As I was saying...

"I won't say that the call to prayer is ever disappointing to hear, but we've mostly heard it played quietly over the speakers in the mall or the library, almost like soft background music. We had high hopes that the muezzin at the suq would really belt it out...the way they did in Cairo when we lived there...but it ended up being much quieter than we expected (which was a little disappointing)..."

—me, like two days ago 

This evening was a bit of a circus with Andrew staying late on campus, me having meetings at 4:00 and 7:30, Miriam having a YW activity in one location (7:00), and Benjamin having a YM activity in another location (also at 7:00). 

After my meeting, Miriam and I heated up some boxed soup from France (so fancy) and we quickly ate dinner. And then I took all the kids on the metro down to the Corniche station and then walked Benjamin down to the soccer pitch while Miriam took an Uber to her activity (which isn't precisely on the metro line). 

There was some confusion about which pitch was which (the security guard was certain we* hadn't reserved the pitch we had so wouldn't open the gate), but since Benjamin was with his leaders and peers, we left him to walk across the street to the playground on the other side. It was quite the hike to get to the pedestrian bridge! It looked so close, but the access point was so far. 

* We is doing a lot of work in this sentence because here "we" means...the church? The YM leaders? I think actually the bishop reserved the pitch. We (as in me and the children) merely showed up. We contributed nothing to the logistics of the evening.

I was in a hurry to get to the park and send the kids off to play so I could hop onto my meeting. A lot of video call features on social media apps are blocked in Qatar (like FB is...even WhatsApp), but thankfully Zoom is not, so I was able to connect and have my meeting from the park, which was very convenient. But I wanted to make it to the park before my meeting, so was rushing the children along. 

And then I heard, off in the distance, the call to prayer. 

"Hush, hush," I said to the children. "Be still and listen and you'll hear the call to prayer."

"Oh, yeah! I hear it!" Zoë said. "Where...does it come from?"

"Well, you know the tall towers at the mosques? Those are called minarets and they have a special kind of balcony where a muezzin stands and sings the call to prayer, which is then usually broadcast over a loudspeaker..."

"Too bad," Zoë said looking around. "I don't see any minarets nearby."

"Me neither. Shhh...we'll just listen quietly for a minute."

Just then a loudspeaker directly over our heads burst out wailing the call to prayer. It was so loud! We all jumped, the children screamed, Phoebe clamped her hands over her ears. It was quite surprising. 

I missed the initial "jump scare" (as Zoë called it), but filmed a little bit of it. It was very windy, so you can hear the wind whipping around as well, and Phoebe's nervous giggle continued through the entire call to prayer (she doesn't do well with loud noises...and has to let out her emotions and laughing is better than crying, which is what she used to do to cope with loud noises).

Now that's the call to prayer volume I'm talking about! You can really set the rhythm of your day to that—there's no missing it! And I love the reminder to take those moments throughout the day to commune with God, though I did have the children keep walking...because we had to find our way into the playground area and somewhere for me to take my meeting...and we only just made it before I was supposed to log on, so it was perfect timing!

The kids had a fun time playing at the park (al-Bidaa playground), especially on this little...sledding...installation. Phoebe was thrilled: "We can go sledding in the land where it never snows!" she sang with glee.

My phone/camera was too hot to use the flash or anything, so all the pictures are blurry. It's really been much cooler lately. At 7:30 it was only 38 °C (100°F), with only 40% humidity. That's...hot...but totally handleable. My phone was still grumpy about it (I think it was just extra warm from having to Zoom for so long in the heat before I even started taking pictures).

Soon I had to convince the children that we had to make the trek back across the street to find the soccer pitch (Benjamin sent a text message saying he was at a different one because they were able to change their reservation to another pitch, even if they couldn't use the one they thought they had reserved...so he actually ended up being at the soccer pitch right by the pedestrian bridge and we saw them right away).

The boys weren't quite finished playing soccer since they started late, on account of the pitch switch. The little kids and I found the toilets (public restrooms are one of the most amazing things about Qatar—they are beautiful! Okay, perhaps not "the most amazing things," but certainly pretty awesome—this one was air conditioned and clean and had toilet paper and soap and, like, every bathroom here just gets two thumbs up). 

And then we sat and waited on a nearby bench. I pulled out a book to read. The kids tried to coax the many, many, many kittens out and about to come in for some friendly petting.



This little pair of cuddly kittens reminded me of the set of kittens I had when I was a little girl: Tango and Midnight.

Tango was a tabby, and was so named because he loved to stand on his hind legs and bat at things (a paper fan on a string, moths, whatever). Midnight was a little less rambunctious and more prone to hiding, but was secretly my favourite. I also liked to sit quietly and she would come and sit quietly with me. 

But she got hit by a car. And then soon after Tango disappeared (we are fairly certain he got snatched by a cougar—these things happen). And neither of them really made it to adulthood. 

Anyway, it was a successful evening! Miriam had a good time at her activity and made it home shortly before us. We opened the door to our apartment and her beautiful piano music wafted into the hallway. 

She's into Debussy right now, reveling in his children's corner, giggling over titles such as 'Jimbo's Lullaby' and 'Golliwogg's Cakewalk.'

I told her she needs to learn and record Jimbo's Lullaby for my cousin Mindy's husband...who goes by Jimbo. But apparently it's really meant to be about Jumbo, an elephant who came to live at the zoo in Paris, but...Debussy got his vowels mixed up.

And, oh dear...I just looked up what a golliwog is and...Claude, no!

The music is delightful, but the history's not great.