Coming up to Christmas

It's a couple of weeks after Eid-al-Adha. Andrea has begun leading workshops with developing principals, aspiring principals and master trainers (those training to lead principals) - that's about 250 people participating for three days in a week, over five weeks and all of the materials have to be prepared far enough in advance to have them translated! Feedback has been wonderful, although she was battling a flu over the first week, which hasn't helped at all.

Matija has finished kindy for about three weeks over Christmas, so she'll be back at home with Dad for a while. She's been loving kindy, the teacher and helpers are all great and she runs around to give each of them a hug before she goes home. She has made two friends, Emma and Paige - she'll look forward to seeing them again in the new year.

We've had a celebration of Cognition's 20 years in Doha which was fun - dinner, drinks and speeches a the Diplomatic club. We had the Cognition Christmas function last night, which was a sit-down meal, drinks and a band at the Intercontinental. Nice night, but Ande was still feeling the effects of the flu so we didn't stay too long.

I've got a little writing done, completed some changes to the first in a series, although I can't see myself getting much writing done while Matija is home. I'm not getting stressed about that though, I may as well enjoy my time with her while I can.

We had a day off on Thursday as it is National Day today. We went down to the Corniche to watch the parade. There were thousands of people there to watch. They were about 5 deep where we were, luckily we were in a family area that they fenced off. Matija was on my shoulders and we stayed to see marching troops, others mounted on horses and camels, school kids etc. It was pretty hot and crammed. There were thousands of single Indian guys just beside us and we were all jammed in. The police were pushing the young Indian guys back - it wasn't nasty, but they are certainly treated as a lower class than locals and westerners and it wasn't pleasant. We didn't stay for the whole parade but came home and caught some of it on local TV - big speed boats on the gulf, a fly-by from the Air Force and the Emir driving past.

There are also heaps of cars with flags, stickers and Qatar stuff all over them, Ande took a couple of photos to show you how they look. Others have big photos of the Emir and his son plastered all over them.

We did get out to a camel and horse show at the edge of town, but they don't post the times etc, so we only saw some young boys saddling camels. I did get to hold a falcon though and Matija patted it.

We have the Christmas tree up and there are a few pressies under it. We've still got a bit of Christmas shopping to do. We're going out to a hotel - Shaq Village for Christmas with quite a few of Ande's team. All food and booze supplied and there is an area for kids where they can play and be watched when we want to chill out for a bit too. Should be fun.

We're settling in pretty well, starting to find our way around better and getting some things accomplished. Having fun too and both learning to live a little more in the moment and enjoy those moments - each of them are precious.

love V, Ande and Matija.