Thankfulness!

There is much to be thankful for!
- wonderful support from friends here in Doha
- incredible support from friends and family from back home
- passport and visa in my possession
- an amazing experience
- health and safety
- a trip to Nepal to enjoy some beautiful creation



I cannot believe the time has flown so FAST! It is already December and we are already finished with a quarter of the school year! I feel very far removed from the holiday atmosphere, but having a break from school was just the ticket we all needed to make it through the next few weeks! I certainly hope you all are enjoy the holidays and gearing up for a great December!

My roommates and I enjoyed an incredible trip to Nepal- aka Never Ending Peace And Love. We were overwhelmed by the beauty of the landscape and the kind hearted people! I have never been to a country quite as poor as this one, but on the other hand the beautiful people were so welcoming and rich with personality! It was a perfect change from DOHA. The trip turned out to be very exhausting. We trekked in the mountains (not snow covered mountains, but we got high up there!). We hiked for 3 full days! The first day by far was the most difficult- ALL UP HILL! By the time the sun went down and the moon light was our only guide, we were all wondering what we got ourselves into! We arrive at our Hostel in Chisopani ("cold water") and MY was it COLD! We warmed up with some Nepali tea, good food, and really fun card games! Put on our scarves and hats on and hit the slightly uncomfortable beds at about 9pm!




We unfortunately missed sun rise, but started our hike again at about 9am. The view from our hostel was breathtaking!! Layers upon layers of rolling hills and rocky mountains floating with the clouds! I truly do not think the pictures to it justice! This day was much easier. Less uphill and more flat roads!! My body thanks the guides for an easier day!! We enjoyed walking the roads that lead through little villages and passing by locals. Each person greeted us with "Namaste"! This hostel was a bit warmer. It was a trend that the electricity would go out each night. So we ate by candle like and listened to music around the campfire. Our two guides, Milan and Deep sang, played the guitar, and the drum for all of us :)




Our last day trekking brought us to two temples. One of which I do not know the name, but we received blessings from the priest, were anointed on the forehead, were decorated with marigold necklaces, and were fed holy food. The atmosphere was very peaceful. We finished our hike by ending at the Changu Narayan Temple. It is the most ancient pilgrimage site in Kathmandu Valley. We then took a city bus to the city. This bus was packed to the max and drove through a very congested city of small streets, honking, and people everywhere!




The following day challenged us to come up with a PLAN B! Our original plan was to take the day and go BUNGEE JUMPING!!! AHhhh! Much to our dismay, the one day we had available, the site was not opened! Dang, we were all gearing up for that THRILL!! Well anyway we decided on other adventures- I took a day to go rock climbing. Lauren, Kate, and Ashley went white water rafting, and Summer rested trying to get over her cold. It turned out to be a very fun experience. I had never rocked climbed before, so my legs, arms, and fingers got a workout! I went up 4 different pitches, as they say. Needless to say I maxed out my body's strength pretty early, but enjoyed the climbing I was able to do. I would say the repelling down on the rope is certainly the fun part!

Our final day consisted of rushing to the spa for a massage. And then good byes to the lovely hosts at Panda Trekking Company. We bonded more than we ever expected. They might have even talked us into returning to Nepal within 3 years :) Then finally we were off to the airport! Made the closing gate within 5 minutes! What clock work! The flight took off at sunset over the mountains- what a beautiful way to depart!





"Though we did not climb Mount Everest, we touched it with our hearts" :)

Doha at it's finest... if that's possible...

Two months of being here and yes, some things have come together. Like we finally got text books in our classrooms and some teacher manuals! I tell you this school is SO unorganized and really you have NO idea! The work here is endless with weekly agendas (homework assignments) that list ALL the home work for each subject for every day of that week Sun-Thursday which are due the Wed prior. As a teacher it is very hard to finalize things that far in advance. It is also odd that the school can be so demanding when they themselves are so disorganized! Khalas!

Discipline and the language barrier continue to be a struggle very day. This is to be expected, so I am optimistic that we will make more connections and get messages through to each other. It is fun when we can make a connection and laugh with each other! The kids were actually fascinated by Halloween! They love all things "scary" and love the idea of candy! It was fun sharing about our traditions. We had "orange" day last week, so here are some pictures of that.





Doha had the biggest weekend that it could ever handle! There was the Women's Final Tennis Tournament, the Doha Tribeca Film Festival, AND Halloween to celebrate! All of these were amazing. We only wish the excitement was spread out!

1. Tennis:
Randomly, a friend and I were going to swing by the box office to get tickets to the tennis tournament later that week. Plans changed when we heard the William Sisters were playing against each other in 10 minutes! Of course we bought tickets and took seats. As we noticed the stands embarrassingly empty, we worked our way down to the very front! Now that is how one should watch tennis- up close and personal where you can hear the grunting and make conversation with Serina Williams (the new #1 in the world) after the game! Apparently we made it on CNN back in the States!




2. Doha Tribeca Film Festival:
My roommates and I all volunteered for this event thinking it would be a great way to meet some people, see some films, and be apart of the action over the weekend! It turned out to be beneficial in stuffing our faces with food as well as meeting some celebs! On the other hand we were disappointed with how unorganized the coordinators were for the volunteers. Keep in mind, these were non-Qatari people organizing the festival and it still proved to be disorganized. Oh well, that is the way Doha functions. Here are some pretty sweet pictures of how the city used lights to accentuate its unique features. They love their lights, so of course they went all out! Please check out the website as there are some PHENOMINAL photos and some great videos giving background info on Doha. Check out Doha365.
www.dohatribecafilm.com



3. Halloween:
Doha does not really celebrate Halloween, but people here are fascinated by it- so they try. Some bars had some drink specials and encouraged costumes. Some went all out while others had no idea what was going on. I did not really dress up while I was busy with volunteering at the film festival, but we had a good time celebrating.

Needless to say October was full of some good times! Let's just hope the good times keep rolling!

Cheers!

Just Getting Started

One might think that all I do is travel! And yes that is partially right, but now I am finally in the working mode! I was able to see my students at Al Hekma International School just ONE day, and then flew 50+ hours round trip home to Minnesota! After a whirl wind of visiting with family, friends, my previous school and other appointments, attending a wedding of a very good friend, I was back on the plane "home" to Doha after 6 days of traveling! And yes by the way, it was WONDERFUL being home! How nice to see people, have an English conversation with ease, drive my little beetle, and to dance the night a way at the wedding!

Arriving back in Doha was hitting the pavement running! Other teachers would understand how grueling life is to get back in the classroom. I had to quickly recover from jet lag and any thing the subs did or did not do with my students. I had to quickly relearn names to my 20 5th grade students, 16 4th grade students, and 12 2nd grade students. Believe me when I say a had some difficulty! :)

Let me just tell you a little bit more about this unique school:
1. The student body is very diverse! It is very cool to have students all over the area from Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and other Gulf States. This makes life interesting but also causes some tension within the kids because there are many different Arabic dialogges between all of those countries, and there are kids that insult each other based on their background. On the other hand this will allow our school an amazing opportunity to unite together!
2. The students are quite ill-manured! I have students that really have a hard time sitting, listening, and waiting their turn!!! I will her at lease ten students at one time say miss!! miss miss!!! wanting me to attend to a pressing question they have. I know that other students at any other school would go through something like this, but wow these Arab kids have no boundaries!!
3. Due to #1, #2, and the language barrier I end up yelling quite a bit! I literally get a soar throat because I have to get their attention! I would NEVER do that before! There HAS to be another option, but this culture is so used to yelling, that its what they responding to. Doing lights out, clapping hands, counting down, are really ineffective! AND obviously doing the "I am going to wait..." would just take the entire class period! (on a side note I heard that watching a movie here in the cinema includes people standing up, having conversations, talking on the cell phones while the movie is going on... no wonder I have a difficult time in my classroom!!)
4. The school day is from Sunday to Thursday from 7:30am to 1:45 pm. There really is no lunch break, but 2 smaller snack and recess breaks. Let me try to describe the death trap of the playground: equipment that would never meet code rules in the states, kids running everywhere, kids that don't know what taking turns is all about, kids that awkwardly interact, kids playing when they are more physical by nature, and all of this happening in a very small 20 x 40 foot space! I am sure you can tell that I LOVE my recess duty days :)



The other English/Literature teachers and I are still waiting for our books to come in. The classrooms got rid of the dry-erase white boards and put Smart boards in. This will be great once they all run properly! Sometimes they work in the classroom and other times they do not. There's always a new surprise when you step into the classroom! (If anyone has good Smart Board websites, certainly pass them on!!)
(some teachers and me on "Red-Day" at school)


I am now entering my first full week of teaching! By some grace I will get through it!

Example A of these crazy kids. I am not sure if you can see this, but a 14 year old boy came driving past our school showing off his skills! His left wheels are definitely off the road!!

For a country free of pork products, they sure take their swine flu seriously...

Well the good news just keep getting better. We were supposed to finally start teaching on September 27th, but school is canceled for another week! Nation wide in Qatar schools have been canceled due to the H1N1 until October 4th. The school is still torturing us by requiring meetings all week from 8-3pm. Let's just hope school does not get further delayed like it is in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

To add to the craziness of this country, all 5 of us Americans had to go to the Medical Center to get our tests done. This was a yet another very disorganized place that was also very disgusting. The worst part was the wads of cotton balls all over the floor that were ripped off by people who just got their blood drawn. GROSS!


This is a picture of my roommate, Summer, at the waiting area with all the cotton balls!

Despite all of this there is some good news: the pool at our villa finally is full of water! We LOVE THAT!


(I have to give props to Ryan Simonet for the line in the title!! He rocks!)

A blast from the past!

Egypt was a wonderful trip! I am honored to have seen the sites and to now be able to teach my students all about Egyptian history!

My trip started by touring around Beirut in Lebanon during my 6 hour lay-over. It was SO beautiful on the coastline, full of nice people, and great food! I absolutely want to go back!



Later that night I landed in Cairo, Egypt, where I was picked up by my relative Mohamed. He and his wife, Mona, live in an apartment down town Cairo. We had a delicious meal and enjoyed catching up! The one thing I have learned about Egyptians is that they like to feed you!! In fact once a meal is over, they will just fill your plate with more food even though everyone is done eating!

The next day I took a 2 hour tour around the Great Pyramids and Sphinx all on camel back!! That was probably one of my highlights of the whole trip! My camel, called Moses, would sit down, let me hop on, and then in the slow process Moses would get his long legs to stand up. First the back, which made me and the driver lean way forward, and then his front legs. I certainly had to hold on tight! Other than that, the camel was a great way to get around the desert lands and take photos.




There are a total of 3 pyramids: 3 great pyramids and 3 small ones of Queens/children. I was shocked by the number of graves scattered around the area that are for the thousands of workers who died honorably building the pyramids. Mohamed and I left and did more touristy stuff like seeing King Tut's tomb and the mummies in the Cairo Museum. That experience was simply amazing! There were millions and millions of artifacts from over 5,000 years ago that were in mint condition! The Egyptians created such beautiful things with tremendous detail.



I finished my all too-short-of-a trip by relaxing at the North Shore just a few kilometers west of Alexandria. The blue of the Mediterranean Sea was breath taking! Everywhere I looked I felt like I was in a postcard! The Ramadan holiday ended by celebrating the feast of Eid. Traditionally cookies/biscuits are shared. They are powder sugar covered cahk. Yummy, but full of butter! I enjoyed my time with family and friends! I especially enjoyed the young kids ages 1 to 4 at the family cottage at the Med Sea! I wish I new more Arabic, but at the same time it is amazing how anyone can communicate with kids despite the language barrier.

A slow start

Sept 12-13th was our Open House which went as well as it could go! It was interesting meeting the parents! Some came in fully robed, some with just the head scarves, and others with just their eyes showing! Not going to lie, being the presence of the fully dressed Qatari men is a bit intimidating (especially when they wear sun glasses!!) Anyhow, others came dressed in normal clothes, yet covering their elbows and knees. One thing I picked up on is that these parents are pretty demanding! They are wealthy and used to getting whatever they want. So some of the mom's came in with their maids and had the maids carry everything etc... wow I hope the kids don't expect ME to be their maid, because that won't be happening! :) It seems as though the 4th and 5th graders will be at a lower reading level than I am used to working with. I will have to grow into closing the communication gap...

School will not begin until Sunday, September 27th. Our school week is from Sunday to Thursday. We are just finishing the Ramadan holiday, which is where the Muslims fast and celebrate the end of their fast on Eid. Eid is celebrated on Sept 20th. I am lucky enough to be celebrating the holiday with some family in Cairo! I will spend a few days seeing the pyramids in Cairo and then take a few relaxing days on the Mediterranean Sea in Alexandria! In addition, I am getting some real-life resources to teach my 4th and 5th grader Social Studies class all about Egypt and its history! Sounds like great planning to me!

A few terms I am trying to get used to:
Sheila
(Slang) The covering worn by women over their head. Also known as hijab or khemaar.

Thobe
Originally a word for the long flowing dress that Qatari women wear; now a days normally used for men's dress.

Abbayah (Abaya)
(Formerly called Aldaffah): a one piece cloak which covers the women from the top of their head to their toes.


I hope you all had a HAPPY HALF-Way to St. Patrick's Day!! Stay posted for pictures of my travels!

Cheers!

First Days in Doha

Well let's just say I feel more than 8 hours away from the USA. The international school is quite different in how things are run. At times this can be quite frustrating, but I am confident things will come together! My little classroom is starting to come together. We have an open house on Sunday Sept 13 but then the kids do not start until Sunday Sept 27th. There is certainly more planning and organizing to do. I must say I have LOVED setting up the bulletin boards that have the background on them already! (other teachers, you would understand my joy!)

The Al-Hekma International School that I am at has a website:
http://www.alhekma.com/qatar/qatar.asp

I still need a few more details, but I am a homeroom teacher for grade 5 (it is not called 5th grade, but Grade 5). I will be teaching Social Studies and Literature to Grades 4 and 5, and then Math to Grade 2. We are all still waiting on details about the curriculum we will be teaching. Meetings have been grueling and supplies always seem to be "in the next shipment". Dispite those factors, school will be school and when the students come, things will fall into place! Here are a few photos of my classroom:

Talk about being back to school... The 4 other American teachers and I got in "trouble" and "sent to the principal's office" the other day! We were chewing gum and sipping on water in the school! That is a huge no-no and disrespectful during the Muslim fast of Ramadan. Muslims are not able to eat, or drink (and apparently not chew gum) from sun-up to sun-down. That means that we are not able to do those things in public from 5:00am until 6:00pm. I have to give the Muslims a LOT of respect for sticking to the fast for over a month!

Another funny story we got in trouble for was at the Villagio Shopping mall on Thursday evening. A security guard approached one of my roommates about not adhering to the dress code of the mall. Apparently she had on a skirt that was just above the knee and was too short. The people get very strict around here during Ramadan. The guard asked for her ID and could have fined her a fee. The situation was explained and we left the mall. Lesson Learned!! Check your knees before going in public!

Actually Arrived in Qatar!

It is hard to believe that the adventure is now a reality! After 24 hours of traveling the 4 of us American teachers arrived in Doha, Qatar! All together our luggage weighed over 500 lbs! We are able to see the beautiful night skyline, arrived at our villa, and were stifled by the heat! When we landed at 9pm, it was still 97 degrees outside.

As the 4 of us got a tour of our beautiful villa, we felt as though we were on a reality show since our new life style seemed so hard to believe!

Here are a few photos of our villa in Al Qutaifiya area. We have 2 kitchens, 3 living rooms, 10 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, and 3 dining rooms. Out back is a private pool for us to enjoy in the hot weather. To get around we have a driver or we call a taxi. But for the most part we have stayed indoors where the A/C keeps us comfortable. Once everyone arrives there will be 9 teachers living in the villa.






Tomorrow we start our orientation at Al-Hekma International School. We will continue to learn about our new habitat.

Count down!

It is hard to believe that reality is setting in and I have just ONE month until I will be in Qatar... and ONE month left of being in Minnesota!!

It has been wonderful talking to others that have lived in Qatar. I am feeling even more ready by those conversations and by reading my Survival Guide Handbooks.

Getting ready, set, go

Hello!! Welcome to my new blog spot! I hope (and cannot promise) I will be updating this blog weekly from Doha, Qatar! My vision is to educate myself about this new place and all of you as well!

My trip is set for September 3rd!

Here are a few websites to check the place out:

http://www.alhekma.com/qatar/qatar.asp

Website of the school where I will be teaching

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/qa.html

-CIA World Fact Book

http://www.experienceqatar.com/

http://www.qatar-info.com/

general info