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dailykhaleej · 4 years

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COVID-19: Parents within the DailyKhaleej staff share their ‘StayHome’ experiences

Parents within the DailyKhaleej group share their StayHome expertise Picture Credit score: Seyyed Llata, Senior Designer

Dubai: Little has been stated about the impact of coronavirus motion restrictions upon youngsters, however keep in mind they’ve been couped up inside longer than the adults what with college breaking apart nearly a full three weeks earlier than the work-from-home directive got here. DailyKhaleej staff with children took the alternative to share their observations on how this was affecting their youngsters, and past compelling insights into how they had been making it work (or not) in addition they shared their solutions to taking the edge off the stress of being hemmed in and confronted with a deluge of homework.

Grin and bear it

By Ashley Hammond, UAE Editor

Enslaved to an endless stream of labor in an surroundings the place you are supposed to be at your most relaxed. Sure, working from residence hasn’t simply entrapped the adults, but in addition the youngsters too, and to say that I’ve observed its carrying impact on the behaviour of my two daughters aged seven and 5 is considerably of an understatement.

The eldest, who’s often so placid, has grown much more ill-tempered, sarcastic and defiant, and the youngest, who was anyway a free spirit, has simply blossomed at the alternative to unleash her wrath upon something that stands in her method.

Each are bored, jaded and disillusioned with e-learning, and the two individuals they had been meant to show to for some respite on this – their dad and mom – have needed to rework into makeshift lecturers in a single day, who match research round their personal career-demands.

It doesn’t work and also you eternally really feel such as you’re not doing each facet justice.

Watching my youngest interact in the first zoom assembly between her classmates after almost six weeks aside was devastatingly unhappy as she was simply silenced into awe at the sight of their faces, and if my eldest may slouch anymore in her chair throughout these interactions she could be parallel.

I’m grateful for these moments although, as a result of regardless of the stress, door slamming and blood curdling screams – not all of that are from me – they’ve made me realise what’s most necessary.

– Ashley Hammond, UAE Editor

It might be that I haven’t been absolutely listening to their wants, and it is a golden alternative to right that. Additionally with everybody backed right into a nook, the true characters of my children are popping out. I’m amazed by their sudden wit and improvement, their feelings and reactions, and the way they’re basically smaller variations of myself. I don’t see this when I’m at work, and the pained expression on our beloved nanny’s face is now considerably explainable. I don’t understand how we’re going to repair this, it’s tough, however we’re going to get by way of it.

At the finish of the day we simply stick on the music channel and dance, and that’s what is seeing us by way of.

Technique to the insanity

By Nilanjana Javed, Digital Content material Editor

It has been greater than six weeks now since distant studying began and kids are experiencing an entire new idea of being schooled from residence.

The enforced time at residence will be bittersweet. My son, who’s in yr eight and my daughter in yr 4, run a good schedule. They begin their college day at 9am and finish at 2pm with common breaks.

We attempt to preserve a routine in order that it’s simpler for them as nicely.

Throughout traditional college days they get up by 6am to attend their morning video games and actions however now their habits have modified fairly a bit. They get up precisely 10 minutes earlier than the class begins!

Some days are actually lazy and so they log in from their beds earlier than slowly struggling to get on to their research desk. I see they’ve change into lazy.

They do attempt to sustain with their college schedule, finishing one exercise after one other, however on some days there’s an excessive amount of display screen time what with on-line tutoring, and use of tablets and telephones. With social distancing changing into a norm over the weekend they join with their pals nearly to play on-line video games or generally even to speak. We do play indoor video games as a household collectively after which there’s supper time and story studying earlier than going to mattress.

Throughout colleges days my son who loves his sports activities and performs cricket and swims for his college and golf equipment would return residence after taking his lesssons at 8pm. Exhausted, he would go to mattress. With homeschooling he’s attempting to make use of the further time for productive issues like studying find out how to cook dinner. We even lately purchased desk tennis gear simply to divert his thoughts.

Nevertheless, I’ve observed that the siblings do have their honest share of fights and get moody generally.

Like many dad and mom I’m frightened about the “psychological and emotional health” of my youngsters.

My son feels with elevated class assignments, it’s more durable to ask questions since there’s no method to nearly increase your hand. It’s more durable for them to focus at residence as there’s nobody to self-discipline them.

– Nilanjana G. Javed, Digital Content material Editor

For us as dad and mom, working from residence and supporting their schoolwork will not be straightforward as we now have our personal deadlines.

Each of them now all of the sudden miss their lecturers need again their college environmemt.

I assume they’ve had an overdose of parenting.

My daughter acquired very emotional when her classed wished her Joyful Birthday on google hang around and he or she was not in a position to hug her lady gang.

I hope all of us again to our nomal life quickly.

Beginning to really feel the pressure

By Omar Shariff, Worldwide Editor

E-learning, adopted by homework, and quite a lot of hours on PlayStation. That, give or take, is the each day routine of my first two youngsters. The stay-at-home coverage is the solely method to beat the pandemic till a vaccine is developed. However there isn’t a denying that it’s taking a toll on individuals’s psychological and bodily well-being, particularly of kids.

General, the boys, Faisal, 13, and Farhan, 10, are holding up remarkably nicely, contemplating that they’ve been locked inside the home longer than their dad and mom. They haven’t stepped out of the constructing entrance for greater than 45 days. Nevertheless, the pent-up youthful power, which is often let off in the college playground or the constructing pool or the neighbourhood park, is usually being channelled into hitherto uncommon bodily tussles amongst themselves and erratic behaviour. Their main stress-reliever is their child brother Fahad, 1, who’s blissfully unaware of the insidious pandemic that’s turning the world the wrong way up.

Trendy communications expertise has made stay-at-home immeasurably extra bearable. Think about our scenario if the coronavirus had hit the globe even 20 years earlier! The E-learning platform has enabled youngsters to proceed their education. However it’s a poor substitute for the classroom.

– Omar Shariff, Worldwide Editor

Even earlier than I log in to begin work each morning, the children are up, with their newly-acquired tablets, signed into Microsoft Groups. The elder one is sort of unbiased, good with expertise and never simply distracted. The second appears to not take this e-learning course of severely. His manner is that of somebody for whom the trip continues to be on, albeit with the inconvenience of constructing an look in entrance of the trainer every day for a number of hours. However he’s receptive after we remind him that, for the foreseeable future, that is college.

In the debate about the dramatic adjustments the coronavirus outbreak has delivered to the each day lives of billions round the world, the problem of kids has been given reduce prominence than it deserves. Maybe it is because of the notion that the pandemic primarily impacts adults, each when it comes to an infection and the financial injury it’s inflicting.

Sleepless nights

By Sara Al Shurafa, Senior Information Editor

Locked inside the home for two-and-a-half months, my youngster is getting increasingly more tense.

It has flipped her world the wrong way up.

She is afraid of one thing that she is aware of can harm her family members, however her little mind doesn’t perceive what this “virus” is.

She began waking up in the evening, scared, and won’t return to sleep till I lie down together with her. My pal’s son went again to wetting his mattress.

These youngsters have regressed, that’s how they’re reacting to the uncertainties round them.

House education can be including to these uncertainties.

Right this moment, I’d have most well-liked to have informed my daughter that summer time trip began two months early somewhat than take her by way of digital studying.

She is unsure and it doesn’t matter what I’ll say, she continues to be confused. Is that this college, are these my pals? After 4 weeks of distant studying she is dropping curiosity. This week my daughter didn’t take note of a phrase her trainer stated, I attempted all the pieces I may consider, however she wouldn’t be engaged. After I was chatting with the father of one other youngster about the trials of homework, he stated his daughter was going by way of the same lack of curiosity.

They’re 4 years outdated, how lengthy are you able to anticipate them to stay whereas sitting in entrance of a display screen? They’re imagined to be experimenting and exploring, constructing their motor expertise and creating their cognitive expertise… in different phrases, being bodily current and lively.

– Sara Al Shurafa, Senior Information Editor

It turns into worse when my daughter doesn’t perceive a lesson on Zoom, she turns into offended and pissed off and it takes one other day or two to get her re-acquainted with the course of.

Some days she wakes up offended, screams and shouts at all the pieces. She refuses to do issues that she as soon as did fortunately. Consuming, showering and taking part in have all grew to become triggers for her tantrums.

My newest ordeal, for previous week now, is her insomnia. She is stuffed with power and regardless of how a lot I push her mattress time, she cries herself to sleep each evening, saying, ‘but am not tired’. All evening she’s going to twist and switch; my daughter will not be getting deep sleep as a result of her physique will not be drained.

My pal’s son is the similar and he or she has began to present him some homeopathy medicines. I’m beginning to assume I’ll go down that path, too, particularly since I’m drained and I would like a whole evening of sleep.

The opposite irritating half for me is that we missed the good climate, and now we are going to most likely spend most our summer time in the home too.

Wrestling will get us by way of it

By Seyyed Llata, Senior Designer

I’ve heard many individuals are fighting the quarantine, but at residence, we’ve had fairly an excellent time. I do know it comes with a privileged place, our place is large and we now have issues that make quarantine simpler.

My sons’ age hole additionally performs to our benefit, as the eldest is already an grownup, 22 years outdated, and the youngest is simply seven.

Our formulation has been a primary of cooking and consuming collectively, PS4, conversations and, consider it or not, a each day session of “Lucha Libre”, Mexican wrestling.

The day begins with breakfast and faculty for the youngest, and work for me and the eldest, we take intermittent Ps breaks throughout the day, so till 2pm we’re fairly busy.

Then we determine what to eat, and that could be a nice time, as a result of I hardly ever have the likelihood for lunch with them, and to spoil them with some good do-it-yourself meals.

At lunch, we take our time and we TALK, I’ve the rule of no devices at the desk, so we are able to handle feelings, occasions, tales, jokes, and tales.

– Seyyed Llata

After lunch, it is a little more work for me and Ps been a lifesaver, I can’t emphasise sufficient that getting good video games is an funding for everyone’s psychological well being, and if you need the much less attainable fights, get video games that may be performed in multiplayer mode, ask your children, they are going to know what which means.

Fights can occur with the healthiest and extra loving individuals for those who lock them down collectively for an extended time frame, however as head of the household it’s your accountability to stay calm, and speak in the similar style.

Afternoon snacks come helpful, to interrupt tensions, and speak as soon as extra, hear their pursuits and considerations, your youngsters have these at any age, pay attention rigorously.

And at last, when the night comes, we put on Mexican Wrestlers masks and we blow some steam at the lounge, ‘boys will always be boys’ will not be a misguided assertion, we “fight” till all that amassed power goes away, is a method of very shut bonding and I do advocate it as remedy for all ages and gender, after all with excessive warning.

All the time see the constructive facet

By Alex Abraham, Senior Affiliate Editor

It’s been greater than a month since my son and I’ve been sitting throughout the eating desk for at the very least eight hours every single day, because of the efforts in place to beat the coronavirus. We agreed on this place in order that I may hold a watch out on the teenager who will, hopefully, write his Grade 10 board exams subsequent yr. I’ve all the time believed that parental regulation and oversight is a should for all youngsters with digital devices.

There’s lots to check nowadays. And after his common hours of interplay with the lecturers and college students at school through Microsoft Groups, there are tuition lessons for maths and science through the Zoom app.

Unable to exit to play or meet up with pals, my son has now accepted the proven fact that that is actuality. Gone are the days when he would ask me if he may go down to satisfy his pals for a couple of minutes or accompany me to the grocery store. His closest pal is the iPad with which he spends most of his waking day. Even over the weekends, there are not any requests to exit to the mall. A few hours in entrance of the tv is the solely supply of leisure. I assume my son is sufficiently old to know the seriousness of the scenario.

There are common conversations over the eating desk – of what’s occurring round the world, at school and the way we have to handle our well being.

– Alex Abraham, Senior Affiliate Editor

Nevertheless, regardless of common encouragement to undertake some type of train at residence, this isn’t happening. With out having to get able to catch the college bus at 6.45am, and journey to and from college, I’ve observed a way of lethargy creeping in. I’m uneasy considering of my son’s bodily health in September when he’s anticipated to get again to high school.

On the constructive facet, as a household we’re in a position to spend far more time collectively, now that I, too, am working from residence.

I’ll get pleasure from this whereas it lasts.

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cindyguerra622 · 6 years

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Top 11 Destinations That Are a Must Visit in Dubai

Dubai is the 4th most visited places in the world famous for high rising architectural marvels, excellent man-made islands, resorts and spas with hordes of world-famous shopping options.

With discounts thrown open by airlines, package deals and flights getting cheaper, more visitors are discovering Dubai as a cheap alternative to Las Vegas or Hong Kong. There are tons of fun-filled options from activities, safaris, fine dining, to visiting exemplary places of art marvels.

Here are some of the top heart throbbing sites which are a must visit while on a tour to Dubai.

# 1 Burj Khalifa

Burj Khalifa is an engineering marvel and an architectural feat. The building earns itself the prestigious accolade of being the tallest building in the world which is 829.8m tall. It has 163 floors out of which only 154 are open to guests and employees.

The building is a mixed-use property that has over 30,000 residences, 9 hotels, a shopping mall, 7 acres of parkland and a 30-acre man-made lake.

There is an entry fee of Dh 125 for adults and Dh 95 for kids, At the top of the sky, its Dh 300. An audio guide is available for Dh 25.

# 2 Palm Jumeirah

The manmade island and the beach is an iconic getaway which has a beautifully emancipating head with 16 protrusions, encircled by a crescent. The island consists of 4000 luxury hi-end apartment owned by the ultra-rich celebs.

It has a playground, picnic area, barbecue spot. You can go about exploring the area by a yacht.

# 3 Deira Souks

The markets of Deria are called Souks, this is the most famous traditional market that has the largest world-famous gold bazaar. There are 6 Souks including the Gold Souk, Spice Souk, Perfume Souk, Textile Souk where you can buy every imaginable spice and some stunning world-famous jewellery at the Gold Souk. These souks are a must visit when in Dubai.

# 4 The Dubai Mall

This is one of the most famous destinations to visit for a shopping spree. With over 1200 stores, The Dubai Mall is the largest shopping mall in the world. It has 150 food outlets, The Sega World - an indoor theme park, a 22 screen cinema, an aquarium with an underwater zoo with 33000 animals.

You can walk thru the Dubai Aquarium tunnel, Glass bottom tours, cage snorkelling and shark diving are particularly loved by tourists.

# 5 The Kite beach

It sees thousands of tourists who enjoy watersport and kite surfing. The white sand and the view of Burj-Al-Arab is mesmerizing. There are number of sports to enjoy like beach volleyball, tennis, kayaking, water kite surfing, paddleboarding. Equipment heir and lessons are easily available right at the beach.

# 6 Dubai Opera

This is a famous nighttime attraction, the classy new opera building is a major cultural hub and entertainment venue. It hosts famous world-class musical theatre productions, opera and ballet as well as comedy nights, and concerts. The 2000-seater theatre is an architectural marvel and one of Dubai's new landmarks.

# 7 Dubai Miracle Garden

Dubai’s Miracle Garden is the world’s largest flower garden that is a visual treat to the eye and may take the whole day to admire and soak in scents. This is the most popular places to visit among the nature lovers and serves as a great mood enhancer. There are replica models of famous buildings with machines to move it, change their shapes and light up accordingly. A visit to this garden can do miracles to the mood!

# 8 Dubai Desert Reserve and Safari

Camp at the deserts of Dubai and dine under the pristine sky filled with night stars to get a first-hand experience of the nomadic lifestyle.

Falcon shows, Archery, camel rides and Dune Driving are some of the activities that deliver the true essence of Dubai.

Dubai Safari is undoubtedly the best safari experience, a must for every first-timer. Enjoy the Photo-stops in the dunes, camel farm, beautiful sunset before the campsite with activities like sand boarding and trying out a henna design, savouring the lavish buffet completed with an after-dinner shisha (famous Arabic water pipe), it's all on the Dubai Safari list.

# 9 Dubai Fountain

This is the world’s tallest, well-choreographed fountain that is a stunning 900 feet marvel in the middle of the Burj Lake. Thousands of tourists come here to watch the light and music show put up every evening.

# 10 Ski Dubai

Dubai Ski is a lifetime experience which is an indoor resort built in a 22,500 square metres that is a winter wonderland replicating the Alps.

Enjoy a mug of hot coffee here below zero temperature besides skiing, snowboarding, and penguins parade held several times a day.

# 11 Ferrari World

It is the largest theme park in Abu Dhabi that has everything centred around Ferrari. There is something for everyone to do.

You can see incredible cars and even drive a Ferrari with an expert champion sitting beside to guide you. There are many live shows apart from the rides, 3D animations, live theatre, shopping, and food.

Experience the Formula Rossa, Fiorano GT Challenge, Scuderia Challenge, G-Force, and V12 events. It also has a Ferrari Store where you can shop for signature Ferrari merchandises.

There are many super saver packages available for Dubai that covers a cruise dinner, dune bashing safari, horse riding in the desert and quad biking and a panoramic view of the Burj Khalifa from the 124th floor. Cheap flight deals come with up to 50% discount could be found on competitive sites like BusinessClassFlights.Flights.

#flights getting cheaper

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newstfionline · 7 years

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Tiny, Wealthy Qatar Goes Its Own Way, and Pays for It

By Declan Walsh, NY Times, Jan. 22, 2018

DOHA, Qatar--For the emir of Qatar, there has been little that money can’t buy.

As a teenager he dreamed of becoming the Boris Becker of the Arab world, so his parents flew the German tennis star to Qatar to give their son lessons. A lifelong sports fanatic, he later bought a French soccer team, Paris Saint-Germain, which last summer paid $263 million for a Brazilian striker--the highest transfer fee in the history of the game.

He helped bring the 2022 World Cup to Qatar at an estimated cost of $200 billion, a major coup for a country that had never qualified for the tournament.

Now at age 37, the emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, has run into a problem that money alone cannot solve.

Since June, tiny Qatar has been the target of a punishing air and sea boycott led by its largest neighbors, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Overnight, airplanes and cargo ships bound for Qatar were forced to change course, diplomatic ties were severed and Qatar’s only land border, a 40-mile stretch of desert with Saudi Arabia, slammed shut.

Not even animals were spared. Around 12,000 Qatari camels, peacefully grazing on Saudi land, were expelled, causing a stampede at the border.

Qatar’s foes accuse it of financing terrorism, cozying up to Iran and harboring fugitive dissidents. They detest Al Jazeera, Qatar’s rambunctious and highly influential satellite network. And--although few say it openly--they appear intent on ousting Qatar’s young leader, Tamim, from his throne.

Tamim denies the accusations, and chalks up the animosity to simple jealousy.

“They don’t like our independence,” he said in an interview in New York in September. “They see it as a threat.”

The boycott turned out to be the first strike of a sweeping campaign by the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, that has electrified the Middle East. Obsessed with remaking his hidebound country and curbing the regional ambitions of its nemesis, Iran, the young, hard-charging Saudi has imprisoned hundreds of rivals at a five-star hotel in Riyadh, strong-armed the prime minister of Lebanon in a failed stab at Iran and stepped up his devastating war in Yemen.

The Saudi prince has shaped the Trump administration’s approach to the Middle East and his endeavors could have far-reaching consequences, potentially driving up energy prices, upending Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts and raising the chances of war with Iran.

The Qatar dispute is perhaps the least understood piece of the action, but it has a particularly nasty edge.

In September, at a normally soporific meeting of the Arab League in Cairo, Saudi and Qatari diplomats exchanged barbed epithets like “rabid dog” and heated accusations of treachery and even cruelty to camels. “When I speak, you shut up!” yelled Qatar’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Sultan bin Saad al-Muraikhi.

“No, you are the one who should shut up!” his Saudi counterpart shouted back.

The highly personalized rancor has the unmistakable air of a family feud. Qataris, Saudis and Emiratis stem from the same nomadic tribes, share the same religion and eat the same food. So their dispute has shades of quarreling cousins, albeit ones armed with billions of dollars and American warplanes.

The crisis took an alarming turn last week when the Emirates accused Qatar’s warplanes of harassing two Emirati passenger airliners as they crossed the Gulf. Untrue, said Qatar, which fired back with its own accusation that Emirati warplanes had already breached its airspace twice.

That the other Gulf countries even care about Qatar enough to despise it is a relatively new development.

For much of the 20th century, the country was a barren Persian Gulf backwater where pirates once lurked. Its people were desperately poor, typically diving for pearls in the summer and herding camels in the winter. For decades they lagged far behind their Saudi neighbors, who were in the midst of a heady oil boom. The ruling al-Thani family was riven by vicious internecine squabbles and periodic coups.

Then, in 1971, Qatar struck gas.

The discovery of the world’s largest gas field was initially a source of bitter disappointment. “People hoped for oil,” said Ahmed bin Hamad al-Attiyah, a former energy minister. But by the 1990s, new technology allowed gas to be liquefied and exported in tanker ships.

The emir, Tamim’s father, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, took a huge gamble. Ignoring naysayers, he poured $20 billion into a sprawling liquefaction plant at Ras Laffan, on Qatar’s north coast, with help from the energy giant Exxon Mobil. The company was then headed by Rex W. Tillerson, who is now secretary of state.

The bet paid off spectacularly. Gas boomed, and by 2010 Qatar accounted for 30 percent of the global market.

Since then, Qatar’s citizens, today numbering 300,000, have become very rich, very fast. Their average income of $125,000 is the highest in the world, over twice that of the United States or Saudi Arabia. The state cocoons them with free land, cushy jobs and American universities. Gleaming supercars and limousines cruise along Doha’s palm-lined corniche. Poor Qataris are hard to find.

The metamorphosis was equally dramatic for the Thanis. Once the lords of a desolate peninsula of sand dunes and salt flats, they have become strutting sophisticates on the global stage: style icons who are celebrated in Vanity Fair and Vogue; art titans who splurge hundreds of millions on a Cézanne or a Gauguin; and media moguls who built Al Jazeera, the groundbreaking television network that helped fan the Arab Spring in 2011.

In June, Qatar’s national colors lit up the Empire State Building, in which it owns a stake, a mark of its punchy ambition.

But Qatar’s swagger is deeply contentious among its neighbors. In their reach for global influence, the Thanis have pursued ambidextrous, sometimes contradictory policies--preaching the virtues of peace, education and women’s rights while bankrolling Islamist extremists in Syria and hosting the biggest United States military base in the Middle East.

To Saudi Arabia and the Emirates--and Bahrain and Egypt, who have joined them in the boycott--Qatar is a nation of vexatious meddlers, intoxicated by its own wealth, that needs to be cut down to size.

Three dueling, headstrong royals are at the center of the dispute.

Saudi Arabia’s Prince Mohammed, 32, is leading a campaign to overhaul and energize his stultified society, including with outlandish proposals such as a $500 billion city on the Red Sea run by robots. He has a staunch ally in Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, 56, the hawkish crown prince of the Emirates, who has built a formidable military and shares his Saudi counterpart’s deep hostility toward Iran.

Both princes are arrayed against Tamim, the emir of Qatar. A towering man with a diplomatic mien, Tamim is in many respects a classic Gulf potentate: educated like his father at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in England, he has three wives and 10 children, and lives in several luxurious palaces in Doha, a futuristic city of glass towers and curling highways.

His rise to power in 2013, at the age of 33, offered a stark contrast with the gerontocracy of Saudi Arabia, where rulers clung to their thrones till reaching their deathbeds. And his easy manner belies a stubborn streak that his neighbors see as the mark of a dangerous gadfly.

The baroque feuding among the three leaders--a twisting tale of cyberespionage, propaganda salvos, palace intrigue and high-stakes desert hunts--is worthy of an ancient Gulf power drama. Played by rich men in flowing white robes known as thobes, it has been called the “Game of Thobes.” But it also represents a profound moment of reckoning for the glimmering city-states of the Gulf.

In downtown Doha, behind the imposing palace where the emir holds court twice a week, lies a discreet new museum that tells an ugly story with bracing honesty.

Through a series of polished exhibits, the museum, the Bin Jelmood House, delves into Qatar’s ignominious history of slavery, which was not abolished here until 1952. An evocative video recreates the suffering of the African slaves shipped from Zanzibar to dive for pearls, the mainstay of Qatar’s economy until the mid-20th century. A price list outlines the trade’s heartless calculations: 1,200 rupees, then about $550, for a driver in 1926; 1,500 rupees for a cook in 1909.

The museum, in its willingness to openly address the sins of the past, mirrors the image the Thanis seek to project for their country--open and enlightened, less dour than archconservative Saudi Arabia, more restrained than freewheeling Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

While Saudi women will finally be allowed to drive in June, Qatari women have been driving for decades. In Qatar, there are cinemas, bars and even female race jockeys. Christians can worship openly. Although Qataris share the puritanical Wahhabi strand of Islam with Saudi Arabia, there are no public beheadings.

Tamim lauds his country’s democratic values. In 50 years, he recently predicted, Al Jazeera will be seen to have “changed the whole idea of free speech in the region.” In many respects, it already has.

But the openness goes only so far.

In 2012, a Qatari poet was sentenced to life in prison for insulting the royal family. (Tamim pardoned him in 2016.) Al Jazeera’s Arabic channel offers blistering coverage of other Arab heads of state but treats Qatar’s royals with kid gloves. Since 2016, the authorities have blocked Doha News, a rare online news outlet that provides critical reporting. In 2005, the government stripped 5,000 tribesmen, accused of disloyalty, of their Qatari nationality.

Although foreign workers make up 90 percent of Qatar’s three million residents, they have paltry rights, and Qatar’s World Cup preparations have been marred by a stream of reports by human rights organizations about abuses of migrant workers. A new law announced in October could significantly improve the situation if it is put in place.

For over a century, Qatar’s rulers were plagued by insecurity, usually at the hands of their own relatives.

Tamim’s grandfather toppled a cousin as emir in 1972, only to be pushed from the throne himself by his son, Hamad, in 1995. The ousted emir, who learned of his fate while on vacation in Switzerland, denounced his son as an “ignorant man” and then retreated into exile.

Once the gas billions flowed, starting in about 2000, family tensions eased, paving the way for an ambitious, reform-minded cast of royals.

Tamim’s mother, Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al-Missned, 58, is one of the most famous people in the Arab world, known for her glittering gowns, ageless looks and advocacy of education and social issues. Sheikha Mozah, as she is known, behaves like a Western-style first lady, speaking at United Nations conferences and touring refugee camps in safari wear with a lightly bound scarf over her head.

She carved out her own power base through a multibillion-dollar foundation that created a philharmonic orchestra by recruiting musicians from 30 countries, built an $8 billion research hospital and brought branches of American universities, including Georgetown, Northwestern, Carnegie Mellon and Texas A&M, to Qatar.

Tamim’s younger sister, Mayassa, is Qatar’s culture czarina--an art world behemoth who, at the age of 30, had an estimated annual budget of $1 billion. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York typically spends about $30 million on new acquisitions.) In 2008 she cajoled the architect I. M. Pei out of retirement to build the acclaimed Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, and later snapped up major works by Gauguin, Francis Bacon and Damien Hirst. When she bought Cézanne’s “Card Players,” with its un-Islamic scene of drinking and gambling, for an estimated $250 million in 2011, it was the world’s most expensive painting.

In Europe, Qatari royals have a reputation as high rollers with a yen for ostentatious real-estate and aristocratic prestige. After the 2008 financial crash, they bought Greek islands, French castles and so many iconic London properties--including Harrods department store, a share in Heathrow Airport and the Shard, western Europe’s tallest building--that it periodically induces anxious headlines in the British press about Qatar’s owning “more of London than the Queen.”

That much is true, British officials say, but Queen Elizabeth II doesn’t seem to mind: She has repeatedly dined at the $400 million Park Lane mansion of Hamad bin Abdullah al-Thani, a suave, thirtysomething cousin of the emir whose staff members are said to be dressed in the period style of the television series “Downton Abbey.”

In the Middle East, though, Qatar’s rulers have deployed their wealth to assert their independence from their larger neighbors.

For decades, Saudi Arabia, which is 186 times as large, treated Qatar as a virtual vassal state. In the 1940s, Saudi rulers took a slice of Qatar’s modest oil revenues; later they nibbled at Qatar’s territory and dictated its foreign and defense policy.

Tamim’s father, Hamad, accused the Saudis of trying to oust him in a failed coup in 1996--a bitter episode that has framed the decades of simmering rivalry ever since.

Striking out on their own, the Qataris at first played the role of regional peacemaker, turning Doha into a sort of Geneva-on-the-Gulf where protagonists from wars in Sudan, Somalia and Lebanon could hash out their differences in five-star hotels. They embraced America, hosting a vast air base since 2003, the year of the Iraq war, and won popular influence through Al Jazeera, whose provocative style irked just about every Arab government.

The Qataris hosted leaders from the Palestinian militant group Hamas, causing Israeli officials to call Doha a “Club Med for terrorists.”

But it was the Arab Spring in 2011 that truly set Qatar apart. As grass-roots movements rose up against the established order across the Middle East, the Saudis and Emiratis were alarmed by the growing strength of political Islamists, like Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which they feared could spread chaos in their own countries.

Qatar supported the Islamists.

“We stood by the people,” Tamim told “60 Minutes” in October. “They stood by the regimes. I feel that we stood by the right side.”

The emir could afford to be bold. Qatar had vast wealth, a sprawling American air base just a few miles from his palace and no domestic opposition to speak of.

“There was a feeling they could do anything they wanted, as long as they threw enough money at the problem,” said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, the author of “Qatar and the Arab Spring.” “Their self-confidence was at a peak.”

But in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, frustration was brewing.

Fittingly, the alliance between the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, and his Emirati counterpart, Mohammed bin Zayed, was cemented with a falcon hunt, a cherished rite of Gulf royalty that involves elaborate entourages and great expense--a single hunting falcon can cost $250,000.

In February 2016, the two princes traveled to the eastern desert of Saudi Arabia on a hunting safari, followed by summer shooting expeditions in France and Wales, trips that bonded the hyperactive 32-year-old Saudi and the older, like-minded Emirati. As well as a modernizing vision for their countries, they share a penchant for Shakespearean drama.

After Mohammed bin Salman ousted his rival for the throne in June, royal photographers filmed the prince kissing his rival’s hand, then his knee, in a sign of respect. Hours later the man was locked in his palace.

Their military alliance has drawn accusations of overreach. In Yemen, where they lead a devastating yet ineffective air war against the Iran-aligned Houthi faction, their forces face accusations of committing war crimes and stoking famine.

“They are two peas in a pod who see the need for unusual action in unusual times,” said David B. Roberts, a Gulf expert at King’s College London.

They are also united by a desire to put Tamim in his place.

Until recently, the royal rivalry was most evident in their global contest for the most expensive and attention-grabbing ventures. In the Emirates, Dubai has the world’s tallest building, while Qatar has the 2022 World Cup and a number of American universities.

In the art world, a Saudi royal bought Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” for $450 million in November, eclipsing Qatar’s Cézanne purchase. The da Vinci painting, reported to have been bought for the crown prince, will hang in Abu Dhabi, which recently opened an extension to the Louvre.

They flame each other through their media. Al Jazeera gives free rein to Saudi dissidents, while Sheikha Mozah is the object of lurid, often misogynistic insults in the Saudi, Emirati and Egyptian media, where she is portrayed as a power-hungry manipulator of weak men.

But at its core the rivalry is political. It matters little that Qatar lost its Arab Spring bets: Across the region, Islamist forces bankrolled by Doha are vanquished or in retreat. Still, Qatar’s neighbors view it with near pathological suspicion.

That mistrust burst into the open in 2014 when Saudi Arabia and the Emirates withdrew their ambassadors from Doha, setting off a diplomatic crisis that ended nine months later with a smooth reassurance from Tamim that he would meet their concerns.

Then last year, without warning, those tensions spiked again.

The crisis that set off the Gulf’s biggest confrontation in decades started with a series of random, seemingly unrelated events. And in vintage 2017 fashion, they involved fake news and the new American president, Donald J. Trump.

In March, a sulfurous dispute erupted over the fate of Alaa Alsiddiq, an Emirati dissident who has been living in Doha since 2013. After she published an article on Al Jazeera’s website about women’s rights in the Gulf, the Emiratis, who had canceled her passport, renewed longstanding demands that Tamim send her home.

The emir refused, telling one Western ambassador that he feared she could be tortured or killed. Emirati fury grew.

Even before Mr. Trump landed in Saudi Arabia in May, on the first foreign trip of his presidency, he appeared to be firmly in the Saudi camp. For months, the Saudi and Emirati leadership had cultivated a close relationship with Jared Kushner, the president’s adviser and son-in-law.

Mr. Kushner, a foreign policy neophyte, absorbed the princes’ views on the region, including their hostility to Qatar, a senior State Department official said, describing the relationships as very close.

In Riyadh, Mr. Trump signaled his burgeoning relationship by posing alongside 81-year-old King Salman with their hands on a glowing orb--an image that was meant to project solidarity but which gave them the appearance of movie villains and inspired a rash of internet memes.

Mr. Trump also met with Tamim, and the Qatari leader thought it went well. But two days later, back in Doha, the emir was shaken from his sleep with disturbing news: Someone had hacked the state-run Qatar News Agency and posted on its website a report of the emir calling Iran a “superpower,” lauding Hamas and speculating that Mr. Trump might not last long in power.

The report was pure fiction, but Qatar’s neighbors pounced on it as the real thing. Within minutes, pundits at Emirati and Saudi television stations were expounding on the perfidy of Qatar and issuing heated denunciations. Tamim frantically called his ministers and had the article taken down.

Thinking the problem solved, he settled in to watch a big National Basketball Association game, the Golden State Warriors and the San Antonio Spurs. In fact, his troubles had just started.

Over the following weeks, Emirati and Saudi news outlets accelerated their attacks on Qatar, accusing it of threatening Gulf stability. Several conservative think tanks in Washington joined the chorus. Then on June 5, without warning, the four-country boycott crashed onto Qatar.

Mr. Trump was eager to take credit.

“During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology,” he wrote in a tweet the next day. “Leaders pointed to Qatar--look!”

American intelligence officials determined that the planting of the fake news story had been orchestrated by the Emirates, which had been quietly pushing for a boycott of Qatar since 2016, a United States official told The New York Times.

“The smoking gun leads to Abu Dhabi,” the seat of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, he said, citing briefings from intelligence officials. “There is no ambiguity.” Moreover, the official said, the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, had prior knowledge of the ruse and had signaled his approval.

Yousef al-Otaiba, the Emirates’ ambassador to Washington, said his country “categorically denied” any involvement in the hack. The Saudi government did not respond to a request for comment.

One afternoon last August, I drove to Aqua Park, a water park in the desert 20 minutes outside Doha, to see how Qatar was surviving the boycott. Inside the park, where midday temperatures reached 120 degrees, men and women wearing swimsuits mingled freely, although bikinis were discouraged. Screaming children barreled down the Boomerango, the park’s largest ride. American warplanes rumbled overhead, bound for battle zones in Iraq and Syria.

Aqua Park is a few hundred yards from Al Udeid, the American air base whose runway lights glitter in the distance. The base, with 10,000 American service personnel, has been Qatar’s strategic jewel for over a decade, one major reason it could defy its neighbors. Now the Emirates was pressuring the United States to close it.

The park is a typical Qatari business in that no Qataris work there: The park’s manager, Mohammed Firdous Raj, is Malaysian, the lifeguards are Kenyan and other employees are Lebanese and Egyptian. Before the boycott, one quarter of its business came from Saudi tourists, who made the 25-minute drive from the border. But now the desert highway was half-empty, as were many hotels in Doha.

“We’d like them to come back,” Mr. Raj said of the Saudis. But the park’s owner, a former Qatari government minister, had allowed him to discount ticket prices, so business was about the same. “It’s a pity about the Saudis,” he said with a shrug. “Either way, we will manage.”

The boycott has inflicted some pain on Qatar. With its only land border closed, its ships blocked from passing through Emirati ports and its planes restricted from flying over neighboring airspace, import costs have soared. The stock exchange lost one-fifth of its value last year. Foreign workers, unable to party in Dubai on weekends, grumble about the claustrophobia of buttoned-up Doha. And the travel bans have torn apart families, whose relatives have straddled borders for centuries.

But for the most part, daily life in Doha is largely unchanged. Pricey wine flows in five-star hotels, work continues on a new metro system, and a striking National Museum, shaped as a series of giant intersecting discs, is set to become the city’s latest architectural marvel.

On weekends, young Qatari men go “dune bashing”--riding tricked-out four-wheel drive vehicles at high speed along mountainous dunes, sometimes flipping over. Qatar’s central bank says it has a $340 billion war chest to help weather the crisis.

And the boycott has backfired in some respects. The trade restrictions have forced Qatar into deeper economic ties with Iran, while Tamim has become the object of a fervent personality cult. The emir’s image adorns billboards draped off skyscrapers, and he is lionized in saccharine songs hailing his steely leadership. “He’s the embodiment of the philosopher king,” said Dana al-Fardan, one such balladeer.

His ministers, making a virtue of necessity, are developing new trade and transportation links. To make up for lost Saudi milk, they created a new dairy industry from scratch in the desert.

A strident nationalism has displaced the old talk of “brotherly” ties between the countries. Qatari pilgrims claimed they had been prevented from traveling to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, and showing sympathy for Qatar has become a criminal offense in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates.

Any hopes that the Trump administration could end the crisis were scuppered by its chaotic policy. Mediation efforts by Mr. Tillerson, who had decades of experience in Qatar as an energy executive, were repeatedly undercut by Mr. Trump, who at a Washington fund-raiser mocked the way that Qatar is pronounced.

Although Mr. Trump has since stopped his attacks on Qatar, presenting himself as a mediator, some senior advisers continue the fight. Breitbart News Network, which until recently was run by Mr. Trump’s onetime ideological firebomber Stephen K. Bannon, has published dozens of articles attacking Qatar as a rogue ally.

Is Qatar soft on terrorism? Some of the charges are red herrings, American officials say. Tamim cut funding to most extremist militias in Syria and Islamist groups in Libya in 2015, at the urging of the Obama administration. His cordial ties with Iran are a matter of necessity because the two countries share the giant gas field that is the source of Qatar’s wealth.

Where Qatar does have a case to answer, officials say, is in its treatment of Qatari citizens accused of financing terrorist groups like Al Qaeda. Trials of accused financiers, when they take place, occur in secret, making it hard to know what punishment, if any, is imposed.

Abd al-Rahman al-Nuaymi, a former university professor and financier who has been designated a terrorist by the United Nations and the United States, was tried secretly in 2015 and acquitted. He now lives openly in Doha, albeit with restrictions on his banking and ability to travel, said a former United States treasury official who was briefed on the case. A senior Qatari official said that prosecutors were preparing to try him again.

But similar charges can be laid at the feet of Qatar’s foes. The Saudis have long been accused of exporting radical Islam across the world through hard-line madrassas. Iran’s biggest trading partner in the region is not Qatar but Dubai. Human rights abuses and press freedom restrictions are far harsher in the Emirates.

For Qatar’s supporters, the hypocrisy reveals what they say is the boycott’s true goal: to cut down or take out Qatar’s youthful emir, the royal who refuses to go along to get along.

For Tamim, the ultimate aim of his neighbors is to oust him from power. In the interview with The Times, he cited as precedent the 1996 Saudi-sponsored coup attempt against his father. “This was always the warning at the back of our heads,” he said.

His fears may be justified. In the early days of the boycott, two American officials said, Saudi and Emirati leaders mulled possible military action against Qatar. The precise details were unclear, but the talk was deemed serious enough for Mr. Tillerson to personally warn the Saudi and Emirati leaders against precipitous action. Mr. Trump later repeated that advice in a call to Saudi leaders.

Yousef al-Otaiba, the Emirati ambassador to Washington, denied in an interview that there was ever a military plan. “We never contemplated it,” he said.

But even the suggestion of military action highlighted how the old rules have been shattered in the Gulf. The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, the regional body that is supposed to resolve such disputes, has been invisible during the crisis. Instead the Saudis have promoted a string of exiled Qatari businessmen as potential political rivals to Tamim.

The Qataris appear to have returned fire on the hacking front. For months American news media outlets have received stolen emails intended to embarrass Mr. Otaiba, the Emirati ambassador. The emails appear to come from Russia, but Saudi media reports say Qatar was behind them.

Qatar denied any involvement in the hacking. “Qatar, as a matter of policy and principle, does not engage in cyber crimes or traffic in ‘fake news,’” the government said in a statement to The Times on Sunday.

Nothing suggests that the dispute will be resolved anytime soon. Although the Saudis and Emiratis may have overestimated the boycott’s ability to pressure Qatar, they may feel they have little to lose by continuing it.

“I think they are content to bleed Qatar,” said Mr. Roberts, the analyst. “There’s an indignant anger at what they see as a rich, cocooned, perfidious little state that is finally feeling the consequences of its actions.”

But as the dispute moved to the skies last week, with accusations of Qatari warplanes buzzing Emirati commercial jets, it highlighted how easily the crisis could escalate.

Both sides are bolstering their militaries. Since June, Tamim has ordered 36 F-15 warplanes from the United States, 24 Typhoon jets from Britain and 24 Rafale fighter jets from France--a sevenfold increase for an air force that currently has just 12 aircraft.

In December, his foes announced a new Saudi-Emirati military and economic alliance that further sidelines the Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Qatar.

Days later, Tamim hosted a lavish banquet for President Emmanuel Macron of France at Idam, a French restaurant on the top floor of the Museum of Islamic Art that offers a shimmering panorama over the Doha skyline.

Over a sumptuous meal prepared by the celebrity chef Alain Ducasse, the two leaders toasted the deals they had signed that morning. The emir had ordered another 12 French fighter jets.

In a few decades, Qatar has been transformed from a pirate-infested backwater to the world’s wealthiest nation.

#Qatar #emir of Qatar #Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani

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curiouskarenscapers2017 · 7 years

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Vol 2. Sep 2017

My 3 days off was absolute bliss. Think I caught up on all my lost sleep along the way. I experimented with some food stuffs I discovered and with cooking my own dishes with what was available. Totally different lifestyle than at home in SA. I could feel the kg’s melt away as I embarked on my mostly vegetarian eating habits with limited access to any western sauces and fried food. All clean eating, mostly in soups with fresh veggies and minimal meat. Spices make up for most of that and I easily adjusted.

Found these little parcels and actually remembered them from Taiwan. So I was brave enough to cook them as instructed in Chinese on the vacuum packed wrapping. Maybe could have steamed them a bit more but they turned out a treat. A gooey sticky rice around a sweet meat in the middle. Couldn’t make out whether it was actually meat in the middle or not, but the more I scrutinised my photo’s the more I’m convinced it was.

Anyway, I’m still alive and it was tasty. I settled into the school routine and started classes and demo’s like I mentioned before. So a demo class is more like a show class for the parents to see what the teaching is like with a foreign teacher but also whether the kid enjoys it and could actually attend the school. We as teachers also assess the kids English ability and level while playing with them and asking them what certain flashcard pictures are. My initial classes were quite daunting as one adjusts to the children but also the unfamiliar books and ways of teaching. Our lesson plans made up daily for the next class becomes a focus point as your time runs out and the classes follow one after the other with scarce 10 minutes in between which included a feedback session with the parents telling them what the kids learnt in the lesson….or not! BUT…like everything one gets used to the way things are done and you adjust. Doing lesson plans more in advance in off-times or allocated lesson planning times. I’ll survive…and like Lionel, my fiance, said, you’re not teaching a CEO of a company or training managers like I used to. That immediately calmed me down, all will be just fine. hahahahaha.

So as I was sitting at my fancy table in my living room in front of my TV with only 14 channels of either traditional hidden dragons and flying tigers with a monkey king thrown in or soapies or military soapies or sport where china is the focus or participating in with the occasional news I would watch to see the natural disasters of the world and then more 90% China news, I noticed that my table actually had a warmer in the middle, like the hot pot restaurants. Soo cool! Must have cost a small fortune. It has a display on the side to adjust and a fancy built in copper floor plug.

Thanks goodness while the US open tennis was on I could check some of the main games at the weirdest times. And they would just stop broadcasting the game at a specific time whether it was done or not to go back to the games China was taking part in to show weight lifting while the tennis was a set from a nail biting finish! aaaarrrgghhhhh!

Must say while I had TV it was interesting to see some historical information they had in a particular show every now and then about the world wars and what they have achieved. They’re a culture that’s quite hard on themselves and their failures but there’s always hope and they always pull through and go the extra mile to make sure they achieve their goal set for them by their authorities, sacrificing much for the greater good.

As you stay here and live among the people you see how communism or socialism works and where it doesn’t. One area where it does work very well is everything is for everybody. No one begs on the street or no old people look destitute. Everybody can cope and is looked after to an acceptable level. The country is continually improving social structures and infrastructure. They’re worse than Dubai. Construction everywhere. High rises of 50+ floors everywhere being built to house the hordes. Amazing. It’s like a living breathing organism. They must be concrete/cement and blasting experts by now! I hear it daily and even hourly from my flat as they construct the railway. It sounds like firecrackers at times! and some times it is….hahahaha.

Thank goodness I found a cheap local wine that actualy doesn’t taste that bad….or maybe I’m just desperate…who cares.

It’s Mid-Autumn moon festival time. Much like Christmas for the Chinese in importance and we’ll be having a week of holidays 1st week in October. Looking forward to some relaxing then as I’m financially still a bit strained to be going anywhere for holidays. I’ll be patient…not yet not yet!

In all the stores the mooncakes are appearing and being handed out as gifts. Also teachers day is approaching and I’ve been getting some prezzies from the kids and mothers….hahahaha didn’t expect that! Flowers, a little packet of something and a dark toblerone! Yes! real chocolate!

The people also placed candles everywhere, this one was near our apartments and apparently it’s for the ancestral spirits.

Bit of a fire hazard if you ask me. Unsupervised open flame in a bush near an apartment block. Anyway, the ancestors were obviously appeased and we’re ok.

Some beautiful sunsets have been happening as the weather started getting slightly cooler, by a degree.

This is on top of the building opposite me. A few other apartment blocks have these little pagoda’s on top but very little temples around the city. I’ll have to go outside to find them.

Went walking around to my favourite mall in town and came accross the Holiland bakery at the entrance to my supermarket. Oh my word, and were they good! Only bought one donut! They know how to bake!’

I treated myself to a coffee at a cute coffee shop called Cafe bene. They just couldn’t understand my order. i wanted an Americano with hot milk…got a black Americano, no worries, I can do that too.. Same at Starbucks. I’ll have to work on my ordering skills.

The decor was so cute and detailed. Look at the lights at the back, little doves, or birds in it.

My favourite supermarket was a must for some supplies. The display in the middle is all moon-cakes. Every cake is individually wrapped with decadent boxes and wrappings.

I was craving some fresh fruit and bought some grapes and peaches. Grapes everywhere. The bunch I got I could make a good bottle of pinotage from, they were huge and heavy, tightly bunched. Crazy, it looked plastic and weighed over 1kg.

I also indulged in a sushi platter for dinner at a third of our prices at home!

The fridge was looking much better!!!

The week rushed passed and we were working a bit late at school one evening and Aya, who is my teacher’s adviser, asked me to go with her to get some dinner at the a place below the school before I go home, I was starving and didn’t know what I wanted, so she suggested the duck, I said why not! and received my food.

It was way too much for me

The boys , Alex and John, were craving pizza from a real Italian chef/restaurant and we decided it was time to go after having to postpone before. We got in a taxi with Rowan a new English teacher and her boyfriend grant and off we went.

We arrived at a mall we have not been to before and with much excitement we looked for the restaurant. Due to renovations they had moved it to a floor on a food court level, thank goodness it was still here. We arrived and was sat down and soon visited by the Italian chef himself Simone. He was so pleased to meet us and see Alex again. The boys went to go and buy alcohol at a shop in the mall while we perused through the menu. My mouth was watering! It read like a proper Italian restaurant menu.

Simone was so grateful to us being there that he made us a foccacia on the house. He was so surprised that I knew what a foccacia was that he kept on chatting to us throughout the night about the foods and ingredients. I ordered a fritta. A foldover pizza deep fried…yeah!!!! It was divine!! As was the rest of the food. Cold meats and bread sticks. We’ll definitely be back. And homemade ice cream on the way out.

Some of the other restaurants also looked inviting

As we explored the mall we found this awesome figurine store closing up but got some pictures in before we left! Look at the prices, but also the quality of them.

Amazing!

As we left the mall there was dancing going on outside in the square. Apparently it’s a thing these days and people dance in groups, bit of a line dancing affair and coordinated dancing typically instructed by a lady with her radio and music. Sounds very festive but tonight we had two groups going at the same time.

This mall also had a McDonalds and a Starbucks. We’ll definitely be back.

What a night, we then proceeded to walk the streets for quite sometime before eventually getting a taxi back! We were so tired and Alex wanted to go out somewhere, I think all were so tired that after looking for transport for over an hour we eventually took a black taxi just to go home. Thank goodness we were all together in this one! The car barely moved past 10km/h and struggled up hill. I had visions of us being stranded in the middle of nowhere with the overly friendly taxi driver. The guy turned out to be a UN soldier in his younger years so he could speak English and was facinated by us. Too facinated. He had a laugh that sounded like there was something not quote right with him. Like a low continuous chuckle. Never the less, we eventually got home safely and couldn’t get out of the car quick enough.

I was dead and passed out soon after in my cozy bed in my own flat. I was off the next two days so I definitely would be sleeping late.

So my next adventure was taking a bus ride into town for the first time. After making doubly sure which bus to take I was ready with my 2Y = R4 instead of the R100 a taxi charges me to go downtown to our head office in the city. Slight drawback, the trip might take over an hour and is usually busy so standing room most of the time….I can deal. Luckily the bus stop is not far from the school in our main road.

I waited a while and the bus arrived no. 237. It was great seeing different parts of the city and eventually being dropped off at my other favourite mall. Estee.

When the training finished about 2 hours later I walked a round a bit next to the river before catching the next 237 back to Jinyang.

The city is so green and a pleasure to walk in. As I walked I noticed that in a slight clearing behind the trees on the side of the pavement were seating places and older gentleman were hanging up something in the trees and walking from one tree to the next discussing something. As I came closer I realised they were putting birdcages in the trees and on closer inspection I found this type of bird in these cages. I’ve actually seen people carry what looked like a birdcage covered on blue cloth around and never thought much of it. Today all was revealed. It was a type of minah bird. We have them in south africa but with black, brown and white colouring and yellow beaks and colouring around the eyes, here they are a light brown with powder blue around the eyes and they sing beautifully.

It seemed like a daily routine still don’t exactly know what they discuss or whether they actually sell the birds. Very interesting.

I got back to school just before it started raining. The weather has been changing quite a bit lately, more wind and more rain.

Had my first bacon and egg breakfast this week! Smithfield is a brand they have here that is the closest thing to bacon and very nice I might add, only thing is it cooks away to nothing! Clever!

I made extra and ate it for dinner too!! Hahahaha…you can never have too much breakfast!

Louis offered me his bike to buy and I jumped at the opportunity to get around on my own but it turned out to be too small for me (legs too long) and a rip off of another well-known brand , Giant, which then resulted in the quality not being that good. Sadly I had to give it back! I was soo disappointed.

Next time! I’ll check the real thing’s prices and let you know, who wants one!

I took a photo of the school below me when the kids were doing their physical exercise to a cool country style song with shakers in their hands. It sounds so cool. I did take a video as well and will place it on the blog. They are so coordinated.

video

Also found my new favourite less fattening food ever! Shao Main, little noodles. It’s divine, they actually have eucalyptus tasting flavour in it that refreshes your pallet. For only 9Y = R18

One day when I arrived at my flat there was a guy delivering water bottles to our apartments, I thought nothing of it and the next minute when OI was in my flat my doorbell rang. I let him up and the poor guy carried a full 10-20lt water bottle up 4 flights. I thought Jerry from the school finally sorted me out with water a I have a cooler in the house that takes these bottles. He placed it and then asked for 15Y. I gladly paid him and then he wrote out a receipt for 50Y. I eventually understood it to be the deposit for the bottle. Hahahahaha so back at the school I thanked Jerry for organising and she said sorry but she hasn’t! hahahaha so I don’t know if the guy supplied the previous owner or if he just had a spare bottle and took the chance!! Either way I got my water that I have wanted since I’ve moved in. The other thing was that I didn’t have money on me at the time. I had the 15 but not the 50. Wechat is amazing. He just created the 50Y code on his phone and I scanned it with my wechat and it went off my account and he was paid. What a pleasure. The benefits of we-chat is seriously out weighing whatsapp. 🙂

Just as well I got the water because next week is heritage day and our braai day we have been organising follows on the Tuesday because we all work on Saturdays and Sundays. Yeah, organising meat, salads and drinks and I’m getting my housewarming wines from Justin and John. We’re combining the two events.

The day arrives much to everybody’s delight. A much needed letting our hair down event. Pan from school lent us his braai and John and I walked to TP mall to look for charcoal and fire lighters. Quite the challenge for a nation that doesn’t braai/bbq. BUT thanx to translators and Chinese friends at our beck and call we found it in the picnic section. Yes in a box not a bag. We took two.

We were ready!

photo 3

Yes, firelighters. Interesting little things these although just didn’t spark for long enough to get things going, we improvised along the way with supplements.

And the party started!

We then moved to downtown to a new bar called YOLO, you only live once for more partying.

It was great going out for the first time and experiencing different places.

Somehow Sambuca always ends up at the forefront!!! The hubbly Bubbly’s (Hookah) were beautiful. Fruit in the water gave them different flavours. They just looked so eerie. Beautiful bottles.

So after a while here we moved to Uptown the pub Justin took me in the beginning. By now I was tired and we started losing people left right and centre. And I didn’t stay long before I got a taxi home with May’s help at 1am and thank goodness he dropped me off at my apartment, I didn’t have to climb the mountain after all that! I just gave my very messed up flat a glance and said, I’ll deal with you tomorrow…or later.

Next month it’s holiday and my b’day!!! Lert’s see what happens.

Guiyang Gazette Vol 2. Sep 2017 My 3 days off was absolute bliss. Think I caught up on all my lost sleep along the way.

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