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.
It is strange not to do our usual weekend phone call to Dad in Wanganui to swap reminiscences and talk about our activities here in Doha and his back home in New Zealand.
Dad's War time love cartoon- a symbol of his humour.
We are still adjusting to a life without Dad’s bluff good humour and cheery “Good day son”when he picked up the phone.
Following Des’s phone call in the early hours of Sunday morning (Doha time) Joy & I moved from our usual work day mode to fast forward and long flights back home to farewell Dad.
Dad’s death was recorded in both local papers ( http://rcp.wanganui.info/sept17/RCPA17sep09A02.pdf. ) with an obituary recording his involvement in the city. The funeral was, as the neighbours kept telling us it would be, big with 500 people from all sides of the family, from the organisations Dad had been involved with, from the neighbourhood and the wider community there to pay their last respects to a generous friend and neighbour.
Dad had, in his usual manner, scripted everything so that there was little for us to do but follow his instructions with subtle tweaks to allow for those who wanted to speak a chance to say their farewells.
Keren, Linda & Letitia swap Frank stories at his wake.
The wake that evening was tinged with sadness but over laid with the laughter he had instructed everyone to remember him by and went until the early hours of the morning as many a yarn was spun about Dad’s exploits from Waipukurau, to Stratford, through the war, up the River and throughout our lives.
The tribe - Grandchildren and Great Grand children ready to depart after farewelling their Poppa
Des, Jocelyn and I sorted out the estate over the following week before Jocelyn and Caroline drove Dad’s car to Christchurch and Joy and I prepared for the long flight back to Doha.
Before we left Doha was celebrating Ramadan which saw the Malls decorating their atriums with reminders of the cultural heritage behind the 40 days of fasting and meditation on the teachings of Mohammed as this presentation at the City Centre Mall shows. It certainly beats the tired elves and coca-cola created Father Xmas features we are accustomed to at home.
Ramadan presentation in the City Centre Mall - Doha
We returned to the Eid celebrations that mark the end of Ramadan. We got back early Friday morning, with an upgrade to business class on the Dubai-Doha leg, and crashed out until early evening. Saturday saw us sorting out our fridge which had decided to cut out during our absence thus leaving us with a load of food to dispose of. Fortunately we could use a colleague’s fridge until the management provided us with a new working one.
The view from the roof of our apartment block
We are now back into working mode. Joy starting on a new painting and me at school providing professional development and advice to the English teachers and librarian - the Arabic Department will come this week once we see the students at school.
The week, since our return from New Zealand, has disappeared incredibly quickly. Probably because the demands of the job have consumed a good deal of the time! The staff at Ahmed bin Hanbal School are enthusiastic and responsive to the proposals and demands of the curriculum reforms they have to embrace following their move from a MoE school to an Independent one which makes our job both easier and more demanding as the ideas and techniques we present and model are taken up positively, rapidly and used in a constructive manner in their programme and lesson planning.
Outside of work Joy and I have been entertaining some of our colleagues as well as going to a Thai Cultural presentation at the Hyatt Doha which was very entertaining with its mix of dance and martial arts as well as visiting the Souqs in search of the new and different as we adjust to a very different family structure and filling the hole Dad left.
What can one say about Dad? What words best describe him? Whatever we do we could never find enough to say about him or words to describe him.
For us he was always that big generous, loving, humorous, passionate, warm-hearted, big-hearted even, down to earth, involved, unassuming, surprising, concerned, neighbourly, a teller of stories, a raconteur, a lover of the bawdy as well as one of great tenderness.
Dad loved life as well as loving intensely with a devotion I can only hope I can emulate. For when Mum was diagnosed with cancer he saw it as his duty to look after her, to nurse her through her long illness and then, despite our shared joke that with all his lawn-mowing, gardening and shared meals he did with his friends on The Hill he was serving twelve widows, to remain loyal to his love right through until his death. My Dad, our Dad, our children’s grandfather, their children’s great grandfather, was a man who continued to surprise us and will continue to be a role model we and they can look and live up to.
For he was a man whose bluff good humour would become the focus of a party - at my 60th his often embarrassing tales of my childhood, here in Wanganui, created much amusement for my friends who, every time we met, would ask “How’s the old man? Still telling stories?”
His intense pleasure of life and all it gave him was shared equally between us, as family, and his neighbours. I learnt, only recently, of his early morning gardening done for an army friend, an ex POW, whose ill-health prevented him from getting his garden into shape - who else but an overly generous man would get up in the pre dawn mist and go and dig a neighbour’s garden over before going to work?
But, then again, nothing should have surprised us for I recall Jocelyn ringing me one weekend, full of concern, when she discovered that Dad, when he was a regular hut warden for DOC, had met a young English couple honeymooning on the river and,after talking to them, had not only given the couple his jersey because theirs was wet but offered them the keys to the house to stay over in Wanganui while he was up the river. His generosity actually did include giving the shirt off his back!
Jocelyn, Des, Alan & Frank. 25 July 2009
Dad was also a man who enjoyed life and all the humour it held. For him living was a divine comedy. At our last family gathering, his 87th birthday, the evening ended with us falling out of our chairs with stomach aching laughter as he told and then encouraged others to tell story after embarrassingly funny story about himself, ourselves and his childhood. Each story often tinged with poignancy even as the punch lines threw themselves at our solar plexus and doubled us up with laughter.
It was an evening of great good humour that only finished when the final whiskey was drunk and Dad had decided that he’d had enough and said his good nights.
Heather, Joy, Frank, Jocelyn 25 July 2009
That enjoyment of life, his unquestioning generousity gave him rewards that he was astonished, surprised and humbled at receiving. The QSM for his services to the community that is Durie Hill, to the community that is the Wanganui River, the organisations and people along it and to his War time mates left him tongue-tied and speechless and, I think, awed by the honour given to him so freely.
And when, just a few months ago, the RSA awarded him a life membership for his care, his ongoing friendship to his mates, his comment to us was: “Christ, son, they called me up and gave me a life membership.I don’t know why they gave it to me. I was only doing what I normally do.... and ... bugger me if I didn’t start to cry ... stupid old fool eh?”
But that was Dad. He did what he always had done and carried on doing it because it was the right thing, the only thing, to do.
For a man that lived life to the fullest I know Dad was always perpetually surprised that he had survived to reach 87 and to see his family hit those magic numbers of 63, 61 and 50 themselves. He once said to me: “You know son, I told your mother when I reached 40 that I didn’t think I’d see them reach 40... least of all see Jocelyn reach that age.And now, look at us - you’ve passed 60 and Jocelyn’s going on 50 - where did the years go?”
To which I said -”Keep asking Dad ‘cos we expect you to be still here at 90.”
Unfortunately that won’t happen.
Yes, Dad was a great father, a welcoming and loving father in law, a great grandfather and great great-grandfather who has had a huge influence on our lives and on the lives of our families.
He has been great neighbour to many - an established figure on Durie Hill as, after all, you don’t live in one house on one street for 66 years without becoming part of the fabric of the suburb.
He has been a great friend not just to us as his family but to all he came in contact with.
His death will leave a huge hole in our lives but his memory will survive, his stories will be retold, relived and embroidered on for many years and his presence always felt whenever someone begins a sentence with: “Remember when Poppa said or did...”
So let us all remember Frank, remember Dad, Remember Poppa and celebrate his life and mourn his passing.
It is hard to believe that we've been back in Doha for two weeks now as the days seem to have merged into the heat haze that is Qatar in summer. With temperatures regularly in the mid 40s during the day and lows of 30C the idea of doing anything really active during the day disappears as one contemplates the comfort of air conditioning in the cocoon that is our apartment.
On top of the heat induced lassitude it is also Ramadan here which means that the day starts with the dawn call to prayer at 4.00 followed by the sunrise call at 5.15. For the locals it means that there can be no eating or drinking after 5.00am until the sunset call at 5.45pm.
It also means that the working day becomes compressed into a 4-5 hour slot between 8.00 or 9.00am and 1.00pm. (For the workers on the building site behind our apartment the day starts with the shriek of an un-oiled pulley at 5.30 and finishes at around 10.30 or 11.00am when the heat is too much for any outside labour.)
There are several advantages to this situation: getting on with some reading both for recreation and professionally, polishing up PD presentations for delivery once schools start, writing up exemplar lesson plans to take into the schools for teachers to follow and for us, as ATs, to demonstrate as effective teaching to the staff, watching the news on TV, having organisation meetings with the ATs with both companies involved with the contract and socialising with our colleagues.
It does mean that we are getting ourselves well organised for the coming school year.
I've been on site at the school the team I'm on is working in for the past three days meeting the staff, sorting out our work space and getting ourselves ready to swing into action this Sunday when we meet the full staff for the first time. This year the school is an ex-Ministry one that has become an Independent school. The plan is to operate out of the old site for 2009-10 then move to a new site in 2010-11. In the meantime the old rooms are being given a make over with new plant installed ready for the students by the 27th. Consequently the parking area looks like a building site with stacks of student desks, old filing cabinets, broken blackboards, chairs, papers, bottles and hunks of timber and broken masonry on one side and an army of labourers busy painting, reassembling and moving new materials into the classrooms while teachers hunt their way through the movement to find a space to work or talk about the new year in their departments.
It also means that the English Coordinator and I have to sit down and sort out the resources needed to ensure that the Department can deliver both in quantity and quality as there appear to be no text or consumerable resources left from the old MoE school for the staff to use to develop lessons from.
We are, however, impressed by the energy and organisation of the Management team who have been coordinating the changeover for some weeks now. Every discussion we've had with them has shown that they have a solid and well thought-out knowledge of the challenges and requirements of the change from a MoE to an Independent SEC school will mean for the staff and the students. It should also mean that come the 27th the school will be ready to spring into operation.
On the home front Joy and I have settled into our apartment and, following a long exchange of misdirection and misunderstandings, unpacked our final boxes of gear to make the place more homely. Joy has hung her canvases of NZ scenes on the walls in the lounge and lined the walls of the spare bedroom with blank canvases and her paints as a studio and I've set up an alcove in the lounge as a workspace and library. I also picked up a cheap DVD player so we can now enjoy films whenever we want rather than surf our way through the 1050 channels available on the satellite TV to find a programme worth sustained watching.
Joy and Priscilla, as the current surviving "Doha Darlings", are busy plotting and planning their next foray into musical theatre which means they are off most mornings to explore the air conditioned halls of the souqs on the look out for material and items they can put to use. They are waiting on the return of Jan to complete their trio and the "Darlings" will spring into action.
Joy with one of her paintings at the Souq Waqif
Joy and I drove down to the Souq Waqif one evening to check out the "Summer in the City" exhibition Joy had had two paintings exhibited in over the July-September period and were impressed at the range of work and styles the local artists are working in. I think it would be great if Joy could, with other Kiwi artists here in Doha, do a totally NZ art exhibition at sometime. The contrast between the intense colours of the Pacific and the haziness of the Gulf would be interesting to say the least.
On Wednesday we were the guests of the Bloomsbury-Qatar Foundation Publishing House for Iftar, the post fast meal, and a poetry reading by four local poets. The poets read their work in both Arabic and English to a very receptive audience after the meal. The poems revealed the differences in attitude, thought and imagery between male and female in the Middle East as well as the linguistic accomplishment of the poets.
The male poet's work resounded with discords and clashes of images while the women's work focused on the issue or the meaningful moment with intensity and controlled passion which left the audience in earnest discussion after the reading.
This coming week will be interesting especially as I,with my colleagues, will be beginning our work proper and as Ramadan nears its end. Joy and I are also trying to work out what we will do over the Eid break that follows Ramadan - there is a public holiday from the 17th through till the 27th - so we are looking at a trip to Turkey, which would allow us to visit places we didn't get to see when we first went there in 1997, or to Abu Dhabi where we could catch up some of our colleagues from last year as well as drive to Oman and as explore another Gulf State.
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 levelflight.
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 performthe 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 toplans 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 andwe 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 packin 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 tothe 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 themback 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.
13 July: Our decision not to drive to Wadi Rum before heading back to Amman was vindicated when we drove back to Amman from Petra. Saber (saber.alhamad@yahoo.com ) picked us up at 8.30 for the four hour drive back to Amman along the desert highway. With a stop off for a visit to a souvenir stall and lunch at Tawaheen Al-Hawa (The Windmill) restaurant in central Amman we didn't get back to the hotel till 3.30pm.
Woman making breads for customers at Tawaheen Al-Hawa Restaurant
If we'd done the Wadi Rum side trip we could have added an extra five hours to the day which would have made it somewhat exhausting especially as we had to repack our bags in preparation for the long trip home the next day. The meal at Tawaheen Al Hawa was beautifully prepared and presented - a generous platter of "starters" - hummous, pickles, salads, olives... followed by a mixed grill of chicken, lamb and beef and topped off with coffee and water-melon which proved the theory that taking a long, lingering lunch is one of the pleasures that needs to be cultivated and practised often! Back at the hotel we repacked our bags for easier travel - especially as we had picked up a few more souvenirs of our travels than we'd started with. Joy had had great fun bargaining for a silver arabic styled mirror and several other tangible memories of our trip at different stops along our way which meant we needed to ensure that our packing allowed us access to our immediate needs while protecting the articles. Outside our hotel the street was hosting a wedding which, like the others we'd passed by in our first days in Amman and, later, in Petra, meant a parade of cars as the groom and his family set off to bring the bride back to the ceremony, lots of excited chatter as the guests arrived and prepared for the arrival of the couple and, as the call for prayer echoed over the street, lines of men facing Mecca praying before the wedding celebrations began in earnest. Then, as the wedding neared its end a series of firework displays climaxed the evening. The next day it was on to Dubai for an overnight before the 15+ hour trip home to N.Z.
Our brief stop-over in Dubai allowed us to take a walk through the Mall of the Emirates - one of the huge shopping malls that provide tourist destinations in the city-state. Here the attraction is the ski-slope which provides the chance for people to go skiing in the middle of a desert! Otherwise the mall was like every other shopping mall one can see and experience anywhere in the world. So, unless one was a shopping mall addict, as far as we were concerned this was a good excuse to enjoy a walk in air-conditioned comfort after sitting in an airplane constraint for much of the day.
The next day we flew on in the Airbus 380 to Auckland and home and the organisation needed to allow us to return to the Gulf sometime in August.
The Welcoming committee
We were welcomed home by a boisterous and enthusiastic scrum of family and grand-children who draped themselves on our legs and arms as we existed the customs hall and entered the winter damp of an Auckland afternoon.
Now begins the setting up and organisation for a new experience in the Gulf later in the year.
12th July: We decided, too,to abort the side trip to Wadi Rum on our way back to Amman as the heat of the desert would not have made the experience of a two hour jeep ride and walk into the cliffs of the area very pleasant. Without the extra day of walking around Petra we elected to drive out to Little Petra,an outlying village on the route towards Petra itself.
Before we left Joy and I walked down to the corner store to buy a couple of bottles of water. We walked past a couple sitting on their doorstep eating breakfast and drinking tea. Joy greeted them with a breezy “salaam alaykum” and was promptly offered tea and food by the couple. We politely declined the offer as we’d only just eaten at the hotel and headed off to meet our driver, Saber, and take off on our drive to Little Petra.
Elephant Marker indicating routeto Petra from Little Petra
Here we saw the sophistication of the Nabataean engineering in the huge 1.2 million litre cistern cut into a sandstone bluff which acted as one of the catchments for both Little and Big Petra and the surrounding villages when Petra was at the height of its power.
Joy, tempted by the acoustics of the place,sang “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” so she can now claim to have sung in the cistern chapel.
Little Petra or Siq el-Barid was a way station on the trade route which means that the buildings carved from the cliffs could have been inns and shops to supply the traders on their long walk through the sandstone desert towards Petra.
Little Petra, like Petra itself, is built amidst the sandstone rocks with all the holes, indentations and caves that such a landscape creates. We couldn’t help but imagine that the place would sound like a strange and wild orchestra at night with a desert wind blowing and whining over the rocks and through the holes. It would become a place of night djinns and spirits wailing for release from whatever torments they were experiencing. Not the place for a camping trip with the grand-children?
Here the surviving large wall painting from the Nabataean period was undergoing restoration by a couple of archeologist restorers who were perched on scaffolding in a room that could only be reached by climbing a series of sand slippery steps high above the siq floor.
Otherwise the area was deserted to echo to the chirrup of insects and the occasional whirr of a bird flickering through the cliffs.
From there we headed into Wadi Mousa to explore the souvenir shops where Joy bought an arabic style silver mirror decorated with silver chains and charms and I got a Petra tie and a pack of genuine Jordanian coffee to savour with Koro on our return to New Zealand.
I also cleared the e mail to discover that there will be a Cohort VI and the possibility of a new contract in the Gulf was ever nearer.
Tomorrow it is back to Amman with a shopping stop before booking into our hotel for our final night in Jordan. Sunset over Wadi Mousa
Steve O'Neill - Joy's portrait
Raymond auctioning Joy's painting 
Marty delivering PD at ABHSS
