Camels

I have a feeling this is just the first of many camel posts. Camels are not nice but they are fun to look at. We went to try to see some camel racing when my friend Jessica was visiting this past week ( Yes, I am fortunate enough to have a devoted friend who will even visit us in Doha). There were no races going on (we did call but noone ever picks up the phone which is not unusual) but we did see a lot of camels. Some of them had the little robot jockeys on their backs which are controlled by the owners during the races. Sadly they used to use children for this purpose- a practice which has now been banned. Lili was very excited and was yelling camels, camels (or more precisely pamels, pamels) the whole time. We were being crazy tourists and taking lots of pictures but soon discovered that we were a novelty item as well because the camel riders were taking just as many pictures of us ( thanks to everyone in the world now owning a cell phone with a camera)- see the last picture, he is looking at the photo he just took of us. Mutually interested, mutually obtrusive, mutually obsessed with documenting every aspect of life- whatever it was, everyone was satisfied at the end. Except maybe the poor camels. This reminded me of the book I got for Miki before we went to Egypt about how the camel got its hump (based on Rudyard Kipling's story) - it was a punishment for not wanting to work. They have a tough lot in life. But enough digressions and enough camels for today.