In the fall, Doug Klembara was appointed to the position of photo editor for Aggieland, the Texas A&M Yearbook. The sophomore general studies major wanted to bring something special to the yearbook that would set it apart from years past.
“I really wanted to bring something to the yearbook that would really be something…. that would have an impact on people. Something really big, something I could really be proud of,” Klembara said.
A friend from Brotherhood of Christian Aggies, of which Klembara is a member, went on the Student Leadership Exchange last year. So Klembara got the idea to get involved with the exchange to travel and photograph the trip.
Three weeks before spring break, he got in touch with Patti Urbina, director of the Qatar Student Offices in College Station, who made arrangements for Doug to travel with the group.
“She told me she really liked my vision… how I wanted to show A&M, here in college station, that we have a campus over there that we have a whole entity of Aggies in the Middle East,” Klembara said.
He wanted to increase College Station Aggies’ knowledge of TAMUQ. Negative sentiments for Middle Eastern cultures are common in our country and campus, Klembara said. He wanted to change this and help students on the main campus to see their fellow Aggies in a more positive light.
During his trip, Klembara took a little over 2000 photographs. He said his favorite moments were seeing his five friends he had made in the fall again, watching the basketball game and a conversation he had with some A&M Qatar students on the Corniche about how they applied the Qur’an to their life and how he applies the Bible to his.
“I was looking over off to the water and seeing just like the lights everywhere and to the right I see this beautiful downtown the architecture’s just so different than what we see over here,” Klembara said.
“It was just one of those moments where I sat back from it and I was like not in a million years would I have ever thought I’d be doing this when I came to A&M… I just sat back and I could see how God has been using me through my photography and through different things… He’s definitely blessing that.”
Klembara’s pictures will comprise a photo essay in the Academics section of the yearbook. He is sending DVDs and already gave an external hard drive of the pictures to the marketing division at TAMUQ. A photograph of students on the beach of the Persian Gulf will be featured in the Platform, TAMUQ semester magazine.
Journal Entries:
“So yesterday was packed. We started off by coming to the Texas A&M Campus. It was incredible. The color and architecture is absolutely amazing. Stone everywhere. We started walking down the main hall and immediately I saw Mary. How awesome it was to see her. We had only met for a weekend to photograph for a project [in the fall at College Station] but seeing her in her country was amazing. We walked into the blue donut and before us laid a feast. A feast of Islamic and Qatari foods. From there I started to photograph only to be hugged by Sarah, another girl I met on the photo assignment in College Station as well. After that Mustafa and Amer came and said hello. It was so incredibly awesome seeing everyone in their home country…”
“We drove for what seemed about one hour and a half. The drivers were very fast and kind of crazy. We finally made it out to the dunes. It was really cool because it was super flat and then all of [a] sudden there were sand hills everywhere. We drove up the hills and headed 120 km over the dunes. We did this for about an hour and then drove over a hill to the Oceanside. We had a beautiful view of the Arabian (Persian) Gulf. It was remarkable. We walked closer to shore and there were tents set up for us in a group facing the ocean. I climbed one of the dunes to get a better picture and then I headed down. I turned my pants into shorts then jumped in with some of the other guys. The water was cold and really salty. Rather blue as well. It was so beautiful you could see Saudi Arabia right across from us, almost as if I was looking to Mexico from across the Rio Grande. Well we went in back to the tents where Arabian dinner was ready for us. We grabbed plates and ate. Wail and Amer came with us and ate. They are on the same Student leadership Exchange but for College Station. So they are flying back to the States with us!”