Please Be Careful Out There
In Seattle, rain is common. Just a little rain, like today, is no big deal. In Seattle, we don’t have air full of sand, and then just a little rain, so it’s a whole new ball game.
I didn’t think it would be dangerous out driving today. I had two meetings; I had no idea I would see so many accidents. This one scares me. I hope the people got to the hospital OK.
Please, friends, be careful out there today. Get home safely.
A Tale of Two Cities: Kuwait and Doha
Departing Kuwait was chaos. The gates down which you walk straight into the plane seem to be non-operational, and the teeming hoardes are shipped out to the planes in buses. At gates 22-23, security was clearing people for flights to Dubai, Muskat, China and Doha, all at the same time.
People would crowd toward to gate, only to be told “Not Now! Not Now! Now is Muskat!” “Now is Doha!” “over there is China!” but as some people spoke neither English nor Arabic, there was mass confusion. Planes, unable to depart on time because passengers had not been boarded, were only steps from the airport, but still, passengers were boarded onto buses and taken out. Sheer chaos.
Arrival in Doha was smooth, if quirky. In Doha, if your baggage is marked Priority or Business, it comes off the plane last. Not just this time, but the entire time I lived in Doha, this uniqueness was the rule rather than the exception.
Doha has the Miss America entrance just like Kuwait, and fortunately my friends were there to greet me and whisk me away. But in Doha, unlike Kuwait, the exit is chaos. Private cars are waiting for arrivals, taxis, limos, and a thousand laborors stand dazed at the exit, waiting to be told what to do. Threading our way through the chaos, we race for the car and exit, making our way into the city where we meet our husbands for dinner.
It was a very short trip, but I have a few more Doha photos to share with you. The Doha skyline is changing dramatically. Here is the new Museum of Islamic Art, due to open shortly – notice anything?
This is the new Qatar Center for the Presentation of Islam building – it includes a mosque, library, coffee shop and meeting rooms (the one on the left):
This is the first we have seen of dhows being built in the old way in Doha:
Last, the continually changing Corniche skyline:
Qatar Air Doha 1st Class Lounge
This is the jacuzzi for wearied women travellers . . .
Bring it ONNNNNN!
This is where you sleep if you have a couple hours to kill:
And this is where you eat – and the food is YUMMY:
You check in seated at a desk, then go through customs to the duty-free and the excalator upstairs. At the top of the stairs you are directed to the left for Business or the Right to the First Class Lounge.
From the moment you walk in, the atmosphere in the First Class Lounge is soothing and spa like. Sheets of cascading water down glass walls, ethereal soft music, and all watery colors. Easy to fall asleep, and it’s OK, because they come and get you, personally, when you need to board for your flight. Amazing. Kinda the ultimate.
Naaahhhh, I don’t travel first class all the time. Had to get someplace, weren’t any other tickets available. Enjoyed it all the way.
Publish Your Photos on Google Earth
This is from Earthling, my nephew, who works at GoogleEarth, about contributing to the content layer of GE:
“Okay, it’s not technically Google Earth, and we don’t accept pictures that are too personal, but this can be done. I don’t know if you’ve played with the Panoramio layer in Google Earth (it’s on by default), but if you click the little blue and white circles that look like compasses, up pops a photo someone took. Its a lot of fun browsing these, they are by far the most popular layer we have.
How do you upload your photos? Go to www.panoramio.com and make an account and just start uploading. In order for them to eventually display in Google Earth, you need to give them a location. To do this, start uploading a file, then click the Map this Location button, enter a city name, pick the country/state from a list, and it show you a google map of the location. You can navigate in this just like on Google Maps, and when you find the spot where you took your picture, just double click on it.
The upload time takes a long time… so I don’t know how performance will be. Also, we (Google) don’t display photos of just people anymore. They will simply be removed from the feed panoramio sends Google. The layer is not real time, it gets refreshed every month or so.”
My comment: I uploaded a photo to Panoramio and it didn’t take me much time at all, even with my unreliable QualityNet connection. But just as with WordPress, I downsized the pixels in the photo considerably.
Sebille Collection: New Addition
My husband and I are delighted by the variety of sebilles in Kuwait. I probably didn’t spell it right, and I am probably going to give some semi-erroneous information to my non-Kuwaiti, non-Muslim readers.
Sebilles are places where you can get sweet fresh water to drink or to wash yourself with before prayer. In some places, the government may provide them as a public service, and in other places you find organizations or individuals who will provide them as a charitable work, the way nobles in France would build a cathedral, or we might contribute a pew or a stained glass window to a church, or build a library for a city. In a hot country, sweet fresh water is a blessing to anyone who needs it.
My husband is really good at stopping when I want to take another photo, and even at spotting those we don’t already have. We love the creativity involved. There are some very utilitarian places, all stainless steel and refrigeration. But here are two of our favorite, more creative models. (Please, if I didn’t get this quite right, correct me in the comments section!)
The first is in near the Heritage Souks, back near the gold souks. It is a representation of the famous Kuwaiti Water Towers, which survived the invasion of 1990.
This one was in a residential area, but I have also seen a couple elsewhere. I think it represents the Liberation Tower. I understand that at night, the red light on top really lights up!
Qatteri Cat’s Babies
Last night, we had just gotten to sleep, when we could hear the Qatteri Cat crying. We know that cry. It’s his “rounding up the babies” cry. He got a new baby yesterday, a small white bear, and now he is responsible for four babies. This is what we found on our bed this morning:
He has had a very busy week, helping me with my projects, and keeping track of all the goings-ons in the neighborhood.
Winter Comfort Food: Cornbread and Chili
The recipe for cornbread is right on the cornmeal bag. I bring back medium grind cornmeal (I like Bob’s Red Mill 100% Stone Ground Whole Grain cornmeal, found in the Health Food section of the stores that tend to carry it) when I travel, but I have also found cornmeal in a variety of grinds in Kuwait from time to time. You want to buy cornmeal in a store with high turnover, because it gets bugs if it has sat too long in a warm environment. I store mine in the freezer, and pull it out when I need it.
The secret to truly excellent cornbread is using a cast iron skillet. As the oven is heating, you stick the skillet in. When the oven has reached 425 F/220 C, you pull the skillet out and pop 2 Tbs butter in. Let it melt, and pour in the batter.
As my Southern husband reminds me “it isn’t Southern unless you start with a stick of butter.” You can try it with a stick of butter (1/2 cup) if you want, but I want to live a long HEALTHY life, so the 2 TBS are enough for me.
Cornbread
2 TBS butter (melted in skillet)
1 Cup Cornmeal
1 Cup Flour
1/2 tsp. Salt
4 tsp. baking powder
1 egg
1 cup milk
Measure the cornmeal and flour, salt and baking powder into a bowl, add egg and milk and mix until smooth, but don’t mix too much. Bake in a buttered skillet at 425 F / 220 C for 20 – 25 minutes, until golden brown on top.
I also put some butter on top when it comes out of the oven, and spread it as it melts.
Chili
500 grams / 1 lb ground beef
1 chopped onion
2 cans red kidney beans, drained
2 small containers tomato paste
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp masa harina (this makes it real, but I don’t know if you can find it in Kuwait)
2 – 5 TBSP chili powder
4 cups water
Brown ground beef in medium large pot, drain beef in colandar. While draining beef, brown the onions. Add beef back into pot, add tomato paste, salt, cumin, masa harina, chili powder to taste, and water. Stir well, bring to a boil and then turn to lowest heat and let simmer 2 – 4 hours. Add more water if it gets too think or it starts burning on the bottom. The long slow cooking makes everything tender, and blends all the flavors.
Cornbread and chili
Break cornbread into small pieces in bowl.
Cover with hot chili. Beans and corn are a complementary protein, so you can feel very virtuous eating this – besides, it just smells SOOOO good after those hours of simmering. To add even more healthiness, add some grated cheddar cheese over the top of the hot chili. YuMMMMMMM.
In the South, people break up their cornbread into a glass, and fill the glass with milk. My husband assures me it is delicious. I believe him, but because I didn’t grow up that way, it looks gross and I can’t even watch him eat it that way. But comfort food is comfort food, and if it works for him, I don’t have to watch!
January Projects
When our son and daughter-in-law were visiting, she was telling me our son has routines he adapts to insure he gets everything done. As she was telling me this, I was squirming in my chair. I am not exactly obsessive-compulsive, but because I could have a tendency to scatter my energies, I do the same thing, I have little routines I run to make sure that the important things get taken care of before I have fun.
One of these routines is to use January to get organized so that I can goof off the rest of the year. I try to get tax things in order, I try to make sure all the paperwork is filed or tossed . . . and I do photo albums for the preceding year, two albums if we went to Africa, which we have been doing nearly every year.
But last January I moved. And then, just about every other month, I was back in the States, either of a wedding or to see my parents. The albums never got done.
So yesterday, I gathered all the photos. Fortunately, I had kept them in different places, so they were not all mixed up. I have to do four albums. For the 2006 family album, I still need to get photos printed, and that alone takes time and organization. The other photos, I just needed to get in order. That took a whole day.
So this is for my friend – you know who you are – with twenty something years of photos she still hasn’t posted. I apologize! I apologize for all the times I told you how easy it is, and to just DO it. I am only one year behind, and already I can’t remember where this photo was taken, why that photo was taken, or what sequence these photos should be in. It is a daunting task, and I am only working on two years. I apologize again, dear friend, I grovel in mortification at my arrogance and lack of sympathy. God, in his mighty wisdon, has humbled me by showing me how fragile my memory is, and how unfounded my pride in organization. Aarrgh! Forgive me!
Seattle’s Northgate Mosque
Driving down to Seattle today, I was stopped at the light by the Northgate Mosque:
Islam is the fastest growing religion in the United States.
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