Villagio

Snuck a photo in Villagio today on the mobile. Just to give you an idea of the scope of this place, this is the new section that has just been opened up and the little fence you can see is actually the canal that runs down the middle, which has full sized wooden gondolas in it. There are actually only a couple of stores in this section open, and that is pretty much the same through the whole place. You can only just make out the ceiling which is painted (rather well) as a blue sky with fluffy while clouds.

They open the mall first here, and then let it slowly fill up with tenants. A little backward, but still an interesting thing to see. Unfortunately this means quite a bit of walking between shops to see what is actually there.

HCT Offer

Well HCT has made me an offer for Al Ain Men's College... nice to at least get an offer at last! More info to come...

Telephone Interviews

I have decided that I am not a fan of the telephone interview… actually I am not a fan of the interview full stop, but I think the telephone interview is definitely not my favourite.

To elaborate, I had a telephone interview with the American University of Bulgaria last night. I know! Bulgaria is a little like Qatar and doesn’t normally come to mind when people are thinking about working overseas, although most people at least have heard of Bulgaria! But the thing with this interview is there were about 6 people (I think) sitting in a room asking me questions over a speakerphone… I actually think there may have been 7 at one point. That wasn’t too bad in itself, but the line was really bad meaning I couldn’t actually hear some of what they were saying as well as some of them being very quiet (I am guessing they were further away from the microphone). All this added up to me being a little confused at the best of times and having a very sore ear due to having to squish the phone against the side of my head to hear what was being said. Added to this, the line had a nasty echo and delay playing havoc with it!

Needless to say, I haven’t heard back from them as yet. Although the interview went ok from my end, given that I probably didn’t answer the actual questions they were asking I don’t think it went so well at their end.

One thing though is I can say I had an interview with a university in Bulgaria, and that is yet another experience in itself!

New AJA Accommodation

Well after many rumours and something that I can’t quite work out, it has finally been confirmed that all AJA staff will be moving into new apartments that are currently being built next door to the school prior to the next school year beginning. This has both positives and negatives naturally.

Being close to school can be both good and bad, but with the location of the school for the time being it is mostly bad. The area the school is in is not the best and next to one major road and one over crowded substandard one – which means no doubt there will be significant road works in this area in the future… there also is really nothing in the way of shopping nearby. I guess we have been a little spoilt by our current location with regards shopping. Also it not only looks over AJA, but also backs onto the fence of the other school next door so basically if you look out your window you will see major roads or school grounds; no gardens and no balconies.

The plan does not allow enough parking for the amount of apartments, which may work out ok in the long run, but in addition to this there is no real place for children to play (unless they jump the wall and go into the school grounds – if that is allowed). The apartments look as if they may be quite nice once established, but very compact which leads to a lot of people living in close quarters. The other issue is it seems for anything to be established here it takes a little while, so once construction is finished and everyone is moved, no doubt there will be some issues initially as they are going to be very rushed.

I guess one of the final things is a no pet policy, which doesn’t help those here with pets (which there are quite a few) or the ones who have befriended cats. There is also no smoking in the apartment buildings, which is funny because there are many teachers who are driven to chain smoking (if you get my drift). There will be a little “clubhouse” within the walls, but there is very little chance you would be able to fit 200+ residents in there as it looks very small (actually the whole thing does look very small). All in all who knows!

Cats and Thunderstorms

We had a nice thunderstorm this morning. You can feel the weather slowly warming up, but it still seems the “it hardly ever rains in Doha” comments have definitely been proved to be false. More importantly what do all the cats do when it rains? Find somewhere warm and dry to curl up and sleep!

Big-Head cat and Big Moza waiting out the rain…

As I said before, it is hard not to feel the need to give these little furry friends at least some comfort for part of their lives. You can tell that some of them have either been pets, or have been treated well by someone at some point in time. Just wish they could all find nice little homes to live happy little cat lives in, but there really are just too many… even if you just look after the nice-natured ones, you still end up with a house-full! We had to chase out 5 that were sleeping in various parts of the house last night when we went to bed.

Boxed kitten ready to be sent to a good home!

More Cats

We have two new arrivals, although the little tiger-stripped cat has visited once or twice before. They have now become “Skitty-Tiger” cat and “Splotchy” cat. These two are rather cute because they are kind of small and just hang around together… the one with stripes is male and very timid and runs away every time someone or something moves. He also has a little limp, which is weird because all the tiger-stripped cats seem to have at least something wrong with one of their paws or legs. By the way, I know they aren’t really tiger stripes, but that is just what I call them. The splotchy one is a little female and very affectionate. She sort of does this pushing thing with her head when you give her scratches, so maybe she might become “dozer” or something else if she hangs around much longer. The cutest thing about these two is they snuggle up together when they sleep.

Ice Parties

Headed off the City Centre this afternoon for a little bit a retail therapy and saw something interesting while we were there.

The central part of the mall is built around the ice-skating rink and when we first arrived we saw three huge bags of balloons hanging from the roof. So naturally the thought would be that something big was going to happen. Not yet though, so we continued on our walked up and down floors and in and out of shops.

Later when we walked back past the middle we saw they had set up the rink with more balloons and put a carpet over the middle. As we watched we saw a HUGE birthday cake carried out to the middle on a table and few guys wandered around with movie cameras. Ok so there was going to be a huge birthday party on the rink? Didn’t know you could hire it out for parties since it is in such a public space, but apparently you can.

So anyway along with many others, I stood and watched (haven’t quite got the hang of lining up the panorama images on the phone’s camera yet, but you get the idea). Now my guess is that there were about 10-15 children in the middle of the rink for about a total of 15 minutes. The music at the centre was turned off as a microphone was handed around the kids and their minders to sing happy birthday (very badly and very loudly). I should also say that none of the children at the party were actually ice skating, but rather just standing around on the carpet in the middle of the rink with 100’s of onlookers.

I find all this just weird and we didn’t actually stand around to watch the huge bags of balloons dropped from the roof. Extravagance is pretty normal for children here, and it seems that parents like to try to outdo each other when it comes to this type of thing. I must say though I think this is one of the strangest and most conspicuous ones I have seen.

When things go bang!

Apparently the water pump blew this morning… actually didn’t know it was the water pump at all, but rather thought it must have just been a fuse. Kerry was on the phone and everything just went dead after she heard a “pop” sound coming from the box on the wall in the entrance foyer. After a little bit of work and an hour or so, we were told everything was fixed (translation being “we have patched things up and call us next time something blows up”). I went outside and saw a shiny new water pump, so the power of deduction tells us that was the problem as we have power once again!

Something Dead In Our Drain…

Well maybe not something dead, but it sure was stinky! To elaborate…

Last night our main bathroom flooded. Seems that the drain was backed up so when to plug was pulled on the bath, instead of the water heading on a journey down the drain it came up through the hole in the middle of the bathroom floor (I should say this hole is actually another drain and not just some “hole” in the floor). Anyway we called the plumber type guy who came around and unflooded the bathroom… he also left by saying “oohhhh big problem” and that he would be back in the morning.

It turns out the “big problem” really wasn’t all that big… As I had to help all I know is what came out of the drain outside looked like hair, toilet paper and pooh in the shape of a dead cat! Now I am not saying it was a cat… but was shaped like one and sure didn’t smell pretty. Anyway the drain is now unblocked, the bathroom is no longer flooding, and whatever it was in the drain is no longer there… and that has to be a good thing! I think I would have rather been trying to control a class of 20 kids screaming and running around than help with the drain though!

Big-Head Cat

Well after not being around lately “Big-Head” cat has made his return. Although he looks very beaten up and like he has had a hard couple of months, he still loves to flop on the floor or a lap and have roll around.

Also saw one of the “hillbilly cats’ yesterday… don’t know where “overbite cat” is but “cross-eyed cat” is still passing along the fence with it’s banjo on it’s back at least once or twice a day. Duelling banjos along with the call to prayer is something to behold!