Before my Christmas vacation

Before I went for my vacation I had to activities with Qatar Living Forum. The first activity was on December 14 with the Filipino Expatriates Group and the second activity was on December 15 together with the Social Group.

The activity with the Filipino Expatriates Group was our Christmas party. It is the first Christmas party for the group. And since some are leaving for vacation or even leaving Qatar permanently, we also wanted it to be a send off party to them. Because of our experience in the past of too much left-over food, we decided to have a set menu and just collect a fixed contribution from those who are attending. We also decided to have an exchange gift whose value must not be less than 50QR.

Making the activity special was a taxing undertaking. We had to get a venue and the food must be special enough to be worth the 50QR contribution we were asking from the attendees. I had to schedule my lunch and dinner at different restaurants in Doha just to have a taste of their menu to decide where we would order our food for the evening.

After a friend generously volunteered her accommodation as a venue, we hurriedly bought decorations to make her place a Christmas party venue. She even bought lanterns when she had a week's vacation in Oman.

The party was very successful indeed. We had food enough for all and we had fun especially with the games. One of the members donated all the prizes for the games. We had a videoke challenge. With the videoke a staple in Filipino gatherings, how can we not have it? The grand prize was drawn via a Bingo blackout game. But we had our good laugh and fun with the charades and the “yes, no and maybe” game.

It was a night full of fun and laughter with friends and members. For some hours we forgot we were away from home and we enjoyed our time as if we were having the party in the Philippines. Many are looking forward for a repeat of such an activity.

The next day, we were off to Al Zubara, a district somewhere northwest of Qatar. I didn’t really know the directions and how to keep track on it. I haven’t figured out yet how to operate the GPS on my mobile phone and I forgot the map in my room. Anyway, we were going on a convoy and I have company with me.

The way to Zubara was a scenic desert scene. We saw wild camels and local shepherds herding their sheep. It was a path that was full of interesting views that although the convoy was speeding at speeds between 160 to 180 kph, we still enjoyed talking about the scenes we were passing by.

Although the beach in Zubarra was beautiful some portions of it were spoiled by the trash left behind by previous campers and beach goers. There were ruins of an old jetty and an old fort with some of its guard towers and connecting walls still protruding out of the white sand.

We were there for a fishing trip but nobody checked the tide forecasts and we arrived during a low tide and the water was still receding. So we waded on the low, cool sea water until we noticed there were crabs lying on the sand beneath the shallow water.

Somebody took out spears and suddenly we were having a fun time spearing for crabs about the sea. We were trying to catch the biggest crab we could find. I was a bit unlucky because one of the crabs I was taking out of the spear suddenly caught my finger with its pinchers. Though it was a small wound it bled a lot. But it did not dampen my spirit to catch them. One of our colleagues even accidentally speared his foot but still he was smiling and enjoyed the experience of going after the fast crabs.

After more than an hour of crabbing we decided to take our late lunch by the sea. We had barbeque and some tabouleh. We also had some Turkish coffee. We shared stories of fishing sorties past and some jokes. We decided to head back to Doha before the sun sets on us.

But before going back to Doha, we passed by the farm of a friend and saw the vegetables and animal farm they have there. Finally I got to see his farm which until that time was just stories and I did not believe any such farm would exist in a generally desert surrounding of Qatar. How wrong I was. It was a beautiful farm and reminded me of vegetable farms in the Philippines.

The two days spent with friends from Qatar Living was really a fun and time well spent. Activities such as these make living in a foreign land more bearable and enjoyable.