Muezzin Zzzzz...

Every day, when it is time to pray, the muezzin's voices ring throughout every neighborhood here, broadcast from the minarets that can be seen everywhere. I've come to like the sound, but it is still a little unusual. Yesterday, I opened my eyes at around 3:30AM and Vito was standing in front of me next to the bed. He said, "Daddy, I don't want to pray right now." I took him into his bedroom and put him ito bed with the muezzin lulling both of us back to sleep. His bedroom is closer to the street, which means it is closer to the neighborhood mosque, and so the call to prayer has been waking him up occasionally.

Souq Waqif

The video above shows the Souq Waqif, also captured in the picture on the right, which is where we went last weekend for dinner. We were celebrating our anniversary, and we arrived in the evening across the street from the Islamic Cultural Center just as the muezzin started. It was terribly hot and humid, perhaps the hottest and most humid day since we arrived in Doha, and the streets were nearly deserted. As muslims here are fasting from dawn to dusk, this call to prayer indicated the end of fasting. During this period of fasting, people do not eat or drink, and eating and drinking are not permitted in public.

Anyway, this is my last weekend before school starts with its abbreviated schedule for Ramadan. I still have some things to get used to, but I'm about as prepared as I can be to start teaching. Things will feel more comfortable after classes get rolling, of course. This first semester, I will be teaching two sections of Academic Composition on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and another section of Academic Composition and an Academic Literature course on Mondays and Wednesday for a total of four classes. In addition to my courses, I have to serve a few hours each week in the Language Resource Center as an English tutor, which is one of the unique attributes of the ABP.