Sleep schedules

We've been in our apartment for two sleeps now—two sleeps that just happen to coincide with the weekend, which is always quite busy on Gewan Island, and has left us wondering when, precisely, anyone here sleeps. To be fair, while we can hear a distant hum of conversation coming from outside—where people are up and active until late in the evening!—on the first floor of our house, we cannot hear much at all from the second floor of our house (where the bedrooms are).

When I say "late in the evening," I mean that there are still families walking up (and running, depending on their age) up and down the Crystal Walk until 10...11...12...1 o'clock in the evening, which is pretty incredible considering school hours typically start at 7:00 am (I know this is the weekend, so we might see fewer children out on weekdays, but I don't know). 

Here's a picture from about 10:30 PM and you can see all the cafes are quite crowded:

Slow down! You're moving too fast...

Happy Last Day of September to all who celebrate!

In our family we apparently celebrate by...moving...because today was the day we moved out of the hotel (more or less) and into our apartment and today was the day that Rachel moved into the MTC (missionary training center).

What did you do to celebrate? (If you didn't move, it doesn't count.)

Andrew, Miriam, and I stayed up far too late packing up virtually everything in our hotel room and getting it ready to cart downstairs. Here's a shot Miriam took of our things in the hotel room:

Moving In, Membership Station, and Personal Storytime

We got the keys to our apartment yesterday and to celebrate we went and got gelato. Both Benjamin and Alexander chose the black vanilla flavour (coloured with activated charcoal). It was rather horrifying to watch them eat it, but they said it tasted just fine (and, in fact, I think most of us sampled a little bit from their dishes).

How bazaar, how bazaar...

We went back for round two of volunteering at the service workers' bazaar this morning. This time our task was to arrange items in the category-sorted bins (last weekend's task) onto tables for people to shop from. Clothes were sorted out by size and gender, our family did a lot of toy and book sorting (which was somewhat difficult for some of our children, who are, by this point in time, feeling a little thirsty for toys themselves—we haven't had "stuff" for months now), and there were also kitchen supplies, linens, office supplies, and so forth. 

Benjamin's poem drafts

 At the beginning of August (the 9th or so) Benjamin wrote these poem drafts:

Mirage. An illusion caused by heat.
The humid air condenses on the windows
forming an illusion of rain,
but there is no stead pitter patter of rain on the roof
the steady hum of air through the vents provides a
masquerade of wind in the trees out my window
it's an illusion of home
and it is my home.

Draft two:

Phoebe at the Fun Fair

Phoebe has been dreaming of riding on a ferris wheel (and in general to visit an amusement park) for quite some time and today that dream came true! 

I don't know about you...but I'm feeling 42! (or, it's Andrew's Birthday!)

This morning we headed to GUQ for part one of a service project (part two is next weekend). It was the kind of service project that felt almost like cheating because there were so many people there that (from our perspective) we hardly had to do anything (I'm sure the organizers feel differently). We showed up, sorted a few things, and then before we'd even gotten into a rhythm victory was declared!

The very embodiment of "many hands make light work."

After a light lunch (and some time spent playing in the student lounge), we headed home (technically some of the kids went to our friends' house to play, with plans to meet up later at IKEA). We did some laundry and some homework. I took a little nap. So did Miriam (that poor girl work up at 4:45 am to attend a lecture...and ended up only catching the tail end of it because it actually started at four in the morning, not five. It was recorded so she was able to watch the rest of it this evening, but she was rather frustrated about her miscalculation). And...then we headed out to Festival City (where IKEA is). 

We picked out duvet covers and sifted through whatever was still available to cobble together some furnishings (there is quite a lot out of stock—we would love to see shipping passages open). I was excited to find an Arabic majlis sofa online (not from IKEA, which is going to be delivered next Monday). I love its versatility—it can be a couch or a bed! 

I really wanted to get a play couch for the kids (like a Nugget or whatever) to put in our shipment, but wasn't able to get one in time. The kids love building cushion forts—I figure that these majlis sofas will do just the trick!

Anyway, we wandered all through IKEA with our friends, looking at all kinds of things (most of which was out of stock) and selecting many other things to purchase, and then had a little dinner in the cafe (not the restaurant) before heading home for the sad little cake I baked. 

Rachel was pretty eager to get to talk to us on her first P-Day (preparation day: when missionaries get some time off of missionary duties to do laundry, grocery shop, catch up on correspondence, and relax a little). Phone calls home will typically be limited to P-Days, but Rachel's been calling a little more frequently since she's doing home MTC, has no companion, and is feeling a little lonely. 

Miriam has been doing companion study time with Rachel (on the phone). And my mom is trying to see if any ladies in her ward would be willing to take Rachel out for a walk in the middle of the day (like she's a crate-bound puppy—Rachel has been walking laps in the backyard during her class breaks). It will get better for her, I'm sure. 

And look! I don't know if you can see, but her name tags made it to her and she's now officially Chị Heiss! I mean, I suppose she was officially Chị Heiss when she was set apart earlier this week...but now she looks it!

Clever signs

A lot of the walking around we end up doing happens to be indoors (so much so that one day Benjamin looked up symptoms of vitamin D deficiency and whether or not you can get vitamin D through a window when he realized he hadn't been outside the entire day...not that a single day without the sun will give you a vitamin D deficiency...but many days without it might). A lot of this indoor walking happens in malls. 

Mall life is alive and well here.

We like to be on the lookout for clever typography and/or names of things when we're out and about...and here are two we've spotted recently. 

First up, "eyewa" or "أيوا":

Falconry and things

I am typically a one-outing a day kind of a person, but today we had three outings that had us out and about the whole entire day. 

We spent the morning chatting with Rachel while getting ready to head out. She was up late, having been out late with friends. She remarked that since she's been living with my parents over the summer she hasn't had many late nights (which kind of made her miss her roommates and all the fun they'd have together), instead going to bed by 10 PM most nights and then getting up and going to work...and, honestly, while I'm glad she had a fun time out with her friends, she's going to be adhering to a missionary schedule pretty soon so it's not terrible that she's already in the habit of going to bed by 10 PM and getting up early to get the day started. 

It was wonderful to get to speak with Rachel for a bit, even if it was during our own morning rush. I can't believe she'll be starting her mission so soon (just a couple of days now)! But I'm definitely looking forward to only being 4 hours different from her instead of 9. Surely that will make arranging phone calls a little easier. 

Anyway, our first outing this morning was to brunch at the apartment of some people in our ward. They live in the same area that we'll be moving to and they have three little girls all right around Phoebe's age (3, 4, 6). It was fun to get to know them, even if the kids got a little rambunctious—many little bodies running around squealing and laughing in a small apartment with marble floors can be a bit of a recipe for disaster. I was glad when our hosts asked if they should pull out some LEGO (that seemed to calm the kids down significantly).

From brunch, we made our way to Katara for another visit to the S'hail Falcon Exhibition, this time with some friends. Here are Andrew, Phoebe, and Zoë walking towards an art installation by Lorenzo Quinn called "Building Bridges":

Katara International Hunting & Falcons Exhibition

It was Alexander who saw the advertisement for the Katara Falcon Exhibition on the metro. He tried to tell me about it on the train but sometimes the train is just too loud to hear him speak (not because others are talking but simply because the metro is moving fast and that creates a lot of noise). So when we got out of the metro he gushed out all the information with syncopated, breathless excitement: "Falcon festival! September 8 through 12! At Katara! Free admission! Can we go?"

The Villaggio Mall

Phoebe spent the day as an only child, a position she took to quite well. 

She is rather emotional and tends to be rather strongly affected by nostalgia—which is odd because she's only four. How nostalgic can she really be, right?

Remember how just hearing the song 'There's Always Tomorrow' from Rudolph would set her off crying all the time? Like, we could just start singing it and she would start crying? 

It was hilarious, but very indicative of her personality. 

The song just made her so sad that she couldn't even handle it. 

Similarly, she had to laugh boisterously through the entire (loud) call to prayer because it was so loud that once she was startled she was going to either laugh or cry and she settled on laughing and...that was that. Like, those giggle weren't going anywhere until the emotions had fully run their course.

Well, last night we were getting ready to play Nerts together, which Phoebe had uninvited herself from because it's too fast-paced for her. Instead she sat down with a phone and asked it to play some memories for her. She loves the little video montages Apple puts together. So she was just sitting down and watching one of those movies when she started sobbing. 

"Oh, Phoebe! What's wrong?" we asked. 

"Do you...do you miss me?" she blubbered. "Being this little?"

"Oh, of course I miss that sweet little Phoebe! She was so cute and cuddly and funny! But we also love this Phoebe," I said, giving her a hug. 

"But I was sooooo cuuuuuuute!" she wailed. "And I was so little! Just look at me!"

"You were so cute and little! You were my favourite little Phoebe in the whole entire world! And it is so hard to watch you grow up because I always miss little Phoebe. But it is so fun to watch you grow up because you become more incredible every single day!"

We watched a few movies of her being little and cute and fun and we laughed and hugged and blew our noses (or at least her nose)...and...she's not quite over wishing she could reclaim her babyhood, so today (Saturday) was a good day for her to be an "only child" for the day.

Benjamin slept over at G's house last night. 

Miriam left for the library to hang out with her knitting group friends early this morning.

And then Andrew took Zoë and Alexander over to G's house to hang out with G's younger siblings. 

So it was just Phoebe and me and Daddy for most of the day, which was perfect for Phoebe.

We did some window shopping at the mall at some home goods stores, just to see what's available furniture-wise (since we have none), and she quite enjoyed walking around, trying out furniture, and imagining putting a room together. 

Oh, and convincing Andrew and me to carry her. 

I don't know what sweet nothings she was whispering in his ear when it was his turn to carry her, but I had an ongoing rendition of "Oh, how I love my beautiful mommy! She is so nice and sweet! And her cheek is soft and she's wearing black pants! Oh, how I love my beautiful mommy!" going the whole time I was carrying her. It involved lots of nuzzling into my neck and hair. She was very clingy. 

But here she is down for a moment in the rug section (she claimed this area as her fort):

Lotion!

It has been one month since we left the United States, so today I'll confess that I didn't pack lotion. I packed a lot of things, but I didn't pack any lotion. In fact, I gave away a few perfectly good brand new bottles of lotion that had been sitting in our storage room because I didn't want to pack them all the way here. 

Why?

Because they have lotion here. 

Obviously. 

I packed an extra bottle of hair detangling spray because I wasn't sure that they would have that here (I don't know why), but we found some right there beside the children's shampoo (which is in the baby aisle), and it was a good thing, too, because that extra bottle of detangling spray I packed broke on the way over here. 

Which is precisely what I envisioned a bottle of lotion doing.

So I didn't pack any because for sure, for sure they have lotion here, right?

Apparently wrong. 

Crystal Walkway and Hala Summer Contests

Andrew got his residency card and that mean's we're apartment shopping.

Today we looked at some apartments at The Pearl. 

Really I wanted to look at this great apartment right off the Msheireb metro station...but alas it was snapped up before we even got to look at it. But our real estate agent suggested some other apartments at The Pearl.

We looked at one and were not very impressed. I just don't see how it could possibly be as big as they were telling me it was (or perhaps it was simply that a lot of the square metreage was a terrible use of space) and it was rather...run down...though we were still considering it. 

And then he took us to another place that was incredible. It was a little over our housing allowance (meaning we'll have to pay some of our rent out-of-pocket), but for its size and location it feels worth it. Plus, most utilities are included (whereas at the other place no utilities were included). Plus, we get a percentage off because of our corporate connections...so...it all...seemed to even out in the end. 

Eventually we won't need a place quite this big, but with five kids (all homeschooling), it feels necessary. 

We wish the pool were bigger, but it also comes with access to the beach and a long, air-conditioned pedestrian promenade called The Crystal Walkway, which looks beautiful enough in the daytime...but our real estate agent said we had to return in the evening to see it all lit up:

Church City, license plates, and little things

Church City is a designated quarter of the city where churches with official status can rent out buildings for their congregants to worship in. Our friends attend the Anglican church, which shares its facilities with the Seventh Day Adventists. There's a Catholic church as well as a Coptic church, Greek Orthodox...and a handful of other officially recognized religions. And they all meet in that quarter. 

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."

Arabic Story Time II

We made it to the library for Arabic story time again and it went a lot smoother than last week. It was a different storyteller/librarian, who was much more...excited...about story time than last week's librarian (who, granted, was filling in for someone else). 

Here's Zoë in a little reading nook while waiting for story time to start:

Suq Waqif

Having been here for three weeks and not yet having visited the suq, I suggested we head out for the evening on Thursday and see what the suq had to offer for dinner (Andrew was also in the middle of having an argument with Phoebe about whether or not dinner at McDonald's was a good idea—I'll let you guess whose argument was which). 

Our hotel apartment has a kitchen, but the stove is highly inefficient and the oven is (as a friend put it) EasyBake oven-sized. Our washing machine (which we are very grateful to have, but which is running nearly constantly) also seems to have been made for elves. 

Hotel life is great but...perhaps not suited for a family of seven. 

It's hard to make a full meal with the limited space and dishes that we have and we have laundry hanging to dry everywhere all the time. 

It's fairly glamorous. 

I mean, we love the view. We love that we have beds for everyone. We even enjoy having housekeeping come by three times a week (though I also like they days they don't come by). But we still feel a little bit like we're just camping out...still.

It's been a long time of feeling displaced, first living in our own house for six weeks with little to no furniture, and then living here in our temporary—wonderful but less-than-ideal—apartment. 

Anyway, all that is to say that we've gone to McDonald's three times since moving here and Phoebe thinks it's the absolute best (we used to only get McDonald's on our way home from the beach and whenever the power went out and we couldn't cook any food). She's always trying to convince Daddy it's a good day for a trip to McDonald's.

But I was like, "Why don't we go to the suq, see what kind of places they have down there..."

Andrew thought that was a great idea, so that's what we did. Even though it was hot.

Gold club lite

Every metro train here has a "gold club" car, followed by a "family" car, followed by however many "standard" cars. We have mostly travelled in the family car, although I don't know why because this isn't Moscow or London or DC or Cairo or Rome—Doha has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. The likelihood of getting harassed or assaulted or pickpocketed on the train in Doha is virtually nil. 

But the first time we rode the metro here everyone directed us down to the family car, so...that's where we sat and then, as creatures of habit, that's where we continued to sit. 

The children—particularly Phoebe—have been staring at the "gold club" car with quite a lot of longing (perhaps even with a tinge of coveting). You see, there are two chairs at the front of the "gold club" car, through which you can see out the window and down the metro tunnel and that is very exciting. 

Sure, there are windows on the side of the train, but it's really so dark that you can't see much of anything through them (so they're a little disappointing—our friends went to a Harry Potter themed restaurant and were telling us that the windows of the train cars were screens that showed scenery passing by...perhaps the metro also needs these windows).

Here are the kids staring into the gold car, wishing they could use those seats. But a ride in the gold club car costs a whopping 10 QAR (while standard fare is 2 QAR...which is only like $2.75 compared to 55 cents...which is still honestly a good price for a metro ride...but you also have to buy a gold club membership and...anyway...we just keep telling Phoebe no):

Look! A diversion!

Last week we were on our way to church, all piled into one large Uber, when we saw a big sign with flashing lights proclaiming: DIVERSION!! →

"Look!" I whispered to Miriam. "A diversion!"

"Where?!" she gasped, playing along.

One of the oldest tropes in the book. Unfortunately, I was too slow to take a picture.

What it really was doing, of course, was pointing out a detour route.

*****

Miriam was called as the ward pianist on Friday morning. She's the first one in the family with a calling! 

And it's pretty good timing, too, because we just got Miriam's organ manuals set up! Her pedalboard will soon be on its way from Germany. We shipped them to our friend's house because...we don't have a permanent address yet...and they brought them along with them when they dropped Zoë and Alexander off after their sleepover (Wednesday to Thursday). They arrived a lot sooner than I thought they would, all things considered.

Here's Phoebe helping to open the box:

What's in a name?

In 2013, Qtel (Qatar's leading telecommunications company) decided to rebrand themselves as Ooredo. Ooredo has a very visible presence in Qatar today, being one of their leading telecommunications companies, but there is still evidence of Qtel's existence in utility infrastructure throughout Doha. 

I'm a little obsessed with these covers because in Arabic it phonetically spells out Qtel...like kyoo-tell:

And it just makes me laugh a little every time I see one of these because the Q in Qtel is obviously for Qatar...and in Arabic Qatar starts with a ق (q), not a ك (k). Perhaps I'm just easily amused.