I don't have any photos to go with today's post. I've been sick all week with a head cold in various stages of annoying, but before I felt sick, I managed to do two fun nights of fun Doha activities.
Sunday evening after the kids were in bed, I felt like exploring some of the less-luxurious parts of town to see what else there was besides malls. I'd seen a few shops on the side of the road that reminded me more of the shopping scene in Egypt or India, so I drove over there and discovered that those few shops were actually just the exposed edge of a whole shopping center full of shops all about 10 by 20 feet in size. They all had glass floor-to-ceiling windows at the front and probably rolling steel shutters that came down when they were closed, like you might see in New York. There were several dozen shops, but really only different owners of the same kind of shop repeated a dozen times. The basic shops were: ladies' tailors, gents' tailors, ready-made clothing shops (full of Chinese, Thai, and other Aisan-produced cheap clothes), the fabric store, the jewelry store, the snack food store (where you get high off the scent of cheap sugar!), the satellite receiver / tv repair store, the shoe store (almost all of which had no "shoes", but a dizzying array of sandals), the gents' saloon (barber), the ladies' saloon (salon), the seedy-looking pet shop, the stationery store, the perfume store, the hardware store, and the traditional Qatari crafts store (all made by imported labor, of course). Along the far side of the parking lot were a dozen stalls made of scrap wood and metal where people shined and repaired shoes. I got a lot of strange looks as I walked around, so it made me feel I'd done something exciting. On the way home I found a good place to buy flowers, so Rachel will have something to go in her bud vase that I got for free in my swag bag at the Doha Counselors Conference last week (not going to write about it--if you've ever been to a conference, you know about how it went).
Monday night I visited a Qatari home on school business. I'll be visiting the home of each senior, along with the principal and assistant principal. You might think that a large time commitment, but we do only have a class of ten seniors! Still, I've been warned these visits might, out of courtesy, have to last several hours each. Our first visit didn't, though, because the father had a meeting he had to attend. So we only stayed 45 minutes. In that time the family invited us into their majlis, or sitting room. Often a majlis is a separate building from the main house, and it's often exclusively for men (if it's just two families of close friends, for example, the wives might join in since everyone is familiar). Of course, every home's majlis is unique, some made to feel like tents inside, others more like ballrooms (see the link above for some pictures). This family's majlis was inside their house, just to the left inside the front door, as a parlor or sitting room might be. It could have seated thirty comfortably around the periphery. The son (our senior, but the youngest male in the gathering) served us, as is the custom. Two trays filled with sweets and crackers were already on the coffee table, as were a teapot and a coffee pot. We were first offered Turkish tea, to be drunk with the sweets first, and then Arabic coffee, to be taken with the savory crackers and other snacks. The family was impeccably hospitable, and made us feel like honored guests which, I suppose, we were, as their son's educators. The parents said it's practically unheard of for a school's administration to take time to visit the home of each senior, and that they would brag about it to their friends. My principal told me afterward that he was sure that would happen, as people visit each other in majlises several times each week, and there's a very active word-of-mouth news scene in town. I was sick later in the week, so I didn't attend the second appointment with a different family, but my principal said they were served a gigantic dinner of traditional food that lasted several hours. I'm looking forward to having a night like that to report!
Rachel has been like a saint while I've been sick, really going out of her way to take the kids off my hands at night and help me rest. Thankfully, I think I'm better now. Also, today we got plants! I'll let Rachel write about that.
Sunday evening after the kids were in bed, I felt like exploring some of the less-luxurious parts of town to see what else there was besides malls. I'd seen a few shops on the side of the road that reminded me more of the shopping scene in Egypt or India, so I drove over there and discovered that those few shops were actually just the exposed edge of a whole shopping center full of shops all about 10 by 20 feet in size. They all had glass floor-to-ceiling windows at the front and probably rolling steel shutters that came down when they were closed, like you might see in New York. There were several dozen shops, but really only different owners of the same kind of shop repeated a dozen times. The basic shops were: ladies' tailors, gents' tailors, ready-made clothing shops (full of Chinese, Thai, and other Aisan-produced cheap clothes), the fabric store, the jewelry store, the snack food store (where you get high off the scent of cheap sugar!), the satellite receiver / tv repair store, the shoe store (almost all of which had no "shoes", but a dizzying array of sandals), the gents' saloon (barber), the ladies' saloon (salon), the seedy-looking pet shop, the stationery store, the perfume store, the hardware store, and the traditional Qatari crafts store (all made by imported labor, of course). Along the far side of the parking lot were a dozen stalls made of scrap wood and metal where people shined and repaired shoes. I got a lot of strange looks as I walked around, so it made me feel I'd done something exciting. On the way home I found a good place to buy flowers, so Rachel will have something to go in her bud vase that I got for free in my swag bag at the Doha Counselors Conference last week (not going to write about it--if you've ever been to a conference, you know about how it went).
Monday night I visited a Qatari home on school business. I'll be visiting the home of each senior, along with the principal and assistant principal. You might think that a large time commitment, but we do only have a class of ten seniors! Still, I've been warned these visits might, out of courtesy, have to last several hours each. Our first visit didn't, though, because the father had a meeting he had to attend. So we only stayed 45 minutes. In that time the family invited us into their majlis, or sitting room. Often a majlis is a separate building from the main house, and it's often exclusively for men (if it's just two families of close friends, for example, the wives might join in since everyone is familiar). Of course, every home's majlis is unique, some made to feel like tents inside, others more like ballrooms (see the link above for some pictures). This family's majlis was inside their house, just to the left inside the front door, as a parlor or sitting room might be. It could have seated thirty comfortably around the periphery. The son (our senior, but the youngest male in the gathering) served us, as is the custom. Two trays filled with sweets and crackers were already on the coffee table, as were a teapot and a coffee pot. We were first offered Turkish tea, to be drunk with the sweets first, and then Arabic coffee, to be taken with the savory crackers and other snacks. The family was impeccably hospitable, and made us feel like honored guests which, I suppose, we were, as their son's educators. The parents said it's practically unheard of for a school's administration to take time to visit the home of each senior, and that they would brag about it to their friends. My principal told me afterward that he was sure that would happen, as people visit each other in majlises several times each week, and there's a very active word-of-mouth news scene in town. I was sick later in the week, so I didn't attend the second appointment with a different family, but my principal said they were served a gigantic dinner of traditional food that lasted several hours. I'm looking forward to having a night like that to report!
Rachel has been like a saint while I've been sick, really going out of her way to take the kids off my hands at night and help me rest. Thankfully, I think I'm better now. Also, today we got plants! I'll let Rachel write about that.
1 comment:
Thank you Steve for taking the time to share so much of the cultural side of your experiences. I so enjoy hearing about the their culture, AND so glad you are feeling better!
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