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.