Girl Meets Qatar: Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all

Tomorrow night I fly out from Doha and come home for the winter break I cannot believe it! These past two weeks have been absolutely insane. Getting everything together before the break, report cards, keeping the kids entertained (especially this week!), planning my trip over the end of January/beginning of February, and everything in between! At the end of January I will be going to Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka- a country where the number of cows outnumber cars! Seriously it's a thing. There will be traffic from hundreds of cows standing in the roads. Apparently they are not intimidated by horns and do not move when you honk at them. Other random facts about Sri Lanka: their literacy rate is 92% which means that they have the highest literacy rate in the world. It was the first country to democratically elect a woman as the head of state. Temple of the Tooth is the most sacred Buddhist site in the world. Just a few things I have learned so far- cannot wait to go!

The hotel. Right on the beach- are you jealous?

Today was my last day with the kids before the break- now I won't see them until January! We celebrated Qatar National Day in school today. We had a couple of assemblies where we listened to the Qatar national anthem and got to see some of the kids do some Qatari dances and listen to some Qatari music. Then we went outside to see and touch the falcon. Well half of my kids did, the other half had no interest whatsoever in getting close to the bird. "I do not want to touch Miss Kellie. It scares me." I kept telling my kids that they had to be quiet or they would scare the falcon away. It was pretty effective and most of them listened. Falcons are the national bird here in Qatar and they are very special and sacred (and expensive). You can buy them at the souq. They even have a hospital specifically for the falcons. Then we had an end of the term party for the kids. There was an insane amount of food- donuts, cake, cookies, lots of bread, appetizers- it kind of reminded me of the feasts that they have in Harry Potter in the Great Hall because I had the kids sitting at one long table together.

The dream team

There were falcons! So of course I had to be brave and hold one. Even though I was
secretly (or maybe not so secretly) terrified it was going to bite my face.

Happy Qatar National Day!

For Social Studies we have been covering the unit Holidays and Traditions and talking about holidays from all around the world. From Sinterklaas in Holland, the story of poinsettas in Mexico, Hannukah, Kwanza, and Christmas. I also had the kids make snowflakes and snowmen this week. They liked making the snowflakes and were so excited to see them when they finished. It is funny because I modeled for them how to do it and we folded the paper together. Once they got back into their seats and I told them they would be cutting different shapes they were like "Miss Kellie I don't know how to do it!" They stared at the scissors and the folded paper like they were foreign objects they had never seen before. For a lot of them I ended up taking a pencil and drawing shapes along the edges of the folded paper and telling them to cut them out. Their faces were priceless when they opened them up they loved seeing the finished product. And then of course from the scrap papers they kept making tiny snowflakes- until I took their scissors away.

Making the snowmen and snowflakes gave me an excuse to play some Christmas music, which made me very happy!

Over the weekend we went out to dinner and celebrated Shannon's birthday my fellow Jersey girl. We got a group shot of the group and we look like we belong on the cover of a Christmas card! I also went to the souq to do some shopping... I finally found the section that has all the animals!