so for halloween one year in college, a group of friends and i were a creative set of alterna-spicegirls. i think the only 'spice' we had in common with the real group was 'sporty.' we had a 'sassy' and maybe a 'psycho'.... i was scandalous spice.... :-) in any event, scandalous spice struck again here in doha the weekend before last....
i set out last thursday as myself for a charity gala dinner supporting the qatar cancer society's work on beast cancer. it was a mellow enough gala involving much glittering pink ribbons and a rather strange fashion show & terrible food, but decent music. after the gala, i somehow became scandalous spice and found myself, along with a few other comrades in crime, in the private majlis of sheikh abdulrahman. abdulrahman is the "raaiss emiri diwan" literally the "president of the emiri diwan", and the emiri diwan is basically the government - it's the emir's office, so kind of a white house / congress / parliament / where it's at all in one. he's kind of a chief of staff, but is also a member of the royal family & is basically as close as you can come to being emir without being emir. (well, there is of course the heir apparent, but that's all premised on future power, less so current) ... so what is a majlis & why is this scandalous? a majlis - literally a 'place for sitting' or 'sitting' - is a space for men to go & sit & smoke & hang out & drink tea & just chill with their boys & their brothers all night long... it is a huge part of the culture here. men leave their homes in the evening to go hang out at the majlis, usually until the wee hours of the morning, especially on the weekend. the more traditional majlis has cushions on the floor & shisha pipes. the more contemporary majlis, such as abdulrahman's, is similar to a sitting room & has cuban cigars. the majlis is a place for men. women do not go to the majlis. so the fact that i ended up in one with three other women (we were brought by another member of the royal family who hosted the gala dinner) was very exciting... it was like going to this whole other underground world which is so much a part of society here, but which i have no access to.... apparently the sheikh had had women in his majlis on two prior occasions, so we were not the first, but it was still rare... this was especially apparent as various princes, cousins and brothers and other royals strolled in throughout the night. i was positioned facing the door and the looks on their faces as they approached and saw us was absolutely priceless! sheikh abdulrahman was quite charming and the baklava and tea and the experience more than made up for the ho-hum gala.... i still can't quite believe that it happened. anyone i've told here gives me a wide-eyed stare. and apparently our visit was all the court gossip for the next few days..... very scandalous doha-style!
two days after our scandalous midnight soiree at the maljis - which by the way is named "V5" for some reason i never quite understood except that it felt very james bond - i got to rub shoulders with more royals early saturday morning.... this time the doha debates was having a special program, a forum for students to ask questions of sheikha mozah - the emir's favourite and public wife who has done tremendous work for this country, especially in education. the event was unique because it was an open forum, the sheikha did not know the questions in advance (and there were challenging questions), and it was a fantasitc opportunity for the students to see and speak to the woman who has made so much of the educations they are receiving possible. she is truly a remarkable woman. she made some interesting points about islam and modernization, expressing her concern that too much emphasis was being placed on the external or the superficial - how much hair a woman revealed under the shayla, whether abayas were too form-fitting when islam and islamic values are truly embodied in the soul, not the external. islam, she said, is not about what you wear, but is felt within.... in response to a question about what she would say to a woman who objects to the fact that she has appeared in western countries without an abaya and without a hijab, she said she would respect her view, but then ask that woman to respect her decision. it was a powerful and important point, and one that few others could make so well.
the conversations at that debate, as in conversations in any of the informal debates i find myself in here, all tend to circle around the contradictions of this tiny country at this point time. inevitable when you're leaving in a crossroads of a city that truly is worlds in collision, but so very visible here sometimes... i think it is those contradictions that i will miss most. little moments when your view of the world cracks just a bit, revealing another layer or texture or colour or universe existing simultaneously.... we all skate around on our own thin worldviews to some extent, no matter how well read, well travelled, or open we may think we are.... so those moments of cracking, although destabilizing, and often very subtle, are very profound. i'll miss those moments. seeing a man kneeling between fancy cars and praying in the parking lot of the ritz at dusk.... seeing a incredulous and horrified look of shock and realization on the face of my partner in a conversation about 'islam and the west' when i am asked, "wait, wait, you mean you don't marry your cousins, but yet you drink alcohol?!?!?" and so many more....
the other moments i will miss most are moments of doing nothing. it's something else i've come to appreciate about this place, and the culture here. time goes slowly, people walk slowly, and there is a certain value on just being together doing nothing. not unlike sitting at the majlis, really. at first i really found this difficult. (and i'm still not really terribly good at it; there's only so much nothing i can do....) it was so different to the hustle and bustle of the life i have been accustomed to, and even to how we interact. we meet for social activities with a clear purpose, a meal or a drink or a coffee or a movie, and once that purpose has been achieved, we move on. among friends here, people will meet and then just hang out for hours, watching the same movie they watched together yesterday, or playing around with instruments they don't really know how to play, reading magazines, smoking shisha, or just sitting..... with no purpose. no goal. no time frame. nothing to be achieved except being together.... another foreign friend here remarked it was kind of like being a kid, when you just hung around and did nothing.... and maybe it is. but it's a curiously nice thing. becuase it is sometimes only after four hours of hanging around doing nothing that something truly marvelous or hilarious or meaningful happens. maybe because there is a kind of intimacy in doing nothing that can't be rushed through a coffee date or hushed through a movie.... i don't know. but i realized as i left doing nothing at a friend's house this saturday, that i would miss that too. i would miss going slowly and just letting life unfold....
i have three more days to let unfold in this strange little world. the sands are getting hotter by the day and soon it will be too uncomfortable to be outside for long... i always knew when the weather changed it would be my cue to leave. so i will exit stage left this thursday, and the curtains will close on all my strutting and fretting about this place. and you will be spared further missives about my quests for adventure and meaning.... :-) thanks for coming along for the ride. i'm looking forward to seeing many of you soon. in the meanwhile, doubt everything and find your own light.
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