Cairo Hamaam

Returning to Doha feels a tiny bit more like returning home each time. The flight from Cairo was, as usual, filled with people that have to be living very interesting stories; the bride wearing her wedding dress and carrying her bouquet, the Egyptian women who spent twenty minutes in the gate house rearranging their niquabs (head coverings) trying to decide exactly how much they needed to cover to be “modest” in Doha (I have to mention their watches – huge ghetto bling with extra diamonds) and the couple who sat across the aisle from me – he dressed in jeans and an oversized comfortable t-shirt with his wife totally covered and lifting her veil (not removing it – lifting it) each time she took a bite of her dinner. The entire issue of women covering would not be of such interest to me if the men here abided by every one of the tenets of the Islamic religion and there wasn’t the occasional sense of hypocrisy.

This trip to Cairo was as relaxed as anything in Cairo can be. I had time with my daughter; got to see her office, meet some of her colleagues and many of her friends. One day we had brunch at the Cairo Marriott, which was originally a palace. They have done a beautiful job restoring the building and the gardens. The colors are the traditional Arabic colors – beautiful and exotic. There is original statuary with a casual exposure of women’s bodies that feels a little schizophrenic after arriving in a cab that is checked by a drug dog, a mirror on a pole and women in full abayas waiting to be picked up by drivers on the sidewalk in front of the gate.

I tasted the Egyptian version of ‘mintonade’ (lemonade with mint over ice) and I have to say that the Qatari version is much better. ‘Ours’ is like a frozen daiquiri without alcohol.

The BEST part of the trip was our visit to the La Rose salon for a Hamaam. Ha – maam (pronounced just like ma’am in the deep south) is a Turkish exfoliation/steam/oil bath. The atmosphere is serene, no men are even allowed in the door (it is kept locked and we were only allowed in after ringing the bell) and I was looking forward to it even though I wasn’t sure exactly what I had gotten myself into!

I removed my clothes and stepped into a small room designed like the old steam baths in the movies. Tiled walls, bench bed (this one did have a cushion) and the type of cowled ceiling that collects moisture. The Turkish woman with stunningly beautiful eyes who actually does the scrubbing entered the room and we immediately had a language issue as she spoke Arabic, French and Spanish only (only?). She had to spend a lot of time guiding me through the entire process. After I lay down on my stomach she proceeded to use a body scrub that smelled fantastic and had enough oil in it that I almost slipped off of the cushion when she was trying to tell me to turn over! She left the room after I think telling me “twenty minutes” and pushing a button on the way out that immediately filled the room with steam – it was relaxing and seemed like much longer than twenty minutes until I fell asleep. When she returned she repeatedly filled a plastic pitcher with warm/hot/cool water and poured it over me. Actually she threw it on me. I learned pretty quickly that when I heard plastic hit the metal faucet – to inhale and close my eyes! She washed my hair and applied rose oil, rubbed a cream over my face and then held up a package before dramatically ripping it open. It was the loofah that I had paid extra for just to be sure I had a fresh one. I lay down again and she scrubbed and scrubbed – at one point showing me how much skin she had removed with a huge smile like it was a good thing (actually that was the whole point of being there).

When she finished scrubbing, she repeated the entire rinsing process again and she washed my hair and then covered all of the scrubbed places (raw?) with rose oil. It was incredible. When I walked out into the common area in my thick terry cloth robe – there were my daughter and her friend on lounges in their own terry cloth robes looking like two puddles of relaxation.

Kat, a friend from the US who is living and teaching in Cairo and whose idea this was, immediately asked me what I thought. I told her I loved it and she said as she was lying there with the Turkish/sumo wrestler type scrubbing her back – she realized that this would either be someone’s personal heaven or someone’s personal hell and she couldn’t help wondering which side I would be on – I am definitely on the heaven side.

We had manicures, pedicures, threading and massages before having a late lunch at an incredible Thai restaurant – it was a pretty magic day. We caught one of the hand painted thirty year old cabs back to my daughter’s apartment and had a nap after a glass of wine on the balcony.

Being in Cairo, there had to be a little excitement in the day and there was - while skyping my husband later that night – there was a huge explosion and all of the electricity in the apartment went out – listening to my youngest child call the Egyptian version of electrician911 and give directions – again in Arabic – was as much of an experience as sleeping with all of the windows open when no electrician ever showed up. I could hear all of the sounds on the street, the breeze was really comfortable and the biggest problem turned out to be the flooded kitchen as the antique refrigerator defrosted itself during the night.

While in Cairo this time, I caught my first cab without help and made my way downtown to see my daughter’s office. She works for an NGO that has a very inconspicuous (translate – hard to find) office. Crossing an overpass on the way there – a car was on fire, the police were diligently searching the trunks of the stopped cars (I thought they were looking for fire extinguishers as every car here comes with one – but maybe not) so I asked the driver if we could take the side road and get out of the traffic – he promptly drove the wheels on the right side of the car up onto the sidewalk and we edged our way forward to the off ramp – doubling back we passed the burning car from the other way and I noticed several men with large guns and was really glad we were driving away from all of the activity! I have to admit I was glad to see my daughter come around the corner as I got out of the cab.

We visited the ‘foul’ kiosk where she has breakfast every morning. There is an older man who makes incredibly fresh sandwiches using Arab bread and spicy semi-mashed red beans (known here as foul – pronounced fooool). A small bag of pickled vegetable is served along with the sandwich and I am in love with the Egyptian pickles! She said that there are lines around the corner most mornings and she might be the only female there. She says that if she just waits patiently – the man will actually serve her ahead of some of the men – she has the same order every day and always has correct change + a tip. He tried to refuse her money when we ordered – he could tell I was her ‘Um’ or mother and tried to buy us breakfast, which was very nice and totally unexpected.

I had my first prickly pear as they have just come into season and there are pushcarts all over the city full of them. Vendors peel them and pass them balanced on the skin so one can just pick it up and take a bite. They are very sweet and full of seeds. I was slightly uncomfortable spitting seeds on the street. We found out later that we were just supposed to swallow the seeds.

We had gone back to a section of town that we had visited on a previous trip so I could take some photos of a gorgeous palace that is boarded up on three sides. It is the oddest thing to see as from the front through the tall iron gates – looking straight at the front door, the total desolation isn’t quite obvious. It is right in downtown Cairo around the corner from a coffee shop owned by a young man married to an American nurse who has been waiting for a visa to move to the US for almost two years. Everyone here has a story.

The Egyptian government is in the news daily after thirty years of Emergency Law – there is a tenseness in the air but the people still the same - raucous, warm, interesting and at loose ends. They all seem to be waiting for something or holding their breath to see what is going to happen.

Bedouins, Basil and Batoolas

Many new things have happened since I managed to finish and post a blog! Today was pretty special – I was invited to tea at the home of a Sheikha of one of the five primary families here in Doha. I was one of fifty westerners invited. Her home is ‘across the street’ from the U.S. Ambassador’s Residence, needless to say an amazingly upscale neighborhood with large signs declaring ‘No Photographs!’ and its own private security force. My husband dropped me at the front gate of her compound and upon passing through it – there was a home the size of a small hotel. Gorgeous lines, built of concrete, three stories with winding balconies. There were huge plants in Italian pots and mature palm trees. A beautiful fountain was in the center of the courtyard. The tea was to be held in the women’s’ majalis which was off to the right side of the house. The men’s majalis off to the left was a completely separate building – the women’s side looked more like a wing of the house. I found later that it was actually in the basement of the house so the women would not have to go outside – they have the option of stairs or an elevator.

We were directed to the proper entrance by a young man who waved frantically at us after I think we tried to enter the garage. We entered through large double glass doors and went down lushly carpeted steps. At the bottom of the steps there was a huge bush with large bright red flowers – turns out they were silk but here in the desert - silk flowers are totally understandable. We wound left into a foyer that was at a minimum forty feet by forty feet. The wall on the left had sinks all with bottles of soap, perfume and lotions. Each sink had baskets of hand towels with ornate gold mirrors above them. The countertop was marble and as someone pointed out – one piece of marble. The sinks are used for the cleansing ablutions before prayers.

Next we entered the main room of the majalis (also spelled mejilis or majlis) – which in Arabic means “a place of sitting”. There were large rugs end to end – blues, greens and golden designs and chairs lined up around the room. The windows were covered – golden blackout curtains with royal blue drapes – three huge sets. The tiebacks were cords of intertwined gold and blue that were the size of my wrists and everything was proportionally beautiful. The light fixtures would have made us laugh in a store in the U.S. but they are amazing here – flush against the ceiling with at least five hundred small bulbs. There were several maids serving tea in tiny cups and saucers on silver trays. They were in uniforms and gliding around in socks.

At one end of the room were four wing backed chairs covered in tapestried fabrics that were for the guests of honor and three sides of the room had low cushioned chairs with a small table in front of every other one. Behind the low chairs there was a row of wooden straight backed (not as comfortable) chairs and on two sides of the room behind the wooden chairs there were rows of sofas with big overstuffed pillows. Now even if the wooden chairs were usually not there and brought in today from the dining room in the house (most Qatari dining rooms seat at least twenty) – there would still be ample room at any given time for at least a hundred women to visit comfortably.

Majalis is a very common word here. I thought they were similar to game rooms or pool houses but they are actually self-contained small houses with no bedrooms. They are used frequently as families gather together here quite often and most socializing is with members of the extended family. There are actually advertisements here for majalis furniture – lightweight oversized sectional seating that is easily transported. We often pass pickup trucks with towers of this type of furniture being moved from one huge outdoor majalis to another for various celebrations. An outdoor majalis is a huge rectangular tent with vinyl windows and air conditioners used mostly by men to break the fast during Ramadan, celebrate a wedding or other family event.

After entering the main room of the majalis – straight ahead was a large buffet table covered with food – amazing Middle Eastern foods of every type except the ones I expected to see. There was no hummus – there was a chicken dish that resembled it but was very bland. There were no swarmas – small spicy sandwiches that are staples here but there were grape leaves that stuffed with rice and something delicious. There was a dish of round yellow things in a cream sauce that was a Pakistani sweet and included ‘lemon milk’ and cornmeal. It didn’t sound great but as I was trying to taste everything – I took one and once I tasted it – I wished I had taken ten. There were dates with sesame seeds – we were told that in the Middle East one should always start a meal with a date – they do pass dates in a basket on Qatar Airways Business class along with Turkish coffee so it could be true – it is like having dessert first! Egyptian Koshary, which I tried in Cairo and was not a fan of, was served here with a spicy red sauce, daintier pasta and Arborio rice. I am now officially a fan!

Sweets from this part of the world are full of pistachios, dates, honey, and sesame seeds and are usually wrapped in thin layers of phylo. When we go to our local bakery – there is no way to buy a few – they are sold by the kilo – when we try to buy four or six – they laugh as they give them to us at no charge as it is too light an order to weigh!

My very favorite thing was the bowls of herbs and perfume. I was sure it was the mint and rose oil that I have read about, but it was the local basil (mashmoom or Thai basil) that grows almost wild here and if I understood properly each family has a perfume created when a daughter marries. In the bridal suite, the mixture of herb and oil is put on trays and placed underneath the bed and on of top of closets (armoires) and the air conditioner turned to high for a few hours before the couple arrives. The scent is unforgettable and in the future if the wife wants to remind the husband of their first night together – she mixes a batch and fills their home with the aroma.

It was interesting as many women arrived completely covered (here in Qatar when a woman is covered the only thing visible is her eyes) and after removing their abayas and niquabs, they were dressed in colorful chiffon jallabiyas, which are long loose gowns that are usually beaded or embroidered. They were very welcoming and encouraged us to ask anything we were curious about. The two eldest women were wearing butoolas, which are hammered metal golden masks with room for the eyes that stop just below the nose. Until the last quarter of a century, all women in Qatari Bedouin tribes wore these and creating them was apparently an art. I have read that the only women encouraged to wear them these days are older women who are direct descendants of the original tribes (AKA elite wealthy Qatari families).

I finally figured out that all of the arriving Qatari women are members of one extended family. We were told that this was the first time they had opened their home to foreigners. They were making an exceptional effort to introduce us to their culture and were very interested in our thoughts about Qatar. One of our hostesses, Mozza, talked about her family life and there was much bantering back and forth with another woman around her same age. I assume they were sisters in law, and the differences in how they approached their marriages were interesting. The approach to marriage here is so very different than in the US to begin with that it was surprising to realize that there are such differences within one family. This conversation makes any future generalizing difficult. One was from a very conservative family and only met her husband on the day they married, although she was quick to say that her parents would not have forced her to marry him and she was fine with them selecting her husband. Her father and the groom’s father were cousins. It is very common to marry within your family here. As she was saying this, the other woman was waving her hand and shaking her head. She said that her family encouraged her to meet her future husband several times before the marriage.

The question of multiple wives was right below the surface. The Emir of Qatar has four wives and there are several gorgeous homes here with four matching slightly smaller but also gorgeous homes next door. One woman sensed that we were being cautious about what questions we asked and announced that if we were to ask most Qatari men how many wives they had; the overwhelming answer would be one. One of the women said her father-in-law had four wives and her mother-in-law was a much younger number three. Then a woman in a beautiful beaded jallabiya (she earlier asked me why I wore my hair so short when I would be beautiful and more feminine with long hair) stood and said that all of the women in this room were singular wives and would have it no other way.

In my conversation with an Egyptian friend after the tea, I learned that the Sheikha would very much have liked more questions, more dialog and felt we were overly sensitive. She felt she had opened her home to us so that we could learn more about how they live and would have been very receptive to us staying longer and talking more openly.

Later I also heard that a few American women were very concerned that religion might be discussed so decided to skip the entire event. I assumed they were being sensitive to the world situation between Christians and Muslims. NOT – they were afraid that this entire tea was a set up so that the Muslim women could do an Arabic version of proselytizing and attempt to convert us to Islam. Although we were given a copy of ‘Understanding Islam’ (along with a foil packet of the incredible herb and perfume mix ) as we left and I did pick up a copy of “How the Bible Led me to Islam” to read, I think that idea was rather a stretch of the imagination.

Doha is a special place and I have already met some incredibly complex people from different areas of the world, from different cultures with varied outlooks on life. I am making every effort to enjoy my time with them and learn all that I can.

Not in Kansas Any More, Toto!

It was wonderful to get home, I was even comfortable with the Karwa cabdriver taking the long way home probably both to avoid traffic (it was a Friday night) and to boost the fare - it turned out to be an expensive ride although he did take my bag to the front door. This was before I realized that it was not my bag - who would have thought another person would have the same type of suitcase with a huge red 'fragile' sticker on the side? Fred, our one-eyed semi-feral cat was incredibly glad to see me. My husband was out of town but had left lots of food in the refrigerator and after a hot shower and a glass of wine, I was really glad to be in my own little home!

The comfort was short lived. I tried to open a link from my daughter that was supposed to be really funny and the website was blocked! While I was gone, the Qatari government apparently signed on to "Google Safe" or some other selective search blocker. The new page is a more lighthearted way to say no than the earlier page but it is clearly a "NO", nonetheless. I understand that students who tried to Google Dick Whittington for an English project were told that "dick" cannot be googled even as a proper name. I am trying to get my nerve up to try "Tricky Dick".

We went to the grocery with my prediabetic shopping list in hand - I already knew that reading labels here would be an issue but it was a huge hilarious adventure. We both spent more time putting on and taking off our reading glasses as every bit of information we needed was in tiny print. I am going to have to carry a cheat sheet with Arabic, Hindi and French words for protein, carbohydrates and sugars. Daily there are predictions of a diabetic epidemic here and yet they still show afternoon commercials touting cocoa puffs as an energizing after school snack! I have to think that soon there will be entire sections of the grocery stores devoted to "diabetic options". It will interesting to see how long it takes to see fat-free humus, whole wheat Arab bread and 'lean' lamb koftas on the shelves.

A few days after returning to Doha, a friend of ours from Houma who has lived here almost a year, had visitors in the middle of the night searching for a runaway 'maid thief'. Their doorbell rang at 1:00 AM - and rang and rang - at first they thought it might be a mistake but that hope was quicky put to rest when someone began pounding on the front door. Our friend's husband went downstairs in his 'drawers' and was astonished to find three men in national dress and two veiled women standing on his doorstep. They demanded to come in and when he argued, they became more determined and forceful. When he said he needed to at least put on his robe (we would have really been in trouble at this point as my husband doesn't even have a robe here), they said okay but he could not close the door.

My friend's husband is a big guy and as she was peeking from the stairs, she said one of the Qataris was a giant next to Dave. He had to duck to even come in their front door. The men were very intimidating - not so much physically as in attitude. They had a piece of paper all in Arabic except the words "Villa #11" and refused to show any type of identification. They repeatedly said "CIA". Eventually, after much loud discussion, the two veiled women searched upstairs and the men searched downstairs finally accepting the fact that there was no maid on the premises. They drove off in Land Cruisers with tinted windows and bright lights with very little explanation although there was much talk about maids who rob people.

The next morning when she went to the management office of the compound, she was told that when the secret police showed up - all of their paperwork was in order and there were enough of them to search 6-7 villas. They knew the villa number that they were looking for but not the street address. So they decided to search every single Villa #11 in the entire compound. The compound is large - more like a neighborhood in the states. They did find one of the maids that they were looking for!

There were only three guards at the compound gate and only two could leave at a time so only two tenants had a compound guard present when the searches took place. One woman spoke no English and no Arabic and was home alone - how scary was that? How mad was her husband who was on a trip and on the phone with the manager at six o'clock in the morning!

The manager's story was that there was a clique of Philipino maids that cruised Doha looking for houses to clean in the off time. They would knock at the door and ask for work for very little money, they apparently paid a lot of attention to what was in each house and later all of these houses were robbed. The manager also said that part of their racket was to 'ingratiate' themselves with the master and then when they stole things, no one could report them or the master would be in trouble as well as whoever agreed to pay them under the table. Maids are only supposed to work for their sponsors - this was the same in Singapore and it seems that in both places, people have learned to circumvent the rules.

When I went for a haircut and mentioned it - no one was surprised - my hairdresser (European) wanted to now if the husband had ticked anyone off at work! She also said the girls that are arrested for things like this may not be deported; they may never be allowed to go home again. Rumor has it that they often disappear into the system. Apparently it doesn't happen often but it does happen - new appreciation for my little compound with only 18 villas. We may all know too much about each other but we all know there is only one maid here! Lesson learned is if the Qatari Secret Police arrive at your door and request entry - the correct response is, "Of course, please come in!"

On April 20th we received a notice under our front door notifying us that LG teams would be here beginning April 20th to 'summer service' the air conditioners - they would begin at Villa #1 and do one unit per day beginning at 8AM and finishing by 5PM. As I am counting the days to put Villa #10 on the calendar (wondering if they work Fridays) - there is a knock at the door and ten uniformed (everyone wears a uniform here) LG team members are on my front porch! It is difficult to ask a smiling young Hindi why they are ten days early to service the air conditioners! There is always at least one bearded devout you Muslim on these teams and their expressions always make me question my decision to wear shorts even when I am in my own home.

Our cat Fred used to have two bushy tailed brothers (they looked just like him except they had TWO green eyes) that periodically prowled through our compound. We had already made plans to keep water out during the summer for them in hopes that they would monitor the mouse population. No one has seen them for weeks. Well, I was going to lunch with a friend who drives here and we passed an Arab man (he looked Egyptian) with two Davy Crockett coon-skin-hat type tails hanging from the rear view window blowing in the wind. Nowhere else in the world would I have instantly decided that they used to belong to Fred's brothers!

This is an interesting magic place - this small country we call home. It is growing steadily and in reading the daily newspaper, it is obviously taking a strong interest in both the development of the Middle East and events in the world at large.

Eight Cities in Thirteen Days!!

My favorite alone moment during my three week trip to the US was in Bay Saint Louis and included six spicy boiled crabs, a cold beer, a great book and watching the ducks forage across the bayou - What could be better?

Our whirlwind trip around the southeastern US was wonderful if a little hectic. We had an amazing meal prepared by my son - including my all time favorite - his Gorgonzola mushroom cream sauce on top of perfectly prepared beef tenderloin. We got to spend two nights in a hotel with the cutest four year old girl in the world who loved her "couchbed" and reading with PopPop until neither one could keep their eyes open. I learned to make waffles in a hotel lobby - who knew they had invented a countertop machine that dispenses batter by the tiny cupful and a waffle maker that requires only the push of a button - all to make a more extensive continental breakfast that doesn't require a cook?

The grandboys are hilarious - sitting next to a two year old in a car seat who sees a semi and all of a sudden yells "HONK" at the top of his 'outside' voice was way more fun as a grandparent that it ever would have been as a parent - especially to the parent driving who looked really startled even from where I was sitting in the back seat. The elder grandson and I had a great time doing puzzles - I swear I do not remember my children figuring out "puzzling by the shapes" at such a young age - it could be a gene from my late mother-in-law who thought I wasted a lot of time going by color and straight edges! We got to see the beautifully decorated pink and green bedroom that will be welcoming our next granddaughter, Maggie, home soon. I am sure my daughter-in-law is hoping for very very soon.

We got to spend a weekend in New Orleans - two dozen oysters with Dixie beer, a rehearsal dinner on a riverboat, lunch with special longtime friends (requisite fried shrimp po'boy) and a slightly damp garden wedding on St. Charles Avenue. The moment that made me smile was when the bride, dressed in an off-white, strapless satin gown, lifted her skirt to come down the stairs into the garden revealing hot pink peek-a-boo heels. She was a gorgeous bride and the winner of the middle-aged women group was her stunning mother. I think she is the same size she was when we met twenty-five years ago and she obviously enjoyed every minute of the party.

The city of New Orleans looks so much healthier than the last time I was there. We rode the streetcar out Saint Charles Avenue to visit friends and it was crammed with people who had been told to take the streetcar tour - somehow I got the distinct impression that no one mentioned it would take several hours to ride to the end of the line - get out, cross over and get back on and pass through the same area of town again all while packed in like sardines with other people - all clutching their purple streetcar "tour ticket". I never did find out if they paid more than the standard streetcar $2.50 (roundtrip) price.

There is a much stronger feel in the city - it might have something to do with 'dem Saints' winning the Super Bowl. We saw a faded sign in the window of a store that declared "Hell Froze Over Last Night" and then we saw the statue of Joan of Arc on horseback in the French Quarter was waving a Saints flag! We finally got to celebrate the win by buying t-shirts, golf caps, kids shirts, coozies and even a priceless shirt for my son-in-law (a huge Colts fan) that pointed out that - Yes, the Saints won.

On the way out of the country I spent a few educational days with an adventurous friend in Greenville where we had a spectacular meal at Doe's Restaurant, a local phenomena. It has been there almost forever, has survived the collapse of the neighborhood (we chatted with armed guard wearing a bulletproof vest, who escorted us to our car) and has won many national awards in the meantime, most of which any native can check off on their fingers. It is wonderful to see an establishment that has lasted so long and one that engenders such pride in the local folk. My father-in-laws friend, Dollye, grew up in Greenville and still fondly remembers eating there as a child. It reminded me of Annie's Restaurant in Pass Christian.

There is a wonderful story that the original owner would let people leave their unseasoned wooden salad bowls at the restaurant where they would be used daily until she deemed them 'seasoned' and returned them to their owners.

Everyone ordered the steaks but I had to try the grilled shrimp. I am so glad I did - they were incredible! I would love the recipe for the butter sauce - there is something special in it and I couldn't quite figure out what it was. Next time I am ordering an entire order of garlic bread to go with the shrimp (and the sauce). Doe's has won most of their awards for their spectacular steaks but they are also well known for their tamales, which are delicious but spicy in a different way than my neighbors 'true Mexican tamales'. Beer is a must with the 'true Mexican' version! Doe's require wine.

We decided to take a bottle of wine for the table the night we had dinner there. We were directed to a local liquor store where after we told them we were going to Doe's - they actually recommended a bottle of zinfandel that was "perfect with the tamales at Does"! I didn't realize exactly how funny this was until we got in the truck and were driving away and I realized that I had been talking so much with the wine seller who actually knew where Qatar was, I paid $37.99 for a bottle of wine to pair with tamales! I think the intent was truly to have a wine that was wonderful with the tamales. The owner of the liquor store had dinner at the next table and I think I caught him checking to be sure we had the proper wine as they had just served the tamales when he and his family sat down. The wine was good; we could have sworn it got better with each glass - maybe it just needed to breathe.

The trip back to Doha was not so bad, just long. I actually was given an invitation to the business lounge in Houston - made me feel that changing my clothes in the tiniest restroom in the airport was worth the trouble. The seventeen hour flight brought a great movie, a good meal, a nap and was almost perfect until my seat mate, a Belgian, proceeded to trim and file his nails just before landing, and ended the flight by cleaning his ears with his hot towel.

Old Hospital Gowns in Alexandria, Egypt!

My friend from Tennessee made an unbelievably long and difficult trip to join us for three days so we planned to see the Pyramids, Alexandria and have diner on the Nile while she was with us. Alexandria is a three-hour car ride from Cairo, which was not bad – if a little bumpy – we stopped for lunch and had another falafel and foul (spicy red bean) sandwich. The Egyptian bread is as good in its own way as French bread and I never thought I would say that. Intermittently there was a lot to see – camels, mosques, wagons pulled by horses – acres and acres of vegetables but we mostly napped on the way. The night before we made this trip was a late one – fun catching up, we had a lot to talk about and Kaye bought wine at duty free!

Alexandria is ancient. The area along the harbor where the old Pharoahs lighthouse once stood – it was in use for over 17 centuries and at one time was the tallest building in the world before it was destroyed by an earthquake – is still buzzing with activity, both tourist and local. In AD 1480 the lighthouse, after lying in ruins for over 100 years was mixed with the stone used to build Fort Qaitby, which is still standing. We walked along the harbor that is lined with souvenir kiosks, ice cream and beverage stands. The water is clear, the colors are intense – the blues are so special - and everything touristy is old. Really old. We all had our photos taken with a group of young Muslim Indonesian girls who apparently had not seen many Americans.

Nautical Archaeology is a new area of extreme interest in Egypt as Alexandria has sunk 6 – 8 meters since antiquity. Excavators have found hundreds of objects including red granite platforms, columns that might have been part of a palace. There is speculation that it could have been Cleopatra’s as a sphinx with the face of her father has been found nearby. Recent finds include Napoleon’s flagship which sank recently – 1798 - and the city of Merouthis complete with temples, houses, statures and a harbor. Eventually they hope to map all of the submerged towns along the coast. There are local dives to see what has been found near Fort Qaitby. Eventually there is to be an underwater museum and that could be incredible. I hope in five thousand years they are not mapping the French Quarter underwater! They would probably still be finding beer cans! We drove along the Corniche and stopped on the beach to have a fruit juice in a stall that has been open since the 1950’s – fresh strawberries, oranges, kiwis, and bananas. The view was spectacular, the sun was shining, and the breeze was blowing, it was actually a magic day as we sat out front and watched the Mediterranean Sea.

Next we visited a very old mosque and unfortunately didn’t have our camera with us to catch the moment that we actually paid to rent old hospital gowns to cover our heads so we could enter the women’s section. We had passed it off to our tour guide to take some photos of the main (male) part of the mosque. It is beautiful and the photographs he took were excellent. (Later he told us about his day trip to Syria where he took 950 pictures – I am surprised he ever came back with Kaye’s camera!) I was spoiled in Asia, as when we visited various temples and mosques and forgot our head coverings – there were neat and clean little black scarves that we could rent - here we paid money to use OLD HOSPITAL GOWNS! There was also a section in this mosque where people drop in coins and pray for something in particular. I felt it was similar to “lighting a candle” in the Catholic Church. This was the mosque that felt the most like it was a separate experience for men and women.

Next we saw Pompey’s Pillar which is the lone 30m tall granite pillar remaining out of the original 400. Most were apparently destroyed and the pieces used to block the harbor during an ancient war. This one was too big to break! There are huge round pieces of granite lying around. The original temple is in ruins but was the site of the second library of Alexandria, which at one point held 700,000 papyrus rolls that could be consulted by anyone using the temple. Ancient bookshelves were holes in the walls and the range of size and shapes of these was fascinating. I have to wonder what type of filing system they used.

The Catacombs of Kom Ash-Shuqqafa are some the most spectacular things I have ever seen. I knew they would be amazing but I was not prepared for the beauty, the extent of the carvings and the maze of underground rooms. There is an area that was used as a reception area for the mourners where they could eat and drink. An early example of the wake/viewing (I thought the Irish Catholics came up with this idea!). Our guide had some wonderful stories and knew his Egyptian history. There is an underground area that is closed off behind a tall iron gate (painted green for some reason) that is supposedly where hundreds of Christians were killed at one point and someone paid to have it left in its original condition to memorialize them. There are actually visible bones. The principal tomb is down a few flights of steps and has an antechamber with ornate columns that lead to the inner sanctum. The decoration has an odd mix of ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman funerary – the doorway is flanked by figures that represent an Egyptian God but they are dressed as Roman legionnaires with a serpent’s tail representative of a Greek God. No one knows who is buried here but I think our guide was trying to infer that it was Antony and Cleopatra.

There is a small stone building on the way out that contains most of the tiles found in a tomb beneath a main road in Alexandria. There images were gorgeous and the colors had only faded a bit. The tiles have been cemented to the walls and ceiling to simulate what it looked like in its original state when it was part of an ancient burial tomb. It was beautifully eerie and one of my favorite things. There is an ongoing problem with developing areas and those people trying to save ancient artifacts – some are discovered just before the concrete is poured and it is a problem to remove them quickly enough.

We almost made it through the entire day before I realized who our guide reminded me of – all day I had been trying to put my finger on it - BORAT! As soon as I said it out loud – I don’t think any of us could talk and look at him at the same time. He was an excellent guide, very knowledgeable and obviously a very conservative Muslim. By the end of the day we were falling out of the door of the van and our friend from Cairo would have to help us as this young man would watch but was obviously uncomfortable touching us. He did take our tip though and did manage a smile when in one conversation, I said that if my husband was a practicing Muslim, I would never have had a chance to take a trip like this. This was probably really unfair because I have lots of friends whose husbands would nix the idea of a week in Cairo!

It was an amazing day – it is hard to believe how very young our United States is. I met an Egyptian woman here in Doha who told me that years ago, the Egyptians had money and paid for schools all over the known world but now had no money to pay for their OWN schools. Sound familiar? Her parents still live in Maadi – a suburb of Cairo in a beautiful home but Egypt seems almost stagnant in comparison to other areas of the Middle East. The government keeps a tight rein on things and has managed to stay in power for almost thirty years. I remember vividly the day when Anwar Sadat was assassinated (1981). I am sure there are some Egyptians who rue that day.

My Trip from Doha to Cairo

After almost a year of living in a country where local women are usually covered – they occasionally take it to the next level and drape a sheer black scarf over their head completely covering their face, which is already covered by their Niqab. A Niqab is a thick piece of cotton that covers their hair attached to a thin piece to cover their lower face leaving only the eyes showing. They are able to see through this sheer scarf when it is draped over their head but they are invisible. It is still a shock to see a woman driving with a scarf covering their head! Especially when the odds are they have a Niqab AND sunglasses on beneath it. The Qatari women seem to be treated gently and respectfully by everyone even when they are unbearably rude (doesn’t happen often). Many women living here are not Muslim and so do not cover but are usually very respectful in what they wear – the general rule is to not show shoulders or knees. The largest group here is women who cover their hair with a scarf. These seem to be mostly non-Qatari Arab Muslims. I have read quite frequently that Qatari women are aware of security issues and social norms elsewhere and so usually remove their Niqab to travel – NOT on the day I left for Cairo.

Checking in for my flight to Cairo I was not given a boarding card until the last minute and was told to hurry “yala yala” to the gate. I rushed to Passport Control and thanks to my resident permit was allowed to go right through. When I got to immigration I saw a short line with a sign that said “Ladies Verification” and being a lady and a lady who has learned that the ladies lines in the Middle East are wonderful things, I stepped into that line behind several couples in national Qatari dress – white thobes, red & white Ghutras with black rope Ogaals and the women only identifiable by their oversized designer bags. The woman who was working the desk immediately waved me out of the line. I moved one line over just to watch. A couple would approach the customs agent and the man would hand over two passports and when the woman behind the desk indicated she was really paying attention – the veiled wife would lower her Niqab and show her face. The agent would look at the passport and look at her and look at the passport again and eventually process the paperwork and wave them through. This was interesting also because every other line required that each person hold their own passport and approach one at a time.

The last couple in line was the most interesting – the woman was fully veiled (sheer black over lower face covering and head scarf) and tiny. The man was slight with a long meticulously manicured wiry beard (I have heard that these indicate a serious commitment to Islam and are very time consuming and expensive to maintain). He nudged her none to gently forward although it is very unusual here to see the woman go first. As they approached the desk, he caught her arm and stepped in front of her and handed over their passports. When I realized what he was wearing – I had to think that if this was an arranged marriage and the odds are it was – her father had no clue what he was doing. The man, in addition to appearing mean had on the first “high water” thobe I have ever seen along with black nylon socks and black shoes. Thobes are the full-length white frock that men wear here and are usually elegant, exactly tailored and just graze the heel of the shoe (even when it is a sandal) like a pair of well-tailored slacks. This one was hilariously short. When the woman showed her face, I realized that she was stunning. Now, in the US, we might make the assumption upon seeing a couple like this that the marriage was all about money and the man could be a nerdy but wealthy young man but that doesn’t seem to happen here. The wealthy Qataris are very conscious of appearances. There has to be a story here!

I ran through duty free to pick up the requested four bottles for the birthday party to be held in Cairo. No time to look for tequila – but snagged the others and raced for the gate. As I was trying to jog (didn’t happen) up the steps and the public address system was calling flight to Beirut, Jeddah, Istanbul and several cities that I didn’t recognize - just for a moment I felt like I was in a movie!

The lady at the checkout counter in duty free had put plastic sleeves on the bottles but that was no help whatsoever as I boarded a first class cabin full of Qatari men in full national dress sipping Arab coffee and munching on dates (Qatar Airways fabulous predeparture service) with my duty free bag clanking - obviously full of liquor. As I put the bag in the overhead bin and it slid loudly to the back when I closed it – there was complete silence.

Something else new to me – the flight attendants in first class collected the red and white checked Ghutras (headscarves) and black Ogaals (rope coils that are placed on top of the Ghutras) and hung them in the first class closet along with the suit coats of the few westerners on board. They carefully folded them and draped them over the hangers and hung the black Ogaals over the hook with a seat tag! After a beautiful service – the flight attendants returned them - gently shaking them out so they could be properly arranged when they were put back on. Arranging and rearranging Ghutras and Niqabs here in Qatar is a national pastime!

The women in Cairo are also covered in varying degrees. The difference I felt was that in Qatar a woman in an abaya has help with the every day issues of getting things done while dressed in a full length ‘coatdress’. There is usually a maid tagging along and a driver waiting. At the shopping centers, there is always a row of Land Cruisers with young men napping with cell phones in hand waiting for Madams call. In Cairo the fabrics seemed heavier and the women seemed to trudge along – weighed down by what they have to wear while completing everyday tasks. In Qatar it is obvious that beneath the abaya the women wear beautiful stylish clothes – I did not get that feeling in Egypt. Doha has enough expats that the restrictiveness of the religion isn’t quite as in your face as it was in Cairo where two conservative cab drivers refused to pick us up the ONE time we left home with one of us in a t-shirt. The men look economically stressed and the women on the street just seem defeated.

We did not go into any malls – we hit as many tourist spots as possible and we did go to the huge inner city market – there were very few women on the streets in Zemalek (the island in the Nile where my daughter lives) so my conclusion could be way off track. I just had the feeling that women in Egypt (even women of means) have a much harder life than the women here. Regardless of the economic conditions in Egypt – it has such a dramatic history and I saw some amazing things! The Pyramids and the Alexandria catacombs are like nothing I have ever seen!

Cairo, Egypt #1

My quick trip to Cairo may require three blogs. It was pretty spectacular. Cairo is unbelievably loud, so dusty the sun is blurred, very friendly and the people seem easier than some other countries in this part of the world. AND even though seven lanes of cars routinely squeeze into five lanes – the drivers are not nearly as meanly aggressive as they are here in Doha. They are still very aggressive and twice I was in a cab that was driving so close to another cab that the drivers carried on a conversation in Arabic as we were driving along in traffic – the first time this happened was in the city and bearable – the second time was on the interstate going 80 kilometers an hour and was pretty scary especially as my cab driver was straddling the center white line and there was another car on the other side of us! There are a million old cars that have been turned into taxis – many of which look like my old Fiat – they all seem have been brush painted with oil paint. The fenders are white and the rest of the car is black. Each of them has a number hand painted somewhere – none have the same number and some don’t have enough numbers to be phone numbers but I suppose this is to give the impression that they could be reported to someone somewhere. They have meters that usually they do not use – the price is negotiated before getting into the cab and the meter never comes on. I was amazed to hear my daughter arguing in Arabic about how much a driver would charge to take us. Sometimes, the drivers just said psshw and sped off like we were requesting to go somewhere not worth their time.

We did a lot of walking in the city and I almost got used to people driving up behind us and honking – after I nearly killed myself a few times diving out of the way, I was told that was their way of asking if we wanted a cab!

My daughter is living in Cairo while finishing the research part of her Masters thesis. She happened to have a friend from university who was moving from Chicago and they have ended up in an apartment on a quiet (?) side street with a great balcony in Zemalek – an island in the Nile that is often referred to as the “Georgetown” of Cairo. They have a Boab who lives downstairs in the building and takes care of anything they need for $20 per month. He lives in a small room apparently with his entire family. He speaks some English, is of indeterminate age with a red and white headscarf wound around his head, scruffy beard and full-length dark brown dishdash. But he keeps an eye on who is allowed in and out of the building and seems to have a soft spot for the two young Americans living there.

The lobby of this building was magnificent in its day. Beautiful marble pillars with ornate wrought iron railings and elegant front doors. I was so hot and tired after the first day of sightseeing – I counted the stairs to their apartment as I struggled up them with a bag of groceries – FORTY marble deep steps! It doesn’t seem to faze them at all. They have a man clean their apartment weekly for 50 Egyptian pounds - $10 US – he is very well spoken and was an attorney in Sudan. There seems to be a million underemployed people here and the economy seems to be struggling.

The Egyptian Museum was built in the early 1900’s and appears huge. A beautiful building – almost pink in the sunlight – surrounded by a lot of security – I think there were two metal detectors before we bought tickets. There was so much to see that I drove our guide nuts asking questions and drove myself nuts doing the subtraction to figure out how old some of the artifacts were. I finally understand the significance of the Rosetta stone, I got to see King Tut who I missed when he came to New Orleans in the 80’s, I toured the mummy room, the jewelry room and fell in love with a lot of the small statues that were buried in the various tombs. The contents of King Tuts tomb were beautiful. Exhibits were packed into every room – lots with the descriptions typed on a manual typewriter with black and white photos obviously arranged in the 1950s. I bought postcards of the “overseer” statue that is made entirely of one piece of sycamore (except for his arms) and the marble stones that they used for his eyes have survived till this day. It is one of the eeriest and most interesting items there.

There were so many things to see that I could have spent two full days there and still miss things. Egypt is building a new state of the art museum near the Pyramids that should open in 2012 – maybe. The basement contains over 130,000 artifacts waiting to be moved and be put on display in the new building. Our guide who is getting her PhD in Egyptology told us that they think they have only found 10% of their history. New finds are made all of the time. An interesting tidbit of info - there is a satellite that when it passed over Egypt somehow spotted another buried city that is now being surveyed.

The exhibit that taught me the most was a small statue of a Pharaoh – maybe 20” long with a picture of it when it was found. It was in over 1000 pieces and someone had patiently put it back together. The only evidence of the repair was a crack along the bottom. Archeologists must be truly gifted patient people. The entire museum experience was incredible – the Germans and the British are apparently holding on to some things that they took from Egypt in the early 1900’s and although I am sure they truly belong to Egypt I hope they are not returned until they have a secure space in the new museum. There are ancient artifacts sitting on pedestals in crowded hallways with people touching, bumping and photographing them that are priceless.

In the middle of this fabulous museum I saw something that reminded me of why a lot of people think we are the “Ugly American Tourists”. There was a tour group of couples in their sixties/seventies and I watched a white man in a baseball cap put a plastic water bottle in the lap of a statue of the only female Pharaoh – Hatshepsut- and have someone take a picture – not sure if it was to mock the lack of penis or was just inexcusably disrespectful – the statue is 5000 years old. Then he had his picture taken holding the bottle up as if he was giving her a drink of water. In my home country no one would be allowed near an artifact like this one.

The food is amazing although the hygiene in the food stalls might put off some people. We ate lunch at a little shisha café on a side street that without Ali’dan (Egyptian friend) I would never have even ventured near. The fresh Arab bread is lighter than the bread here in Qatar – it is also trekked through the streets in an open pick up truck. The falafel is so fresh, spicy and stuffed into warm pita bread with chopped salad vegetables and a dash of tahini and costs $1 US. The Egyptian mezza meal could be my new favorite!

Qatar Masters

We spent the weekend at the beautiful Doha Golf Course watching the final two days of the Qatar Masters. The weather was like San Diego in May – extraordinarily beautiful – there was a breeze and the green grounds are perfectly manicured amid stone hills and rocky water hazards dyed a TV-appealing blue. I have never appreciated desert landscaping until this weekend. The development here has been designed by the best of the best and this was no exception. There is grass on the course but heaven help the wayward golfer whose shot strays outside of the fairways.

Cacti that I have only seen before in 2” pots are the size of trees here. I had never understood the fascination with the desert orchid that seems to grow randomly. Now I do. I want one. They are gorgeous. Huge Aloe Vera plants flowed along the walkways in lieu of azaleas, Mother-in-Law tongue plants followed (huge Mother-in-Law tongue plants) next to pencil cacti that are ten feet tall. The colorful bougainvilleas are the perfect desert backdrop. There is a cactus here indigenous to Arizona that was imported just for the golf course and it seems to be thriving. At the Doha Garden Club, we heard a few stories about one of the Sheiks who owns five football field size greenhouses and flies around the world in his personal 747 collecting new varieties of plants. He has a family 747 that follows him to bring his new acquisitions home. He has an on-site horticulturist, plumber and I think they said 20 workers per building live there. I cannot imagine the labor force that tends to the Doha Golf Club. At our club in Bintan, Indonesia the workers used to weed the fairways by hand and I have to think it is even more intensive here.

We settled into seats in the grandstand at the 16^th/17^th holes and watched some great golf for the last few hours. The people watching was extraordinary!

Saturday morning, somewhere in Doha a woman of Japanese descent got dressed. To attend a golf tournament in the desert, she put on gray tights, brown knit pants, white sox and black tennis shoes topped with a white mock turtle neck, a long sleeve black sweater WITH a knee length gold and black sparkly tunic (it would have made any Saints fan proud). Her visor was oversized – black in the front and gold on the sides and she was carrying a black jacket with just enough of the Burberry lining peeking out with her Gucci gray and black tote. Her husband joined her sporting a bushy mustache, Elvis sideburns and a black Harley Davidson cowboy hat.

There was actually a woman in local dress working the tournament and watching someone in full Qatari National dress scream around in a golf cart was startling to say the least. I doubt it is very common as we only saw one man and one woman; since we couldn’t see her face – I couldn’t tell if it was a family thing or not. I have to think it was a true experience for the US golfers who were teeing off as the call to prayer echoed across the desert.

The restrooms are designed to look like castle shaped desert outposts. There is very little water pressure and I would imagine the sewage/water system is not connected to anything except a tank. The gift venue was all in temporary collapsible buildings and the snack bar was called the “Golf Restaurant”. The food was truly international. The American contribution was French fries! There were only three US players competing (one from Germantown, TN) so the food selection was mostly British. Beer was only sold in one area and served in bright blue cups, which could not be taken out of the beer tent.

The entire experience was wonderfully fun – very international – and free. Our Swedish neighbors hosted a Swedish caddy and all of them were celebrating the win by a Swede when we got home and all of the whispering before a shot was done with either a British or an Australian accent. We did meet a couple from Houston (oil company employees), a VMI alum whose daughter teaches at the Qatar branch of Texas A & M and a woman who has lived in twelve countries following her husbands career around the world. The crowd was small enough that we saw several people we knew as they passed by the 16^th hole.

Doha really is an international small town.

A Day at the Camel Races

We were number three in a four car caravan – not difficult anywhere else in the world but HERE – a true challenge - on our third attempt to see the Qatar Camel Races at a track out in the desert. All of us had seen pictures or reruns on TV but we always seem to hear about them after the fact. Today, Cristina actually had a phone number to call and verify everything. She called twice and two totally different sets of facts were verified – the first phone all said the races were at 2PM, there would be refreshments and grandstands to sit in. The second phone call said the races started at 1:30PM and there would be no grandstands but there would be buses. So when we showed up we were not exactly sure what we would find.

We drove for almost an hour through desert sand and rock – we passed a compound of tiny buildings with a huge sign that said “TRAINING CENTER” which was probably where the trainers lived. We saw a herd of nearly twenty small camels with one young man watching them off to right hand side – they were roaming freely and I saw one that was the tiniest I have ever seen. Then we began passing groups of three camels. Each group had one very tall camel with a rider or a man leading him and one small camel on each side of him. The middle camels always had their heads thrust forward as if to always be ahead of the pack so maybe this is a psychological boost before the race!

Until a few years ago, the tradition here was for three or four year old boys to ride the camels. There was a huge uproar I assume when tourists began attending the races and were horrified to see toddlers atop huge camels unsupervised much less following them around the track in a bus watching while they held on for dear life. The new process is much more humane. A tiny R2D2 look alike robot wearing the colored racing silks of the owner and holding a riding crop perches on top of each camel. He is remotely controlled from one of the hordes of Land Cruisers driving along the road that parallels the track.

Thirty camels are lined up at the starting point – pushed and shoved into place by small stable hands some of whom kneel off to the side with a rope in their hand that is looped through a leather strap around the camel’s nose. Not all of the camels have a string attached – thank goodness – because as the starting gate is raised and the camels fly out – the small men that had been holding the ropes yank one end free and dive under the fence along the side. One came through right next to me – startled me to say the least. And filled my shoes with sand and probably left over camel poop. The animals are huge and to watch that close up is fascinating.

The finish line is only fifty meters away from the starting point so the usual process is to watch them start and then walk down and watch them finish. The first few races were the younger camels. Hilarious to watch - occasionally one would run a few hundred meters and apparently just decide this was not much fun and would make a U-turn and amble back ignoring the colorful swatting robots on their back and the waving stable hands who were trying desperately to get them to turn around and RACE. By this time, I was feeling a little sorry for the animals as they ran along with their lower lips flapping and foam spewing from their mouths. I actually enjoyed assuming that with the crush of Land Cruisers filled with men driving along honking, screaming and clicking their remotes, that there was no way the owners of the reluctant camels could do anything but continue to drive around the track. We never could find out what the radio range of the remotes was.

After watching two starts, we got on the bus to watch an entire race. A twenty seater packed with our group and an Asian family pulled into the maniacal traffic just after the camels were off. We merged with cars that were FULL of men screaming, honking (regardless of all the signs with a big red line slashed across a bugle), aiming and clicking their remotes out of the windows and many standing in the open sun roofs – thobes and headgear flapping!

We did two races in the bus taking photos – my friend’s daughter took the best ones as she is young and was not at all afraid to sit on the windowsill and click away with all of our cameras. With each race, the camels got larger and faster – there were no programs or signs but we did hear that there were ten races but after five – we felt we could leave without missing much as the announcements were all in Arabic so we couldn’t understand the racing commentary.

At the end of the day my favorites were the colorful blankets, tassels on the bridles and the little silk jockey outfits on the robots. The people watching was interesting as there were no local women but men of all Middle Eastern nationalities. We did see a Mercedes (according to one of the men in our party- the most expensive one on the market) with bodyguards all around it.

While waiting to race the camels all wore muzzles (I keep hearing that they spit at people) that were simple woolen colorful things – some decorated and some not but all beautiful. The very best was my thoroughly engrossed spouse pointing out the “nose warmers”!

Expat Friends

Packing the bags for Cairo – sounds pretty amazing. I just checked the currency rate and I realized that I have gotten used to checking money that is not in US$. I will have exactly 22 hours in Cairo with my daughter and her new roommate from Chicago. I have been looking for anything I can find regarding “what to do with 24 hours in Cairo” and the souqs and food seem to top the list when I factor in arriving at 5:00PM one day and leaving at 4:00PM the next – especially arriving on a Friday which is like landing in London on Boxing Day or the US on a Sunday.

I hope to see the Pyramids on the flight in. I am planning a longer visit next month and will see them up close and personal! I am trying to talk various friends into joining me!

Fred the Cat is doing well although he sits in front of the window and looks like he is pining away for the wild life. He eats a bit of food every time he wakes up – I think he is just checking to see that it is still there. He does love Arabic bread (don’t we all?) and hopefully will have the very expensive nasty eye surgery soon.

Hummus is a mainstay here and I am going to post my friend Judy’s recipe, as it is so good, so easy and better than any of the premade stuff I have tasted plus it is easy to add extra garlic.

Judy’s Hummus

2 cans of drained chickpeas

1/2C tahini (buy the good stuff and check the date)

Lemon juice

Garlic – mashed and diced

1 ½ teaspoon salt

Put it all in the blender/processor and serve with a little olive oil drizzled on the top. A few black olives or a little chopped fresh cilantro on the side.

I have discovered that one of the difficult things about living this expat life is saying goodbye. It seems we do it quite often – both to friends that we know we will see again and worse - to friends that we have met and grown to love that live outside our home stomping grounds! We know we will make the effort to see them again but they don’t live on our regular Southeastern USA route (otherwise near a child or grandchild) so we know it will be a trip in itself.

Twice now in a new country I have been lucky enough to meet someone who makes me laugh, doesn’t care that I am a hopeless housekeeper, enjoys the food and atmosphere and can enjoy a glass of wine while wallowing in the “now” of being so far from home. Someone who realizes that this is temporary and something to be enjoyed as thoroughly as possible but also understands there are ‘blue-I would love to be somewhere where I hear my own language with a familiar accent’ days.

We have made so many friends but I think the first thing I heard about expat friends is very true – they need to be “quick, deep and transitory” to be unforgettable.

One-Eyed Fred

Rumor has it that we find dogs and cats find us. I have never wanted a cat. My friend in post -Katrina Bay St. Louis actually had seven cats at one time – one of which still loves me. The feelings were only sporadically reciprocated. The idea of having a pet sleep with me was totally put to rest when Peanut (greatest sleeping dog ever according to all of the kids and their friends) actually had a chance to sleep in the bed with me before we moved to Singapore – it lasted all of two hours before he was snuggling back in his kennel.

On the flip side – watching the animals in our new country could break your heart. People here do not see pets in the same light as we do in western countries. I could understand that in places like Vietnam where people struggle for enough to eat and dogs are in the food chain. I could kind of understand it when we were in Singapore and people collected pets that were cute and then dumped them when they grew up. Here there is a coldness towards animals that I don’t quite get. The idea of kicking a dog just for fun seems outdated in most of the world but here it doesn’t seem to faze people that bored teenaged boys could actually do that and no one say a word to them much less try to stop them. I would like to think that this story is an urban legend but I know it could very well be true. .

Qatar is developing fast and the government seems focused on the important issues such as infrastructure, quality of life issues and education. Buildings and roads are built in the blink of an eye but projects are also started and then dropped just as quickly. Huge construction projects seem to have been affected by the Dubai World reorganization. There are issues with foreign workers who are not protected from overwork and abuse. The animal issue is understandably way down on this list and seems to have become an issue at all only because of all of the western expats that live here.

One night recently I walked my friend Patsy to the front gate of our compound and we met a white cat that was meowing loudly. He looked like he had been on the losing end of a catfight. One eye seemed seriously damaged although it wasn’t profusely bleeding but it was incredibly gross. When I stroked him – he started purring and rolled over on his back. Patsy laughed and said “Uh oh, you are going to have a cat if you don’t watch out!”

He followed me home and sat on my front porch meowing. I took water outside and he actually tried to come inside. He was filthy but friendly. My neighbor had asked me to go to the nearby shopping center and after my daughter offered to babysit her 18-month son – there was no way of not going! She enjoyed the break but was not happy about me possibly feeding the cat and joked about dropping the cat food I bought into a trashcan on the way to the car. When we pulled up to our townhouse – the cat was sitting in my window! Curled up six feet above the ground waiting. I fed him and tried to contain him in my tiny backyard. He had water and food and a box with a towel – he ate, crawled into the box and crashed. The next day was a national holiday so we ended up keeping him for another night – he spent most of the day in my other next door neighbors yard (also not happy about a cat) after somehow climbing over the wall without breaking his neck and hiding under a rug hanging outside while it rained. I fed him and left him alone most of the day as it seemed the driest spot available. That night I actually let him into the kitchen while we cooked dinner and he sprawled out on his back and fell asleep! He spent another night in the box with the towel while I spent time online looking for his owner. I was so sure he had to belong to someone.

Plans were set. I borrowed a carrier, Cicely came to help me catch and cage the cat and he was still trapped in my backyard. Then we saw a flash of white as he jumped up to one window and then over the wall into my neighbor’s backyard – remember these are ten-foot walls. I met Cicely in front of my house, handed her the carrier and tried to open the gate next door but it was locked. I had to knock on the front door and lie to the 6 and 4 year old girls who live next door as their parents didn’t want them to even know about the cat as they really want a pet not to mention the shock of the messy eye. Their maid was quick to help me duck out of the back door, shutting it before the girls could follow. I called the cat and he actually meowed. He was in the middle of the flowerbed using it as a litter box, having shoveled most of the dirt on the patio. I scooped him up and before he knew what happened he was in the kennel on the way to Qatar Veterinary Center!

I was surprised when the vet’s assistant looked at him and explained that there had been no injury. There is a rampant eye infection among kittens born in the wild here. Their eyes become infected before they are ever open and they lose the eye, as it is never treated. She said that even though he was friendly and purring that he was probably a ‘compound’ cat. These cats develop amazing social skills enabling them to live around humans who feed them but usually don’t really ever connect. I got the feeling she felt we should neuter and release him, not necessarily try to make him a pet. I was still sure there was a family out there missing their cat.

The veterinarian was very nice. He said Fred (I had to give them a name to even see the vet) was not quite a year old, basically healthy, had ear mites, needed to be neutered and vaccinated. He reaffirmed what the assistant said about the eye – said it had been gone for a long time and if he had had an owner – the odds were that they would have had the eyeball removed and the eye sewn shut. I agreed to pay for the neutering, etc and made arrangements to have him boarded until I COULD FIND THE OWNER! They didn’t laugh.

He was there for a week as I thought I had found a home for him on Christmas Eve but the young man did not back out until five thirty in the afternoon which was too late to pick him up. So he lived with them for a week and we picked him up and brought him home expecting a wild animal, especially after he howled in the back of the taxi all of the way home! He was anything but – he is more like a dog – he followed us around, he used the litter box, he has to have been around people before! He is just a cool relaxed cat – unless of course he is just recovering from the stress of surgery, kennel for a week, and being on the street for a while. I still think someone has to be looking for him so we have made a flyer and posted the information on every website I can find.

My husband got home in the wee hours of the morning and I let Fred out to meet him (he of course was out of town while all of this was going on but was clued in when his phone beeped in Singapore with a text message from the bank saying I had charged 1000QAR). Unfortunately he was hooked almost immediately. I hate to admit it but Fred will be with us probably until we can find him a home – I really do not want a cat. Hairballs totally freak me out.

One clue that he might actually be wild – he crept into the kitchen and the next thing we knew he was sitting in the sink drooling over the birds at the feeder outside. He didn’t even care if his feet were wet. He looked like a hungry shopper at the meat counter.

Three days and a lot of money later – my spouse has fallen in love with the one-eyed cat with the ‘Daniel Boone coonskin hat’ tail. He has bought a new litter box, (and changes it) a scratching post, lifetime supply of catnip, toys and has scheduled eye surgery for the middle of January. Expensive eye surgery. This I didn’t expect and I still really do not want a cat. Once we don’t have to guard the front door with a spray bottle of water so he doesn’t try to return to his home in the trashcans of the desert – Fred might turn out to be ok.

The Christmas card that I tucked into my traveling spouse’s suitcase had a cat on the front that looks great with an eye patch! I really didn’t expect him to become quite this attached to a stray cat.

Karma Cat fact - Cicely rescued a three-week-old black kitten stumbling around in the middle of a three-lane road. People slowed down but didn’t stop but at least they didn’t run over her while she was in the middle of a rescue that I would have loved to have seen!

We now are seeing cats everywhere and watching Fred find little places to creep into that he can watch us and we cannot see him makes me realize how many homeless animals there probably are. A short national program to catch, neuter and release would not be that difficult for the Qatari government and I can only cross my fingers that it happens soon.