Saturday, January 2, 2010

No camel races today!
























































Today was a fun day -- I met Dave (Co-Lead) for the first time today and we spent some time getting-to-know each other and talking about the curriculum for LeaderShape. We had lunch on the Pearl -- which is "reclaimed" land -- basically the country has filled in the water and built an island in the shape of a clam with a pearl sticking out of it. It is beautiful and full of yachts, cafes, shopping areas, and apartments like I have never seen before.


After our meeting, Lindsay took me to what we thought was going to be the camel races but alas...I learned that what is scheduled does not always occur here in Qatar. Nonetheless I did get to see some baby camels in training...see the pictures above. Apparently the camels used to be raced by children and it was quite unsafe. Since that time the practice of using children has been outlawed. Now they use robots that are about 1-2 feet high and the owners ride along side the track controlling the robot and their camel. Wished I could have seen that!
Tonight we are off to dinner at a local restraurant. Then tomorrow starts our LeaderShape training. I cannot wait to meet all of the faculty.
*I am trying to catch typos in this blog but it is a little difficult as some of the directions and typed words display on the screen in arabic letters -- for example --- this is what you see (partially) when you log into Google!
تسجيل الدخول

بحث متقدم خيارات أدوات اللغة
البحث: في الويب صفحات باللغة العربية صفحات من ‏قطر
النطاق Google.com.qa متوفر باللغات: English
البرنامج الإعلاني‏ - كل ما تحب معرفته عن Google‏ هنا‏ - Google.com in English
اجعل Google صفحتي الرئيسية
...it is also quite an interesting process to blog here. When you sign-in on the computer part of the input process goes from right to left (the same as when you read Arabic)... I really am learning so much!
Last thing....I took some video of the camels crossing -- you can hear the wind and see them a little closer in the video below....enjoy!

6 comments:

  1. how exciting! Will you get to ride a camel?
    Robin

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  2. I was unaware that camels are fast. Is racing them really that exciting?

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  3. Glad your first couple of days are so positive! Love the pics.

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  4. Camels spit... be careful! Jeanine sees a Camel! Awesome pictures.

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  5. Apparently this is big money in town...and they are quite fast. Who would have know!

    If we had been able to speak arabic perhaps I could have convinced someone to let me ride...doubt it though as these were not run of the mill camels!

    Also, they did not spit on me...thank goodness. Actually it was so windy even if they had it would have been blown away before it hit me!

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