Since I'm being harassed via multimedia outlets, I'm posting again. Sorry for the gap between posts- I was on vacation for 10 days (during which time I also took vacation from blogging - sorry). I stayed in Doha but did some awesome things. Like get a tan the week before Thanksgiving. Check. Saw Harry Potter 7 twelve hours before it released in the States. Check. Went to 'Ladies Night' at a Latino dance club in Doha. Never again, but check. Got a massage at "Inner Peace Saloon," where they also have 'scrapping' therapy for your body. Also never again, but check. Last Sunday the children were telling me about their vacations and they went to: Syria, 'the Lebanon,' Saudi, Jordan, Dubai, Italy, Morocco, you get the picture. I was like, oh. I went to the mall and went bowling. What a fancy private school I teach at. My favorite thing about that was hearing from one child who went to Lebanon. He told me he saw the snow, so I asked him where. He said, "In the Lebanon. Where the Santa lives." Excuse me what? Oh the simple world view of children.

So the past week and a half have passed in much the same manner as the previous did - starring role: me bumming around in my pajamas. I have been slightly deathly ill for the last 10 days or so. I had to take three days off from school last week because I could not hold myself up to teach in any manner. Fortunately Miss Christine, my teaching assistant, is awesome and told the children that I was not coming back ever unless they were very good. She pretended to call me at the end of the day to deter their unceasingly naughty behavior. (Prime examples of that to come this afternoon. Oh, read on, any who might question this seemingly heartless lie or believe in the goodness of children. Read on.) It may be unsurprising for some of you to learn I still have no health insurance, but considering the insurance is processed by the same man who processed my work and residency visa...two weeks ago (about four months late) I'm less than shocked.
So after writhing in bed with a fever for 3 days at the brink of malnutrition I discover we can go to a hospital complex here for only 30 riyals. I decided to go.
Social experiment. Thus follow my observations:
1. I have no health insurance and am not a citizen of Qatar.
2. For just about $8.00, since I do hold residency, I was treated in a clean, well run government hospital. Entry to exit took me perhaps one hour. In an emergency room. My doctor was polite, thorough, and concerned in her diagnosis.
3. There was also a pharmacy at the hospital where I could purchase all necessary prescriptions, also for under $60.00. Including antibiotics.

So maybe my name was spelled completely wrong. Last name - no effort. Spelled wrong (differently) in two different places. First name - Anne. ? July 13 is also my new birthday. So maybe I pointed this out to the Qatari receptionist, who probably typed it in wrong because she was on her two Blackberries at the time, and her response was "No problem." So maybe the closest thing to a HIPPA notice I saw was the sign on the exam room saying, "Do not make the knock while patient is in the room," I still think the US health care system could take a few pointers out of this. I suppose limitless wealth comes in handy supplying universal health care but still, just saying. I doubt you could get seen in one hour in any ER WITH insurance if you were St John the Baptist holding his own head on the silver platter.

Now, today. Today. First of all, I have tonsilitis and the flu and can barely speak. I am currently bribing the children with a mysterious 'surprise' on Thursday if they are very good this week (*If you have any suggestions, do tell.) because I don't think I would live if they were their usual golden selves. I have to teach sitting down, if that's any indication of my strength level. Let me illustrate. At the end of the day today, naturally after Miss Christine has left, I am left alone with 27 hungry monsters who want nothing more than to go home to mommy. Things are going as well as can be expected today (meaning no one has pissed themselves or is standing on their chair) when all of a sudden I hear a little boy crying. So I turn around and see one standing in front of another and say, "WHAT'S THIS? What happened?" The response? "Hassan* bite me. Bite my face." Sure enough the child's nose is red and marked up where the other child has attempted to BITE IT OFF. So I must go down to the hall supervisor to send one to the nurse and to hold the other one and speak to his parents. I had just returned and was turned counting the small ones left in the room when I look around and realize Abdulrahman* is missing, and not because his mother has come. So I saw another teacher and said, "I have a runner," and was out the door like a shot after Abdulrahman, who knows better and was just being a Gremlin. I had to chase him across the entire school, running (after being barely able to walk the last 2 days) shouting his name (ABDULRAHMAN! ABDULRAHMAN, STOP! STOP RIGHT NOW! STOP!), until I caught him right at the exit of the grounds. The unearthly noise which then began to issue from his mouth caught the attention of all the parents, children, administrators, dogs in the country, and possibly American sonar equipment in the Gulf region. I had to practically drag him back to the KG1 building and he made me feel like the Big Bad Wolf the whole way. I turned my back for FIVE seconds, and a child has attempted to bite another's face in half. Then I turn for another FIVE seconds to deal with the face bite and one escapes across the school. This is all in addition to the child I have had to quarantine at a table alone, in the corner, unable to get out unless I move the table for him, because he hits indiscriminately and then lies about it.

If you still believe in the inherent goodness of children, raise your hand.

Rain, rain, go away...

Wait...what? The nursery rhymes are getting the better of me clearly. RAIN. RAIN. RAIN. It actually rained today. The first weather I have actually seen in Qatar besides the burning desert sun. The babies were freaking out. First of all, Tuesday is mysteriously their favorite day of the week. No idea why but every day when I say, "What day is it?" they yell "TUESDAY!" Oh, the mysteries of a three year old's mind. And so then when I said "Look! It's raining!" they freaked. Every day I ask them if it's raining. Obviously the answer is always no. So today it was Tuesday AND they got to put the rain cloud on the calendar. SO joyous. We also sang "The 'Eebsy Beebsy' Spider" and they were even more enthusiastic about 'down came the rain' than usual. But they couldn't see the rain... and since I felt like it's a rare enough occurrence here, I wanted them all to see it. So I lifted them all up to see out the window...the shoulder height window. M.I.S.T.A.K.E. Remember that 55 pound child I told you about? There's more than one. No more bicep work outs for a year.

And speaking of that 55 pounder... remember how he was the bane of my class? Well he still struggles with most simple commands like "sit down," BUT for some reason he has become my little police officer. By that I mean yesterday when the bell rang and I said, "Toys away!" I hear a little echo "Toys away! Toys away!" only to see Yahya barreling about waving his finger in children's faces scolding them. Today I looked up twice to see him doing the same and saying "Sit down! Sit down!" to other children. I don't know how I won him over (considering last week I confiscated his shoe until lunchtime because he kept taking it off) but it only adds to the hilarity of my class dynamic so I'll take it.

Fairly incredible change from day one to now, otherwise known as week 8 for those of you not keeping track. Keep this in mind- week 8. We're midway through the week at this point. After my break, I walk back into my class at 9:20 and my supervisor walks in and says, "You have a new student!" Like she's announcing that I've won the Golden Ticket. New. Student. Week. Eight. Seriously? Two months into school...where has she been hiding for two months? Seriously? She has been on no roster, no list. She was registered today. Today. My 29th student. Unfortunately bloodcurdling screams ensued starting at 9:25 when her mother started trying to take her to her seat. After forcibly removing her from her mother's legs and all but shoving the mother out the door, Miss Christine and I endured a solid 20-25 minutes of piercing screams. I decided I could not handle this again, even for one day, so I crouched down to reason with a three year old in the midst of a tantrum. "Anjilena, we are your new friends. There is no crying at school. See everyone else, no one is crying. See Deema? She will be your friend. She does not cry now. She has stopped crying. They are not crying because we have fun at school. Now we will have fun and you see this? (Pointing to schedule where "Home time" is prominently displayed complete with house picture) This is where Mama and Baba will come again, right? Mama and Baba will come at this time" I have no idea what she understood, but no more tears. And fortunately, she is a straight up g. She did two worksheets today and no tears for the rest of the day. All that remains is to decide how I will teach her the alphabet, considering we are now at "Jj." How do you back teach the alphabet? Sigh.

Teaching is even affecting my social group now...last Thursday evening Alex (the other American teacher) and I were coming back from school and there were about eight little boys, whose average age hovered around 10, playing basketball outside of our building. Many administrators and other teachers live in our building with their families and their children told us we are the 'cool teachers' during one memorably (read: frightfully) long bus ride. So we were invited to play basketball with them...obviously we joined. They split us up because we are from America and all Americans are good at basketball (even though we are girls)...HA. Then they taught us how to play football (soccer football, not American football). Much of the basketball game went like this: "Jihad, Jihad! Pass! Hussein! Pass! Miss! Miss! Pass, Miss!" Professionally inappropriate? Perhaps. One of the best times I've had here? Definitely.

The funny thing about self-image...

Is that you might not really have an accurate picture until you see yourself from someone else's perspective. If I ever had any doubts about my reputation as the hippie sunshine fairy teacher, I have absolutely dispelled them in the last week. Last week I substituted a second grade music class. Walking in scared is no way to enter second grade, but in case you don't know, my musical abilities range somewhere above castanets and below the triangle. Fortunately I had just purchased a Disney Sing-a-long for my KG class, so I decided to make quick use of it. I wrote out all the lyrics to Colors of the Wind and had them copy the lyrics and then sing it with the CD. Now combined with my refusal to allow children to play with guns.... I'm somewhat living up to the slightly flightier name that my second graders have christened me - Misty Felice. As if Miss Batty wasn't silly enough, now I'm the flightiest macaroni necklace wearing art and music teacher in the world. Seriously... Misty? Now the only question is, would Misty wear the macaroni necklace or stripper boots?

It's the small things that keep you going...

For example, a box of Hobnobs in the middle of the day. Or seeing the top eight tennis players in the world at the Women's Tennis final. Or seeing Robert DeNiro at the Doha Tribeca Film Festival. Sometimes, a good Hobnob is all you really need. But other times, catching a glimpse of Robert DeNiro at the DTFF is where it's at. Check and check. The last few weeks have been busy as usual with teaching the small ones the next few letters, "f-f-farm!" (Why are we teasing them with farms? That's like saying "s-s-snow!" or "c-c-cloud!" to these children) and "g-g-garden!" (Again, what? Who wrote this textbook?) But my extracurricular life is finally filled as well. Doha is a nice place to live but it's not exactly the busiest city in the world (there is one museum and no library). Generally our fun comes from browsing the shopping malls...how very Gulf of us. But finally, some things to do...all in the same weekend. Rather unfortunate but beggars can't be choosers I suppose, and at this point, I am ready to beg for entertainment. The films showing throughout the weekend were fantastic. I saw four (there were 51 but they all played in four days and generally only after 8 pm and that doesn't fly with my 5 am wake up time sooo) and three of them were incredible. The opening and closing nights were free and opening night was a film called Hors la Loi, (Outside the Law) and was about three Algerian brothers living in Parisian slums during the Algerian Revolution. You would think that after that thing known as my thesis I would never want to hear about Algeria again, but it was just enough time away to LOVE the film. Not exactly brimming with sunshine but very well done.

And sometimes, kids really DO say the funniest things. I took my glasses off to polish them on my shirt last week and suddenly all the kids started laughing hysterically. I put them back on and they go "Off! Off! Better off." THANKS KIDS. Here I was thinking I had no reason to be impressing anyone, and the three year olds are suddenly beauty critics. Today, I wore my contacts just to give them a thrill. It was like my own personal Halloween.