Our ward at church had a Christmas party yesterday. But it was unlike any Christmas party I've even been to. We went to the Singing Sand Dunes and had a bonfire and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and sang Christmas carols.
Qatar is not a sandy place really. There's sand at the beaches, but most of the land is hard rock with some dirt/sand on top. When there's construction (most of the city has one part or another under construction, especially here in Education City) they have to dig through rock to make a place for the foundation.
The Sand Dunes are just piles of sand spread out among the rocky land. Like so:
One sand dune is curved and that is were we met to have our Christmas party. The ground around the dunes is very rocky. Miss A did not get down to crawl. (And there was a spot or two of broken glass and a lot of trash near the dune - sadly.) And the drive from the paved road to this spot was quite the bumpy ride. But thankfully there weren't any spots of sand to drive through.
This dune is very tall and the sand is soft. This is a view from the top to give some perspective to how tall it is. The large-ish dot just left of center in the picture is the wood pile for the bon fire. There are people at the bottom of the dune on the left side of the curve.
It's called the Singing Sand Dunes because when you slide down (really you're just pushing yourself down, even though it's a steep slope you don't just slide) and get the sand moving, the dune hums and vibrates. It's a deep hum and if you're standing at the top and someone or a bunch of people get the dune to hum, you can feel it vibrate. The dune doesn't move, so you can't see it vibrate, but you can feel it, even as you're going down making it vibrate.
The treck up to the top is a bit of a workout, but we did go up the steepest side ;). If you went up the side, it wasn't so bad. Big E had a blast going up and down the dune. Here we're about a third of the way up.
He loved playing in the soft sand. He also liked eating the chips and the hot dogs and the marshmallows. He came home with pockets filled with sand. We did take our shoes off when we were in the sand, so thankfully we didn't come home with shoes filled with sand. Steve and I also had pockets filled with sand. I think I swept up about a quarter cup of sand from each of our pants and Big E's shirt.
Once the sun started to go down, it felt quite chilly, and I was glad that I put tennis shoes on the kids and myself and that I brought jackets. The bon fire was also quite nice. The sad thing is that when we left around 7 pm it was 65 outside. It felt colder than that. It makes me want to ask, "What has happened to me??" I mean, 65 did feel cool back home, but not cool enough to huddle around a bon fire and be glad that you have a sweatshirt on. But I wasn't the only one who thought it was chilly. I wasn't the only one with a sweatshirt on and even Steve put one on.
The only Christmasy thing about this whole party was that we sang carols. But even singing a few carols with other people didn't make it feel more like Christmas. Playing in the sand and roasting hot dogs over a bon fire just doesn't say Christmas to me. But we did have a lot of fun and will be going to the dunes again.
1 comment:
Sounds like a fabulous party, even if it didn't feel Christmasy! I would love to see and play in those dunes! And I'll just throw in my two cents to say that I bundle up when it's 65 out. In fact it's been in the low 70s here and I've had to close the windows and wear socks and real shoes! I even brought out a blanket for the bed.
Love the sand dunes pictures!
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