Digging for Desert Roses

Camel in the Road

Driving along a dirt road in Qatar, I came upon a camel sitting in the middle of the road.

Language Can Be Fun

This headline in the Gulf Times WORKS on so many levels...This is what it refers to: "China's first NBA star, expelled from the national team for skipping the 2002 Asian Games, made an apologetic return on yesterday as China seeks to reconcile with 'problem stars' ahead of the Beijing Olympics."

BUT REALLY, do we care about the article when the headline says so much?

KSA

There is a sign down the street from my villa for KSA. KSA stands for Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Qatar has signs that point to KSA on Salwa Road in Qatar. Salwa Road runs from Doha on one side of the country to the town of Abu Samra on the border of Saudi Arabia diagonally on the other side of the country. Salwa Road is two streets over from my villa, so basically, driving, it is less than an hour from my front door to Saudi Arabi.

Wouldn't be interesting to have a sign in Maine pointing to Mexico, or a sign in Texas pointing to Canada? Or a sign on Washington DC pointing to either Canada or Mexico.

Shisha

Enjoying a shisha pipe...Tokin' a mixture of tobacco, apple, and strawberry.

A shisha/sheesha is a traditional Middle Eastern or Asian device for smoking. It is also known as a water pipe, nargeela/arghileh/nargile, hookah, okka, kalyan, ghelyoon or Ghalyan, or hubble-bubble., from WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Today, shisha tobacco is often mixed with dried fruit, natural extracts and artificial flavorings to produce a varying assortment of tobacco flavors, such as apple, strawberry, orange, mango, cappuccino, vanilla, coconut, cherry, grape, plum, banana, pineapple, mixed fruit, cola, lemon, apricot, coffee, and mint, which has a cooling effect on the throat., also from WIKEPEDIA.ORG

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hookah for more info.

Happy Belated Saint Patrick's Day

St Patrick's Day Party was on March 31st because too many people were away during the real St Patrick's Day for Spring Break.

Mmmmmmmmm...donuts

Homer: Oh, I'd sell my soul for a donut.

Where does the rain water go when it rains in the desert?

Since most of the streets of Doha don't have storm drains, when it rains, the streets flood...causing traffic problems throughout the city.

The British are coming, the British are coming!

The Brits haven't been in control of the region since 1971, but you still see their influences in the language. This is a sign at the largest shopping mall in Doha. For all you non-Anglophiles, a "trolley" is what we would call a "shopping cart" in the US.

Question: Is there much construction in Doha, Qatar?

Answer: Just a little

News on Qatar in the Hoya, Georgetown's student newspaper

Some students from the main campus came to Qatar for the Model UN Conference (I was at Dunestock camping and partying, so I missed it. Awwwwwwww)

Anyway, here are four articles that tell you what it's like here from another perspective:

http://www.thehoya.com/news/031706/news2.cfm

http://www.thehoya.com/news/031706/news3.cfm

http://www.thehoya.com/news/032106/news5.cfm

http://www.thehoya.com/news/032406/news1.cfm

My favorite is news5 which is Part 3: Culture a Delicate Balancing Act in Doha

Also, check out the articles on Qatar at: http://www.hoyablogs.blogspot.com/

Some of my favorite quotes from these articles are:

"Keeping the school running — a school full of checked walls and Georgetown-blue rugs, one built essentially from scratch — has frustrated some staff, and burned others out. While six of seven faculty will be returning next year, at least three of the four student affairs staffers are leaving forever with mixed emotions." Some peole have quit, not me if the cash keeps rolling in.

"And although it’s not in Georgetown’s part of the building — it belongs to the Academic Bridge Program, which teaches English to Qatari high school graduates — that little poster only steps away from the library at SFS-Qatar may be symbolic of the deep challenges Georgetown faces in bringing Israeli and American Jews to a Middle Eastern campus."
They mention the library in this one.

"But there are 600,000 foreigners here — nearly two-thirds of whom are male and miss home terribly."
It's like a sausage factory here. All dudes on the edge of depression and overwork from 12 hour days, six to seven days a week.

'“In some ways it’s a lot like high school and lots of times it’s boring. I have managed OK but there are some people who just can’t handle it here,” says Chris Bobbitt (SFS ’05), who is studying for a year at Qatar University and works at SFS-Qatar.'
Yeah, people here drink like they are in high school.

And my all-time favorite quote from the articles:

"On a recent night in Palomas, the Intercontinental Hotel’s kinky Tex-Mex bar, young Qataris, hairy old expatriate men and trolling prostitutes in tight skirts throw back vodka shot after vodka shot."
The Shehrazad Bar at the Ramada Hotel, the bar we frequent, is way more seedier than the one at the Intercontinental Hotel. The Intercon one is tame compared to the bar we go to, which is within walking distance to my villa.

If you think their driving is bad wait until you see their parking PART 2

Oh, did you want to leave the parking garage???...The person in the white car parked here because he wanted to be the closest parker to the elevators (on the right side of the picture)...Too bad he blocked another driver from being able to get out of his parking space. The guy that is blocked in can't leave. He can't back up because there is a concrete wall behind him, he can't go right because a car is parked to his right, he can't go left because he is parked next to a a guardrail on his left, and he can't go forward because there is A CAR PARKED IN FRONT OF HIM!!!!

Park in between the lines or on the lines...he can't remember or doesn't care... also, another space next to the elevators...

Giraffes in Qatar

A Giraffe is a tall cylindrical beer dispenser with a tap, which is brought to your table. There is a battery powered light inside the base of the dispenser, so this mighty column of beer glows in the darkness of the bar. One giraffe = 9 pints

New Map of Doha

A new map of Doha has been printed and is for sale in bookstores and shops.

The satellite image is so detailed that you can make out my villa on the map.

Unfortunately, not all the labels are in the correct places on the map. The number "45" in the blue box refers to the Omani embassy which is about a half a block from where the number "45" in a blue box is on the map.

The American Hospital is not where the label points to but is about a half a block to the West.

With the way things are developing here, they will probably print another map in a few months.

Also, the green parts of the map are water, the yellow parts are city/desert/land.

Charlie Don't Surf

Qataris dancing at the front of the stage at Dunestock 2006

Does Rock and Roll and Islam mix?

DUNESTOCK 2006

Dunestock 2006...a concert in the desert sand dunes for and with Western expats. Think High School Battle of the Bands with teenagers and 50 year olds IN THE BANDS! Cover tunes from the 60s, 70s and 80s YEAH...how many times can your hear Freebird???...drunk underage male expats YEAH...

Desert Wind

How windy can it get in the desert???...enough to bend tent poles, concave a tent, and knock over furniture.

Unfortunate

People in Education City are planning a Model United Nations here in Education Ciity, so they have put up a Flags of the World poster on a pillar near the library.

Unfortunately, someone vandalized the flag of Israel.

Some points:

• There is no pornography allowed in the State of Qatar. Ironically this is the most pronographic thing (ie. the penis) I have seen on display in the State of Qatar.
• This may have been done by someone no more than 18 years old which means that tolernace is not being understood among the next generation.
• The US flag and the flag of Denmark were, so far, not vandalized.
• According to the CIA World Fact Book - The capital of Israel is "Jerusalem; note - Israel proclaimed Jerusalem as its capital in 1950, but the US, like nearly all other countries, maintains its Embassy in Tel Aviv."
• The poster lists Israel as a European country.

If you think their driving is bad...

wait until you see their parking!!!!

An Evening with Amy Tan

You would think that after attending a talk with Amy Tan, author of the Joy Luck Club and the Kitchen God's Wife, that I would have a picture of the famous author...nope, I have a picture of John chowing down on the entire serving bowl of chocolate mousse.

One of these State of Qatar seals is not like the others

The state seals below are from Qatar money in a private museum here in Qatar from the the past to the present, from the oldest on the left to the most recent on the right. What you will notice is that the oil rig on the oldest seal has dissappeared in subsequent seals including the present seal. What does this mean? Identity of state includes sanitizing/disappearing the past? Was the oil rig seen as a western symbol or just one that didn't fit into the image of who/what the country should be? Are the symbols of the dhow ((the boat) and palm tree more authentic or are they idealistic whereas the oil rig is realistic. One interesting thing to note is that the sails on the dhow have changed from an authentic three sails to a symbolic/idealistic one sail. One other interesting thing to note is that the fishing industry whose symbol is the dhow is not the primary industry anymore...that would be oil production, yet the symbol for oil production has been taken off the state seal.

My Pet Falcon Bob

Weather Advisory

It was 80 degrees Farenheit here in Doha on Friday, so I decided it might be a good idea to go to the jacuzzi in my compound and sit in the jacuzzi and drink Skyy vodka and Nada strawberry juice for a couple of hours.

Speaking of cool, what is the weather like in DC? Cold with snow???
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

The forecast here calls for a sunny vodka front with a mix of strawberries with an even sunnier bourbon front moving in behind it on Saturday.

Date with a stewardess

John and I had a double date with stewardesses from Qatar Airways tonight.

Yes, I said stewardesses!

John's date, Junko, is a cool Japanese chick he met when we went to the dunes with Nadim.

My date was a friend of Junko's, a sassy little Japanese girl named Kazaho. YUMMY!

We had Thai take away (carry out) at the their apartment where all the Qatar Airways stewardesses live.

Yes, you heard me right! I know where ALL the Qatar airways stewardesses live in Qatar and their building is only one block away from my villa.

Yeah, baby YEAH!!!

Cool time. We brought a bottle of red wine. Since they can't get alcohol, they were all about the wine!

The Thai food was the best Thai food in Qatar.

And the conversation was real. It has been a really long time since I talked to a real person. Someone who has a real job and no lofty ideas. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

One more thing...the stewardesses are not allowed to have men stay over at their apartments past 10pm. At 10pm exactly, the security guard phoned up to say that we had to leave. Very 1950-1960s US college sorority house feel.

Superbowl

I watched the Superbowl on ESPN...LIVE. That means I was up from 2am-6am Qatar time watching the game AND drinking beers.

Did I go into work that morning at 8:30am...YOU BETCHA!

Arabic Eating

Eating like an arab (what the Arabs called it, not me) means eating with your right hand out of communal bowl of rice mixed with fish or goat. You press the rice and meat in your hand, make a ball of the rice and meat carefully, and then roll the ball up your hand into your fingers. You do this with your right hand, never your left. The left hand is seen as unclean. After you finish one scoop, you dig in again and repeat the process.

Why did the camel cross the road?

Why did the camel cross the road? To get to the other side.

Robot Camel Jockeys

The Qataris used to use children from the Sudan as jockeys for there camel races. Someone took issue with this in regards to child labor, so now they use robot camel jockeys that slap/zap the camels to prod them to race. I guess someone has not taken issue with the treatment of the camels yet.

One intersting thing about the robot jockeys is that they wear baseball caps...not jockey helmets or nothing at all...as if the robot is going to feel pain (if it falls off the camel (not at the moment, but what about the future)...but baseball caps. The baseball caps cause wind resistance and cause the robots to slope backwards in the saddle.

The Fourth is GREED

The fourth type of person who comes to Qatar is one who comes to get paid.

As that great symbol of 80's Reaganomics, Gordon Gecko, once said:
GREED, for lack of a better word, is good.

So as long as this country is pumping out the oil AND as long as the US is, as George W. Bush says, addicted to it. People will flock to the Middle East and get paid.

2 OUT OF 3 AIN'T BAD

A friend of mine recently wrote me to say that my blog sounds more fiction than fact and maybe she is right. Maybe this blog is missing some of the Ed Keller cynical humor and so with that said I give you this:

Someone I know here who has spent time in Qatar said that there are four types of people who come to Qatar. She told me three types and couldn't remember the fourth type.

The types as told to me are:

1. Alcoholics who come to Qatar to dry out. (Being an Islamic state, there is no alcohol sold on the streets, only in Western style hotels.)

2. People who were failures in their home countries.

3. People who have given up on life.

4. "Unknown"

As Meatloaf once sang:
TWO OUT OF THREE AIN'T BAD.

My Pet Ostrich Bob

My new pet ostrich, Bob, was pretty suprised to see my pet camel, Bob.

What do Qataris do when they are happy...they dance!

Man in front is Qatari, man in back in Yemeni, woman is Bulgarian.

The desert just isn't "the desert" without satellite TV

What would the desert be without satellite TV in your tent?

How far is Qatar from Saudi Arabia?

In the South of the country of Qatar at a location call the Inland Sea (a bay, really), the clifts of Saudi Arabi are just across the water. In the picture, the car is parked in Qatar and the hills across the water to the left of it are in Saudi Arabi.

Word of warning: You don't want to swim across to get to Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Arabia Border Patrol have a "shoot first" policy due to smuggling.

Oil - From the Middle East to your car

Wanna see where the oil starts from that you put in your car? By the way how much is it for a gallon of gas in the US these days? Just remember, the more gasoline you use, the higher my raise will be next year (if I stay).

P.S. Don't think you can get around it by not driving you car. Qatar is one of the leading producers of natural gas in the world too, so if you are heating your home with natural gas or using a gas stove to cook your meals...thank you.

Ice in the desert

Say you are going out driving in the dunes...Where do you get ice for your drinks???

Off the back of a truck which is parked next to the ice factory.

Commonwealth of Virginia 1 State of Qatar 0

After three months and 2 and a half hours of waiting and arguing I now have a Qatar drivers license to drive a car AND a motorcycle.

It is valid for 5 years, so I won't have to go through this again for awhile.

I had to show the office drone my drivers record, my license, my vehicle insurance, and the web site that explained how to ADD a M desigantion to three people. I got rejected three times in one day before they finally relented. Hussein, the HR person with me who translated in Arabic and helped me through the process, said they gave in because they didn't want to listen to me argue anymore AND because I had brought more forms then they had ever seen from one person.

Commonwealth of Virginia 1 State of Qatar 0

Free Chocolate What???

Horlicks...think about it, pronounce it...

Neighborhood mosque at sunset

You can take the boy out of Marine Science...

You can take the boy out of Marine Science, but you can't take the Marine Science out of the boy. I have completed preliminary research and photography for a potential documentary on the Foreign Fishermen of Qatar. This project will be along a similar bent as my senior project at the University of Miami on the Shrimp Fishermen of Biscayne Bay and the project I did in graduate school at The George Washington University on the Fish Sellers of Maine Avenue Wharf. They way these fishermen design and build their fish traps is very interesting. A combination of Maryland crab pot and and Powatan Indian fish trap is the best way to describe it but the design is entirely their own. I am curious to find out why they lash the bottom portion of the trap with nylon rope. If they are using non-corrosive metal they should not need to worry about rust. Maybe they are using corrosive metal and they need to reinforce the bottoms with synthetic fibers. I will have to ask next time.

Rain in the desert???

We had our rainy season. It lasted for about 15 minutes.

Truth in Advertising

Anybody else think it's weird that a weapon sight is being used on a billboard advertisment for Q-Tel the communications monopoly in Qatar? Do you think the US government had anything to do with this ad, especially after the rumor that George W. Bush wanted to blow up Al-Jazera that has its headquaters in Doha, Qatar????? Al-Jazera HQ is about three blocks from my villa. You know what they say, almost only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and nuclear warheads! Don't worry, I will meet the apocalypse with my electric guitar in one hand, a bottle of Jack Daniels in the other, smoking a Cuban cigar. Cuban cigars in Qatar are top quality!

World Class Tennis...for free

The Qatar Open brought the #1 player in tennis Roger Federer to Qatar and I got to see three nights of world class tennis for free thanks to the government of Qatar.

Qatari Driver's License, NOT

I have some interesting news about trying to get a drivers license in Qatar.

In order to get a drivers license I need to show my Virginia drivers license.
I gave the DMV here my Virginia license and they rejected me for a automobile license. Why? Because on my drivers license it states that I am class M. Class M means that I can drive a motorcycle, as per the definitions on the back of the license. I can also drive a car in Virginia, but it does not specifically state that on my license. So, the official at the Qatar DMV rejected application for an automobile license stating that my Virginia license is for a motorcycle only. Logically this makes sense, if you read the license at face value. How do I convince the Qatar DMV that my license is in fact for BOTH an automobile AND a motorcycle?

I have three options:

1. Go back to the DMV and see if I can get a supervisor who will agree with me (unlikely).

2. Go to the US embassy and have someone there write me a letter on US Embassy letterhead informing the Qatar DMV that I do have a drivers license that allows me to drive an automobile. I called the US embassy and the extension that they have for Citizen Assistance is not in service. Also, even though their web site states that you can leave a voice message, there is not prompt for you to do so. The only other option is to go to the walk-in hours 10am-12pm Sun, Mon, Wed, and Thurs (also, unlikely).

3. Acquire my drivers license record from the Virginia DMV and hope that it states on there that I am licensed to drive an automobile. In order to get the record online I need a pin. I have asked for a pin but they will MAIL it to my Arlington Address in three days. Also, I have purchased a physical copy of my driver record, which will also be mailed to my Arlington Address in five days.

I have survived three months without a drivers license, but I would like a license so that I can be a driver instead of a passenger.

Putting the D'oh in Doha.

Prayer Mat with compass at the big department store

The Cadillac of prayer mats. A Prayer mat with a compass, so you know that you are facing Mecca.

Traffic on the desert road

Traffic goes at a brisk 120 KM per hour (75 mph) OR MORE in the desert. You are driving at speeds in excess of 75 mph with massive trucks and other vehicles that treat the speed limit as a theoretical concept.

ESCAPE

Sometimes you just need to escape (the exit sign at the City Center Mall in Doha).

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2006 FROM QATAR

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2006 from the Singing Sand Dunes in Qatar.
The Singing Sand Dunes hum when the wind comes over the top of them. Great place for camping, but very cold in the desert.