mattie makes a music video in the traffic department....

ok, so not really, but today was a little bit shakira-meets-50-cent-satire-arabian-remix for me.... thought i'd share the scene (& maybe throw in some more serious observations at the end for spice (& those who make it there) -

to begin, you must appreciate the blistering backdrop.... it was hotter than hades today. it has been getting cooler (a.k.a. in the 40s (circa 110)) and the evenings have even been on the verge of pleasant-ish, but today was just brutal. the road workers were not even in sight - & this means it's seriously hot - technically under qatari law, the workers cannot work out in the sun when it's 50 degrees or higher, however, as long-suspected by many, if you have more money than god, as the qataris do, you CAN actually buy the weather; miraculously, the official temperature for doha reported in regional papers, on the local news & even on international news networks is always 48, which means the workers must toil on... today, however, i did not see them out as much as usual, which means it was seriously hot.

to continue the setting, you must understand that the ministry of the interior is where it's at in doha - particularly the traffic department between 9 - 12. this mini-mecca is where i headed this morning in this ever-so-serious-and-dramatic heat, escorted by ismail, the firm's driver - a sweet-stubborn indian man with pouty lips and the world's most fabulous sunglasses. after several attempts to locate the sudanese guy we'd hired on our last visit to type up my application & mother-duck me through the process of getting a temporary driver's license - which involved walking back and forth between the traffic dept. building and the little shantytown next door where the sudanese guys who do this have their offices, sunglasses steaming up each time we step into the heat (i swear the glasses also make a "gasp" sound too!), frowning a lot, and me gently suggesting we try him again on his mobile, we meet khalid in his office..... khalid then takes charge and we follow him back to the traffic department.... and now the scene is set and here's where the music really starts....

khalid was wearing the most outrageous shoes i have ever seen - they were literally fuzzy leopard-print slipper-style shoes but with proper dress-shoe soles! mesmerized, i follow. the dust seemed to purr out from under his every step, my sunglasses were so steamed by the sight of the shoes & the heat, i had to give up on them.... we enter the main hall. it's a zoo. a sea of men - awash in long white thubes (robes), a few saudi-style red-and-white-checkered headscarves, a number of foreigners (mostly south asian), a few military guys in the ever-so-subtle qatari purple fatigues [? i don't get it either ?] and combat boots, many slapping sandals moving about. there is chatter, shouting, crowding, crowding, crowding, laughing, sitting around, and generally just chaos. at least four different systems of electronic numbers are displayed and there is a place to collect a number - which we do - but somehow the crowding and pushing and looking for a buddy of a buddy behind the desk seems more the system than the system.... by the time we enter the crowded, rather smelly hall (it's a hot day), i'm as sweaty as i've ever been in a suit (business cas hasn't really caught on in the qatari legal community yet). my gaze shifts from the waves of humanity before me to the meagre air conditioner on the wall. i take a few steps, turn to face it and close my eyes for approximately 2 seconds..... i sense a slight lull in the ocean, and open my eyes to see the sea, all eyes on me. in that moment i realize that i am not in a conservative grey suit, damp and disheveled, standing before a barely-working, yellowing air conditioner, but no! ... flash - i am in a skimpy bikini standing on the fake beach of a hip-hop video set with intense fans blowing on me as i shake what my momma gave me...... flashback to the traffic department scene, the sea resumes its waves. it ebbs and flows, the numbers come and go, the elbows fly, ismail leaves me, i pay 150 riyals, and get a receipt for my license (which i can drive with!) and am told to return in two days for the real deal..... [note - there is a "ladies section" - but they just drink tea there & don't actually issue licenses]

khalid, his wondrous shoes and i saunter boldly out into the sun again. by this time it's late and i have an appointment to meet the US Ambassador in half an hour. there are no taxis, so khalid offers to drive me, but warns his car has no air conditioning. i accept (there being no alternatives)... he approaches a car i had assumed was an abandoned wreck, he turns and says "this is my BMW" ... and flash - it's a pimped out BMW, with an amazing backbeat going on and khalid, in a fabulous leopard-print silk tuxedo, is opening the door... but flashback to reality, and i get in, not sure it will move.... already so sweaty my suit-jacket is sticking to me and i'm swatting my face with a tissue, the car is an oven - even if you stick your arms out for "air conditioning au naturale"... as we drive, i frantically spray on a random perfume sample i discovered in my bag, discarded there after it was forced upon me by an enthusiastic salesman at harrods... we make it to the embassy, though khalid balked at the site of the speed bump in the entrance - unsure that his BMW would make it over... it did, and i tumbled out, feeling rather like a drowned rat, smoothed my conservative grey suit (bikini!), and marched up to the gates.

i have never seen such thorough security - two screenings via metal detectors in two buildings, bag search which literally involved taking the cap off of every pen, and opening every chapstick / lipstick in my bag.... all the while the backbeat is still going, and i'm slowly drying in the shimmering oasis of the embassy's perfect air-conditioning system.... i meet the other fulbrighters, the ambassador, get the security briefing, etc... everybody makes nice and says the right things in the right places and doesn't nod too rigorously... then it was back to the office for a few hours, finally getting a car (i have a lovely little mitsubishi lancer - ice blue), taking matters into my own hands and getting a mobile (i'm at 0974.548.8591), driving with the music at a crescendo, braving the roundabouts-without-lanes-or-rules en route to a reception for the new georgetown campus in doha at the diplomatic club - a rather posh place on the water - where everyone drank apple juice and said nice things about the georgetown campus and education city (the sheikha's project to promote education here - see below), and then off home into the evening darkness, the lights of the cornish glittering away....

quite a day. and quite a video. ;-) as for more serious updates, the education city here really is quite remarkable, i'm sure i've mentioned that education has been a big problem here, basically the qatari education system was rather mediocre-at-best and there was little drive because the local population is so wealthy that they don't really need to work so there was no incentive for anyone to receive a quality education... the sheikha (the emir's 3rd and favourite wife who has done amazing things in this country) decided to bring a number of US universities here and set up top-notch schools in a variety of fields (which are open to qataris and foreigners alike)... by now, texas a & m, cornell, carnegie melon, and georgetown all have campuses here (and maybe some others i can't remember)... the area of town where they're located is "education city"... to further encourage the local population to pursue higher eduaction, the government also established a program whereby any qatari man who graduates from university receives a nice plot of land for building a home and a 1/2 million riyals to do so.... i learned that the swish neighbourhood i live in is one of the areas where these plots are being developed (the area is new and there's lots of construction)... i learned this from the assistant dean of QU (qatar university, my soon-to-be school - classes begin in a few days) when she was driving me home after a meeting... she's a remarkably bright woman - holds a phd in chemistry from a british university, was chair of the chemistry dept before becoming asst. dean, and is still flown around the world in the summers for research. when i asked what qatari women graduates receive, she said "nothing" ... in the silence that followed, she was quick to add that it's men who establish families.... not sure which is better, to be seen as nothing but an object (which is how i often feel here - see video scene above) or to not really be seen....

so now that i've established myself as outspoken, on to more weightier subjects... i had a very interesting conversation with the managing partner in our law firm - al'aa. very bright man - jordanian of palestinian descent, educated in the UK, quite an intellectual (his biggest gripe about doha is that there's no intellectual life - there's not even a library! (that's right, no public library)).... we were having the usual hemming & hawwing about the world, politics, the middle east, america, and the conversation took a more theoretical turn... al'aa said he believed the idea of a "clash of civilizations" was a euphemism for a clash of religions. he questioned whether this clash was manufactured / exaggerated or real. i tried to paint broad strokes of the universal aspects of all the world's religious traditions [god has no religion] and capture in hues of sunset how the essence of all great religious traditions is the same. he would have none of it. [note - he's a secular muslim himself] .... i recalled our exchanges (this was a lengthy conversation) when reading a variety of articles and reflective pieces about 9/11 and where we are today.... even if i do believe in the universal, and find there is more commonality and common humanity in the world than not, it's very easy to see the clash of religions picture - almost paint-by-numbers easy. over time i had forgotten that bush called our war on terror a "crusade", i had forgotten the cold war rhetoric, the light v. dark, good v. evil lines which were scripted against a backdrop of immediate devastation, which made sense in context, but can and have been twisted into words on 'jihadists-r-us' recruitment websites... how can what ought to be humanity's most unifying force - spiritual traditions which teach compassion, forgiveness, generosity - be its most divisive? ....

ok, getting in too deep for an email with a subject line about a music video.... inshallah this finds you all in good spirits.