A Night Out

The Annual Film Festival for Qatar Academy and Northwestern University was held this week. This year we attended with several of Max and Simon's friends. Everyone enjoys getting dressed up for a night out.

It was a lovely affair with a beautiful meal and viewing of several short films created by students. The films, as always, were raising awareness about several local and international issues: millions of children not able to attend school, the water crisis in Qatar, orphaned children in Doha, the impact of divorce on children, research in Biofuels, the impact of Qatar's rapid growth on the people of Doha, the life of the Al- Hamali at the Souq Waqif.

The winner of Best Picture was Al-Hamali and it is worth a look. Al Hamali film All films are available on YouTube. Film Festival nominations

Palm trees

This week there has been one remarkable gardener working daily on our compound to give the Palms a Spring shearing. It is fascinating to watch him trim the old "furry" parts from the palm and sculpt the trunk for the coming year. This process gets done annually and is a clear transformation on the 2km walking path that surrounds our homes.

This winter the gardeners also labelled every Palm tree with an ID plate. Each Palm was numbered and described by type, gender, and the date it was planted. Most of the 700 Palms on our compound are Date Palm but there are some Washingtonians (a shorter thicker Palm tree).

ID plate on the palm in our front yard

Signs of Spring

As the weather begins to warm, and we dread the approaching summer, there are still a few pleasant sights on Lisa's morning walk.

Several trees come into bloom only at this time of year. This hanging tree looks brilliant with its bright red clusters of flowers.

There are also trees that have fruit available at this time. They are similar to a crab apple tree but the fruit is much smaller. It tastes a bit like a musty apple. The gardeners enjoy eating these in the morning although it take a big handful to really taste like anything.