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 :)