Neighborhood happenings and a new recipe

I believe I have already said this. I love the neighborhood we live in. It is full of activity, diverse, safe, walkable, and how I have some friends. Well, I don't know if they are friends, but we greet each other and wave. Since we don't speak the same language, I guess it's hard to exchange more than that! Qataris live behind walled houses, so the people I meet in the neighborhood (outside of our immediate apartments inhabited by people connected with the university) are mostly Indian, from Sri Lanka, Iraq or Pakistan. Men make up the entire working, foreign population in the construction industry. They literally construct their own dwellings where they work. So, as a house is being built in the neighborhood, you will find a nearby shed or tent to house several workers. You know they live there because shoes line the entrance and laundry is hanging nearby. Since I run each morning, they know to look for me. Now they stop working and sometimes yell, but usually they just wave or watch ---- their break, I think! There is a man that I meet running each morning. He is about my age and has a running suit on. We wave to each other each morning. Yesterday, I saw him in the distance running toward me and decided I would introduce myself. Luckily, I saw him at quite a distance since I had to gradually slow down from the rapid pace I was running and I needed quite a distance to do that. Ha! It turns out he is the Romanian ambassador and lives just a block away in our neighborhood. He speaks great English and commented that he likes the neighborhood too since in Romania, Iraq and Saudi Arabia he had no place to run in the neighborhood. We spend little time on cooking here. But, in a crazy burst of energy and the comment "we're not having this again!?", we decided to buy 2 chickens and some masala seasonings. Seemed pretty simple. We love masala and often order it in the Indian restaurants. However, there were no directions on the pachage. We both have healthy appetites, are not picky about food and we each have advanced degrees in our respective fields. We boiled the chicken and sauteed onion in olive oil and dumped in the masala seasoning. Great masala smell! It was the taste that almost killed us. Our tongues and stomachs quickly burned with just a few bites. It reminded me of the time I ordered vindaloo chicken with Emily at an Indian restaurant and I thought I was dying it was so hot! Or, the time Jonathan made chili and thought 8 cloves of garlic meant 8 chunks. The difference is that Jonathan had the sense to throw his chili out. We ate our dish! We remembered that yogurt cuts the taste. We had a kilo of yogurt in the refrigerator. Even that was barely sufficient to ease the pain. We tried straining the food and washing it with water. Still no luck. Hunger convinced us it was not really that bad. So, it's gone now. Thank goodness. No, we will not be posting this recipe or making it for guests. I doubt we will have masala for a while either. Even if we do know the correct proportions! Friends invited us to their apartment tonight. We gladly accepted. I just hope they don't serve masala chicken.