Greetings from the Pearl-Doha, a residential area that many
of TAMUQ's faculty and staff have the option of living at when the relocate to
this beautiful campus. My name is Kristi Mejias and I am an Assistant Athletics
Director for Academic Services in the Texas A&M Center for Student-Athlete
Services and I have the pleasure of serving as the non-faculty support staff
member on this trip. You might be thinking, why are you on this
trip? The answer is to support our students, learn from this experience
and hopefully bring back valuable information that would allow the Athletics
Department to provide similar opportunities for student-athletes and to be able
to speak to the priceless experiences that study abroad trips like this provide
for students when advocating for student-athletes to participate in the future.
And let's be real--when you get offered the opportunity to travel to a place
like Qatar for the world's largest sporting event, you kind of just make it
happen! In case you did not know--two of the students on this trip are current
student-athletes (Carissa Boeckmann-Women's Soccer & Kyle Sanchez-Men's
Diving).
Tuesday started out with getting to sleep in just a tad bit
longer than usual which I'm sure most of the group appreciated; I definitely
know that I did! Our first official duty was to experience the Souq
Waqif. The Souq is a traditional market with lots of restaurants, food
stalls and vendors of all shapes and sizes--you name it, you can probably find
it at the souq: brass lamps, spices, rugs, jewelry, and my personal favorite,
magnets :) The souq truly feels like the center of society and is the epitome
of a bustling marketplace. It’s been fun watching the students bargain and haggle
(a completely appropriate and appreciated custom) when finding their favorite mementos
to bring home. Fun fact—there’s an art
display of a giant gold thumb in the soque—Aggies couldn’t resist an opportunity
to Gig’Em.
One of the highlights of the day was meeting two members of
our university’s leadership and their families, Dr. Alan Sams, Interim Provost
and Vice President for Academic Affairs at the TAMU College Station Campus and Dr. César Malavé. Dr. Malavé is the Dean and Professor in the
Chemical Engineering Program at Texas A&M University at Qatar. We organically
bumped into them while walking the souq and within a matter of minutes they had
graciously changed their lunch plans to add an additional 10-12 people to their
party. We dined family style in a traditional Middle Eastern restaurant and all
I can say is YUM! The food was delicious, but more importantly the time spent around
the table was so special. People genuinely were enjoying sharing dishes, getting
to know one another and simply being present.
I think one of the reoccurring things we all talk about is how incredibly
hospitable everyone has been to us at TAMUQ, within the FIFA Volunteer
Organization and the overall community in Qatar.
The day ended with more FIFA Fan Festival volunteer
shifts and soccer 😊 The
atmosphere was crazy at tonight’s semi-final match of Argentina vs. Croatia. I think many of us are really starting to settle
in with our various volunteer roles and have really enjoyed getting to know the
community of volunteers that we are assigned to work with during our shifts.
Thank you for
trusting us with your students! I have
loved every minute of the past eight days—the people on this trip are all so
unique, encouraging, and fun and it’s been a pleasure to get to know them. This
really is a once in a lifetime experience.
Signing off from the Pearl!
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