Maybe not 1000 words....

I'm horrible about including pictures in my blog posts for many reasons, not least of which is I am horrible at taking photos, but I know that's what the people want, so I decided that every once in awhile I will give you a few shots from our everyday lives.  Not earth shattering images, by any means, but something to help you get a picture of our days.  Note: all of these photos were taken with my iPhone, usually from the car as I was stopped on the side of the road, trying not to get hit by cars zooming past, so don't judge the quality!

This is the view of our pool from the back of the clubhouse.  It's supposed to be the biggest pool in Doha, and it is IMMENSE!  But that's not a trick of the light: the water is decidedly greenish right now, and there is a lot of sand on the bottom.  We have complained and been assured that the water is fine, but you can't even see the bottom clearly where it's less than 4 feet deep, so something is definitely going on.  For now, we're avoiding it until it becomes crystal clear again.

This is looking at the back of the clubhouse from across the pool.  On the right is the entrance to the two hot tubs, one for each gender, natch!

Here's a shot from inside our house, our living room to be exact, a mixture of our old furniture and the furniture that came with the house.  Out that window is a tiny yard and a LOT of sun, so we keep those curtains closed for much of the day.

The front exterior of our house from across the street. We are the corner unit (that's a maintenance building on the right), which is nice for us, since we only have to worry about disturbing one neighbor (our neighbor happens to be a single Austrian guy next door whose kids are grown and whose wife decided not to move out with him--so sad for him to be living next to us!).  Unlike the aesthetic of much of the architecture here, which is "match the desert at all costs," our compound is grey and black and angular, which makes it feel a bit like a prison, actually, but I'm learning to live with it!

This is the outside of our compound as you are driving in.  See, lots of black and lots of angles.  The guard house is in front where the security guards control who comes in or out, and the club house is that large black glass building behind the gates.  Keep walking through the club house and you run into the pool.  Turn right after the guard house, and you run into our villa.

Our nearest mosque, right outside the walls of our compound (you can see a corner of the compound on the right back there).  The call to prayer really does ring out 5 times a day (the morning call is happening at about 3:30am right now), and we can hear it from this mosque as well as from at least two others that surround us.  

Did you know we pass a camel farm on the way to school?!  Yep, about two blocks away from us.  Don't worry, I took these pictures from the car as well.  With MERS in the air, I am not about to go anywhere near a camel for a long while!

And finally a picture of the front of the boys' school, which is built much more in the usual Qatari style.  Notice the many air-conditioning units.  There is also one in every classroom as well as some kind of central air, and it's still a bit warm inside in the afternoons.  E's classroom is on the bottom right and J is in another part of the building not pictured, which turns toward the right.  There is another matching building next door that houses the middle school, but the school is quite small. These are its temporary headquarters while much bigger facilities are being constructed.  Two years in and the ground for those buildings hasn't even been broken yet.  I'm not holding my breath!