Off on our Travels - Homeward Bound Part 2

Like the any good Houston countdown we are now into the final days of the contract - today is 48 hours minus 8 before we head to the airport for the red-eye flight to Dubai and on to the UK, Jordan and home.

Everyone in the Qatar team is in varying states of packing and shipping our gear home as well as apartment tidying which means gathering boxes and cases and tracking down a reliable carrier to get our possessions home in time for our arrival in wintery New Zealand.

We all gathered for a final, very hot,(temperature around 45C - humidity 60%) get together on the roof of the Gharrafa apartments on Sunday night as an excuse to empty fridges and cupboards before we close up our apartments and head off to different parts of the globe for travel and, for some, new jobs and experiences.

This morning was a definite very early awakening as the waterpipe repair crew on the streets surrounding our block decided to make a start before the temperatures got above 30c. So at 4.15am they switched on the digger sized jack-hammer outside our windows and began to smash their way through the seal and the underlying rock to the pipes below.

When the thumping of engine and hammer began I rolled over, glanced at the clock, swore and then, deciding that there was little point trying to snatch another 20 minutes dozing, fell out of bed to prepare for our penultimate day at work.

For the rest of the Cognition team in the Mazda Apartments the preparation for departure continue but not without some respite as the Mazda 2 quiz group are planning their final regular monthly appearance as the "Mazda Mafia" at the Ramada Quiz night tonight where we hope to at least get in the final three before we head our different ways from Tuesday night. Frank, ever the optimist, has asked how we'd cope if we won this time around as the usual prize is QR1000 of dining at one of the Hotel restaurants. Needless to say there have been volunteers among the later departers to take up the challenge and dine on the quiz team's behalf!

Tuesday will see us being farewelled by the staff at MBAW, returning our car to the hire company and delivering our bags and boxes to the Carrier for shipment to New Zealand in the evening.

Joy and I plan to complete tidying up the apartment and doing a wander around the Souqs on Wednesday before heading out to the airport around midnight for the 3.00am flight to Dubai and our flight to London and the first stage of our roundabout trip home.

We will catch up with Roddy, Carl's best friend in London, our daughter and her family in Wales and, with luck, contact other relations in England before heading off to explore Jordan.

Our next posting will, given an internet connection, be from Jordan.

Doha Departure - Homeward Bound

This past week has been one of packing, tidying up at work and farewells as the contract draws to its inevitable end.
We are constantly amazed at the way the small souvenirs and gifts have accumulated in the apartment over the past seven months. We started with two large suitcases and our travel cases and are now sending home three large cases and several boxes of paintings, books and souvenirs of our time here in Qatar.
The apartment looks ultilitarian bare now that Joy's remaining paintings have been boxed up ready for shipping and the other items that make a place look like home are packed away.
The MBAW team had a farewell lunch together on Tuesday at The Grand Joud Cafe on Salwa Road.

Dave on the Sheesha

The cafe is a popular sheesha smokers' meeting place as we could smell the sweet aromatic fumes of apple, grape, rose, mint, strawberry and Iranian tobacco as we walked along the street to meet up with our colleagues. The outside seating, always crowded during Winter and on late evenings, was too hot to use so we ate inside where the haze of sheesha was well dispersed by an efficient air conditioner.

Our translator, Mohammed Kasawneh, ordered for the five of us with the result that the table was liberally covered with dishes of hummus, rice, tabbulah, grilled meats, stuffed vine leaves, savoury sausages and kubbah as well as bread to create a lunch that we felt needed assistance to consume.
We discovered, however, that given time and conversation such a spread could easily disappear! However I was still recovering from the meal at 9.00 the next morning.

The Doha Darlings style

Wednesday evening is the end of contract dinner at the Hotel Intercontinental where Joy and the other Doha Darlings will be performing their own unique farewell routine to Doha and where we will, no doubt, commiserate over the lack of firm contract for the next academic year, swap stories about all we've seen and done in our schools and touring of Qatar and other parts of the Middle East and exchange contact addresses at home in New Zealand and for the summer break as we head off on our travels.
The attached video of the performance and activities at the dinner gives a taste of the celebrations on Wednesday night.

Joy with flowers for choreographing the Doha Darlings
Cognition Team Membes learning Arabic Dancing.

Thursday will see us completing packing so that we can deliver our bags and boxes to the transport company to arrange delivery in time for our arrival at Auckland Airport mid July over the weekend.
Then it becomes real count down time from Sunday for the final three days in our schools and the early morning trek to the airport for our next travel adventure - a week in the UK to catch up with Jacqui and her family in Swansea with, we hope, a drive to Tredegar and the Ebbw Vale where I was relief teaching for eight months over 1997 followed by a week in Jordan before being reunited with our baggage in the wet winter of home.

Countdown from Doha

With an outside temperature in the high 40s and the hum of the air conditioners battling to keep the inside temperature in the comfort zone we and the rest of the Mazda group are in varying stages of packing and tidying our apartments ready for the end of the contract.
I've been skip diving to gather together cardboard boxes in which we can pack our extra belongings - the souvenirs, albums and clothing we have picked up in our seven months here!
Our packing goes in fits and starts as we wait to discover whether we have a new contract for the 2009-10 academic year. The rumours fly around amongst the other ATs, are relayed between companies and pepper our conversations and those we have with the teachers at our schools as they seek to find out if they will be able to call on our support next year.
Each day we look towards the office area for a trickle of white smoke that would suggest that we suspend complete packing, at least for a few more days. Unfortunately, the smoke has all been black.
Last night the Mazda group headed off to a local restaurant - Olive - for our own end of contract dinner.

The Mazda crew in high good spirits at Olive

Olive is a recent arrival on the Doha Clinic Road and boasts a mult-ethnic cuisine - Indian, Chinese and Middle Eastern. We were certainly able to cater for the vegetarians and the piscatorians as well as the omnivorians amongst us.

Olive and its "toot & run" takeaway next door neighbour on Doha Clinic Road.

The evening was a great success capped off with Frank suggesting that he would develop a Mazda logos which we could get printed onto T shirts which we could wear to our final Ramada Quiz night, as the Mazda Mafia, on the 29th. We're looking forward to see whatever he comes up with.
Next week is the official end of contract dinner at the Intercontinental Hotel which we are looking forward to. Not only for the chance to get together as the whole team but also in the expectation that John will be able to provide the white smoke from his table before the evening is over.
Shirley, Priscilla,Jan, Louise & Joy - The Doha Darlings
Joy and her friends, known as the Doha Darlings, are especially looking forward to the evening as they have been rehearsing a surprise musical number which will receive its first public performance there.

They have been meeting every Tuesday morning since May to practice the routine which Joy has written and choreographed. Many of the women have never done anything like this before which has added to their performance anticipation.

Layla receiving Joy's Camel Racetrack painting
for the "Summer at Home" exhibition

Joy has handed over her paintings to Layla at the Waqif Galleries ready for the "Summer at Home"exhibition which will be held over July-August. The exhibition is a collection of work from artists living and working in Qatar regardless of nationality and is designed as a focus for the souq over the summer months when people huddle under their air conditioners or head for the malls or the cafes of the souq to enjoy cooler air and conversation.
Our team, at Mohammed Ben Abdul Wahab, are preparing for our presentation of certificates and awards to the staff on Sunday. Our farewell gifts and thanks to the school and the staff in our final complete week there. We've designed a set of certificates that reflect our New Zealand origins - each watermarked with a distinctive New Zealand landscape that the staff can display once we've gone.
I'll finish off the blog with a few sketch notes describing a Doha Friday and plan for a final Doha blog next weekend.

FRIDAYS IN DOHA.
Dust driven sand snakes curlicues across the road
swirls through windows
descends, grainy over books,
coats floors grit gray.
Doha dozes- dormant in prayer
minaret signalled to punctuate the day.

FFC
Koran calls across the aisles
supermarket Fridays reminders
that food and faith intertwine.

Villagio.
Abaya clad women sweep by
gossiping.
children trail behind,
swept up by scurrying maids,
dropped in trolleys,
wheeled through doors
deposited in traffic stopping vans
sale day remainders living still.

Waiting for Godot in Doha

Last weekend we headed for high culture in Doha when a touring French theatre company arrived with a production of Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" ("En attendant Godot") at the National Theatre.

The company was young and chose to play Estragon (Gogo) as an androgynous character played by a woman. Her voice and mannerisms did not give the sense of age that the character needs. In general the youth of the cast failed to carry the weariness of age that Beckett intended.

Again, the stylised comedy of the french failed to carry the slap-stick and rapid fire physical comedy that sustains the play through the meandering talk that keeps the characters frozen in their waiting.

The troupe was a family based one so had made the decision to cast the son of the woman playing Estragon as the messenger boy. He was both stage conscious and vocally weak so that the delivery of Godot's message was inaudible so the audience was not informed of the hopelessness of the wait in a world devoid of stimulus for living.
The dialogue did not appear to carry the same weight as I know from the english text and as my french is minimal I didn't fully follow the actors' presentation. I some how suspect that some of the script had been pruned especially Lucky's long nonsensical monologue about the presence or absence of god.
Despite the absence of publicity the production attracted 200+ people. Mainly ex-pats from the french community and the universities here in Doha.

Frank and I were seated behind the French, German and Japanese ambassadors and members of the Qatari aristocracy.. which gave the production a lot of credibility.

The theatre was a beautiful, well designed venue that would be the envy of any New Zealand Theatre Company in a major city. The sound and visual lines were clear and ideal for that audience.