Detour

On Friday morning we made a wrong turn on our way to the Great American Bagel shop, and ended up in a construction site on the edge of town. These areas are everywhere in Doha at the moment. The government is improving its infrastructure in preparation for the 2022 World Cup soccer tournament.

They are building roads and overpasses, an underground subway system, an above-ground People Mover System (small train) on Education City, hotels, stadiums, and a whole lot more. Mountains of rubble continue to be a common sight -- probably for the next 7 years.

More food!

People have commented that our trips seem to be feature food a lot. Yes! We are foodies and love to try new flavours. And with two active teenagers, we do, in fact, spend a lot of time, money, and energy on food. So here are a few samples from this past week.

Chinese dumplings

Lisa is part of a wonderful Book Club that meets monthly. The host gets to choose the book we read and prepares a meal for everyone. This week Carina (Chinese-Canadian) hosted and served homemade Chinese dumplings with fixin's.

tapioca

Lisa's Indian students introduced her to the great taste of tapioca. As an alternative to rice or potatoe it is lovely with a spicy meal. Tapioca is a root vegetable (also know as cassava). It is very readily available and inexpensive in Doha. This week we ate it with maple salmon.

Oman sweet melon

Sunday's after-school snack was a melon. We often eat rock melons from Australia which are very similar to cantaloupe. But this is a sweet melon from Oman. The inside was not orange at all -- nearly white. The taste was remotely similar to cantaloupe but different and sweeter.

Thanksgiving

With Wilson, Rosana and Ana

Today we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving with Brazilian friends and a turkey dinner!

We had heard reports that turkey  would be scarce this year due to questions about whether the meat was halal ("permissable"). Islam requires that animals be slaughtered according to Islamic principles and there was question about the turkeys imported to Qatar. True enough, turkey was difficult to find but we had turkey!

This was the first time that Vergie helped Lisa with the preparation of a turkey. She was quite amazed that it wasn't stuffed with garlic, lemon grass, and soy sauce..... hmmmm.

Pumpkins can also be difficult to find. This year our little grocery store has large pumpkins imported from USA and selling for $75 each. Lisa did make a delicious pumpkin pie (from canned pumpkin).

Our traditions were made more complete by the finishing touches from Brazil. Rosana's brigadeiros are chocolate balls filled with caramelized sweetened condensed milk. These are a celebratory food in Brazil and always at a special party!

Non-Uniform Days

Once a month the school has a Non-Uniform Day for the purpose of raising funds for a charity event. The students pay 20 QR  (about $7) for the privilege of not having to wear the school uniform.

This week the theme was "Think Pink" in support of Breast Cancer Awareness month. Whether it was socks, ribbon, shoes, or shirts, there was lots of pink to be seen. During the whole month of October there are activities throughout Qatar supporting the awareness of Breast Cancer.