Milestones

Steve here. As the title suggests, we've passed a few milestones over the past week or so that I thought I'd share.

A week ago Monday, I became the first one of us to celebrate a birthday here in Doha. At the suggestion of a colleague, we went to the Four Seasons, which happens to be next door to Qtel, and ate at their casual outdoor restaurant. It was a perfect evening to be outside--temperatures in the low 70s, comfortable humidity, and a slight breeze coming off the bay that was perhaps 50 yards from our table. We could just make out the the Museum of Islamic Art in the distance, across the calm waters. It was a good meal, and I enjoyed being in one of the few restaurants in the country that is allowed to serve alcohol. To top off the evening, Morgan and Ella surprised me with a nice birthday cake.

Yesterday marked the end of our first month in Doha, which has flown by. Today we reached a couple more milestones; I completed yet another immigration formality by getting my Qatari driver's license, and Ella & Morgan received their family visas so that they can now begin the process of getting their residency permits.

Our most exciting news--to us, anyway--is that we officially kicked off our house hunt this past weekend even though it's about a month until the ship with our belongings is scheduled to arrive. It looks like we've found the neighborhood where we will live--it's a brand-new development north of central Doha that will be an easy drive both to Qtel and to Morgan's school. The development has nicer amenities than many others, and the grounds are beautiful. (I can't describe how refreshing it was to be surrounded by lush green grass and tropical plants after living in the dust of central Doha for the past month!) We will probably check out a few more places, but this neighborhood will be hard to beat.

I'll close with a few photos from our budding junior photographer. Yesterday Morgan's class took her second field trip to the desert within a week, this time to a Bedouin camp. One of the pictures (taken by a classmate, I think) is of Morgan and her new friend Alicia, who is from Australia. (A short anecdote about Alicia: The day that Morgan visited the school during our first week here, the teacher assigned Alicia to be Morgan's "buddy" when the class went out in the courtyard to plant some flowers as part of their unit on the environment. When Alicia spotted Morgan on Morgan's first day of school the following week, Alicia ran to Morgan, hugged her, and said "Hiya, Buddy!" They have apparently been inseparable at school ever since.) Another photo is of the traditional coffee pot the Bedouins use, and yes, that is a working TV set in the background. The last one is pretty self-explanatory.

Anybody else out there needing the A/C?

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Time for our weekly update. From my perspective, after three weeks now, life is becoming more routine: work for me, school and gymnastics for Morgan, work for Steve. Steve's getting all the immigration minutiae settled, now has a local bank account and is working on getting his Qatari driver's license and liquor permit. Now that his visa is through, I'll have to start mine soon, beginning with a visit to a lab to have my blood typed. Morgan was one of six Year 3 students selected to accompany the principal to a local beach for trash pickup. It ties into the school's focus on community service and their current unit of inquiry, which is the environment and concerns about it. Last week's trip to the desert for the whole class was canceled because of a sandstorm; they'll try again on Thursday or next week.

Over the weekend, we went to the Intercontinental for brunch on Saturday. If you've ever been to the Willard in DC for a holiday brunch, the spread is pretty similar, but also included a variety of Middle Eastern mezze and desserts. For the kids there was a cooking lesson with the pastry chef where they made fruit tarts and later a face painter who turned Morgan into a cheetah.

After brunch we checked out the Museum of Islamic Art, which just opened in late November. It stands alone in the bay on a man-made island -- architect I.M. Pei didn't want his creation to become lost in Doha's ever-spreading skyline. Steve pointed out that this is fourth place we have lived with an I.M. Pei-designed art museum, after Bloomington's IU Art Museum, Paris's Louvre addition and the National Gallery of Art's East Wing. Just call us Pei groupies. There are overlapping elements across his body of work, such as the use of glass and angularity, but Pei made sure to add touches to this one that make it part of its surrounding environment. The museum's collections are well-curated. I appreciated the early manuscripts, dating back to the 7th century. Morgan was fascinated by a small jeweled box with diamond and pearl sides and an emerald top. Steve liked the carpets.

Museum of Islamic Art

Two Weeks Down, How Many More to Go?

Morgan reminded us this morning that today marks two weeks here, so it's time for an update. I think everyone's getting more and more settled. Morgan's having a hard time adjusting her bedtime, though. School here starts at 7, and she's riding the bus, which means being downstairs at 6:15. That means getting up with the sun at 5:45, and bedtime should be around 8. We'll get there, though.

Friday night after gymnastics we went to check out one of the other big shopping malls in Doha, the Villaggio. It is patterned after Venice, complete with stucco storefronts, frescoed ceilings and a canal running down the middle with gondolas and gondoliers. That's where more of the American and London High Street stores are: Gap, Banana Republic, Topshop, etc. Morgan was excited to see a Claire's. Limited Too sells Webkinz (some things can't be escaped!). Of course it has the requisite ice rink as well. We tried TGI Friday's, which was a bit of a letdown (sorry, their beef bacon was not good) and Krispy Kreme doughnuts (not bad). Steve was excited to see a Virgin Megastore. He got some more Qatar guidebooks. Morgan got a movie and Harry Potter and The PHILOSOPHER's Stone (Bloomsbury/UK printing) since we accidentally put her Sorceror's Stone in the shipping container. She said at first spellings like "neighbour" confused her, and that she knows she'll come back speaking British English (that's what's taught at school, despite the fact that her teacher is also American ...).

Hall near Villaggio's food court

Morgan at the Villaggio canal

We joined the Bay Club at the Intercontinental on Friday. The weather was great, but Morgan totally freaked out about the flies. In just the past few days, it has started warming up. Today it's around 80, warm enough to break a sweat on my walk back from the grocery store.

The Intercontinental

The Doha skyline from the Intercontinental's beach

The beach at the Intercontinental

This brings me to my favorite topic, food. Overall, I'm impressed with what's available. We've come up with a short list of things we haven't found: Hershey bars (though French and Swiss milk chocolate bars are available), plain graham crackers (there's Nabisco cinnamon or McVities digestives), and almond butter. Some things are ridiculously expensive, but we'll suck it up: plain Cheerios are $10 a box. But most other American foods are readily available, particularly junk foods, I'm not proud to say: Pepsi, Coke, Kraft cheeses, Lays chips, Baskin Robbins ice cream, deli meats. What I really like is that Europe's a lot closer, so foods imported from there are more readily available and cheaper. Morgan can get three Kinder Surprise chocolate eggs for about $2; I think I paid $3 for one at Tysons Mall when we finally found them. One of our favorite drink mixes, sirop, is carried in five flavors and two brands. I can get limonade (the French fizzy drink kind of like lemon-lime soda but not as sweet). Twinings teas are about $2 a box. With all the workers from Asia, there's lots and lots of ethnic foods: one side of one row at Carrefour (the French supermarket in the mall) is just rice, another is Indian spices and curries, another is Filipino and Thai. There's even a small Mexican section. For meat you can choose local, Indian or Australia/New Zealand, and produce is imported from everywhere -- China (avoiding that one), Lebanon, Spain, France, US.

Morgan had her first playdate on Saturday with a friend from school. I think school's going well. She says the homework is hard; I think she is having to think more critically again after not using that skill much for the last year and a half. We're working on getting her a private tutor for French during the school day. The rest of her class who are taking French are beginners. Morgan said she reviewed articles of clothing for the fourth time yesterday. In PE, she's learning to play cricket.

I've noticed that the news coverage is broader over here, albeit with a different slant (see the ICC/Bashir story). I'm reading one of the local papers, The Peninsula, which offers more coverage of the Arab world, India and Asia than US papers do. It also reprints Financial Times business news. The building keeps a copy of the International Herald Tribune in the lobby that I flip through in the afternoon while I wait for Morgan's school bus. Every now and then we catch a few minutes of Al Jazeera, but don't really go out of our way for it. We also get BBC World News and CNN, and I supplement these with web browsing the online editions of NYT, CNN and the Post.

I'll close with one observation: from my perspective, it seems like women who choose abayas and veils could have a free pass on bad hair days. And why spend tens of thousands of dollars on designer gowns (Dior was among the busier shops in the Villaggio) when almost no one will see them? At least that's how I see it as an outsider looking in ...

First week in Doha

Hello, everyone. We are starting to get a little bit settled now, so I thought it was time for a quick update. We arrived in Doha last Monday night, February 23, after a long but generally pleasant and uneventful trip. My new employer, Qtel, is putting us up in a serviced apartment just a few blocks from the office and practically across the street from Doha's biggest shopping mall. After just a few days getting our bearings, shopping for the apartment, etc., I started work this past Sunday, March 1. (For those of you not familiar with the Middle East workweek, Qatar and a number of other Gulf countries follow a Sunday-Thursday workweek since Friday is the Muslim holy day.) It took a few days for us to decide on a school for Morgan, but she will be starting classes tomorrow at the International School of London-Qatar. The school follows the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum, as does the school in DC that Morgan attended for two years of preschool plus kindergarten. Morgan will be able to continue her progress in French, with 3 1/2 hours of lessons a week (less than she's ever had, but better than nothing); according to a colleague who also has kids at ISLQ, Morgan will also have the chance to study Arabic. Ella has been doing full-time mom duty for the past week but will resume her translation work when Morgan starts school.

The tasks of settling into the new apartment, preparing Morgan for a new school, and adapting to a new job have consumed most of our time and energy. However, we have managed to get around a little bit--on Friday morning, we attended services held by the Anglican church here in Doha; that afternoon, we took Morgan to visit her new gymnastics program; and Friday night we visited Souq Waqif, a traditional Arabian market with winding passageways lined with shops where merchants peddle wares as diverse as spices, live birds, perfume, rugs, hardware, and baked goods. It was truly a sensory overload, with reminders everywhere that we are far from home--women clad in their black abayas with only their eyes peering out (as well as, in some cases, brightly-colored sneakers or designer dresses peeking out from the bottom of the abayas); men dressed in their traditional white thobes; and customers at the cafes smoking sweet, fruit-flavored tobacco out of their large shishas. Of course, there are plenty of other sights that provide an interesting glimpse of American influence, whether it's a Qatari whizzing down the street in an Escalade, the familiar McDonald's golden arches with the signage entirely in Arabic, the preponderance of American restaurants at the mall (Chili's, Applebee's, KFC, Burger King, McDonald's, Starbucks, and Hardee's, just to name a few), the numerous American movies (albeit slightly censored and with Arabic subtitles) showing at the mall, and American pro wrestling on TV (go figure!). We also made it out to visit the beach club at the Intercontinental Hotel, which we'll likely join--the beaches in Doha are private, and the club at the Intercontinental offers not only a 1/3-mile beach, but also sailing, tennis, and a swim-up bar.

That's enough for now, but I'll leave you with a few pictures. The first one shows Morgan, together with her "Flat Stanley" that was a second-grade project back home, above the ice rink at the mall. The second shows Morgan ice skating at the mall across the street. (Funny that she never showed any interest in ice skating until we were preparing to move to the desert, and even funnier that we now have easier access to a skating rink than we had back home!) The last one shows just a tiny fraction of the construction that is all over downtown Doha.