Oh, it was obvious. We all knew it was going to happen. No one said anything.
Complacent? Cynical? Careless? What if we had been on that bus?

My bus driver's name is Matteus, an Ethiopian migrant worker here in Doha. He drives our eighteen-seat bus like a golf-cart. He grinds gears and wedges into corners. He starts and stops with more jerks than FOX ( Read more... )

Living like this is like gripping the wheel of a fast moving vehicle and guiding it's thrumming, voracious fuel-craving engine through the curves and obstacles ahead. The more I am doing, and getting myself into, the faster I feel like I'm going, streaking details past in peripheral ( Read more... )

Woah, hold on there.

Who hit fast forward on October? Come on, fess up, you owe me some sleep.
The last month's dust storm of random events has ripped a swath through my routine and I find myself totally confused and uncertain how I ended up with this tiny little moment within which I can reflect on it's happenings.

I spent eight days in Greece. I ( Read more... )

Sometimes you just don’t realize what you’re getting yourself into.

Sipping my third cup of coffee here on Emirates flight 105 soaring above Damascus, I realize I am a mere few hours from landing in Athens and… I haven’t really taken into account a few key factors of my most excellent trip planning skills.

You see, in my haste to get to Paros ( Read more... )

Personal development: On hold.
Personal satisfaction: Full speed ahead.

It's time for a break from work and studying and fifty degree heat; Backpack and bottle of wine in hand I'm off to explore Greece for the next nine days, including kicking back on Paros Island with Kristy & Susan and then heading over to Athens to explore the ancient Acropolis ( Read more... )

Whenever I walk outside, my glasses fog up.

No, it's not twenty degrees below zero like we're used to at home, it's fifty degrees above, and the gulf humidity hangs thick on everything. On Sunday the air conditioning was down at work, the closest thing we have to a snow day in Doha, and the very walls themselves were dripping with condensation ( Read more... )

The steady thrum of the engines is not the roar of the crowd, although my heart beats the rhythm of it's music. Sit behind the audience and be embraced by the familiar, the lullaby sounds, close my eyes and wake up a stranger in a foreign land. This is a concert as familiar to me as the nights I have slept alone, which are too familiar as I am no ( Read more... )

It's far too easy to get caught up in the summertime after coming back from the "outside world" into what seems like the detached "bubble" of Cape Breton. I am relaxed, I can communicate with everyone I meet, and the strength of our home and it's people triumphs over the more difficult experiences of the last year ( Read more... )

I had just finished watching two hermit crabs help another hermit crab into a new home, and thought nothing more of it, until I packed up my bag and climbed into the small local fishing boat to leave Indonesia, and head back to Singapore, to prepare to return to Egypt, so I could prepare to return to Canada. I wonder how many homes they have in the ( Read more... )

 
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