Catch Up Posting

Where has the time disappeared to?I can't believe that I last updated the blog at the beginning of last month!!
I know I started with good intent to write up the blog every fortnight but a month plus is getting ridiculous.

This past month has been busy, a convenient excuse,but for some reason January-February have been busy months at work with the prospect of the two week semester break this month as an incentive to keep one's nose to the grind-stone.

The Advisory work has seen us pushing ourselves to deliver the training and programmes in the school more intensively as the staff are willing to experiment and try activities to initiate the reforms in education. Our team has,according to our SMA, achieved more in this semester than they could last year... this is probably because the administration of our school is keen to see the programmes develop and the students succeed and therefore actively encourages the staff to contribute to the work we are doing.

Over January we set up an inter-school debate competition - at the moment between Ahmed bin Hanbal and Abu Baker Asdeeq but with possibilities to include other local schools if we can get more support from Qatar Debates. There is willing as we were able to host two Debate coaches from the NZ University team for a two day workshop session to encourage our boys to look at debating as a means to improve their English. We are looking forward to next semester when we can revive the inter-school competition and attempt to develop the competition to involve the neighbouring schools.

Cognition also welcomed the NZ Debating team to Qatar in February when they arrived to take part in the Qatar hosted International Schools Debating competition. As of writing the NZ team is running fourth in the competition according to The Peninsula newspaper which seems to be the only paper comprehensively reporting on the debating competition.

We also had some good news when after the January Doha Debates recording session one of the boys from our school was contacted and invited to join the BBC, Qatar Foundation and the Doha Debate organisation in New Delhi to observe and,maybe, participate in the outside debate at St.Stephens College in February. The boy was selected on the basis of his confidence and articulateness when he challenged the guest debaters at the recording. We are looking forward to both hearing of his experiences and,perhaps, seeing him on screen when the debate is shown in March.
As well we have had a series of outside workshops to attend on organising the Library, developing further policies and operating procedures for the LRC (Library) and others informing us about the training programmes Cognition has been running this year that will have an impact on our activities in the schools.

On more personal fronts: These past months have seen the long lines of migratory birds that are a feature of the Gulf winter stretching across the early morning and evening skies. These birds appear from the Northern winters into the warmth of the Gulf each year and settle onto the mangroves and the coastal waters of Qatar and in formation each day ribbon themselves in the grey sandfilled air as they head to and from their roosting areas. As I sit at the traffic lights on my way to work at 6.00 every morning I watch these lines pass across the roof tops for minutesat a time.

We were informed, when we went out to the International Falconry competition in the desert beyond Al Khor, that these lines of migratory birds become the prey for the trained falcons the local Falconry Association members train and use.

The Falconry competition was held out in the open space of the desert, 70 kilometres from Doha, with participants from other Gulf states exhibiting the power of their birds in a series of events that we could see, as specks on the desert floor, from our vantage point in the grandstand and exhibition area the Association had built for the event. We were able to see some of the action through the telephoto lenses on our cameras.

The birds were released from a hide several hundred metres from a lure twirling man and then swooped at 200kph down from the sky or at low level across the ground onto the lure.The rules and scoring system wasn't explained to us so the esoterics of the sport remained a mystery.

We,however, were able to handle some of the birds the young men and boys were parading around the exhibition area willing to show off to anyone who showed interest in their pets.

The Competition was also a show case for Arabian Horses, Saluki Dogs and prizewinning camels.. although none of the horses or dogs were in evidence when we were there despite the advertising indicating that we would be able to see these animals in action as well as the falcons.

The same day we journeyed out to the Falcons the local paper carried a story that a local camel breeder had turned down an offer of QR25 million for one of his animals by another enthusiast fromthe UAE. The camel owner said that he would not be willing to part with a symbol of Qatari heritage for any amount of money.

We had heard reports of camels changing hands for 2 to 5 million QR but a figure of 25 million QR was out of the ordinary enough to attract the attention of the newspapers!

So it is now mid semester break so Joy and I are off to Turkey on Saturday for 10 days to complete the tour we'd promised ourselves 12 years ago when we first embarked on our overseas travel adventures. That trip will be the subject of our next blog.

Eid Events

Doha Sky line Sunday 7.12.2008

This week is Eid.. a ten day school holiday for us from Friday 5th through to Sunday 14th when we go back to work.
Eid is the holiest day in the Muslim calendar being the day the pilgrims descend from Mt Arafat following the Hajj after celebrating the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son, Issac, in an act of obedience to God. The celebration apparently lasts for three days and is marked with ritual sacrifices of lambs or goats and acts of charity.
For us the break has allowed us to begin to explore Doha and the areas around our apartment. We were a bit restricted Friday & Saturday as Joy tripped over as we were walking to the Jarir Bookshop and bruised her knee very badly which knocked doing a lot of walking off the calendar. It didn't stop us going out to dinner with the other Cognition people in Mazda 2. We headed into the souq where we found a Lebanese restuarant and relaxed over water and coffee as we waited for our communal meal.

The souq offered us a chance to people watch.... tourists drifting in and out of groups of black abaya clad women with their faces veiled or masked and men in their white thoups amid the stalls selling everything from antiques, to blankets, to carpets and other knic-naks while a genial old man led a donkey up and down the street with happy little children balanced precariously on its back
. Man, donkey and child. The Souq, Doha.
On Saturday Joy & I went out to Villagio Shopping Centre where Joy could walk without stressing her knee too much. While we were there Doha enjoyed one of its few rain moments... thunder and lightning with bouts of heavy rain. In a typical Papprill moment I found the point in Villagio where there was a leak in the roof which, after I moved must have leaked more because soon there was a squad of squegee carriers in the area pushing water into the canal.

Outside, the rain was causing havoc for Doha drivers who, not being used to wet weather driving, were stalling in the fords that had collected around the round abouts and intersections or crashing into other cars as their wheels skidded on the slippery road surfaces. On the ride home our driver, Lulu, an Ethiopian, confessed to being afraid of the thunder and lightning as he kept lifting his hands from the wheel to cover his ears with each peal while commenting on the risks the other drivers were taking trying to drive as they normally do on unfamiliar surfaces.
We got home to find the other tenants mopping out the corridors as the drain points in the light wells had been blocked with sand and plastic bags which meant that the water could escape only into the corridors and, a few less fortunate rooms, of the ground floor.

Sunday saw us heading into the souq to explore the market stalls and Doha's tourist attractions. We poked around the Gold souq where Joy checked out the jewellry on offer.
There were lots of ornate pieces of very yellow gold that, in Joy's opinion, would be out of place back in New Zealand. However, we will probably head back to the Gold souq and poke around some more at a later date.

We crossed the road and began an exploration of the corridors and crannies of the textile souq with its myriad of stalls offering abayas, caps, tailoring, material, pashminas, watches, toys, odd bits of electronic games and dried fruit and nuts.
The Textile souq. carpets for sale.

I tried on this chamois coat, designed for the colder winter evenings in the desert, at one stall while the owner was at prayer... the owner simply locked up and left his stock hanging outside for passersby to admire and return at 4.00pm when the stall re-opened. Such trust... we couldn't imagine such happening at home, even at Botany Downs!!

Check out the price QR 250.00 is approximately $NZ 125.00. I did think the coat would have been great to swan around Dannemora in during the winter but then customs might have had to hold on to it when we came through passport control on our return as the coat was made of genuine leather and furs.

We found the Falcon Souq where the locals buy both falcons and the hunting gear that goes with this ancient sport. Here we saw the birds being groomed and cossetted by the handlers as tourists, like ourselves, watched and asked countless, repetitive questions about them.

We met up with Charles and Marylyn from Mazda during our fossicking, had lunch with them and then went on a tour of the Corniche where we took a ride on a Dhow around the harbour before taking a coffee break at The Sheraton Hotel.
The dhow at its moorings. Charles & Marylyn Cron & Joy

The Hotel had hosted an international conference on the economic crisis and, after seeing its conference facilities, we could see why. The size of each conference room and side rooms was beyond anything I've seen at home.


Monday is the actual Eid festival so the shops are closed all day. However the mosques were in full and elborate call for prayer at 4.30am in celebration of the event.