That's a lot of variety for one week

It was quite an interesting week- I got to participate in the school's "week without walls" program. Regular classes are stopped for the week and students have a chance to do something a little different. Trips went to France, Switzerland, Vietnam,... and Qatar. I got to lead one of the local trips that was meant to study the environment of Qatar- an interesting topic but when the temperature was starting to hit 105- a bit nervewracking planning activities outside. I had a great group of teachers helping and in the end didn't lose a single kid! We wrapped the week up with an international track and field event and a trip to the beach to look for dugong bones- a little bit of everything.

Isom the Oryx

Cute- in a strange odd ugly sort of way.

and on day 3 of the trip I got crabs!

we went to the vegetable farm to stalk the wild cucumber and tomato

Doha skyline from a boat

Doha skyline from the 54th floor

If you look real close there is a pole vaulter in there somewhere

Women's 800 meters- Lots of fast Kenyans and Ethiopans

Pamela Jelimo on her victory lap- she won the 2008 olympics 1500meters- from Kenya. She was so fast that even walking past Luca and Wilder I couldn't get her into focus.

We drove out to a new beach- had to stop when this was the view ahead of us...

and this was the view behind us.

and here was the temperature- sure don't want to break down.

We came to this beach because we were told by Wilder's teacher that she had found dolphin, sea tutrtle, and dugong skulls washed ashore. Sadly a whole mess of trash was all we found- clean beaches aren't as valued in this neck of the globe. (we did find a few dugong ribs- enough to make the kids (Wilder, Luca, Innes) happy.)

Once we waded out past the debris we did find a sweet little stretch of sand with clear persian gulf waters to swim in- If you squint you can see one of the islands of Bahrain off Lisa's right shoulder.