer to 50,000. 

Tsunami Memorial

The Tsunami Memorial is a haunting place. I hadn’t known (or remembered) that 2000+ people died on a train that was traveling through Peraliya at the time of the tsunami. After the first waves of the tsunami, the train signals were changed to red; when a train came though the area minutes later, the driver stopped the train without knowing about the tsunami. Sadly, the largest of the waves (some at 9 metres high) hit shortly after that. Only a few people on the train survived. The brass memorial, which has a sort of Guernica feel, depicts this tragic event. 

Ben and a 1 day old sea turtle

The highlight of the week was the Sea Turtle Hatchery in Kosgoda. http://www.kosgodaseaturtle.org. The organization, which runs entirely on donations from tourists, works to protect and release sea turtles back to the ocean. Sea turtles eggs are not safe buried in the sand in this part of Sri Lanka, as there are many predators (stray dogs mainly), so the owner of this organization take the eggs (or buys them from fishermen), buries them in sand at the hatchery, protects the new babies and then releases them in the evening when it’s safer for them. They also care for sick and blind turtles and also those who have lost limbs from being entangled in fishing nets. They protect five of the world’s seven sea turtle species, all of which have unique incubation times. The little tiny one-day old babies were so cute; Benjy thought they were “flappy” when he picked them up. We loved the turtle hatchery and next time we will go in the evening so we can release one back to the ocean. 

Will & Ben at Galle Face Hotel

On the final day we travelled up to the airport and took a detour through Colombo to see the Galle Face Hotel. My grandad, Robert William Robertson, served in the British Navy in World War II. He was stationed in Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon, for a period of time. When he was there, he stayed at the Galle Face Hotel. We visited the beautiful hotel and had a cold drink at the pool side bar. Before we went, my grandma told me of my grandad’s stories of the hotel, like running up and down the stairway with his friends and playing football. It was a short, but very special and memorable, visit at the Galle Face Hotel. 

Galle Face Hotel

The Tooth Fairy’s Temple in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka - Part One

Our trip to Sri Lanka was quick, but we loved it! The 4 hour flight to Colombo was fairly uneventful and the boys managed to get some sleep. We had arranged a hotel driver to pick us up the airport; Nilantha was great and ended up being our driver and tour guide for 3 days. We got onto the Colombo-Kandy road for the three and half hour drive. Our first stop with two very exited little boys was the Millennium Elephant Foundation in Kegalle. The boys loved the elephants!

Our tuk tuk

Our hotel had a great roof top restaurant. We saw huge jackfruit trees and lots of birds and little chipmunks while we ate our meals. The food was cheap and delicious - especially the Sri Lankan speciality, Rice and Curry. 

On our first evening in Kandy, we went to a performance of the Kandyan dancers. The boys were impressed with the fire eating and the fire walking, but were most excited that we rode there in a tuk tuk. 

Tooth Temple

We visited the Temple of the Tooth, which is located in the royal palace and houses the relic of the tooth of Buddha. It is believed that after Buddha’s body was cremated in India in the 543 BCE, his tooth was left behind in the pyre. 800 years later, the tooth was stolen and hidden in a hair ornament and taken to Sri Lanka, where is it said that the religion will be safe for 5000 years. The Tooth Temple, as the locals call it, has beautiful buildings, carvings and statues. The boys took an offering (water lily flowers) for Buddha and watched as people prayed in the temple. Our favourite memory of the morning was when Benjy said how much he loved the “Tooth Fairy’s Temple”. 

Cricket - Andy was very excited that we got to see NZ vs Sri Lanka at Pallekelle Stadium. Even though it was rained out, it was a fantastic evening!

Check out our video!

SriLanka2012-Movie

Dhows and Dunes in Doha

Isaiah, Will and Ben

Doha skyline

A few weeks ago we went on a dhow dinner cruise with friends. A dhow is a traditional merchant sailing boat that delivered goods between East Africa and the Persian Gulf. Dhow cruising has become a popular tourist attraction in Doha and other cities in the Middle East. They have been renovated so that tourists can enjoy a meal on board or go for a day trip to go swimming.  

Andy dancing with the Lebanese family

The boys had a great time on the dhow cruise: the food was good, the views of the city were incredible and the air was warm. We met some very friendly people on board. A Lebanese man taught the boys how to write their names in Arabic. And then Andy ended the evening dancing with him and his family to Lebanese pop music. They knew all the words and all the steps - it was hilarious watching Andy trying to keep up!

This weekend, our friend Natalie is visiting from Dubai. We took her to the souq because the boys wanted to show her the little chicks that are dyed pink, purple and turquoise. Poor little chicks!  

We squished her into the back seat between the two boys and went to see some of Doha’s sights. Our first off-road adventure took us to the Singing Sand Dunes about 30 mins outside of Doha. When you sit on the sand and scooch down the dune, the sand makes a humming or singing sound. They are just off the highway but to get to them, there is a rocky stretch of about 500m. Trying to follow someone else’s tracks in our little car didn’t work very well and since we didn’t know if we had a spare tire, we decided to park and walk the rest of the way. 

The boys were great - they just climbed right up the the top despite the heat and the flies. When we got to the top, we realized that the other side of the dune was the side to slide down as it was much steeper. Only problem was the sand was too hot to touch. Burning hot. I gave it a quick try, got the sand to “sing” but I lost a flip flop and had to dig for it while my feet were burning in the sand. Ouch! We’ve decided to give it another go when the weather cools off a bit. 

Disappointingly, the local people who frequent the sand dunes for dune bashing, do not take their garbage with them. Even though there is a huge garbage bin on the road side. There were hundreds of empty water bottles and wrappers from take out food. Will thought it might help if we put up some signs like he did he Ocean Park last year. Sadly, I don't think it would help. There is no culture of recycling or responsible waste management here, nor does there seem to be much a desire for it. Hard to explain to two environmentally conscious kids from BC. 

No Longer Taking Taxis!

We are happy to announce that we finally have a car! We are leasing Suzuki SX4, but are considering buying a bigger car as they are very cheap. We filled up the tank for $11 the other day. Yes, $11. Why bother even charging for it?!

The Corniche

It feels good to be able to get around easily and not rely on the taxis (although they are really cheap), and the mother in me is much happier that the kids are back in their booster seats. We have a lot more freedom with our new wheels. There is no public transport system in Doha and our compound isn’t really walking distance to anything. Besides, it’s still too hot! On Friday morning (first day of the weekend), we drove down to The Corniche, which is a bit like the sea wall in Vancouver. It was quiet and we pretty much had the place to ourselves. 

The Corniche

The driving is crazy here. I am not sure how many white Toyota Landcruisers (with gold stripes down the side) are here in Doha, but I think every Qatari must have at least one! It’s like a uniform. Our little Suzuki seems tiny next to them. There are massive three lane round abouts and it's not uncommon for a shiny white and gold Landcruiser to leave the inside lane seconds for his exit and just barely miss crashing into several cars. Another scary part about driving here is the tailgating; it's not just one car every now and then, it's most cars everyday. Each day Andy travels with students from our school to the college for their PE class (no gym on our campus and outside is still too hot). He sees several accidents a week on his short five minute drive. Apparently there are seatbelt laws and mobile phone laws, but you wouldn't know it!

I found this video on youtube (circa 2008). While it's probably not the worst intersection in Doha as the title claims, it gives you a glimpse of the driving situation. 

For the time being, Andy is the one who drives. I haven't been for my license yet, but will venture out for it in the next week or so. Wish me luck!

Don’t Take Photos in the Supermarket - Management will Ask You to Leave

Shopping for groceries in Doha can be challenging. I’ve shopped at two of the several large supermarkets: Carrefour, the French hypermart and LuLu, another hypermart from UAE. What’s quite good about both of these huge stores is that you can buy just about everything you could possibly need.....IF you can find it! There is some kind of order where like-items are grouped together, but it seems that every time I go back, things have moved. When navigating a busy shop where shopping cart etiquette does not exist, I often find that I don’t have the space or patience to stop and look for the item that was on that shelf last week. With some items, there is very little selection, but with others there is a whole aisle of choice. Like vegetable oil - an entire aisle!

The produce section is most interesting to me. Since nothing 

is really grown here in Qatar, everything is imported. There is

a huge aisle of grapes - just select your country: Tunisia, 

Greece, Turkey, USA, Lebanon, Egypt. Same with apples: 

New Zealand, South Africa, USA, Canada, Jordan, Turkey. 

They have dragon fruit,  jackfruit and rambutan from Thailand, 

arbi (sweet potato) from Pakistan, coconuts from Sri Lanka, 

drumsticks from India, durian from Singapore.....the list goes 

on. There is a section of fruits and vegetables from India. I

saw a vegetable I hadn’t seen before and I didn’t know the 

name of it. When I looked up at the sign, it seems that 

Carrefour management didn’t know the name of it either; 

the sign said “vegetable from India”. 

 Lessons Learned at the Supermarket:

1. Line ups don’t matter here.
2. Never forget to have your produce weighed in the produce section. If you get to the check out without all the little stickers on your food, you’ll have to go back. 
3. Only buy meat from NZ or Australia.
4. Brown bread is really just white bread that’s been dyed brown. 
5. There is never a good time to go grocery shopping - it’s always busy.
6. Nobody uses reusable shopping bags here (even though they are available and cheap). The stores don’t really promote them either. 
7. Don’t take photos in a supermarket. Management will ask you to leave.

Nevertheless, our fridge is full each week and our grocery bill is much lower than it was in Canada. We are trying lots of different foods, but the boys are just happy that we always have ice cream and popsicles in the freezer. 

You look nice in your papaya, Mummy.

Last weekend, we joined quite a few of our colleagues on a tour of the Grand Mosque in Doha. The women were given an abaya to wear for the afternoon’s tour. When I came out with my abaya, Benjy said “You like nice in your papaya, Mummy”. It was too cute to correct. Traditional dress for Qatari women is a black abaya; for men it’s a white thobe (or thawb). The men on our tour just wore their own clothes, but I think they should’ve been given traditional dress as well. 

We were driven from FANAR, the Islamic Cultural Centre, to the Grand Mosque where we had a guide show us around. The building was enormous and very impressive. Including the spaces inside and outside, it holds over 30,000 people for prayer! Ben liked the huge chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and Will liked the lines on the red carpet where people line up for prayer. We can often hear the call to prayer from our house. When we hear it, Ben says it’s a “Muslim microphone” (because many of the mosques have are huge speakers on top of the minarets).  

The boys did well considering it was a long tour, and not really designed for children. I gave them my camera to keep them entertained. I’ll spare everyone the 100 photos of the lights and the red carpet.  But this self-portrait photo of Will is my favourite of the day!

Or maybe it's this one of a sign at the Islamic Cultural Centre. I tried to send Andy to this meeting :)

Will vs. Coffee Table

The social committee at school arranged a lovely pot-luck Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday night. The turkey smelled great, the stuffing looked amazing and there was plenty of cranberry sauce. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to have any of it. Just as I had filled my plate and was about to sit down and enjoy my meal, Will tripped over the carpet and lost a fight with the glass coffee table. There’s a lot of blood in a six year old’s head! The two nurses at the party suggested that a stitch or two would probably be needed, so off we went to the medical clinic. For those of you who know Will well, you will know that he is very dramatic when he gets hurt. He’s been known to cry for hours about a sliver or a stubbed toe. Last year in Kindergarten, he regularly visited the office for ice so he could soothe his non-existent bumps and bruises. Amazingly, after the initial shock of the fall, there were no more tears. Not even for the needle or the stitches. He is very proud of his stitches and he says the girls will like his scar. 

A is for Anthropomorphism? Oh, right....A is for Apple.

Well, I survived my first week of teaching Kindergarten, including parent/teacher night. My students are very young (most of them are still 4) and many of them have never been in preschool, so we are really starting from the beginning. I guess my secondary English books will remain unpacked for the time being. 

It’s starting to cool off a little bit in Doha. This means we are not hitting the 40 degree mark everyday (just 38 or 39 degrees). We are no longer reaching the “danger zone” at school so the children can have outside recess. It also means that Will and Ben are spending a bit more time outside at home. We still go to the pool everyday, but the boys can now get out on their scooters and play at the park (there are two playgrounds on our compound). 

It actually rained a couple of days ago! Well, a little bit. Nobody in Vancouver would even have noticed these rain drops, but the story was all over the news in Doha. People tweeted photos of rain from all over the city. Our neighbour who has lived here for 10 years said he has never seen rain at this time of year. The lightning, thunder and wind only lasted an hour or so and then the sky was blue again. 

spices at the souq

There are so many activities going on here. Andy has joined a touch rugby team - they are all kiwis and most of them are teachers (at other schools). There are drop in programs for all sports at the College nearby. And there is always a dinner or a party with friends. Most of the Canadians we’ve met are from Newfoundland, as their connection is with CNA-Q (College of the North Atlantic in Qatar); we have found everyone to be very friendly, like we’ve known them for years. 

For the past two Friday nights, we’ve gone to the Souq Waqif, the “standing market” near the waterfront. http://www.bbc.com/travel/feature/20110802-souq-waqif-dohas-resilient-labyrinthine-market  It’s described as a labyrinth of shops, stalls, restaurants and cafes. The site is a century old and is where locals and Bedouins bought and sold fish and livestock, but the Souq that we visit today is only five years old. It was rebuilt with cobbled streets and traditional architecture and so it has an “old” feel. The boys love looking in the shops and stalls and they seem to love the busy feel it has. We met one of Will’s classmates there last week and she spent a great deal of time teaching Will and Ben how the shisha pipe works! http://www.qatarvisitor.com/index.php?cID=412&pID=1430 

Chey teaching the boys how to smoke shisha

YVR -> DOH = 11729 kilometers or 7288 miles

After so much uncertainty with visas and flights before we left Canada, our experience so far in Doha has been fantastic. Our flights were great and the boys did really well; Benjy kept saying we were in “space” and he entertained the other passengers saying this was the “greatest day of his life.” He’s been on quite a few planes, but you never would’ve guessed it! We were met by a meet-and-greet service (highly recommended if flying into Doha), as the line ups are very long at the airport.

We had two nights in a hotel with an incredible buffet (Andy was happy!), but my favourite moment from the hotel is the boys being so tired and jet lagged that when they watched Disney Fairies (the only choice!), it took about 10 minutes before they realized it was in Arabic! After all the disappointment of late visas and flights, we were very pleasantly surprised by our villa on the Canadian compound. It's a big house with lots of living space, three big bedrooms, three bathrooms and nice furniture. We have a big outside courtyard area and we even have a tree! The clubhouse, playground, gym and pool are all excellent. There's even a little shop. Our compound is for families so there are lots of children, many of whom attend the same school as the Will and Ben. Everyone is very friendly and welcoming; there have already been several parties and dinners. The boys feel settled in their room especially now that our “soupcases” (Benjy) are all unpacked. 

                                                       The pool at our compound

Will loves his class and his Grade 1 teacher. His favourite subjects are art, music and Arabic. There is a great playground (although they can’t go on it after about 10am when it hits 40 degrees). Ben loves his Kindergarten teacher too and he has adjusted very well to school life. Andy and I have had a week at school and it has been challenging for us. We knew there had been a lot of recent upheaval in the administration offices, but the changes that have happened in the five days we’ve been at work are major. Andy’s timetable has changed several times, teaching assignments have changed, but I suppose my changes are most significant. Without going into the details, the school was not given approval to hire a second Kindergarten teacher which was needed. The class size was 20, which isn’t huge, but the classrooms are very small (about half the size of a regular classroom). The teacher had trouble moving around the tables and chairs to be able to help all of the kids. Obviously, this isn’t ideal for Ben, his classmates or the teacher....so....I volunteered to teach Kindergarten. Back to my primary training! My first day is tomorrow and I’m really looking forward to it.  

                                                                      First day of school 

Lots to come in my next blog: the heat, the shopping experience, the rugby club, the souq, the driving, and of course how I am surviving in Kindergarten!