Fire and Dust

Howdy,

Down to the last few enjoyable weeks in Qatar.  I’ve mentioned over the past couple years about the beautiful dust storms we get here that last for weeks – well, they blew back in on Thursday and are expected to last the week.  Constant winds at 50 to 70 mph and difficult to breath even inside with all the dust.  We cleaned Friday for several hours and today, can’t tell the difference – dust covering everything.  I tossed in a couple videos from our trip to the grocery store this morning - right up to the door of our abode.

Last week was a sad week in Qatar.  There was a fire in Villagio Mall in Doha that killed 21 people.  Almost all of the victims were expats – 13 of them children in the nursery.  Two families lost three children each – one was a set of triplets from New Zealand.  http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/qatar/qatar-studies-smoke-pockets-in-deadly-mall-fire-1.1030510

The blame game has started, but we all know that it will get swept under the carpet and people will get paid off to keep quiet.  The Minister of the Interior issue a “warning” to media by ordering anyone arrested that spread rumors.  The arrest warrants went out before the building was safe to enter – blame someone first before a finger gets pointed at me.  All of the construction in Qatar is the same – disaster waiting to happen.  I wonder if this will catch the eye of the 2022 World Cup Committee???

School!  Hmmmm???? Well, we just have to laugh each day to make it through.  We are now prisoners.  They took our Passports, Resident Permits, Visas, School ID Cards, Parking Permits, and Insurance cards, so basically we are incapable of conducting any type of business.  That should be a challenge next week when we are trying to ship things home.  We should get ALL of our final pay on the 15^th, so they say it is to keep us from running away.  Such trust!!!  They will be keeping about $1000 each from our pay – they can’t show us the policy, but they say they can keep it if we don’t turn in all our paperwork (and they have made that threat multiple times.)  They will give us a checkout list on the 27^th and we fly out on the 29^th – nothing like last minute.  Our half-day on the 28^th has been cancelled – no reason given, just cause!

Spent the weekend packing and sorting.  We think we should be able to keep the shipping to less than 250 lbs.  I think it is pretty good since we shipped 500 lbs. and were able to bring 4 - 70 lbs. bags here on the plane.  We can only bring 1 - 50 lbs. bag + carry-on home with out running up some huge costs.  As usual, we will be giving a lot of stuff to the workers at school.  Just can’t see selling it for a few bucks when it means so much to them.

Lesson of the Week: We have a choice – many others don’t.

Love you all,

Doug and Missie