Everything is relative - even manners

Wow, does A love this idea. We are learning a lot about cultural differences here. I started to tell A off for eating rice with her hands when she pointed around the restaurant and I realised our table was the only one that had any cutlery. It was our favourite Sri Lankan restaurant where the curry and dhal buffet is only 7QR (Qatari Riyal) or about $2.50 and the workers arrive by the bus load from their camps. We took our friends for lunch there on Friday and we have challenged them to find a cheaper place for next week. It's all about perspective I suppose. A and her friend delighted in eating in this style.

Let's play - Gardens

We all love gardens in our family and one of the hardest aspects of life here is being so far from natural beauty - especially trees, plants and flowers. But being stuck indoors in the desert wasn't going to stop these girls. (I'm sure once it is a little cooler I will start appreciating the sea). We used to love our weekly picnic catch up with our friends from Melbourne; so one day the girls decided to "play picnics" and they dragged our indoor plants around to act as the trees. Not quite the same as the Botanic Gardens or even our local park, but at least the girls are learning to make the most of life and what they have. Perhaps that's worth going without gardens for a while?

Brief moments of Joy in the sunshine (and heat)

It is hot living in Doha, intensified of course by the lack of trees and greenery. This is probably very obvious but with extreme weather conditions I think it is hard to talk about anything else. It just cannot be ignored. We actually very rarely venture outside during the day as it is unbearable. One day we discovered a fountain along the corniche so the girls delightd in this cool sensory experience. As you can see our least photographed girl took a starring role on this day.

Soccer in the Middle East

Andrew has been visiting the local evening soccer competition which includes teams from various regions of Doha and neighbouring Gulf countries. He has also decided to use this as an opportunity to do something special with a girl on their own. E was first to go and merely talked of the food. A seems the most interested in sport, however, and it seems that last night's game between Al Gharafa (where we live) and Al Hilal, Saudi Arabia did not disappoint. Apparently, it ended with both coaches being red carded and the riot police trying to control 5000 passionate Saudi and disgruntled Qatari players and fans. You can see from the crowd photos here that difficult spectators could be hard to identify as they were all men wearing either white thobes or blue for team colours!

Wacky Wednesday

We declared today Wacky Wednesday. I only decided this yesterday as the girls have been loving reading a book of this title in the Dr Seuss series by Theo. LeSieg. The girls have absoultely delighted in this funny tale of a young boy who wakes to find everything is very wacky and noone else seems to notice. They have fun searching for the strange, topsy, turvy things in the illustrations such as cars with no wheels, mothers pushing prams with baby tigers, houses with a wall missing and other optical illusions and mischief. So Tuesday evening wondering what to do for yet another day indoors, avoiding the desert sun and inspired by many ideas from the book, I started creating mischief of my own. Within moments Andrew couldn't resist and joined in as we turned our dining room chairs and our coffee table upside down; our clock and paintings followed quickly. We put an umbrella in a saucepan on the stove, a plant on the toilet, plugged our iron into the pot plant and put green food dye (natural) in the milk etc. etc. So the girls awoke the next morning to a "Wacky Wednesday" of their own. They delighted in finding amusing and mixed up things around the house, many inspired directly by the story. At least two girls did, one daughter who particularly likes order seemed a little unsure and actually put the chairs back in their rightful position. We also continued to have a topsy turvy day and started with green milk and bedtime stories, then popcorn at 7:30am and followed with icecream sundaes before 8:00am whilst watching a film. We watched "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" as I thought this aligned nicely with our wacky theme. I must admit my girls are not avid movie watches and whilst they loved several of the "rain" and "snow" scenes when cheeseburgers and icecream fall from the sky, they were bored by the end and it possibly had a slightly too complicated storyline for them. We then finished the day with cereal for dinner. It was such a success I'll be looking through our very limited book collection to see if I can create fun experiences with any of our other stories. Any ideas?

The Pet Souq

We often find ourselves down the narrow lanes of the souq and into the pet section where weird and wonderful (and sometimes illegal) pets are possible. The girls love it. I am pleased that at least one of our children seems a little concerned about the plight of the colourful animals here.

The Greatest Among us Serve

One of the confronting realities of life here, and much of this region, is the very obvious servant class. I was reminded of this yesterday when my charming girls adapted their favourite dramatic game of “Mums and Dads” into a new game of “Servants and Bosses”. I was a little bemused when I realised that crying and fighting had erupted over who could play the “servant”. Apparently, to them this was the most prized role. I’m only guessing that this is perhaps because this role actually involved more action and doing rather than the bosses who were merely sitting on the couch watching. Boring! - to my 3 active girls. I was considering interrupting them to instruct them that this was silly, as obviously the “real goal” in life was to be the boss!
I do love to just let them play (so I can do my own thing and sometimes I love to listen or watch. They have always been children who love to play imaginative and dramatic games – with little or no props. I have loved watching them here with very few toys just adapt what they have around them – a few boxes and the everyday ordinary items we need to live – saucepans, cups, shopping bags etc. And only occasionally do I “interfere” with some suggestions or new props, as mostly they have better ideas than me anyway. But, today I couldn’t resist teaching them of something which most of their lives they will be “taught” the opposite. I did intervene to explain that this world is mostly made up of servants and in reality there are very few bosses. But, more importantly I explained, that there is eternal value and honour in being someone who serves.
I took these photos of the typical maid’s uniform for sale at the supermarkets here which is worn by thousands of invisible women at the malls, at restaurants, hotels, homes, everywhere - unnoticed and disregarded these women, many who leave their own children behind, thousands of miles away, and for years, attend to the needs of children far wealthier than they could ever dream to be.(FYI - the maids here are imported like cattle on two year contracts to work all day (and sometimes night), six days a week for often as low as $400 a month. Too often they are treated badly, abused, and at best - like they are lucky to be here compared to the poverty that awaits them in India, Ethiopia and the Philipines.)
I pray my children, however young, are learning the right lessons about injustice and about being servant leaders.