Food Adventures

One of the things about living in new countries is that each task can become an adventure. Unfamiliar things are new, and even things you thought were familiar suddenly take on a local flavor.

Take my recent experience with Pizza Hut. As most people know, Pizza Hut is an American pizza chain which peddles pizza and its accompanying foods-- pasta, breadsticks, chicken wings, salad, etc.

A few weeks ago, my coworker Sally and I were hungry, and didn't want to experience the campus catering lunch that day, so we decided to order pizza and have it delivered. As I had run out of vegetables at home, and wasn't going to go to the store until the next day, I decided to order a salad to go with lunch. "Surely they sell salad", I thought to myself. Or they do lunch buffet, and could pull salad stuff off the buffet to make me something. I wasn't picky. As long as it didn't have celery. Celery is gross.

When Sally called and expressed her wish to have salad too, she had to do some explaining. 'Here we go...', I thought to myself. 'I wonder what's going to turn up?'

I've never had to wonder about salad presentation before. A salad is a salad is a salad.

And, sure enough, I got vegetables in a take-away container. Big vegetables. A true salad which represents the availability of vegetables here.

In the States, at least, salads are primarily composed of lettuce. Lettuce is cheap, yes? The accompanying vegetables are scant, since they cost more.

Not here, though.

Almost everything is imported to Qatar. Some things are more expensive than others. Lettuce falls under the 'expensive' category. So there were 3 (I counted them) leaves of lettuce garnishing the top.

On the other hand, there were the equivalent of two bell peppers (sliced), a whole tomato (quartered), a carrot (sliced), a cucumber (sliced), and a quarter lemon. These things fall under the 'cheap' category.



This was my "garden salad". Good value, though, for 15 riyal. The cut vegetables alone probably cost 6 or 7 riyal altogether.

Congratulating the Competition

As I've said before, one of the things I look forward to each day is perusing the Gulf Times and The Peninsula in pursuit of amusing things. Here is something which would distinctly not happen in most countries. This falls under the category of 'Kind', yet mildly amusing at the same time.

Vodafone has recently been awarded the right to set up shop in Qatar. Before this, we have been procuring our landline, Internet, and mobile services exclusively from Q-Tel. Which is fine, given we're living in a country with 800,000 people, the size of Connecticut.

(as an aside, my coworker Ross refers to Qatar as "the country which will remain nameless, but begins with Q", or some variation thereof, ... yeah, I'm sure everyone's still puzzled as to which one he means...)

However, there aren't a lot of places where an established company would take out a half page ad in the newspapers congratulating upcoming competition for being awarded a contract.

To prove I'm not making yet another outrageous claim as a way of gaining attention, here's the photographic proof.

Day at the Beach

Yesterday I went to Old Club Reef, down in Mesaaid, to dive. It was a total nightmare.

After diving once, I intended to sit in my chair and watch the free entertainment of the day, being provided courtesy of the dive club. Temps were right, at maybe 32 or so, and the winter wind wasn't blowing.

Instead, I spent my afternoon hoofing it up and down the beach, Baywatch-style, with either a first-aid or oxygen kit in hand.

I treated an unconscious diver, an over-oxygenated diver, two kids who got bit by a shark, a stonefish wound, and 4 young burn victims. I helped perform CPR on a victim with no pulse, packed divers and kit from shallow water to the beach, loaded people into ambulance vehicles, rode crouched in the back of the ambulance vehicle while administering CPR and first aid, and had a great time doing all of this.

Huh?

What kind of people are these folk, you wonder. How could she have had such a good time, on her day off at the beach, helping to take care of the injured?

Well, the dive club, DSAC, was teaching its annual Practical Rescue Management course. This course teaches divers to manage rescue scenarios. It does not necessarily mean that the students in the course are doing the actual rescuing, but merely learning to delegate tasks and handle emergency situations. I, then, wasn't a delegating student, but a delegatee.

In the dive brief, I (foolishly?) raised my hand twice--- once to signal I was qualified to give oxygen, and once to signal that I had first-aid training. I've done PADI Rescue, so I've also had rescue work training. Part of the certification for this is first aid, and I chose to do O2 admin.

As I had raised my hand, and I was sitting in a chair on the beach, hoping to watch the free entertainment, guess who was one of those who got asked to help in each emergency.

This is what we call participatory theatre, I suppose.

It was good review, though. In a way, I got a free Rescue refresher course, and also heard good information being given to the PRM students. I suppose I could said 'no', but part of having training is using it when called upon.

And here I was, thinking 'oh, I just did Rescue, and I remember how intense it was. I don't want to do it again very badly.' Well, as it turns out, I kind of did.

I was quite tired after my relaxing day at the beach, and my legs are sore today. It takes quite a bit to lift people, and it's not something I do on a daily basis. I was asleep last night by 9 pm.

It was kind of funny. There was a busload of workers at the beach, enjoying the day off too. The scenarios attracted a crowd. What was really funny, though, was one particular scene. There were a couple of Japanese tourists walking on the beach, and behind the beach you can see an oil refinery-- you know, the dramatic part where the flame is shooting out of the smoke stack. Well, Japanese Tourist #1 decided he wanted his photo taken with him in front of the oil stack. Meanwhile, in the background, they're dragging Unconscious Diver #1 out of the water so they can administer O2. So, from my viewpoint in the green chair, here's the tourist having his photo taken while behind him they're dragging some guy out of the water. It's one of those things you had to see, but it was quite amusing to me and another diver.

Until we got called on to help with the entertainment.