Matija in May

Hi everyone,

Just catching you up on the latest -

It's getting hot here - around 38 - 40 is a good day. Mid-40's is getting pretty hot. We stick to the indoors (in more ways than one) venture out briefly and hang around at the pool at the Ramada most evenings. Matija has gained so much water confidence lately - floating around, putting her face in, going down the water slide etc. She's loving it and gaining a whole new level of independence.

She has a couple of birthday parties to attend in the next week or two and is also enjoying nursery. She's made some neat friends there, but will only be attending for another month. In some ways it's a shame she'll be going to reception at a 'big kids' school or be back in NZ come September (Summer holidays are in July and August here).

We went to the Marine festival a few weeks ago, watched Flipper in an outdoor theatre, ate local food and saw some pretty cool sand sculptures.

There was a national philharmonic recital that we attended too, with a top international conductor and some amazing live music. Had never been to one before and we both enjoyed a night out. Ande also went to a jazz night with a friend, one of her translators, and saw some top international jazz acts. It's amazing the things they offer here, mostly sponsored and they cost very little money.

Ande also went to a Qatari wedding a week ago. It's a huge event with between 400 -800 women at a flash hotel, dressed in latest designer clothes and heaps of bling - women only, they drop their abeyas - all breasts and bums, the unmarried ones strut their stuff, dancing on a stage with prospective mother-in-laws checking them out for their sons. Flash food and over-the-top decor and they party on till 3am. The man has his own party with the boys, he comes to the girls do with closest male family (all the girls abeya up again), they have a sword dance, he sits on the stage for a while then departs with the bride about an hour later when the women uncover and start dancing again. Most weddings start at about $100 000. A not-to-be-missed event.

Vince is doing an Arabic language class - written and spoken, two evenings a week. That's hard work as the letters and sounds are different, there are 28 of them and each has about seven variations depending on vowel sounds and where it sits in the word, beginning, middle or end. a Great exercise for the mind. All male class and most of the others are engineers from all over the world.

Went to a nice Italian restaurant with Ande's team the other day. Good food, flash service and I was most impressed with the misters/foggers just outside, they blow an extremely fine water mist into the air, it evaporates instantly cooling the air by about 10 degrees without wetting any surfaces. We want one for our apartment!

Ande is still loving work, going well. Just finished one workshop series (great feedback and relationships with local principals) and is starting a new 5-week course for Aspiring Leaders. Working more from home which takes the pressure off and means it's not as tricky getting Matija to nursery and back.

She's also had quite a few clothes made - great fabrics, excellent tailors and very cheap to make fabulous outfits. Plenty of people here have most of their clothes made-to-fit from ballgowns to suits and everything in between.

Thats us for now - having fun, working hard and trying to live in the moment.

love V, Ande and Matija.

Turning 40 in the Desert

Was waiting till I had something to say and now we have plenty:

Birthday Dhow trip

Ken, a friend of ours, and I both had birthdays around the same time so Linda, his wife, and Ande arranged a combined dhow trip with friends to an island not far off Doha. It was a beautiful evening, we cruised past the waterfront and all climbed onto the top of the boat for drinks (non-alcoholic) great views and a cool breeze. We moored off the island and swam over for a look, hoping the jet skis that were hooning around didn't run us down. Matija jumped in for a swim then we settled down for a charcoal cooked BBQ on the boat before cruising back into the sunset. It was a magic night and the we struck the weather perfectly.

Pressies - Had some wonderful cards from NZ, thanks Mum and Dad, George and Mary, Deb, Fi and Marius. Thanks also to the Strydoms for the magazines, how did you know I was interested in motorcycles, lifestyle block articles and mens health for the modern metrosexual male (maybe not the metrosexual bit).

I got a great little netbook computer from Ande and Matija, which is v. cool and will be the perfect thing to use while travelling. The battery on the MacBook Pro is stuffed so it means I am portable again. Also great for GPS navigation - which brings me to:

Camping at the Inland Sea.

Everyone has said to take a guide etc when going down to the Inland Sea, a huge inlet in the South of Doha where you have to drive across the desert and through sand dunes. A few keen campers from Cognition (including us) decided this was unnecessary and we could do it by ourselves. As part of the Navigation subcommitte I decided the easiest thing was to buy a basic handheld GPS ($120 NZ) and load in the co-ordinates from a marked route on the internet. I did so. I also scavenged some firewood from old pallets on empty land beside Matija's nursery. We packed tents, deck chairs, sleeping bags, food etc and borrowed Ken and Linda's 4WD as Linda's back was out and they weren't coming.

We headed into the unknown on a Thursday night, driving 50mins to the edge of the desert, deflating tires for the sand then following GPS pointers across the desert for about 30kms. It's actually a pretty well defined track - more like a highway, most of it across hard salt pans with a few patches of soft sand between. You could probably do it without GPS, but you could also get a bit lost too. We found our way to the tip of a peninsular then set up camp in a little sandy basin just as it was getting dark- 3 vehicles, 4 tents and a firepit. We had a neat evening around the fire and hit the hay. It was pretty hot for sleeping in the tents and the wind blew all night - tent pegs don't hold in the sand, but we'd filled supermarket bags with sand to tie the guy ropes to. Got to see our first scorpion - the small yellow harmless type - which was playing in the sand under Naomi's deck chair. Not much sleep and we were up bright and early to pack up and drive around the peninsular. We went for a swim around the peninsular, partway across a pretty treacherous piece of salt pan (gotta be careful you don't lose your vehicle in that stuff) but found a lovely little inlet with great swimming further up. There is about 1.5km of water across to Saudi/UAE and John, one of the team, had flippers and swam across for a look. We wondered whether we would ever see him again, but he did get back in one piece without time in a Saudi detention camp. There were also plenty of cockles and fish and the next time out John took a spear gun - no luck yet though.

We followed our noses out of there and had some exciting driving across soft sand to get back to the main track in. Ande was driving Naomi's 4WD and got bogged, but backed out and found her way around, nearly intercepting a local's Landcrab coming the other way. I led her into a patch of soft sand further along and the little XTrail got bogged. We lowered tyres and dug sand out, I'm sure we would have got it out by ourselves but Osama bin Laden happened to drive past and easily towed us out, giving the good advice to drive on the hard shingle 15m to the side of where we actually went! Nice guy, shame about the terrorism!

It was an awesome night out and we repeated it the following weekend with a slightly different crew. We've now got a grill and hotplate for the fire and we're getting used to the route and the sandy driving - a good tyre guage has also meant we've deflated the tyres more, which certainly helps. Matija loves playing in the sand, running and sliding down sand dunes and swimming in the sea. Everyone's enjoyed spending time with her and it's been a pleasure to get out of Doha and into the wilderness. We went back and camped at the good swimming spot after Dharan scared the fish and the fishermen off with his kitesurfer. If we do get back here next year we'll look at getting a 4WD so we can enjoy many more weekends in the desert!

MOTO GP

Went to see the world class motorcycle racing the night B4 my birthday. It was another beautiful night, Ande was a little sceptical, but when we got out there we had a ball. We saw final practice, then two rounds of smaller bikes before the big boys. We'd picked our favourites in the smaller classes and the racing was really exciting with the bikes absolutely flying down the home straight, passing each other all the time and racing side by side. The big bikes were incredibly fast and the noise was deafening as they battled it out. The crowd was right behind Valentino Rossi, nine times world champ and there was a huge roar when Casey Stoner, the top qualifier, who was pulling away from the field, fell off. Rossi held on for the win and we got home after midnight, on the morning of my birthday.

CIRCUS

We've been to a couple of circuses with Matija. The best was free at Souq Waqif. There were lions, tigers, horses, camels, a hippo, monkeys, snakes, alligators, dwarves, clowns, acrobats, trapeze artists and motorbikes in a cage - all the old circus things that you don't see in NZ anymore. Matija loved it. We went to another one which had an entrance fee a couple of weeks later. It was still pretty good, but lacked the big animals and wasn't quite as good. Great fun and hard to believe it was free.

WORLD INDOOR ATHLETICS

Also went to the Doha leg of the World Indoor Athletics champs. Neat to see world class athletes close up. We saw hurdles and sprints, mens shotput, high jump, pole vault, triple and long jump. It was an exciting night, particularly the battle for the women's high jump and another thing that we wouldn't have the opportunity to do in NZ.

MATIJA'S EARS

Matija has had a few ear infections and we were concerned about her hearing so took her to a doctor and a specialist. There has been a problem with fluid behind the eardrums but after about 5 weeks of nasal sprays, decongestant and drops she is much improved. We've got to continue with the nasal spray for a while but her hearing is at 95% and should continue to improve. It was a bit of a performance administering the spray (headlock and screaming) but she has been getting better and better and now she doesn't even cry. She is growing up fast, getting as brown as a berry and talking much, much more. She loves Starfish and has made good friends with the camping crew and with a couple of older Indian kids, Ashwan and Ashwadi, who she often joins for bike riding in the carpark downstairs.

Otherwise things are ticking along - I've done a session in a local boys school, which was good fun and I'm visiting a primary on Wednesday as part of Book Week. Ande's work is going extremely well. I'll add a few things soon and include some more photos soon.

love V, Ande and Matija.

Catching Turkey

Turkey

So much to say and so little time!

Great to see green countryside and eat fresh fruit!

People loved Matija - old women and fishermen would pinch her cheeks, slap her knees and give her a big kiss.

Istanbul

We saw the Aya Sofia, The Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace, Whirling Dervishes, went for a boat trip up the Bosphorus, walked around old suburbs where fruit sellers pushed handcarts and the modern new city with a huge walking thoroughfare, designer shops and trams rattling by. We visited the Grand Bazaar where thousands of tiny shops huddled under kilometres of covered walkway and the spice market with mounds of spices, cheeses, fruits, meat, nuts, fish, tea and coffee. We tasted fresh fish on a wharf with a purse seiner dragging it's nets in less than 500m from the restaurant, ate at a three storey kofta restaurant where they didn't serve anything else and had hundreds of diners eating at one time. We tasted amazing baklava (pastry sweets) tried stuffed eggplants, ate fresh sesame bread rings from street vendors and fell in love with sweet, strong Turkish tea and coffee.

Cappadocia

Istanbul had been cold and wet and busy with touts trying to drag you into their shops and restaurants. Cappadocia was more like Central Otago in Autumn. We stayed in caves at the tiny village of Goreme, we could walk around the slightly shabby town, pick up cheap pide (Turkish pizzas) and see dozens of old timers perched around tables drinking tea and playing card games. We took a spectacular hot air balloon ride through the pinnacles and valleys studded with ancient caves then hired four-wheel motorbikes that night and checked out most of the valleys on the ground. Matija even got a wee sleep in while riding on the motorbike in front of me. There were hundreds of ancient cave dwellings and churches and we visited underground cities where Christians had taken refuge over 1000 years ago. We made friends with the hotel owner and his mate who managed another hotel, drank tea with them, got shown the sights and left a couple of new friends behind.

The Lake District

We'd hired a car to drive back to Istanbul and we stopped in the dark at Lake Egidir, waking up in a slightly grotty hostel with amazing views over a lake with mountains in the background and a tiny fishing village in front. We walked around a little holiday island where an older lady who ran a cafe saw Matija on a swing and had to come over and pinch her cheeks, knees and shoulders before hugging her soundly. We went in for coffee and sat watching the view while Matija played with balloons and her husband relished his fresh bread, cheese, eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers and olives for breakfast, all washed down with strong, sweet turkish tea.

Ruins

We drove through countryside the was like Eastern Europe with old men and women riding on tractors and painted trailers from their villages to the fields, it was hard open country like the Maniototo, with a similar climate. We stopped at Pammukale to visit amazing travertine terraces (like the pink and white terraces at Rotorua) and bathed in an ancient Roman hot spring at Hierapolis complete with columns that had fallen in during an earthquake hundreds of years ago. There was a storm raging around us and we were the only ones game to take a swim!

We saw a huge market in a rural town and stopped to buy nuts, oranges and biscuits then sat eating Kofte sandwiches with tea that French speaking kofte vendor shouted us.

We drove to the amazing ruins at Ephesus where the houses of the nobility were being restored, complete with domed ceilings, plumbing, mosaic floors and walls completely lined in fine-grained marble. Just over the hill was where the house of Mary (Jesus mother) lived in her later years.

Ayvalik

We stopped at an amazing little fishing village with tiny streets leading like a maze up the hill and the odd marble pillared temple resting on a side street. We ended up being the only guests at a very special seafood restaurant where the owner prepared fresh salted anchovy then fired up the charcoal grill and cooked us amazing red mullet and deep sea bass that were so fresh they were sweet. It was followed by figs stuffed with local cheese and dribbled with honey. One of the best meals ever!

Gallipoli

It wasn't something we were desperate to see, but we crossed the Dardanelles and toured the sites on the Gallipoli peninsular. We are both extremely glad we went. We'd seen a film the night before that outlined the campaign and it was amazing to see the rugged piece of territory where so many of our people died and were buried. The thing that really struck home was how much that struggle led to the Turks national identity, as well as our own and the Australians. It was a beautiful thing to see Matija making daisy chains on the field where part of that struggle occurred. It seemed appropriate somehow.

Tekirdag

Our last stop before returning to Istanbul was a town on the Marmara that specialised in Kofte and raki. We took the coastal route and found that the wobbly green line on the map was a tiny gravel road, studded with rocks that climbed over a mountain before dropping through the coal smoke to Tekirdag. Matija had dropped off by the time we arrived so we put her to bed and sat rugged up on a little balcony, looking across the square to the Marmara, drinking red wine from Cappadocia and eating Kofte sandwiches. The army was just accepting the intake for compulsory military service and the chosen boys were celebrating by holding shoulders and dancing in a circle while a small band played a Turkish tune and their friends and family stood around clapping and congratulating them. It seemed an appropriate end to our trip to Turkey.

In da Desert

Hi guys,

settling into the New Year here in Doha, although as we didn't have Christmas holidays it still feels like the same year!

Matija has settled back to kindy and has made plenty of friends, she's also been to one of the kids birthday parties so we're getting to know the team - there's Emma, currently best friend who is about the same age, family from Prague (dad is a theatre writer who is doing copywriting for Vodafone), William is an out-there American ginga whose mum works at the kindy, Tomaso (called Tomato) is from somewhere in the Middle East we suspect, Jayden has American and English parents, Sara had the birthday, her Dad is an English lawyer and they live in a compound, Paige has South African parents who live at the Pearl (flash new development) and Ares has a Greek mum and has the odd ear problem (same as Matija).

We went to one of the Friday brunches a couple of weeks ago, just to try it out. There was everything from Thai to Mexican and Indian food as well as a huge seafood buffet, beef, heaps of desserts. I was on the dry menu (driving) while Ande had bubbles with hers. There was face painting and videos for the kids as well as more food for them. Interesting day out, it wasn't cheap, but good for a oncer.

Ande has a few weeks off from presenting at the moment and is planning more programmes. There has been restructuring here and the guy she works with has taken on some more leadership work so it could mean more work for her. They're looking at getting someone else, but Ande needs that NOW rather than later. Still loving the work though and is doing more work with 4 Qatari co-presenters as part of their development, which has been great.

Had a great trip out in the desert on a peninsular to the north yesterday. It is a kind of national park. Three of Ande's colleagues had 4WD vehicles and we went touring and stopped for a picnic at a lovely beach up there. It started a little cool so we didn't take togs, although Matija stripped off and had a great time swimming. In most of the best spots the local Qataris set up camp over winter and head out for the weekends. They put a deposit in and GPS co-ordinates and are allowed to leave the camp there for 3 months. They have portable toilets, generators, spotlights, fridges, boats etc. Some have tv's and satellite dishes. When they pack up they have to take everything, if there is rubbish left behind they lose their deposit, about $3000. Pretty cool I thought.

Anyway the driving was mostly over rocky or hard-packed terrain, you didn't really need 4WD but good ground clearance was essential. In many places there were 3 or 4 options of tracks across open ground so you just went with the one that was least bumpy. The landscape was amazing and it was great to get out of Doha. The circular buildings you see could have been ancient fortifications but they were actually made for a film set, Transformers or something. There was also a fort made in the old style for a film. We pulled up and I leaped over the wall to have a look, someone who had been there before was trying to warn me, but when I walked around I spied a caretaker making a cup of tea. I silently sneaked back over the wall and went in through the gate like everyone else. It was kind of cool, way out in the desert, we would have taken more pics but the battery of the camera ran out.

Anyway we went to a nice gentle sandy beach at the top of the peninsular and had a lovely picnic and a swim for Matija between two local campsites. We also saw some pink flamingos which Matija managed to frighten off by yelling excitedly.

On the way back we passed quite a few salt flats. You have to stick to the tracks here because there is a crust of o.5 to 1 metre over the salty water and if you break through you may never get your vehicle out again!

The peninsular starts about 50mins north of us and there is a town there (around a gas plant) where you can get a coffee and some groceries. There's also a beach which would make a nice day trip. After that trip we're quite keen to upgrade the car to a 4wd so we can get out of town. It would also give us the chance to get to the Inland Sea over the sand dunes, something I'm very keen to do on the weekends.

In other news (sounds like a newsreader here) Matija has started doing gymnastics. They do stretches and running and forward and backward rolls, handstands, bar work and even start learning flickflacks at 3years old. All the other kids seem to be Middle Eastern (Egypt, Lebanon etc) and the instruction is in English and Arabic. A couple of young guys take it, they're quite strict but that won't do Matija any harm and she was really enjoying it and improving every time (although they keep having to tell her to keep her legs together!). It's also just down the road from our gym, so on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday Matija can go to gymnastics for an hour while Ande and I go to the gym and do our workouts.

We've also been up for a rooftop barbecue at one of the other apartments. There were prawns, beers, snarlers etc. It was also the coldest night yet so we were rugged up against the elements. Amazing to hear the call to prayer from the mosque towers at the same level as us!

All the best to everyone - hope you're all well and happy.

ps. Making good progress on the next book and the last one (Jonty and Choc) is due for release any time now. I'm waiting for a copy but delivery takes forever over here.

Food - very important

Hey everyone

Food in Doha

the good thing about Doha is that there are people here from all over the place and they've brought their food with them. The other good/bad thing is that there is a lot of cheap labour meaning they want cheap food, and it is cheap to prepare. A quick summary of some foods around here:

Cheap

- Shwarma - little wraps of chicken, tomato, onion, lettuce and garlic dressing in flatbread. Available at small Lebanese restaurants, Turkish places and occasionally on the street. Anywhere from about $2 to$5. The meat is done on those upright Turkish spits and is very tasty. NZ needs more of these!

- Chicken - (pretty common) there's an Indian place on the corner from us called Badriya Chicken. The chickens are smaller and less fatty than you get at home and they seem to be a bit healthier to eat. They have whole rotisserie chicken for $5 or spicy barbecue chicken (done over charcoal) for about $7. That covers the chicken, rice or bread and a little bag of salad (the salad is a little dodgy looking). There is a man in the front of the shop that shapes and bakes flatbreads in an oven, very skilled, tasty bread and neat to watch. You can buy the bread straight off him through a little window onto the street.

- Indian vegetarian - these places do a variety of things:

- marsala dhosa - a bread wrap with vege curry inside.

- pilau - rice and veges,

- spicy falafel with cumin etc on the outside

- chapatti

If you get any of these they are served on a plate with three sauces, a coconut one, a green curry type one and vege curry. They come around with pans of these sauces and if you've finished yours they top them up again. These are around $3- $4 for a main. Heaps of single Indian workers go to these places and families, particularly Western ones, are unusual. We get plenty of interest when we go there with Matija. A lot of the guys want to touch her cheek or shake her hand. These places generally don't have utensils, you eat with your right hand (left one is for hygiene).

All of these things are good and cheap and we haven't had any crook tummies yet.

Middle range

This covers a whole lot of food in Doha.

Middle Eastern restaurants generally start with meze. These are dishes like hummus (chick pea paste), tabouleh (parsley, mint, bulgar wheat and lemon), baba ganoush (egg plant dip), green salad (speaks for itself really) they come with fresh breads, either loaves or flatbreads and you can easily make a meal of these. Mains are a variety of things - whole split and roasted chickens, fish, kofta (lamb sausages), shwarmas (see above). A lot of places do tagines - stoneware pots with casseroles - usually they have the meat (chicken or lamb) with a little spice and a sweeter fruit, prunes, apricots, figs etc. They also do a desert called Umm Ali or Mother of Ali. Legend has it that a sultan was travelling, he stopped in a village and the best cook was asked to prepare a desert. She cooked up flatbread in milk with spices, cinnamon etc. She was the mother of Ali and the desert was named in her honour. Another theory has it that an Irish woman called Bridget O'Malley introduced bread and butter pudding over here and it was named after her.

There are plenty of great Indian eateries here that are a bit more upmarket. Andrea has been to one in a hotel and we went to one about 10mins walk from our apartment - a place I went past taking Matija to the bus stop. Matt Ford would think he had died and gone to heaven. We started with naan breads, then got into some fantastic curries from Kerala. I had one with prawns and coconut and awesome spices, Ande had a chicken curry in an amazing gravy. We got kofta (minced lamb sausage) for Matija, but it was hot and we had to eat it ourselves. It came with rice and more breads, yoghurt and raita (yoghurt and cucumber). We were the only ones in the place because we were there at 5:30 with Matija. We were next to a frosted glass wall into the kitchen and there were patches of clear glass. We could see about 6 cooks working in a large stainless kitchen, all with hair nets, white clothes etc. It was all very sanitary and they were cooking everything from scratch. Amazing food and it came to $30 NZ for all of us.

There are a few good Thai places around and plenty of Lebanese and Turkish restaurants as well. There are Phillipine places too, but haven't tried these out yet. There is a very good Chinese place just down the road too, but still have to get there.

The hotel restaurants are pricier, but you can go for flash or very, very flash. Our Christmas lunch was fantastic - anything from cold seafood dishes, to turkey, roast beef and 20 or 30 deserts.

Friday lunch is a big thing here in the hotels too. Huge smorgasboards that people go along to from 10am to 3pm, kicking back and chatting eating etc. Many places cater very much to families with entertainment for the kids too. These are more expensive - some of the flash ones charge a little over $100 per head, but kids are free and they include free drinks for the adults. We may go along to one of these things just to check them out - haven't been yet.

On another tangent - Ande is really enjoying work and Matija has just got back to pre-school. We've all had some colds and flus and things but it looks like we're OK now. Ande met a committee last week to decide if I could stay. If I was a woman and Ande was a working guy it would have been no problem, but as I'm a non-working guy they look a little harder at us. We were advised to say that I was just looking after Matija and the house, not writing. They couldn't understand why I would want to hang around to do that, but Ande must have been convincing so I will be allowed to stay. Unfortunately it meant we didn't get a company paid trip to Dubai or somewhere so that I could renew my visa.

I haven't got very much writing done at all, but I've done a hell of a lot of thinking. The outline for my next series (Scrap) is firmly in place and I'm very excited about it. I've thought a lot about what I really want to say and why I want to write these books. That's really underpinned the whole series and I'm looking forward to getting my teeth into the writing in the next few weeks. I guess I could have been really frustrated about not being able to get into writing yet, but I'm learning to wind back and really enjoy the things I'm doing, whether it's looking after Matija or even cleaning the house. I am making time to get to the gym - taking some time out for me and keeping fit and healthy. I suppose I'm living in the moment and making the most of each one. The writing will come when it is time and I'm sure it will be a lot stronger when I'm ready to focus on it (which is very soon). I'm also there for Matija, loving the time with her and Ande and generally a very happy camper.

love and hugs

V, Ande and Matija

photos are just some random ones from the park, the zoo etc.

Christmas

Merry Christmas from Doha,

We had a neat Christmas in Doha - presents at home on Christmas morning, then a day out at Sharq Village with a fabulous meal, enjoying the company of around a dozen of Andrea's team from work. Very relaxed with plenty of bubbly flowing, outside overlooking the harbour and fantastic weather. If the rest of you were here it would have been unbeatable.

Matija got a CD player, a table and chairs from Nana and Dida, a jersey from Grandma and Grandad and lots of other pressies - thank you all for that. Ande received pearls and pot plants while Vince got a world globe, cufflinks and a very nice salt and pepper grinder.

I've attached some photos - Ande is back at work, I'm driving now on a temporary licence and Matija and I will be out and about a little now going to some playgrounds and other exciting attractions.

All our love,

Vince, Ande and Matija.