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.