Skeptic in Qatar

Qatar Motor Show

2012-01-28T10:31:00.000-08:00

This weekend couple friends and I decided to stop by the annual Qatar Motor Show at the Exhibition Centre. My friend tried a road rally simulator . . .

And otherwise we wandered around looking at all the nice cars that we will never be able to afford. So what was there? Here's some car eye-candy for you.

(I love the paint job on this car for some reason, I wonder what colour it is?)

Skin Whiteners

2012-01-24T10:59:00.000-08:00

I was at a Sri Lankan barber the other day and after a shave he grabbed a bottle of lotion and rubbed some lotion on my face. When he put the bottle down on the counter I was able to read what it was, an after shave balm that also helps “whiten” the skin. Needless to say I found that amusing -- I don't think I need my skin any lighter than it already is. He probably wasn't even thinking about it when he grabbed the bottle, I've been to this barber shop many times and I've never seen another Caucasian there.

Skin whitening products – what’s the deal with that?

It's definitely something I've never seen in North America. It is however big business in South Asia and because of the huge South Asian population here you can find all sorts of skin whitening products at supermarkets and drugstores.

I decided to do a bit of googling as to why this is. Apparently in South Asia there is a definite preference for lighter colored skin (and before you jump the gun wiki notes it likely predates the British colonial times though it doesn't list a source) and this preference is apparently reinforced by TV and movies in South Asia. Just google image search “Bollywood stars” and you’ll get an idea.

When skin lightening products were first developed they became a big hit and they quickly grew to be a multibillion dollar business in South Asia. All sorts of cosmetics, lotions and powders promise to lighten the color of your skin. Both men and women use them.

My biggest worry is what is in these products. If these products actually do lighten your skin then they have to be doing something to it, and I wonder if long-term exposure to this something is really going to do you a lot of good.

No, really, I don’t want to know.

Arabic Lessons

2012-01-20T12:46:00.000-08:00

So I'm back at FANAR taking Arabic again. I'm still struggling with the usual: ayns, plurals, invisible vowels, trying to memorize words ... etc. I find it's not really sinking in as much as I hoped and I'm thinking it's because there's not a lot of practicing conversation in the class, something that you really need to do when learning a language. A friend of mine and I are probably going to gather a few other people and hire a tutor to focus on conversation. We'll see what comes of that.

Meanwhile I spend time trying to translate text messages sent to me by my Qatari friends. I even bought a pocket-sized electronic Arabic-English dictionary to help me out, and I usually try to have it with me wherever I go. It also has a speaker so it is able to pronounce the word to give me an idea how it sounds, which is cool.

I remember in a previous post on Arabic going on about the things in Arabic that make it difficult to learn. In fairness I will highlight a few things that are easier.

1) Sometimes the nouns are similar to the related verbs so it is easier to remember. For example I was texting my friend (in Arabic) about booking a squash court and I had no idea what was Arabic for “court”. Went to my electronic dictionary and found out that it was “mahlab” and the verb “to play a sport” is “yahlab”. This is easier than English where the name of the playing surface has nothing to do with the verb. We say "play" but depending on the sport it's on a court, field, rink etc. In Arabic it’s “play” and I guess something like “area you play on”.

2) No capital letters so there's no need to worry about proper names and all that jazz.

3) So far I haven't come across any homonyms [e.g. to/too, here/hear, there/they’re/their], which I'm sure have to be one of the most confusing aspects of English. I'm not ruling out that homonyms don't exist in Arabic but so far I haven't encountered any so if they do exist it might not be for common words.

4) So far I've not encountered any irregular verbs. The present form of every verb is conjugated the same way. For example to conjugate the verb with "he" you put a “y” in front of it. Every time. (so far)

5) Arabic seems to have no issue with adopting English words. Words like computer, mobile and bank are commonly used in Qatar, including being spelled that way in Arabic. There are actual Arabic words for these things (for example computer is “hasoob”) but the English words are more widely used. My teachers at FANAR don't like me using them though and want the formal Arabic used, which contrasts with my Arabic-speaking friends who tend to look me a little funny when I start saying words like “hasoob”.

[Actually I think they look at me funny every time I try speaking Arabic] ;)

Clash of Cultures – Qatar and Alcohol

2012-01-13T08:29:00.000-08:00

While I was away on business last month I missed the announcement that alcohol was no longer allowed to be served in restaurants on the Pearl Development, which was one of the few areas of Doha outside of an expensive hotel where alcohol was served.

The effect was immediate according to an article in Arabian Business, the number of customers in the restaurants has decreased by 50%.

While I'm not particularly fussed about the announcement (I'm not a big drinker), what I found more interesting was the comments section of the article, where it looks like a lot of people are weighing in. Comments generally fall into the following categories:

• Muslims who wholeheartedly approve because alcohol is haram;

• Muslims and non-Muslims who note that no one is forcing Muslims to drink alcohol and plenty of Muslim countries like Lebanon, UAE, and Egypt have alcohol yet it is not a threat to the Muslim population;

• Foreigners who argue that Qatar needs to make some sort of accommodation for foreigners (with the occasional dig at how Qatar is not going to have a successful 2022 World Cup by doing things like this);

• People concerned about the message this sends to people looking to develop businesses in Qatar -- the restaurant owners invested a lot of money developing the restaurants, calculated their margins based on the inclusion of alcohol, and suddenly the rules have changed on them;

• People who argue that Qatar is a strict Muslim country and you knew that when you signed on to be here. You can still get alcohol if you have a license or you can visit a bar in a hotel.

I think there is merit to point number four, it is hard to attract business if there is uncertainty, and actions like this reinforce uncertainty. I certainly have sympathies for the restaurant owners who decided to invest and open restaurants in the Pearl in part due to the alcohol (which any restaurant owner can tell you is one of the most profitable items). As for residents I find myself more in the “you knew it was a Muslim country when you signed on” side.

Given recent events in some parts of Europe regarding veils or the building of minarets it might be tough to argue that Qatar should be more open and accepting of Western culture. Western restaurant chains are here, movie theaters showing Hollywood films, you can get Western television on satellite, find the latest phones and gadgets, women don't have to wear headscarves or veils, and there are bars and nightclubs (just not as many as in a Western city). This is not Saudi Arabia. Heck, you don't even need to know Arabic to live here!

I speculate that Qatar is facing a tough balancing act. On the one hand it wants to respect its Islamic roots and morality while on the other has to make some accommodation for foreigners in order to attract workers, tourists, and business. In the time I've been here it is clear that His Highness the Emir doesn't want to be as strict as Saudi Arabia but he certainly doesn't want the country to be as liberal as Dubai or Bahrain. Too liberal and the religiously conservative citizens are unhappy, too conservative and the foreigners are less likely to come here, which means you'd need to pay a lot more to attract them. I don't know if there's an easy answer.

The comments to the article provide a window to that problem. Take some time to read them.

How to Renew an E-Gate Card

2012-01-09T10:08:00.001-08:00

There is a system in Qatar whereby for a fee a resident can apply for an E-Gate card, which allows you to bypass passport security in Doha International Airport. Instead of going through passport control you scan the card at an E-Gate booth, enter and have your fingerprint scanned, at which point once your identity is confirmed you continue on. It is an extremely efficient system and I have never taken longer than 2 minutes to go through (it's usually much shorter than that but once the booth wasn't reading my fingerprint so I had to go to the next booth). There has also never been a lineup at E-Gate, unlike passport control which can get quite busy. My friends and I joke that the only major inconvenience with E-Gate is that you're through so quickly you have to wait a while for your luggage to arrive at the baggage carousel.

E-Gate even saved me from missing a flight earlier this year. Eid is by far the busiest time at the airport and the crowds were so massive that it took me over 90 minutes just to check-in my bag. Then I saw that the lineup for passport control was 15 minutes -- just to get into the passport control room! Who knows how long you'd stand in line once you were in there. No lineup at E-Gate though, I was through in under two minutes and on my way. I know a few people who missed their flights that day because of the crowding. E-Gate is awesome.

So work sent me a reminder that I needed to renew my E-Gate card and were happy to help with the arrangements. It turned out to be a complicated process so I'm glad they sent me along with someone who knew what to do because there are no signs or information at the Immigration Office to tell you the steps. Here's how it works:

1) Work arranged for some electronic form (in Arabic) filled out in my name [update: try here for a form]. I had to bring this with me along with my ID card, old E-Gate card, and a credit card so that I could pay the fee. Oddly while I was instructed to bring my old E-Gate card no one actually asked for it or looked at it so maybe it's something you bring along just in case.

2) Go to the Immigration Building just off of the Shammal Road near Landmark Mall (heading towards the airport from Landmark). When you go through security to enter the “courtyard” of the Immigration Building go to the first set of main doors on your left, this will open into a big room with lots of seats (over a hundred), to your right will be civil servants in booths with flashing numbers over them to indicate the next ticket number. Don't go to them or look for a ticket number, just go straight across the room to what kind of looks like some large phone booths. This is where you have your photo and fingerprint taken for E-Gate.

3) Two ladies were working the E-Gate “phone booths”. One of them will take your ID card and the piece of paper, take you to a booth, and then:

• take your picture
• scan your fingerprint
• have you write your signature on a special electronic pad

she will then sign the paper and give it and your ID card back to you.

4) From there look to the left of the “phone booths”. You will see a big desk with three or four civil servants behind it. This is where you get your ticket number. Go up to them and say you are here for E-gate only. They will give you a number and then you sit down and wait for your number to be called.

5) When it is getting close to your number being called I recommend trying to move to the first couple of rows so that you can quickly get to the booth. It's a big room and the guys at the desks seem to give about 20 seconds before they move on to the next number. When it is your turn give the guy the document, ID card, and credit card. He will charge the fee for the E-Gate card to your credit card and he will keep both the piece of paper and your ID card. That is because they have a new system where they have integrated E-Gate with your ID card so they will issue you a brand-new ID card that has E-Gate built in.

6) They will then tell you to sit down and wait until they call you to collect your new card. This takes about 5 to 10 minutes.

7) Now you have to activate your E-Gate card (again no one has told us anything about activating the card so had I not been with someone who knew the process the next time I went to the airport my E-Gate card wouldn’t have worked). To your immediate left of the entrance doors are what looks like two ATM machines. You use these to activate your card. There was a gentleman standing there who did it for me, typing in my ID numbers etc.

That's it, new ID/E-Gate card! Overall it took about an hour but the Immigration Office, while busy, was not packed so you might want to assume it will take longer in case the office is busier.

Doha Events

2012-01-06T12:54:00.001-08:00

Unfortunately I've been unable to see the ExxonMobil tennis tournament, something I always look forward to watching. I was going to get tickets with a friend of mine to go see it but then he had to leave the country due to a family emergency so I didn't bother getting tickets. Now it's sold out. No seeing Federer or Nadal for me this year. Daniel Nestor didn’t attend this year so at least I didn’t miss a chance to see him play.

The last four months have been strange -- I've missed both the tennis and the Doha Tribeca Film Festival. I also haven't made it out to a Qatar Natural History Group event yet, something I always used to go to. Haven't made it out to a lecture at the Museum of Islamic Art either. Got to get back into a routine. Arabic lessons start again next week at FANAR so that will help.

Today I met up with some friends at the Pearl and afterward, since I was in the neighborhood, I figured I would stop by the Doha Trade Fair, which is on this week at the Exhibition Centre. The place was absolutely packed, thousands of people were there. (No pictures, everywhere you looked were Qatari ladies in abayas so I didn't want to cause a fuss by taking any photos). I wandered around and looked at all the things being sold by the merchants: perfumes, cosmetics, carpets, tapes, honey, clothing (mostly women's, ranging from lingerie to dresses and abayas). I didn't buy anything because I wasn't actually there for shopping, just wandering around. Not that wandering around was particularly easy, there are so many people there that sometimes it was difficult to navigate through the crowds. Most of the merchants seem to be doing a pretty brisk business though.

Tonight I just went for a walk on the Corniche for some exercise. Nothing exciting. The Corniche was pretty busy though with joggers or families having picnics and enjoying the mild weather.

Further Discussion on the India Pisa Results

2012-01-03T07:36:00.000-08:00

Someone has posted a nice detailed comment in response to my recent post on PISA results for India. Because of the length of the comment rather than answer it in the comments section I figured I would reproduce it here:

The Indian results are unsurprising because it corroborates earlier studies all coming to a broadly similar conclusion. That Indian education is mediocre and overall level of human capital in India is very low. Please refer to the TIMMS test administered by Jishnu Das and Tristan Zajonc or the Wipro educational initiative results.

Your skepticism is unfortunately untempered by rationality. To expect high Indian results based from the selection of the highest scoring school in Qatar is the result of several cognitive biases. Chiefly there is the issue of selection bias, by comparing the most unrepresentative school in the nation with OECD averages. To apply your logic, I can pick the highest scoring school in the US or China in the PISA tests and it will make even the highest scoring Indian (Qatar) students, look like drooling idiots, relatively speaking.

For example Al Khur Interntational school only admits the children of the employees the state LNG monopoly. These aren't just the children of affluent Indians, these are the children of Indians that are, probably, greater than two standard deviations above the socio-economic mean of India. To be that selective in the US, you would have to administer such a test to only the children of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, etc alumni.

In fact, the Qatar results for Indian students, rather than showing the possibility of high Indian achievement actually comes to the opposite conclusion. That even a highly selected group of Indian students are just above the OECD mean (itself dragged down by relatively poor performing OECD nations). What does that say about the rest of India's human capital +/- one standard deviation from their mean? Nothing positive.

Thank you for the comment. I think you may be misinterpreting the background that led me to focus specifically on India and PISA. Throughout my life I've met many people from South Asia, either in Canada or here, and there always seemed to be a heavy focus by the families on education and there seemed to be more pressure on the children to study hard and do well in school than for most other kids. Documentaries on Indian education seemed to be about the competitive nature of the education system, typically focusing on teenagers spending long hours studying for various exams, or entrance tests to IIT, or whatever. Many South Asian schools here in Qatar did very well on the PISA tests compared to peers. The anecdotal evidence all pointed to India being able to post scores on PISA significantly higher than would be expected given its poorer economic situation than the OECD nations (on a per capita basis).

The problem was that the evidence was by and large anecdotal so could not be used to definitively make conclusions and I have never traveled in South Asia to see things for myself. That's why I was posting about how I wished South Asian countries would participate in PISA -- to see if a study on a large representative sample would support the conclusions that the anecdotal evidence indicated. It turns out it did not, but given all I had before was the anecdotal evidence that is why the PISA results for India were “below my expectations”.

I never stated that Al Khur Interntational achieving good results must mean that India has an amazing educational system, more akin to “Al Khur Interntational got good results, I’m curious as to how India would score generally on PISA”.
As it stands, what are the weaknesses in the Indian system: that society is not as education-focused as the anecdotal evidence led me to believe? Severe underfunding by the various levels of government? Too many children overwhelming the current educational resources? Poor pay for teachers compared to other fields? I was just curious as to what people from South Asia think the issues are.

PISA 2009 update -- results from India, UAE, and a few other countries

2012-01-01T10:37:00.000-08:00

The OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) tested an additional 10 countries/regions on the PISA 2009 test. Known as the “PISA 2009+” test countries, they include:

• Costa Rica
• Georgia
• 2 States in India (Himachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu)
• Malaysia
• Malta
• Mauritius
• 1 State in Venezuela (Miranda)
• Moldova
• The United Arab Emirates

Strangely enough you can’t find the report on the OCED website, you need to go to an Australian education website for it.

I was excited to see the update because in previous blog posts that discussed the PISA test I was always curious to see how India would do given the emphasis Indians place on education. Would India score high marks despite its relatively low GDP per capita?

It turns out its marks were -- not so good. Here is a table with some select countries for comparison. The first number is the reading score, followed by mathematics and science:

556 600 575 Shanghai (highest results of all participants)
536 541 554 Finland
520 529 539 Japan
524 527 529 Canada
500 487 502 United States
493 496 501 OCED average
494 492 514 UK
464 445 454 Turkey
431 421 438 UAE
425 419 416 Mexico (lowest scoring OECD country)
414 404 422 Malaysia
413 381 402 Columbia
402 371 383 Indonesia
372 368 379 Qatar
370 365 369 Peru (second lowest of all the countries tested in the original PISA 2009)
337 351 348 India (Tamil Nadu)
317 338 325 India (Himachal Pradesh)
314 331 330 Kyrgyzstan (lowest scoring of all the countries tested in the original PISA 2009)

Ummmm, wow. India scored way lower than I expected. Nearly bottom of the table, except for Kyrgyzstan, and Himachal Pradesh scored lower in science than them.

So what happened? I'm not sure yet. I thought at first maybe it would be the social economic correlation (wealthy Indians would test way higher) but the PISA report notes:

In Himachal Pradesh-India and Tamil Nadu-India the relationship between socioeconomic status and reading performance, as measured by PISA, was very weak. This may be because students in these populations perform very poorly in reading and have low socioeconomic status, as measured by PISA, and therefore the relationship between socioeconomic status and reading cannot be adequately detected using the PISA scales.

Translation: “everyone taking the test in India was poor by our standards so we couldn't measure the difference between rich and poor”. Thanks guys.

The India test results were very different than the results Indian schools in Qatar achieved so for now I'm going on the assumption that overall education in India may still be very poor, only those who can afford to send their children to decent private schools are getting a good education. Any Indian readers please feel free to leave a comment to clarify what happened here.

Reflections On 2011

2011-12-31T06:28:00.000-08:00

And so ends another year. Time to go through my albums and see how the year went.

At a café in Bergamo, Italy

A great collection of murals, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Hanging out with the family in the living room, Calgary. (Just kidding - this is an area of a large hunting/outdoorsman department store)

Venice, from the top of St Mark's Campanile.

Removing an infestation of cats (you know how it is, if you don't keep things tidy the next thing you know there are cats everywhere) :) Doha

A mural of the Heavens, Rila Monestary, Bulgaria

At a piazza in Verona, Italy

The view from my hotel balcony, Split, Croatia

Christmas carols, Muscat, Oman

Armed robbery! Calgary.

Catch of the day. Persian Gulf.

After the climb to the top of Monte Isola, Italy

A doorway in the freetown of Christiania (Motto: Have fun, Don't run, No Pictures!) Denmark

The Church of Saint-Nicholas the Miracle Maker, Sofia, Bulgaria

At the Basilica of San Domenico, Bologna, Italy

Watching the football at a café, Skopye, Macedonia

Cutting my birthday cake, Doha.

Looking out over the old city of Dubrovnik, Croatia

The best fettuccine Alfredo I've ever had, Piazza Navona, Rome.

Enjoying the view from a sky bar in Ljubljana, Slovenia. (At the time this photo was taken “What a Wonderful World” was playing).

The Church of St. John at Kaneo, Ohrid, Macedonia

No, I have no idea either. Calgary

Happy new year everyone!

More Qatari Weddings

2011-12-29T11:35:00.000-08:00

It is apparently "Wedding Season" here in Qatar as I just got back from another wedding. A friend of mine told me about the wedding today and asked if I wanted to come along. Seeing as it was the brother of an acquaintance of mine, and I may have met him once, in Qatar that's close enough familiarity to attend their wedding! (like I said before, Qatari men's weddings are open to pretty much any man) It's all about congratulating the groom and his family after all.

So we got there about 8:00 pm. This time instead of a tent it was held in a local sports hall. The floor was covered with carpeting and when we arrived there were already many guests milling about.

We saw the acquaintance of ours so we approached him first so he could introduce us to his father and his brother (the groom) at the receiving line. The groom and his father were easy to identify as they were wearing white thobes with traditional black bishts. My friend and I then found a place to sit down and chatted for a few minutes then dinner was announced.

Roast lamb on a platter of rice, the traditional meal for Qatari men's weddings. No cutlery, as usual. At least this time I was able to take a picture of the meal. In the foil containers was harris (difficult to explain, kind of like a wheat porridge with finely ground chicken in it). So everyone sat down to eat. Eventually other men such as employees from the sports club and labourers who happened to be nearby also came in for a meal, some joined my friend and I at the platter we were sitting at.

After we finished eating my friend and I washed our hands, said our goodbyes, and left. We were there less than an hour, which is perfectly acceptable in Qatari culture. As an example I also found out from my friend that he attended another wedding that evening before coming to this one, so he attended two weddings in three hours.

One thing that was different about this wedding was that there were no singers or musicians. My friend said that not all weddings will have them, especially indoor ones as they can be quite loud (go to my previous blog post and click on the videos for an example)

Another Qatari Wedding

2011-12-28T11:27:00.000-08:00

A few days before Christmas I received an invitation to the wedding of a business associate. While I can read Arabic I had a tough time deciphering the invitation because of the fancy calligraphy, I was trying to figure out where the wedding was but couldn't do it (yes, I'm still taking Arabic lessons and probably will for a long time). A Qatari colleague of mine helped me out and gave me directions to where the wedding tent would be.

So on the appointed evening I went to the wedding tent.

As you can see these tents are huge (side note: there doesn't appear to be many people in the tent because I took this picture when dinner was being served so everyone was in the dining tent, in truth hundreds of men attended the wedding)

So when I arrived I followed standard procedure: I followed the carpet to the far side of the tent (the carpet is in the above photo, the long red one that crosses the tent) where the groom and his father were greeting guests. They were easy to spot as they were the only men wearing black bishts. After shaking hands with the groom's father I shook hands with the groom and gave my congratulations, stopped for a few pictures with the groom, then moved on to mingle with the guests and enjoy tea and other drinks being handed out by waiters.

This time the singers and musicians were stationed in the large carpeted area outside the tent. I hung out there to watch them for a while. Occasionally a few guests would do some sword dancing. The groom and his father spent all their time greeting the guests who were arriving, or chatting with relatives.

I arrived what I thought was fairly late, 8:15 pm, as I had been at a friend’s dinner party earlier. In Qatar this is not a big deal, the point of attending a man's wedding is to congratulate him and his family and give your regards. No gifts, no ceremony, and if you are not close to the groom (close friends, relatives) you can even leave after giving your regards. Close friends and relatives should stick around for most of the wedding as a matter of politeness but others are under no obligation to stay for the whole event.

I figured I had missed the dinner, which didn't bother me as I was full. Well imagine my surprise when around 8:45 pm they announced dinner. There was a buffet of appetizers and desserts but the main course was already on the guest’s tables -- whole roast lamb on a platter of rice and lentils, one for each table. In traditional fashion, there was no cutlery, you roll up your right sleeve and eat with your hand (ONLY your right hand, never touch food with your left hand). I'm not great at tearing off chunks of meat and rolling it with rice using just one hand but the Qatari gentlemen who were sitting at the table would sometimes tear off pieces of meat and give it to me, which made things easier. I didn't eat a lot because I was still full from the dinner party earlier but I felt that it would be rude if I didn't eat some food -- a lot of effort must go into preparing whole roast lambs for hundreds of guests. I chatted a bit with the other gentleman at the table, practicing my still-limited Arabic, but I still struggled a lot to follow the conversation.

After eating you go to a small room at the side of the tent were about a dozen portable sinks were set up so that guests could wash their hands after the meal.

As I left the dining tent I saw a couple of dozen men, mostly South and Central Asian, waiting patiently by the door. These men were not guests, I assume they happened to be nearby and saw the wedding tent so entered in the hopes of getting a meal. Unlike a Western wedding reception there is nothing wrong with this at all, as far as I know a Qatari man's wedding is open to all men. The etiquette seems to be that once the guests have finished eating these men can enter and partake of the remaining food -- and believe me there was plenty of food left. I've attended two weddings that were held in wedding tents and this occurred both times (the other weddings I attended were in hotels where this doesn’t occur).

I hung around for a while after dinner to watch the singers and eventually the groom and his father did some sword dancing. I did not have a chance to ask the groom whether posting photos of him would be okay so I’m only going to post photos that keeps his identity hidden. Keep an eye out for a Qatari in a white thobe wearing a black bisht, as opposed to Qataris who are wearing black thobes.

I've also posted some video of the festivities, including sword dancing.

Singers at the wedding

The groom sword dancing with guests

By 10:00 most of the guests had left so I left as well. The groom and his father will continue on to the bride’s wedding reception to pick up the bride.

If you would like to know what happens at a Qatari woman’s wedding a fellow Qatari blogger, Just Kooki, has a four-part post about her experience at a lady's wedding. It's definitely worth a read.

Hunting with Falcons!

2011-12-25T06:14:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I received a call from my Qatari friend Ali who asked if I wanted to go to the desert with him and his friends to do some falconry. My answer was something along the lines of, "Heck yeah!”. I've never been hunting with falcons before.

Falconry is a very popular sport in Qatar, and many Qataris own falcons that they use for hunting either here or abroad (apparently North Africa and Iraq are popular destinations for hunting). There are a number of stores that sell falcons and falconry equipment, and I even know of two different veterinary clinics in Doha dedicated to falcons. Falcons are very expensive to purchase and maintain, so owners take great care of them. It was great that I was going to see some falconry in action.

First, we drove out of the city. Ali let me drive his Land Cruiser.

We laughed that this may have confused people -- seeing a Westerner driving a Land Cruiser with a Qatari as a passenger. (Inside joke, if you lived in Qatar you would understand).

Then we went to the desert up north to meet Ali’s friends (and their falcons).

Transporting a falcon is pretty straightforward, just put it in the car.

Training a falcon

Falcons need to be trained. A technique they were using was to tie both the falcon and a pigeon on a long string, that way the falcon could practice attacking pigeons without the pigeon being able to fly too far away.

Hunting

Once trained you no longer need the string, but you still need to provide a falcon with lots of practice so it can become a good hunter, which is what we were mostly doing today.

First, you need a trained falcon (duh).

Then you hook the falcon up with a transmitter so you can find it in case it flies too far away

Then you need some prey.

You take the pigeon at least 50m away from the falcon, release it, then release the falcon to go after it. Then jump in the Land Cruiser and drive after them because depending on how long it takes the falcon to catch the pigeon they might fly for kilometers.

Et voila!

Once the falcon catches the pigeon, its owner immediately assists, using his hands or a knife to remove some of the feathers and bones (many captive-raised falcons don't realize they shouldn't be eating the feathers, which are a choking hazard).

Once the falcon starts eating it's easy for the owner to pick it back up onto his hand (as long as he's holding some meat)

Now for another falcon to practice. This time I got to handle the dinner.

The pigeon was really giving the falcon or run for its money, constantly weaving around and staying low to the ground. Suddenly a second falcon appeared out of nowhere and attacked the pigeon! It belonged to another group of Qataris who were training falcons further down the desert. Both falcons pounced on the pigeon as it went to the ground. The owners of the falcons immediately rushed in to separate them before the falcons hurt each other.

One of the Qataris took a couple of nasty scratches to his hand separating the falcons but he was more concerned about his falcon getting hurt. The falcon appeared to be okay and happily ate its pigeon. Even so, its owner planned to take it to the clinic tomorrow to make sure.

Not much left of that pigeon!

After a couple more hunts it got dark so people got out some cushions from their trucks and we lit a fire, sitting around chatting while drinking coffee and karak.

All in all a really cool day. I hope to go again sometime.

Celebrations at Souq Waqif (Arab dancing)

2011-12-24T01:30:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the Arab Games there were a number of events around the city. In Souq Waqif they had set up three stages at various locations for acts from the various Arab countries to perform on. While I was there yesterday I was able to capture some video from each of the performances.

First up: video of Palestinian dancers

Dance 1
Dance 2
Dance 3

Then there was a group of Saudi singers and drummers. The song is structured such that the lead sings a part then the singers on the side respond.

Saudi singers

I guess the music was pretty good because soon a few Qataris were dancing.

Saudi singers 2

Finally, here are some dancers from Oman. Now how different the Omanis are from the Saudis

Omani dancers

And unlike Saudis the Omani women take part in the dances as well, with elaborate costumes.

Omanis 2

Enjoy.

2011 Arab Games

2011-12-23T03:42:00.000-08:00

This month Doha hosted the Arab Games, and events similar to the Commonwealth games but for Arab countries (in this case 22 countries ranging from Mauritania to Iraq). The Games end today.

Because of the business trips I was on I missed more than half of the games which was unfortunate because I really enjoyed attending the Asian Games back in 2006. That left me this week to catch whatever I could after work. I went to three events:

1) Swimming

Monday night I went to the Hamad Aquatic Center in the Aspire Zone to watch some of the swimming.

I got there earlier than expected but soon the place filled up, which surprised me as I was not expecting a big crowd. Turns out that a lot of people in North Africa are fans of swimming.

First here are a couple of pictures of the start of a men’s and ladies’ race. Do you notice anything different?

Modest swimwear! Typically men wear Speedos in swimming competitions but here they're wearing much less revealing swimwear. Given that every competitor was wearing the same thing I'm pretty sure this was mandated by the Arab Games as the competition was being shown on television. How do I know? Because I had arrived a bit earlier and saw the warm-up – and most of the men wore Speedos during the warm-up, then changed to the other swimsuits for the competition.

One swimmer was very popular with the crowd, a Tunisian by the name Oussama Mellouli, and there were huge cheers whenever his name was mentioned. In fact a large group of Tunisians were jumping, singing and banging drums during races. I found out later that Mellouli is an Olympic gold medalist, one of only two that Tunisia has ever had, so I could see why he was popular.

So how did his first race go?

Mellouli didn't disappoint the crowd -- Gold for Tunisia!

So back into the pool for another event, and . . .

another Gold for Tunisia!

Over the course of the Arab Games Mr. Mellouli won, ready for this? 15 gold and 1 silver! Yes, fifteen. The silver was in the team event so suffice to say he won every time he was in the pool for an individual event. Unreal.

Overall people loved the swimming and would mob to take photos of medalists.

Next I went to see Karate at the Qatar Sports Club. It had a mixture of bouts, both men and ladies. Surprisingly I found the ladies bouts more aggressive and entertaining.

Despite the right hook to the face the lady with the headscarf went on to win the bout and claim Gold.

Finally I went to see the handball final between Qatar and Egypt, in the Aspire Zone.

I was out of luck as I'd arrived too late, the venue was full and the police weren't letting anyone else in (no I didn't have a ticket there were no tickets being sold. Events were free to enter, so first come-first serve).

Unfortunately that was all I got to see. I wish more of the events had been in the evening since I couldn't see many of them because I was working.

In the end Egypt easily had the most medals. Tunisia, helped significantly by Mellouli, was second. Morocco was third and Qatar was fourth. I think Qatar did very well given that such a small country, the training school at the Aspire Zone is starting to pay off.

National Day

2011-12-22T11:58:00.000-08:00

Okay lots of blogging to catch up on. December 18 is National Day in Qatar, celebrating when the Al-Thani family became the rulers of Qatar in (I think) 1877. They always start National Day with a big military parade on the Corniche and I promised myself that this time I would go down to the Corniche and see it live.

So naturally I slept in, waking up around 7:45 and the parade starts at 8:30. I quickly showered and grabbed a bite to eat before walking down the Corniche. All the streets around my apartment building, including empty lots, were jammed with cars and hundreds of people were walking towards the Corniche as well. By the time I got there this is what I saw:

*sigh* that's what I get for being late. You need to get there early to get seats (or even a view).

Thankfully in the nearby park they set up a big screen so that people could watch it. Of course this meant that I was essentially watching it on TV, which I could've done at home. Anyway at least I was in a festive atmosphere with everyone wearing Qatar gear and waving flags.

Afterward I wandered over to Souq Waqif for coffee and a snack. All the restaurants and cafés were crowded, thanks to thousands of people having the same idea I did, but I managed to find a table at my favorite Lebanese café (Saida).

Later I went to see some Arab Games events at the Aspire Zone. (I'll discuss that in my next blog post.)

After that I went to a nearby park just to see what they had set up for people to celebrate National Day, before going to a nearby restaurant for dinner. It was already night so things were winding down.

Unfortunately I was now far away from the Corniche so I missed the evening fireworks. Trying to get back home was a nightmare, traffic near the Corniche was generally gridlocked. Never want to go through that again. I'll know better for next time.

Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-17T01:39:00.000-08:00

I was saddened to hear that Christopher Hitchens has passed away after a long bout with cancer. I've mentioned him a couple of times in this blog as I have attended a couple of his speeches and own one of his books. I even spoke with him briefly at a conference. He had a caustic wit and wasn't afraid to speak his mind but it is clear from his speeches and writings that he was a very intelligent man and when he spoke on a topic it was obvious he had researched it. His book and speeches attacking Mother Teresa are legendary. He was even called to the Vatican to present the arguments for why Mother Teresa should not be canonized, something that in the past would have been done internally by the advocatus diaboli (until Pope John Paul II abolished that office).

First impressions: at a conference in Las Vegas (The Amazing Meeting 3) as he was being introduced for his speech the speaker noticed that he was smoking onstage and, slightly surprised, he said, “. . . and clearly we’re not in California anymore.”, at which point Hitchens grabbed the mic and said, “This is Vegas, baby -- I'll do whatever the *@&%# I want!”. I knew right then that this was going to be a good speech, and it was.

We've lost a great intellectual and excellent writer.

Did I say I was in Switzerland ...

2011-12-13T11:22:00.000-08:00

This last week-and-a-half has been a real whirlwind. I got back from Switzerland on Friday night, slept, woke up and did a couple of errands, then repacked and boarded a plane -- to attend a conference I was invited to be a speaker at in . . .

Oman!

I've said it once (actually twice) and I'll say it again – Oman is the nicest place in the Gulf and one of my favorite countries to visit. The scenery, the friendly people, the relaxed atmosphere, it is just a great place. I always recommend it to people and anyone I know who has gone there on vacation really liked it.

In the West a lot of bigots or people who are uninformed about Islam go on about how threatening Muslims are and how they're all out to get us or whatever. If only they could visit Oman -- maybe then they would see things differently.

Visit Oman if you get a chance. You won't regret it.

Away on business

2011-12-10T02:33:00.001-08:00

I'm currently away on business but it’s nice to enjoy some cooler weather. Got to see the Christmas Market at Basel, Switzerland.

I’ll post again when I return.

Musings on a New York Times article about Doha

2011-12-02T11:44:00.001-08:00

A few days ago there was an article in the New York Times about Doha. Titled “Qatar’s Capital Glitters Like a World City, but Few Feel at Home” it explores how Doha is becoming a huge city with tons of skyscrapers and construction but seems to lack a real urban heart, and discusses the divide between Qataris and expatriates as the two circles do not interact with each other.

Read the article first, then I'll continue.

First, I'll point out a couple of things that were right and wrong in the article:

a) the picture that shows that there's not much pedestrian traffic is true -- for certain neighborhoods. The picture was taken in the neighborhood of West Bay, just outside of City Center Mall. I used to live in that neighborhood and if you recall one of the reasons why I moved out was because that neighborhood was “sterile”.

When people see West Bay for the first time from a distance, with its tall and glittering skyscrapers, people assume that's where it's at and it'll be a thriving neighborhood not unlike Manhattan or Chicago.

Unfortunately the realities of urban planning got in the way.

Public transit in Doha is poor and there is no Metro, which means everyone drives into work. West Bay is also primarily reclaimed land so it is challenging to dig multi-story underground parking lots under your building. Combine that with the fact that many of these buildings are 40+ stories and you have a real issue with parking, which necessitates surrounding the building with a parking lot. This creates what I call "skyscraper islands”, a skyscraper surrounded by a parking lot, which in turn is next to another parking lot attached to a skyscraper, and so on. This leaves no space for any kind of sidewalk-level shops or cafés, only parking lots are next to the sidewalk.

End result, an unexciting neighborhood.

This is not true for many other parts of Doha. Go into the older areas of the city such as Bin Mahmoud, Najma or Musherib and it’s teeming with people. In fact, it’s teeming with too many people. Again everyone having a car and not enough parking is to blame, streets in these neighborhoods have real traffic problems and there are cars parked everywhere. For some reason urban planners did not force buildings to have adequate parking. I estimate that my apartment tower has 60 apartments but only 40 parking spaces, as does the other 6 to 10 apartment towers next to mine. That said I prefer it to West Bay, the neighborhood has soul. One of my colleagues remarked when he visited my apartment that he loved that he could see children playing in the street, something you would never see in West Bay. I guess the NYT reporter never made it to those neighborhoods.

b) Souq Waqif is mostly for tourists and Qataris don't go there much – wrong!

I live near the Souq now and I can tell you that there is always plenty of Qataris there. Maybe not on the main restaurant street, but you will see plenty of them in the small labyrinthine alleyways off the side of the street, the pet souq, and in the falcon souq at certain times of the year. It is true, as one Qatari said, it is not the ultimate social hub for Qataris, but you can't say that a majlis is either when referring to a city as a whole. A majlis is usually in someone's home, an important meeting place to be sure but it is not a common area of a city that people freely move in and out of. Every Westerner has a living room but we don't say that the social heart of the Western city is everyone's living room.

Lastly, I have posted in the past about challenges in meeting Qataris and I have to admit that all of the ones I know well I met through work or are firends of theirs. Part of the issue is that Qataris and Westerners don't share a lot of common interests. I love going to the ATP tennis tournament they hold here but most Qataris don't follow tennis. Qataris don't go to the Qatar Natural History Group either; don't attend Arabic lessons (duh!); and certainly don't hang out in bars or nightclubs (at least the vast majority don't), so part of the difficulty in meeting them is that you just don't have an opportunity to. It's not like you can just walk up to a Qatari in a mall and go "Hi, let's be friends". If you attend things or get involved in the events that Qataris do then chances are you'll meet them, just like you'd meet the locals anywhere else in the world.

It may surprise people to know that the odd time you do meet and chat with a Qatari (I chatted with a Qatari gentleman in a bar once, and with other Qataris at various business receptions or weddings) they are generally very kind and talkative, not at all evasive, quiet or closed. The same applies to the Bahrainis, Saudis, Kuwaitis, and Omanis I've met.

It is meeting them that can be a challenge, not (as the article implies) that they don't want to meet you.

Pork in Qatar – Update

2011-12-01T11:31:00.001-08:00

Rumors are flying that some hotels are already selling pork, but I checked a couple of them out and found nothing.

With the decision to allow the QDC (Liquor store) to sell pork, I decided to ask a number of my Muslim colleagues what they thought about the change in policy from the Government. I spoke to five Qataris and an Egyptian and all of them were generally of the same view:

• They don't agree with allowing it (they are Muslim, what did you expect?) . . .
• . . . but none of them were deeply troubled or outraged by it. Many thought it was inevitable since Qatar allows alcohol as well.
• Some were concerned that this would lead to a slippery slope and it would soon be available in restaurants (I think it will happen as well)
• And generally they were disappointed as this may mean in the future that they will have to start scanning menus to see if there would be any pork in the dish. They like the fact that in Qatar they could go to a restaurant and be confident that any food they ordered was halal (acceptable for Muslims to eat). It is possible that may change.

Since Friday is the main religious day I'll take a look at the Friday paper and see if there are any opinions from the general population in regards to the pork issue. So far I do not think the Government has released anything official as to why they changed their policy stance, some of the Qataris doubt there will be any official statement released.

Pork is now available in Qatar!

2011-11-27T09:49:00.001-08:00

While I was gone the Qatar Distribution Company (QDC), the only liquor store in Qatar, started selling pork!

When someone told me I didn't believe it. Rumours about pork being sold in Qatar have swirled ever since I arrived over five years ago so I ignored the rumours a month or so ago about the QDC getting it but it's true. Here's a link with a picture:

http://dohanews.co/post/13146717097

Wow, I never expected that to happen. Qatar has always been a bit more restrictive than its neighbors (except Saudi Arabia of course) and while completely banning alcohol would've made it problematic to attract a lot of Western ex-pats I would not consider pork to be a “deal-breaker” for an ex-pat to not go to Qatar. I assumed that’s why Qatar allowed alcohol but not pork. A quick Internet search did not find an official Government statement on why pork is now allowed.

Not that a traveler to Qatar will be able to buy it -- you need a license to enter the QDC. Maybe in the future it will be available in some hotels or restaurants but for now only an ex-pat with a liquor license can buy it.

Not that I'm going to be buying any -- pork isn't that big of a deal to me, I'm more of a beef person.

Back from Vacation

2011-11-26T09:49:00.001-08:00

Okay I'm back, safe and sound.

The last week and a half was spent in Macedonia and Bulgaria and I couldn't find any Internet cafes so I couldn't update the blog. I had a great time, saw lots of cool things, and had a couple of unexpected events (like going to Kosovo) but nothing bad ever happened. All in all a really good trip.

I’m now sitting here in Qatar and it's raining! That's ironic because it didn't rain once during my vacation, three weeks and almost all of it sunny.

I'll post some pictures later but here's a few highlight pics:

Yep, I’m in Venice.

Split, Croatia

Coffee break on the Dalmati Coast, Croatia. This has got to be one of the best places a bus could stop for a break.

Ohrid, Macedonia

Communist-era sculptures have seen better days, Sofia, Bulgaria

Vacation update

2011-11-15T11:01:00.001-08:00

Chilling in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Vacation update

2011-11-13T09:36:00.001-08:00

Currently in Slovenia, just about to go out for goulash. Onward to Croatia tomorrow. Computer here at the hotel won´t let me post pictures which is a shame.

On Vacation

2011-11-09T12:33:00.000-08:00

Posting will be few and far between as I am on vacation for a few weeks. Was just in Sofia, currently in Bologna. Yep, there is a story as to how I wound up going from Bulgaria to Italy. I will get to that later. Loving the vacation, I will post again when I have the chance.

Science -- it's not scary to Muslims

2011-11-03T13:17:00.000-07:00

I was so swamped with work and planning for an upcoming trip that I missed the third annual Doha Tribeca Film Festival, which is really a shame as I enjoyed the first two a lot. I will definitely go next time.

This morning I was looking through the paper and realized that the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) was being held here in Doha. It's a three day conference with some of the best educational minds in the world discussing ways to improve education. I have discussed the educational system in Qatar numerous times in the past on this blog and while it appears things are improving the country still has to undergo a lot of changes.

But that's not why I was posting. Thanks to media showing mostly Afghanistan, Iraq or Saudi Arabia to represent the Islamic world most Westerners assume that all Islamic countries are fundamentalist and somehow anti-science. I think in some cases Westerners are also projecting their own experiences with fundamentalist Christianity, assuming since many fundamentalist Christians attack things like evolution, or minimize scientific education to focus on religious study, that fundamentalist Muslims must be the same. Today in the paper there were two articles that highlights how in Qatar, an Islamic nation who are mostly from the Hanbali school of Islam (similar to Saudi Arabia), are not anti-science.

First, Qatar Foundation and Exxon Mobil have announced a new program to give more training in math and science to elementary school teachers. The project focuses on elementary school because, as one of the project developer said,

“It is important to train maths and science teachers. If we need good engineers, we should have good maths and science teachers,”

And another article mentioned that an episode of the Arab reality show “Stars of Science” would be on tonight. This is the third season of the reality show. Participants bring innovative science and engineering ideas and the show helps them develop it. I'm not sure if there's anything like it in North America.

So there you are, two newspaper articles about science in Qatar in one day. Just because the country is Muslim does not mean that it is anti-science.

Happy Birthday Aiden

2011-10-25T11:24:00.000-07:00

Today is my nephew Aiden's birthday. To celebrate I figured we would share with you all one of his greatest battles -- against the evil Vampire Queen!

Our hero is ready to go.

First he had a big fight with her evil vampire henchman. He was way bigger than Aiden but Aiden finally took him out with a flying bodyslam.

Then we found what we thought was a damsel in distress . . .

But he wasn't fooled, it was the evil Vampire Queen! A vicious sword battle ensued . . .

But in the end he took her heart . . .

And the day was saved. Victory!

Happy Birthday Aiden, I hope you have some more great adventures.

Hajj Preparation

2011-10-23T13:02:00.000-07:00

So the other day I received a call from FANAR letting me know that they were having an event that discussed the rites and rituals of the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. I always love cultural things like this so on Saturday afternoon I went to the Moza bint Mohammed Center (near the American School), where the event was being held.

I forwarded the invitation to some people in the office but unfortunately they couldn't attend. I didn't bother forwarding it to any of the Qataris or other Muslims since I didn't think they would need to attend a lecture on Hajj. To my surprise most of the attendees were Muslim! It turns out that the Muslim attendees were all planning to go to Hajj this year so wanted instructions as to what to do. Well, FANAR and the Ministry for Islamic Affairs (Awqaf) did better than that . . .

They made replicas of all the major things involved in Hajj so that they could demonstrate what to do!

The Kaaba and walls . . . etc surrounding it (Muslims were warned: when you do your seven laps around the Kaaba taking a shortcut by going in front of that hemispheric wall negates the lap)

The hallway that takes you back and forth between Al-Safa and Al Marwah (the area in the middle is for the disabled so they will not get crushed by the crowd)

The clothing men (white) and ladies (black, although ladies can wear a white version if they wish) that you must wear when performing the Hajj. It also adds a sense of equality to the pilgrimage because all Muslims performing the Hajj, rich or poor, will be essentially wearing the same thing.

There was even a sandy area to show the challenges in finding pebbles for the Stoning of the Pillars ritual. (Tip: you might have better luck looking under your tent)

Replicas of the pillars, and in the background is the mountain near Mina where you spend the day praying. There were even examples of the tents that you may be sleeping in during the Hajj. Muslims were instructed on how to throw the pebbles (don't throw too hard, they might ricochet off the pillars and hit someone)

All in all I thought that was pretty cool. They even gave me a nice gift . . .

Water from the holy Zamzam Well in Mecca! That was nice of them. I'll hold onto it and probably give it to a Muslim who has not been to Hajj. Muslims also received a hardcopy book (Arabic or English) about the specifics of the Hajj rituals.

Qatar Population Day

2011-10-21T10:01:00.000-07:00

Unbeknownst to me yesterday was Qatar Population Day. On that day a government body, the Permanent Population Committee, holds an annual conference where attendees present papers and studies, as well as discussing issues relating to population development including urbanization, education, health, employment etc.

I never even realized there was a Permanent Population Committee. Guess it doesn't matter since I'm an ex-pat so I'm not one of the permanent population. I went to their website it looks like they do a lot of analysis on many sociological issues. Health appears to be a significant concern, as well as employment opportunities for Qataris. Unfortunately none of the studies are in English, and my Arabic certainly isn't good enough to make heads or tails of it.

Hopefully they push for improving the road systems, and the parking.

Where to Eat in Doha/Qatar

2011-10-17T12:56:00.000-07:00

[I’ll add some standard search phrases for the benefit of people using Web searchers: Restaurants in Doha; Good Restaurants in Qatar; Doha Restaurant Reviews, Dining in Doha]

Having been here for over five years now I've found that a lot of newcomers ask me for tips on where to eat. I'm not a fussy eater and I have no issue with trying some cheap hole-in-the-wall place just to see if the food’s any good, because you never know. I remember about four months after I arrived four of us went out to lunch in some little place in an alleyway that this one Indian guy knew about. Was it fancy? Not in the least, in fact when we took one colleague there he looked around and asked "are you sure the food is safe?”. Were there a lot of menu options? Nope. But the food was decent and four of us ate a big lunch for about $6. Yep, $6. (This is back before the big inflationary spiral, we’d probably pay about $3-4 each now.) Sadly the restaurant doesn't exist anymore but it did open my eyes to the fact that you can get decent food in all sorts of places in Doha and it doesn't always have to be expensive. Over the months as I found places I introduced others to them, or a bunch of us would go out and try something new, and now there's some places that I think half of the office eats at.

Yes, there are tons of options for fancy food. Feel free to go to any restaurant in a five-star hotel, The Pearl, or Katara, and you can have your fancy dining experience. Most of the restaurants I'm suggesting are for people who don't want to shell out $60+ a head (not including drinks) for food.

A lot of these are off the beaten path, you're going to hear about some places that the guidebooks don't tell you about!

First of all let's get a glossary going:

$ -- $10 or less per person
$$ -- $10-$20 per person
$$$ -- $20-$30 per person
$$$$ -- >$30 per person, but be warned -- it could be far more than $30.
Adventure - not really near any hotels and despite the fact I'm giving the street good luck finding it on your own. Get a taxi, confirm the taxi driver knows where it is, and arrange for a pickup time. I'll try to include some nearby locations that a taxi driver might recognize.
Alcohol - you can get alcohol there, which pretty much means you're in a hotel. Alcohol is expensive and the prices I quoted above do not include alcohol.
HITW - hole-in-the-wall. Do not expect anything fancy. Beat-up furnishings, no décor, and napkins will always consist of a box of tissues sitting on your table.
HITW+ -- an HITW but with a bit of décor, ambiance, or better furnishings (but not all three). Will still have a box of tissues sitting on your table.
Marhaba -- this restaurant is shown on one of the maps produced by Marhaba, a local guidebook (in Marhaba there is an overall map of the city and the number of submaps, the restaurant might be on a submap not on the main one). If the restaurant is in a hotel or mall the hotel/mall will be on the map instead.
Share -- In a group we always ordered a bunch of items which everyone partakes in rather than ordering a meal just for yourself.
Smoke - sells shisha indoors. Great place if you want to try a shisha but be warned because it sells shisha the place might be smoky.
Veg - purely vegetarian restaurant, see “Indian Cuisine” section as no other cuisine in this list is veg-only.

In most cases I’ve sorted by type of cuisine with one exception – Souq Waqif, which is a must-visit place for tourists and has well over 20 restaurants. The Souq gets its own section so if you're looking for a specific cuisine be sure to also check my Souq Waqif section.

By the way Doha is Family Friendly. Unless it is a shisha place you can bring young children to anywhere $$$ or less, or to any brunch. For $$$$ call ahead about bringing young children (except Souq Waqif, children should be okay at all of them).

Arabic/Lebanese/Turkish food

While there are some differences between Arabic, Lebanese, and Turkish for the layman they will seem similar -- a wide variety of mezzahs for appetizers, typically with a grilled meat dish for the entrée. Humous is a standard opening dish but be sure to order at least a couple of other things to try them out. Not surprisingly there is a wide array of choices in Qatar for this cuisine.

Layali (Salwa Road. $$$-$$$$, Adventure, Share, Smoke) one of the pricier places but usually puts out a high-quality meal. Shisha is also available but it is not a “shisha place” so families are ok too. For at least one of my friends it was his favorite for Arabic food but I’m cheap so I prefer cheaper places. We would usually go as a group and inevitably order too much food so be careful about that.

Kebab King (Al Matar St. near B-Ring Road. $-$$, Adventure, Share) if there's a group of five or more the waiter might suggest a mixed platter, which works out well. Be sure to try the lamb chops.

Turkey Central (Al Nasr St near Doha Clinic. $, Adventure, HITW, Marhaba, Share). One of my top picks. Cheap, with fantastic food. Seating is upstairs, the entire downstairs is dedicated to the kitchens as well as take-out and delivery orders (they probably handle 40-60 takeout/delivery orders an hour at peak times). I've never known anyone to be disappointed with their meal at Turkey Central. Try the Mousakka (in the English menu it's called eggplant-something), Labneh with Chili, and the Shish Tawook or the Mixed Grill. Their standard bread is great too.

Istanbul Sultan (near the back-left corner of the strip mall of Abu Hamour Petrol Station. $, Adventure, HITW). This place has maybe 8 tables. Great shawrmas, which you see cooking in the front window. The other food is decent as well. If there is only one or two of you they don't have two-seater tables so don't be surprised because of the lack of space the waiter seats a couple of other people at your table. I don't think there are any hotels anywhere near this place so expect a bit of a drive. To get an idea of its location the general Marhaba map shows the petrol station near/on the edge of C7 and C8. The petrol station has a ton of other restaurants ranging from Western fast food like Pizza Hut and Burger King, to other HITW so you have options if, once you get there, you want something else.

Harput (Suhaim bin Hamad St. near Cigale and Ramada Hotels, across from Hardees. $$, HITW+). A slightly more upscale Turkey Central. Has a number of traditional Turkish dishes that Turkey Central doesn't do. Possibly because of this I know at least two Turks who like the place.

Serai (Villagio Mall. $$$, Marhaba, Share). A good choice for Arabic food in one of Doha's best malls. I've heard decent things about nearby Dunia as well but I haven't tried it.

Shisha tent at Al Bustan Hotel. (Al Bustan Hotel, $$, $$$ with shisha, Marhaba, Share, Smoke). One of the nicer shisha places in town and it has decent mezzah. I'm not sure if they have much variety for entrées as I've only had mezzah there, it's more popular for smoking than big meals. Suggest calling for reservations as sometimes the place is booked solid. As this is a popular shisha place expect mucho-smoky. I don't think this place is for children as I've never seen one there.

Indian Cuisine

Almost a third of Qatar's population is from South Asia so the choices for Indian food are fantastic. I've now learned the difference between North Indian and South Indian cuisine, and I have developed a hankering for Masala Dhosas and Gobi 65. There are Indian restaurants for all tastes and budgets.

Bukhara (just outside the entrance to Khalifa Tennis Centre near a Bennigan’s and Fuddruckers, $$-$$$, Adventure, Share). Another top pick. Mostly North Indian cuisine (meats with spicy gravies, but there are also veg options). Try the fish tandoor, butter chicken, vindaloo, the cashew gravy -- oh heck, try whatever sounds good to you, my friends and I have never had a bad meal here. Suggest ordering a bunch of dishes (at least one per person) and share. Don't be too put off by foods with a "spicy" label, it's not as hot as what you'd get in England, but there’s also plenty of non-hot options. This place is really hard to find, definitely make sure your taxi driver knows it or at least the Bennigan’s or Fuddruckers as I'm sure the staff at either of those places will point it out to you.

Bharath (multiple locations, Al Matar St. near B-Ring Road, or near Jaidah Flyover. $-$$, Adventure, HITW+, Veg). Cheap and good. Has both North and South Indian cuisine. A decent place to try Dhosas if you are there for either breakfast or dinner (dhosas are apparently not a lunch food). One location is near the Gulf Paradise Hotel if you happen to be staying there.

Taj Palace (near the corner of Al-Khaleej and Al Rayyan Road (also known as Mannai Roundabout), ~100m into the neighbourhood from Babyshop, walk past Al-Osra Restaurant). $$, Adventure, HITW+, Share). North Indian. Food is decent (but not "Wow!”) and definitely an option if you're nearby. When you're done, if you want a shisha, turn left and walk 100 m to a HITW shisha joint that's very popular with locals and has some of the cheapest shisha prices in Doha.

Aalishan (about 200 m down the road from “The Centre” (a small mall) near the Ramada. $$-$$$, Adventure, Marhaba). While I've only been there once other people I know go there frequently and really liked the food, and this included people who are frequent visitors to Bukhara. I was there for a Friday afternoon buffet that was pretty good.

The Garden Annapourna (on or near Najma St. $-$$, Adventure, HITW+, Veg). In the past there was a restaurant called "The Garden” in the Musherib neighborhood that was considered one of the best Indian restaurants in the city. It also was vegetarian. Unfortunately it was torn down as part of the ongoing rebuilding of Musherib. They have since moved to the Najma neighborhood but I have not been there yet. The Musherib restaurant was awesome, serving a variety of great South Indian dishes at a good price. Maybe I'll head out to the new one and see if it has kept the quality. If you do Internet searches for this place be careful that it is the Najma one and not the Musherib location.

Chingari (Ramada hotel, corner of C-ring and Salwa road. $$$$, Alcohol, Marhaba, Share). Expensive but the food is good, it has a great ambience, and you can have alcohol. Usually has a live traditional Indian band (with sitar, bongos etc.) sitting on a small stage in the center of the restaurant.

Taj at the Mariott (Mariott Hotel, near the Airport. $$$$, Alcohol, Marhaba, Share). Smaller, slightly more expensive, and with less ambiance than Chingari. I have been there twice and I will say both times the food was fantastic, some of the best Indian food I've had in Doha, which is why as it is on the list. It is also one of the most expensive places for Indian food, which is why I've only been there twice.

Tandoor Express (two locations, City Centre Mall & behind the Family Food Centre near the airport, $-$$, Adventure (Family Food Centre Location), HITW+, Marhaba). In the case of the second location the Family Food Centre is in the Marhaba map. Decent Indian food and a common go-to spot for people in the office when they go to the mall for lunch. The City Centre Mall one is located in the food court by the amusement park. If you're near the Family Food Centre one you might also want to go around front and try . . .

Bombay Chowpatti (in front of the Family Food Centre near the airport, $, Adventure, HITW, Marhaba [Family Food Centre]). This is a stand at the front of the supermarket, no tables or chairs. Customers do take away and eat in their car or while standing around the parking lot. Popular place though with the Indian crowd. I've tried it twice and both times it was good.

Italian Cuisine

Ciao (Salwa Road, strip mall just before Decoration Roundabout on the right-hand side if you were traveling from Ramada signal, couple of doors from a pharmacy, $$, Adventure). My pick for the best pizza in town. Thin crust, oven baked on the premises. Has a variety of pasta options as well but I eventually gravitated to the pizza. Sorry, they don’t do delivery. The restaurant is, believe it or not, Ethiopian (Italy took over Ethiopia back in the colonial times.)

La Speghetto (Al Sadd neighbourhood, go out the back door of Royal Plaza Mall, turn right, go to the end of the street, turn left, two short blocks it’s on the corner, $$, Adventure). A good pick for pasta. Apparently run by an Italian chef. A European colleague of mine loves it as it reminds them of Italy.

Fancy Brunch Buffets

Typically people go for brunch on Fridays, which is the start of the weekend. The hotels tend to have buffets available every day but they are fancier on a Friday. Call ahead to check.

The Grill at Grand Hyatt (Grand Hyatt Hotel, bottom floor and on the right, $$$$, Alcohol, Marhaba). My favorite Friday brunch. Has a decent selection, though not as much as some of the other hotels, but everything tends to be really fresh. Sushi is available, and be sure to try the boneless barbecue ribs (my favorite). QAR 250 per person without alcohol, QAR 350 with. For Friday reservations are recommended as the place is usually booked. One floor above is their Thai restaurant, Issan, which also does an all-you-can-eat on Friday afternoon (unlimited ordering from the menu).

Oryx Rotana (Oryx Rotana Hotel near the airport, $$$$, Alcohol, Marhaba). This is a bit out of the way for me so I've only been there once but reviews from others have been good. I don't remember the price but I'd expect it to be a bit cheaper than the Grand Hyatt.

Chinese, Thai and Japanese Cuisine

Yes I know these cuisines are not related but I'm getting tired of creating separate categories for everything. Roll with it.

Shanghai Garden (City Centre Mall, around the corner from the movie theater. $$-$$$, Marhaba). Not so long ago I had a colleague from Hong Kong occasionally complain that there was never any good Chinese food in Doha. That is, until Shanghai Garden opened in the nearby mall. Thereafter I think he and his family would be there at least twice a week, minimum. I've eaten there a number of times and I found it all right but not amazing. I probably didn't know what to order. This is on my list because if you're Chinese or a fan of Chinese food then I know at least one Hong Kong family who swears by this place.

Thai Snack (Al Nasr St near Doha Clinic. $$, Adventure, HITW, Marhaba, Share). Despite being on the same street as Turkey Central it might be a bit harder to find so either make sure you know where it is on the map or that the taxi driver knows its location. It is also attached to a Thai massage parlor so you might see a sign for that. Reasonable Thai food at a reasonable price.

Issan (Grand Hyatt Hotel, half-way down the stairs and on the right, $$$$, Alcohol, Marhaba, Share). High-end but I know a lot of people who love it. It's never knocked my socks off, I'd rather go to the Grill downstairs. If you go when they have their all-you-can-eat "buffet" it's not a buffet, it's unlimited ordering from the menu so you get to try whatever you want. At Issan the dishes are small and you'll typically order at least four dishes per person which allows for a lot of variety.

Oishi Sushi (Royal Plaza Mall, top floor, in one of the corners. $$$-$$$$, Marhaba). Nice place, good decor, decent sushi. Has a sushi train but you can also order ala carte. Usually on Monday and Tuesday nights they have all-you-can-eat from the sushi train for something like QAR 135. Check in advance as you might need a reservation on all-you-can-eat night.

Sushi Minto (On Salwa Road near Ramada Signal, in the strip mall past the Starbucks. $$$-$$$$, Marhaba). Within walking distance from the Ramada hotel (unless it's summer). My friends and I used to eat here all the time at their Friday afternoon buffet - we stopped because we were eventually putting on the pounds. A bit cheaper than Oishi but occasionally the sushi is not as good. Reservations are needed for the Friday buffet.

Souq Waqif

You are going to visit Souq Waqif, right? You must! By the way most of the shops are closed in the afternoon, evening is the best time to go. Pretty much all the places are in the Marhaba map. None of them are allowed to serve alcohol.

Al Tawash ($$$). Qatari food! Well, most of the items on the menu are Arabic food but they do have a few Qatar-specific dishes. There is a huge open-air area on the second floor at the back where you can also have a shisha. I've been here a number of times and the food has never blown me away but visitors I'm touring around usually want to try Qatari food and we wind up having a good time.

La Dolce Vita ($$$). Italian. A bit harder to find as it's off the main restaurant section. It’s behind Al Mandarin or Zaatar w Zeit, look for signs pointing you to it when you are near one of those places and it will lead you to a small quiet courtyard where the restaurant is.

Jasmine ($$$). Thai. This is also not in the main restaurant section so will take a bit of finding, you should check the Marhaba’s map of the Souq. Best bet is to try it when they have the all-you-can-eat special as that will allow you to order unlimited amounts off the menu (though not all of the dishes). I tried the special with three friends and we enjoyed it because it allowed us to try a wide array of dishes and have seconds (or thirds) of the ones we liked.

The Iraqi place ($$$). It’s actual name is Al Adhamiyah but my friends and I just call it "The Iraqi Place". Decent food, great bread. Is always considered as an option for dinner when a bunch of us go to the Souq. Even has some menu items using unusual cuts of meat like sheep cheeks and stuff, which a Turkish friend of mine always appreciated.

For something less heavy on the wallet there’s a place that there's no point in telling you its name as no one would recognize it, it’s a cheap grill near the pets area ($, Adventure, HITW). To find it you have two options: if you find the area where pets are sold it’s at one end of that area, otherwise find Hotel Souq Waqif and go around behind it. You'll see a bunch of benches with traditional red Arabic cushions up against walls (including the back wall of Hotel Souq Waqif) with some tables in front of them. The place is 100% outdoors. It sells small meat or chicken skewers for around a dollar a skewer, including bread. Usually three or four skewers are enough of a meal for me. A small tub of yoghurt is around 50 cents. Drinks consist of bottled water or cans of soda from a cooler. Do not go here expecting fancy, sometimes while you are eating stray cats wander around underneath your table looking for scraps. Busy place though.

If you are really, really hurting for money right next to the cheap grill is an Iranian bakery ($, Adventure, HITW), where you can get five big pieces of freshly-made Iranian bread for 1 riyal (27 cents). If I'm in the neighborhood I sometimes buy some bread for home.

Another low-cost option are the various eats dished out by ladies in abayas ($, Adventure, HITW). There is a small section of them in the main area were souvenirs are sold, and more of them in a small square near the north parking lot. Look for ladies in black abayas sitting at small tables with crockpots or hot plates selling homemade food. No, I have no idea what the food is they are selling, it probably changes day-to-day. My favorite are the ladies who are sitting on the ground with a hot plate in front of them -- they make a type of crepe with egg, labneh, honey, nutella, or all of the above, for about QAR 5 ($1.30) a crepe. Great dessert/snack at a cheap price. (Remember to please ask first if you can take a picture of them, most ladies in abayas don't like having their picture taken.)

Saida ($-$$, HITW+, Share). Lebanese. An inexpensive outdoor shisha place near the end of the restaurant area, though you can sit in an air-conditioned table inside if it's too hot (no shisha inside though). I like going there for their manakish -- a flat pastry with a topping, similar to a pizza, which is a pretty decent size yet only around QAR 10 (~$3). Recommend trying one with Haloumi cheese (a salty cheese).

Tajine ($$$, Share). Moroccan. Open 24 Hours. Great outdoor patio on the second floor popular with shisha smokers. If you're lucky you'll be able to get one of the booths up against the wall, which is more relaxing for shisha. I normally order the couscous but the other food is also decent.

You will also notice walking down the main walkway a zillion other different shisha places ($$-$$$). Most of them only serve mezzahs and various drinks/coffees, though some serve full meals. Shisha is only allowed outside so all of the outside tables tend to be full. Typically crowded in the evening with people smoking shisha. At least one of these places (Al Mourjan) is more in the $$$$ range.

Other

Pain Quotien (Villagio Mall near the ice rink, $$, Marhaba). The place I usually eat at when I’m at Villagio mall. Nice healthy soups and breads, though other items are available. I usually go for a lentil or mushroom soup, and share a bread basket if I'm with friends. There is a similar type of place near the Carrefour called Paul that is popular as well, but I prefer PQ as you can usually get a quieter table inside the restaurant.

Best Fish (I think it has more than one location but I only know the one on Al Nasr Street near Doha Clinic. $$, Adventure, HITW+). Popular with Qataris, serves a nice grilled hamour (grouper) with butter.

J&G Sandwich Cellar (Ras Abu Abboud St near the C-ring flyover. Look for a blue awning. $$, Adventure). British cuisine. I enjoy their breakfasts, with (non-pork) sausages, fried tomatoes, mushrooms, baked beans, eggs, toast with marmalade . . . etc. Decent coffee too. They also serve British foods such as Yorkshire pudding. They also sell sandwiches of course.

Ric’s Country Kitchen (Ras Abu Abboud St near B-ring. In a small strip mall. $$, Adventure). American diner. This place is larger than J&G and serves the standard fare you'd get in a diner. As there are not many diners in Doha the place is pretty popular, especially on Fridays. I prefer J&G because I find it quieter but others prefer Ric’s.

Fuddrucker’s (near Khalifa Tennis Centre, $$$, Adventure). A popular place for burgers. My colleagues and I consider it a treat if we decide to drive out to Fuddrucker’s for lunch. I’ve never had anything other than the burgers there because I like them.

Market at W (W Hotel, $$$$, Alcohol, Marhaba). Not to be confused with the Spice Market, another restaurant at the W. This place serves a great three-course lunch special for QAR 85, including a very good burger. The price doesn't include any drinks so even ordering bottled water will likely push you to the $$$$ range. Popular with nearby office workers so if you are going for the weekday lunch special then call and reserve in advance.

I'll keep updating this as time goes on and I find more interesting places.

Wandering Around Doha

2011-10-14T13:54:00.000-07:00

I spent much of Friday wandering around. The weather is starting to cool off a bit so it's a little more comfortable to be out during the middle of the day.

First, over the summer the Government has been spending a lot of time turning a large amount of empty land near the Corniche into a park. Topsoil, grass seed, and lots and lots of watering is really paying off. Here's a picture I took from the side of the road near my apartment.

No, I'm not on the outskirts of the city in fact I'm more in the middle of it. The Qataris deliberately kept some land empty to turn into parkland. I expected a couple months time it will be open to the public. For now there are security guards (sitting under shady trees) to make sure people don't walk on the grass.

From there I went to see how The Pearl is coming along. The Pearl is a massive luxury development being built on reclaimed land north of the city. Much of the work on the first phase is done and it's now a matter of finishing off the apartment buildings and getting more stores and restaurants around the water. There's a number of restaurants and coffee shops already but there's still a lot of empty store space.

It's going to look fantastic when it's all finished.

Then in the evening I went down to Souq Waqif. The new Fall 2011 line is out in stores:

Awwwwwwwwwwwww, aren't they cute. Falcon shops were doing a brisk trade, every shop had some Qataris in it and a lot of falcons in stock. I saw at least three Qataris walking around outside with falcons on their hands. Because of the heat most the falcon shops are closed for the summer so I think they recently reopened.

I even came across a brand-new building in the Souq. I'll let you read what it is:

The lobby even had perches for falcons! Unfortunately it was closed for the evening. I'll try to get back there sometime and take some more photos.

In the main square they had a concert of traditional Qatari music. I sat down and listened to the band for an hour along with hundreds of Qataris. At times the Qataris were clapping along with the music, and a few would occasionally get up and dance to their favorite songs. I decided to take a quick video of the concert but unfortunately it is too big to load. I'll try to find a way to reduce the resolution to make it smaller.

Pretty active day, time for bed.

The Secret Ministry

2011-10-09T11:36:00.001-07:00

Unbeknownst to many people Qatar has a secret Ministry working within the shadows of the Government. Their building is unlabeled, its management unknown, and they don't issue press releases or organize conferences. Yet it is one of the most powerful Ministries in Qatar, a Ministry that almost no one can mess with, wielding an exceptional amount of power...

... The Ministry of Tearing Up Roads.

Anyone who has lived in Doha knows, deep down inside, that this Ministry exists. I have challenged many Qatari friends about it but they all deny its existence -- possibly out of fear of reprisals. Its employees are everywhere, touring the city at night looking for locations to tear up without warning. They are incredibly quick and amazingly efficient.

It's the only explanation.

_

Qataris Get a Raise

2011-10-03T11:27:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a five day vacation to... well, I'll get to that in another post. The last month has been nothing but travel posts so it's time to get back to discussing Qatar.

Recently the Qatari Government announced big salary increases for Qataris working in the civil service and military. The increases ranged from -- are you ready? -- anywhere from 50% to 120%. No, no typos there, fifty to one-hundred-and-twenty percent. Wow!

Needless to say His Highness the Emir was greatly thanked for his generosity. Even better, the raises also extended to retired civil servants on a pension. (I suspect this was the group His Highness really wanted to help, a fixed pension doesn't go far when inflation is 15 to 20% a year)

As an aside I will take this moment to restate something I said back in March: Qatar is not undergoing any unrest or revolution. Qatar has not had any trouble. There will be no Egypt-style protests. Qatar is safe and stable. (And this was before giving out massive raises to most of the citizens!)

Now from what I've been told, despite what a lot of ex-pats think, the salaries in a lot of government jobs was never huge to begin with. In some junior level positions I believe the raise will amount to around $1500 a month but that's definitely better than nothing. Government jobs tend to be attractive not so much because of the salary but because of job security, and with great benefit packages and pensions. Some Qataris I spoke to who work in the private sector noted that they made more in the private sector than in the government sector. Well, at least before the raises were announced.

I also like that while the Government is trying to share its vast wealth with its citizens it's trying to target the working population. You're independently wealthy and don't work? No raise for you. You work for the Government to make a living and support a family? More money for you. No money for deadbeats.

There have been a few problems, or possible problems, that occurred because of the raises:

1) an obvious one is that Qataris who work in the private sector received no benefit, which of course has put the private sector in a difficult position. The private sector struggles sometimes to attract Qataris as they prefer to work for the Government, and with the raises that makes it even more challenging. Private companies also try to comply with “Qatarization” regulations which mandate a minimum percentage of Qatari employees. Many companies have had to match the raises if only to retain their existing Qatari staff.

One comment I read on the issue raised a good point. The person didn't have an issue with Qataris receiving raises as long as the Government realizes that by doing so it becomes even more difficult for companies to hire Qataris. Thus the Government shouldn't therefore be surprised if Qatarization targets are not being met, or that there is increased demand from Qataris for employment in the civil service. You can't give 50+% raises and then wonder why companies are struggling to hire Qataris. This may also lead to an increase in a strange phenomenon I refer to as "Rent-a-Qatari" -- a company agrees to pay a Qatari a small salary just so they can say that they have a Qatari “employed” there, yet the Qatari never has to show up. (You also find similar Rent-an-Emirati schemes in the United Arab Emirates)

2) It impacts how expensive Qatar becomes to do business, again because of item 1 above, which may ultimately impact economic development to some degree as companies decide to set up elsewhere. It is unlikely that a company will use Qatar as a regional hub for its business if it is more expensive than other areas in the Gulf. If the cost becomes prohibitive enough businesses will only set up here if they need to do business in Qatar itself.

3) Finally, and some Qataris warned me about this but I didn't think this would happen, instant inflation. Prices went up in some shops and restaurants immediately after the announcement. Given that Qataris only make up 15% of the population, so I figured the raises only applied to about 5% of the total population of the country, I didn't think some stores would immediately raise prices. Apparently some did. There have been calls for the Government to take action against these enterprises but in the meantime a grassroots boycott-movement, spread mostly through texting and messenger, identified businesses that raised their prices and asked Qataris to boycott them. It apparently has had an impact on some businesses such as restaurants but there are also concerns that some people are taking advantage of the situation and deliberately naming innocent stores in order to hurt their business. If the price increases become widespread this will become an issue for a lot of non-Qataris as they have not received any salary increases and in many cases are on a limited income in an already expensive country. Time will tell.

No, no raise for me either. Would be nice.

London vs Paris vs Rome

2011-09-21T12:50:00.000-07:00

Back in July 2007 I did a post that compared London vs Paris. Turns out that to this day it is still a popular post and once or twice a week someone Googles “London versus Paris” and reads it. So I figured I'd take the original post and update it for Rome!

Which city did I like better? Well, I figured I'd do a itemized list of things to compare the three cities on, almost like a competition:

Overall look: London has an interesting mix of buildings both old and new but Paris retains much of its architectural charm. Neighbourhood after neighbourhood looks like it is from the late 19th-early 20th century, with four or five storey apartment buildings side by side with the shuttered windows etc. By keeping the architecture consistent the streets of Paris retain a lot of charm.
Rome is similar to Paris with narrow streets and apartment buildings side-by-side but has a lot more “Wow!” buildings and monuments in a small area and great piazzas to discover.

Winner: for someone who likes wandering around and exploring I will have to give Rome the edge over Paris. London gets third.

Cleanliness: none of the cities were immaculate of course but the parks were well-maintained even though busy streets were a little grungy. Overall things were relatively good considering they are both major cities. I had heard that in Paris and Rome there are dog droppings everywhere but I didn’t find that to be the case at all. Still I felt that Rome was a hint “grungier”, especially at popular piazzas and in Trastevere, maybe due to all the tourists wandering around.

Winner: I’ll give London and Paris a tie, with Rome a close third. All of the cities were fine and not as bad as I had heard.

Air quality: Both cities had some air quality problems due to all of the cars but there was something else with the air in London – blowing my nose would result in a tinge of grey, something that didn’t occur in Paris or Rome. I also saw a number of bicycle riders in London wearing masks/filters, something I never saw in Paris or Rome. I had heard that Rome had some pollution problems but the centre of Rome seemed fine to me.

Winner: tie between Paris and Rome. London takes third.

Least expensive: Don’t get me wrong – all of them are prrrriiicey. Hotel costs are brutal (Rome had the best value for money, maybe I lucked out) and food is not cheap either. Overall though I found beer, coffee and most food items cheaper in London, and wine and bread/pastries cheaper in Paris. Food in Rome was comparable if you could find a place with a special deal otherwise I'd say for your average touristy lunch it was probably more expensive than the other two. However London doesn’t charge for most museums and attractions, while in Paris most museums charge 7-10 euro for entry. I only went to one Museum in Rome (Vatican) and entrance was 15 euro. Considering all of the museums these cities have that adds up for someone doing the tourist thing.

Winner: London, thanks to subsidized museums. Rome takes second because of the hotel and Paris third.

Metro: Both the Paris Metro and the London Underground provide great service to anywhere a tourist wants to go. Rome has a much more limited metro that skirts around the edges of the center of Rome (probably because they can't dig under the historical part of the city as they would destroy Roman ruins or valuable buildings). Always make sure wherever it is that you are staying in Paris and London that it is close to a Metro/Underground station and then you can just use a multi-day pass to get around. I barely ever used the Rome Metro but it was definitely the cheapest at 1 euro a ride. Overall I found the Underground a bit easier to navigate, and trains ran a bit more frequently (usually every 2-4 minutes as opposed to 3-7 minutes in Paris). The Underground was a bit cleaner as well, though that isn’t saying much, but the scent of stale urine was definitely to be found in some Paris Metro stations. I put Rome stations equivalent to Paris.

Winner: London. Paris is second and in Rome you might want to study the bus routes if you don't like walking a lot.

Restaurants: Well I certainly didn’t eat everywhere, and wasn’t eating in top-end jacket & tie types of places, but the food in restaurants was generally good in all cities. I recall some service issues in the occasional place in Paris that didn’t occur in London though, and food was more variable in Rome. In some places in Rome the food was pretty “meh” but I did have the best Fettuccine Alfredo I've ever had in my life there and I can think of at least one other place I ate at where the food was great. Try to scope out what the pizzas look like before you order -- I once ordered a “lunch special” pizza that had four toppings and received a pizza cut into quarters with one topping per quarter! (It was still tasty though.)

Here's two stories about Paris service: One memorable one was in a sidewalk café on the Champs de Elysses where the waiter placed down a paper tablecloth, napkins and cutlery on our table but when we just ordered coffees he grabbed the tablecloth, napkins & cutlery and moved them to another table where another couple was sitting! He then had us move to the table next to them – all because we weren’t ordering food. Weird. We and the other couple had a good laugh when we told them where their cutlery had come from (though we did point out that we hadn’t touched it).

Another time I was at a restaurant/café near the Opera and watched as a waiter cleared tables by stacking all the dirty dishes on one table for two next to the sidewalk. That table was the only empty one. Then for the next 15 minutes, rather than clear the dishes, he turned couples away who were looking for a table -- three times! One couple even pointed to the table with a "we’ll take that table if you clean it” gesture only to have the waiter essentially gesture "sorry, no can do”.

Winner: London, edging out the win due to better service. Rome will get a second due to the variability of food (try to find places locals are eating at -- check out the crowd eating outside of a place for a minute or two), and snarky Paris gets third.

Museums: The British Museum is iconic, and it’s collection of Egyptian antiquities can’t be beat outside of Egypt, but as a museum the Louvre is in a class on its own. You would have to combine the British Museum, the Tate Gallery, and the Victoria & Albert Museum to even come close to the sheer size of the Louvre collection, and the walls and ceilings of many of the Louvre’s galleries are artworks in-and-of themselves, retaining their centuries-old décor. The park and gardens around the Louvre are also spectacular. And I didn’t even see most of the other museums in Paris. In Rome I only went to one Museum, the Vatican Museum, and while it does not have anything Egyptian its collection is incredible, and like the Louvre the walls and ceilings of the galleries are incredibly decorated, and it also has the Sistine Chapel, which by sheer volume beats out the Mona Lisa (which is also an Italian painting so let's give Italy a little extra credit). The Louvre however is bigger, items are better labeled, and you have a lot more flexibility with wandering around.

Winner: close call -- and this really is just a comparison between the Louvre and the Vatican Museum -- but it's all I've got to go on so I'll give Paris the edge over Rome, unless you are a massive fan for all things Egyptian in which case London's third place gets an upgrade. Of course fans of Roman and Renaissance art should go to Rome.

Other attractions: Cruising the Seine beats the Tiber but I think Tiber would edge the Thames. Eiffel Tower is better than the London Eye, Big Ben, or the Monument to Vittorio Emmanuel II. St. Peter’s beats out Westminster Abbey and Notre Dame. St. Paul’s edges out Sacre-Coeur (St. Paul’s is more historical and has more to see, though Sacre-Coeur has a must-see view of Paris). Both beat the Spanish Steps but credit that an average church in Rome easily beats the other two cities. I’ll take hanging out at Trevi Fountain over the Arc de Triumph, and both leave Trafalgar Square in the dust. Finally there is the walk from the Arc de Triumph, down the Champs de Elysees, through numerous parks, past the Obelisk, past some large fountains, until you reach the parks in front of the Louvre. That walk cannot be matched by anything in London, and while I was really impressed with the walk from the Trevi Fountain to the Piazza Navona I will still give Paris that one.

Winner: This is tough! Maybe it's because I was just recently there but I'm going to have to give Rome the first place because there was just so much great stuff to see. Paris gets a close second and London third.

Nightlife: I don’t know much about the quality of nightlife in any of them (I'm not a club type of guy and was usually back in my hotel room by 11) but London is a pub culture so it seemed that anywhere you looked there was a pub or club that you could pop into. In Paris that was a lot harder to find, cafes were much more plentiful. Bars were aplenty in the Trastevere neighborhood of Rome but it was restaurants and cafés most other places.

Winner: London, just due to the ease of finding places anywhere you were. Rome second. Paris third.

Safety: All cities have their dodgy neighbourhoods but overall I didn’t have any issues. There were a few beggars here and there in all of them, and the odd homeless guy in the parks or metro stations – nothing to the level you see in cities like Vancouver or LA. Twice in Rome (over four days) some guy tried to give me the long sob story for some money. There were signs warning people about pickpockets in Paris and Rome but I never saw anything or heard any commotion. I've never had anything stolen but my friend Janel traveled with me in Paris and had a pair of earrings stolen from her hotel room, probably by a maid but possibly someone came through the window of her 1st floor room. Another friend of mine visited Rome only once and had his wallet stolen from his jacket while he was at a fancy bar.

Winner: I’ll say London first and Rome and Paris tie for second because I've had friends visit both places once and something got stolen.

Queues: Way longer in Paris than in London for all major tourist attractions and Rome was variable. London’s only major queue problem was at Madame Tuseud’s, so we didn’t bother going in. Waited over an hour to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower, and skipped Notre Dame because of the long line. Crowding was pretty bad at the Louvre as well but the Vatican Museum was worse. The lineup at the Vatican Museum was huge but fast and only took only 25 minutes, Colosseum was 30 minutes, and I gave up on the Foro Romano. I went really early to St. Peter's so didn't wait in a line but I've heard that can get bad as well.

Winner: London. You can see some fantastic churches and things with no line up so I'll give Rome second. Paris is third.

The Overall Winner -- let’s see the results. (firsts, seconds, thirds. Ties get half)

Paris 2, 3.5, 4
London 5.5, 1, 3.5
Rome 2.5, 5.5, 2

In my original London vs Paris post London beat Paris 6-4 but Paris won the major ones: overall look, museums, & other attractions. Because of this Paris won. Adding Rome to the mix competed heavily against Paris's wins but had little impact on the categories London won (metro, queues, cost, nightlife) causing Paris and Rome to “split votes” so to speak. So if Paris beat London in my original assessment, and Rome and Paris are now splitting the vote, logic would say that both Rome and Paris edge out London despite the point tally. Does that seem right though? I'd say so. I'd recommend you do Rome or Paris over London if you're an explorer and love either Renaissance art, Roman art, or artwork in general, but if you have the chance really see all three cities. English speakers with young children (who might get tired of art and museums), or people who love of all things Egyptian, would probably like London better.

Rome Vacation – The Finale

2011-09-20T10:55:00.000-07:00

I managed to find a café near the Trevi Fountain that was more for locals than tourists. Everyone who walked in was an Italian businessman who would stop by to have a cappuccino or espresso before heading to the office. So I was pleased to find what I felt was a true Italian cappuccino! Worth the search. (No, I'm not telling you where it is -- I don't want tourists swarming the place) :-p

Now you know that if you are visiting Rome there is one place you have to visit.

You’re in Rome, you have to see the Roman ruins of course.

Oddly enough for some reason when I got there the Colosseum was closed and would not be opening until noon. Not sure why but it even caught tour groups offguard, hundreds and hundreds of people were milling about and wandering around outside. So I decided to go to the rest of the Roman ruins next to the Colosseum (the Foro Romano).

Unfortunately everyone else had the same idea so the lineups were massive. I waited in the hot sun for about 20 minutes and then realized that at the rate the line was moving it would be hours before I got in. Forget that! I wandered over to the fence to take a look at the area.

Would it surprise you if I said as Roman ruins go they were “meh”? I guess because Rome has been occupied continuously since the Roman days the buildings were quickly demolished and buried so are in pretty sad shape. Compare it to this photo from Jerash in Jordan

It's weird to think that some of the best Roman ruins are actually outside of Italy but I guess Jerash was largely abandoned so didn't run into the troubles Rome had.

So because I wasn't that impressed with what I saw I certainly wasn't going to wait a couple of hours to get in. I wandered away to see the Circus Maximus (big disappointment, don't bother) and started wandering back to the hotel to have a break so that I could go see the Colosseum in the afternoon. Along the way was the Piazza del Campidoglio (designed by Michaelangelo),

I didn't have time to go into the museums that line the Piazza but I did stop by a nearby café to have a pizza lunch

I felt refreshed after hanging out at the café so I decided not to go back to the hotel and instead head back to the Colosseum. Took a slightly different route though to go past the Monument to Vittorio Emanuelle II.

The Monument is one of the largest structures in Central Rome and houses a military museum as well as the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
I went inside and wandered around the museum for a bit for continuing on to the Colosseum. After standing in line for about 30 minutes I finally got in.

You know what? I actually think it's more impressive from the outside. Maybe it was because it was the middle of the afternoon and it was dang hot so I didn't feel like wandering around too much. After taking a bunch of pictures I decided to take the Metro back to the hotel for a break from the heat.

While sitting in my wonderfully air-conditioned hotel room I was flipping through guidebooks and saw that there was a church that was supposed to have a really cool crypt. I looked on the map and to my surprise found out it was less than a five-minute walk from the hotel. Off I went to the Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini.

I went straight to the crypt. The lady at the front desk recommends a donation of one Euro but if you give more (I gave five Euro) she gives you a postcard that is attached to a small booklet that describes each of the rooms in the Crypt. It was very useful so I recommend it.

What I saw was, um, pretty messed up. If you ever wondered what it would be like to have
Ed Gein as your interior decorator, wonder no more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capuchin_Crypt

They decided to take the monks’ bones and decorate the walls with them as some sort of festive display!

Seriously, who came up with this idea? I could imagine a bunch of monks debating what to do with all the bodies in the crypt when one comes up with the brilliant idea of dismembering most of the skeletons and making decorative patterns out of them. “It'll be Fabulous!”, he probably said. And everyone agreed!

They must be part of the strangest church in all of Catholicism. I wonder why no one thought this might be a Bad Idea. Seriously, when the Marquis de Sade comes by and tells you he loves what you've done with the place how much more of a hint do you need that it might be time to rethink your interior design! (And yes, the Marquis really did stop by and yes, he really did like it.)

Anyway it was pretty interesting, I'll give it that.

Went off to Piazza Navona for dinner and had the best Fettuccine Alfredo ever. Really, really good.

Afterward I just wandered around and wound up crossing the river to the neighborhood of Trastevere, which is a bit more bohemian and had a ton of bars.

Didn't do much, just wandered around for a while and then went back to the hotel.

The next day the plane wasn't leaving until the afternoon so I spent the morning checking out a few more churches such as the Sant Andrea della Valle

and the Chiesa de Gesu, which had an incredible mural on the ceiling. Thankfully they had a big mirror set up so you could look at it without straining your neck.

See anything weird about it? The painting "escapes" the frame! I thought it was a really cool effect.

And thus my trip to Rome ended. Loved the artwork and architecture, it was really cool having all that stuff such a short walk away from each other, but next time I'll be sure to go in the cooler months.

Rome Vacation -- Part 3

2011-09-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

Next up, Castel Saint Angelo, about a 15 minute walk away from St. Peter's Square.

It was a nice castle with rooms used as a museum (no pictures inside though). Nothing as awe-inspiring as what you found in the Vatican Museum. It's unfortunate that after you see the big highlights of Rome that other museums, which anywhere else would probably be a top attraction, is simply "okay".

However up near the top there was a restaurant so I decided to grab a drink

I certainly can't complain about the view from this restaurant, I think I sat here for a good 20 minutes just staring at the view.

The other side also had a nice view of the river and central Rome.

After wandering around the Castel I went to the Spanish Steps, a lengthy series of steps leading to the Trinita dei Monti church that has become a hanging-out place for tourists.

So what did I do? Sat there and hung out of course. Not much in the way of restaurants nearby but there were a lot of guys going around selling drinks.

From there I continued walking to the Piazza del Popolo, a huge square next to Borghese Park. The park is actually a large hill that provides great views of the city, I climbed up to take a view of the piazza.

I wandered through the park and back to the Trevi Fountain and grabbed an okay meal at one of the touristy cafés and hung out a while longer at the Fountain with a gelato.

Strangely enough, nothing weird happened to me the entire day! No drama, no bizarre encounters, no attempt to rip me off, just a mellow day touring around and seeing some damn impressive sights. Has to be a first for a vacation.

One day left (and things do get weird). Stay tuned for part 4.

Rome Vacation – Part 2

2011-09-10T06:22:00.000-07:00

I woke up early because I knew my next destination would have long lineups -- the Vatican.

It took about a half hour to walk there but I got to St. Peter's Square before the crowds, now I had to just figure out where the Vatican Museum was. For some reason I thought it was next to St. Peter's so I went to St. Peter's and looked around

Wow, is it ever huge! And of course, tastefully decorated from floor to ceiling with paintings, carvings, marble, etc.

St. Peter's is so big that there are plenty of side chapels that people use for various purposes.

I was still pretty sweaty from the half-hour walk, and there's no A/C and St. Peter's either, so I figured I should get over to the Vatican Museum to cool down. Except I still couldn't figure out where it was? After asking around I found out you had to leave St. Peter's and go north of St. Peter's Square for a good 10+ minutes walk to get to where the lineup would be. Whoops, guess I was way off base thinking it was connected to the square.

So of course by the time I arrive there was a massive lineup but I had little choice but to stand in the heat. Lots of "tour guides" were walking up and down the queue trying to get people to pay extra to have a tour with them and skip the line (you get to go to a different line if you're on a tour). One of these guides was telling someone that the lineup was at least an hour. Big surprise -- it was actually 20 minutes. One of them tried talking to me but I pretended I didn't understand English and instead spoke to them in Arabic guessing, rightly, that he wouldn't know the language. He left me alone. (I used this tactic again a couple of days later at the train station against a beggar with one of those long tales of woe. Worked great.)

Anyway, into the Museum.

As an aside in most of the Museum there is also no A/C. In fact in many of the galleries they simply opened the windows. I'm starting to wonder if all this museum conservation with climate control and dust control etc. is a way for conservators to keep themselves employed. No one in Italy seemed too concerned about making sure priceless artworks were in hermetically-sealed climate-controlled rooms.

The Vatican Museum is fairly linear and you go from one room to another in a specific order. There are a couple of deviations you can do, and a "short tour" so you can go to the Sistine Chapel pretty quick, which apparently is what most people do. I didn't, so started with the first set of halls with the Greek and Roman statuary.

Here's a couple of examples of some of the hundreds of sculptures, I can't believe the amount of work these carvers did.

I also briefly went through a hall of Etruscan vases (not really my thing), and took a picture of the view from the window.

From there we went into the tapestry hall, it's clearly getting a little more crowded.

The tapestries were interesting enough, I found this particular one (titled "The Murder of the Innocents") a little disturbing but well done for a tapestry.

From there we went to a gallery I'll call the Map Room. It has various centuries-old maps painted on the wall. Check out the crowds compared to the sculpture room. This is because the short tour has to go through here.

After that I took another detour to some halls that had far fewer people, including murals by Michelangelo and other Renaissance artists.

There was also a series of small galleries with modern art that had a Christian theme. I'm generally not a fan of modern art but I will always take time to stop and look at a Salvador Dali.

As for the Sistine Chapel you are not allowed to take any pictures in there but I think you already have a pretty good idea what some of the paintings in it are.

After sitting in the Chapel for about 20 minutes admiring the paintings it was time to go.

And have lunch!

Next up, part 3.

_

Rome Vacation – Part 1

2011-09-09T08:15:00.001-07:00

Here is my tale of Rome. I got in around 10am (all-night flight) but my hotel room wasn't ready yet so I left my luggage at the hotel and wandered around. The hotel was near the Trevi Fountain so that was my first stop.

The Fountain is a really nice place to just sit and relax, when you can finally find a seat. It's always crowded with tourists but I still found myself coming here many times over the course of my trip to chill out and eat the occasional gelato.

I wandered around for a couple more hours, first to the Pantheon

It’s an old Roman temple that was converted to a church, then during the Renaissance also used as a tomb for important artists and citizens. It contains the tombs of some of the Italian royal family, such as Victor Emmanuel II (the first king of a united Italy).

Then I went to a nearby French cathedral, San Luigi dei Francesi,

This is the first church I went into in Rome and as you can see it looks amazing. Little did I realize that all churches in Rome look like this, covered floor to ceiling with murals and paintings and statuary. Absolutely mind blowing. In this particular church there is one chapel that had a series of paintings of Saint Matthew by the Baroque master Caravaggio.

From there I went past the Piazza Navona

to a nearby café for a bit of lunch.

I then returned to my hotel, checked in, and slept for a couple hours. After an all-night flight I need to get a couple of hours sleep during the day to be functional and I figured sleeping through the heat of the afternoon would make it easier for walking around in the evening.

After I got up I spent the rest of the day wandering around the streets looking at various buildings and piazzas. Finally stopped at a restaurant in Piazza Colonna for dinner. It was packed and looked like a lot of locals were eating there so I figured the food would be authentic and good. I was right.

I had a very nice carpaccio followed by pasta. As you can see pasta portions are more reasonable than what you would get in North America. In Rome, pasta is generally considered just one course of a nice dinner (appetizer, pasta, entrée, dessert), not the entire meal, so you don't get a heaving plate of spaghetti when you order pasta.

Then I meandered back through the streets to the Trevi Fountain and relaxed for a while.

While I was there a young man proposed to his girlfriend. She was clearly surprised by the proposal (but with joy, she said yes), and everyone cheered, clapped, and yelled congratulations as the couple left. If you are going to find somewhere romantic to propose marriage the Trevi Fountain is certainly a cool option.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

I'm back from Rome

2011-09-05T09:30:00.001-07:00

Okay, I'm back. Rome was a really interesting city and I had a great time.

It was too hot though. I think they were in the middle of some kind of heatwave. Temperatures tended to be around 32 or 33° with some humidity; combine that with the fact that Italians don't seem to like air-conditioning and it got unpleasant at times walking around seeing the sights. I was having a shower and changing my clothes at the least twice a day, sometimes three times. Ugh. From now on I'll go to Southern Europe during cooler months.

I know, I know, “O RLY, is Italy hot in August!?” So it's not Rome's fault that the weather was hot.

I will say that I ate tons of pasta, lots of pizza, and big scoops of gelato. And I’d do it again if given the chance! (bwahahahaha)

I'm sorting through the pictures now, I'll spend the next couple of posts on pictures from Rome.

_

Ramadan 2011 -- the Finale

2011-08-30T02:48:00.000-07:00

So the country had been waiting with anticipation as to whether Eid would be called tonight. Some Muslims would be watching the sky for the first light of the crescent moon, which indicates that the month of Ramadan has ended, and the Ministry of Islamic Affairs sent out a notice encouraging people who think they have seen the crescent Moon to report it to them immediately. A Muslim friend of mine suggested that after Iftar we go to a rooftop and look for ourselves if no announcement had been made yet.

At the café they had all of their televisions on an Arabic channel where reporters and scholars were following the event and reporting which countries had declared the spotting of the crescent Moon. My Arabic is still pretty poor but I do recognize the names of countries so was interesting to hear them updating the audience about Jordan, Egypt, Oman, Bahrain etc.

The crowd at the café suddenly got excited -- Saudi Arabia had announced the sighting of the crescent Moon! Surely that meant Qatar would soon announce it as well. A report then came in that Kuwait had also announced the sighting. And sure enough, a couple of minutes later, the Ministry of Islamic Affairs in Qatar announced the sighting of the crescent Moon -- the month of Ramadan had ended. You no longer had to fast.

In fact it is prohibited from fasting on the first day of Eid. “Eid” roughly translates as “festival” and Muslims are expected to celebrate the occasion. A Muslim does have the option to fast for six further days after Eid but those are optional and most Muslims do not do it. I don't think anyone I know is.

It wasn't long before I was receiving texts and phone calls from friends wishing me “Eid Mubarak” (Blessed Eid). Work sent a text saying that Eid had been called so our three-day closure starts now (no work tomorrow!), and many Qataris were busy getting . . .

... haircuts.

It is traditional that on the first day of Eid you wear new clothes, wear a nice perfume, and generally look your best. So when Eid is called many Muslim men head to their barbers for shaves, haircuts, and beard trims. One of my Qatari friends called me from his barber; he said there was such a big lineup he would likely be waiting over two hours. His barber doesn't take reservations for Eid anymore as in previous years it was leading to arguments so it's now first come-first serve. This is the busiest time of year for barbers and most of them will be open well into the night, or maybe all night, to keep up with the demand. It is also the busiest time of year for tailors who in the 2 to 3 weeks leading up to Eid are flooded with orders for new thobes from customers.

For Qataris there is a special Eid prayer at dawn and otherwise most the day will be spent visiting relatives. Parents, uncles, aunts, and especially grandparents and elders, all expect to see their family today, and meals at your grandparent’s house is common. Given that Qataris tend to have large families that means there's a lot of relatives to see. One of my Qatari friends said he expects to be doing a lot of driving as he takes family members from house to house visiting relatives.

Not knowing what night Eid falls on can make planning vacations a little annoying. I booked my trip to Italy back in June and had to guess when Eid would start. I was off by a day and I'm flying out the night of the 31st, so my first day of Eid will be here. I'll be meeting up with friends.

But first I think I will go to the barber and get a shave. After breakfast.

Eid Mubarak everyone.

_

Ramadan 2011 continued

2011-08-27T06:58:00.000-07:00

So we are almost done, maybe two or three days to go.

I actually started to run into trouble with my sleep schedule. I found I wasn't sleeping well at night, which would make me tired throughout the day, which meant I napped longer, which meant I would have trouble sleeping at night, etc. I went through about three nights in a row where I couldn't get to sleep till around 3:00 or 3:30, yet I had to get up at 6:45 for work. Yesterday I soldiered through and didn't have a nap during the day and sure enough I slept fine last night. Decided since it was the weekend to sleep in a little and not have a nap today either. That should get me back on track, so to speak.

Fasting on the weekend really is tougher than weekdays. Work at least keeps you distracted or is on the weekend there isn't a lot to do so you have time to focus on that you're hungry. It's also too hot to go outside, and almost everything is closed, so to get out of the apartment and keep away from temptation I find I go to the malls and wander around. Gets a little eerie at times. Check out these photos:

This is what the malls are like at two in the afternoon on a Ramadan weekend. Almost entirely empty. If it wasn't for the supermarket being open the mall doors would likely have been locked.

Well I have got to start thinking about the ending of Ramadan as I have a trip to Italy planned for Eid. I'm leaving in four days and I haven't even started packing or figuring out what sites I want to see. Typical for me, I'm always a last-minute kind of guy.

Ramadan 2011 - The Last 10 Days

2011-08-24T13:57:00.000-07:00

So we have about a week to go and everything is going fine. I haven't had any issues with fasting, and I had a whole bunch of people over for Iftar a few days ago (I made my homemade chili for the occasion). I also had a dentist appointment scheduled for midnight -- talk about odd hours for a teeth cleaning.

While Ramadan is a holy month the last 10 days are especially holy and Muslims are expected to do even more prayers than usual, most of which should be done in a mosque. At this time the mosques are busier than ever and some Muslims are in the mosques all night. This has to do with the concept of Laylat al-Qadr, an especially holy day which occurs sometime during the last 10 days of Ramadan. The trick is no one is quite sure what night it will fall on each year, only Allah knows. A Muslim who devoutly prays during Laylat al-Qadr will have the benefits of his prayer multiplied by thousands so many Muslims try to ensure that they are doing so.

Since no one knows what night during the last 10 days Laylat al-Qadr falls on, that means devout prayers for all of the last 10 nights is the best way to ensure you don’t miss it. Some Muslims put themselves into seclusion at a mosque during this period (this is called “Itikaf”, I think Qataris may also refer to it as “kiam” but that may just refer to the extra prayers on the last 10 days) and refrain from temptations even moreso than usual. I don't know of anyone performing Itikaf but many of my Muslim friends have less social time in the evenings as they are at extra prayers at the mosque.

Some hadiths mention some signs that may indicate Laylat al-Qadr but there is no surefire way to tell. As this website points out:

It is not essential for the one who “catches” Laylat al-Qadr to know that he has “caught” it. The point is to strive hard and to be sincere in worship, whether or not one knows that one has “caught” it. It may be that some of those who do not know that may be better with Allaah and higher in status than those who did know which night it was, because the former strove hard.

This website has a great discussion of it:

http://www.wefound.org/texts/Islam_files/LaylatAlQadr.htm

If you would like a more straightforward discussion of the last 10 days of Ramadan here is a quick article:

http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/general/the-last-ten-days-of-ramadan-1.854559

Now while I am fasting to be in tune with the Muslims here I think I will skip Itikaf, I don't have THAT much time. :-)

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Happy Birthday Karis!

2011-08-21T13:34:00.001-07:00

It's my niece Karis's birthday today and since it's Sunday she doesn't even need to be in school so she can enjoy the entire day.

Let's reminisce...

Out on the town in style

Sharing some laughs

Princess Karis appears to be a little concerned about the nearby vampire

Oh no, I guess the vampire got her! She's now a ravenous undead! :-)

Oh well, I guess vampire princesses can have a birthday too.

Happy birthday Karis. *kiss*

_

Ramadan 2011 -- Mosque Tour

2011-08-20T01:55:00.001-07:00

A colleague of mine received an e-mail from FANAR
(the Islamic Cultural Centre) noting that they were going to have a Ramadan event. They asked participants to fast for the day and that afternoon they would give a tour of some mosques and the new Cultural Village, answer questions about Ramadan, followed by an Iftar meal. Since I was already fasting I figured why not sign up, it would be a pleasant enough way to spend a Friday afternoon.

I'm not sure why I hadn't received a notice about this given that my Arabic lessons are at FANAR. Whatever.

So we met up at FANAR. There was about 20 people and before we left for the mosques FANAR provided abayas for the ladies to wear.

We got on a bus and headed to the new Cultural Village, Katara. Our first stop was the large mosque in Katara, known as the Friday mosque. About another 20 people who were part of the tour joined us there. The mosque is very colorful and has both Persian and Turkish styles.

After a brief talk there we went on a tour of Katara, going past the amphitheater . . .

(No, we are not in Italy, honest)

. . . to a room where they had a model of what the finished Katara development would look like.

It's massive isn't it? The area we were in (the buildings around the amphitheater) made up less than 10% of what would eventually be finished.

The massive structure at the end is actually not a mosque. The plan is for those three "minarets" to be full-fledged office/residential/hotel towers connected to a convention centre at the base. Apparently this element of the plan is still a bit controversial, with some arguing that mosque-like buildings should be mosques, so it is possible that the plan will change.

We were also given a brief showing of the new Opera house before heading to the second mosque, the Golden Mosque.

We sat in the mosque for about 45 minutes and a gentleman told us about customs in Ramadan and answered questions from the group. Then we had Iftar in the mosque: three dates, some water, and some milk.

(my friend with his Iftar meal)

At this point a lot of Muslims were showing up for prayer so I wandered around outside and took a few pictures. After the prayers were finished our hosts took us all to a nearby Egyptian restaurant for a full-fledged meal! I wasn't expecting that.

I forgot to mention that the tour was free and yet we were treated to a full meal. That was very generous of them. We chatted with a British and a Russian couple and had a great time.

After eating dinner my friend and I wandered around Katara for about 15 minutes, bought some karak (look it up here) from a stand, then caught the bus back.

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Shouting in the Dark

2011-08-16T14:36:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month Al Jazeera showed a documentary about the protests in Bahrain. Titled “Shouting in the Dark” the documentary shows the crackdown by the Government on the protests that occurred earlier this year.

The documentary caused a bit of a diplomatic row, with writers in Bahrain attacking Qatar and Al Jazeera saying the documentary was biased. Al Jazeera pointed out that they made numerous requests to the Government for their side of the story and received no response.

The Bahrain Government does not want you to see this documentary. As soon as I heard that a Government (any Government) did not want a piece of media shown I want to see what the fuss is about. So I saw it.

You should too.

Shouting in the Dark

_

Ramadan 2011 – Garangao

2011-08-16T09:52:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I was at the souq and couldn't believe how busy it was, in the section where the nuts and sweets are sold it was absolutely packed with people shopping. I didn't think much of it at the time, I assumed everyone likes going shopping for sweets and nuts during this month.

I completely forgot that the next day was the 14th day of Ramadan, which in the Gulf has special significance. On that day Qataris and other Gulf Arabs celebrate a festival called Garangao.

On Garangao children dress up in traditional clothing and go door-to-door asking people for sweets, which they put in bags that they bring with them. Sounds familiar, right? Yep, it has some similarities to Halloween in the West. However there are some distinct differences: no one dresses up in scary costumes, there is no underlying ghosts/spirits/witches theme to the festival, and children will traditionally sing songs as they go to houses to collect the candy. The songs reference Allah, generosity etc.

I wish I had remembered that it was Garangao as I would've had my camera with me and gone out in the evening to take some pictures. Unfortunately I only went to the souq late that evening and realized it was Garangao when I saw numerous Qatari women sitting on benches with huge bags of nuts and candy, giving handfuls out to eager children.

I spoke to a Qatari friend of mine the next day and he fondly remembered Garangao. When I asked him what would happen if someone didn't give treats he laughed and replied that they might sing the songs really loud for a minute or so (so that the people inside could feel guilty for not having any candy) and then they would move on to the next house. No pranks.

Garangao appears to be a cultural event in the Gulf and is not an Islamic requirement. I believe many other Muslim countries do not celebrate it. My Qatari friend was sure that it was cultural. I also did a search on Halloween to see if somehow the two are related but could find no connection. Most Halloween traditions seem to originate in Britain and Ireland in the Middle Ages and given that there were no similar traditions in the lands between Britain and Arabia it's unlikely that the two holidays are somehow connected.

Unfortunately I don't have pictures to post but there was a nice news article about Garangao with some photos. Enjoy.

_

Ramadan 2011 - Quick Update

2011-08-13T02:35:00.001-07:00

If you look back at my last blog post you'll see a picture of me having a shisha at the Al Bustan Hotel. With the bill came a raffle ticket for a weekly draw for either a Qatar Airways ticket or a Blackberry. My friend Fayez said I should fill it out.

Low and behold two days later I got a call -- I won the Blackberry! (Here's a picture of a smug winner with a Blackberry)

Now I have two phones. I was joking with my Qatari friends that I’m getting more and more like a Gulf Arab, now all I need is an iPhone as my third phone (and maybe switch my car to a Toyota Land Cruiser) and I'm practically a Qatari. ;)

After picking up the Blackberry I went straight to La Cigale Hotel for a Sohour dinner. Here's a few pictures:

I think I'll spend part of today trying to figure out my Blackberry and how to get it set up. I've never had one before, in fact until I came to Qatar I never owned a cell phone before. (I was never fond of the idea of people being able to call me 24 hours a day)

_

Ramadan 2011 continued

2011-08-10T14:40:00.000-07:00

Just a few updates. I forgot to mention that I've also been reading the Qur’an everyday. Traditionally during Ramadan there is a special set of prayers called the Tarawih and during those prayers when will typically read a section of the Qur’an or listen to a recitation of the Qur’an, eventually going through the entire book during the month.

I'm not planning to read the entire thing but am spending a bit of time each day reading it and re-familiarizing myself with some of the requirements. A friend of mine and I are probably going to attend a Tarawih at a mosque later this month just so I can listen to a recitation.

I also forgot to mention that, like last year, I haven't had any alcohol during Ramadan. While here in Qatar all the bars are closed throughout the month of Ramadan I could have a drink if I wanted to as I have plenty here at home; I think it's always a good thing to take a break from drinking just to make sure it's not becoming an issue. If you find yourself really desiring a drink after a few days then it may indicate a problem. I've never been a heavy drinker so thankfully going without alcohol has been fine.

Otherwise I've been either hosting Iftars at my apartment or going to a friend’s place. Here was the most recent one:

Last night I also went out to a nice shisha place in town to relax during the evening. This place needs reservations in advance but when we arrived at 9:30 it was practically empty, it didn't start filling up until 11.

I'm also managing to get exercise here and there, this evening I was out playing squash again. My Qatari friend Adel and I usually try to play at least once a week:

I’m sure I’ll have more exciting updates this weekend.

_

Ramadan 2011 – Meals

2011-08-08T14:27:00.001-07:00

I've explained how the meal to break your fast is called an Iftar, and many restaurants and hotels offer Iftar menus or buffets, but there are other meals that go on throughout the night. During Ramadan all the hotels have big buffets at various times and it is common for companies and organizations to host clients or employees at these buffets, so despite the fact that Muslims are fasting during the day they usually more than make up for it at night.

The most common name for the meal that you have after Iftar is “Sohour” (pronounced so-hoor), which generally indicates any meal after Iftar. The hotels usually offer Sohour meals starting at 9 PM and going into the late hours but in Qatar that's actually not the name of the meal. Technically the Sohour is the meal right before the first light of dawn, before you start fasting. Qataris and other Gulf Arabs have a special name for the meal that takes place between an Iftar and Sohour, called “Ghabga”, though it is typically supposed to start around 11 PM. The name might be falling out of favor, I've attended many evening meals at hotels labeled as a Sohour but only once was it called a Ghabga. At least one Qatari friend of mine still refers to it as Ghabga though.

So here's how I think it works in the Islamic world:

Not in Gulf -- Iftar, then anything after is a Sohour
In the Gulf -- Iftar, then Ghabga, and a Sohour is the last meal before the first light of dawn

In the last three days I've been to two Sohour meals (actually Ghabga’s) at hotels and I have another one later this week. The hotels tend to go all out for Ramadan to make their displays as fancy as possible. Here are a few pictures from one of them that I attended at the Sharq Hotel (the pictures look very pink because that was the color of the lighting used at the event):

Nice spread, eh? Entertainment usually includes live musicians playing Arabic music and some hotels might have Whirling Dervishes. Shishas are also provided for guests. One entertainment you will not see is bellydancing. When I first arrived here five years ago hotels would also include bellydancing as part of the entertainment, usually flying in bellydancers from Egypt or Lebanon. The Qatari Government later decided that this was perhaps a little too provocative and not really keeping with the spirit of what is supposed to be the most religious month so they banned bellydancers. I have not seen one in Qatar since.

Next one is on Thursday night, I'll make sure I take some pictures.

_

Ramadan 2011 -- the Artillery Shot to Signify the Sun Has Set

2011-08-06T09:52:00.001-07:00

I was going to meet some friends for Iftar dinner but that got canceled, so I decided to head down to the Corniche area to find where they fire an artillery shell to tell everyone that the Sun has set (and that they can break their fast now).

It was pretty easy to find as a lot of cars were already there:

With a half-hour ago people were already crowding around the . . . what is it exactly? An artillery gun?

The police were there handing out Ramadan gift bags to children. There was also a Qatari reporter with a film crew wandering around doing some interviews and preparing to film the firing.

As the time approached more people arrived and more children immediately ran to the gun. Forget ice cream trucks, you want to attract kids in a hurry bring out the heavy artillery! (I swear, there's a gun under all those kids) :)

As the time approached they cleared everyone away

Prepared the gun

Fire!

They fired the gun so quickly it totally caught me off guard and by the time I took the picture I was already enveloped in smoke.

Anyway the smoke cleared and everyone left to go have their Iftar meal

I walked across the street to the Corniche, ate some dates and a banana that I brought with me, and watched the skyline. I have a Sohour dinner that I'm attending tonight so I didn't want to eat too much.

That was pretty cool.

_

How Do You Find out the Fasting Times for Ramadan?

2011-08-04T14:10:00.000-07:00

One thing I've been asked occasionally by people from the West revolves around how I know the timings to start/stop fasting. Well here in Qatar there are five main ways:

1) listen to the announcement called from the mosques. Not too difficult as there is usually a mosque within hearing range wherever you are in Doha, but you still need to know approximately what time or else you might confuse it with a standard call to prayer.

2) listen to a local radio station, they will interrupt their programming for the announcement

3) get hold of timetables, like the one shown below, either online or available in booklets from various places.

Both of these were given to me by my Qatari friends. The times to start fasting and the times to stop fasting are the bolded columns.

You need to make sure that your timetable is for the area you live in as the sun sets at different times in different areas. For example in Kuwait the sun sets 10 minutes later than in Qatar because Kuwait is slightly further west and also further north.

4) On local television they will show a scene of some soldiers firing an artillery shell, which indicates the sun has set

5) Finally, you can listen for the artillery shell yourself, they really do fire one. I'm not sure where in Doha they do this but I think it's near the Corniche as I recall last year if we were breaking the fast in a restaurant near the Corniche we could hear the shell being fired. One of my Qatari friends said we might go there one evening to watch.

Firing an artillery shell to indicate that you can stop fasting seems to be a common thing in the Gulf. I watched the firing of the artillery shell on Kuwait television two days ago and there were dozens of citizens around watching. (Kuwait does a live broadcast of the firing of the artillery shell so many of the citizens wave Kuwaiti flags to the TV cameras).

Oh, and another question us Westerners ask is what would a Muslim do about fasting if they live far enough north that the sun doesn't set in the summer? Or if they were in outer space? It's pretty straightforward really, it's another place and align your fasting with the timing there. My understanding is that Mecca is a favorite choice, for obvious reasons, but I don't think it's a requirement. But many Muslims who live in northern countries just go by the local time and thus have an exceptionally long fast. I spoke wants to a Qatari who said that when he lived in France he would have to fast until the sunset at sometime after 9pm. Man, that would be tough. I'll settle for breaking the fast sometime after 6.

_

Ramadan 2011 – Day Three

2011-08-03T13:58:00.001-07:00

I decided to go to work 15 minutes earlier than usual and leave 15 minutes earlier in the hopes that I would miss the traffic. Sure enough it made a big difference. Rather than gridlock the traffic was free-flowing. I think I'll stick to that schedule from now on. Had a nap in the afternoon for two hours, as usual.

For Iftar I thought about going to something I saw nearby:

An Iftar tent, one of many set up around the city to provide Iftar meals to people. Every day thousands of people in Qatar have free Iftar meals. Usually it's the Government or charities that sponsor the tents but in some cases it's a company or even a wealthy individual. The Qur’an even states that if an individual cannot fast (because they're sick, elderly, pregnant etc.) then they should feed other people to make up for the fast. Typically the meals in the tents consist of dates, rice, and a bit of meat and vegetables.

When I got there I had second thoughts about going in. Because this tent is clearly sponsored by a charity it is probably meant for the poor, and I'm certainly not that. I decided to go home instead and have a light meal (dates, laban, some bread and some beans).

After eating I got out of the apartment, one of my promises for Ramadan. I know that if I stay in my apartment I'm going to start reaching for snacks so the best thing to do is to get out and maybe get some exercise. Unfortunately because it's the middle of summer the only place one can go to get a good walk without being in 40+ degree heat is a mall. So far this week I've been to all the major malls in Doha, walking laps to get some exercise. It's not ideal but at least it gets me out of the apartment.

I also had a squash game at 10pm with the Qatari friend of mine. It was a good thing we booked a court ahead of time because the Squash Center was fully booked. All eight courts were busy, many of them with children getting lessons. Yep, during Ramadan kids have squash lessons at 10 in the evening! Many were still there when my friend and I left after 11.

Midnight, time for bed.

_

Ramadan 2011 continued

2011-08-02T14:07:00.000-07:00

Today was much like yesterday, though the traffic was bad. I think most offices closed for Ramadan the same time I leave the office because the traffic is a lot heavier, yet I'm told that an hour later the roads are fairly empty.

A comment on my last post asked a few questions, I figure I’d deal with them here.

Are you planning to fast the whole month of Ramadan?

Yep, the whole month. Last year I did it for two weeks but then stopped because I had to travel to Canada. I have no trip planned this month so I should be fasting the entire month of Ramadan.

Without even any liquid intake for 15 hours in this hot weather? Seriously?!

Well, the trick is not being outside for any length of time. I'm not sure how Qataris dealt with it in the old days before air-conditioning, going through an entire day of 40+ degree weather without drinking any water, but nowadays thanks to air-conditioning it's not too bad.

I work in an office so I'm actually not outside much at all, just when going to and from the office in my air-conditioned car. My day typically goes like this:

wake up at 3am for my sohour snack, go back to sleep
wake up, get ready for work
drive to the office
work in the office for six hours
drive home
maybe do a couple of odds and ends in the apartment
have a nap for 1 1/2 to 2 hours
prepare for Iftar meal
start eating (at the appropriate time of course)

So I'm not really outside much. I don't think there's any way I could go without drinking water if I was outside for any length of time.

Besides the desire to integrate with the culture of your living country, are there anything else that's motivating you?

No, not really, this is motivated by a desire to experience things as the locals do.

The first three years I was here I did not fast and pretty much kept to my usual schedule but in the meantime the country had changed. People wouldn't even start going out until 8 or 9 in the evening and typically would stay out until 1am or later. Stores would open from 8pm onward. By the time things were starting to pick up in Qatar I was going to bed. I was clearly out-of-sync with the country. By fasting I am more in line with the country’s “clock” so to speak, napping when everyone else is napping, having meals the same time everyone else is, and staying up later. Also it provides me an opportunity to try to experience what fasting during Ramadan is like and share that experience with everyone else. You also get a better idea of many of the local customs. Lots of people have been chatting with me about how fasting is going, have recommendations for various foods and dates, and through those conversations you can get an idea of what they do for Ramadan.

So far fasting has been easier than I recall from last year. Still early in the month though.

_

Ramadan 2011 -- Day One

2011-08-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

My alarm got me up at 3 in the morning so that I could have my morning meal before first light at around 3:20. I barely remember eating it, I think I kept my eyes shut and just reached for whatever food was on the nightstand, and drinking plenty of liquids. Once I was done eating went back to bed. Got up at 6:45 to go to work. I could sleep in a little later since I didn't have to eat breakfast.

Traffic was about the same as usual; I was kind of hoping it would be a bit lighter but no luck. Not a big deal though since it normally takes me 15 minutes to get to work.

Surprisingly I didn't have too difficult a time fasting at work. What I recall from last year was that my stomach would really start acting up around lunchtime but today nothing. Aside from some obvious tiredness in the afternoon it wasn't too bad. One of my Qatari colleagues had it a bit worse than I did because he's a smoker, and smoking during the day is a no-no as well. He wanted a cigarette more than something to eat or drink.

After work I cleaned the apartment a bit in preparation for a Kuwaiti friend of mine and his wife coming over for Iftar. At around 16:00 I went to have a nap and foolishly forgot to set an alarm. My Kuwaiti friend called around 17:30 to double-check what time to come over it was a good thing he did because that woke me up. Iftar was less than an hour away! Had my friend not called I might've been sleeping until he knocked on the door.

I woke up and started preparing soup and getting the table ready. My friends came by around 18:00 with some other food.

Here's the spread for my first Iftar of 2011!

After the meal we sat around a while with some tea and my friends went home and I had to go to the mall to pick up some stuff I had ordered. Surprisingly the mall was not crowded, I'd expected it to be busier than it was. I guess since this is the first day of Ramadan everyone was visiting friends and relatives. I did a few laps of the mall to get some exercise (too hot to exercise outside) before I headed home.

Ramadan makes it more difficult to fit some exercise in. Can’t do it during the day since I'm not drinking any liquids, and there is not a lot of time at night. That said I'm likely going to play squash with a Qatari friend of mine on Wednesday night -- from 10 PM to 11 PM. It wouldn't surprise me if during Ramadan the courts were open until 1 or 2am

Ramadan Kareem everyone.

_

Ramadan has begun!

2011-07-31T08:16:00.001-07:00

It was announced in the papers that it would begin tonight so fasting starts tomorrow. I've got everything prepared, it's just a matter of getting used to waking up at 3 AM to have a meal. Like last year I'll just keep the food and drinks on my nightstand and have it there so I can go straight back to sleep.

First light is at 3:20 in the morning and the sun sets around 18:20 so I'm fasting for 15 hours a day.

_

Varieties of Dates

2011-07-29T04:01:00.001-07:00

I just finished shopping for Ramadan and one of the things I had to buy was dates. In Qatar, as well as most parts of the Islamic world, it is common to break your fast by eating a few dates so I wanted to make sure I had some on hand.

Most people in the West may not realize that, much like other fruits, there are many different varieties of dates. They range in size, color, sweetness, and quality (and of course, price). When I looked around the supermarket I realized there were over 10 different varieties on sale. So I figure I'd pick up a bunch of different types and try them out. Ultimately I picked five, including four from the same company.

Once I got home I had a mini taste-testing to see what the differences were between the varieties.

1) Khudri

Khudri dates are a uniform dark brown color, not too wrinkly (dates can range from smooth to as wrinkly as a prune depending on the variety). The skin of these dates flake a little.

Taste: moderately sweet, nice “date” flavour, chewy but not dry.

2) Sagai

Sagai dates had the lightest color, going from medium brown to a very light brown at the top. They were the only dates that were not a consistent color. They were also moderately wrinkled but the skin didn't flake.

Taste: mild sweetness, a milder date flavor than Khudri, chewy, not dry.

3) Safawi

Safawi are also a dark brown color but are slightly darker in color than Khudri dates. Safawi dates are wrinkly but how wrinkly they were varied greatly from date to date. Slight flaking.

Taste: the sweetness and flavour were slightly more intense than a Khudri date. Chewiness varied with how wrinkled the date was: a more wrinkled date was tougher to chew.

4) Ajwa Al Madinah

Unlike the other varieties of dates these dates are smaller and more spherical, rather than the oval shape we traditionally attribute to dates. They are also a very dark brown, almost black. Slightly wrinkled and the skin didn't flake.

Taste: these dates were very soft and almost melted in your mouth. They were moderately sweet but the taste could best be described as "smooth" compared to the other dates. Despite their smaller size the seed was slightly bigger.

5) Fard

These dates are medium brown color, smooth, with a bit of skin flaking. Seemed a bit more plump compared to the other dates.

Taste: like the Ajwa dates they were soft but unlike Ajwas they were very sweet, easily the sweetest date of the five. You could almost feel granules of sugar in it. The sweetness also gave it a strong flavour.

So what one did I like the best? I would have to go with the Ajwa Al Madinah because of their softness and smooth flavor/sweetness. Ranking the five in order I would go:

Ajwa Al Madinah
Khudri
Sagai
Safawi (the tougher consistency was a bit annoying)
Fard (way too sweet and a real contrast to the Ajwa)

Not surprisingly the most expensive of the five varieties were also the Ajwas, which cost more than double what you would pay for it the other varieties. The other four were generally around the same price.

A Qatari friend of mine might go to Saudi Arabia this week to get some really nice dates. If he does he will pick some up for me and I will try them out and compare them to the Ajwas.

_

Ramadan 2011 is Approaching

2011-07-26T10:16:00.000-07:00

We have less than a week till Ramadan so I need to start getting ready. I've created a new category for my blog, "Ramadan", and linked the previous year’s blog posts to it because I found Ramadan last year to be really interesting. Yes, I will be fasting again and I've already started preparations, namely weaning myself off of caffeine. I'm now down to 1 cup of coffee a day.

Expectation is that Ramadan will start August 1 but because it is based on sighting the first light on the moon (i.e. right after the New Moon) it is possible it could start one day before or after August 1. I recall that my first year here it started a day earlier than expected, which caused a bit of anguish as colleagues and I were at a bar to have final drinks before the bars are shut for Ramadan. As soon as I got to the bar Ramadan was announced and hotel staff immediately came in with carts to take all the alcohol away so there was no chance for us to get some drinks. Apparently the hotel only has a couple of hours to lock up the booze before the police come to check to see that the bar has been closed.

Anyway in addition to fasting I plan to do other Ramadan activities such as visiting a mosque and maybe attending a reading of the Qur’an.

_

A Trip to a Majlis

2011-07-24T12:27:00.000-07:00

This weekend I received an invite from a Qatari friend of mine to hang out with some of his friends at his majlis. A majlis is a sitting area (the verb "ajlis" means “to sit”) and in Qatar it commonly refers to an area at one’s home where men can gather, not unlike a living room or rec room. Because of the strict rules on gender segregation typically a majlis is separate from the house so that visiting men will not meet the women in the household but the term is flexible -- I have a one-bedroom apartment and I recall one of my Qatari friends referring to my living room as my majlis.

This is my second time in a Qatari majlis and unfortunately I don't have pictures of either. This article shows an example. Aside from the more Arabic-style furnishings it is essentially a living room.(actually it's an interesting article to read too)

So we went out to my friend's majlis in a rural area just north of Doha. Well, maybe about five years ago was in a rural area, Doha has grown so much now that it was really on the edge of the city. My friend told me that 15 years ago there was only one neighbor in the area. Anyway, the majlis was a large area, around 800 sq ft., with Arabic-style couches around a TV, a small table for playing card games, as well as a pool table, ping-pong table, foosball table, and a fridge, thus it was more akin to a rec room than a living room. It was myself and seven Qataris.

So what did we do? Played pool, ping-pong, card games (Brasilla and Hand), watched DVDs on the TV, and a few of us went for a swim in my friend's pool. Essentially, we did the same sort of thing that guys hanging out in the West would do, except there was no alcohol of course. We even ordered some take-away food for dinner (in this case Turkish food but there's no reason why it couldn't have been pizza or KFC). A good time was had by all.

So why am I telling you about this? Go back to the first couple of paragraphs, what were you thinking would happen when you read I was going to majlis? Did you think that it would be similar to visiting someone's rec room in North America? I doubt it.

Now you know. Arabs like doing the same things we do in the West. Chilling out and having a good time with your friends.

Well, except for having the occasional break for prayer and not drinking beer. :-)

_

Dubai and Abu Dhabi

2011-07-21T23:55:00.000-07:00

I'm back from my trip to the UAE. Needless to say I was not impressed with the airport in Dubai. The passport lineup took about an hour and given how Dubai always goes on about how modern and advanced it is I expected a lot better. Everyone in the line up was pretty annoyed. On top of that because I'm Canadian I had to sort out my visa. Most Canadians need to get a prearranged visa before they come to the UAE but because I'm resident in the Gulf (and have a certain title on my job permit that matched an "approved" list) I was able to get a visa upon landing. This was a three stage process at the airport and there are no signs or indicators to tell you what to do. Thanks to information desks I figured out where the:
1) office was where I had to fill out a form
2) retinal scan was located (and I had to line up for 30 minutes); and
3) bank was to pay for my visa

All in all I was in the airport over two hours. Good thing my friend didn't come to the airport to pick me up or he would've been waiting forever. I grabbed the Metro down to where my friend lived.

It was my first time taking the Metro, as it had been completed in 2009, and I found it quite good. It made it easy to get around a lot of the city. Qatar needs to hurry up and build one. It also made it easy to see that lots of Dubai is still unfinished and I'm not sure how many of these partially built towers are going to be completed. Real estate is still in big trouble here.

I spent the weekend hanging out with my friend and seeing a couple of sights. Because it is so hot and humid out most of it was indoors, usually visiting malls. I saw the new Dubai Mall and while it is very large I found it rather empty. Not a lot of people shopping and while I have never been someone who is big on malls I found that Dubai Mall didn't have a lot of character. I'll take Souq Waqif in Doha any day! I was at the Mall for about an hour and a half and was thankful to move on and have lunch with my friend somewhere else.

I'm not sure what it is but all the new developments that come up in the Middle East seem so artificial and sterile. Yes, they are nice and luxurious, but they just seem to lack a lot of life or character, “soul” might be a better term. In Dubai I much prefer the old city area around Dubai Creek (Deira and Bur Dubai) than the shiny new neighborhoods and developments. If I ever lived in Dubai I would definitely live in that area, forget about the Marina or the Palm or all those other luxury neighborhoods. Same thing in Doha, I prefer the place I am in now in one of the older neighborhoods than living in shiny West Bay.

I had meetings in Abu Dhabi on Monday so that morning hired a car to take me on the two-hour drive to the city. Abu Dhabi is well laid out and appears to be well planned, far more so than Doha and Dubai. Streets are laid out in a grid, traffic was not too bad, and most surprisingly there was the odd parking space available. Downtown Abu Dhabi is very dense with buildings and yet somehow the parking situation was a lot better than Doha. I'm not sure what the secret is but Doha should find out. Thanks to the planning and density even their downtown core seemed to have a lot of life to it. Abu Dhabi seemed more like a real city.

I had not been to the UAE in over two years and with the exception of the fact that I have friends there would be in no hurry to go back. They're much more interesting places in the area to see, such as Oman.

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Off to the UAE

2011-07-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

I leave tomorrow morning for the UAE for a few days. Looking back, I haven't been to Dubai in over 2 1/2 years, just as the major property crash was occurring. My understanding is that it hasn't really recovered yet but business is slowly picking up. The Dubai government is still swamped with debt and hundreds of construction projects are unfinished. Still it will be nice to visit some friends and see how things are changed.

I will post when I return.

_

Asian vs European Sizes

2011-07-09T05:16:00.001-07:00

Went shopping for some shorts today and I just had to take a picture of the tag:

In case you can't read it the tag says:

Size: EUR: L - ASIA: 3XL

Wow, I'm a XXXL in Asian size. *sigh*

So at what point in time did a European large become the same size as XXXL in Asia? Have we in the West been gradually increasing the size label on clothes? Would an ‘XL’ from the 1950s be a size ‘M’ now?

Anyway, what a downer.

_

Colour

2011-07-03T11:40:00.000-07:00

The other day a few of us from the office went across to City Center Mall for lunch. The mall is gearing up to charge for parking, instituting barriers and operating a ticket system, but also put lights over each individual parking space. The light glows green if there is no car underneath it and red if there is a car parked there. It's a handy way to be able to see where the parking spots are, something that can be difficult to come by at the mall.

I was mentioning how much I thought it was a good idea and one of my Qatari friends said it wasn't that useful since there was little difference between the lights so it made it very difficult to tell. That made me pause for a second and I asked, "you don't see much of a difference between the red and green light?”. He said no, they looked similar. That's when it dawned on me.

I asked him, "Do you have red/green colorblindness?"

I'm sure most of you are aware that red/green colorblindness is pretty common in men, affecting anywhere from 1 in 10 to about 1 in 25 depending on ancestry. It's genetic, and is due to a defect on the X chromosome, which means a man inherits it from his mother. For a woman to suffer from colorblindness both parents would have to have the gene and pass it on so it is a lot rarer in women (because women are XX and the defect is recessive only if both X chromosomes have the defect will a woman get colorblindness, men are XY so only one copy of the defective X-chromosome is needed). I've known a few people who have had red/green colorblindness, which is why I think I spotted the issue right away with my friend.

He said he suspected he might be but had never been tested for it. So once we got back to the office I loaded up an Ishihara test from the internet (if you've never done one before I suggest you click on the link). The test shows you coloured circles and in the circles is a number, but if you have certain types of colorblindness you won't see the number and instead see a circle where everything is the same color. It's a pretty simple and ingenious way to test for colorblindness.

So my friend tried it and sure enough he couldn't see a number in most of the circles. He thought it was quite strange when I would tell him, “no, there is a number in it.” We called over some other friends and they took the test and all of them said the same thing. At this point my friend was a little bit shocked, not to find out he was color blind (he suspected that he was and one of his brothers would tell him that he was color blind as well), but that he couldn't see numbers in the circles whereas everyone else could. He told me it was like staring at a blank wall and then having everyone come along and tell you there was some number painted on it, yet no matter how hard you try you can't see anything. I could see how that would be disconcerting, we tend to believe in our vision more than any other sense ("seeing is believing”), which is why eyewitness testimony is considered so highly in court, so we may have a hard time believing that everyone else can see something that you can't (or even worse, you're quite sure you're seeing something but no one else is so they don't believe you). You’d be more inclined to believe it was a joke everyone was trying to pull on you.

So another Qatari told us that many men in his family are also colorblind (he wasn't) and that got me thinking if colorblindness was more prevalent in Qatar than in most other places in the world. The overall population of Gulf Arabs was never very large and they tend to be closely knit, usually marrying within their tribe, which would mean genetic conditions could be more common. Unfortunately a quick search of health websites had no mention of it, and government websites had nothing either. I would be curious though if anyone has any information on this please let me know.

My friend went home and had other members of his family took the Ishihara test. It turns out that one of his brothers is also colorblind, not too surprising since I think it's a 50-50 chance for any of his brothers.

To cheer him up a little I mentioned that there is at least one advantage to red/green colorblindness. A study indicated that certain types of camouflage were less effective against colorblind people since the camouflage was designed for fooling full-color vision. I've even heard that some militaries try to utilize this by having some colorblind individuals in units in the hopes that they might be able to see through any camouflage the enemy will be using. Couldn't find much about it on the Internet but the U.S. Army does accept colorblind individuals, though what jobs you can select are more limited. I don't think you can be a pilot though.

_

Monte Isola, part 2, & Verona

2011-06-29T11:58:00.000-07:00

Okay, the last section of my Italian vacation. The next day my friend and I decided after breakfast to wander around the island for a couple of hours before heading to Silviano for lunch at his friend's house.

We continued on from Sensole to Peschiera Maraglio and onward to the small village of Carzano, where we had a Spritz at the local watering hole.

(Who’s a perfect 10? :P )

From there we went up a short trail through Carzano to another village (Novale) with a view over the lake.

At this point we realized we only had about 30 minutes to get to Siviano for lunch so we started a pretty brisk walk across the island.

When we got the village we met Francesco on the road chatting with a friend. We then went to his place where his sister had put on a real spread of food.

After being joined by other family members we started with bread, plates of sliced meats, and some deviled eggs (that I really liked), along with red and white wine from the family vineyard. Then Francesco's sister brought out a big tray of homemade lasagna!

Now were talking. Real Italian home cooking!

It was great. I had myself two helpings of lasagna and was pretty stuffed afterwards but left a bit of space for dessert. Bad thing was, no one had informed me how many courses we were having for lunch. There was still more food to come.

Yep, I had just finished the second course -- of seven!

Here's what we wound up eating:

• Sliced meat and bread (and deviled eggs)
• homemade lasagna
• a local lake fish (can't remember the name, possibly trout)
• veal & potatoes
• a variety of local cheeses
• a selection of fruit
• cake with a meringue coating (with a dessert wine)

Followed with some high quality tequila. (Yes I know tequila isn't Italian but when we were talking the night before the conversation turned to high quality spirits and Francesco mentioned he had a great tequila we should try at lunch).

The lunch was fantastic, and took over three hours. Good thing too because if I tried to eat seven courses quickly I would've exploded.

So after thanking everybody we were back off to the hotel to get our luggage and catch the ferry to the train station to go to Verona. Unfortunately by the time we got there the next train wasn't for over an hour. A nice thing at the Sulzano train station was that there were taps nearby that had water from a local spring (including sparkling water!). So I occupied my time watching various locals come along with empty bottles to fill with spring water.

so we waited . . .

and then we ran into Francesco again! He was returning to his apartment in Milan and it was nice that he could join us on part of the train journey.

I slept most of the train journey. By this point I wasn't feeling all that well. It wasn't from overeating, looking back I think it was dehydration. A lot of brisk walking combined with the fact that pretty much everything I drank that day was alcoholic (spritz, wine, tequila) had done a number on me. Good thing I had an opportunity to rest during the train journey. By the time we got to Verona I was feeling better but still not a hundred percent.

Because of the late lunch and long train wait in Sulzano we did not get to Verona until after 7pm. It was a bit unfortunate because I was catching a train at 6:45am the next day but since the sun wasn't setting until after 9 it still left us with some time to see the sights.

Verona is another city that managed to keep much of its old architecture so the old city is really cool. It's even an UNESCO world heritage site. Check out the pictures:

There is also an old Roman Coliseum, the Verona Arena, that is used now for performances of operas and plays. Anyone I spoke to and any website I looked at about Verona recommended seeing an event there. Unfortunately the events were not starting until the week after we were there. Maybe one day I will get a chance to see it.

We continued to wander around and by nightfall found the Castelvecchio Bridge

The evening ended appropriately with pizza and drinks at an outdoor pizzeria in the old city.

This was my first trip to Italy and I must say I was blown away by the places I've seen. Seriously, these places were like out of old Hollywood movies of Italy. You don't actually think Italy will be like that but in some places it really is: Bergamo, Monte Isola, Verona, all of them outstanding. I was impressed enough that I've already booked my next trip – Rome. It won't be for a couple of months but I'm looking forward to it.

Kudos to my friend Knut for suggesting the trip and making many of the arrangements, and to Francesco for all of his hospitality.

Italy -- Monte Isola, Part 1

2011-06-24T10:40:00.000-07:00

From Bergamo my friend and I took a train to the small town of Sulzano in order to take a ferry across Lake Iseo to the small island of Monte Isola. My friend had been there once before and really enjoyed it. Also a colleague of his lived on the island and we would be meeting up with him for dinner.

The island has a few cars that are used as taxis otherwise I don't think the residents of the island have cars. There's also a small bus service to take you around the island but the island is small enough that my friend and I were able to walk around. That said, when the ferry docked at the main village of Peschiera Maraglio we took the taxi (the only one I ever saw on the island) to go to our hotel in the village of Sensole about 2km away:

Check out the views from the hotel room!

It was early afternoon so we walked back to Peschiera Maraglio, having a gelato en route, and then decided to take a trail to Madonna della Ceriola, the Church at the top of the mountain.

Look closely at the first picture, can you see it? Well, you couldn't see it from the village and I completely underestimated how high up it was. Needless to say it was quite the trek to get up there, took us a couple of hours. Not that that was a bad thing, en route we went through forested hills:

and two villages (Messe and Cure) where we could stop for a Spritz at the local bar:

Very civilized hiking I must say. Wish Canada had pubs on mountain trails.

Eventually we made it to Madonna della Ceriola and took a few pictures from the church.

We then went back down the mountain a different way and into the village of Siviano. In the village we came across my friend’s colleague, Francesco! (Small world isn’t it?). This was the village he lived in. He was originally going to meet us at the hotel for dinner but since we already met up with him he went with us back to the hotel.

Francesco ordered dinner for us all, a selection of seafood dishes, most of which were fish from the lake, and one pasta dish. There is a significant difference in quality between fresh, properly made pasta, and the stuff we commonly buy in packages at the grocery store. We had a great time and Francesco invited us to his house for lunch tomorrow so we can have a good lunch before we left for Verona.

Tune in for Monte Isola – part 2.

Vancouver Canucks

2011-06-16T12:07:00.000-07:00

So the Vancouver Canucks lost game seven of the Stanley Cup finals -- again.

*sigh*

Couldn't it even have been a close game? Had to get crushed 4-0?

*sigh*

And unfortunately there was a riot again, just like in 1994 when the Canucks lost game seven of the finals.

I lived in Vancouver in 1994 and happened to be downtown watching that game at a bar on Granville Street. The game ended, my friends and I lowered our heads in disappointment, and we walked to the Skytrain station and boarded the train home.

So imagine my surprise when 20 minutes later we turned on the TV to see the very spot we’d just been at in chaos as hundreds of people were smashing windows and causing mayhem!! I kept thinking it was a good thing we went straight home after the game. Why would anyone want to be part of a riot of drunk angry fans? It's not like they were making deep political statements or fighting for rights from a repressive regime.

Fast-forward to 2011 and the same thing happened. The police prepared for it as best they could but in the end there were too many idiots out that night.

*sigh*

At least I am hopeful that most of the rioters will be caught and prosecuted. Back in 1994 the police appealed for any photographs of people damaging property and the resulting community support led to the arrest of dozens -- and this was in 1994, before the widespread use of camera phones. I'm willing to bet anyone who is damaging property or causing chaos already has at least 10 different pictures of them on the Internet.

Still sucks that the Canucks lost though. I really believed they would do it this time.

_

Taking a Break from the Desert -- to Italy!

2011-06-14T11:08:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago I was e-mailing a friend of mine from Bermuda and he said he would be in Italy in June on a business trip. It turned out that over a weekend he would be near Milan. Since Qatar Airways flies directly from Doha to Milan I decided to get a ticket, meet up with him, and briefly tour the Italian countryside. I had enough miles to get a ticket so it wasn't going to cost me too much.

So when am I leaving? Surprise, I'm back from Italy now!

I had a great time and saw three different areas: Bergamo, Monte Isola, and Verona. No, I didn’t stay in Milan. My friend said these three nearby areas would be more impressive.

Years ago I used to do a photo gallery slideshow that I would e-mail to friends but I stopped doing that once the website I was using was charging. I think I'll restart the tradition by posting photos and commentary here.

So let's begin with part one -- Bergamo

Bergamo is an old Italian city, surrounded by walls on top of a steep hill for protection. I believe it dates back to Roman times but most of the architecture is from the Renaissance and later periods. I spent my time in the old portion of the city on top of the hill, called the Citta Alta.

We stayed in Agli Orti B&B in a narrow street in Citta Alta. Check out the photo of the street:

When North Americans picture what Italy is like their ideal would be something like this. This street looks like something out of an old movie. All of Citta Alta looks like this which was great for touring around.

It turns out that the owner of the B&B, Ada, is a travel author specializing in traveling in northern climates. She's toured more of Canada than I have!

So I headed over to the main square, the Piazza Vecchia

Here's a view from the other side

And you had better believe that this was a good place to have lunch

I am trying to lose weight but, I'm sorry, I'm on vacation in Italy. You're damn right I ate pastas in creamy sauces, pizzas, gelatos, pastries, and pretty much anything else I could get my hands on! You would too. (No, I don’t regret it. I’d do it again!)

Speaking of which, Italians really love ice cream. There were gelato places everywhere and if you were watching TV it seemed like every third ad was for some type of ice cream or another. I think I was averaging three scoops of gelato every day (it was my friend's fault, he's an enabler). I was thrilled when a gelato place in Bergamo had this available:

Licorice gelato! I haven't had licorice-flavored ice cream for years and I really missed it. That was a treat. It's not for everyone though, my friend accidentally ordered one a few days later at another gelato place and he didn't like it.

I was also introduced to a common Italian aperitif that my friend loves, Spritz. We were having these everywhere -- after a while I was joking to my friend that he's always jonesing for a Spritz. I guess you can't get them in Bermuda.

But I digress. After lunch I went to a nearby church, the Cappella Colleoni

Luckily an English-speaking tour group was walking by so I tagged along with them to hear about the church. The inside was really nice, pretty much what you would expect from an ornate Renaissance church. We then went next door to the Santa Maria Maggiore, which was even more impressive with a completely different style of architecture (I think the guide said Baroque, though the wiki article says Romanesque)

Afterward we wandered the streets:

And went to a café/bar overlooking the city that had been recommended by an American friend of mine who once studied here (and we had our first of many Spritzes during the trip).

For dinner we ate at a local pizza parlor, also recommended by my American friend, near the Piazza Vecchia. The next morning it was back to the train station to go to our next destination.

To be continued.

_

So how's the Arabic lessons going?

2011-06-08T12:07:00.000-07:00

It's been a little over two months now of lessons at FANAR and so far it's going pretty good. The words we are being taught are generally useful, my Arabic is improving bit by bit, I'm occasionally meeting with classmates on the weekend to practice, and I'm getting a lot of support from my Arabic speaking friends. Having friends who speak Arabic has been really helpful, especially since the teacher doesn't speak English very well so sometimes when you ask him what a word means he has a tough time explaining it. I usually go to my Qatari friends for clarification. Of course sometimes they struggle a little bit because they have to remember the Classical Arabic word instead of the local Arabic word.

I still struggle with the letter ‘ayn’ and sometimes have trouble differentiating it from the letter ‘a’ (alif). I also don't pronounce it well when speaking. The Arabic word for "yes" contains an ayn but I usually pronounce it with an ‘a’. I used to think that wasn't a big deal because the two letters sound similar but about a week ago I was getting my hair cut at my Turkish barber and was practicing Arabic (he is from southern Turkey near the border with Syria and most Turks from that region speak Arabic in addition to Turkish; the majority of Turks in Doha are from this region). When I said the word for "yes" but using an “a” sound, he actually didn't understand what I said. It was only when I repeated it with an “ayn” that he suddenly realized what I was saying. Guess I have to be more careful.

We don't have to pluralize many nouns yet, which is great because I hate trying to memorize plurals. I still have no sense of the rules for pluralizing a noun. Maybe next level we will start on that.

Otherwise the final exam is in two or three weeks, a square around 90% of my midterm so I'm not too worried. I just need to study my vocabulary more.

I will definitely continue the lessons at FANAR I expect the next set of lessons will not be until after Ramadan (September).

_

A Report on South Asian Workers

2011-06-01T11:59:00.000-07:00

My recent discussions about the problems that migrant workers from South Asia face was timely. Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based news network, has done a story about the issues facing these workers. I recommend watching it:

_

Sheikh Faisal's Museum

2011-05-31T11:10:00.000-07:00

First a brief update. There was a bit of discussion about my article on the cleaning man because it got picked up on doha.tumblr. Just want everyone to know that yes he is getting paid more and I also gave him back-pay for the first time he showed up.

So, this weekend I went with the Qatar Natural History Group to Sheikh Faisal's Museum, including a lunch. It had been over two years since I've seen it so I figured why not.

The museum is well known for its extensive collection of, well, almost anything. Weapons, carpets, animal skins, calligraphy, fossils, cars, furniture old photographs, there's all sorts of stuff. There was so much stuff that the museum was fairly crowded with items. Over the last couple of years to shake has expanded the museum space significantly, something like five times as much, so was able to put more things on display. At times the place was rather like a maze, go one way and you might miss a doorway that leads to an entire wing of items. A lot of the fun was just wandering around to see what was there because you just never knew what you were going to run into. For example:

• a steam engine car
• a 19th century Persian carpet taken from the Shah's palace
• 9th century Syrian pottery
• an F1 car
• a detailed family tree of the Al-Thani family, compiled by some British source that would give descriptions such as "cheerful" to various family members
• a confession booth from a church (I'd like to know how he got that)
• a camel howdah (sort of a small tent that would sit on top of a camel and people would stay in it while the camel moved)
• fossils dated from 250 million-years ago
• full-size Arabic boats (all displayed indoors)
• stuffed falcons
• abstract paintings
• a small collection of Jewish memorabilia
• the largest collection of Yemeni and Omani daggers I've ever seen
• a carpet with famous leaders from history, including Moses and Napoleon (??)
• A photo of two camels mating
... and so on

Just to give you an idea of how big the galleries are lunch was served in one of the exhibition rooms and there was enough space for 130 of us plus a buffet.

I really suggest to anyone in the area to visit it if they get a chance, it would be great for whiling away a summer afternoon. If you're a tourist be warned that it's about 25 km outside of Doha, but close to the camel racing track. Make sure you have a good idea where it is before heading out.

Qatar 2022 World Cup Bid

2011-05-23T11:50:00.000-07:00

Apparently there has been allegations in the UK press that a whistleblower has stated that Qatar bribed to African officials who voted for Qatar to get the World Cup bid. Qatar and the 2 FIFA officials involved all deny the allegations. The whistleblower will be talking to FIFA shortly, if he hasn't already. There is speculation as to whether, if the accusations prove true, a new vote will be held. There were similar allegations before the vote that Qatar was doing some kind of vote trading with Spain or something. I think this is an issue the World Cup bids are going to face every time.

I can't comment as to the allegations, but would I be willing to support another vote?

I suppose . . . if all the other bids are investigated as well to see if they committed any bribery infractions!

Second place in the 2022 bidding was the United States and it appears that people have short memories. The US bribed IOC officials to win the 2002 Winter Olympics and the bribery was a lot worse than what is being alleged of Qatar. Unfortunately it was deemed too late to give the Winter Olympics as someone else once the scandal was uncovered (how nice was that). There have also been some allegations about Japan when it won the 1998 Winter Olympics, mostly related to excessive “entertainment expenses”. So it's not like the US has a clean record.

I think FIFA needs to really change how they do things if this kind of stuff is going to happen every time -- allegations flying around during the bid round and whenever somebody wins. My suggestion -- increase the number of voters to 300 or more, it’s a lot harder to bribe hundreds of people than the 50 or so FIFA currently uses. The accusations are Qatar paid $1.5 million to each of the two executives, you are certainly not going to spend that kind of money on 100+ people.

I hope this issue gets resolved quickly so things can move on.

_

Doha Car Inspection

2011-05-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

Looking back in my blog I realized that my post about the car inspection process was out of date. Since it was time to get my car inspected I decided to not do what I did last year (pay someone else to do it) and go out myself so I could experience the adventure first-hand.

This meant a trip to the Industrial Area, something no one looks forward to doing.

So this morning around 10:00 I headed out to the Industrial Area to the testing center, which is located on 24th Street (I suggest looking it up on a map before you head out so you know exactly where it is). You have to go to the back entrance to a gate marked “Gate 1”.

As soon as you are entering the gate you will see a security guard. Do not drive past him, you need to stop and get a number from him. I didn't know this. All I knew was that I needed a number so I drove past the security guard, parked, went into the testing center, and went to the information desk to ask for a number, only to be told you get it from the security guard. That meant I had to walk out, walk to the other end of the parking lot in the heat, to get a number from the security guard.

There were a lot of cars in line in front of the testing garages and the security guard pointed to a lineup that I should join. So I got back in my car and got in the line. The lineup was about a dozen cars long and you only moved every 3 to 5 minutes.

Part-way along you pass a booth. When I pulled up to the booth I gave the guy my driving license, registration and the fee (QAR 75). I'm not sure if you had to give him both the license and registration but that's what I did. After a minute he gave me back my license, my receipt with my ticket number on it, and a plastic sleeve which contained my registration as well as a copy of my receipt which said "Inspector Copy". After that you continue to inch along the line to the garage.

Once I got to the garage I pulled up, put the car in park and left the car running, handed the inspector the plastic sleeve with my registration and "Inspector Copy" receipt. He looked at the receipt and registration, handed me back my registration, and then I left and walked into the main building [Make sure you bring your copy of the receipt with you as it has your ticket number on it]. You're not allowed to stick around or chat with the inspectors, you have to go wait in the main building.

In the main building is a small stand with various sodas and drinks, another counter with a guy selling fresh orange juice (QAR 6, I know because that's what I had), an ATM, and about 80 seats in front of the counters where the employees were. There was an electronic board that would flash your number when your report was ready.

I was a little concerned about how long I'd be there as there was about 40 guys waiting and only one guy working the counter. Turns out it was not a complicated process: when the inspection is finished the report is printed and the guy at the counter types your number on the electronic board, and you go collect your report. I maybe waited about 15 minutes then got my report and car key. Thankfully my car passed. Then I went out the door near the counter (opposite the door I came in) where my car was waiting in the parking lot near the garage I used. All in all the whole process took about 45 minutes, much easier than when I did it the last time at that temporary inspection center near a supermarket.

Fighting the traffic on the drive back was more annoying than getting my car inspected.

_

Birthday

2011-05-19T13:08:00.001-07:00

So a while back (I'm not saying when) my friends Carrie and Kamahl organized a small birthday party for me and asked me to invite some people. I'm not one to make a big deal about my birthday but I knew there was no getting out of it -- last year Carrie and Kamahl surprised me with a birthday dinner weeks after my birthday. So I invited some friends but didn't tell them that it was for my birthday as I didn't want people making a fuss or getting me gifts. I guess you could say I surprised them.

We had a nice meal of barbeque meats and fixins and then went to another room for dessert. What I wasn't expecting was what they had prepared for me:

A Canadian flag cake, birthday cookies with Canadian flags and "Happy Birthday Glen" in icing, and a huge assortment of other tarts, pies and desserts! Wow! Apparently they found the cake decorator to ice the entire cake to make it look like a Canadian flag.

Here's a close-up:

There was enough dessert for over 20 people, and there certainly weren't that many of us there, so after stuffing ourselves I took the remaining cake to the office the next day. People in the office saw the cake and asked if it was Canada's Independence Day or something :)

(That is actually July 1 in case you didn't know)

I had a great time, thanks guys.

A Story of a Not-so-Glamorous Life in the Gulf

2011-05-13T13:55:00.000-07:00

Today I arranged for a cleaner to come by my apartment. A friend of mine recommended him; apparently he's a maintenance guy at some building but cleans my friend's apartment for extra money.

I'm like most people, I hate cleaning. My place isn't a pigsty but I'm definitely not good with sweeping and mopping floors in a timely manner. I'm all for having a cleaner come by once in a while.

When I spoke with the cleaner the night before his only request was that he be given enough time to do the job -- no rushing him or telling him he has to do everything in an hour. I was cool with that, who wants to rush a cleaner? I'd rather he take his time and do a good job. It didn’t matter how long it took anyway as he asked for a flat rate of QAR 40 ($US 10.80) each visit, instead of charging by the hour.

Yep, he wanted about $11. He was from South Asia and he probably made about QAR 500-600 ($US 140-170) a month at his regular job, working full-time six days a week. That means he makes about $0.65 an hour. $11 for a couple hours cleaning is, sadly, decent money.

The issue of South Asian laborers in the Gulf is one that doesn't get a lot of press in the West. We'll go on and on about whether women should be wearing veils and stuff like that but if you look at websites of groups such as Human Rights Watch one of the big issues in this region is the treatment of South Asian laborers.

They are brought into these countries by the tens of thousands to work in construction, security, cleaning, and any other menial job (shelf stacker at a grocery store, gas station attendant, tea boy, taxi drivers etc.). Many make only QAR 400-600 a month ($115-170). It doesn't seem like a lot of money to us but when you live in a village in rural India or Nepal, where unemployment is rampant and people live on $1 a day, getting a job for $0.55-$0.70 an hour is big money. And with about 1.6 billion people in South Asia competition is fierce. A British-Indian friend of mine once pointed out that for every labourer you see there were likely 20 trying to get that job.

Unfortunately it's not as easy as just getting the job, you have to get the visa as well. This leads to the real crime – “visa arrangers” back in their home countries who charge exorbitant fees to get these poor men their visa (and thus a job). The fees are typically $1000 and more, money that these guys don't have. Desperation takes them to money lenders, or to selling the small plot of land the family used as a farm. So for the next year or two most of the meager money they earn goes to paying lenders.

Then they have to hope and pray they have a good employer.

Once they arrive at their new job they are stuck. They can't quit, they owe money lenders or since they sold the family farm they have no way of earning a living when they return. Their family: a wife, children, and maybe his elderly parents who he is supporting, will be destitute. A plane ticket home will cost them at least four months wages. In Qatar you're not even allowed to change jobs to another Qatar company without a “no objection” letter from your employer. It is a situation that is ripe for exploitation by an unscrupulous employer.

So they toil in 45° heat on construction sites, or work 60 hours a week mopping floors, without complaint for fear of getting fired. They are then bussed back to their residence, typically on the outskirts of the city. Many are crammed four or eight to a room on bunk beds, and I have heard that some employers don't even provide air-conditioning. I wish I was joking that these residences are referred to by the cringe-inducing name "labour camps” but you occasionally see a real estate advertisement for a labour camp for rent or for sale. There are also reports of employers who make the laborers pay for food out of their own pocket, or not pay their salary for months at a time. Enforcement of employment law is lax.

Earning money is the reason they're here so there are an abundance of people around who will offer to do odd jobs for you. Clean your house, wash your car, help you move stuff, take your groceries to the car. Tips can be a big source of revenue.

I try to tip when I can. Gas attendants, the guys in the mall food court who clean tables and trays, grocery baggers, they all get tips from my friends and I. Two or three riyal is not much to me but can make a big difference to a labourer. One of my Qatari friends tips QAR 5-10 to the food court cleaners, he says they're some of the worst paid workers. A day’s wage for them is probably QAR 16.

So what happened with my new cleaner? He wasn't kidding when he said he didn't want to be rushed, it took him about three hours to clean my one-bedroom apartment! Not because he was slow but because he was so thorough. He removed all the books from bookshelves to dust the shelves, he wiped down the legs of chairs, he moved the furniture to sweep and mop underneath, he took everything out of the medicine cabinet to wipe it down, he did a fantastic job. Yet he was a little worried that I wouldn't think he did a good job -- he wanted me to do an inspection to see if I was happy.

Three hours work, for $11.

I gave him QAR 50, a 20% tip, and drove him back to the apartment building where he works, he had a shift starting later that afternoon.

I then took the car in to get something minor fixed and while I was waiting went to a nearby Western-style café. It was lunch time so I ordered a cappuccino and a sandwich and spent the next 45 minutes reading a newspaper and watching the news on the nearby television. When it was time to pick up my car I asked for the bill.

The cappuccino and sandwich was QAR 44.

I'm going to start paying the cleaner more.

_

Osama update

2011-05-12T10:13:00.000-07:00

Apparently criticism about killing of the Osama bin Laden had been gaining momentum in the last couple of weeks so the US Attorney General, Eric Holder, gave an interview to BBC News where he noted that it was a “kill or capture” mission and if Osama had surrendered they would have taken him into custody.

The cynic in me is doubtful. Why wasn't this disclosed a lot earlier? Why didn't President Obama note it in his speech or subsequent discussions about the incident? Why didn’t Hillary Clinton mention it, she was watching the raid as well?

He might be telling the truth, we will have no way to know unless sometime in the future unless someone high up in the military or someone involved in the raid speaks out.

I suppose I'm grudgingly grateful. But what took so long?

President Obama – I need to know!

2011-05-02T12:58:00.000-07:00

As you are no doubt aware President Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden in a military operation on a house in Pakistan.

To tell you the truth I am pretty non-plussed about it. I wasn't elated, and certainly wasn't sad of course. I figured the guy died in a cave in the Pakistani mountains years ago so to hear that he's dead NOW didn't actually do much to change anything.

Nevertheless since I did not hear Obama’s speech I looked up a transcript of it on the White House website.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/02/remarks-president-osama-bin-laden

It made for some interesting reading. Here's some excerpts:

. . . . I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.

Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.

. . . . . . . . . .

So Americans understand the costs of war. Yet as a country, we will never tolerate our security being threatened, nor stand idly by when our people have been killed. We will be relentless in defense of our citizens and our friends and allies. We will be true to the values that make us who we are. And on nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al Qaeda’s terror: Justice has been done.

. . . . . . . . . .

And tonight, let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11. I know that it has, at times, frayed. Yet today’s achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people.
. . . .

Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

As I read this and find myself hoping, "please, let it say somewhere that the focus of the operation was to try to capture him alive". But it wasn't in the speech. I did an Internet search but didn't find anything. As far as I can tell the goal of the operation was to kill him.

President Obama, did you just sign off on an assassination!?

Please tell me you didn't. Please tell me that you hoped that maybe he could be captured alive and that you didn't want his death to be the main objective. Please tell me you left instructions that provided it didn't put the lives of your soldiers at risk to capture him alive if possible. Please tell me that if he had surrendered he would not have been killed.

It's important. The world needs to know. I need to know.

Yes, Osama bin Laden was an evil man. Yes, he masterminded numerous terrorist plots which resulted in the deaths of thousands. Yes, he trained others to kill. Yes, he showed little remorse for any victim of his schemes, however innocent. Yes, he deserved to die.

But this isn't about him. This is about us, the West, and what we stand for.

For generations the West has pressed upon the rest of the world the benefits of democracy and human rights. We tell the world how we hold the moral high ground, how our governments and judicial systems support the rights of people, and try to promote fairness and equity. We tell the world why dictatorships are wrong, and why denying the rights of citizens must change. We criticize those who use secret police, detentions without trial, and torture. We promote our court systems and try to show the world that any criminal has a right to a fair trial, and that is why we feel our systems are just. We told them that these things are what help to make our countries great, and that these things should be emulated. Taking the moral high ground is part of who we are supposed to be.

If we are to promote a higher moral standard then we have to abide by it, even when it would be a tough thing to do. We cannot claim moral superiority while sanctioning assassination.

No, I don't think you can just get around this by calling it a "war". Osama called it a war too you know, when he masterminded the attacks that caused the Twin Towers to fall. That didn't make what he did moral, or right, or just.

Justice -- you kept using that word. But was it more akin to vengeance instead of justice?

That is why I need to know. Yes it was entirely possible he was going to die in the raid. Yes it was important to make sure he didn't escape. Definately, you wouldn't want any of the soldiers to get killed in the operation. Absolutely, he needed to be defeated. But were you willing to capture him? Put him on trial for his crimes? Be sentenced to imprisonment for the rest of his life instead of executed? Were you willing to show the world that we could take the moral high ground and stand up for the ideals we tell others they should embrace, or is our message to the world to do as we say and not as we do, that assassination is okay when we think it is in our best interest. That a group attacking a place in the middle of the night to kill someone are “terrorists” when we are the victims, but being “true to the values that make us who we are” when it is us doing the attacking. Is that right?

How can we expect others to listen to us, to embrace our ways, when we are not willing to live by the values we hold in such high regard? How are we to convince the fundamentalists in the Islamic world that our way is better than the blind hatred they themselves embrace?

It can only be done by taking the high road, even when our very souls cry for vengeance. It means having to do what's right, as much as we hate to do it.

It means hoping that while there was a chance he would die he would have been captured alive, to face trial, because that would show that you hold true to the principle of liberty and justice for all. Even for those who do not deserve it. Even for him.

And that's why I need to know.

Gone Fishing!

2011-04-24T12:33:00.000-07:00

This weekend Ali, a Qatari friend and colleague, arranged for a fishing trip for five of us from the office. On the day three of them bowed out (naqb’oon!) but luckily three of Ali's friends joined us (Hassan, Mahmoud and Mohammed) so the trip wasn't canceled.

We chartered a small boat complete with a driver, bait, net, fishing line, and non-alcoholic drinks.

First stop was about 4 km from the shore, a floating Coast Guard station where you had to report who the occupants were and how long you would be. No I didn't take any pictures of the Coast Guard station, you learn quickly in the Middle East not take pictures of any kind of police/military/security installation.

We went out a few more kilometers and then dropped a long net, which we were going to pick up our way back.

After another couple of kilometers we stopped for fishing. I'm not up on my fishing terminology but I will describe what we did as "free-line" fishing. No rod or reel was involved. You had a fishing line with two or three hooks and a weight, baited the hooks (we used squid that the boat assistant helpfully chopped up for us), then you let the line sink into the water to the seabed and hold onto it with your hands ready to yank up when a fish bit the hook. While some of us used gloves we would only use them on one hand, you needed one hand ungloved to feel the slight tugging when the fish was nibbling the bait. The Gulf is a fairly shallow body of water, even 10 km out I figure the water was only about 35 to 40 feet deep.

These guys knew what they were doing -- we caught fish right away. Within 10 minutes we had a few fish, and while I was not as successful as the others it maybe took all of 20 minutes for me:

We were mostly catching a fish called Sherry (sp?). They are not particularly big fish like salmon but then again there's no way you could catch big fish using your bare hands on a fishing line! I didn't care, I was just glad to catch one. It's usually embarrassing when everybody else can catch fish but not you.

Soon the fish were building up in the boat but after a while they weren’t biting so we moved to some other spots to collect more. Occasionally we would catch something else like a small grouper or a small yellow fish called Nasr in Arabic. We kept pulling in more and more:

Most of the guys caught well over a dozen each, I caught six. My fish seemed to have a particular knack for eating my bait without biting the hook. More often than not I would feel nibbles, pull up the line, and see bare hooks with no bait on them! Not sure how they always did that. Ali was standing next to me and catching lots of fish so I started bugging him that he was stealing my fish.

One guy almost caught a barracuda! It was probably two and half feet long but as soon as he tried to haul it up into the boat the line snapped and it got away. I didn't manage to get a picture of it but I do have some wild proof that barracuda were definitely near the boat:

Yup, Ali caught a Sherry and while hauling it up a barracuda cut it in half! It had to be the most bizarre catch I've ever seen -- a half-fish.

After about four hours of fishing the sun went down and luckily for us in the darkness Mohammed spotted a large cargo ship bearing down on us, with almost no lights on it, so we maxed the engines to get away. We decided then to end the fishing and go back for the net. For some reason lugging up the net was a real effort. We soon discovered why:

The net had caught some steel fishing traps, three of them. We had to haul them all up to free our net before putting the traps back in the water. But the net had still caught a number of fish:

Including a parrotfish.

Mohammed, who fishes frequently in the Gulf, had never seen one caught here before. He decided to take it to his uncle who I guess knew more about fish in the Gulf.

After checking in with the Coast Guard we headed back and divided up the pretty full cooler of fish that we had. I only took about seven fish, what was I going to do with a bunch of fish? Thankfully I know some people with of a lot of pet cats who will hopefully use them.

All in all a great day was had. Free-line fishing in the Gulf was a great way to spend the day.

Qatari Wedding Photos

2011-04-13T12:14:00.001-07:00

I mentioned in my blog a couple months ago that I attended a Qatari wedding (my friend Mohammed) and I've managed to acquire a few photos of the event. Mohammed said it was okay for me to post them.

First, the groom:

Sorry ladies, he's already taken!

(Actually wait a sec -- he can have more than one wife! Guess he’s still available if you don’t mind sharing.)

As the groom he is wearing a black robe called a bisht, which is typically worn only by VIPs, or at special events. Typically only the groom and his father (and perhaps an uncle or the bride's father) will wear it at a wedding. It's a great way to find the groom in a crowded room considering almost all the other Arabs will be wearing white dishdasha as well. Aside from the groom, his or the bride’s father, or an uncle, in the three weddings I have attended I have only once seen a guest wearing a bisht, and I found out later that gentleman was a revered close relative.

My understanding is that typically black bishts are worn in the evening, during the day the bisht will be a lighter color such as brown or yellow. This is not a hard and fast rule, occasionally a black bisht might be worn during the day, but I don't think lighter-coloured bishts are worn in the evening. In every wedding I've attended the groom and his relatives wore black bishts.

And there was sword dancing, here are two of my friends dancing past the singers:

And the groom joined in occasionally, when he wasn't greeting guests:

As an aside I would just like to point out that at least one person is wearing a black thobe. While white is the most common color amongst Qataris, in the winter other colors such as black or brown can be worn. They are made of a thicker material to protect against the cold of winter. If you see a picture of a Qatari in a non-white thobe chances are that the picture was taken in winter.

Thanks for sharing the photos Mohammed, and congratulations. If I can get hold of any photos with me in it I will post those as well.

Happy Birthday Karen

2011-04-08T04:57:00.000-07:00

It’s my sister's birthday today so I just wanted to wish her a great day.

For the occasion I decided to look through some of my pictures to post this great one of her, from her wedding:

Happy Birthday Sis.

Gender Ratios in Qatar and other Islamic Countries

2011-04-05T12:33:00.000-07:00

I was reading recent news articles about the 2010 census in India and a key item in the census was the surprising lack of women. According to the data the number of male children to female children under 6 is 109.7:100 (I believe for the overall Indian population it is 106.4:100). Typically the ratio should be around 101:100, though in the West there tends to be slightly more women than men. Yes, that means that worldwide there are more men than women, at birth the ratio of males to females is not completely equal, worldwide it tends to be around 105-107:100 but since men tend to die younger and also die a bit more frequently as children the adult ratio worldwide is typically around 101:100.

Yes, biology slightly favours giving birth to a male child. I'm not entirely sure why myself but I'm guessing there are many websites on biology that explain the phenomenon.

In India there is a significant preference for boys, both for taking care of the parents when they get older and because in many Indian societies the bride’s family has to pay significant amounts of money to the groom and his family for a marriage. This can make having daughters burdensome. As a result many Indians use ultrasound to determine if the fetus is a boy or a girl and have an abortion if it's a girl. India has passed laws to make sex screening of babies illegal but it is rarely enforced so the practice is still common. Wealth and education are not necessarily a factor, it appears that the gender ratio amongst the Indian middle class is no better.

According to the census India has 1.21 billion people now (Wow!). With only 940 women to every 1000 men by my rough calculations there are over 35 million missing women, and given the gender ratio is worse for children that discrepancy will only grow.

So what has this got to do with Qatar? I find that sometimes in the West people confuse social issues in India or other parts of Asia with social issues in the Middle East. Combine that with the West’s criticisms about how women are treated in the Middle East and many assume that similar gender ratio issues happen in the Middle East as well.

Well Qatar also had a 2010 census and the results are interesting. Qatar does have one of the most skewed gender-ratios in the world (100:31.6) but that is because of the hundreds of thousands of expatriates who are here in the construction and oil sectors, who are preponderantly men. When you look at the data for only Qatari citizens you get a more balanced picture.

Now for some reason they have not published the total number of Qatari men and women, instead you have to look at statistics such as people age 10 and older by region of the country, or work statistics. I grabbed the population age 10 or older statistics:

Qatari Men: 85,819
Qatari Women: 88,460

This means that the gender ratio is 100:103! It's an unusual result because for the reasons I gave above it would be unusual for there to be more women than men. There could be a number of reasons -- more men have gone abroad for education or work, the vehicular death rate is high here and I assume that it is primarily males who die in accidents, who knows. It does show that despite issues about women's rights in the Islamic world there is no issue here with female infanticide like in India.

So why is that? Here’s a few reasons:

Reason 1: the Qur’an says not to. Sura 6:151 makes expressly clear you should not kill your children out of poverty (as Allah will provide for them somehow).

Reason 2: the Qur’an has many verses about marriage and notes that the groom must pay the bride a bride-price (Mahr) which is hers to keep even if they divorce. And if a lady dies her parents are entitled to some of the inheritance. There is no issue about girls being a financial burden to marry them off.

Reason 3: divorce is acceptable as it is mentioned numerous times in the Qur’an. Thus marital splits do not necessarily have to end with killing the wife so that the groom can remarry (and under Islam he can have up to four wives anyway).

So does this mean there is no issue with gender ratios in the Islamic world? Sadly, no. While Qatar appears to be fine unfortunately in other countries societal customs have survived and in many cases have somehow been blended into the religion despite the fact that these customs have no basis in Islam. Case in point, the gender ratio in Pakistan. Sadly in Pakistan the gender ratio is little better than it is in India. I found a great paper on it here:

Gender Analysis in Pakistan (by Gary Smith)

I suspect that many of the Indian customs in discriminating against girls continues on in Islamic Pakistan. The paper has some excellent maps and diagrams showing the gender ratio in both Pakistan and India and, not surprisingly, the areas of India with the worst gender ratio are the areas in the north-west near Pakistan, while the areas with the worst gender ratio in Pakistan is the half of the country closest to India. It appears that the cultural biases towards girls has survived the introduction of Islam centuries ago.

This is an issue that I think the West should really be focusing on. Forget about veils and other "symbols of oppression", there are literally millions of missing women in countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh and efforts need to be made to change attitudes. The paper notes that there was some success in Sri Lanka with programs that provided food and health care to women, any programs like that should be brought into areas with poor gender ratios.

Arab Card Games

2011-04-03T12:03:00.000-07:00

This Saturday I had two of my Qatari friends over to play some card games. Qataris, like most Muslims, do not gamble but that does not stop them from playing card games for entertainment.

So while eating chips and dip they taught me two card games currently popular in Qatar.

1) “Hand” (Yes, an English word. It is not called by the Arabic word for “hand” (yad))

This game is similar to gin rummy except that it is played with two decks and your hand is 14 cards. Much like Rummy you gather three of a kinds, four of a kinds, and runs of suited cards but because you play with two decks any 3 or 4 of a kind must have cards of different suits. Your four Kings cannot contain two King of diamonds. However you cannot put down your runs/kinds while you play -- you have to wait until you have all 14 cards in runs and kinds before you can put them down. Also, unlike Rummy, with the exception of the very first play you cannot pick up the card that's been discarded by the previous player unless you are using it to put your 14-card hand down. This means you need to keep track of what cards get discarded since you will have no chance to get them later and possibly change your strategy once certain cards you need have been discarded by other players. There are also two jokers in the deck and they are wild but you can only use one of them to complete your hand. If for some reason you have both jokers then you will have to discard one of them, typically when you finish your hand.

Scoring is unusual. Lowest score wins. A player who finishes the hand loses 60 points and the other players get 200 points. However there are also multipliers: finishing by discarding a joker is double points, having your hand all the same color is double points, having your hand all the same suit I think is worth even more and so on. I believe there are all sorts of local rules and variants that adjusts the scores as well (for example, one of my Qatari friends said his friends tend to play that if someone completed their hand by picking up someone else's discard then the player who made that discard gains 50 additional points). You play a total of nine rounds and whoever has the least points wins.

Because you can never pick up the card that's been discarded everyone spends the early rounds simply drawing the top card and quickly discarding. The game is fast, people play with a lot of speed so that you hopefully will not be able to keep track of what's been discarded.

2) Brazilla (also Arabic for "Brazilian woman" but may be coincidental, my friends had no idea why it's called that)

[May 19, 2011 update: my friend Abdulla did some research and discovered two things:

1) in North America the game is known as buraco. The link has a better description than my blog post.

2) it likely got its Qatar name because a member of the royal family was introduced to it during a trip to Brazil and he introduced it to Qatar]

This game also requires two decks. Players are dealt 11 cards and much like Rummy you have to do runs/kinds. The difference here is you can drop run/kinds once you have three or more and can add to them as the game progresses (so if you have three Kings dropped and draw a King you can simply add it to the three on the table already) but they don't count for a score unless you have seven cards (a run of seven or seven of a kind). Anytime when it is your turn you can pick up the discard pile -- but you have to pick up the entire discard pile and if you do so you have to put it least one run/kind down on the table.

2s are wild but you can only use a single 2 to complete any of the run/kinds you drop. Once you have included a 2 with a run/kind you cannot get it back, even if you draw the card that the 2 was representing.

You cannot get rid of the last card in your hand unless it is used to complete a run/kind of seven cards. Once that is done you're allowed to pick up a stack of 11 cards (previously dealt and kept to the side). After that once you have no cards remaining in your hand the game is over.

When the game ends you count up your score. You get 100 points for every group of seven cards you put down, 100 points for being the first to finish, bonus points if a 2 was used in it but not as a wildcard, and then you also add up the value of the cards on the table through some mathematical means, but subtract the value of the cards that are still in your hand. There are also other little things you can do to get points which I'm sure varies by who’s playing. My friends play a variant that when you're dealing out the cards if you picked up a stack of cards to deal that equals exactly the amount that you need to deal out (for example 33 cards for three player game) then that is worth 100 points as well.

If after the first round someone has more than 1000 points and other players have less than 1000 points then in the next round the players with more than 1000 points cannot drop any run/suits unless the point value of that is worth more than 75 points, or something to that effect, it got pretty confusing.

If there are four players then you play two teams of two. Once you put cards down your partner can put cards on it as well to help complete the run of seven (so if you put down 7-8-9-10 of diamonds and your partner has the jack of diamonds he can put it down during his turn). In a four player game you don't have to put down a run if you pick up the discard pile. And no you're not allowed to tell your partner what cards are in your hand.

I will try playing these card games again next time my friends and I meet up, which should allow me to understand what people are playing next time I go to a shisha café. Playing card games are popular amongst the Arab clientele there.

Arabic Lessons -- The Ups and Downs of Learning Arabic

2011-03-31T12:59:00.000-07:00

I have signed up for Arabic lessons at FANAR, the Islamic Cultural Centre, and they start next week. It will be good for me to get back into it and hopefully improve to the point where I can engage in conversation. This set of lessons will be at least three months, and I have to take a test on my first day to figure out what level I'm at so they can place me in one of the five levels of classes.

I have taken Arabic lessons before and while my Arabic is still not particularly good I would definitely consider it above what a tourist might know. I can also read the letters, albeit slowly. I'm particularly good in ordering food at restaurants, I don't recall why but I remember a lot of food names.

For those of you trying to learn Arabic, or are interested in learning it, here is what I consider the major challenges:

1) reading the letters

This is obvious to anyone who knows a Latin language as Arabic does not use Latin letters but instead uses a completely different script full of curved lines and dots. It is also read right-to-left, to further confuse most learners. One exception however is that numbers are left-to-right like they are in Latin languages, which adds an extra bit of confusion.

Also letters can look different depending on whether they are at the beginning of a word, middle of the word, or end of the word -- but not always as it depends on the letter. Three letters have four different versions depending on where they are. It takes a lot of time and practice to get used to the letters. I've known the letters for about four years but because I don't read Arabic much my reading is still very slow and I still confuse the odd letter (such as ‘n’ and ‘b’, which differ by whether the dot is above or below the letter. I can now sympathize with English learners who confuse ‘p’, ‘d’, and ‘b’.)

On the positive side though there are no capital letters, so it doesn't matter if it's at the start of a sentence or a personal name you still use the same letter as you don't have to capitalize it.

2) “hidden” vowels

Arabic only has three vowels (a, i, o/u) but there is both a long version and a short version. Unlike English where a long and short vowel has a different sound (e.g. ā vs ă) in Arabic the long and short vowel is more a matter of how long you say it (e.g. ooo vs o). This wouldn't be an issue except for one thing, short vowels are not written down. Only in very formal Arabic are symbols included that would indicate what the short vowel is, in everyday writing you just have to know they are there from experience.

Imagine if you saw the word ‘dg’. Is that dig, dog or dug? You might know from the context of the sentence but for someone just learning the language how are they to know what it is? They may not even be familiar with the words. Unfortunately there is no easy way around it, you just have to recognize the word. This becomes a bit frustrating.

A good example is if you saw ‘mhmd’ is that Mohammed or Mahmoud? Only from experience do you realize that Mohammed is spelt ‘mhmd’ and Mahmoud ‘mhmud’, which interestingly means that while Mohammed is a longer word in English than Mahmoud it is shorter in Arabic. Oh and don't forget we are supposed to read the words right to left so actually they are spelt ‘dmhm’ and ‘dumhm’. AND using Arabic letters which you struggle to read in the first place. Now you may have an idea why Arabic becomes a tough language to learn.

It also makes spelling the word troublesome when someone says it verbally. I still have never figured out the difference between when someone speaks a long vowel or short vowel so when someone says a word and I can hear the vowels I don’t know whether I'm supposed to write the vowel or not. My spelling is thus pretty bad.

3) doubles of letters, letters they don't have in Arabic, and letters we don't have in English

Arabic does not have a ‘g’ or a ‘p’ so English words with ‘g’, like, oh, Glen, have to be spelt with some other letters. In my case, the first letter of my name I have seen spelt with four different letters: ‘j’ (Jlin), ‘k’ (Klin), ‘q’ (Qlin’), and ‘ghr’ (Ghrlin). I can live with that.

They do however have two ‘s’, two ‘t’, two ‘z’, and two ‘h’, with the difference being in the pronunciation. Say the letter wrong and you might be saying a completely different word, or a nonsense word, a problem I've run into occasionally trying to use my Arabic on Arabic speakers.

Finally Arabic has letters that aren't in English at all, the most difficult for me being a letter called ‘ayn’ which is somewhat like a short breath out. I hate this letter, I have a tough time picking it out when someone says it verbally, and it is a consonant so can be followed by vowels such as ‘a’ (try that, a short breath out followed by an ‘aah’, weird isn't it?). When translating Arabic we tend to use ‘a’ for the ayn as it kind of sounds like a short, faint ‘a’, such as ‘Adel’, but in reality a closer way to spell it would be to use an apostrophe ( ‘del).

4) plurals

Arabic has a ton of different ways for pluralizing nouns and again for the beginner it is just a matter of knowing what the plural of a particular word is. There is no easy way to determine how to plural a noun. ‘Car’ is ‘sayyara’ and ‘cars’ is ‘sayyarat’ but the plural of ‘madina’ is ‘mudun’. I have no idea why. It isn't the case where there is a common way to plural a word and there are some "irregular" nouns -- there are simply numerous types of plurals and only through experience do you know which way to plural which noun. I always joke with my Arabic-speaking friends, "just add an ‘s’ dammit”, they just laugh, they realize that in English it is generally easier to plural a noun.

5) different words in different regions

You know how British-English differs a bit from North American English? Well, Arabic has been around a lot longer and covered a vast area before there was quick ways of travel. As a result the local Arabic can vary widely from region to region, to the point where speakers from one country struggle to understand a speaker from another country. Egyptian-Arabic appears to be the common standard that almost all Arabic speakers can understand because Egypt produces most of the Arabic movies and films, but it is well known that speakers from other North African countries such as Morocco or Algeria are nearly incomprehensible if they speak their regional dialect. Many Arabic speakers who aren't from the Gulf also struggle to understand Gulf Arabic.

So what is typically taught to the new Arabic learner? Well, maybe Egyptian Arabic if you are in Egypt, otherwise you will be taught classical Arabic.

Classical Arabic is a formal Arabic that is used in the Qur’an and religious texts. It is an older version of Arabic, analogous to someone speaking Middle English. The upside is that because almost all Arabic speakers are Muslim they will understand this form of Arabic, although it is not generally spoken in day-to-day conversation. The downside is that if you are taught classical Arabic you will never understand the local dialect if someone decides to speak that. Sometimes native Arabic speakers pause and have to "switch" their minds to classical Arabic when someone speaks it. Still, people generally understand what I say even though it is very different from how they might say it. For example:

“What” is “ma/matha” in classical Arabic but "shu/shinu” in Qatari Arabic.
"Why" is “lematha” in classical Arabic but “leysh” in Qatari Arabic.
“Aruz” is "rice" in both classical and Qatari Arabic but I believe in Egyptian Arabic it may also be used to refer to bread. Qataris tend to use “khubz” for bread.

I am going to assume that FANAR will also teach classical Arabic since they also do a lot of courses in Islam and Islamic studies. We'll see how it goes over the next few months and if I like the classes I will try to complete them all the way to the end of level 5.

On The Troubles in the Middle East and North Africa

2011-03-27T11:13:00.000-07:00

I'm sure some people have thought that, with all of the issues in the Middle East occurring recently, why am I not covering it more in my blog? Unrest in Bahrain, Syria, war in Libya, overthrow of governments in Egypt and Tunisia, and here I am discussing educational standards and marks on a recent test. Isn't there bigger things happening around me?

Sure there are but you know what, I don't really know much about it. Touring the old city of Damascus for a few days does not exactly make me an expert on Syrian politics, and a few business trips in Bahrain has not given me detailed firsthand knowledge of Shia - Sunni relations. I chat about the issue sometimes with my Qatari friends but with the exception of Bahrain they have about as much experience in these countries as I do.

My observations have been straightforward and rudimentary, countries where there is significant poverty, oppression, or both are typically where you see the most unrest and problems. The wealthier countries like Kuwait, UAE, and Qatar have had fewer to no problems. Interest in the Middle East has made the media jump on anything that smacks of protest against a country's government, whereas in the grand scale of things the protest might not be significant. A few hundred people protesting in one country is not a "revolution", and yet no one sees the hundreds of thousands of protesters in London as signifying a potential overthrow of the UK Government. Would you believe major news organizations covered the formation of a Facebook page calling for a mass protest in Qatar on March 16. A Facebook page?? If some guy setting up a Facebook page is evidence of regime change then the US must be in complete anarchy right now -- how many anti-Obama Facebook pages must there be?

Big surprise, nothing happened March 16. You can look at a blog post from a couple weeks ago where I discuss why there won't be any trouble here.This lady does a good job discussing it as well.

Qatar is a small country, maybe 250,000 citizens, and the old Arab ways of challenging power and making changes still prevail, mostly in backroom discussions, alliances and political maneuvering. The current Emir took over from his father in a bloodless coup, and his father took over from his brother (the Emir’s uncle) in a bloodless(?) coup, and now many members/factions of the clan have been vying for power whilst also ensuring that other clans do not gain to much power themselves. I'm sure the Crown Prince was chosen more for his political ability than for his age (he is not the eldest son of His Highness). A weak Emir will quickly fall to a faction within his own clan.

I heard a story once, I'm not sure how true it is or not, that reports circulated through the Qatari grapevine that His Highness was severely ill. Apparently almost any Qatari of any importance who was out of the country immediately flew back, to prepare for the possible clandestine “battle” for secession should His Highness pass away. I've often wondered about the truth of this. I do believe though that because of the incredible transformations that have occurred in the country in the last 15 years, and the winning of the World Cup bid, His Highness's position is secure for a good long time. As long as he maintains his health things should remain stable. But backroom politics appears to be the Qatari way of life.

It's a shame we don't have more history or information on this, it would make a great soap opera, reminiscent of the backroom dramas of Machiavellian Italian families during the Renaissance.

There won't be any rebellions in Qatar. For insight into what is going on in the other countries you should search for articles from people from those countries who will provide excellent insight into the troubles and problems. That's what I do.

Qatar and the PISA test -- further analysis

2011-03-25T06:52:00.000-07:00

Back when the PISA 2009 results came out one commenter pointed out that while Qatar's marks were still low they had made significant improvements from 2006, which indicates that the reform measures taken by the Supreme Council of Education are making an impact. I'll reserve judgment on that until we analyze marks from a number of countries. The test changes from year to year so if countries at the bottom improved then it could indicate that the test was easier than the previous one. If all the countries improved than the test was definitely easier.

Unfortunately not a lot of countries in the bottom range had taken the test in 2000 or 2003, and some aspects of the test changed over the period, so I will only take the 2006 and 2009 results:

(Sorry about the mess, the table formatting didn't carry forward, the last number in the line is the change from 2006 to 2009)

Reading: 2006 2009 difference

Canada 527 524 -3
Japan 498 520 22
UK 495 494 -1
USA na 500 na
OECD avg 492 493 1
Portugal 472 489 17
Mexico 410 425 15
Tunisia 380 404 24
Uruguay 413 426 13
Qatar 312 372 60
Kyrgystan 285 314 29

Math: 2006 2009 difference

Canada 527 527 0
Japan 523 529 6
UK 495 492 -3
USA 474 487 13
OECD avg 499 496 -3
Portugal 466 487 21
Mexico 406 419 13
Tunisia 365 371 6
Uruguay 427 427 0
Qatar 318 368 50
Kyrgystan 311 331 20

Science: 2006 2009 difference

Canada 534 529 -5
Japan 531 539 8
UK 515 514 -1
USA 489 502 13
OECD avg 500 501 1
Portugal 474 493 19
Mexico 410 416 6
Tunisia 386 401 15
Uruguay 428 427 -1
Qatar 349 379 30
Kyrgystan 322 330 8

The results definitely support the view of the commentator, Qatar had easily the best improvements of the countries selected, in all three categories. Even countries near Qatar in terms of 2006 results had mixed improvements, although all of the bottom six improved to some degree in almost all categories.

Qatar still has a long way to go though. Scores below 400 are pretty bad, and as I noted in my previous post Qatar had a number of good performing schools which means there were a lot of schools performing even below the low-300s.

If you're not sure what exactly a score means I recommend you take a couple of the sample questions, which can be found here:

http://www.oecd.org/document/31/0,3746,en_32252351_32236191_41942687_1_1_1_1,00.html

Science question 12.2 was pretty enlightening, and one of the worst results for Qatar. (Summary the question: in an experiment on corn scientists chose 200 different fields to have the experiment in, why did they use so many fields?). 74% of 15-year-olds in the OECD got the question right, in Qatar it was 30%. Yet the question was multiple-choice with only four different answers, so even by random guessing you'd expect 25% to get it right. Yikes.

Qatar and the PISA test

2011-03-20T11:16:00.000-07:00

Less than a week ago Qatar held a ceremony to recognize the schools that did the best on the recent PISA test. That in and of itself was nice as it publicly announced those schools whose students did well on the test but even more impressively at the website for the Supreme Council of Education they actually reported the scores that those schools had on the test.

So before we take a look at that lets recap some of the scores from the PISA results:

Reading:
Shanghai 556
Korea 539
Finland 536
Hong Kong 533
...
United States 500
...
OECD average 493
...
Qatar 372

Mathematics:
Shanghai 600
Singapore 562
Hong Kong 555
Korea 546
...
OECD average 496
...
United States 487
...
Qatar 368

Science:
Shanghai 575
Finland 554
Hong Kong 549
Singapore 542
...
United States 502
OECD average 501
...
Qatar 379

Ready for how some of the local schools did?

In first place was Al-Khur International School (Indian stream, they also have a British stream)
Reading 603.77, Mathematics 591.73, Science 565.98

Take a look at those scores again, and compare them to the country averages.

Wow!! Those are some very impressive scores! The reading score absolutely destroyed any country average.

The reading and math score was what propelled the school to the top of the Qatar chart, believe it or not despite their great science score there were a few schools that scored better than they did in science with the best of them, Birla Public-School, scoring 586.

Ultimately 14 schools in Qatar had scores that exceeded the OECD average, for which they were honored in the ceremony. Another 16 schools were also given certificates for high achievement. A number of the schools in the top 14 were Indian or South Asian. I wish that India and other countries in that region would also sign up to do the PISA test as it would be interesting to see what the overall country scores in that region would be.

It is great that the Supreme Council for Education is really embracing the PISA test and not trying to hide what are clearly difficult results in terms of country average. Hopefully they will continue to implement reforms in order to improve education for students.

Now for the tough question: according to the article students in 153 schools were tested and the average for all categories was in the 360 to 380 range, which is a pretty poor score (search for PISA on this blog to get an idea of what countries were below that score). If Qatar has a number of schools that perform really well on this test, what does that say about the state of education in many of the other schools who participated? By the time you got to the 30th school the scores were still in the mid-400 range yet the average was a lot lower. This means there are a lot of schools who likely scored in the high 200s-low 300s, and if the SCE is not asking what the heck kids in those schools are learning during their time there -- they should. Children are either:

1) Not be getting an adequate education; or
2) there is some significant external factors affecting the scores (language difficulties?)

In either event a thorough investigation is needed.

No, I don't want to hear any excuses about how some of them are religious schools that focus on Islam, that does not excuse abysmal scores in reading and mathematics, especially reading. In fact one would think a religious school would score pretty high in reading given the focus on the Qur’an, Sunnahs and Hadiths. No, those schools are in need of significant reform of some sort and I hope the SCE are looking at these schools carefully.

In my next blog post we will compare how Qatar has scored in the 2009 test with the previous tests that it wrote to see if there have been any improvements. I recall a couple of comments on this blog pointing out that Qatar had improved, but had it improved significantly compared to its peers?

For the article and the list of schools please go to the link below:

http://www.english.education.gov.qa/content/resources/detail/13217

Bahrain unrest – what about Qatar?

2011-03-15T11:58:00.001-07:00

It appears that things are starting to get more out of control in Bahrain. Saudi Arabia has sent troops in, and possibly the UAE as well. The protesters say this amounts to an “invasion”. Al Jazeera reports hundreds have been injured in clashes and at least two people have died (one protester, one Saudi soldier).

I was at a conference today in Qatar. Many people planning to attend from Bahrain could not make it, and at least one person I know who lives in Bahrain left early to go back to help his family. There is talk of some companies moving their staff out of Bahrain, and travel warnings have been issued by some governments.

I will reiterate from an earlier post -- there has been no unrest in Qatar, nor will there be (see my post from a couple of weeks ago for why). Despite their close proximity they are two very different countries and the Qatari population does not have the kinds of problems with poverty, unemployment, and sectarian discrimination that one finds in Bahrain. There is no widespread discontent in Qatar with the ruling family.

While Bahrain was in the midst of unrest I was having a nice buffet lunch at a hotel with insurance executives from around the GCC and Europe. Yesterday the Minister of Finance himself was at the conference giving a speech. There was no extra police or security, and no metal detectors suddenly installed at the door of the hotel. En route to the conference we drove past the Emiri Diwan (where the Ministers and foreign dignitaries meet with His Highness) and there were no police cordons or extra security. Traffic at the airport is on schedule. Everything’s cool here.

Don't worry about me, don't worry about Qatar.