Unexpected Blessings
Yesterday I received an unexpected thrill – a letter from a publishing house in Zambia asking to use a photo of a quilt I made in a textbook they are publishing for Namibian children. We have traveled often to Zambia, and once to Namibia. Namibia is a thrilling country, as hot and dry and dusty as Qatar and Kuwait, and as rich, due to diamond deposits.
This is the quilt they will be using. I made it for my husband when I first started quilting, and more experienced quilters said I was crazy. It is a huge quilt, ample for a California king sized bed, but I knew I needed 3″ squares (I had some giraffe fabric I wanted to use) and as the quilt assumed a life of its own, it ended up much larger than I had planned.
It has many African fabrics, one a piece I bought in Tunisia about 30 years ago. I put a piece of it in all my map quilts.
Here are a couple of my more recent quilts. The first is the one I made for my new grandson π
This one is one I started many years ago, but didn’t know how to make it work the way I wanted it to. Twelve years later, I pulled it out and knew exactly what to do and had it pieced together in one morning. π
All these years of living abroad, with AdventureMan working long hours and often traveling, quilting has kept me sane. It provides me with friends who speak the same language – patterns, textures and colors – no matter where I go in the world. It is so absorbing that sometimes I look up and an entire day has passed while I work on a quilt, and it’s time to fix dinner . . . Dinner? No! No! I am going to sew for another hour and order out!
One of the things quilting groups do is to help you stretch and to try new things. Literally, the groups hold CHALLENGES. This was a challenge where it was to show you and a facet of your personality – so this is how I see me with the green Gulf in the background. I made this while living in Kuwait and participating in the quilting guild which is part of the Kuwait Textile Arts Association there. π
There is a wonderful guild in Qatar, the Qatar Quilters. They meet once a month and have nearly 100 members – imagine! Women who quilt come from all Qatar to attend. At the meetings, they show what they have been working on, and teach one another new ways to create quilts. They share information on where to find quilting tools and which shop has recently received a new shipment of fabrics.
You can learn more about the Qatar Quilters by visiting their blog: Qatar Quilters The lady you see in the first photo is one of the Qatar Quilter founders.
Change of Plans
When we were planning this trip, it all sounded so simple . . . greet the grandbaby, buy a house, quick, fly to Seattle, fly back to Pensacola, kiss the grandbaby and fly to Doha to pack.
Not quite the way it turned out. When we got here, the grandbaby was 11 days overdue. We got to be here for the birth. While our son and his wife labored, we went out with the world’s most wonderful real estate lady and actually, we did find a house.
Three years ago, we found a house. When I talked with the mortgage people, I said “We just finished paying off a mortgage with you; isn’t there some kind of short-cut you could do with me?” and they did something called “fast track” with me, and it was so easy I can’t even remember the paperwork; I think I filled it out on my computer – online – and that was it. My son handled the closing. It was so easy.
Things have really changed. This will be our third mortgage with the same company, but you would think we are potential deadbeats. We have high credit scores, an impeccable payment record – I would think they would want to have us as customers! It’s like pulling teeth. Papers don’t get to us. Additional verifications are required. Appraisers actually enter the house and verify square footage.
Between chasing paper and soothing the newborn, my life has been very full. It doesn’t sound very exciting, when I tell you about it, but here is the truth – I know I am exactly where I am supposed to be right now. It’s an amazing feeling.
Today, I spent a lot of time with the baby. At some point, I realized I wasn’t going to make it to Seattle this trip, and it’s OK. I can go to Seattle later. For right now, I have enough on my plate.
I had forgotten, too, how chaotic life with a newborn can be. His needs take precedence, and sometimes we all run around trying to guess what those needs might be, simple as they are . . . clean diaper? swaddling / soothing to sleep? Mother’s milk? Today was a really good day, where he took the diaper changes with grace, dropped right off to sleep after every meal, and was keenly alert for maybe a half hour after feeding before napping. He loves patterns and fabrics. I am having SO MUCH FUN!
A part of our life is ending, the nomadic part. AdventureMan and I have had a lot of fun, once our son got through college and law school, we were on our own again, living in Europe, living in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar – we have had a great adventure. We travelled to Botswana, Namibia, Zambia (several times), South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and spent a wonderful week on Mnemba Island off the coast of Zanzibar. We have wonderful friends, mostly from churches and interest groups. I would think, knowing us, that we would be sad leaving all this, but instead, we are racing toward our new future, being more settled, being near our son and his family, and his wife’s great big family. π
For one thing, the world has changed. With e-mail and VOIP phones and people who jump on a plane at the drop of a hat, we expect to stay in touch with those we love and treasure. We expect they will come see us. It’s kind of fun settling in a place with white sandy beaches that everyone wants to come visit. π Cooler than Kuwait and Qatar in the summer time, too! Nice warm winters, well, not this winter, brrrrrrrrrrrr!
Thought you might want to see a photo of my little darling grandson:
Doha Trade Fair Opens
I love these fairs – there are vendors from all over. One year, I bought bought fabrics from the Sudan and from Senegal – fabulous things I would never find anywhere else. It’s like a shopping trip around the world. π
Huge turnout at Doha Fair
From today’s Gulf Times
Ahmed al-Nuami inaugurates the Doha Trade Fair 2010 at Doha Exhibition Centre yesterday
The eight-day Doha Trade Fair 2010 got off to a great start yesterday at the Doha Exhibition Centre in the presence of a large number of people.
The fair, organised by the Qatar Tourism and Exhibition Authority in association with Qatar Expo, has attracted more than 600 exhibitors from about 20 countries.
More than 15,000 square metres at the exhibition venue has been occupied by the exhibitors.
Bumper prizes and opportunities for bargains on an array of goods beckon visitors.
Products being sold at the venue include carpets, clothes, cosmetics, textiles, lighting accessories and brassware and handicrafts from many Asian, African, European and Middle East countries.
According to Qatar Expo, QR5mn worth of goods is expected to be sold at the fair in the next seven days.
βWith 685 exhibitors this time, the fair is growing at an enormous pace every year. The event is expected to turn Doha into a top business destination of the whole of the Middle East,β an official of the organising company said. He also expressed confidence that there would be more participants at the fair next year.
Qatar Tourism and Exhibition Authority chairman Ahmed al-Nuaimi inaugurated the fair. Diplomats of a number of missions and senior Qatari community members attended the opening ceremony.
The fair timings are between 10am to 1pm and 4pm and 11pm. The event will conclude on January 24.
Round 2, Why You Should Always Carry Your Camera in Doha
“HOLY COW!” I shouted at AdventureMan, as I am already digging for my camera. He hates it when I do that, he things maybe I have spotted some danger or something and it gets his adrenaline going. I couldn’t help it. I was shocked, and I said “There’s a CHEETAH in that car!”
We love cheetah. Anyone who has ever seen a cheetah in the wild knows the awesome measure of God’s creativity and wonder. The cheetah is a speed machine, a glorious hunter, born to run. The cheetah is a glorious creation.
AdventureMan didn’t believe me, not for two or three full seconds and then – he saw it, too:
The man with the very young cheetah on a leash under very loose control was having a ball. The cheetah looked very happy to be out in the car with him, even on a leash.
It is a shame, and it should be a crime.
A cheetah, even when snatched away from his mother early in life, is not a toy, not an accessory. A cheetah can eat your innocent babies. A cheetah can bite you or scratch you badly, and think it is just playing. Taking a cheetah out of the wild is probably not a really good thing for the cheetah. How long with this man find him novel and fun and pay attention to him? And then what?
This is what a cheetah is meant to do, and this is how a cheetah is meant to live:
My friends, if you love wildlife, no matter how rich you are, leave the wildlife in the wild. Please.
Somalia Returns to Stoning
What gets me about this article I found on BBC News is buried way down is a detail that a 13 year old girl was recently stoned for adultery. What does a 13 year old know? Some say she was raped. What kind of protection is this, for a little girl, to be stoned for something over which she had no control. Oh? She was just so tempting, she must be punished?
Somali adulterer stoned to death
Islamists in southern Somalia have stoned a man to death for adultery but spared his pregnant girlfriend until she gives birth.
Abas Hussein Abdirahman, 33, was killed in front of a crowd of some 300 people in the port town of Merka.
An official from the al-Shabab group said the woman would be killed after she has had her baby.
Islamist groups run much of southern Somalia, while the UN-backed government only control parts of the capital.
This is the third time Islamists have stoned a person to death for adultery in the past year.
Al-Shabab official Sheikh Suldan Aala Mohamed said Mr Abdirahman had confessed to adultery before an Islamic court.
“He was screaming and blood was pouring from his head during the stoning. After seven minutes he stopped moving,” an eyewitness told the BBC.
The BBC’s Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says that if the woman is also killed, her baby would be given to relatives to look after.
Meanwhile, President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed has accused al-Shabab of spoiling the image of Islam by killing people and harassing women.
“Their actions have nothing to do with Islam,” said the moderate Islamist during a ceremony at which he nominated a new administration for the capital, Mogadishu.
“They are forcing women to wear very heavy clothes, saying they want them to properly cover their bodies but we know they have economic interests behind – they sell these kinds of clothes and want to force people to buy them.”
Last month, two men were stoned to death in the same town after being accused of spying.
A 13-year-old girl was stoned to death for adultery in the southern town of Kismayo last year.
Human rights groups said she had been raped.
Another man has also been punished in this way in the Lower Shabelle region.
Mr Sharif, a former rebel leader, was sworn in as president after UN-brokered peace talks in January.
Although he says he also wants to implement Sharia, al-Shabab says his version of Islamic law would be too lenient.
The country has not had a functioning national government for 18 years.
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Spectacular Diamond Find
On my Christmas wish list, LLOOOLLLL!
From BBC News
One of the largest, high quality diamonds discovered to date has been found at a mine in South Africa, mining group Petra Diamonds has revealed.
The 507 carat stone, which could be worth in excess of $20m (Β£12.5m), was found with three other large diamonds.
They were discovered at the famous Cullinan mine, where the largest diamond in history was found more than 100 years ago.
The new find is being analysed by experts to determine its true value.
A 480 carat diamond found at the end of last year fetched $18m.
“The Cullinan mine has again given the world a spectacularly beautiful and important diamond,” said Petra’s chief executive Johan Dippenaar.
“Initial indications are that it is of exceptional colour and clarity, which suggest extraordinary potential for its polished yield.”
Petra said the stone is one of the 20 biggest, high quality diamonds to have been found.
A 168 carat stone was also discovered, alongside one of 58 carats and another of 53 carats.
The largest diamond to be discovered, named the Cullinan, was 3,106 carats. It was cut into nine separate stones, many of which are in the British Crown Jewels.
Exporting Trash to Poorer Countries
From The New York Times, where you can read the entire article on exporting trash by clicking here
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: September 26, 2009
ROTTERDAM, the Netherlands β When two inspectors swung open the doors of a battered red shipping container here, they confronted a graveyard of Europeβs electronic waste β old wires, electricity meters, circuit boards β mixed with remnants of cardboard and plastic.
βThis is supposed to be going to China, but it isnβt going anywhere,β said Arno Vink, an inspector from the Dutch environment ministry who impounded the container because of Europeβs strict new laws that place restrictions on all types of waste exports, from dirty pipes to broken computers to household trash.
Exporting waste illegally to poor countries has become a vast and growing international business, as companies try to minimize the costs of new environmental laws, like those here, that tax waste or require that it be recycled or otherwise disposed of in an environmentally responsible way.
Rotterdam, the busiest port in Europe, has unwittingly become Europeβs main external garbage chute, a gateway for trash bound for places like China, Indonesia, India and Africa. There, electronic waste and construction debris containing toxic chemicals are often dismantled by children at great cost to their health. Other garbage that is supposed to be recycled according to European law may be simply burned or left to rot, polluting air and water and releasing the heat-trapping gases linked to global warming.
While much of the international waste trade is legal, sent to qualified overseas recyclers, a big chunk is not. For a price, underground traders make Europeβs waste disappear overseas.
After Europe first mandated recycling electronics like televisions and computers, two to three tons of electronic waste was turned in last year, far less than the seven tons anticipated. Much of the rest was probably exported illegally, according to the European Environment Agency.
Paper, plastic and metal trash exported from Europe rose tenfold from 1995 to 2007, the agency says, with 20 million containers of waste now shipped each year either legally or illegally. Half of that passes through this huge port, where trucks and ships exchange goods around the clock.
When we were blogging about pirates in Somalia, a Somali wrote in that part of the problem was that rich western countries were dumping toxic trash off the coast of Somalia and damaging the traditional fishing wealth of the country. Once trash is exported, there is no telling where it will be dumped, or what problems we are causing for our descendants down the road. I can’t help but think that we reap what we sow – and that we need to be paying attention to what we are dumping and where we are dumping it.
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