Sandy in the Sand: Dinner in the Desert...

We were invited to go on a "Dinner in the Desert"with our couples Bible class. There were 7 families, eager to get this trip underway. This we were told, is a must while living here in Doha.

The "King of the Desert" or so he called himself, (aka Abrahim) came in a caravan of 9 SUV's to pick us up. This is a business, he says, that takes him out of Doha to the desert everyday, a 2 hour trip south to the Inland Sea, one way.

These were some of my favorite pictures, beautiful white sands left touched by us and our children. The sand was so soft and the water was so blue. The weather was windy and beginning to get pretty cool.
The locals respect their land, you will never find litter or destruction anywhere here in sands of Qatar or the city of Doha.

But first, a stop was in order to let some air out of the tires, just before crossing the miles and miles of sand dunes.

We were 2nd in line of nine SUV's and the drivers kept this formation the entire trip. I thought that was pretty neat.

Erik took this picture. It almost looks like a hand is holding up the sun.

Here we are, just over to the right, there was a very steep slope down. The kids had a hard time getting back up. This was a stop of many we made to take few pictures and enjoy the view.

Here are my boys sliding down the slope to the bottom. Do you see the white foam at the water's edge? Ever heard of Sea Salt? You could have scooped it up with your hand.

This picture shows the horizon of Saudi Arabia. Erik calls it the "forbidden land". He says we will never go there, even for a visit. It is far too conservative and expats are not welcome, especially women.

Another one of my fav's.

Wouldn't you know it, Evan fell into the water and this water was cold. Luckily, someone lent us a beach towel and we dried him off as best as we could.

Here is the"King of the Desert", Adel (our driver) and Erik, just in case you couldn't tell. In the beginning, Adel would hardly speak to us. Almost everytime we asked him a question, he wouldn't say a word and just turned up his music. At first, we thought that he did not understand us, but we found out later that he did. We jammed to Arabic music the whole way up. By the end of the night, he turned off the music and he was laughing, telling us about his homeland, Bahrain and teaching me every word in Arabic that I needed to know, for shopping at the souq markets. He said to Erik, "She could do well in learning to speak Arabic, you, not so well."

He told us he would be happy to take us again to the desert whenever we like. He was an impressive driver of the desert, he had been doing it since he was a very young man.

I think of him everytime I use those words he taught me. It has really made a difference in how we are perceived by the locals here and more importantly it makes people smile.

Sucran (thank you), Adel, Sucran!

Isn't my Evan cute! His smile is so contagious.
Here he's trying to build a castle but there is no such thing as building sand castles in the sand dunes. This sand was too soft and dry.

Here we have, Gracie ( Barbra's youngest), Barbra, Judy, Me, Lynn, and her little son Will, who is Ethan's age. We found out that all of us, including another named Shelly (taking the picture), were all 38 years old! I was the youngest by a few days. How strange is that?!?

This Mama and her baby were so cute. The baby made sweet baby noises, and hid his face when we arrived.

We stopped to take a ride on a camel in the desert. Evan finally got his chance to ride a camel.

Evan was brave and felt he had accomplished what he came here to do, in Qatar.
Now we could go home.

This was our camp site.

We arrived to the aroma of shikabobs, chicken, lamb and kofta (an Arabian beef meatloaf on a skewer) sizzling on the grill, and we could hardly wait to eat. The kids played while we sat in tents on persian carpets and conversed, Arabian style.

During the winter months, everyone gathers around a bonfire and enjoys their dinner.

See the brick border around the middle of the camp?