DarrenConley.com

Back in the first month that I started this blog (three and a half years ago) I put up this post detailing the many difficulties that my particular face must endure when going through the shaving process.  I called that post "The Curse of Shaving" because I felt that my face was especially singled out by the gods of follicle growth to stand sentinel at the far end of the "difficult to shave" spectrum – the extreme signpost after which the prospect of shaving is overcome by the chance of serious bodily harm or death by blood loss.  Some may think that I exaggerate in describing my beard-growth as the standard against which all other difficult-to-shave faces are measured, but the experience that I just had tonight would seem to suggest that my assessment is correct.

Earlier this evening, I made my way down to a local Turkish barber shop which is just around the corner from where I live.  I have gone to this particular shop several times, and as my hair was starting to get unruly, I figured I had better pay them another visit.  One of the unique qualities about barber shops in Qatar (as opposed to in Canada) is that you can still get a straight-razor shave done by a professional hair cutter for a very reasonable price.  If you're interested in some of the other unique qualities of barber shops in Qatar, you can review this post, where I wrote about my first haircut here.

Generally speaking, I let myself go unshaven for several days before getting a haircut so that I can get a shave done by a professional at the same time.  The barber is able to take care of the hair at the top and bottom of my head in the same amount of time that it takes me just to take care of the bottom (i.e. about 45 minutes).  While the shaves that I've received from the barbers at this shop have not been amazing, they have generally been adequate, and blood-free.

This evening, however, while I still did enjoy the extras provided by a professional shave (the several applications of various facial creams, etc.) I left the barber shop with a face that was woefully far from the level of smoothness that I've come to expect from a professional (or home) shave. 

Now, let me be clear here:  The barber, who is professionally trained in cutting and trimming hair, used two applications of shaving lotion, did an entire shearing of the whiskers by use of a brand-new-from-the-package straight razor blade, applied talcum powder, went over most of my face again with an electric razor, and still left me feeling like I had 1/2 a day's growth on my neck.  On top of this, I was bleeding in several places, and it was only through my barber's professional skills in speeding up the blood-clotting process that I didn't leave the shop looking like I had been cuddling a hedgehog. 

If my facial-growth can withstand the best efforts of a professional hair cutter who is armed with the top level tools of his trade, what hope do I have for shaving at home in less time than it takes to watch a standard episode of Lost (without commercials)?  Does any other man out there experience anything close to this level of shaving frustration?

Incidentally, for those men who regularly shave at home, I would highly recommend an electric razor in the higher-end Philips line.  I currently use the Philishave 8150, which is sadly no longer available, but is comparable to the 8250, which should be found in Canada.  It cost me about $150, but it was well worth it.  

Another shaving item that I've used for years is Nik-Aid, which is also, sadly, no longer available.  It looks kinda like lip gloss, but you apply it to your face wherever you find yourself bleeding after shaving.  It causes the blood to clot within seconds, and enables you to continue with your day without having to worry if you have one of those little pieces of toilet paper still stuck to your face.

A few weeks ago I noticed that there was an expiry date on the bottom of my Nik-Aid, which said "April 2003".  I had been using a shaving product that was almost six years out of date.  I figured "well, it still works, so I'll keep using it."  Larissa, on the other hand, decided to hide it from me.  So now when I bleed from shaving, I use one of these white-ish rocks that we bought in Dubai at an Iranian spice market.  I'm not making this up. 

The rocks are milky-coloured, semi-transparent, and smell a bit like Vick's Vapor Rub.  If I find that I am bleeding, I grab one from the jar and gently drag it over the bloodied area of my face.  I've only tried them once, but they seem to work.  I'm still not completely sure what they are, but the Iranian dude said that they've been using them for years, and since there's no expiry date on the rocks, I'm fairly certain that I'll be able to get some decent mileage out of them.

I'll end this post by saying that, in the midst of writing about all this stuff, I kept stroking my poorly shorn beard and growing more frustrated, so I actually pulled out my electric shaver (and my rocks) and finished the job that my barber started a couple hours ago.  This is what the shaving curse has brought me to – it takes two men and a jar of magic Iranian blood rocks just to keep me looking like an acceptable member of society.  May the gods have mercy.

Larissa just came into my office, and this is the conversation that happened:

Darren: Hey baby!  What's up?

Larissa: I need money.

D: [laughing a little and pulling out my wallet] How much do you need?

L: Ten.

D: I have eighteen, so you're only leaving me with eight.

L: Oh!  Give me twelve!

D: You just made the blog entry for today!

 And that's how we manage money in the Conley family.

[I need to start out this post by mentioning that I had already composed over an hour's worth of text when an accident in keyboard shortcut combinations caused my entire original post to be deleted (I meant to hit "ctrl-tab, left arrow" to switch to my picture window and then go back one photo, and instead hit "ctrl-left arrow, tab", which caused my browser to go back one page, wiping out everything I had written).  Needless to say, I am frustrated.  I'll try to maintain my usual lighthearted disposition as I REWRITE THIS ENTIRE THING, but I'm not making any promises]

Saturday was our last day in Kuwait (we were taking a 10:30pm flight back to Qatar), and we had big plans to make the most of our remaining time with Steve and Naomi.  So naturally, the first thing I did was to finish watching Ella Enchanted.  The movie was not bad, but the ending was very Disney.  Like, predicable finish, people singing and dancing, everyone smiley, wrapped up with a big pink bow on top Disney.  Still, there are worse ways to start out a morning in Kuwait, and the Disney sweetness complimented my bowl of Frosties nicely.

The plan for Saturday morning was to go and visit the desert (it's likely that the picture at the top of this post gave this away).  Why don't we just visit the desert in Qatar, you ask?  Well, we don't have a vehicle of our own, so we haven't actually been to our desert that often.  So seeing the desert in Kuwait is still a bit of a novelty for us.  

[Editor's note: at this point in the previously written (now deleted) post, I mentioned a bunch of stuff about driving out to the desert, some bad neighborhoods in Kuwait, and how the Kuwaiti culture differs from Qatari culture, but I don't feel like re-typing it.  Oh, there was also some stuff about how most deserts are not like what you're imagining, which is probably something like Tatooine, with rolling sand dunes (although you can find those here too) but more rocky.  If you feel like hearing about this stuff, get a Skype account and call me.]

We had almost the whole family piled into the SUV to go out to the desert: Steve, Naomi, Petra, Hilary, Larissa, and myself.  S&N's other daughter Amanda decided to stay home, because the desert hills sometimes scare her (she has a fear of heights).  When we turned off the main road and into the desert itself, the first thing we noticed were a bunch of desert lizards – some running along beside the car, some running across the roadway, and some just sitting around minding their own business.  Steve stopped the car so that we could get out and investigate, and I caught this decent picture of one lizard by walking up to it very slowly and quietly:

As you can see, they have very spiky tails.

After I took the picture, Steve decided to try to catch the lizard, but as he approached it, it ran away (those guys can run fast!) and took shelter under our SUV.  We tried for a good 5 minutes to reach under and grab it, but it kept running to different spots under the car, and several times it tried to swipe Steve's hand with its tail.  Finally, Steve got back in the car and back a few feet, exposing the lizard again.  This time Steve snuck up behind it, and while I was distracting the lizard, Steve grabbed him by the tail.  Hilary decided to get in on the photo:

I took advantage of the situation to score a close-up shot:

[In the deleted email, I gave a bunch of information about these lizards that my students told me, but once again, I don't feel like re-typing it.  If you really want more information about Middle Eastern desert lizards, contact me and I'll be happy to share my vast storehouse of knowledge, including how to temporarily paralyze them by yanking their bodies in the proper manner]

When we were done playing with the lizards, it was time to do some hiking and climbing.  Our goal was to reach the top of this large hill:

As we were on our way up, Steve took this photo of me looking like the King of Desert Cliffs:

I actually made it to the top first, so I took this photo of the rest of the group as they made their way up.  Take note of how far down the car is (it's to the left of Steve in the picture):

Once we were at the top, we were rewarded with a really cool view:

I took this picture of the rest of our group while trying to get some of the Gulf in the background.  I think it looks like a certain Petra album cover:

The girls decided to head back a bit earlier than the guys (they were getting too hot), but Steve and I still wanted to do some more exploring.  This is Hilary debating whether or not to climb down to the car, or just slide down the sand:

Eventually Petra and Hilary both decided to take the sand route, while Larissa and Naomi walked down the rocky side of the hill.  You can see Larissa and Naomi at the far left of the picture:

Meanwhile, Steve and I came across this very simple toilet setup that had been erected at the top of the hill.  Whatever you drain from your body just travels down the pipe, then down the hill itself:

I thought I might demonstrate (with my pants on) how this toilet might look like in use.  I gotta admit, this toilet has the best view of any I've ever seen in my life:

While we were up on the hill, we saw a heard of camels being shepherded by some local Kuwaitis.  Steve and I decided that we should drive over to them and try to get a closer look.  We both took the sand-slope route of coming down the hill (it was easy to come down it, as long as you kept jumping – If you stayed still, you would start to slide and your feet would get buried in sand) and joined the girls in the SUV.  After navigating a route over to where the camels were hanging out, we grabbed some nice pictures of them:

There was even a white camel, which I had never seen before:

We didn't stick around too long with the camels (some owners don't like other people disturbing their animals), and decided to grab some KFC takeout to bring home for lunch.  KFC in Kuwait (and in Qatar) is pretty much the same as it is in Canada, although they don't have gravy, which sucks a lot.  KFC gravy, despite the disgusting way that it is made (or perhaps because of it?), is one step away from being a drug for me.  It has an amazingly addictive flavour, which I'm guessing can only come from that unique process of the Colonel's secret recipe being caked onto flaked-off chicken remnants and super-saturated with grease at the bottom of the pressure cookers, before being combined with powered gravy mix and boiled tap water.

After a lunch that was finger-lickin' good, we exchanged Petra for Amanda (Petra wanted to relax at home) and piled back into the SUV for a trip out to a big science center / aquarium.  We took this picture of the Sheane family outside the building by the water:

The stuffed animals, by the way, were named "Big Bear" and "Pink Kitty".  No way to forget which name goes with what animal there, eh?!  They also named their pet turtle "tortoise".  It made me think of my nephew Levi, who has a toy guitar which is completely red.  When he told us that he had a name for it, we asked him what it was.  He told us that the guitar's name was "Blue", followed by "Isn't that funny?!"

So this aquarium actually had all kinds of animals – not just fish or animals that live underwater.  I couldn't get pictures of many of them because the lighting was dim, and many of the animals were moving around too much to not come out blurry.  Among the animals that didn't make it into pictures were the bats, the desert foxes, a big cat of some sort (which looked like a large bobcat), the owls, or the scorpions and insects.  I did get this picture of a snake, though:

My favourite part of the entire aquarium experience was watching this sea otter swimming around like crazy in his tank.  He was mesmerizing in the fluidity of his movements and his sheer energy.  This was the best picture I could capture of him:

I also caught this touching photo of a father and daughter:

Of course, there were many marine animals at the aquarium, and while they were generally too fast not to be blurry, I did catch this shot of an eel:

And a semi-blurry picture of some very cool looking jellyfish:

There was a huge water tank with all kinds of fish towards the end of the marine area, and some of the pictures I took here turned out nicely:

I also got a good one of this shark:

The aquarium is set up so that you cannot go through the exit until you walk through the gift shop.  We didn't buy anything there, but the cover of this one DVD made me laugh:

By the time we got home, it was close to dinner time.  Since Naomi had missed a good chunk of the post-Philpott story when I was talking alone with Steve earlier in the trip, I spent some time sitting in the kitchen with her and filling her in on the details that she had missed.  It's hard to boil down 17 years of experience into an hour or so, but I think I did a decent job.

When supper was done, Larissa and I spent a little bit of time packing up our stuff and making sure we were ready for when we had to leave (we still had about 2 hours before we needed to be at the airport).  We finished our evening with the Sheane family by sitting in the (upstairs) living room and doing some more talking, as well as some card-playing.  By this point, Petra, Hilary, and Amanda were feeling more comfortable with us, so we got to hear them tell us some funny stories about when they were younger.  My favourite was about how Petra (I think) had made up her own national anthem for Kuwait, which started out "Kuwait, warm and cozy…"  Here's a final shot of the entire Sheane family:

Finally the time came to say our goodbyes.  We hugged Naomi and threw our stuff into the SUV so that Steve could drive us to the airport.  As Larissa and I sat down on the plane, we remarked to each other about what a wonderful time we had had in Kuwait, and how we'll have to make sure to visit with Steve and Naomi again soon.

Epilogue:  Let me just reiterate how awesome our E-gate passes were for getting through the airport in Qatar.  From the time that we stepped into the arrivals terminal, to the time we were in a taxi heading home, it was literally five minutes or less.  We just bypassed the long customs line, swiped our cards, touched the fingerprint scanner, sailed by the baggage pick-up (we only brought carry-on), ran our carry-on bag through the security conveyor belt, walked out the door, and grabbed one of the 20 taxis that were available.  Bless you, Doha airport E-gate pass.

Friday morning started with me waking up fairly early (as usual) and doing some light reading.  We had to leave the house at about 8:45am, and since I was used to catching the 6:20am shuttle bus to go to work, 8:45 seemed like two full hours of extra free time.  Larissa wanted me to be the first one to try out the shower (see the picture in Kuwait – Part 1), so I gave it a shot and found that it was no problem, even with the lack of a shower curtain.

My only real dilemma was what to do with my hair, since I hadn't brought any hair gel (I hate dealing with those airline restrictions, and I don't have a small container to put gel into).  So I had to go begging down the hall to Steve and Naomi's room and ask them if they had some hair styling products lying about.  It turned out that Naomi didn't have any gel, but she did have some mud.  Yes, hair mud.  Apparently all the cool kids are using it, though I have to admit that I'm still a gel fan.  The mud is good for isolated effects in certain places on your head, but not for an overall "keep all of my hair in the relatively same position" kind of situation.  However, when faced with the two options of "mud" or "fro", I went the mud route.  It made my hair look not-ridiculous, but not by much.

While Larissa was in the shower, and since I was ready a full 45 minutes before she was, I decided to take a look at the DVDs sitting near the TV in our (well, Petra's) bedroom, and tried to find something I could watch to kill some time.  I ended up settling on Ella Enchanted, which I had never seen before, but which had Anne Hathaway in it, so if it wasn't entertaining, at least I knew there was a attractive lead character.  I watched the first third of the movie before deciding that I should probably have breakfast.  I liked it enough to make a mental note to try to finish it later in the trip, however.  PS – don't tell anyone I said that.  (Of course, I am posting this information completely in public) Hey! Shut up inner monologue!

So breakfast was Frosties (aka Frosted Flakes) which I was completely happy with, since they were (at the time) a little scarce in Doha, and I had not eaten them for several weeks.  You'll all be happy to know that they have returned to Qatar, and I am now enjoying my regular dose of Tony the Tiger's sweet, sweet breakfast fix on a daily basis.

Once we had rounded everyone up, the whole family piled into the SUV and headed off to church.  Steve executed a very unique parking job, which involved mounting the curb, crossing a sidewalk, and stopping the car in the middle of a cluster of palm trees on the edge of the official parking area.  But the lot was full, and he's the pastor, so what can you do?

The compound where the various churches meet was full of people.  These were the people who couldn't make it into one of the Indian services, and had to try to participate in the service from outside:

These kids were doing something outside – possibly for a Sunday School (Friday School?) project:

Steve's service meets in a long, narrow room.  This is what it looked like:

We sat at the very front, along with Naomi and the girls.  The band was pretty cool, and there was every possible colour of skin represented both on stage and off.  Steve himself ran the service, although they had a guest speaker from California that day.  The speaker was fine, although it would have been nice to hear how Steve's preaching had developed over the last 17 years.  Next time.

When the service was done, there was another service immediately afterward, which Steve was also running.  Naomi, Larissa and I went to a class that was being run by a lay leader in the congregation, while the girls went to their own classes.  I won't say a lot about the class we were in (because it would lead to a discussion far too big to start here), but the lady who was leading it was very charismatic (in the Pentecostal sense), and her two friends that helped her (one in particular) even more so.  It got a little crazy, what with calling people up for healing and the chanting of various Charismatic Christian catchphrases, and Naomi turned to Larissa and I at one point and asked us if we wanted to leave, but we said no, that we could handle it.  It was a bit of a flashback to the Crossfire days (several of you will know what that means), but it made for some good discussion afterward.

While Steve was doing handshaking and stuff, I took some pictures around the compound.  Larissa wanted to be in them too, and this was one of the better shots that showed off some of the greenery:

Somebody else (I think it might have been Steve, actually) took this shot of the two of us while we were waiting for the rest of the family to get ready to head out:

When church was done, we all drove a couple minutes down the street and went to the big mall for lunch.  They have a large food court, and that way everyone can order what they like.  I myself had a steak sandwich from that restaurant where they chop up the meat and grill it in front of you, with cheese and onions.  I used to love eating there in Canada, but for some reason these restaurants disappeared.  In Kuwait, however, the steak sandwich lives on.

The afternoon was spent being lazy at the house.  It was such a lazy afternoon, in fact, that Larissa and Naomi each had a nap.  This gave Steve and I the perfect opportunity to indulge in more manly (and geeky) pursuits like watching Cloverfield on DVD, and playing various war games on the X-Box.  Supper was leftovers from the previous few days, which were delicious, along with some purple cake.  I can't remember what the purple cake was made from (yams?  maybe beets?), but it was made by the nanny, and wasn't too bad.  Larissa and Naomi really enjoyed it.  I thought it was fine, but I didn't need seconds.  Steve was not a big fan.

In the evening, we played some card games (I remember some Euchre), and I believe that it was this night that we checked out the old Philpott videos that Steve had put on DVD (it could have been earlier, actually, but I don't remember now).  Steve had a full hour of footage of myself and my closest friends, back when we were 15.  I saw myself singing in a choir, footage of our caving trip, stuff from a few different youth events, and crazy videos from a summer camp we were at.  I was happy that my looks have improved since then, although my voice is exactly the same.  That was a little disturbing.

One thing that was odd when watching that footage was that I had completely forgotten how the voice of Amy (my girlfriend at the time) sounded.  I didn't recognize her voice at all.  She sounded like a stranger.  I had spent literally hundreds of hours talking to her back then, and now the familiarity section of my brain in that area is empty.  It makes me wonder what other parts of people from my past are fading as I grow older.

Steve was gracious enough to make a complete copy of the old video footage for me, and burn it onto a DVD.  I'd like to rip it and post it to YouTube, but I need to find a some good DVD ripping software first that doesn't take 8 hours to rip and will allow me to edit the video into watchable chunks afterward.  If anyone out there in internet-land has any suggestions, let me know.

After an evening of game playing, reliving the old days, and talking about charismatic phenomena, we were ready for bed again.  It's weird – the best parts of this trip were when we were sitting around chatting with each other, and those are the hardest parts to capture and convey in a blog entry.  But you've all been there, right?  Just imagine a great night of talking with old friends, and import that feeling into what you're reading about here.  That was our Friday night.

Saturday was a day of fun plans, so we went to bed anxious for the next day's adventure.

So, this post is a little late in arriving.  What pretty much happened is that I took a whole wack of pictures while we were in Kuwait, and when I looked at them all, I was like "This is going to be a pretty big blog post", which deterred me from wanting to even start it.  But on the other hand, I had to write something about it because (a) My parents (and I'm sure others too) thought we were putting ourselves in mortal danger by visiting there, (b) The Philpott crowd wants to hear how Steve and Naomi are doing, and (c) I have a wack load of pictures from this trip, and some of them are too cool not to be shown off.  So, without any further yackity-schmackity, this was our trip to Kuwait.

The first weekend of March was a long weekend for us.  I don't remember why it was a long weekend, but I wasn't about to complain about two extra (paid) days off.  You may remember in this post when I mentioned how weekends work here (we have them on Friday and Saturday), so our long weekend was Thursday March 5th until the end of Sunday March 8th.  And as you may have guessed from the title of this post, we spent the better part of that weekend in Kuwait.

Why Kuwait, you ask?  The biggest reason is that Steve and Naomi Sheane live out there.  Steve was my youth pastor waaay back at Philpott from 1990-1992.  Steve was an excellent combination of geek and outdoorsman.  We had Star Trek parties at his place where we'd all watch the season finales or premieres of TNG together (this was before I evolved in my sci-fi tastes and moved onto Babylon 5, and later BSG), but Steve was also the first person to take me and my friends on a canoeing trip in Northern Ontario, and the only person to take us caving at Rattlesnake Point up near Burlington.  I still have amazing memories of crawling through those caves (enhanced by the video footage which Steve copied for me onto DVD, but more about that later) and to this day I still get excited at the prospect of going caving, even though I have never done it since.

I spent less time with Steve's wife Naomi back in the day, but what I remember of her was that she was just plain fun.

After Steve and Naomi left our church, they did missions work for a while, and eventually settled in Kuwait, pastoring a church there.  They actually came back to Canada for several years back in the early 2000s, but were called (as we say in church circles) to go back to their church in Kuwait and continue serving there.  I had completely lost touch with them until they popped up on Facebook a few months ago, and all of the sudden there was a flood of nostalgia, with all of the old Philpott crowd catching up with Steve, Naomi, and everyone else.  When Larissa and I realized that S&N were only about an hour's plane ride away, we decided that we had to go see them.  Well, I decided that we had to go see them, but Larissa was happy to come along too.

Before talking about Kuwait, I have to say something about our new E-gate passes that we got at the airport.  An E-gate pass is a way to streamline the customs situation, and get Qatar residents through the queue with a minimum of hassle.  After filling out some forms, showing a bunch of ID, and paying about $200, Larissa and I each received a credit card sized card that contains all of our information, and which allows us to go through an automated customs line with only a card swipe and a brief electronic fingerprint verification.  It's the difference between standing in line for 30 mins or 30 seconds.  Worth every dirham spent.

Alright, so we got to the airport in Kuwait, and were surprised to see a member of the airport staff holding a sign with our names on it.  Steve had arranged for a service whereby they take care of your visa entry and paperwork for you, and we just sit and wait for them to hand us the finished paper – no hassle or broken English to worry about.  We have a similar service available at our airport in Doha, but we don't need to use it (see the paragraph above), but it was so nice of Steve to give us the semi-VIP treatment when we arrived in Kuwait!

When we finally stepped out into the arrivals area, I saw Steve waiting for us nearby.  He looked almost exactly as I remembered him, although he was growing some grey hair at the sides, and was not quite as skinny as he was back in the day.  He's pretty much at the point that I myself am set to arrive at when I reach his age (I already have a scattering of grey at the sides and the healthy beginnings of a nice stomach ponch). 

After some introductions (Larissa had never met him before), Steve introduced us to these two guys who he was also meeting at the airport, and who were going to hang out with us for a few hours.  These guys were on their way back from a conference in India, and had a 10 hour layover at the airport.  I wish I could remember their names, but they seemed like nice blokes.  Steve and these guys had a mutual friend, so Steve had agreed to show them around Kuwait City a bit before their next flight took off, so we piled into Steve's SUV and started our visit with a quick city tour.

One of the first places we saw was this famous set of towers, which are associated with Kuwait city the same way that the CN Tower is associated with Toronto.  These are water towers, although the tower on the left has an observation deck, which we went up to and had a bird's eye view of the city.  Our elevator ticket also entitled us to a free pop and snack from the snack bar.  I had a square piece of pizza.

From the observation deck, we had a good view of downtown Kuwait:

We could also look down at this waterpark / paintball arena / go-kart track:

On a slightly unrelated note, I've taken to adding spaces between words that are divided by slashes these days.  For some reason, I've been thinking that writing things like "helpful suggestion/legal advice/restraining order" looks too cramped and / or confusing.  It's one of several punctuation reforms that I'm hoping to get passed by the International Punctuation Standards and Practices Council, including getting Brits to start saying "period" instead of "full-stop".  But I digress.

After the tower, we headed down for some international cuisine at Ruby Tuesdays (international with respect to the Middle East, at least).  I really wish we had Ruby Tuesdays in Doha – their salad bar is deadly.  By the way, "deadly" is still in regular use out in Newfoundland, which means it's now in regular use in our apartment building in Qatar.  I'm still not that comfortable using it, but I'm very comfortable laughing at other people using it.

While we were at Ruby's, Steve told us some amazing stories about the ministry he's doing in Kuwait.  The church that he works at has five main pastors, and holds something like 23 different church services every week.  And that church is only one of 70 different ministries that meets on the same compound – the only place in Kuwait where Christians are legally allowed to have church.  Steve himself runs 4 services each week, and he personally knows a whole bunch of Kuwaiti people who have had amazing conversion experiences.  The stories would be too long to tell here, but we heard about cars driving themselves to the church against the owner's will, people having dreams of Jesus knocking on their bedroom doors in the middle of the night, and one guy who tried to get baptized for 7 years before he finally had the chance at Steve's church.

When we were done at Ruby's, Steve took us to the church compound itself:

We had a quick look around, and spoke to some of the other staff members of Steve's church.  It's amazing how small a world it is – One of the pastors there knew some of my in-laws in Edmonton, and another pastor there had gone to the same Bible college that Larissa once attended.  By the way, I have pictures of the church grounds, but I'm going to save them for the next post, when I talk about us actually attending the service.

At this point in the trip, we ditched the two guys that we met at the airport and left them at the church.  They were going to hang around there for a while, check out the mall down the street, then head back to the airport about 5 hours later.  Steve, Larissa and I jumped back into Steve's SUV and headed over to Steve and Naomi's house:

Before I say anything else, I've got to tell you about this house.  This house is provided by the church, and is a house that a typical Kuwaiti family would live in.  Having said that, it was HUGE.  Like, you could play indoor soccer (sorry, football as they say here) in one of their living room / dining rooms.  Yes, one of them.  They have several.  Here are some pictures of the place.

This was the front hall dining room:

The downstairs living room, which is often used for meetings or extra ministry services:

A shot of both rooms together, along with one of S&N's daughters, Amanda:

The "eating kitchen", where we had most of our meals.  This kitchen is only used for actual eating and light food preparation (cereal or sandwiches – anything not requiring cooking):

This is the "preparation kitchen", which is next door to the kitchen above.  This is where the actual cooking happens.  I'm guessing that a Kuwaiti family would typically just hang out in the "eating kitchen", while the servants would use the "preparation kitchen" to make and serve the meals:

A hallway off of the prep kitchen.  The doors on the right used to be bedrooms for the servants (cook, doorman, driver etc.):

An office at the end of the hall pictured above.  This is often used for church meetings:

The staircase to the second floor.  I should mention that there's actually a whole other area of the first floor that I didn't get pictures of, because it's been converted into a whole separate apartment.  Yes, a portion of the first floor is a whole other apartment, with someone living there.  Anyway, here are the stairs:

And this is pretty much the top of the stairs.  The door on the right is actually where the staircase is.  Behind me is the bedroom that we stayed in, on my right (not in the picture) is another bedroom, the first room on the left is the upstairs living room / office, the next room on the left is Steve and Naomi's bedroom, the room at the end of the hall is kind of an upstairs kitchen, which is now housing some aquariums and turtles, and at the end of the hall on the right is a bathroom and another bedroom:

This was the bathroom that was attached to the bedroom Larissa and I were staying in.  It's usually Petra's bedroom (S&N's oldest daughter) and hence, her bathroom, but we took it over for the weekend.  The shower has no curtain (though it does have a small bench if you want to sit), so you need to squeegee the water from the floor to the drain after you're finished:

This is Petra's room, where we stayed.  Her walls were covered in posters of actors who regularly appear on TV shows produced by Disney (Selena, Hannah Montana, the Jonas Brothers, etc.) and although it's hard to see the size of the room from the photo, it's actually twice the size of our master bedroom back in Qatar:

This is that kitchen-type room with the aquariums that I mentioned earlier:

The front half of the office / living room area:

And the other half of the same room.  We spent a lot of our time hanging out here:

And finally, a view of the neighbourhood outside.  This house that we were staying in was by far not the biggest of the bunch:

Not pictured here are Steve and Naomi's room, which was (in my opinion) gigantic, and which included another en suite bathroom, the other daughters' rooms, which were each bigger than any bedroom I ever had as a child, the third floor of the house, which contains laundry and storage rooms (as well as the bedroom of their live-in nanny), and the other nine (or is it twelve?) bathrooms found throughout the house.

The house tour actually happened after Steve brought us in and introduced Larissa to Naomi, but I thought you might want to see the pictures before I described the rest of our day.  After hugging and small talk, we had some dinner and spent the rest of the evening catching up on the past 16 years, as well as bonding over the similarities and differences of our various experiences in the Middle East so far.

Larissa and Naomi got along great (but then again, both of them are very easy people to get along with!) and Naomi was gracious enough to talk with Larissa while Steve and I discussed the old Philpott days, and church stuff in general. 

We all connected with each other wonderfully, and it was amazing to see Steve and Naomi as parents, and not just the goofy young couple who took over our youth group so many years ago.  Their children are all wonderful (though they were a little shy of us at first, of course).  They have 3 girls: Petra, who is 13, Hillary, who is 11, and Amanda, who is 9.  After showing us their pet turtles, the girls pretty much played by themselves for the evening, while the adults hung out in the living room. 

We went to bed fairly early (9:30ish?) because the next day (Friday) was church, and Larissa and I were anxious to see what a Christian church in Kuwait might look like.

In Greek mythology, there is a character called Cassandra who was able to foresee the future, but was cursed such that nobody she told her prophecies to would believe her.  While I myself do not have the ability to see the future, I often feel like I am cursed with a similar fate.

You see, I have this great drive to show people things that I think are cool or funny or entertaining (I like to call it my "show and tell complex").  I love to be the person who introduces someone else to that new TV show or book or movie that just happens to blow their mind or make them laugh uncontrollably.  Perhaps this is some carry-over from my childhood insecurities – that if someone thinks that what I'm showing them is cool, they will in turn think that I'm cool by association.  But here's where the Cassandra factor kicks in:  I think I may be cursed to have nobody think the things I'm showing them are cool, simply because of my act of showing them.

For instance, for years I tried to encourage a friend of mine to read the Narnia series, because I thought they were great, and I was sure he'd like them too.  After rejecting my encouragement in this endeavor many times, my friend finally did read these books and enjoy them, but only after someone else told him that he should read them.

Similar situations have occurred with many other things that I've been interested in in the past.  The video game Rez, the TV show Babylon 5, the music of Evanescence, etc. etc.  It's extremely frustrating to think that, if people were to come across these things on their own, without my intervention, they would probably like them as much as me.  But because I had to "hype it up" for them or introduce it to them in a different context (that is, a context which includes me), people often shrug their shoulders and say "meh, whatever".  

The latest such incident happened earlier today when I showed a YouTube video to Larissa that I thought was pretty funny.  I didn't find the entire thing absolutely hilarious, but I have to admit that when I watched the part with the dog (see the embedded video below) I laughed out loud, even on second and third viewings.  Check out the video and see what you think:

You know, it occurs to me as I write this that whatever your reaction, it's a win-win situation for me.  If you think that the video is stupid, my point about my show and tell curse is further proven, and if you think it's cool, then we can be better friends through our shared humour connection.

[editor's note: I couldn't decide on the best way to end this post, so you get to choose your own ending!  Please regard only one of the options below as canon, as per your own preference]

A. Unintentional win-win situation!  Hurray!

B. On an unrelated note, bananas sometimes give me heartburn.

C. This same curse often happens with people, which is why I've stopped making introductions.

D. If you're someone who happens to be cursed with this same situation, then please do not tell people to read my blog.  I don't want you making people think that my writing is uncool.

I can't remember how it came up, but at some point this week, while Larissa and I were sitting on our couch watching TV, I mentioned something about The Horse Whisperer.  After I made this comment, there was a moment of silence, during which Larissa and I, completely spontaneously and in perfect unison, each stared off into the distance and quietly whispered the word:

"Horse…"

This was immediately followed by uncontrollable laughter from both of us.

And that, my friends, is what an awesome marriage is all about.

Mobile phones (or "cell phones", as we more often say in North America) are ubiquitous here in Qatar.  Every street has several mobile phone vendors, and every person has at least one (and sometimes more than one) mobile phone on their person at any given time.  Why have more than one?  Some Qataris run several businesses, and have a separate phone for each.  Some people also buy several cheap phones to reserve easy-to-remember phone numbers which they want to hold onto and sell to interested parties for a profit. 

Besides these factors, in a country where people regularly go out into the middle of the desert for recreation, away from any identifiable landmarks or geographical features, it makes sense to have at least one mobile phone (preferably with GPS capability) which can be used to call your friends for help in case you run out of gas, get a flat tire, or find yourself paralyzed by a scorpion sting. 

When Larissa and I first arrived in Qatar, Larissa was given a mobile phone as soon as she set foot on campus.  It was a prepaid service that the college had set up (as it does for all its employees) and she had about $30 or $40 worth of talk-time already deposited in her account.  Since I was not an employee, I was not given a phone, but it was not long until I caved and bought one for myself, despite my not wanting to own one in Canada.  It wasn't so much that I was afraid of getting lost in the desert – I was more afraid of losing Larissa in a mall or grocery store, and having to spend 20 minutes making a systematic search down every aisle before finding her browsing for new handbags or continuing the unending search for "really comfortable shoes".  

Having a phone each has come in very handy, since she can now go to "frozen goods" while I take care of the long decision process that is cereal-buying.  [Aside: They are all out of 750g Frosties at our grocery store right now, and since I refuse to buy boxes that are smaller than that, I have to spend a good deal of time weighing the various factors of taste, price, and nutrition against each other until I can settle on a viable alternative.]  Since there is a decent mobile signal anywhere in Doha (even in my bathroom – it's been verified through use), I can call Larissa after I've grabbed my box of Honey Nut Shredded Wheat and meet her in one of the several junk-food aisles, so I can get permission to buy some white chocolate with coconut (truly the pinnacle of Aryan chocolate evolution).

After becoming employed at the college myself, I also was given a free prepaid mobile phone, making me one of those crazy people who now has two mobiles.  Since the phone which I purchased myself is slightly better than the one the college gave to me (colour vs. monochrome screen, nicer color phone body, more shiny, though otherwise identical), I switched out the SIM cards for each phone, and stuck with the college phone number.  This new number appears in the college computer system under my contact information, so I thought it best to use it.  My old phone, along with the still active service, is being saved for use by anyone who decides to come over and visit us (like my parents this April, for instance). 

Since all of the phones given to college employees are the Nokia 1200, I hear a lot of the "Nokia Tune" ring tone every day.  In fact, I heard this ring tone just minutes ago as I was writing about cereal shopping.  I started doing some thinking about this particular ring tone – thinking along the lines of "Who created that tune?  Why do so many people use it?  How many variations of it are out there?  Is it part of a longer song?" 

For those of you who are now completely lost, let me attempt to draw you into what I'm talking about.  I'm talking about that ring tone that goes "Do-do doo doo, do-do doo doo, do-do doo doo, dooooo", in decending notes.  If you can read music, it looks like this when written on a staff:

You can also see a YouTube video of someone playing it on piano below:

Now that we all know what I'm talking about, allow me to continue.

It turns out that this song is actually a song called Gran Vals, written by Francisco Tárrega in 1902.  Back in the early 1990s, Nokia bought this song, grabbed an excerpt from it, and started throwing it onto all of their phones, so that today it is the most widely recognizable ring tone in the world.  

Isn't it crazy to imagine, over 100 years ago as Frank was sitting down and fiddling around with some new diddies on his guitar, that 13 notes from one of his songs would survive into the new millenium and become one of the most recognized tunes, in every country, on the entire planet?!  Makes you wonder what sorts of things you might be working on today that are going to become part of the worldwide experience of future generations!  [Aside: I have always dreamed of writing a tune that would supplant the Happy Birthday song one day.  This story gives me hope that my dream may one day come true.]

In looking up information about this tune, I came across a few other cool videos that you might want to check out:

There is this really keen sounding Fugue, based on the Nokia ringtone.

Check out how this small orchestra reminds people to shut off their phones at concerts.

Here is the original Gran Vals composition, played by a dude on YouTube.

You may be wondering if I myself use this song as the ringtone on my mobile phone(s).  The answer is no – I use one called Swimming, because it sounds cooler, and because I don't want my ringtone to sound like everyone else's.  Ironically, this is the ring tone that everyone else with this phone decides to change it to.  At least people seem to like my taste in mobile phone music.

Long time readers may remember this post when I shared (in far more detail than most people are comfortable with) my daily pooing habits, along with my documentation of my body's shift from a "daily dump" routine to a "duel daily dumping" arrangement.  For those of you who have been thinking to yourselves "Gee, I wonder if Darren's bowels are still operating on the same schedule in Qatar?", I offer the following update.

Let me say right from the start that I am, indeed, still making the chocolate deposit twice every morning.  Despite time zone changes and modifications to my diet (including eating far more shwarma than I was accustomed to consuming back in Canada), my body has seen fit to stick with this arrangement, and I'm not particularly upset by this fact.  However, not everything is completely as it was back in Canada.

First, the toilet that I use in my bathroom at the apartment (I say "my" bathroom, since Larissa and I each have our own, with one still to spare!) has a much lower water pressure level than the average Canadian toilet.  While the water still goes down and whisks away my excretions, it does so in a manner that is far less assertive than I would ideally hope for.  It's like it shrugs its shoulders and says "Meh, I guess I'll stroll on down this pipe again, if you really want me to."  The offshoot of this situation is that there can often be unflushed residue which lingers at the bottom of the bowl after what I thought was a fairly productive flushing session.  Generally, this is cleared away with another flush, but sometimes in my haste to wash my hands and get on with my life, I may forget to initiate the "cleansing flush", leaving me with an unpleasant surprise the next time I visit the loo.  But this is the least of my concerns.  What is more irritating is the way that my new-found employment has been interfering with the comfortable crapping habits that I had established during the "house husband" phase of our time in Qatar.  

When I spent my days alone at home, I would generally get up at about 6 or 6:30am (I know, I'm crazy, but I'm a morning person, and it was usually the need to use the bathroom that got me up this early anyway) and begin my day by "launching the aft torpedoes" for dump number one.  Later, usually immediately after breakfast, I would be alerted to make ready for "secondary launch procedures", and would finish up dump number two.  This would be at about 7:30 or 8am.

Now that I'm working, and since I start teaching my classes each morning at 7:30am, the schedule has become somewhat "bunged up" (so to speak).  Now I wake up at 5am, fiddle about on the computer for 15 or 20 minutes, and make my first "download" at about 5:20am (just as Larissa's alarm is going off).  Breakfast follows at 5:30-ish, but since the secondary system has not yet had time to compile "number 2" number two (no, I'm not stuttering there), I find that it is still unreleased when I get on my shuttle bus at 6:20am and head over to the college.  This leads to the "all clear" from the second-shift of the waste disposal department coming down the pipe at about 7am, just after I've arrived at my office, and while I'm preparing the materials for my first class.

Now, the "urge to purge" could come at a worse time (say, while I am in class), so I shouldn't complain too much, but to be honest, I hate sliding my cheeks onto a seat that is not in my home.  No matter the cleanliness of the bathroom (and chances are the bathrooms at the college are cleaner than my bathroom at home, since they're cleaned several times each day), there's still something much more comforting in relaxing on your own throne while doing some light reading and perhaps discussing future travel plans with your wife. 

The only real upside of needing to "uncork the anal dam" at the office at 7am is that the bathrooms have not been used by anyone else that day, so the cleanliness factor is extremely high.  There have been several times this semester when I've had to "take care of business" at the college closer to noon, and let me say that the process of selecting a viable toilet becomes vastly more complicated.  It basically becomes an exercise in revising your standards lower and lower until, with a face stuck in permanent "cringe mode" and shivers running down your spine, you perform a rudimentary cleaning procedure on the least soaking-wet seat and remind yourself that urine is supposed to be sterile before taking your chances with butt-on-seat contact.

The messiness factor of the bathrooms here is further aggravated by the (often imprecise) use of the hand-held bidet hoses (or "bum guns", as my friend Darcy likes to say) by most of the non-North American toilet users.  The stalls can often look like someone has just taken a shower in them, and when you're looking into each one to see which has the lowest cringe-factor, the decision often comes down to which one has the least amount of splashes/puddles.  It may very well be clean water on the seat and floor, but it could also be water which has ricocheted off of a bum-hole, or it could be piss, or a combination thereof.  In my opinion, the drier the stall, the better.

Even after finding a nice clean stall to take care of poo number two at work, there are still several frustrations yet to deal with.  One is the lower quality toilet paper found in the pubic stalls.  Now, I will say this: the toilet paper in the college bathrooms is much better than the toilet paper in the average Canadian public bathroom that I've had the displeasure to find myself in.  On a softness and practicality scale of 1-10, with my home toilet paper being about a 9 (to make "10" you'd have to be wiping with a cashmere scarf), the toilet paper at the college is about a 7.  That is, it won't rip or tear during the wiping process, and it won't scrape off any skin either.  Most public toilet paper experiences that I've had in Canada involve using something that looks like it was assembled from the transparent reject detritus of a tissue paper factory, which, when folded, feels like you're gouging your anus with the corner of a Kleenex box.  Thankfully, the college toilet paper is of a higher standard, though wiping with it certainly isn't something I look forward to.

The other frustration, which makes me clench my teeth in anger every time I see it, is the stupid, stupid, idiotic paper towel dispenser that I'm forced to use in order to dry off my hands.  You may have encountered this design in Canada (I know I came across it several times before my arrival here in Qatar).  It looks just like any other paper towel dispenser, though when you pull the towel out a certain length, the dispenser will take it upon itself to cut the roll for you, leaving (in theory) a certain length of paper towel hanging from the dispenser, which can be grasped by the next customer.  Let me point out some of the flaws in this design:

First, the amount of paper towel that you are distributed in a single pull is just short of what is actually necessary to properly dry your hands.  I myself am a man of average-sized hands, and the entire towel is sopping wet when my hands have attained the dryness factor of merely "damp".  At this point, rubbing the towel on my hands begins to actually make them wetter, not drier.  I can't imagine what a man with more generously proportioned hands has to do to accommodate to this situation.  I'm guessing he has to grab another towel, which seems to defeat the purpose of limiting the size of the paper towels in the first place.

The second, and biggest frustration for me by far with these paper towel dispensers, is that 85% of the time, as I grasp the paper towel with both hands (following the instructions illustrated on the front of the dispenser), instead of pulling down on the towel and receiving the allotted (albeit too-short) length of paper towel promised to me, I end up tearing off two small, wet corners of paper, leaving a smaller, less-graspable piece dangling from the dispenser.  Pulling at this piece usually ends with it ripping off into my hands without engaging the dispensing mechanism of the machine, thereby leaving me with three very small towel rippings and nothing to grasp in order to receive more.  At this point, one must resort to either swearing, wiping your hands on your pants, or using the less-than-perfectly-designed hand crank at the side of the dispenser to get more towel.  I usually settle with a combination of all three options. 

A well-designed paper towel dispensing system should allow you to acquire sufficient wiping material with which to dry your hands, while eliminating any sanitary concerns which may arise from the need to touch buttons, levers, cranks, or switches that have been touched by previous users of the bathroom.  Having to use the frickin' crank every time is less than sanitary, and even when I do engage the cranking mechanism, there is still a 50% chance that it will result in a paper towel jam at the slot of the machine.  This leads to more pulling and tearing of the towels, which end up being dispensed in even more inconvenient sizes and shapes.

By the time this entire process is complete, I only have a few minutes to assemble my teaching materials for the day, double check my classroom location, march across campus, and set up my classroom for my students.  It is starting to become enough of a routine that the experience no longer has that large of a detrimental effect on my mood at the start of my morning classes, but it is an inconvenience that I could do without.  

If only I could convince my body to go back to a mono-dump morning schedule, my life would be that much better.  At the very least, I would have less crap to deal with.