Brisk Morning at the Souq Al Waqif
“My husband hates shopping and hates the souks” said one of my friends, and my friend Grammy and I just grinned – any excuse for a trip to the souks, especially to introduce someone to our own particular joys. Early breakfast at the Beirut, walking here and there, finding small treasures and great pleasures, and ending up with coffee at the Cafe Tasse, which has divine Cafe Mocha with real whipped cream. It’s OK, I don’t have real whipped cream every day, just . . . have a problem resisting on those wonderful sunny winter mornings in the souks.
Some sights to share with you:
Dashing souk policemen on horseback, an early morning treat
The hardware souk, in the ‘guy’s souk area’, i.e. camping, hunting, fishing, falcons, hardware . . .
Falcon Hood Maker
Tiny little falcon hoods
The Law of the Harvest
A small group was huddled, talking about volunteer work, and how people are afraid to commit, when the duties are actually very light, and easily accomplished, then we drifted into giving generously . . .
“It’s called The Law of the Harvest” one of my favorite women popped in as I was trying to explain that when you give, open-handedly, give with your heart, it all comes back to you multiplied.
We all turned to her. “Remember the seeds? You sow the seeds and then it is multiplied?”
Of course! It’s so simple! Why didn’t I think of that?
Handbook for 2010
Thank you, Dear Friend, who sent this to me this morning 🙂
HANDBOOK 2010
Health:
1. Drink plenty of water.
2.. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.
3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants….
4. Live with the 3 E’s — Energy, Enthusiasm and Empathy.
5. Make time to pray.
6. Play more games.
7. Read more books than you did in 2009.
8. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.
9. Sleep for 7 hours.
10. Take a 10-30 minute walk daily. And while you walk, smile.
Personality:
11. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
12 Don’t have negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
13. Don’t over do. Keep your limits.
14. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
15. Don’t waste your precious energy on gossip.
16. Dream more while you are awake..
17. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
18. Forget issues of the past. Don’t remind your partner with his/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don’t hate others.
20. Make peace with your past so it won’t spoil the present.
21. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
22. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
23. Smile and laugh more.
24. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
Society:
25. Call your family often.
26. Each day give something good to others.
27. Forgive everyone for everything.
28. Spend time w/ people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6.
29. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
30. What other people think of you is none of your business.
31. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.
Life:
32.. Do the right thing!
33. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
34. God heals everything.
35. However good or bad a situation is, it will change..
36. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up..
37. The best is yet to come.
38. When you awake alive in the morning, be thankful for it.
39. Your Inner most is always happy. So, be happy..
Last but not the least:
40. Please Forward this to everyone you care about, I just did..
Thank You
At some hour, while I was sleeping, the blog hit 1M hits. Pretty cool, even though it is just a number.
AdventureMan said “how about if I take you out for dinner tonight to celebrate.”
(Thursday night is always date night. We always go out for dinner. He was being funny.)
But he reminded me that I used to thank my readers, and I haven’t done that for a long time.
Most of us who blog, and who continue blogging (it’s the continuing part that is hard work) blog because that’s the way God made us – he created us wanting to share the written word. For me, it’s sort of like thinking out loud, and many times I throw out ideas hoping to get other points of view to help me see things more fully, from more perspectives.
You, my readers, have given me unexpected points of view many, many times, and I thank you. Months after I write an article, you will read it and comment – and I read every comment. Thank you.
Coming soon, AdventureMan and I are starting a whole new adventure. I’m not so sure I am going to continue blogging. I won’t be living in an exotic country; I will be living a more normal American life, as a Grandmama. I know it will fascinate me, but I am not so sure you will find it all that interesting, LOL.
Again, thank you for your support and input these three years of blogging, and for finding me and my ideas and my fascination with current events much more interesting than I find myself. 😉
And, for those of you who always ask, yes, the Qattari Cat will be going with us, and yes, he is till with us (crying right now because AdventureMan has left for work and his heart is broken), I just haven’t taken a lot of photos lately because mostly he sleeps, and he looks pretty much the same.
Entertainment at the Woqod
There is nothing more boring than sitting in a gas station, waiting for your tank to fill, unless, of course, there is an SUV with a sun roof, full of adorable, raucous little boys with puppets. We were laughing our heads off.
Some of the photos are blurry because it’s night, and the puppets would not stay still – they were swirling and doing battle with one another. Every now and then the boys would come up and take a bow. LLOOOOOLLLLL!
Little boys are so much fun!
Arab Gulf? Persian Gulf? Games Cancelled
Islamic Solidarity Games cancelled over Gulf dispute
From BBC News
The first Islamic Solidarity Games were held in Jeddah in 2005
The Islamic Solidarity Games, due to be held in Iran in April, have been called off because of a dispute with Arab countries over what to call the Gulf.
The games federation in Saudi Arabia said the Iranian organisers had failed to address its concerns, particularly about the planned logo and medals.
These bear the words “Persian Gulf”, but Arab countries, who call it the Arabian Gulf, reject the term.
The games had been postponed in October in the hope of striking a deal.
The Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation (ISSF) in Riyadh said, after an emergency board meeting, Iran’s local organising committee “unilaterally took some decisions without asking the federation by writing some slogans on the medals and pamphlets of the games”.
Iran “did not abide by the rules of the Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation” and “did not follow the decisions taken by the general assembly of the federation at a previous meeting in Riyadh”, it said in a statement.
But Iran’s committee for the games disputed the decision.
“In spite of convincing arguments made to the ISSF executive committee, regrettably and without presenting any logical reasons, the ISSF committee decided not to hold the games with Iran as the host,” it said.
The games – which are meant to strengthen ties among Islamic countries – were first held in the Saudi city of Jeddah in 2005.
Iran has campaigned to ensure the body of water between Iran and the Arabian peninsula is known as the Persian, not the Arabian, Gulf.
‘Glimmer of Hope’ in Doha Abduction Case
‘Glimmer of hope’ in custody battle
From the Qatar Gulf Times
British mother Rebecca Jones has described the decision by a Qatari judge to bring her son to court as a “glimmer of hope” in her ongoing battle to regain custody of Adam, saying that the judge’s decision that the boy’s attendance is necessary feels like her first victory in the case.
“I’m thrilled that Adam will be given the opportunity to tell the court how he wants to come home to his Mummy, Daddy and little sister, and that the court will have the chance to see how he is suffering,” she told Gulf Times yesterday.
Jones, who claimed that her son was kidnapped when she was “tricked” into visiting the country in October last year, is particularly worried about the mental and physical state of her son, saying that he had been ill in recent weeks because of the stress surrounding the current situation.
However, the most recent ruling in the case has given her some hope that she may be reunited with him on a permanent basis in the not too distant future.
Earlier this week a judge ruled that Jones’ appeal will be held on February 11, and that both Adam and his 77-year-old grandmother who was originally awarded custody of him, should attend the court hearing.
Jones is also fighting a court case to increase her visitation rights with her son, something that will be decided on February 3.
She is hoping to be awarded more time with Adam, as well as the ability to spend time with him outside of the house in which he is currently living.
“He seems to be ill because of stress and has been physically sick recently,” she claimed, adding “he is very upset and very nervous on each visit – the second I walk through the door he asks me when he can come home.”
Another major concern for Jones is the educational aspect of her son’s life as it will shortly be the fifth month that he has gone without attending school.
But for now, Jones is just looking forward to the court hearing in which her son will finally be given a voice. “I truly believe that the court will do the right thing,” she added.
Ladies Bible Study in Doha
“Tell me the story of Noah” our priest said, and we all chimed in. Everybody knows the story of Noah, how God told him to build an ark, and how he did it. How everyone laughed at him, but he faithfully built. How he filled the ark with animals, and then it started raining and rained for forty days.
“OK, stop there” the priest said. “Is that what the bible says?”
Well, of course that’s what the bible says! We all know the story!
“Wrong!” he exclaimed!
“We have many stories with facts not in the bible, information gathered from another source – the Qur’an.”
We sat there, our eyes wide.
“No where in the bible will you find that Noah was living in a dry and arid place, or that his neighbors laughed at him – that’s in the Qur’an.”
The Episcopal lectionary is in Genesis right now, and so I have had a chance to read – and re-read – the story of Noah. The priest is right. There are details we all take for granted, not there.
One of the other details was that until Noah, the first instructions to Adam and Eve were that they could eat from every tree – no mention of meat. After the flood is the first mention of meat – but NO blood.
Genesis 9:1-17
9:1 God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. 2 The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. 3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and just as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. 4 Only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 For your own lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning: from every animal I will require it and from human beings, each one for the blood of another, I will require a reckoning for human life.
6 Whoever sheds the blood of a human,
by a human shall that person’s blood be shed;
for in his own image
God made humankind.
7 And you, be fruitful and multiply, abound on the earth and multiply in it.’
8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9 ‘As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark.* 11 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.’ 12 God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.’ 17 God said to Noah, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.’
Now I have to go find a Qur’an and read what it has to say about Noah and the ark. I like it that our traditions don’t have to be at war with one another, but can illuminate and enrich one another.
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. 🙂
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.
“With 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,” 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.
Fireworks Junkie
In each of us resides the small child that never grows up. You look at me and you think “OLD! Over thirty!” but inside, I am still that kid who loves to see fireworks. Any time. Just tell me where and when, I’ll be there.
I repeat: Just tell me where and when . . .
Did you know there were fireworks on the Corniche last night? I was at Villagio! I would have been downtown, had I known there would be fireworks!
(Photo in the Gulf Times by Jayan Orma. Nice photo, Jayan!)
What is the point of a fireworks show celebrating anything if no one knows ahead of time there will be a fireworks show? I’m so annoyed, I won’t even mention the sponsor’s name. You would think they would be better communicators! Bah! Humbug!
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