Catching Up

October has proven to be a busy month for us in Doha so keeping the blog as regularly as we've done to date has been difficult.

Steve O'Neill - Joy's portrait

Joy has been busy with her preparations for the return of The Doha Darlings and painting a portrait of Steve O'Neill, our "Mr. Organisation" for Cognition while I've had my head down keeping up with the demands of the job at school.

Raymond auctioning Joy's painting

Joy was pleased to find, on the web, a picture of Raymond Huo auctioning one of her paintings at a Chinese community fundraiser for victims of the Samoan tsunami recently. It was good to see her work being used to support a good cause.

Our new school is a MoE one that has been designated an Independent School this year. For this year we're based in the old school site rather than in a new design school building which makes for a more interesting place to work especially as the rooms sprawl over the site rather being concentrated inside a block as we had at MBAW last year.

The staff are all concerned with making the school "the best Independent school in Doha" and, as a consequence, are determined to come to grips with the demands of the Curriculum Standards and reforms as soon as possible. This means that I'm constantly engaged in purposeful discussions and workshops on aspects of implementation and planning most days of the week. It certainly makes for enjoyable and positive work.

Marty delivering PD at ABHSS

Keeping up with the consequent paperwork then consumes a couple of hours each night which means that Joy & I try to cram things into the weekend.

We're off to the Doha Tribeca Film Festival to see Jane Campion's film -Bright Star tonight and then check out the programme to try a fit in another film on Saturday. The idea of leaving a film at 2.00am then heading to work on Sunday at 6.00am doesn't appeal so it will have to be a judicious choice for Saturday night.

Bright Star was Jane Campion back in her favourite period - the 19th century - and her favourite theme - Woman trapped in a situation that doesn't allow her to realise the fullness of her passion. The film was beautifully made, with a meticulous eye for detail throughout, and, in the exploration of the relationship between Keats and Fanny, a slow, relentless revelation of the frustrations, fascinations and passions that the two lovers, trapped in a society that conspired to keep them apart, experienced.

We couldn't help but think that there was a thematic unity that reached back to the rain soaked bush and mud caked film The Piano in Bright Star. The film did keep us fascinated and focused on the couple's doomed relationship.

With luck Joy and I might try to grab another film this Saturday afternoon.

The Return to Doha.

Assured of a contract for the 2009-10 Joy and I settled ourselves into organising our lives for a full year in the Gulf States.

This meant setting ourselves up to become landlords, clearing our house out to place everything in storage during our absence and ensuring that our estate was to be well managed. This was a task and a half as we moved, packed and sorted out all we had accumulated over the past 11 years in Franco Lane.

While we concentrated on this task the contract negotiations meandered their way through the hallways of the various Government departments in Qatar towards final signatures. This took time and left many of the team in the twilight world of waiting, waiting, waiting for the call to return to the Gulf.

During this hiatus Joy and I, along with the rest of the family, celebrated my father’s 87th birthday in Wanganui. We flew south from Auckland on a typically windy,wet N.Z. winter morning in a small commuter plane which was uniquely suited for flying through up and down draughts. Thanking our lucky stars we weren’t flying Yemini Air and the wings remained on the plane we watched our, thankfully empty, coffee cups fly into the air to bounce onto the heads of those in front as at one stage we dropped several hundred feet to bounce back up through the clouds to resume level flight.

Dad’s birthday celebrations went off well despite Dad having been to New Plymouth to his Brother-in-Law’s funeral on the Friday. As Dad said at his age farewells are more common than celebrations.

Back home Joy and I cranked up the house cleaning and packing in the expectation of the flight back to the Gulf.

At the beginning of August we were all ready, the house rented out for the year, the storage unit booked, the removal men coming in and the tickets in our hands for a flight out on the 19th.

Then, a glitch, a pause, a hiatus, a spanner in the works for some one in Qatar had suddenly decided that it would do our souls good to wait a little longer with a question about several consultants’ ages. At 55+ a small group of us, inn the different consulting teams, suddenly became too old to perform the tasks we’d been competently performing four weeks before and so we were put into the holding pattern while representations were made on our behalves to the Qatari bodies responsible for the contract we were employed under.

This snafu meant that we had to review our options and begin looking to plans B through to Z in case our personal contract could not be fulfilled. Our plans all took us to the UK where, with an EU passport, I could secure work for the 2009-10 academic year as a supply teacher and, if Joy wanted, she, too, can work. So now I registered with half a dozen recruitment agencies and sent my CV to a couple of colleges enquiring about possible job vacancies.

My qualifications and character were being checked out to ensure I was of sufficient good character to minister to the tender psyches where ever I was offered a job.

All that remained was, given that the Gulf contract could not be fulfilled, to make urgent phone calls to relations to beg bed space until Joy and I were in full employment and had secured a flat for ourselves.

On Tuesday (11th) Joy & I went along to Howick College to be properly fare-welled from the staff as I had been merely offered best wishes as I took off on an extended leave in November 2008.

The fare-well speeches were complementary and,as Joy said later, a pleasure to receive. I also ended up with two & half days of cover and the offer of more if we were still around till the end of the month. At least being busy doing something productive kept me from worrying myself into a panic about possibilities that may or may not eventuate.

In the meantime; the management team in Doha continued to make optimistic and pressing representations to allow us to continue through this contract and we practiced deep breathing and patience.

I practiced the deep breathing by doing relief work at Howick and packing all our possessions into the storage unit along the street until, after much deep breathing and other calming techniques, Qatar finally decided that our ages did not weary us and we could continue in our roles as consultants.

This meant that we were finally on our way on the 26th and the associated 28 hours of traveling time once one counted in waiting time for connections and other delays.

Our first encounter with travel delays was at Auckland Airport where the Airport Authority had installed carry on bag weigh people whose job it was was to stop travelers and weigh their hand luggage to ensure it was below 7 kgs. Of course our bags were 3 - 4 kgs over each so it was back to the check in to summon back our suitcases and off load any excess to the lightest case.

After an hour and much argument Joy and I finally succeeded in off loading enough to allow our cargo case to be within limits and our carry on bags to be 7 kg.(as long as we didn’t pack our reading and some miscellaneous items of clothing we couldn’t pack in our main cases, without going over weight, but were needed on arrival in Doha. These we packed into a couple of small hand bags, weighing an extra 2 kgs each, and carried, along with our carry on bags, back to the departure hall where our carry ons were weighed.. they were now 7 kgs each ...and we were allowed through passport control.

Once there we repacked our small hand bags into our carry ons, bringing them back to 9 kgs each, and headed off to our departure lounge and the wait for the off and the 3 hour trip and a 90 minutes transit wait to Sydney.

From Sydney it was a 19 hour flight to Dubai and a 150 minute transit wait until our 45 minute flight to Doha, Ramadaan (22 August - 19th Sept) and 43 C heat.

We were met by Priscilla Ellis and taken to our new apartment at Bin Mahmoud not too far from our familiar area along Al Miqrab Road. This apartment is larger than our Mazda one with the added advantage of neutral furnishings, a land line and a stable internet connection.

Neville Henry, from Mazda, came round and, with his help, we moved the bits and pieces we’d left in 12 to Bin Mahmoud and got in our groceries and supplies. This effort, while not huge in terms of weight and difficulty, was exhausting as the outside air temperature was 43C and, to us, rising.

Anyway, we’re now comfortably established back in Doha and waiting on the arrival of the boxes we freighted up on Tuesday so that Joy can unpack her painting gear, music for the 2009-10 Doha Darlings and I can find any extra teaching materials I’ll need once we start back in the schools sometime next month.

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.