sometimes i wonder what the clashes that we confront each day in the news are really about.....
on the ports issue - was the issue really freedom of contract v. national security? or was it really xenophobia v. political gain pre-midterm elections? or racial profiling v. treating people as equals? ...
on the clash of civilizations - is the issue really islam v. the west? or is it really, as a syrian-american dared to say on al-jazeera recently, modernity v. the middle ages?
on the cartoons issue - is the issue really respect for religion v. freedom of speech?
and on any of these - who decides which are the clashes we focus on? which subtexts we acknowledge, and which we don't?
it again has been an interesting time to be here. qatar recently hosted a meeting of the 'alliance of civilizations' - a UN initiative that aims to "overcome prejudice, misconceptions, misperceptions, and polarization which potentially threaten world peace." the meeting here, which involved kofi annan as well as a number of regional and religious leaders, tried to find a resolution to the cartoons crisis. a valiant effort, but danish cheese is still conspicuously absent from my supermarket (all the more conspicuous because of the signs saying so and the way the dairy section has been rearranged). the crisis seems less explosive at least, and seems to be fizzling out.... or maybe that is just because there are new epic clashes to distract us... or maybe that's the best we can hope for - this is the way the world will end, this is the way the world will end, this is the way the world will end, not with a bang but a whimper.
the whimpers, and there were definitely some whimpers, about the dubai company and ports issue were quite an interesting topic in these parts. i found it especially interesting in light of the fact that qatar's security is entrusted to a private company - rudy guiliani's in fact. so here i am in country which is important american ally in the region that is secured by a bunch of former FBI hacks hired by the former mayor of new york who created a security firm after terrorists from this region attacked manhattan while my nation is in a whirlwind over a private company from a neighboring ally being contracted by the US government to secure strategic ports in america.... it's enough to make your head spin. and make you wonder what being secure means these days.... security - what kind of idea are you? it's unfortunate that the congressional republicans' willingness to stand up to the president for once only went as far as being xenophobic and didn't show much actually concern for 'security' (whatever that means) by not using this issue as an opportunity to - bang - address some of the very serious security threats at the ports in question in this controversy, regardless of what company is running them. oh well. whimper, whimper, whimper.
have also had some very compelling conversations on gender lately. i participated in a conference last weekend entitled 'arab women, past and present: participation and democratization.' [it was a curious week to attend the conference after i didn't wear my abaya to class one day (!!!). it feel amazing not to wear it. i felt like me, like my soul wasn't being strangled somehow.... and yes, that may sound dramatic, but this is me talking and my inner drama queen finds being here suppressive enough, her only outlet is writing.... ;-) ] anyway, i didn't participate in all of the sessions, but there were a few observations i thought worth sharing... one was from a lecture entitled 'religion as a matrix for participation' - the thought was "men and women feel safer when women are kept within bounds." the talk was not just about islam, but about christianity as well, and the speaker opened her discussion with this idea. i couldn't help but wonder if there is something to this idea.... especially in light of the more controversial exchanges that took place among the various women at the conference with their various identities. one such exchange was during a discussion on islam, sharia law, and women in the workplace while older muslim women feminists (non-qataris) who had spent their lifetimes working for women's rights in the workplace heard comments from young, qatari women students saying, 'islam is the greatest religion in the world because all women have to do is stay at home, drink tea, and get fat. why would we want to work? why are we talking about this?' needless to say, it was explosive. bang. it's safer to stay within bounds, safer not to challenge, not to ask the challenging questions.....
but asking questions seems to be all i do here. and i'm going to be doing so in a more formal way with a remarkable local woman friend of mine here. raised in europe but now living the qatari life, this friend and i often find ourselves lamenting the manner in which misunderstanding and miscommunication seems all that our world's contemporary clashes are capaable of producing. when in truth, there are many subtexts. in the course of coming to know her and her story, i have found myself wanting to share her narrative with others. the particulars of experience that drive any narrative, that create a story, are sometimes capable of resonating outside or across the clashes (or at least i hope so.)... and there is a certain healing power in narrative that doesn't exist in the realms of politics, economics, war, industry, religion, country, identity.... or really anywhere else. so with the help of this friend, and a few other willing qatari women, i will be asking questions. collecting the stories of some of the remarkable local women i have met. if for no other reason than they are worth collecting.... and in an effort to give a more nuanced faced to this region and these people than is being painted at the moment** ... in any event, if you have any questions, send them to me.
meanwhile, the beat goes on here. rather than ramble further, i'll leave you with an image from the remarkable experience of going to the doha camel souq.... the camel souq was amazing - 500 - 1,000 camels (really!). all sizes, colours, personalities (camels make some crazy noises). and the bedouin camel traders who run the souq were so friendly and curious and warm-hearted it was hard not to quit my job at the arab law bureau just to work there instead..... but they were shrewd businessmen. i tried to ask about the price of a camel, but a toothless old man with a gleam in his eye would only ask me questions in response - what kind of camel did i want? did i want a sudanese camel? did i want a camel with milk? ... when i explained that i didn't actually want to purchase a camel, but was just curious, he and his compatriots exchanged glances. but they still wouldn't give me a straight answer and just said it depended on the camel - whether it had milk, how big it was, where it was from, etc. they were wise, these camel traders, behind their smiling eyes. who knows - even if i'm just curious now, i may be a customer someday, and better not to say anything that could someday resurface and cause a clash.... we have enough of those.
** side note on this point - this year the fulbright program launched an 'islamic civilization initiative' which gave extra funding to certain grantees doing projects in the muslim world so that they could spend time when they returned to the US giving lectures and sharing their experiences with americans - to give a firsthand account of islamic civilization in an effort to foster cross-cultural understanding.... however, the bush administration has recently cancelled the program. not surprisingly, unfortunately. the administration wants to entirely control what americans think about islamic civilization and the muslim world.... to have unmonitored americans who had lived in the muslim world talking to americans and giving them an unedited picture of this part of the world and its peoples could be a serious threat to the security of this administration and its agenda... whimper. whimper, whimper.
Friday, May 8, 2009
desert storms
it has been many storms since i have written - storms of many sorts.... the brewing controversy over the muhammed cartoons has tornadoed into a theatre-of-the-absurd situation without a positive or even practical denouement in sight. ... qatar had it's first major thunderstorm in years, which i was fortunate enough to experience in while camping in the desert. it was the first time i've seen rain here, let alone glorious sheets of daggering through an enormous silky sky. ... and i went to my first qatari wedding - a ladies-only affair of course and a perfect storm of ostentatious strutting, lavish barbie-pink and silver, too much food, too loud music, simply outrageous and outrageously risque dresses that defy description and make every oscar ensemble and prom disaster outfit ever seen look tame, gravity-defying hairdos and feature-transforming makeup, coffee being poured, chocolates being passed, money been thrown around (literally), laughter, dancing, and one very nervous, very white glittery spectacle of a bride on a throne.
it has been quite a few weeks.
the wedding was truly beyond description. i'm not sure that i can capture it in words. and sadly cameras and camera-phones are banned from the affair (bags are screened at the door). this came about because photos of young women at weddings, sans abayas and dolled up looking their finest in showy dresses, were being passed around to young men. so now no phones with cameras are allowed. instead, the eligible young ladies must rely on the old-fashioned way of making themselves noticed - dancing and strutting their stuff on a large catwalk that runs through the center of the room - so that other ladies observing will then comment to their sons / brothers / cousins / nephews that a particular girl is pretty, or dances well, or has a nice body, or nice hair. weddings are really one of the few opportunities for girls to be seen and noticed, so each affair is a big deal for everyone. though it is the biggest deal for the bride - this is the most important day of her life and all eyes will be on her - once she arrives, that is. the bride's entrance involved much fanfare and a "space odyssey 2001" kind of dah-dah-dah-daaaah musical intro. then a curtain was raised and she entered, in a voluminous white sparkly gown and veil with a 20-foot train, carefully making her way up the catwalk as the room watched her gingerly step towards the large throne on the stage at the front of the room where she would sit for the entire night. the groom and a few male family members in traditional formal dress did come for a time. prior to their arrival, there was much flurrying and scurrying as everyone covered the splendor of their dresses and hair and sparkles with black abayas, then they arrived up the catwalk, stood for some formal portraits - no smiling - until the other men left and just the groom was left sitting with his bride until they both left together about an hour later. this was not a marriage for love. but at least the bride knew the groom, and at least he was a good catch - good looking, educated, kind. they went to paris for the honeymoon. who knows, maybe they'll fall in love there....
speaking of falling in love, i recently went to oman and fell in love with muscat. i met my parents & my sister emmie there for three fantastic days. it's a truly stunning city - with mountains tumbling into the sea, lush oasis in the midst of the astringent and harsh omani desert-mountain terrain. staying in a hotel that was a converted palace was enchanting, as was the grand mosque, and as were the omanis themselves - very friendly, curious, and gracious people. it was a nice little adventure. so was having my family in doha.... we took a trip out to the desert to go tearing over the sand dunes in a 4x4 driven by a palestinian-qatari with a sense of adventure, run into camels wandering about, and camp in a bedouin tent. the desert is more beautiful than i had imagined. it is mysterious and vast, but also somehow at once gentle and unforgiving at the same time. a remarkable place. equally remarkable was the thunderstorm that broke above our little camel-hair tent at about 4:00 am. very rare, but beautiful to listen to, watch and live through.....
another storm that has been overwhelming to live through is the cartoons controversy. the boycott is still in effect here, and there are bumper-stickers about with various slogans - anti-danish, anti-west, pro-islam, etc.... i have had many conversations with diverse people. the wedding was remarkable in being the first dinner party i had been to in ages where the cartoons did not dominate the conversation... i'm sure you have all talked about it too much yourselves, but it's hard to escape here. i have a conversation class coming up this week where the cartoons are the topic and the question for discussion is whether this is "western terrorism." (you can only imagine how much i am looking forward to discussing this infuriating topic in my abaya....) i have had some surprising conversations, some less so.... some encouraging, many frustrating. i have had a hard time knowing the proper way to express myself on the subject, knowing how the walk the line between being honest and being respectful. or rather, knowing how to walk the line within myself. and of course all the while people are being killed over this, and more mutual damage is being done for "western" - islamic relations than ever, and more misinformation raining down hard on both sides. [i saw a CNN segment entitled "freedom v. sharia law" that (wrongly) claimed that it was "a strict interpretation of sharia law" that banned depictions of the prophet, not islam itself. many well-educated arabs still tell me this is all about the jews and rumors of quran-burning in europe are not uncommon.]
i recently came across a quote from a 2005 salman rushdie article that i thought worth sharing - "Democracy is not a tea party where people sit around making polite conversation. In democracies, people get extremely upset with each other. They argue vehemently against each other's positions. (But they don't shoot.)" so much of this whole controversy (at least here) seems to be about what freedom, or democracy, really means... and i think rushdie has it right here. just as he had it right in the satanic verses - "what kind of idea are you?" ... he asked that throughout the book. (and of course got himself a fatwa for it.) but sometimes we can only know what a free society is, and whether we want it, and if so what it should look like, and where the proverbial line in the sand between freedom and responsibility is drawn, by asking "what kind of idea are you?" what kind of idea are you freedom of speech? what kind of idea are you islam? christianity? secularism? multiculturalism? cultural relativism? is there a point in a free society where we ask all members of such society, immigrant or native, muslim or buddhist or christian, to accept certain values? a point where what we want our society to look like trumps cultural relativism? because is it really possible to have a free society when there are certain groups on the other side of communal values? certain groups protected more than others? is not offense and insult a daily part of life in diverse, democratic cultures? isn't the right to allow that offense and insult, and the dialogue and development and progress that is allowed by the freedom and imagination that also allow offense and insult, what the enlightenment was all about? i worry that the moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it's a belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision or contempt, freedom of thought becomes diminished..... freedom of thought - what kind of idea are you?
i also wonder if sometimes it is necessary to provoke in asking these questions. if provocation is in fact the only way to see where the line in the sand is actually being drawn, to understand what the line really is, what the sand really is - force the shades of grey grains of sand into starker colors.
and maybe provocation is wrong. but maybe it is not. maybe it is not when the london bombers were home-grown - british born and raised - and when honor killings are claiming the lives of young muslim germans in berlin, and when young belgian women are heading to iraq as suicide-bombers.... maybe provocation is not wrong when we are not sure exactly how cultural relativism and freedom and democracy are really working together. and we are concerned that they may in fact be working against each other sometimes. maybe that is the time to provoke, to throw too much sunlight on it all and see what we learn in the glare.....
what kind of idea are you?
it is a dangerous question. but it is perhaps more dangerous not to ask it.
more questions than answers, as usual. but that's usually what storms bring....
i hope that this finds you well, no matter what the forecast is where you are.
it has been quite a few weeks.
the wedding was truly beyond description. i'm not sure that i can capture it in words. and sadly cameras and camera-phones are banned from the affair (bags are screened at the door). this came about because photos of young women at weddings, sans abayas and dolled up looking their finest in showy dresses, were being passed around to young men. so now no phones with cameras are allowed. instead, the eligible young ladies must rely on the old-fashioned way of making themselves noticed - dancing and strutting their stuff on a large catwalk that runs through the center of the room - so that other ladies observing will then comment to their sons / brothers / cousins / nephews that a particular girl is pretty, or dances well, or has a nice body, or nice hair. weddings are really one of the few opportunities for girls to be seen and noticed, so each affair is a big deal for everyone. though it is the biggest deal for the bride - this is the most important day of her life and all eyes will be on her - once she arrives, that is. the bride's entrance involved much fanfare and a "space odyssey 2001" kind of dah-dah-dah-daaaah musical intro. then a curtain was raised and she entered, in a voluminous white sparkly gown and veil with a 20-foot train, carefully making her way up the catwalk as the room watched her gingerly step towards the large throne on the stage at the front of the room where she would sit for the entire night. the groom and a few male family members in traditional formal dress did come for a time. prior to their arrival, there was much flurrying and scurrying as everyone covered the splendor of their dresses and hair and sparkles with black abayas, then they arrived up the catwalk, stood for some formal portraits - no smiling - until the other men left and just the groom was left sitting with his bride until they both left together about an hour later. this was not a marriage for love. but at least the bride knew the groom, and at least he was a good catch - good looking, educated, kind. they went to paris for the honeymoon. who knows, maybe they'll fall in love there....
speaking of falling in love, i recently went to oman and fell in love with muscat. i met my parents & my sister emmie there for three fantastic days. it's a truly stunning city - with mountains tumbling into the sea, lush oasis in the midst of the astringent and harsh omani desert-mountain terrain. staying in a hotel that was a converted palace was enchanting, as was the grand mosque, and as were the omanis themselves - very friendly, curious, and gracious people. it was a nice little adventure. so was having my family in doha.... we took a trip out to the desert to go tearing over the sand dunes in a 4x4 driven by a palestinian-qatari with a sense of adventure, run into camels wandering about, and camp in a bedouin tent. the desert is more beautiful than i had imagined. it is mysterious and vast, but also somehow at once gentle and unforgiving at the same time. a remarkable place. equally remarkable was the thunderstorm that broke above our little camel-hair tent at about 4:00 am. very rare, but beautiful to listen to, watch and live through.....
another storm that has been overwhelming to live through is the cartoons controversy. the boycott is still in effect here, and there are bumper-stickers about with various slogans - anti-danish, anti-west, pro-islam, etc.... i have had many conversations with diverse people. the wedding was remarkable in being the first dinner party i had been to in ages where the cartoons did not dominate the conversation... i'm sure you have all talked about it too much yourselves, but it's hard to escape here. i have a conversation class coming up this week where the cartoons are the topic and the question for discussion is whether this is "western terrorism." (you can only imagine how much i am looking forward to discussing this infuriating topic in my abaya....) i have had some surprising conversations, some less so.... some encouraging, many frustrating. i have had a hard time knowing the proper way to express myself on the subject, knowing how the walk the line between being honest and being respectful. or rather, knowing how to walk the line within myself. and of course all the while people are being killed over this, and more mutual damage is being done for "western" - islamic relations than ever, and more misinformation raining down hard on both sides. [i saw a CNN segment entitled "freedom v. sharia law" that (wrongly) claimed that it was "a strict interpretation of sharia law" that banned depictions of the prophet, not islam itself. many well-educated arabs still tell me this is all about the jews and rumors of quran-burning in europe are not uncommon.]
i recently came across a quote from a 2005 salman rushdie article that i thought worth sharing - "Democracy is not a tea party where people sit around making polite conversation. In democracies, people get extremely upset with each other. They argue vehemently against each other's positions. (But they don't shoot.)" so much of this whole controversy (at least here) seems to be about what freedom, or democracy, really means... and i think rushdie has it right here. just as he had it right in the satanic verses - "what kind of idea are you?" ... he asked that throughout the book. (and of course got himself a fatwa for it.) but sometimes we can only know what a free society is, and whether we want it, and if so what it should look like, and where the proverbial line in the sand between freedom and responsibility is drawn, by asking "what kind of idea are you?" what kind of idea are you freedom of speech? what kind of idea are you islam? christianity? secularism? multiculturalism? cultural relativism? is there a point in a free society where we ask all members of such society, immigrant or native, muslim or buddhist or christian, to accept certain values? a point where what we want our society to look like trumps cultural relativism? because is it really possible to have a free society when there are certain groups on the other side of communal values? certain groups protected more than others? is not offense and insult a daily part of life in diverse, democratic cultures? isn't the right to allow that offense and insult, and the dialogue and development and progress that is allowed by the freedom and imagination that also allow offense and insult, what the enlightenment was all about? i worry that the moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it's a belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision or contempt, freedom of thought becomes diminished..... freedom of thought - what kind of idea are you?
i also wonder if sometimes it is necessary to provoke in asking these questions. if provocation is in fact the only way to see where the line in the sand is actually being drawn, to understand what the line really is, what the sand really is - force the shades of grey grains of sand into starker colors.
and maybe provocation is wrong. but maybe it is not. maybe it is not when the london bombers were home-grown - british born and raised - and when honor killings are claiming the lives of young muslim germans in berlin, and when young belgian women are heading to iraq as suicide-bombers.... maybe provocation is not wrong when we are not sure exactly how cultural relativism and freedom and democracy are really working together. and we are concerned that they may in fact be working against each other sometimes. maybe that is the time to provoke, to throw too much sunlight on it all and see what we learn in the glare.....
what kind of idea are you?
it is a dangerous question. but it is perhaps more dangerous not to ask it.
more questions than answers, as usual. but that's usually what storms bring....
i hope that this finds you well, no matter what the forecast is where you are.
matters large and small
sometimes i feel as though globalization is a two way process, a cylinder which operates in two directions, subterfuging us in and closer together while simultaneously pulling the world out from some center of common humanity and apart. in that state, matters of small and large are all relative and i sometimes wonder if those words have any meaning any more. anything trivial has the potential to be monumental and monstrosities sometimes go unnoticed as we focus on specks.
today i walked into the grocery store to discover tidy signs posted at the entrance, on the cheese shelves, where biscuits should be, all about, noting that danish and norwegian goods were being boycotted and would not be stocked. this boycott is in response to cartoons published in danish and norwegian newspapers that depicted the prophet muhammad. the depictions were less than flattering (muhammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb complete with lit fuse, muhammad with his eyes blacked out, carrying a curved dagger and flanked by two women wearing burqas, muhammad with points from a crescent moon behind his head giving the appearance of horns), but the actual blasphemy was depicting muhammad at all. unlike faiths that are all about iconography, any depiction or representation of the prophet is haram and not just disrespectful, but really blasphemous. beyond blasphemous in a way. that's why, if you've ever seen the movie "the message" which tells the story of muhammad, the camera is muhammad, so in effect, the watcher is the prophet because everyone addresses the camera when addressing the prophet. it's actually a good movie that i'd recommend for a broad-strokes look at this man and his message, the beginnings of islam. but i digress.... the boycott began in saudi, and is sweeping across the gulf, with the backing of many imams and religious leaders across the region, so it was no real surprise to walk into my grocery store (which p.s. is french (carrefour)) and see those signs. as one of the first companies to boycott danish goods explained, this is a "boycott of Danish products until that country's largest daily apologizes for publishing 12 cartoons that mocked the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)." the danes and the norwegians (who re-published the offensive cartoons) see this as a free speech issue. muslims see this as deeply insulting, part of a "culture of islamophobia" in europe, and uncivilized behavior to engage in the name of freedom of expression. as the sec-gen of the world assembly of muslim youth put it, "mocking at the prophets (peace be upon them) is highly degrading and subverts the call for human values and freedom of faith advocated by the United Nations Charter." muslim danes are trying to bring the newspaper, which has already received death threats and other unseemly attacks, to the european court of human rights. the UN has asked the danish government to explain its stance on the issue. it's a sticky situation. all caused by twelve little pictures. is this big or small? feels tremendous here, but i haven't seen it at all in the international press. and seeing my french supermarket in qatar responding to images printed in scandanavia by joining a boycott that began in saudi arabia made this place feel very big and on the map for a moment.
because sometimes this place just feels so small. i feel this way especially as i increasingly realize how much everything here is owned by 5 people. i thought it was about 10, but really it's closer to 5. all the leading men of the royal family, who not only run the government, but own the hotels and the malls and restaurants and the stores and the gas companies. so the foreign minister owns the four seasons, its apartment and office towers, the ritz, a big stake in the main mall, a natural gas company or two, a couple of banks, transport companies, restaurants, other hotels, other malls, other office towers - you get the idea. overwhelming to realize sometimes. and then there are the moments when you realize how small and tribal this population is. a foreign friend was recently watching a movie with a qatari colleague and in the movie a young man was marrying his first cousin and she made some comment about how that was gross. to which the qatari colleague replied that he was marrying his cousin about a month..... oops. it's actually very, very common here. (my friend was still invited to her colleague's wedding despite her guffaw.)
in other big news, byran adams is returning to doha tomorrow to work a little of his "everything i do" magic over our rather divided, diverse doha society. i'm sure again his performance will be a chance for all of the various people caught in the crosswinds of this place, big and small, to stop being pulled in different directions and sway tearfully to the robin hood theme song. ahh, messy glorious globalization.
that's all for now, just wanted to share my supermarket moment. would be curious to hear what you think about the size of things when you have a break in your currents.... meanwhile, take good care.
today i walked into the grocery store to discover tidy signs posted at the entrance, on the cheese shelves, where biscuits should be, all about, noting that danish and norwegian goods were being boycotted and would not be stocked. this boycott is in response to cartoons published in danish and norwegian newspapers that depicted the prophet muhammad. the depictions were less than flattering (muhammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb complete with lit fuse, muhammad with his eyes blacked out, carrying a curved dagger and flanked by two women wearing burqas, muhammad with points from a crescent moon behind his head giving the appearance of horns), but the actual blasphemy was depicting muhammad at all. unlike faiths that are all about iconography, any depiction or representation of the prophet is haram and not just disrespectful, but really blasphemous. beyond blasphemous in a way. that's why, if you've ever seen the movie "the message" which tells the story of muhammad, the camera is muhammad, so in effect, the watcher is the prophet because everyone addresses the camera when addressing the prophet. it's actually a good movie that i'd recommend for a broad-strokes look at this man and his message, the beginnings of islam. but i digress.... the boycott began in saudi, and is sweeping across the gulf, with the backing of many imams and religious leaders across the region, so it was no real surprise to walk into my grocery store (which p.s. is french (carrefour)) and see those signs. as one of the first companies to boycott danish goods explained, this is a "boycott of Danish products until that country's largest daily apologizes for publishing 12 cartoons that mocked the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)." the danes and the norwegians (who re-published the offensive cartoons) see this as a free speech issue. muslims see this as deeply insulting, part of a "culture of islamophobia" in europe, and uncivilized behavior to engage in the name of freedom of expression. as the sec-gen of the world assembly of muslim youth put it, "mocking at the prophets (peace be upon them) is highly degrading and subverts the call for human values and freedom of faith advocated by the United Nations Charter." muslim danes are trying to bring the newspaper, which has already received death threats and other unseemly attacks, to the european court of human rights. the UN has asked the danish government to explain its stance on the issue. it's a sticky situation. all caused by twelve little pictures. is this big or small? feels tremendous here, but i haven't seen it at all in the international press. and seeing my french supermarket in qatar responding to images printed in scandanavia by joining a boycott that began in saudi arabia made this place feel very big and on the map for a moment.
because sometimes this place just feels so small. i feel this way especially as i increasingly realize how much everything here is owned by 5 people. i thought it was about 10, but really it's closer to 5. all the leading men of the royal family, who not only run the government, but own the hotels and the malls and restaurants and the stores and the gas companies. so the foreign minister owns the four seasons, its apartment and office towers, the ritz, a big stake in the main mall, a natural gas company or two, a couple of banks, transport companies, restaurants, other hotels, other malls, other office towers - you get the idea. overwhelming to realize sometimes. and then there are the moments when you realize how small and tribal this population is. a foreign friend was recently watching a movie with a qatari colleague and in the movie a young man was marrying his first cousin and she made some comment about how that was gross. to which the qatari colleague replied that he was marrying his cousin about a month..... oops. it's actually very, very common here. (my friend was still invited to her colleague's wedding despite her guffaw.)
in other big news, byran adams is returning to doha tomorrow to work a little of his "everything i do" magic over our rather divided, diverse doha society. i'm sure again his performance will be a chance for all of the various people caught in the crosswinds of this place, big and small, to stop being pulled in different directions and sway tearfully to the robin hood theme song. ahh, messy glorious globalization.
that's all for now, just wanted to share my supermarket moment. would be curious to hear what you think about the size of things when you have a break in your currents.... meanwhile, take good care.
nightmare on istiqlal street
no, i'm not talking about michael jackson. though the fact that he is hanging out in neighboring bahrain, wearing an abaya & walking around with veiled children is mildly disturbing and confirms once again that no good can come from pushing a child into pop-stardom at age 5, the nightmare of which i speak is a little closer to home.....
by the way, happy new year! i hope 2006 is treating you very well thus far. 2005 closed out wonderfully for me - my sister sadie's wedding was beautiful and fabulously fun, my trip back to the US was wonderful, even if whirlwinded, and I started off 2006 with a trip to cairo - which is truly an amazing & alive city..... if back in 2005 you had asked me what would make returning to doha unbearable for me, i probably would have said if somehow it turned into saudi, if the traffic got any worse, or if they cut off even more foreign-based lifelines, like foreign music on the radio.... strangely enough, i have come back to qatar to find that all of the above have eerily come to pass...
doha is over-run by saudis and other halijis (people from the gulf) at the moment. estimates have ranged from 100,000 - 300,000 re: the number of saudis currently in doha. and when i say over-run i mean it. this is not a big city. the influx started with a trickle and has become a deluge, and it is anticipated to get even worse now that the weekend is here.... i knew something was up my first day back in doha when i walked into the mall to find a veritable riot outside the qatar national bank branch in city centre (the biggest mall). masses of robed men, pushing, shoving, shouting. security guards trying to maintain some sort of line. animated debates and wild gestures and flinging of headdresses.... i slinked by and made it to the grocery store, quite pleased with myself for realizing that there must be some new stock being offered on the doha securities market. (whenever there is a new IPO, scenes like this happen at every registration site.) but i knew that it would only be for a few days, then the qatari bidding period would end and the market would be opened up to us mere mortals not blessed enough to be born qatari and the storm would die down.... what i didn't know was that this wasn't an IPO for just any stock, and that it wasn't just going to be offered to qataris at a special rate. it turns out that a powerful new islamic bank is in the midst of the grandest IPO since google here in doha. it's a purely islamic bank, which is huge, will operate across the region, and has structured the offering such that after qataris, all GCC nationals get an early shot specially priced shares. [GCC = gulf cooperation council, the regional organization of the gulf states] however, everyone needs to register for their shares in person. so doha has become the hottest spot in the region as halijis from everywhere flock to get their piece of this historic action... the saudis are by far the largest group - many just driving over the border. as i said, i've heard estimates from 100,000 - 300,000 (which was apparently the gulf times figure), so i'll be safe and say there are 200,000 saudis in sweet little doha at the moment. plus people from the rest of the gulf. the city is absolutely swamped.
traffic is abysmal. there are more SUVs with terrible drivers everywhere. and of course there are all sorts of bizarre new construction projects going on making matters worse. i swear i will never understand why the roads here are always under construction for no apparent reason. what happens is one day there's a road, the next it's simply closed off. or part of it is. or there's a diversion..... the roundabout closest to my house is under construction at the moment. a large sign was a erected that says "deep excavation" and the workers appear to be digging a pit where the sidewalk and one corner of the roundabout once were. those signs always baffle me. deep excavation for what? oil? no, that's not in this region. artifacts? no. dinosaurs? no. traffic is so bad at the moment that my commute to work this morning, a simple trip of approximately 3 miles which usually takes no more than 5 minutes, took me 1 hour and 45 minutes.... i'm not kidding. it was during this commute that i realized i was living in nightmare on istqilal street. [istiglal = independence btw] after reaching the rainbow roundabout [site of ambiguous "deep excavation" project # 23] and seeing it was totally bottlenecked, i cleverly turned off to take a little shortcut i know.... only to discover that the next roundabout - the qatar sports club roundabout - was a war zone. the qatar sports club was one of the registration sites for the IPO, so there were cars parked everywhere - on the street, sidewalk, grass, hanging in the trees, and about 10,000 saudi men milling around, and about 10,000 more impatiently trying to get to the roundabout and driving poorly. this was on istqilal street. where, to make matters worse, i saw a dead puppy. (i'm not even kidding. looked like a yellow lab. (the exxon mobile compound is there & a lot of other foreigners live in that area so it was probably from one of those homes. the locals don't keep dogs.)) after sitting in traffic for some time, mourning the puppy, i reached the roundabout only to have it be closed by the police because there had been an accident. no surprise there. i forlornly watched the two would-be shareholders rant at each other as i turned the only way i could - the wrong way - and kept going. at the next roundabout, i decided to give up on this whole area of town and go the long way round via t.v. roundabout (so named because the al-jeezera tower is there). however, this was a terrible mistake because i sat in traffic for about 45 minutes just trying to reach the roundabout. this is when the third part of this perfect storm of misery got to me - the radio.
when i first came back to doha, all the radio stations were only playing prayers all the time, 24 / 7. this was because an important sheikh in the UAE had just died. he was vice premier of the UAE & president of dubai or something along those lines. apparently, the whole region went into mourning, including the radio.. however, when the mourning ended and regular radio resumed, the one radio station i liked, a dance and R&B station from dubai (where else?), didn't resurface. apparently it has been blocked.... this is a big tragedy. i found it extremely gratifying and a source of quiet joy to be able to drive around doha listening to gwen stefani or madonna or whatever other scandalous and cheesy songs they played. now, i am forced to listen to local radio, which aside from the occasional gem of a call-in show (when i can understand it), is basically terrible. all broadcasts must be interrupted at prayer times for the call to prayer. this is very often followed with a hypnotic chorus of two voices, a man and a woman, repeating after each other melodiously, extolling listeners to "read the quran, read the quran, read the quran, read the quran, read the quran" for some time. that was what i was listening to when stuck in my car in a sea of saudis stuck in their cars, saddened by a dead puppy and late for work. after the 'read the quran' bit, some stations also do what i think of as the 'paradise rhapsody.' it starts with the sounds of a bunch of tweeting birds and rushing water. then the water (presumably a river or a stream) just quiets down, and your just left with tweeting. the whole segment lasts a good 3 - 5 minutes (which is a lot of tweeting). i'm not really sure what that is about. my theory is that maybe it's the sounds of paradise... ? anyway, the "tweet, tweet, tweet" just added to the nightmarishness.... i've since decided that the birds in my paradise will not have high-pitched tweets, and will in fact be a jazz band. ;-)
but enough on that. being back has not been all bad. (though i am laying low until this IPO insanity is over) i have become closer with one remarkable qatari woman and have learned more about qatari married life and qatari society through her. it all continues to intrigue me, perhaps because it is so hard to know and understand. it is, quite literally, so covered. her friendship is definitely a growing joy in the new year.... otherwise, life is quiet. classes don't start again until february, so i have a lot more time to stare at the sand and ponder the sky. [there was crazy weather earlier this week actually - apparently caused by violent sandstorms in the north - the whole city was basically just covered in sand. even the air looked sand-coloured. truly bizarre.]
and that's about the shape of things with me... i hope this finds you well, whatever sky you're pondering.
by the way, happy new year! i hope 2006 is treating you very well thus far. 2005 closed out wonderfully for me - my sister sadie's wedding was beautiful and fabulously fun, my trip back to the US was wonderful, even if whirlwinded, and I started off 2006 with a trip to cairo - which is truly an amazing & alive city..... if back in 2005 you had asked me what would make returning to doha unbearable for me, i probably would have said if somehow it turned into saudi, if the traffic got any worse, or if they cut off even more foreign-based lifelines, like foreign music on the radio.... strangely enough, i have come back to qatar to find that all of the above have eerily come to pass...
doha is over-run by saudis and other halijis (people from the gulf) at the moment. estimates have ranged from 100,000 - 300,000 re: the number of saudis currently in doha. and when i say over-run i mean it. this is not a big city. the influx started with a trickle and has become a deluge, and it is anticipated to get even worse now that the weekend is here.... i knew something was up my first day back in doha when i walked into the mall to find a veritable riot outside the qatar national bank branch in city centre (the biggest mall). masses of robed men, pushing, shoving, shouting. security guards trying to maintain some sort of line. animated debates and wild gestures and flinging of headdresses.... i slinked by and made it to the grocery store, quite pleased with myself for realizing that there must be some new stock being offered on the doha securities market. (whenever there is a new IPO, scenes like this happen at every registration site.) but i knew that it would only be for a few days, then the qatari bidding period would end and the market would be opened up to us mere mortals not blessed enough to be born qatari and the storm would die down.... what i didn't know was that this wasn't an IPO for just any stock, and that it wasn't just going to be offered to qataris at a special rate. it turns out that a powerful new islamic bank is in the midst of the grandest IPO since google here in doha. it's a purely islamic bank, which is huge, will operate across the region, and has structured the offering such that after qataris, all GCC nationals get an early shot specially priced shares. [GCC = gulf cooperation council, the regional organization of the gulf states] however, everyone needs to register for their shares in person. so doha has become the hottest spot in the region as halijis from everywhere flock to get their piece of this historic action... the saudis are by far the largest group - many just driving over the border. as i said, i've heard estimates from 100,000 - 300,000 (which was apparently the gulf times figure), so i'll be safe and say there are 200,000 saudis in sweet little doha at the moment. plus people from the rest of the gulf. the city is absolutely swamped.
traffic is abysmal. there are more SUVs with terrible drivers everywhere. and of course there are all sorts of bizarre new construction projects going on making matters worse. i swear i will never understand why the roads here are always under construction for no apparent reason. what happens is one day there's a road, the next it's simply closed off. or part of it is. or there's a diversion..... the roundabout closest to my house is under construction at the moment. a large sign was a erected that says "deep excavation" and the workers appear to be digging a pit where the sidewalk and one corner of the roundabout once were. those signs always baffle me. deep excavation for what? oil? no, that's not in this region. artifacts? no. dinosaurs? no. traffic is so bad at the moment that my commute to work this morning, a simple trip of approximately 3 miles which usually takes no more than 5 minutes, took me 1 hour and 45 minutes.... i'm not kidding. it was during this commute that i realized i was living in nightmare on istqilal street. [istiglal = independence btw] after reaching the rainbow roundabout [site of ambiguous "deep excavation" project # 23] and seeing it was totally bottlenecked, i cleverly turned off to take a little shortcut i know.... only to discover that the next roundabout - the qatar sports club roundabout - was a war zone. the qatar sports club was one of the registration sites for the IPO, so there were cars parked everywhere - on the street, sidewalk, grass, hanging in the trees, and about 10,000 saudi men milling around, and about 10,000 more impatiently trying to get to the roundabout and driving poorly. this was on istqilal street. where, to make matters worse, i saw a dead puppy. (i'm not even kidding. looked like a yellow lab. (the exxon mobile compound is there & a lot of other foreigners live in that area so it was probably from one of those homes. the locals don't keep dogs.)) after sitting in traffic for some time, mourning the puppy, i reached the roundabout only to have it be closed by the police because there had been an accident. no surprise there. i forlornly watched the two would-be shareholders rant at each other as i turned the only way i could - the wrong way - and kept going. at the next roundabout, i decided to give up on this whole area of town and go the long way round via t.v. roundabout (so named because the al-jeezera tower is there). however, this was a terrible mistake because i sat in traffic for about 45 minutes just trying to reach the roundabout. this is when the third part of this perfect storm of misery got to me - the radio.
when i first came back to doha, all the radio stations were only playing prayers all the time, 24 / 7. this was because an important sheikh in the UAE had just died. he was vice premier of the UAE & president of dubai or something along those lines. apparently, the whole region went into mourning, including the radio.. however, when the mourning ended and regular radio resumed, the one radio station i liked, a dance and R&B station from dubai (where else?), didn't resurface. apparently it has been blocked.... this is a big tragedy. i found it extremely gratifying and a source of quiet joy to be able to drive around doha listening to gwen stefani or madonna or whatever other scandalous and cheesy songs they played. now, i am forced to listen to local radio, which aside from the occasional gem of a call-in show (when i can understand it), is basically terrible. all broadcasts must be interrupted at prayer times for the call to prayer. this is very often followed with a hypnotic chorus of two voices, a man and a woman, repeating after each other melodiously, extolling listeners to "read the quran, read the quran, read the quran, read the quran, read the quran" for some time. that was what i was listening to when stuck in my car in a sea of saudis stuck in their cars, saddened by a dead puppy and late for work. after the 'read the quran' bit, some stations also do what i think of as the 'paradise rhapsody.' it starts with the sounds of a bunch of tweeting birds and rushing water. then the water (presumably a river or a stream) just quiets down, and your just left with tweeting. the whole segment lasts a good 3 - 5 minutes (which is a lot of tweeting). i'm not really sure what that is about. my theory is that maybe it's the sounds of paradise... ? anyway, the "tweet, tweet, tweet" just added to the nightmarishness.... i've since decided that the birds in my paradise will not have high-pitched tweets, and will in fact be a jazz band. ;-)
but enough on that. being back has not been all bad. (though i am laying low until this IPO insanity is over) i have become closer with one remarkable qatari woman and have learned more about qatari married life and qatari society through her. it all continues to intrigue me, perhaps because it is so hard to know and understand. it is, quite literally, so covered. her friendship is definitely a growing joy in the new year.... otherwise, life is quiet. classes don't start again until february, so i have a lot more time to stare at the sand and ponder the sky. [there was crazy weather earlier this week actually - apparently caused by violent sandstorms in the north - the whole city was basically just covered in sand. even the air looked sand-coloured. truly bizarre.]
and that's about the shape of things with me... i hope this finds you well, whatever sky you're pondering.
doha round 1
so, as this doha round draws to a close, i think i'm coming out standing. 'tis the season for reflection and all....
i really can't believe how quickly these first four months have flown by. but i suppose that's life - you settle into rhythms and they just beat away as you go about your days and ways....
it was almost sad to finish exams at the university amid the uncommon and unlikely little community we have created in the classroom.... class was always quite an amusing little scene. kim kabir (big kim - the crazy, older north korean spy) continued to be a source of wonder. and pascal, a frenchman of north african descent, former paratrooper in the army, recent convert to islam and rather fanatic about it and somewhat scary even before paris was burning (white thube, shaved head but long wild beard, spot on his forehead from praying so much, fiery eyes, booming voice, lots of animosity towards america & the west), took to showing up once a week, if that, and the professors didn't say anything. (i actually rather like pascal & am not afraid of him; he even looks me in the eye now.) farid, from benin, who tried to convert me to islam on day one, continued to be aloof. mohammed sar, from senegal and a sweetheart, continued to be a ray of sunshine and is always called upon to run errands for the professors or reach high things because he is so tall. the little filipinos were rather quiet, but occasionally very funny. abdullah the american-white-guy-muslim-convert-who-dresses-in-"islam the active line"-and-conspicuously-fingers-his-prayer-beads-during-class continued to play that part perfectly. patrick, a master's student from georgetown, continued to be a friend and a good source of news and insights from the boys dorm. oh, and violeta, the woman from kosovo, had her baby - a girl. professor abdullah, who is from mauritania and is absolutely fabulous, continued to wear the same suit for a week straight, while professor mahmoud continued to think that we don't understand something because we are not listening, not because we don't know the vocabulary..... it has been an interesting three hours each day.
the cast of characters at the office and my time there has also been interesting.... our secretary, miriam, is a tiny, tiny filipino woman who looks like she cannot be older than 12, is very shy, and calls the managing partner "sir alaa," which i find very odd. zuhair, originally from gaza, is the "guy around the office" and just kind of does it all - answers the phone, types arabic documents, sends faxes, organizes things, and reads the newspapers. he and i get along well and he is actually very thoughtful and has interesting ideas on things. he came into my office the other day when there weren't many others around to talk about politics in the arab world. he told me how there was a huge difference between "democracy" and "freedom of expression / freedom of viewpoint" - which doesn't exist in the arab world.... something you hear talked about a lot, but very rarely from someone like zuhair. (he told me not to tell anyone he said it of course.) then there's mr. abdulati, a jolly round egyptian who wears vests with his suits and is always engrossed deep in research - in books, he doesn't have a computer in his office and i don't think ever uses one. mr. khalifa bin rassid, the qatari partner and "head" of the firm, sits regally in his office smoking, drinking coffee, reading the papers, and entertaining friends. i don't think he does any work, but it's his firm, and as a qatari that's his contribution (you need a qatari partner with majority, if not total, ownership to have a local law firm). emad is a round-faced, friendly young egyptian, who tries to look serious but doesn't quite succeed. hatim is the skinniest man i have ever seen and makes an art of studiously ignoring me and coming and going as he pleases. alaa, a palestinian-jordanian, is the managing partner and who i work with. he's snobby but kind, exists on cigarettes and coffee, at least while at the office, and keeps the whole firm afloat. finally, ismail, the indian tea-boy / driver, is always about, usually kicking it with miriam and zuhair at the front of the office if he's not busy. the arab law bureau is a curious little place, but enjoyable....
i wonder if i will miss these daily routines.... at this point i doubt it because i am very much ready for a break, but i realize that i have certainly been blessed with the opportunity to have some unique experiences, with some unique characters, here.
speaking of experiences, without a doubt the biggest change in my daily life here has been driving. i drive everywhere everyday. it's the only way to get around. but it's also its own peculiar form of madness..... driving here requires an interesting mix of being at once very cautious and rather aggressive. everyone drives like maniacs and it doesn't help that half the city is under construction all the time, so roads are constantly being closed and re-routed, and there is a system of round-abouts without any traffic lights, lanes, or even rules, and that the city just cannot handle the flow of cars on the roads. learning your way around is also a bit tricky because everyone uses the round-abouts as landmarks for giving directions, but often they have nicknames or are named after things that are no longer there. "crazy roundabout" for example is now no longer a roundabout at all, but a traffic signal. and "stinky roundabout" - officially named soudan roundabout - is so nicknamed because it supposedly smells, but that's hard to know when the windows are closed. "cholesterol roundabout" is also no longer a roundabout, but identifiable because there is a large collection of fast-food joints at that intersection.... you get the idea. i think i've become a pretty decent driver, though i can't imagine being in a land where each roundabout is not a free-for-all battle, and people actually yield before merging on to roads, rather than swinging blindly into traffic, or where angry arab men in huge land cruisers and hummers don't come tailgating up behind you, flashing their brights at you so you'll move lanes and they can continue to roar along at 50 kilometers per hour over the speed limit.... aih. there has been a recent initiative in the region to warn against reckless driving as a "health crisis" because deaths from auto accidents are so numerous it's an epidemic - the 2nd leading cause of death in the gulf apparently....
but i've braved the driving fight, and again, am still standing.... and stepping out of this ring for spell....
i leave shortly for a glorious sojourn oceans from here.... i'll be joining my family to celebrate my sister sadie's wedding in the bahamas (which is very wonderfulexciting!!!), heading to miami for new year's, then will be in DC & NYC in the beginning of january. if you are in either of those locales - mark your calendars! i'll be in DC from jan. 2 - 10, with a trip up to NYC the weekend of jan. 6 - 8. i'll have my ba's mobile, so you can reach me at 703.395.6495..... i would love to see you!
i'll be back with more adventures in the next doha round after the new year..... meanwhile, i hope that all is merry and bright and that this finds you and yours in splendid spirits.
i really can't believe how quickly these first four months have flown by. but i suppose that's life - you settle into rhythms and they just beat away as you go about your days and ways....
it was almost sad to finish exams at the university amid the uncommon and unlikely little community we have created in the classroom.... class was always quite an amusing little scene. kim kabir (big kim - the crazy, older north korean spy) continued to be a source of wonder. and pascal, a frenchman of north african descent, former paratrooper in the army, recent convert to islam and rather fanatic about it and somewhat scary even before paris was burning (white thube, shaved head but long wild beard, spot on his forehead from praying so much, fiery eyes, booming voice, lots of animosity towards america & the west), took to showing up once a week, if that, and the professors didn't say anything. (i actually rather like pascal & am not afraid of him; he even looks me in the eye now.) farid, from benin, who tried to convert me to islam on day one, continued to be aloof. mohammed sar, from senegal and a sweetheart, continued to be a ray of sunshine and is always called upon to run errands for the professors or reach high things because he is so tall. the little filipinos were rather quiet, but occasionally very funny. abdullah the american-white-guy-muslim-convert-who-dresses-in-"islam the active line"-and-conspicuously-fingers-his-prayer-beads-during-class continued to play that part perfectly. patrick, a master's student from georgetown, continued to be a friend and a good source of news and insights from the boys dorm. oh, and violeta, the woman from kosovo, had her baby - a girl. professor abdullah, who is from mauritania and is absolutely fabulous, continued to wear the same suit for a week straight, while professor mahmoud continued to think that we don't understand something because we are not listening, not because we don't know the vocabulary..... it has been an interesting three hours each day.
the cast of characters at the office and my time there has also been interesting.... our secretary, miriam, is a tiny, tiny filipino woman who looks like she cannot be older than 12, is very shy, and calls the managing partner "sir alaa," which i find very odd. zuhair, originally from gaza, is the "guy around the office" and just kind of does it all - answers the phone, types arabic documents, sends faxes, organizes things, and reads the newspapers. he and i get along well and he is actually very thoughtful and has interesting ideas on things. he came into my office the other day when there weren't many others around to talk about politics in the arab world. he told me how there was a huge difference between "democracy" and "freedom of expression / freedom of viewpoint" - which doesn't exist in the arab world.... something you hear talked about a lot, but very rarely from someone like zuhair. (he told me not to tell anyone he said it of course.) then there's mr. abdulati, a jolly round egyptian who wears vests with his suits and is always engrossed deep in research - in books, he doesn't have a computer in his office and i don't think ever uses one. mr. khalifa bin rassid, the qatari partner and "head" of the firm, sits regally in his office smoking, drinking coffee, reading the papers, and entertaining friends. i don't think he does any work, but it's his firm, and as a qatari that's his contribution (you need a qatari partner with majority, if not total, ownership to have a local law firm). emad is a round-faced, friendly young egyptian, who tries to look serious but doesn't quite succeed. hatim is the skinniest man i have ever seen and makes an art of studiously ignoring me and coming and going as he pleases. alaa, a palestinian-jordanian, is the managing partner and who i work with. he's snobby but kind, exists on cigarettes and coffee, at least while at the office, and keeps the whole firm afloat. finally, ismail, the indian tea-boy / driver, is always about, usually kicking it with miriam and zuhair at the front of the office if he's not busy. the arab law bureau is a curious little place, but enjoyable....
i wonder if i will miss these daily routines.... at this point i doubt it because i am very much ready for a break, but i realize that i have certainly been blessed with the opportunity to have some unique experiences, with some unique characters, here.
speaking of experiences, without a doubt the biggest change in my daily life here has been driving. i drive everywhere everyday. it's the only way to get around. but it's also its own peculiar form of madness..... driving here requires an interesting mix of being at once very cautious and rather aggressive. everyone drives like maniacs and it doesn't help that half the city is under construction all the time, so roads are constantly being closed and re-routed, and there is a system of round-abouts without any traffic lights, lanes, or even rules, and that the city just cannot handle the flow of cars on the roads. learning your way around is also a bit tricky because everyone uses the round-abouts as landmarks for giving directions, but often they have nicknames or are named after things that are no longer there. "crazy roundabout" for example is now no longer a roundabout at all, but a traffic signal. and "stinky roundabout" - officially named soudan roundabout - is so nicknamed because it supposedly smells, but that's hard to know when the windows are closed. "cholesterol roundabout" is also no longer a roundabout, but identifiable because there is a large collection of fast-food joints at that intersection.... you get the idea. i think i've become a pretty decent driver, though i can't imagine being in a land where each roundabout is not a free-for-all battle, and people actually yield before merging on to roads, rather than swinging blindly into traffic, or where angry arab men in huge land cruisers and hummers don't come tailgating up behind you, flashing their brights at you so you'll move lanes and they can continue to roar along at 50 kilometers per hour over the speed limit.... aih. there has been a recent initiative in the region to warn against reckless driving as a "health crisis" because deaths from auto accidents are so numerous it's an epidemic - the 2nd leading cause of death in the gulf apparently....
but i've braved the driving fight, and again, am still standing.... and stepping out of this ring for spell....
i leave shortly for a glorious sojourn oceans from here.... i'll be joining my family to celebrate my sister sadie's wedding in the bahamas (which is very wonderfulexciting!!!), heading to miami for new year's, then will be in DC & NYC in the beginning of january. if you are in either of those locales - mark your calendars! i'll be in DC from jan. 2 - 10, with a trip up to NYC the weekend of jan. 6 - 8. i'll have my ba's mobile, so you can reach me at 703.395.6495..... i would love to see you!
i'll be back with more adventures in the next doha round after the new year..... meanwhile, i hope that all is merry and bright and that this finds you and yours in splendid spirits.
"at least it's not saudi"
this phrase has to be the most common refrain of my life's music here in doha. when i hear it coming, an almost warmth comes over me in the way that happens when you're meeting an old friend or about to eat a favourite desert.... but i get to greet this familiar refrain all the time here. you hear it from everyone - locals, foreigners of all flavours - westerners, south asians, non-qatari arabs, even casual visitors (including wes clark who i happened to meet the other night at a cigar event organized by a sheikh i know)..... the causal visitor encounters aside, there's almost a ritual to it among those of us who call these sands home and it goes something like this:
doha resident A - "did you hear about the couple that was arrested for kissing in city center last week?" [city center is a big mall and a major hang-out spot] "i read about it in the gulf times." [the gulf times is an insulting excuse of a newspaper that you only read when you've been here too long or have msn as your homepage due to lack of imagination]
doha resident B - "hmmmph. were they qatari?!?"
A - "no, foreigners."
doha resident C - "were they arab?!?"
A - "i don't know, the paper didn't say."
B - "you know, i've seen a lot of secretive hand-holding in city center these days... including qataris!" (triumphant grin over this nugget of insight)
C - "yes, but that's not kissing.... though i still can't believe they were arrested."
A - "well, ... at least it's not saudi!"
A,B,C and anyone else around all exchange meaningful glances at this point. At least one person mumbles "allhamdulila" [thanks to allah / praise to allah], no matter what religion or nationality he is (everyone's speech here is peppered with "inshallah" and "allhamdulila" and "mashallah" no matter where they are from). most likely at least one of the others repeats "allhamdulila" as they all nod meaningfully. then if you're lucky, somebody will bust out with some really great "Saudi is the source of all evil / hell on earth" story. and sure, maybe Saudi Arabia is the source of all evil [may allah smite me now for saying that (well, if allah "smites" that is; to my knowledge the quran is silent on that matter)], but the longer i am here the more I realize that Qatar is just a hop, skip, and jump away from Saudi, and the more i see the inherent contradictions and aberrations that inevitably exist in a society bowed under a form of islam that can be at best described as "conservative," the more that refrain seems hollow.
the lastest and most spirited rounds of "at least it's not saudi" i heard were in response to my telling people that i am now required to wear the abaya when on campus at qatar university. and i am now wearing the abaya on campus each day (hop), and i have a hijab, but am not required to cover my head (skip) or wear the face-covering yashmek (jump). this new requirement was forced upon me because (male) qatari students had complained to the administration that my presence was "offensive" because (1) i wore trousers and (2) the foreign female students occasionally purchased tea or snacks from the little cafeteria in the building where we take class and (3) they are extremely devout and this whole situation was intolerable. as i've explained, qatar university is entirely segregated by gender and in fact has "two campuses" (which are side-by-side and connected in a few points so professors and administrators and oddball students like us can pass from one side to the other). our arabic classes are mixed, and our classrooms are on the men's campus, and therein was the problem. after receiving these complaints, the foreign female students in our program were summoned to a meeting with the sheikha who is VP for student affairs and told we were barred from the cafeteria and needed to discuss dress code. of course the dress code discussion was all under the guise of our being young and beautiful (as if the problem was us, not the male students for whom it is totally acceptable to see foreign women as nothing more than sex objects, not even as people ... to put it in context, none of us had ever worn anything revealing even as much as an elbow, and i discreetly walk through the halls eyes downcast on my way to class to avoid being "offensive" ... none of us has ever actually sat in the little cafeteria, just purchased tea and gone back to class). furthermore, i was personally told in a round-about way that i needed to wear the abaya - "you will find the abaya very comfortable, and you will feel more comfortable wearing it; we are concerned with making you feel comfortable." ... i was not aware that i was uncomfortable in business blouses and trousers, and as for comfort - quick pop quiz: if you lived in the desert, would you want (a) to wear a loose, white, lightweight cotton nightshirt or (b) drown in a veritable swimmingpool of black rayon fabric that doesn't breath well? if you have two peas in your brain, you would chose (a) [my apologies to those who chose (b)]. ... i was fairly horrified about how the whole situation was handled, we all were. we also took the opportunity to raise some questions about facilities for female students, and while listening to the disappointing answers, all that was running through my head was "separate but equal is inherently unequal." ... but there is only so much challenging the culture that i can do, and i'm here on a Fulbright, meant to be an ambassador of goodwill and all that. (i did say the word "vagina" in talking about "the vagina monologues" while at dinner with two girlfriends last week, one of whom is a member of the royal family - now that was scandalous...) so i try to remain a beacon of tolerance and understanding, i am here after all to learn, even as i am told that my presence is offensive to men holier than i am simply because i am a woman and then hear these same men whistle at me as i walk by in my abaya on my way to class..... this thanksgiving i was able to give thanks for coming from a society that does not treat women as less than full citizens, or see them only as sexual objects or creatures here to do the bidding of their husbands. and of course i am speaking in generalities, but one specific i am sure of is that gender dynamics here are totally, totally bizarre... and so i wear the abaya every day now. but at least i am able to move freely in public without being escorted by a male family member, to show my head, to drive, and sit freely in the "family" section of restaurants or cafes on my own.... at least it's not saudi! (allhamdulila)
another note or two on gender dynamics while i'm on the subject -
first, i have realized how very common it is for men here to have more than one wife. call it naivete, but i somehow just thought it was more the exception than the rule in modern, progressive qatar. but that is not the case. 2 - 3 wives is the norm. 4 is a little greedy. and 1 means you've got a talker! (a woman who speaks up) ... or maybe, just maybe a man who sees polygamy as problematic for the family unit ... i know i should not have been so surprised. after all, it was only in the last few years that a law was passed saying women had to be 16 to be married. and polygamy is legal. and this is still a society where showing one's ankles is enough to cause weeks of malicious gossip and, as the ABC conversation demonstrates (which is a true story - happened two weeks ago), public displays of affection can have serious consequences, and where men dominate absolutely... but i suppose i just somehow thought that the practice was less prevalent than it is. but i was wearing my liberal blonde blinders and just didn't see reality.
second, i have also recently learned, through my sources of enlightenment in the boys dorm(which is about 250 - 300 men, mostly non-qatari arabs, the africans, the kims, etc., plus two americans who have great senses of humor and keep me up on the news), that homosexuality is widespread and accepted among men in the gulf. as they explained it to me, it's really not all that surprising - you segregate the genders enough and it's bound to happen. apparently some of the students - especially those who were raised in saudi (!!) had never seen anything beyond the round of a woman's face before coming to doha (and they still don't see much on campus, rest assured).... these same students and others explained how sexual activity was very common between men in saudi, and all across the gulf, including qatar (and, in fact, including the qatar university men's dorm). (though not in other areas of the arab world where the genders freely mingle and ankles and wrists are shown with reckless abandon each day.) apparently partaking in such activity is not considered "gay" provided you are the one being pleasured, not doing the pleasuring..... this is all quietly tolerated of course because homosexual activity is illegal and un-islamic and would lead to arrest and probably more serious repercussions than heterosexual smooching..... even in dubai, the arab world's amsterdam, where all things sinful and free are tolerated, there is no tolerance of homosexuality. recently, a gay wedding at a dubai night club was broken up by the police and resulted in arrests, deportations, and a strong message that this sort of behaviour would not be tolerated in the emirates.
all of this of course makes you wonder which parts of these societies are ideal / progressive / muslim? in doha, there's a black market for whiskey and a black market for rice. the whiskey market is for rich local men who need to hide the purchase, drink the whole bottle in one go so as not to be caught with it, and then driver their land cruisers into sand-dunes. the rice market is for the impoverished south asian workers who are the infrastructure of this place but are paid appalling wages - of which they send as much as they can back to their families - and don't have enough to afford rice from the stores.... a foreign woman in business trousers is offensive to one's purity, but getting a quick blow-job from a muslim man doesn't make you gay..... perhaps the best image for all of this is something i came across while wandering around bleary-eyed in the dubai airport at some ungodly hour of the morning. to keep myself awake, i was flipping through every magazine i could find. in this flipping frenzy, i picked up "Esquire" - the men's magazine - and was amused to discover that all photos that had nipples peeping through sheer material (which seemed to be a theme in this issue) had been covered over with black magic marker. it reminded me of when our family bought a book in china - one of the "day in the life" photography books - where a picture of political posters relating to tiananmen were carefully crossed out in black magic marker. clearly, while calls for a representative government are revolutionary in china, the sight of nipples is unsettling in the UAE. ... but, at least it's not saudi - where the sight of nipples would probably lead to rioting religious police and stonings....
oh, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy....
i think living here has given me a lot to be thankful for this season... and taught me to be thankful for so many intangibles i never even noticed.... and allhamdulila for that!
i hope this finds you all in fine, free spirits.
doha resident A - "did you hear about the couple that was arrested for kissing in city center last week?" [city center is a big mall and a major hang-out spot] "i read about it in the gulf times." [the gulf times is an insulting excuse of a newspaper that you only read when you've been here too long or have msn as your homepage due to lack of imagination]
doha resident B - "hmmmph. were they qatari?!?"
A - "no, foreigners."
doha resident C - "were they arab?!?"
A - "i don't know, the paper didn't say."
B - "you know, i've seen a lot of secretive hand-holding in city center these days... including qataris!" (triumphant grin over this nugget of insight)
C - "yes, but that's not kissing.... though i still can't believe they were arrested."
A - "well, ... at least it's not saudi!"
A,B,C and anyone else around all exchange meaningful glances at this point. At least one person mumbles "allhamdulila" [thanks to allah / praise to allah], no matter what religion or nationality he is (everyone's speech here is peppered with "inshallah" and "allhamdulila" and "mashallah" no matter where they are from). most likely at least one of the others repeats "allhamdulila" as they all nod meaningfully. then if you're lucky, somebody will bust out with some really great "Saudi is the source of all evil / hell on earth" story. and sure, maybe Saudi Arabia is the source of all evil [may allah smite me now for saying that (well, if allah "smites" that is; to my knowledge the quran is silent on that matter)], but the longer i am here the more I realize that Qatar is just a hop, skip, and jump away from Saudi, and the more i see the inherent contradictions and aberrations that inevitably exist in a society bowed under a form of islam that can be at best described as "conservative," the more that refrain seems hollow.
the lastest and most spirited rounds of "at least it's not saudi" i heard were in response to my telling people that i am now required to wear the abaya when on campus at qatar university. and i am now wearing the abaya on campus each day (hop), and i have a hijab, but am not required to cover my head (skip) or wear the face-covering yashmek (jump). this new requirement was forced upon me because (male) qatari students had complained to the administration that my presence was "offensive" because (1) i wore trousers and (2) the foreign female students occasionally purchased tea or snacks from the little cafeteria in the building where we take class and (3) they are extremely devout and this whole situation was intolerable. as i've explained, qatar university is entirely segregated by gender and in fact has "two campuses" (which are side-by-side and connected in a few points so professors and administrators and oddball students like us can pass from one side to the other). our arabic classes are mixed, and our classrooms are on the men's campus, and therein was the problem. after receiving these complaints, the foreign female students in our program were summoned to a meeting with the sheikha who is VP for student affairs and told we were barred from the cafeteria and needed to discuss dress code. of course the dress code discussion was all under the guise of our being young and beautiful (as if the problem was us, not the male students for whom it is totally acceptable to see foreign women as nothing more than sex objects, not even as people ... to put it in context, none of us had ever worn anything revealing even as much as an elbow, and i discreetly walk through the halls eyes downcast on my way to class to avoid being "offensive" ... none of us has ever actually sat in the little cafeteria, just purchased tea and gone back to class). furthermore, i was personally told in a round-about way that i needed to wear the abaya - "you will find the abaya very comfortable, and you will feel more comfortable wearing it; we are concerned with making you feel comfortable." ... i was not aware that i was uncomfortable in business blouses and trousers, and as for comfort - quick pop quiz: if you lived in the desert, would you want (a) to wear a loose, white, lightweight cotton nightshirt or (b) drown in a veritable swimmingpool of black rayon fabric that doesn't breath well? if you have two peas in your brain, you would chose (a) [my apologies to those who chose (b)]. ... i was fairly horrified about how the whole situation was handled, we all were. we also took the opportunity to raise some questions about facilities for female students, and while listening to the disappointing answers, all that was running through my head was "separate but equal is inherently unequal." ... but there is only so much challenging the culture that i can do, and i'm here on a Fulbright, meant to be an ambassador of goodwill and all that. (i did say the word "vagina" in talking about "the vagina monologues" while at dinner with two girlfriends last week, one of whom is a member of the royal family - now that was scandalous...) so i try to remain a beacon of tolerance and understanding, i am here after all to learn, even as i am told that my presence is offensive to men holier than i am simply because i am a woman and then hear these same men whistle at me as i walk by in my abaya on my way to class..... this thanksgiving i was able to give thanks for coming from a society that does not treat women as less than full citizens, or see them only as sexual objects or creatures here to do the bidding of their husbands. and of course i am speaking in generalities, but one specific i am sure of is that gender dynamics here are totally, totally bizarre... and so i wear the abaya every day now. but at least i am able to move freely in public without being escorted by a male family member, to show my head, to drive, and sit freely in the "family" section of restaurants or cafes on my own.... at least it's not saudi! (allhamdulila)
another note or two on gender dynamics while i'm on the subject -
first, i have realized how very common it is for men here to have more than one wife. call it naivete, but i somehow just thought it was more the exception than the rule in modern, progressive qatar. but that is not the case. 2 - 3 wives is the norm. 4 is a little greedy. and 1 means you've got a talker! (a woman who speaks up) ... or maybe, just maybe a man who sees polygamy as problematic for the family unit ... i know i should not have been so surprised. after all, it was only in the last few years that a law was passed saying women had to be 16 to be married. and polygamy is legal. and this is still a society where showing one's ankles is enough to cause weeks of malicious gossip and, as the ABC conversation demonstrates (which is a true story - happened two weeks ago), public displays of affection can have serious consequences, and where men dominate absolutely... but i suppose i just somehow thought that the practice was less prevalent than it is. but i was wearing my liberal blonde blinders and just didn't see reality.
second, i have also recently learned, through my sources of enlightenment in the boys dorm(which is about 250 - 300 men, mostly non-qatari arabs, the africans, the kims, etc., plus two americans who have great senses of humor and keep me up on the news), that homosexuality is widespread and accepted among men in the gulf. as they explained it to me, it's really not all that surprising - you segregate the genders enough and it's bound to happen. apparently some of the students - especially those who were raised in saudi (!!) had never seen anything beyond the round of a woman's face before coming to doha (and they still don't see much on campus, rest assured).... these same students and others explained how sexual activity was very common between men in saudi, and all across the gulf, including qatar (and, in fact, including the qatar university men's dorm). (though not in other areas of the arab world where the genders freely mingle and ankles and wrists are shown with reckless abandon each day.) apparently partaking in such activity is not considered "gay" provided you are the one being pleasured, not doing the pleasuring..... this is all quietly tolerated of course because homosexual activity is illegal and un-islamic and would lead to arrest and probably more serious repercussions than heterosexual smooching..... even in dubai, the arab world's amsterdam, where all things sinful and free are tolerated, there is no tolerance of homosexuality. recently, a gay wedding at a dubai night club was broken up by the police and resulted in arrests, deportations, and a strong message that this sort of behaviour would not be tolerated in the emirates.
all of this of course makes you wonder which parts of these societies are ideal / progressive / muslim? in doha, there's a black market for whiskey and a black market for rice. the whiskey market is for rich local men who need to hide the purchase, drink the whole bottle in one go so as not to be caught with it, and then driver their land cruisers into sand-dunes. the rice market is for the impoverished south asian workers who are the infrastructure of this place but are paid appalling wages - of which they send as much as they can back to their families - and don't have enough to afford rice from the stores.... a foreign woman in business trousers is offensive to one's purity, but getting a quick blow-job from a muslim man doesn't make you gay..... perhaps the best image for all of this is something i came across while wandering around bleary-eyed in the dubai airport at some ungodly hour of the morning. to keep myself awake, i was flipping through every magazine i could find. in this flipping frenzy, i picked up "Esquire" - the men's magazine - and was amused to discover that all photos that had nipples peeping through sheer material (which seemed to be a theme in this issue) had been covered over with black magic marker. it reminded me of when our family bought a book in china - one of the "day in the life" photography books - where a picture of political posters relating to tiananmen were carefully crossed out in black magic marker. clearly, while calls for a representative government are revolutionary in china, the sight of nipples is unsettling in the UAE. ... but, at least it's not saudi - where the sight of nipples would probably lead to rioting religious police and stonings....
oh, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy....
i think living here has given me a lot to be thankful for this season... and taught me to be thankful for so many intangibles i never even noticed.... and allhamdulila for that!
i hope this finds you all in fine, free spirits.
oh what a life....
yes, the subject should be sung to the tune of "oh what a night".... and wednesday night was quite a night, as was thursday actually, but i owe an update on more than that i realize - having popped into paris for some enchanted evenings, endured the end of ramadan, spent a week in intoxicating istanbul, made friends with the founders of al-jazeera children's channel, had a special opps guy move in next door, and seen a grand entrance for the emir & the sheikha all since my last email..... with all that going on, i thought "oh what a life" would better suit.....
and what a life it is.....
ramadan is history - much to everyone's relief. especially the "tea-boys" at offices and the snack bar staff at the university, who had to spend the month reporting to work every day but forbidden to brew any tea, pour any coffee or even stock the shelves with chicken sandwiches, falafel and kitkats (the QU mens campus small cafe cuisine).... instead they just had to sit looking forlornly at the empty chairs and empty tables, where the students could eat no more..... a american friend who works at the qatari foreign ministry who was doing the whole keep-the-waterbottle-and-hide-sips-behind-the-desk trick told me that one day she ran out of water & asked the tea-boy to refill her bottle and he brought it back to her wrapped in newspaper, eyes darting furtively about, obviously pained. she didn't ask him again after that. i did manage a weekend in paris mid-ramadan which was blissful - autumn leaves, rain, wine, cheese, walking everywhere.
there was a national holiday for eid, at the end of ramadan, and i went to istanbul for a week with a friend.... it was just wonderful. istanbul is really an amazing and intoxicating city.... just full of intrigue & history & beauty & quirks & character. we had a great time. (though it made me realize how much i have become accustomed to the desert climate! ... the weather is beautiful now - a great time for a visit if anyone is so inclined) i returned from istanbul recharged and ready to dive back into life in doha....
i gave two talks this week. the first was about the experience of international students on a panel at a US embassy event on studying at American universities. the whole event was in arabic, so it was quite a challenge, but fun. the second was at a local international school - doha college - and was a presentation for 17-19 year olds - basically about life / the fulbright / making the most of their experiences.... i structured my talk around the idea that i was where they were - graduating from an international school - ten years ago.... it was actually a lot of fun - the kids were great and their teacher has told me since that they got a lot out of it.... i was swarmed with questions at the end about college and law and all sorts of things. though the first question i got when i finished my little speech was quite interesting - a young abeya-clad lass informed me that she did not wish to ask a question, but wanted to correct me - i had made a mistake and said "israel" when i should have said "israeli-occupied palestine" .... i responded by telling her that, no, i had not made a mistake, reminding her that israel is a nation recognized by the international community with a seat in the united nations, and while i intended no disrespect to the palestinians and their plight, i made no mistake by referring to the state of israel. i also said i wasn't there to have a discussion of israeli-palestinian politics, but we could do so if necessary.... i of course should have anticipated that, but didn't.... i think it was all the more remarkable for me after rabin's memorial service the day before... the afternoon prior while walking on the treadmill as i flipped through news channels (i find going from al-jazeera / al-arabia to BBC / CNN is always interesting).... on BBC, i was able to watch president clinton's eloquent and moving eulogy for yitzhak rabin - broadcast live from the memorial service. the memorial / the anniversary of rabin's death was not even mentioned in the arab news. it was especially striking as i still remember rabin's funeral - and how tremendous and overwhelming it was that arab leaders travelled to jerusalem to pay their respects. at the memorial service there were no arabs present. and his death was not remembered in the arab world.... and here i was talking about how i was where they were ten years ago, and this girl's question after seeing the memorial service (and not seeing it anywhere in the arab press) reminded me of where the world was ten years ago..... and so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past....
on a more uplifting note, on wednesday i was privileged to be able to attend the "reach out to asia" inaugural charity gala dinner. qatar has started a campaign to raise money for asia. it was initially established to aid the tsunami victims, but will now go to earthquake victims and include a variety of forms of aid programs. the gala dinner will be held every year for ten years, and the intention of the program is to provide long-term comprehensive aid for recovery from the recent disasters and infrastructure building for the future. the event was quite an affair - hosted by the emir, the sheikha and the heir apparent, everyone who is everyone in the region was there (or so i was told), as well as number of other VIP guests and celebrities. held at the ritz-carlton, it was all glam and snaziness - a lavish (dry) dinner (nothing like lobster and lamb with pineapple juice), a charity auction, entertainment, and people-spotting. i'm not quite up to speed on who's who of the gulf, but a friend would point out people to me, always in tones of hushed reverence and awe: so-and-so owns the largest shopping mall in kuwait, mr. so-and-so brought toys'r'us to the region, that's richard branston, etc. the whole evening was quite a scene, an obviously for a good cause, but there are two experiences i just have to share -
first, the charity auction. it was conducted by a fellow from sotheby's and in the candle-lit hall, glow sticks were used as bidding-wands, which was quite an interesting effect. The items being auctioned were all outrageously lavish - a cartier pearl-and-diamond necklace & earring set, VIP tickets to the world cup finals, private race-car lessons, an exclusive apartment in 'the pearl' - "the arabian riveria' being developed here in qatar, hermes luggage, a guitar signed by all sorts of famous musicians, etc. Most bidding began at around US$200,000.... then would just climb & climb... it was almost surreal to hear the sums of money being called out. what was even more surreal was the showmanship involved, as gulf businessmen out-did each other again and again. the show really began when the gentleman who had purchased the apartment for US$900,000 donated it back to the auction to be auctioned again. he then bought it again for $900,000.... and donated it back again. this happened four times! and not to be outdone, the gentleman who had purchased the cartier jewelery for US$1 million donated it back to the auction & purchased it again (for $1,100,000).... and so you get the idea. the auction had even been structured to include a time at the end where people could just raise their glow-sticks and call out their donations, but clearly these boys couldn't wait until the end.... it was just unreal. the auction raised US$10.5 million that night. the sothoeby's fellow said that was 10 million more than he'd ever seen raised at a charity auction..... allhamdulila - thanks to allah.
second, the closing act of the night - bryan adams (yes, he's still around & still singing, but doing a lot of charity work too.. who knew?)... prior to his performance a young iraqi boy was playing a traditional instrument the name of which escapes me at the moment (much nicer than the erhu anyway for you china peeps). bryan called him back on stage to improvise with him while he played.... it was really surprisingly neat. he stayed and played throughout his performance. of course there was a request for everyone's favorite bryan adams tune - "everything i do" (think middle school summer nights when the movie "robin hood" came out and twelve-year old girls were requesting this song on radio stations across the world and swooning with their teddy-bears).... so it began, and the room got teary, and the iraqi boy played, and the glow-sticks left over from the charity auction were raised and waived back & forth, and the owner of the largest mall in kuwait looked affectionately at one of his wives, and the white-gloved filipino staff women standing in the corners grasped hands or intertwined arms and swayed, singing along - "i would fight for you, i would lie for you" - all the way to the rousing end. and there was unity and goodwill and peace on earth for a moment. it was quite a scene.
the following night i again found myself at the same affair as the emir & the sheikha as i went to an event launching ASPIRE - the academy for sports excellence - an absolutely amazing project - it's a sports academy / boarding school, absolutely state-of-the art & in fact including the world's largest indoor sports dome designed to train the athletes of tomorrow. the ASPIRE students are not just from qatar & the gulf region, but all over the world, with the government providing scholarships for those otherwise unable to attend.... this is the first year, with only 132 students, but the goal is 1,000 students by 2010 and they have already recruited a number of top instructors / coaches in various sports. it is truly an incredible place, and an incredible idea..... it is also just wonderful to see this nation invest in its youth, with projects like this and "education city" (where the US universities with campuses here are located and a number of other projects are based)... the opening was of course grand - involving a private show developed with cirque du soleil and appearances by all sorts of sports superstars, including mark spitz, nadia comenci (who has had an amazing boob job - more than compensating for the fact that she was never allowed to hit puberty on her own), ed moses, pele & maradona just to name a few..... it was amazing. though of course, even though ASPIRE is meant to be for both girls & boys, the girls were not at all featured in or mentioned during the program, which was really well done & centered around the students, and only got a cameo appearance at the end - veiled of course even though i doubt any of them are old enough to really be required to do so.... and so we beat on....
otherwise, it's chopping wood & carrying water. i realize how much i am still learning here. even simple things like trying to understand the complexity of greetings and their meanings - among the basic greetings you see among men (greeting other men of course) there is: bumping noses three times, grasping hands / shoulders and standing cheek-to-cheek as greetings are mumbled & allah praised, three cheek-to-cheek air-kisses, grasping your companion's head & bringing his forehead to your own, a handshake, a man-hug, and a few others or variations / combinations of the above. apparently different greetings have to do with the nature of the relationship, status, and even tribe / family.... luckily i don't have to worry about that much, but it's very interesting to observe....
and speaking of interesting, i fear i may be rambling on so will spare you.... inshallah this finds you all very well.
three nose bumps,
mattie
and what a life it is.....
ramadan is history - much to everyone's relief. especially the "tea-boys" at offices and the snack bar staff at the university, who had to spend the month reporting to work every day but forbidden to brew any tea, pour any coffee or even stock the shelves with chicken sandwiches, falafel and kitkats (the QU mens campus small cafe cuisine).... instead they just had to sit looking forlornly at the empty chairs and empty tables, where the students could eat no more..... a american friend who works at the qatari foreign ministry who was doing the whole keep-the-waterbottle-and-hide-sips-behind-the-desk trick told me that one day she ran out of water & asked the tea-boy to refill her bottle and he brought it back to her wrapped in newspaper, eyes darting furtively about, obviously pained. she didn't ask him again after that. i did manage a weekend in paris mid-ramadan which was blissful - autumn leaves, rain, wine, cheese, walking everywhere.
there was a national holiday for eid, at the end of ramadan, and i went to istanbul for a week with a friend.... it was just wonderful. istanbul is really an amazing and intoxicating city.... just full of intrigue & history & beauty & quirks & character. we had a great time. (though it made me realize how much i have become accustomed to the desert climate! ... the weather is beautiful now - a great time for a visit if anyone is so inclined) i returned from istanbul recharged and ready to dive back into life in doha....
i gave two talks this week. the first was about the experience of international students on a panel at a US embassy event on studying at American universities. the whole event was in arabic, so it was quite a challenge, but fun. the second was at a local international school - doha college - and was a presentation for 17-19 year olds - basically about life / the fulbright / making the most of their experiences.... i structured my talk around the idea that i was where they were - graduating from an international school - ten years ago.... it was actually a lot of fun - the kids were great and their teacher has told me since that they got a lot out of it.... i was swarmed with questions at the end about college and law and all sorts of things. though the first question i got when i finished my little speech was quite interesting - a young abeya-clad lass informed me that she did not wish to ask a question, but wanted to correct me - i had made a mistake and said "israel" when i should have said "israeli-occupied palestine" .... i responded by telling her that, no, i had not made a mistake, reminding her that israel is a nation recognized by the international community with a seat in the united nations, and while i intended no disrespect to the palestinians and their plight, i made no mistake by referring to the state of israel. i also said i wasn't there to have a discussion of israeli-palestinian politics, but we could do so if necessary.... i of course should have anticipated that, but didn't.... i think it was all the more remarkable for me after rabin's memorial service the day before... the afternoon prior while walking on the treadmill as i flipped through news channels (i find going from al-jazeera / al-arabia to BBC / CNN is always interesting).... on BBC, i was able to watch president clinton's eloquent and moving eulogy for yitzhak rabin - broadcast live from the memorial service. the memorial / the anniversary of rabin's death was not even mentioned in the arab news. it was especially striking as i still remember rabin's funeral - and how tremendous and overwhelming it was that arab leaders travelled to jerusalem to pay their respects. at the memorial service there were no arabs present. and his death was not remembered in the arab world.... and here i was talking about how i was where they were ten years ago, and this girl's question after seeing the memorial service (and not seeing it anywhere in the arab press) reminded me of where the world was ten years ago..... and so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past....
on a more uplifting note, on wednesday i was privileged to be able to attend the "reach out to asia" inaugural charity gala dinner. qatar has started a campaign to raise money for asia. it was initially established to aid the tsunami victims, but will now go to earthquake victims and include a variety of forms of aid programs. the gala dinner will be held every year for ten years, and the intention of the program is to provide long-term comprehensive aid for recovery from the recent disasters and infrastructure building for the future. the event was quite an affair - hosted by the emir, the sheikha and the heir apparent, everyone who is everyone in the region was there (or so i was told), as well as number of other VIP guests and celebrities. held at the ritz-carlton, it was all glam and snaziness - a lavish (dry) dinner (nothing like lobster and lamb with pineapple juice), a charity auction, entertainment, and people-spotting. i'm not quite up to speed on who's who of the gulf, but a friend would point out people to me, always in tones of hushed reverence and awe: so-and-so owns the largest shopping mall in kuwait, mr. so-and-so brought toys'r'us to the region, that's richard branston, etc. the whole evening was quite a scene, an obviously for a good cause, but there are two experiences i just have to share -
first, the charity auction. it was conducted by a fellow from sotheby's and in the candle-lit hall, glow sticks were used as bidding-wands, which was quite an interesting effect. The items being auctioned were all outrageously lavish - a cartier pearl-and-diamond necklace & earring set, VIP tickets to the world cup finals, private race-car lessons, an exclusive apartment in 'the pearl' - "the arabian riveria' being developed here in qatar, hermes luggage, a guitar signed by all sorts of famous musicians, etc. Most bidding began at around US$200,000.... then would just climb & climb... it was almost surreal to hear the sums of money being called out. what was even more surreal was the showmanship involved, as gulf businessmen out-did each other again and again. the show really began when the gentleman who had purchased the apartment for US$900,000 donated it back to the auction to be auctioned again. he then bought it again for $900,000.... and donated it back again. this happened four times! and not to be outdone, the gentleman who had purchased the cartier jewelery for US$1 million donated it back to the auction & purchased it again (for $1,100,000).... and so you get the idea. the auction had even been structured to include a time at the end where people could just raise their glow-sticks and call out their donations, but clearly these boys couldn't wait until the end.... it was just unreal. the auction raised US$10.5 million that night. the sothoeby's fellow said that was 10 million more than he'd ever seen raised at a charity auction..... allhamdulila - thanks to allah.
second, the closing act of the night - bryan adams (yes, he's still around & still singing, but doing a lot of charity work too.. who knew?)... prior to his performance a young iraqi boy was playing a traditional instrument the name of which escapes me at the moment (much nicer than the erhu anyway for you china peeps). bryan called him back on stage to improvise with him while he played.... it was really surprisingly neat. he stayed and played throughout his performance. of course there was a request for everyone's favorite bryan adams tune - "everything i do" (think middle school summer nights when the movie "robin hood" came out and twelve-year old girls were requesting this song on radio stations across the world and swooning with their teddy-bears).... so it began, and the room got teary, and the iraqi boy played, and the glow-sticks left over from the charity auction were raised and waived back & forth, and the owner of the largest mall in kuwait looked affectionately at one of his wives, and the white-gloved filipino staff women standing in the corners grasped hands or intertwined arms and swayed, singing along - "i would fight for you, i would lie for you" - all the way to the rousing end. and there was unity and goodwill and peace on earth for a moment. it was quite a scene.
the following night i again found myself at the same affair as the emir & the sheikha as i went to an event launching ASPIRE - the academy for sports excellence - an absolutely amazing project - it's a sports academy / boarding school, absolutely state-of-the art & in fact including the world's largest indoor sports dome designed to train the athletes of tomorrow. the ASPIRE students are not just from qatar & the gulf region, but all over the world, with the government providing scholarships for those otherwise unable to attend.... this is the first year, with only 132 students, but the goal is 1,000 students by 2010 and they have already recruited a number of top instructors / coaches in various sports. it is truly an incredible place, and an incredible idea..... it is also just wonderful to see this nation invest in its youth, with projects like this and "education city" (where the US universities with campuses here are located and a number of other projects are based)... the opening was of course grand - involving a private show developed with cirque du soleil and appearances by all sorts of sports superstars, including mark spitz, nadia comenci (who has had an amazing boob job - more than compensating for the fact that she was never allowed to hit puberty on her own), ed moses, pele & maradona just to name a few..... it was amazing. though of course, even though ASPIRE is meant to be for both girls & boys, the girls were not at all featured in or mentioned during the program, which was really well done & centered around the students, and only got a cameo appearance at the end - veiled of course even though i doubt any of them are old enough to really be required to do so.... and so we beat on....
otherwise, it's chopping wood & carrying water. i realize how much i am still learning here. even simple things like trying to understand the complexity of greetings and their meanings - among the basic greetings you see among men (greeting other men of course) there is: bumping noses three times, grasping hands / shoulders and standing cheek-to-cheek as greetings are mumbled & allah praised, three cheek-to-cheek air-kisses, grasping your companion's head & bringing his forehead to your own, a handshake, a man-hug, and a few others or variations / combinations of the above. apparently different greetings have to do with the nature of the relationship, status, and even tribe / family.... luckily i don't have to worry about that much, but it's very interesting to observe....
and speaking of interesting, i fear i may be rambling on so will spare you.... inshallah this finds you all very well.
three nose bumps,
mattie
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