adventurous days

so it has been some time and i feel as though there are so many stories and thoughts and plots i could unravel at the moment that i'm not sure where to begin or which to choose.... i wish i could write this as a 'choose your own adventure' novel so you could all pick what you want to hear about - "democracy" in the middle east, a hilarious car trip where my friend and i shared the bitch seat squashed between moroccan men for a few hours between marrakesh & essaouria, watching 'good morning, vietnam' on a recent plane ride and being overwhelmed by history repeating itself and the world and (un)common humanity and (only connect!) connection or lack thereof, moments of sheer joy feeling 18-without-the-baggage-of-being-18 reconnecting with my beijing classmates after 10 years, the absolute hilarity of returning to class and walking into the middle of a tribal warfare of sorts among the african students during oral presentations when i have one of the moments where i just look around in disbelief that this is my life and wonder if anyone is watching, or the calm, quiet perspective of a lazy doha day watching the oil tankers drift by, the US military planes drone overhead, receiving dirty looks from a qatari man in another car, but making a moroccan man at the beach smile by speaking his language and having good things to say about his country, lazing about with a lebanese friend and his visiting mother who, like mothers the world over, expresses her approval through homemade sweets.... even if it doesn't lend itself well to emails, the 'choose your own adventure' form is pretty ubiquitous sans computer, and i find it hard to believe that the adventure i have chosen in qatar is nearly over.... i will leave doha in 15 days. yowsa. [not that i'm counting.... ;-) ]

anyway, i am alone in our new office, which is as good a time as any to choose some adventures for you unwitting recipients.... today is our first day in the new digs, so it has all the unfamiliarity and uncomfortable, antiseptic scent of an unlived-in, unloved, just-built bland building. i don't even have my own office space, so i suppose it's time for me to move on.... i think more than anything else, my boss will miss our discussions. over the last few months, or maybe all along now that i think about it, we have the habit of having long-lasting, intense debates that tend to span hours, days, weeks. they usually begin (and resume) when we are meeting to go over some work-related matter. once business is taken care of, he'll say something along the lines of, "now about that discussion on palestine we were having the other day"..... and begin. though he may as well just say, "i'm in the mood to fight about israel again" because really it's always the same discussion circling hawk-like about the impossible israeli-palestinian quicksand question.... occasionally there will be a sharp, darting insight which momentarily grounds us, but usually the discussion just lazily circles as we both stare intently at the problem. as a palestinian-jordanian, alaa is committed to the palestinians receiving all the land and israel being eradicated as the only solution. i, meanwhile, continue to try to split the proverbial baby.... anyway, on this and other subjects, we have had some interesting talks. i think he will miss that. i probably will too.... it's always interesting what comes out in our conversations. in one on "democracy" in the arab world - or rather the lack thereof - he focused on how undemocratic jordan is. jordan, he explained, is embraced by the west as a paragon of virtue / democracy in the arab world because its king was european-educated (and speaks arabic as a second language, with an accent) and its queen is beautiful. they work well with westerners, they look the part, act the part, are glamorous, and are not bad people.... so no one in the western world bats an eye when the king reverts ownership of all public land in jordan to himself, rather than the state. besides, alaa pointed out, is the king's holding all the country's land in his own name really relevant when he essentially is the country? sure, there's a parliament in jordan. but it serves the lofty function of approving the king's government. the one time that the parliament did not approve the king's choices, the parliament was disbanded and many who opposed to him were thrown in prison.... some parliament. this actually came up in the course of something we were working on for a client. sometimes it just astonishes me how much money the locals are making, how truly outlandishly wealthy this region is.... it was a deal we were working on where a local "sponsor" - who does nothing except be qatari - was earning millions for doing nothing... this lead to a general discussion about the economics of the gulf. funny to think about how the use of all of this wealth is at the whim of a few extremely powerful and wealthy individuals.... for example, there is no "budget" for a city like dubai (also hailed by "the west" as an oasis of modernity in these backwards sands), or a country like qatar.... where money goes and how it is utilized is all entirely within the discretion of the emir.... so strange to realize. but even stranger and harder to realize that the people who support these unregulated economies, the imported south asian labourers, are essentially slaves. it breaks my heart. still, after nine months. that still breaks my heart.....

but enough on heartbreak, for there has been much that has been heartening of late. my trip to morocco was excellent - what a fascinating country! so many colours and noises and sounds, and such a landscape, and such people.... all a sort of beautiful chaos.....
a very different sort of beautiful chaos than that i found in berlin, when the international school of beijing class of 1996 reunited for a weekend of seeing how we've grown up, re-discovering how much we enjoy one another, and relishing in what we've shared and the unique place(s) we come from (in many senses).... we are an interesting bunch, and it was a fantastic weekend....

but life has been quieter here since i've been back... i've still been making it to the local we-all-wish-we-were-in-beirut club scene on fridays, which is much fun, even if i get a little tired of the hips-and-shoulders routine required for arabic dancing (i do so yearn for a hiphop hiatus just every once in awhile). but work is quiet, and classes are classes..... it's starting to get hot again, which is also an indication that my time here is coming to a close....

i realized i was about done with this town today during class. during our istiraha - 15 min break mid-way through class - i wandered over to the cabinets in the corner of the room.... this was new territory for me, for all of us really, because the cabinets are in a corner of the classroom off to the side and really there would be no reason to go there. but i braved it, and opened the cabinets. there was one vile glass that once contained some sort of coffee-esque substance and now could be a grade four science project, and a whole pile of disheveled papers. i picked up the papers, some of which were rather rumpled and which just seemed to be thrown in there haphazardly, and began leafing through. i was surprised when i came across my name, in my handwriting, and discovered an essay i had written first term. (i got 17.5 out of 20.) laughing, i started looking at the other names, and the other piles of paper on the other shelves.... here was our homework, our exams, our work from last term. some of it was graded, some not. i handed a few out to classmates. poor fariid had written 5 pages on our class trip to the museum (did i ever tell you about that??!!?? what an outing!), only to have it not be graded and thrown in the cabinet.... but what can you do but laugh? i really couldn't stop, especially when dr. abdullah inexplicably went over to the cabinet while we were supposed to be writing sentences using this rhetorical device he was teaching us (we were in "rhetoric" class, don't ask)..... anyway, made me feel a bit better about not doing my homework, and also made me realize i had about had it with this program.... when you've discovered the skeletons in the closet, even if they are just your homework, you're about done with a place.....

and so i am about done with doha. 15 days more and i'll be back in the land of the free and the home of the brave. people keep asking me how i feel about leaving, if i am sad, or excited, or ready, or something? but i'm not sure any of those really make much sense as adjectives. i am just leaving. i have always known the day would come when my time would be up, and it is nearly here.... for now, i am trying to make the most of what time i have left, though i am looking forward to seeing many of you soon. as for the here and now, i hope this finds you laughing!

no day but today,
mattie

ps - a correction: the explorer ibn battuta was moroccan, i incorrectly said he was egyptian in my previous email. haram!