Here's a picture of my youngest

She's five months old now

Nursing mother

The baby latches on

Nursing Mother

Here’s something kind of cute. This is a breastfeeding doll. These are hand-made by a women’s group in Saudi Arabia to raise awareness about breastfeeding. Breastfeeding rates in the Gulf are still pretty good, but they are falling as the economies modernize. This doll is part of an effort to slow or stop that trend.

Painting, Doha Cultural Festival 2005

Swimsuits

Summer Swimsuit Edition!

Here are some pictures of swimsuits that I found on-line. These aren’t actually from Qatar, but you will see these here, especially among Arab ex-pats. My wife is having one brought back from Egypt. Wearing a get up like this isn’t necessary, but it does tend to cut down on the stare factor.

Other ways that women deal with this problem are to swim in indoor women-only pools, to swim with an abaya covering the body (a bit impractical unless you’re just wading), to swim in remote locations far from prying eyes (best bet), or to forego swimming altogether. With even night time temperatures climbing into the thirties, this last option would be unfortunate. One more option is whenever you swim, to bring along your mean and nasty western ex-pat husband to kick some serious behind if anybody gets impolite.

Carpets

Persian Rugs

This might be one of the best places on Earth to buy Oriental rugs. The reason being that Iran and Turkey are close by (you could hit Iran with a rock from here), and the market is highly competitive. The demand for these rugs is huge, as the locals buy plenty of them for their own houses.

Due to this, there are plenty of sellers, and plenty of deals. You have to know what you’re doing to a certain extent. The best bet is to take a Qatari friend with you to buy rugs. You’ll get a good deal, and it will be a small fraction of what you would pay in the west (and also a small fraction of what you might pay without your Qatari friend!).

Another option is to buy them at the source, but I doubt that any amount of negotiation will produce prices there that are much better than they are here.. you’ll get the whole “tourist prices” thing going there. Also there are no export duties on them here, or problems with customs, so unless you speak Farsi fluently…buy ‘em here