It was great to be in Canada again (or more specifically, Alberta) to visit the family, despite the economic gloom. Economically things seem to be getting pretty bad. Housing prices are going down, unemployment is going up, and people are generally nervous about the future. All in all Canada made it through the sub-prime mortgage fiasco quite well, federal banking regulators did not allow sub-prime mortgages in Canada and the banking system was better leveraged than in the US, but that in-and-of-itself is not enough to protect Canada from the spill over in the US economy. When you export over 80% of your goods to the United States any economic decline in the US will affect you greatly. Until the US can turn itself around Canada is in for bleak times. Apparently the government is budgeting for a deficit this year -- the first one in over a decade.
Despite previously mentioning that housing prices were going down the prices in Calgary and surrounding area were still absurdly high. I saw real estate ads in Canmore advertising condos for $800,000+, which for a town of maybe 15,000 people seemed really ridiculous to me. You could get a decent place in Vancouver for that price.
I spent the holiday going tobogganing, swimming, shopping, doing a day trip to Canmore, waffle breakfast at a family friend's, and enjoying a Chinese New Year dinner with my brother's in-laws. I also received as a Christmas gift a facial and massage from a men-only spa. It was a surprise, I was only told one morning to be ready to go somewhere at 9:30 and it was not until I was ready that my sister-in-law told me where I was going. My brother Mark had a facial and massage done at the same time as well. Liked the massage, the facial was so-so but my face did feel smoother so I guess it did work.
My niece Karis is now 4-years old and had developed a bit of attitude from when I saw her last year. It was so funny, whenever she would get upset (which sometimes was over the most minor things) she would give you this look of utter indignation then run to her room sobbing. It was so primadonna/drama queen you couldn't help but laugh. She would even open the door of her bedroom occasionally to make sure that you could hear she was crying. It was so cute. My nephew Aiden is on the verge of walking and was overall a happier baby than last year, which my sister-in-law credits mostly to him moving to solid foods. He was also able to shake his head "no" which was handy during meals as when he was finished eating he would just shake his head when you put the food to his mouth. Mostly though he liked to grab whatever item was handy and hand it to you, usually with a "Da!". He really liked to do this and I'm sure if you let him he would hand you every toy and loose piece of paper in the room. He also drools a lot so I liked referring to him as "drool monster". He could soak through a bib in under a half-hour.
That reminds me my first night in Calgary I was given another surprise gift -- babysitting duty! My brother and his wife had to visit a potential school for Karis that evening so they left me with the kids. Now I have been a lifelong bachelor but to perhaps your surprise I was well versed in how to take care of a four-year-old and a one-year-old.
Yeah right ... I'm a bachelor! I had no idea what I was doing! Thankfully the kids were good and we spent the evening playing. I was glad that Aiden's diaper didn't need changing because I had no idea how to do it and my brother didn't leave any instructions anyway. Well it turns out that Aiden's diaper actually did need changing, I just didn't realise it. That, and he didn't cry either. Whoops, sorry about that Aiden. Despite the red butt I still say you we're better off waiting for your parents to come home anyway.
One thing I should not have done during the holiday was eat as much as I did. My diet went out the window for the holidays (as usual) as I generously ate nice meals, wonderful deserts, and excellent Christmas baking. *sigh* I seem to really lack of self-control when it comes to food, especially sweets. Anyway I am back in Doha and getting back on track. Today's dinner was steamed vegetables with a bit of pasta. I just have to make sure I do not dip into the treats at work. I do miss Tim Horton's coffee though, we were having it every day.
As for my knees my right knee is doing okay. Not great, but okay. I was inconsistant with exercising during the holidays so I am getting that back on track as well. Left knee has not had problems for well over a month which makes me a happy camper. Just gotta lose some weight.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Christmas in January
Looking back through my blog I realise that it just briefly touched on why I go to Canada in January (and that blog post was 2 years ago). Well about five years ago when I was working in Bermuda I was unable to get time off for the Christmas holidays -- it was my turn to be at the office while everyone else went away for the holidays. When I informed my mother that I was not going to be able to make it for Christmas she said "Well then we will just have Christmas when you can make it." And so arrangements were made for the family to meet in mid-January for Christmas. And you know what -- we liked it so much we've done it every year since!
Why was Christmas in January such a big hit?
• Airfares were cheaper
• airports aren't the crowded zoo they are during the holidays
• it was easy for everyone in the family to get time off work
• the malls are not crowded and have tons of sales
• my brother and his wife no longer had to worry about whose family they would spend Christmas day with. (hers on Dec 25th, his in mid-January)
And when I mean we have Christmas in January I mean we do the whole holiday tradition: tree, presents, turkey dinner, the whole 9 yards. It's nice, I really enjoy it. That we do not have Christmas on December 25 doesn't really phaze me at all. I think this year it was on January 22.
Merry belated Christmas everyone!
Why was Christmas in January such a big hit?
• Airfares were cheaper
• airports aren't the crowded zoo they are during the holidays
• it was easy for everyone in the family to get time off work
• the malls are not crowded and have tons of sales
• my brother and his wife no longer had to worry about whose family they would spend Christmas day with. (hers on Dec 25th, his in mid-January)
And when I mean we have Christmas in January I mean we do the whole holiday tradition: tree, presents, turkey dinner, the whole 9 yards. It's nice, I really enjoy it. That we do not have Christmas on December 25 doesn't really phaze me at all. I think this year it was on January 22.
Merry belated Christmas everyone!
London
I always love visiting London but most times I am there in January so it is usually gray, miserable and cold. This time I was a bit better, the occasional bit of sunshine and temperatures around 7 or 8. I was also in better spirits because prices in London were a bit cheaper thanks to the pound plummeting against the US dollar in recent months, something like 30%. So things went from being stupidly expensive to "kind of expensive".
One surprise came the first morning I was there and I went to the nearby post office to mail a package. At 11:00am there was a long queue and after I waited in line for a while there was a bit of commotion behind me. It appeared that one lady jumped the queue a bit and went in front of another lady. Here's an approximation of how the conversation went:
"Hey, I was in the queue you know!"
"F*** you".
"WHAT! F*** you, you #^$&%@ !!"
" $^%$^# !!"
" *%#^& !!"
etc, etc. a few other people got involved as well shouting insults and stuff. Needless to say I was quite taken aback by the whole thing and couldn't wait to get out of there. I have never experienced such instantaneous swearing for queue-jumping in Canada.
Usually when us North Americans think of the English we tend to view them as polite and mannerly. Most of them are, but the English seem to have it at both ends of the spectrum. For every polite one there are downright crude ones. Cruder than I would usually see in North America. Who knows why that is, I'll leave it to the English to figure out.
Otherwise things went great during my brief stay. My friends and I went to the pub one evening and had dinner at a Brazilian restaurant the next. I did find some decent deals on Oxford Street so I picked up a few things. I also looked around a few stories in Kensington but the huge sales there were not enough to put things in my price range. And my friend Mary came up from Bournesmuth (sp?) so that we could tour the National Gallery and have lunch at a nice restaurant at the top floor of the Portrait Gallery with a view of Nelson's Column and the skyline of London.
One surprise came the first morning I was there and I went to the nearby post office to mail a package. At 11:00am there was a long queue and after I waited in line for a while there was a bit of commotion behind me. It appeared that one lady jumped the queue a bit and went in front of another lady. Here's an approximation of how the conversation went:
"Hey, I was in the queue you know!"
"F*** you".
"WHAT! F*** you, you #^$&%@ !!"
" $^%$^# !!"
" *%#^& !!"
etc, etc. a few other people got involved as well shouting insults and stuff. Needless to say I was quite taken aback by the whole thing and couldn't wait to get out of there. I have never experienced such instantaneous swearing for queue-jumping in Canada.
Usually when us North Americans think of the English we tend to view them as polite and mannerly. Most of them are, but the English seem to have it at both ends of the spectrum. For every polite one there are downright crude ones. Cruder than I would usually see in North America. Who knows why that is, I'll leave it to the English to figure out.
Otherwise things went great during my brief stay. My friends and I went to the pub one evening and had dinner at a Brazilian restaurant the next. I did find some decent deals on Oxford Street so I picked up a few things. I also looked around a few stories in Kensington but the huge sales there were not enough to put things in my price range. And my friend Mary came up from Bournesmuth (sp?) so that we could tour the National Gallery and have lunch at a nice restaurant at the top floor of the Portrait Gallery with a view of Nelson's Column and the skyline of London.
Friday, January 30, 2009
The Return
Okay, I'm back! Actually I got back a couple of days ago but it takes a while to recover from 25 hours of travel over 10 time zones. I also had to go to the office straight from the airport so needless to say that work day was not particularly fun. I have recovered now.
Amusingly enough the weather was colder in London than most days I was in Calgary. The weather in Calgary was mostly sunny with temperatures around -3 to +6 although one day it reached +10. Since it was the dry cold, as opposed to the wet cold in London, it was a lot more pleasant. The family and I went for a walk in a town near the Rockies, went tobogganing, shopping for presents, and generally had a relaxing time. There were a few days when it got a lot colder, around -13 to -20, but on days like that you just stayed inside.
I was only in London for a couple of days but that was long enough to visit friends, do a bit of shopping, and see the National Gallery. I like London a lot, great city.
What I do not like is dealing with overcrowded airports (i.e Heathrow). And for the second year in a row I have had to surrender something at Heathrow. Last year it was the maple butter that I bought at duty-free in Canada (paste over 100ml in carry-on, no it does not matter that it was purchased at the duty-free in North America), this year it was two small jars of honey. I didn't realise that you are not allowed to import honey into the UK from the Middle East so Customs seized it. *sigh*, my fault are not looking it up beforehand I guess. I am still a little miffed about it because it was expensive Yememi honey that I was bringing for a gift.
Anyway I'll blog a bit more about my vacation over the next few days, I've still got to unpack.
Amusingly enough the weather was colder in London than most days I was in Calgary. The weather in Calgary was mostly sunny with temperatures around -3 to +6 although one day it reached +10. Since it was the dry cold, as opposed to the wet cold in London, it was a lot more pleasant. The family and I went for a walk in a town near the Rockies, went tobogganing, shopping for presents, and generally had a relaxing time. There were a few days when it got a lot colder, around -13 to -20, but on days like that you just stayed inside.
I was only in London for a couple of days but that was long enough to visit friends, do a bit of shopping, and see the National Gallery. I like London a lot, great city.
What I do not like is dealing with overcrowded airports (i.e Heathrow). And for the second year in a row I have had to surrender something at Heathrow. Last year it was the maple butter that I bought at duty-free in Canada (paste over 100ml in carry-on, no it does not matter that it was purchased at the duty-free in North America), this year it was two small jars of honey. I didn't realise that you are not allowed to import honey into the UK from the Middle East so Customs seized it. *sigh*, my fault are not looking it up beforehand I guess. I am still a little miffed about it because it was expensive Yememi honey that I was bringing for a gift.
Anyway I'll blog a bit more about my vacation over the next few days, I've still got to unpack.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Vacation
Vacation time again, this time for my annual trip back home to Canada. I fly to London where I am staying with my friend David and his fiancee for a couple of days before flying on to my brother's place in Calgary for 2 weeks. Blog posts will be sporadic I'm afraid but I will see if I can make one or two during my trip.
Back in Doha on the 28th.
Back in Doha on the 28th.
More tennis!
Once again there is more a great tennis in Doha! The Qatar Open has as its big draws Federer, Nadal, Murray and Roddick, and I was fortunate to go to three of the days.
Much of the downsides of tennis in Doha were still there: school groups, people bringing in babies etc, and the first two days I attended it was dang cold. I was prepared this year -- I had four layers on and gloves. Last year I went straight from work wearing just a suit and froze my butt off. This year I was cozy.
Two of the days I went with Kamahl and his in-laws. Now his in-laws are Scottish so you know we had to go watch Andy Murray. We had purchased tickets over a week ago, gambling that Murray was going to be playing on the first day since he was champion last year. We were half-right, he was playing but it was doubles not singles. The only 'big' player playing singles that evening was Andy Roddick. So we watched the Roddick game before moving to Court 2 to watch Murray. Turns out seating at Court 2 was small (~150 seats in a total of 5 rows) so we were really close to the game. Kamahl's in-laws enjoyed the fact that they got to watch Andy Murray from about 30 feet away. We were sitting in seats by the baseline and during one game a long ball was called in by the umpire and Murray disputed it while we were all shouting "out" from our seats. The call stood, then Murray turned to us and said "How far was it out, this much?" while holding his hands about a foot apart. I don't think it was out by that much but we all laughed.
The best night was the quarter finals. While Roddick had an easy time with his game, the next game featuring Nadal and Gael Monfils was a different story. I had heard of Monfils (ATP rank #13) but had never seen him play. Turns out he has a very aggressive style and a bit of entertaining cockiness, like doing little moves after he scores a big point. By the middle of the first set the crowd was supporting him, and after he won the first set 6-4 with some excellent tennis the crowd was fully behind him to beat Nadal. The second set saw more excellent play by him and the wound up beating Nadal 6-4 6-4, probably the biggest win of his career.
I was hoping that he would win the semifinals against Roddick but alas he lost in three sets.
As for the other quarters Murray and Federer won their matches in straight sets. Federer's match was interesting as he was playing against Kohlschriber (ATP rank #28) so everyone was expecting a cakewalk. After winning the first set 6-2 Federer was up 4-1 when suddenly his game really started getting mediocre and he was missing a lot of shots. Kohlschriber came back from a 4-1 deficit to take it to a tie-breaker game! And in the tie-breaker game Kohlschriber went up 6-3, thus had triple-set point, but blew it and Federer managed to take the second set and the match 6-2, 7-6 (8). People were a little surprised that Federer had to scramble for that set and questioned whether he was fully in form.
Federer played Murray in the semis and lost in three sets so that appeared to answer that.
Murray and Roddick are playing in the finals right now. Sadly I did not have tickets but c'est la vie. I'm rooting for Murray.
Much of the downsides of tennis in Doha were still there: school groups, people bringing in babies etc, and the first two days I attended it was dang cold. I was prepared this year -- I had four layers on and gloves. Last year I went straight from work wearing just a suit and froze my butt off. This year I was cozy.
Two of the days I went with Kamahl and his in-laws. Now his in-laws are Scottish so you know we had to go watch Andy Murray. We had purchased tickets over a week ago, gambling that Murray was going to be playing on the first day since he was champion last year. We were half-right, he was playing but it was doubles not singles. The only 'big' player playing singles that evening was Andy Roddick. So we watched the Roddick game before moving to Court 2 to watch Murray. Turns out seating at Court 2 was small (~150 seats in a total of 5 rows) so we were really close to the game. Kamahl's in-laws enjoyed the fact that they got to watch Andy Murray from about 30 feet away. We were sitting in seats by the baseline and during one game a long ball was called in by the umpire and Murray disputed it while we were all shouting "out" from our seats. The call stood, then Murray turned to us and said "How far was it out, this much?" while holding his hands about a foot apart. I don't think it was out by that much but we all laughed.
The best night was the quarter finals. While Roddick had an easy time with his game, the next game featuring Nadal and Gael Monfils was a different story. I had heard of Monfils (ATP rank #13) but had never seen him play. Turns out he has a very aggressive style and a bit of entertaining cockiness, like doing little moves after he scores a big point. By the middle of the first set the crowd was supporting him, and after he won the first set 6-4 with some excellent tennis the crowd was fully behind him to beat Nadal. The second set saw more excellent play by him and the wound up beating Nadal 6-4 6-4, probably the biggest win of his career.
I was hoping that he would win the semifinals against Roddick but alas he lost in three sets.
As for the other quarters Murray and Federer won their matches in straight sets. Federer's match was interesting as he was playing against Kohlschriber (ATP rank #28) so everyone was expecting a cakewalk. After winning the first set 6-2 Federer was up 4-1 when suddenly his game really started getting mediocre and he was missing a lot of shots. Kohlschriber came back from a 4-1 deficit to take it to a tie-breaker game! And in the tie-breaker game Kohlschriber went up 6-3, thus had triple-set point, but blew it and Federer managed to take the second set and the match 6-2, 7-6 (8). People were a little surprised that Federer had to scramble for that set and questioned whether he was fully in form.
Federer played Murray in the semis and lost in three sets so that appeared to answer that.
Murray and Roddick are playing in the finals right now. Sadly I did not have tickets but c'est la vie. I'm rooting for Murray.
Monday, January 05, 2009
Blog Spring Cleaning
As part of the new year I have decided to do a bit of spring cleaning on the blog. I'm going to start going back through the old postings and start adding some keyword references to them to make it easier for people to find certain categories of posts. It will not be like some blogs that wind up with 35 different categories of stuff, I figure four or five categories will do, even if one of them has to be "miscellaneous", "other" or something like that. As you can see I've started already.
I have also updated the links section to add some other interesting sites that I like:
Quackwatch.org: an extensive website that investigates and discusses medical scams, dubious "alt-med" cures, and other forms of quackery. I always go here first whenever I hear about some unusual medical procedure or practice. As part of its work the website will also list of things that you should be looking for when seeking treatment for various conditions.
Another web site that I occasionally browse is SkyscraperCity, a set of forums where people post pictures and discuss various skyscrapers that are going up around the world. I have found it to be a gold mine of information on the skyscrapers that are being built in Doha as enthusiasts post all sorts of information: name, planned height, completion dates, what the tower will be used for etc.
Why pay money for some classic novels when you can download for free any books whose copyright has expired at The Gutenburg Project. This website has thousands and thousands of books and other materials with expired copyrights. Here is where you can get works by Charles Dickens, Voltaire, Mark Twain, Shakespeare and so forth -- absolutely free. I think the main website has materials up to 1923, but there are offshoot websites based in other countries where you can get more recent stuff due to the differences in copyright laws. For example, Gutenburg Australia has the complete works of H.P Lovecraft (d. 1932) because the copyright on his works has expired in Australia. You could spend hours just browsing the titles available!
And finally the forums used by expats in Qatar to discuss what is going on locally (and maybe vent some frustrations) Qatarliving.com. Great source for up-to-date info and rumours about Qatar.
I have also updated the links section to add some other interesting sites that I like:
Quackwatch.org: an extensive website that investigates and discusses medical scams, dubious "alt-med" cures, and other forms of quackery. I always go here first whenever I hear about some unusual medical procedure or practice. As part of its work the website will also list of things that you should be looking for when seeking treatment for various conditions.
Another web site that I occasionally browse is SkyscraperCity, a set of forums where people post pictures and discuss various skyscrapers that are going up around the world. I have found it to be a gold mine of information on the skyscrapers that are being built in Doha as enthusiasts post all sorts of information: name, planned height, completion dates, what the tower will be used for etc.
Why pay money for some classic novels when you can download for free any books whose copyright has expired at The Gutenburg Project. This website has thousands and thousands of books and other materials with expired copyrights. Here is where you can get works by Charles Dickens, Voltaire, Mark Twain, Shakespeare and so forth -- absolutely free. I think the main website has materials up to 1923, but there are offshoot websites based in other countries where you can get more recent stuff due to the differences in copyright laws. For example, Gutenburg Australia has the complete works of H.P Lovecraft (d. 1932) because the copyright on his works has expired in Australia. You could spend hours just browsing the titles available!
And finally the forums used by expats in Qatar to discuss what is going on locally (and maybe vent some frustrations) Qatarliving.com. Great source for up-to-date info and rumours about Qatar.
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Books and History
Happy New Year everyone!
Well after telling people in Qatar I was going to have a mellow New Year's Eve I got an invitation that day from my friend Serdar to attend a party at his compound. So New Year's Eve was spent with about 40 to 50 people, with a catered buffet dinner and everything. The host provided plastic bags with party favours (hats, blowers etc ) but a number of the bags also had spray cans of Silly String -- you can imagine what a party with 25 cans of Silly String looked like! Here's hoping the compound Club House staff can get all the silly string off the walls and carpeting.
Also in the last week I attended a book fair taking place at the Exhibition Centre with one of my Qatari colleagues. Now Doha does not have a lot in the way of English-language bookstores, in fact I can only think of three, and of those three the best one is the book section of a Virgin Store (not even a Megastore) so that should give you an idea of the level of book selection available. I would kill for a decent bookstore but so far nothing. Rumours surface every now and then that a bookstore chain called MacGrudy's is going to open a store in Qatar but it never seems to happen. Sigh. Anyway I was just going to the fair on a lark to see if there was anything of interest but I was not expecting much. Turns out the book fair had over 200 stalls with publishers from all over the Middle East selling books. Now out of those 200-plus stalls only about 20 had English-language books but it was still enough for me to find some interesting items and I walked out of there with seven books: a two-volume set of Islamic jurisprudence, a small book about astronomy during Islam's "Golden Age", a book that compiled the Arab's views of the Crusades, a book on Moorish Spain, and two books on the GCC that were given to me free from a Qatari gentlemen at a Government bookstall.
As for the rest of the exhibition it was crowded with people so I guess the Arabic-language bookstores do not have a great selection either. My colleague wound up with 4 bags of books, we had to make two separate trips to his truck to drop them all off. Two of the bags were a 12 (maybe 14) volume set of hadiths that he said his family did not have in their library. That is the lot of hadiths.
After the book fair it was off to the bar at the Ramada for Quiz Night. There is a core group of us from work who like to attend this once-a-month event, probably because we never win. (Sidenote: my Qatari colleague just dropped me off and did not join us, so those of you at work reading this don't be spreading rumours he was hanging out at the Shahrazad Bar). We have come in second twice, and third at least twice, but never won. Drives me nuts. First place gets a dinner voucher for 12 people at one of the Ramada's restaurants worth about $600 (!), second place gets a round of drinks, third place gets squat. Considering there is no entry fee for the quiz it is a pretty good deal and an entertaining way to spend an evening. Well the first round was Sports and we got crushed, scoring only 8/20. We pretty much wrote off our chances of winning, but after a decent second round, winning third round, and decent fourth round we suddenly found ourselves in fourth place going into the last round! The category was Entertainment and while I maybe knew about 25% of it one of my colleagues and her brother-in-law were total champs. We wound up scoring 27/29 to take . . .
. . . second place. Aaaaaaargh!!
Now, why am I bothering to mention a Quiz Night at a bar? Well one of the categories that evening was Qatar which I thought was amusing because at the time there were about a dozen drunk Qataris around (this is one of the few bars that serve Qataris) so we joked that maybe we should get one of them on our team so we could totally ace it. Later that night another work colleague who was on another team mentioned that the table next to his were all Qataris and they were terrible at the category! That struck me as a little odd so the next day we asked some of the questions from the quiz to two of our Qatari colleagues:
1) what does the white in the Qatari flag represent? (Peace, one of them knew it)
2) what year was Qatar's independence? (1971, one of them knew it was 71 or 72, the other did not know)
3) average rainfall? (70mm, neither of them knew and their guesses weren't close)
So in our discussion we found out that Qatari history was not taught at school in Qatar, which was why most Qataris would not know the answers to many questions about Qatar. The work colleague who did know some of the answers had actually taken an elective on Qatari history at University, which is how they knew. They agreed that it was kind of odd that local schools did not teach Qatari history but it was their understanding that it has changed now and is now taught in schools. So the younger generation will likely be a better bet for quiz night.
But it turns out that Qatari history is not an easy thing to find a lot of books or materials on. Which brings us right back to the book fair. My colleague was also looking for a book on the history of the Al-Thani family (the ruling family) which apparently was sold out almost everywhere. He eventually did find it and told me there are not many such books on the various tribes and families in the region because a book that showed a powerful family in an unflattering light would never be published and writers have to be careful about what they say. But the history of Qatar, Saudi, Bahrain etc, is chock-full of numerous tribal wars and conflicts and the tribes and families involved still exist today. It therefore becomes difficult to chronicle the battles/wars without there being a "good" side and a "bad" side, and even in a neutral chronicle powerful families do not want to be reminded of past defeats, embarrassments, or unbecoming behaviour (pillaging etc) that may have occurred in those times. So few people are willing to try to publish books describing this history. That is not to say that the history has been forgotten, many Qataris learn about the wars and battles orally through older family members, it just is not written down anywhere. And this was not all that long ago so it likely affects Qatari society today, only more clandestinly. I'm sure it has an impact on the arranged marriages as Qataris from one tribe/family would probably never marry someone from a family where there was a long history of rivalry and conflict.
Maybe I will learn more about this someday. If so I'll let you know.
Well after telling people in Qatar I was going to have a mellow New Year's Eve I got an invitation that day from my friend Serdar to attend a party at his compound. So New Year's Eve was spent with about 40 to 50 people, with a catered buffet dinner and everything. The host provided plastic bags with party favours (hats, blowers etc ) but a number of the bags also had spray cans of Silly String -- you can imagine what a party with 25 cans of Silly String looked like! Here's hoping the compound Club House staff can get all the silly string off the walls and carpeting.
Also in the last week I attended a book fair taking place at the Exhibition Centre with one of my Qatari colleagues. Now Doha does not have a lot in the way of English-language bookstores, in fact I can only think of three, and of those three the best one is the book section of a Virgin Store (not even a Megastore) so that should give you an idea of the level of book selection available. I would kill for a decent bookstore but so far nothing. Rumours surface every now and then that a bookstore chain called MacGrudy's is going to open a store in Qatar but it never seems to happen. Sigh. Anyway I was just going to the fair on a lark to see if there was anything of interest but I was not expecting much. Turns out the book fair had over 200 stalls with publishers from all over the Middle East selling books. Now out of those 200-plus stalls only about 20 had English-language books but it was still enough for me to find some interesting items and I walked out of there with seven books: a two-volume set of Islamic jurisprudence, a small book about astronomy during Islam's "Golden Age", a book that compiled the Arab's views of the Crusades, a book on Moorish Spain, and two books on the GCC that were given to me free from a Qatari gentlemen at a Government bookstall.
As for the rest of the exhibition it was crowded with people so I guess the Arabic-language bookstores do not have a great selection either. My colleague wound up with 4 bags of books, we had to make two separate trips to his truck to drop them all off. Two of the bags were a 12 (maybe 14) volume set of hadiths that he said his family did not have in their library. That is the lot of hadiths.
After the book fair it was off to the bar at the Ramada for Quiz Night. There is a core group of us from work who like to attend this once-a-month event, probably because we never win. (Sidenote: my Qatari colleague just dropped me off and did not join us, so those of you at work reading this don't be spreading rumours he was hanging out at the Shahrazad Bar). We have come in second twice, and third at least twice, but never won. Drives me nuts. First place gets a dinner voucher for 12 people at one of the Ramada's restaurants worth about $600 (!), second place gets a round of drinks, third place gets squat. Considering there is no entry fee for the quiz it is a pretty good deal and an entertaining way to spend an evening. Well the first round was Sports and we got crushed, scoring only 8/20. We pretty much wrote off our chances of winning, but after a decent second round, winning third round, and decent fourth round we suddenly found ourselves in fourth place going into the last round! The category was Entertainment and while I maybe knew about 25% of it one of my colleagues and her brother-in-law were total champs. We wound up scoring 27/29 to take . . .
. . . second place. Aaaaaaargh!!
Now, why am I bothering to mention a Quiz Night at a bar? Well one of the categories that evening was Qatar which I thought was amusing because at the time there were about a dozen drunk Qataris around (this is one of the few bars that serve Qataris) so we joked that maybe we should get one of them on our team so we could totally ace it. Later that night another work colleague who was on another team mentioned that the table next to his were all Qataris and they were terrible at the category! That struck me as a little odd so the next day we asked some of the questions from the quiz to two of our Qatari colleagues:
1) what does the white in the Qatari flag represent? (Peace, one of them knew it)
2) what year was Qatar's independence? (1971, one of them knew it was 71 or 72, the other did not know)
3) average rainfall? (70mm, neither of them knew and their guesses weren't close)
So in our discussion we found out that Qatari history was not taught at school in Qatar, which was why most Qataris would not know the answers to many questions about Qatar. The work colleague who did know some of the answers had actually taken an elective on Qatari history at University, which is how they knew. They agreed that it was kind of odd that local schools did not teach Qatari history but it was their understanding that it has changed now and is now taught in schools. So the younger generation will likely be a better bet for quiz night.
But it turns out that Qatari history is not an easy thing to find a lot of books or materials on. Which brings us right back to the book fair. My colleague was also looking for a book on the history of the Al-Thani family (the ruling family) which apparently was sold out almost everywhere. He eventually did find it and told me there are not many such books on the various tribes and families in the region because a book that showed a powerful family in an unflattering light would never be published and writers have to be careful about what they say. But the history of Qatar, Saudi, Bahrain etc, is chock-full of numerous tribal wars and conflicts and the tribes and families involved still exist today. It therefore becomes difficult to chronicle the battles/wars without there being a "good" side and a "bad" side, and even in a neutral chronicle powerful families do not want to be reminded of past defeats, embarrassments, or unbecoming behaviour (pillaging etc) that may have occurred in those times. So few people are willing to try to publish books describing this history. That is not to say that the history has been forgotten, many Qataris learn about the wars and battles orally through older family members, it just is not written down anywhere. And this was not all that long ago so it likely affects Qatari society today, only more clandestinly. I'm sure it has an impact on the arranged marriages as Qataris from one tribe/family would probably never marry someone from a family where there was a long history of rivalry and conflict.
Maybe I will learn more about this someday. If so I'll let you know.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Aoud
I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. I went to friend's place for a Christmas Eve dinner and then I had a late lunch/early dinner Christmas Day hosted by some other friends of mine. Turkey and all the trimmings for Christmas. Like my eggnog woes someone else lamented that you can't find pumpkin pie here. C'est la vie I guess, sometimes you just have to roll with the punches of not being in North America. It is a shame though as pumpkin pie is my favourite. For the Christmas Eve function I made some eggnog (sans alcohol) and while I would not say it was the world's greatest eggnog it turned out reasonable enough.
The other day I was on my lunch break at the mall with some Qatari colleagues when one of them remembered that he needed to shop for something we do not really know much about in the West -- aoud. So off we went to an Arab perfume shop in the mall where raw aoud is available for sale.
Aoud (or sometimes spelt 'oud' but that is also the same spelling for an Arabic guitar) is a wood that Qataris like to place in incense burners. The wood is from a Southeast Asian tree called an Agar tree. When a certain type of fungus attacks the tree it fights back by exuding a resin, which also happens to be a powerful fragrance. When the resin-infused wood is burnt it gives off a fragrant smoke which Qataris use to add a scent to rooms or clothing.
When we got to the shop the owner started pulling out small chests where he keeps pieces of aoud and my colleagues took the time to point out to me how to identify various qualities of aoud. Bands of colour is important (the word is normally light in colour, darker bands indicate the resin) and a tiny piece was placed in incense burner so that we could see the resin boil and create the smoke (another way to tell how much resin is in the wood). While the tiny piece was in the burner they showed me how to brush the smoke towards your face to get the scent of the wood, also mentioning that smoke from good quality aoud will not cause your eyes to water. Then they demonstrated how you hold the burner a few feet under your face and let your gurtra hang down over the smoke so that the scent of the smoke infuses the clothing. Much like tobacco smoke if you get enough in the clothing the scent will stay for a couple of days.
All in all it was a great lesson in Arab culture.
Now you might be wondering, isn't this 'quality checking' a bit much for a bit of wood you burn? You would think so until you realise how expensive the stuff is. The first box we were shown contained low-quality aoud that was selling for about QR 300/kg (US$80/kg or ~US$35/pound). That was the low-quality stuff. One of the boxes contained aoud selling for QR 1000/kg (US$270/kg), and the best-quality aoud that the store had went for . . . . brace yourself . . . . US$9500 a kilo!! I nearly fell over, almost $10,000 for a kilo of wood! Aoud is serious business in the Gulf.
I now want to grow an Agar tree in my home!
The other day I was on my lunch break at the mall with some Qatari colleagues when one of them remembered that he needed to shop for something we do not really know much about in the West -- aoud. So off we went to an Arab perfume shop in the mall where raw aoud is available for sale.
Aoud (or sometimes spelt 'oud' but that is also the same spelling for an Arabic guitar) is a wood that Qataris like to place in incense burners. The wood is from a Southeast Asian tree called an Agar tree. When a certain type of fungus attacks the tree it fights back by exuding a resin, which also happens to be a powerful fragrance. When the resin-infused wood is burnt it gives off a fragrant smoke which Qataris use to add a scent to rooms or clothing.
When we got to the shop the owner started pulling out small chests where he keeps pieces of aoud and my colleagues took the time to point out to me how to identify various qualities of aoud. Bands of colour is important (the word is normally light in colour, darker bands indicate the resin) and a tiny piece was placed in incense burner so that we could see the resin boil and create the smoke (another way to tell how much resin is in the wood). While the tiny piece was in the burner they showed me how to brush the smoke towards your face to get the scent of the wood, also mentioning that smoke from good quality aoud will not cause your eyes to water. Then they demonstrated how you hold the burner a few feet under your face and let your gurtra hang down over the smoke so that the scent of the smoke infuses the clothing. Much like tobacco smoke if you get enough in the clothing the scent will stay for a couple of days.
All in all it was a great lesson in Arab culture.
Now you might be wondering, isn't this 'quality checking' a bit much for a bit of wood you burn? You would think so until you realise how expensive the stuff is. The first box we were shown contained low-quality aoud that was selling for about QR 300/kg (US$80/kg or ~US$35/pound). That was the low-quality stuff. One of the boxes contained aoud selling for QR 1000/kg (US$270/kg), and the best-quality aoud that the store had went for . . . . brace yourself . . . . US$9500 a kilo!! I nearly fell over, almost $10,000 for a kilo of wood! Aoud is serious business in the Gulf.
I now want to grow an Agar tree in my home!
Monday, December 22, 2008
Christmas
Christmas in Qatar does not have quite the excitement that it would in most parts of the world, not least in part because Muslims do not celebrate Christmas. Things have been changing a little bit over the time I've been here though. The Christmas displays in the malls seem to be more and more noticeable every year, from very subdued beginnings when I first arrived to nice displays in the middle of malls. Most, if not all, malls in Qatar do not do the Santa thing though. Some hotels do but by and large Santa does not make the widespread appearances that he does in Western countries leading up to the Christmas season. Combine that with the fact that it is still over 20° and it just does not feel like Christmas. I keep forgetting that it is only a few days away.
Two days ago I want to the grocery store to get some eggnog and guess what -- there wasn't any. Not because it had sold out, there just wasn't any. I don't know why I thought stores would have it, just going on autopilot I guess. I lamented the lack of a eggnog at work and a coworker recalled that two years ago a different grocery store did carry it. So last night it was out to the other grocery store (I even had a request from an American friend to pick up some for him as well if I could find it). No luck. I might just have to make some from scratch, however you do that. I'm sure there are good recipes on the internet. I wanted some so that my Qatari friends could try it as they had never even heard of eggnog before. Even many of my British co-workers had never tried it, I guess it is a very North American thing.
Another thing about Christmas in Qatar that takes a bit of getting used to is that it is not a public holiday. Thankfully my office does give us Christmas off work but for most it is just another day as usual. Case in point I was at the physiotherapist today and after I was done I went to the counter for booking my next appointment to be told that it would be on the 25th at 8am. I said "great, thanks", walked out the door, then went "wait a minute..." .
So I get to start my Christmas morning with a physiotherapy appointment! ( I guess it's a gift that keeps on giving.)
My Qatari colleagues were not that excited about having Christmas off work since of course they weren't really going to be doing anything with the day off. I joked with them noting that wouldn't it be nice to celebrate the birthday of the Prophet Isa (Isa = Jesus in Arabic, according to the Qur'an Jesus was a Prophet of God as well) since most Muslims celebrate the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed? They knew I was joking of course, while most Muslim countries have a day set aside to celebrate the birthday of the Prophet Muhammed, Wahhabist-Islam nations like Qatar and Saudi Arabia do not. My understanding is that under the form of Islam practised in Qatar and Saudi Arabia while they revere the Prophet they are careful not to revere him to such an extent that it could be seen as almost worshipping him, so having a holiday just for him would somehow detract from the proper focus on Allah. At least I think that is why they do not have birthday celebrations for him.
Oh well so it looks like the 25th will be an unusual Christmas Day for me. I am attending a late Christmas lunch/dinner at a friend's house so the day will not be a total wash. And I get to eat turkey. And maybe eggnog.
If I do not post before then have a Merry Christmas everyone!
Two days ago I want to the grocery store to get some eggnog and guess what -- there wasn't any. Not because it had sold out, there just wasn't any. I don't know why I thought stores would have it, just going on autopilot I guess. I lamented the lack of a eggnog at work and a coworker recalled that two years ago a different grocery store did carry it. So last night it was out to the other grocery store (I even had a request from an American friend to pick up some for him as well if I could find it). No luck. I might just have to make some from scratch, however you do that. I'm sure there are good recipes on the internet. I wanted some so that my Qatari friends could try it as they had never even heard of eggnog before. Even many of my British co-workers had never tried it, I guess it is a very North American thing.
Another thing about Christmas in Qatar that takes a bit of getting used to is that it is not a public holiday. Thankfully my office does give us Christmas off work but for most it is just another day as usual. Case in point I was at the physiotherapist today and after I was done I went to the counter for booking my next appointment to be told that it would be on the 25th at 8am. I said "great, thanks", walked out the door, then went "wait a minute..." .
So I get to start my Christmas morning with a physiotherapy appointment! ( I guess it's a gift that keeps on giving.)
My Qatari colleagues were not that excited about having Christmas off work since of course they weren't really going to be doing anything with the day off. I joked with them noting that wouldn't it be nice to celebrate the birthday of the Prophet Isa (Isa = Jesus in Arabic, according to the Qur'an Jesus was a Prophet of God as well) since most Muslims celebrate the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed? They knew I was joking of course, while most Muslim countries have a day set aside to celebrate the birthday of the Prophet Muhammed, Wahhabist-Islam nations like Qatar and Saudi Arabia do not. My understanding is that under the form of Islam practised in Qatar and Saudi Arabia while they revere the Prophet they are careful not to revere him to such an extent that it could be seen as almost worshipping him, so having a holiday just for him would somehow detract from the proper focus on Allah. At least I think that is why they do not have birthday celebrations for him.
Oh well so it looks like the 25th will be an unusual Christmas Day for me. I am attending a late Christmas lunch/dinner at a friend's house so the day will not be a total wash. And I get to eat turkey. And maybe eggnog.
If I do not post before then have a Merry Christmas everyone!
Friday, December 19, 2008
National Day
I forgot to mention that December 18 was also Qatar's National Day so I got the day off work. Celebrating this day as the National Day is a relatively new phenomenon only a couple of years old. Before then the national day was September 3, the day Qatar gained independence from Britain, but the Emir decided to move it to December 18, the day the Al-Thani family took power something over a century ago.
I remember the first September 3 holiday that I had here and there was nothing going on in the way of festivities. Made sense I suppose, early September is still bloody hot. Moving it to December means that the temperatures are nice enough for the country to celebrate National Day. This year they had a military parade in the morning, horse races in the afternoon, and a fireworks show on the Corniche in the evening. I only went to the fireworks which were good but started way too late (10:00pm) and there was not much else in the way of activities on the Corniche so if you got down there early there was not much to do. And don't get me started on the traffic since thousands of people went down to the Corniche. Long story short -- nice fireworks, not sure if it was worth the effort to get there though.
Now back to Singapore. While wandering around I happened to come across something that I have heard of and always wanted to try -- a fish spa. This is where you put your feet and legs into a tank of water and tiny fish called doctorfish swarm over your feet and legs cleaning off the dead skin. It tickled so much I couldn't stop laughing! Imagine having fish go in-between your toes and nibble at the soles of your feet. So I was cracking up, and the staff were laughing because I was laughing. 20 minutes later I had nice and smooth feet. They also had a tank with bigger doctorfish but I did not like that as much as the bigger fish pinch a little and I was getting a little worried that they might actually take off some flesh. I will stick to the little fish.
If you ever see a fish spa give it a try.
I remember the first September 3 holiday that I had here and there was nothing going on in the way of festivities. Made sense I suppose, early September is still bloody hot. Moving it to December means that the temperatures are nice enough for the country to celebrate National Day. This year they had a military parade in the morning, horse races in the afternoon, and a fireworks show on the Corniche in the evening. I only went to the fireworks which were good but started way too late (10:00pm) and there was not much else in the way of activities on the Corniche so if you got down there early there was not much to do. And don't get me started on the traffic since thousands of people went down to the Corniche. Long story short -- nice fireworks, not sure if it was worth the effort to get there though.
Now back to Singapore. While wandering around I happened to come across something that I have heard of and always wanted to try -- a fish spa. This is where you put your feet and legs into a tank of water and tiny fish called doctorfish swarm over your feet and legs cleaning off the dead skin. It tickled so much I couldn't stop laughing! Imagine having fish go in-between your toes and nibble at the soles of your feet. So I was cracking up, and the staff were laughing because I was laughing. 20 minutes later I had nice and smooth feet. They also had a tank with bigger doctorfish but I did not like that as much as the bigger fish pinch a little and I was getting a little worried that they might actually take off some flesh. I will stick to the little fish.
If you ever see a fish spa give it a try.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Singapore eating
Okay so how was Singapore? In a word -- delicious.
Singapore is what you would call a 3-or-4-day city, not one of those places that could keep the tourist busy for a week or so like London or Paris, but it does have some things to do and things to see for a while. What were the touristy things I did? Raffles Hotel, Night Safari at the zoo, cruise down Singapore River, and went to see the Singapore Flyer (Singapore's equivalent of the London Eye). But mostly what I did was search out the various local cuisines available at hawker stalls and street markets throughout the city. A Singaporean colleague had given me a list of interesting night markets to try and dishes to eat. Sometimes finding those markets was a search in and of itself, and allowed me to see parts of the city that I think were a little off the beaten path of tourists. Not always of course, a few of these markets like Lau Pa Sat are well known but occasionally I was finding myself in places where were no other Westerners to be seen.
So rather than go into all the details here is a list of some of the things I ate during the trip:
Roasted duck noodle
Matcha lattes (from a place called OChaCha)
Toast with Kaya jam (from Ya Kun Kaya Toast outlet)
Hainanese chicken rice
Iced lychees
Spicy popiahs
Eel with green peppers
Sweet rice cakes with black bean and sesame paste
Laksa (sort of a curry fish soup)
Ice Kachang
Mixed-meat satay
Steamed BBQ pork buns
Chili tofu
Smoked eggs
The one thing I missed trying out on was deep fried carrot cake, a local specialty. Every time I went somewhere where I had heard they served a good version of this dish the place was either closed or too crowded. Maybe next time.
I know what you're thinking, going all these out of the way places to eat in night markets and stalls didn't I get sick? Well -- yes. Luckily though it was right at the end of the trip, literally as I got to the airport to catch the flight home. In the taxi to the airport I suddenly thought "I don't feel so good all of a sudden" and by the time I got to the airport my stomach had announced that it was time to sit back & relax as it was going to be emptying itself out about once an hour. So that wound up being the most hellish plane ride I have ever had. I was sick 4 times waiting for the flight and 7 more times during the 8-hour flight, I could not even keep down some water. Thankfully no one was sitting next to me as I would have felt really embarrassed being so ill. I was also grateful that it was just vomiting and not diarreha, but at the time that was a small consolation. When I got home I went straight to bed and was ill for another day.
Man, I had never experienced "traveller bug" before and don't want to again.
I have no idea what food caused it. I actually suspect it was a dish from a cafe at a mall that some cheese in it, not from some street stall, but I have no way to be sure.
And by the way the Raffles Hotel is the biggest rip-off ever! A Singapore Sling there was S$31 (US$21)! 21 bucks for one drink!! And a pint of beer was US$18, the same beer I could get for $4 down the street. Something about that hotel just seems to appeal to older Westerners who absolutely have to pay completely ridiculous prices just to say that they had a drink there. And no I did not have a Sling, for 21 US dollars I don't care that it was invented there. I went across the street to the Fairmont and had one for half the price.
Singapore is what you would call a 3-or-4-day city, not one of those places that could keep the tourist busy for a week or so like London or Paris, but it does have some things to do and things to see for a while. What were the touristy things I did? Raffles Hotel, Night Safari at the zoo, cruise down Singapore River, and went to see the Singapore Flyer (Singapore's equivalent of the London Eye). But mostly what I did was search out the various local cuisines available at hawker stalls and street markets throughout the city. A Singaporean colleague had given me a list of interesting night markets to try and dishes to eat. Sometimes finding those markets was a search in and of itself, and allowed me to see parts of the city that I think were a little off the beaten path of tourists. Not always of course, a few of these markets like Lau Pa Sat are well known but occasionally I was finding myself in places where were no other Westerners to be seen.
So rather than go into all the details here is a list of some of the things I ate during the trip:
Roasted duck noodle
Matcha lattes (from a place called OChaCha)
Toast with Kaya jam (from Ya Kun Kaya Toast outlet)
Hainanese chicken rice
Iced lychees
Spicy popiahs
Eel with green peppers
Sweet rice cakes with black bean and sesame paste
Laksa (sort of a curry fish soup)
Ice Kachang
Mixed-meat satay
Steamed BBQ pork buns
Chili tofu
Smoked eggs
The one thing I missed trying out on was deep fried carrot cake, a local specialty. Every time I went somewhere where I had heard they served a good version of this dish the place was either closed or too crowded. Maybe next time.
I know what you're thinking, going all these out of the way places to eat in night markets and stalls didn't I get sick? Well -- yes. Luckily though it was right at the end of the trip, literally as I got to the airport to catch the flight home. In the taxi to the airport I suddenly thought "I don't feel so good all of a sudden" and by the time I got to the airport my stomach had announced that it was time to sit back & relax as it was going to be emptying itself out about once an hour. So that wound up being the most hellish plane ride I have ever had. I was sick 4 times waiting for the flight and 7 more times during the 8-hour flight, I could not even keep down some water. Thankfully no one was sitting next to me as I would have felt really embarrassed being so ill. I was also grateful that it was just vomiting and not diarreha, but at the time that was a small consolation. When I got home I went straight to bed and was ill for another day.
Man, I had never experienced "traveller bug" before and don't want to again.
I have no idea what food caused it. I actually suspect it was a dish from a cafe at a mall that some cheese in it, not from some street stall, but I have no way to be sure.
And by the way the Raffles Hotel is the biggest rip-off ever! A Singapore Sling there was S$31 (US$21)! 21 bucks for one drink!! And a pint of beer was US$18, the same beer I could get for $4 down the street. Something about that hotel just seems to appeal to older Westerners who absolutely have to pay completely ridiculous prices just to say that they had a drink there. And no I did not have a Sling, for 21 US dollars I don't care that it was invented there. I went across the street to the Fairmont and had one for half the price.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Eid
So what has been up this week?
Well for starters the Museum of Islamic Art finally opened its doors to the public, after about three years of construction. I went there on Friday to meet with a friend and his wife and wander around. I must say it is a spectacular building. Well-designed, spacious, and the exhibits were nicely placed with a reasonable amount of space between them. While the museum is a decent size it is not so large as to cause "museum fatigue" which can happen at places like the British Museum or the Louvre, where there is just so much (albeit awesome) stuff it takes forever to see it all and you get tired. Your average tourist would probably go through the Islamic Museum in about three hours, more of course if they take the time to examine every item on display. We only went through about half of it since we knew we could come back some other time to see the rest. From what we saw there was a lot of pottery, carpets, jewellery, and calligraphy/books from various eras and places such as Spain, North Africa, Middle East, India, and Central Asia. Not a lot of paintings and sculpture but this is to be expected -- in many parts of the Islamic world art that depicted individuals was frowned upon for religious reasons. There were some exceptions such as paintings from Mughul India or the late Ottoman Empire, but by and large most Islamic artwork did not depict people. I will go back to the museum to finish seeing the rest of the exhibits in a few weeks when things have quieted down a bit.
It is nice that Doha is actually starting to shape up and have nice things/areas for people to go to. When I first arrived there was not much to do aside from going to a mall. Now there is Souq Waqif (a rebuilt Souq in the old classic style with a lot of restaurants and traditional shops), the Museum, and in the next couple of months the first phase of the Pearl will open (reclaimed land that will have a beautiful boardwalk with restaurants and shops). The W hotel will be opening soon and the Grand Hyatt resort is scheduled to open the first quarter of 2009. Not that I'm too fussed about hotels as they are always really expensive, but the Hyatt will have a Thai restaurant which I'm looking forward to as I have not been that impressed with the Thai food one can find here.
In other news earlier this week the Istisqaa Prayer (prayer for rain) was held. It is an annual ritual that dates back from the time of the Prophet and apparently a Sunnah mentions it. It was the first time I had heard about the Istisqaa Prayer but Qataris take this prayer seriously -- it was led by the Emir himself. Two days later we had a big thunderstorm and a whole heap of rain. You have to be careful what you wish for though, enough rain fell that many of the streets were flooded and there were a lot of car accidents.
I joked with a couple of my Qatari colleagues about the Prayer, asking whether they did any kind of dance akin to Western stereotypes about Native "rain dances", and they laughed and noted that it was simply a set of specific prayers. I learned later that the Prayer is not just about rain, it is a more of a ritual based on repentance as part of the Prayer involves asking Allah for forgiveness for prior sins. Maybe the rain that you pray for represents washing away one's sins? I think that this Prayer may be unique to Arabia as I am not sure how widespread it is throughout the rest of the Islamic world, especially in places where they get lots of rain like Malaysia.
It was also reported that Qatar has now reached a population of 1.5 million. Considering two and half years ago when I arrived the population was just under a million it goes to show just how quickly this country is growing. The paper also reported that in the last month alone 28,000 people arrived, mostly labourers of course. Also of note was that they estimated that out of the 1.5 million people 1.18 million were men, which means that the gender ratio of men to women is close to 4:1, the highest such imbalance in the world. It can be a little unsettling to women at times, especially if you are in neighbourhoods popular with labourers such as the area just outside the Souq Waqif area, as there could literally be hundreds of men on the street and not a single woman to be seen. It also means that women can be subject to a lot of stares and leering. Couple that with strict enforcement against prostitution and "illicit relations" and you have thousands of frustrated men roaming around. I can see why women might be nervous walking around on their own.
As for my knees they are definitely improving now that I am doing proper exercises to strengthen the muscles, which has made me a happier person. One downside though is that I've had to stop swimming in the compound pool because it is just too bloody cold! The pool is unheated so the water is freezing, and the temperatures are starting to drop now so in a week or two it will be too uncomfortable to walk around without a jacket, let alone just wearing a swimsuit. I will have to find some other exercise to keep me busy for the next couple of months.
And finally the second Eid holiday has begun. I'm not sticking around in Qatar for this holiday. I have three days off work and couple that with the weekend and you got the makings of a nice getaway holiday. So I found myself a great deal to . . .
. . . ready . . .
Singapore! I leave tomorrow. Plans are to mostly relax and enjoy the food. A work colleague is from Singapore so he gave me a list of all sorts of great places to eat, as well as a couple of things to do. The Night Safari at the Zoo to see the nocturnal animals is a definite must as everyone who has been to Singapore has told me it is great. A bumboat tour of the river (apparantly there are boats called bumboats there), and a Singapore Sling at the Raffles hotel should be enough activity for a low-key relaxing trip. I'll blog about it when I get back.
Eid Mubarak to all those Muslims reading the blog, enjoy the holiday.
Well for starters the Museum of Islamic Art finally opened its doors to the public, after about three years of construction. I went there on Friday to meet with a friend and his wife and wander around. I must say it is a spectacular building. Well-designed, spacious, and the exhibits were nicely placed with a reasonable amount of space between them. While the museum is a decent size it is not so large as to cause "museum fatigue" which can happen at places like the British Museum or the Louvre, where there is just so much (albeit awesome) stuff it takes forever to see it all and you get tired. Your average tourist would probably go through the Islamic Museum in about three hours, more of course if they take the time to examine every item on display. We only went through about half of it since we knew we could come back some other time to see the rest. From what we saw there was a lot of pottery, carpets, jewellery, and calligraphy/books from various eras and places such as Spain, North Africa, Middle East, India, and Central Asia. Not a lot of paintings and sculpture but this is to be expected -- in many parts of the Islamic world art that depicted individuals was frowned upon for religious reasons. There were some exceptions such as paintings from Mughul India or the late Ottoman Empire, but by and large most Islamic artwork did not depict people. I will go back to the museum to finish seeing the rest of the exhibits in a few weeks when things have quieted down a bit.
It is nice that Doha is actually starting to shape up and have nice things/areas for people to go to. When I first arrived there was not much to do aside from going to a mall. Now there is Souq Waqif (a rebuilt Souq in the old classic style with a lot of restaurants and traditional shops), the Museum, and in the next couple of months the first phase of the Pearl will open (reclaimed land that will have a beautiful boardwalk with restaurants and shops). The W hotel will be opening soon and the Grand Hyatt resort is scheduled to open the first quarter of 2009. Not that I'm too fussed about hotels as they are always really expensive, but the Hyatt will have a Thai restaurant which I'm looking forward to as I have not been that impressed with the Thai food one can find here.
In other news earlier this week the Istisqaa Prayer (prayer for rain) was held. It is an annual ritual that dates back from the time of the Prophet and apparently a Sunnah mentions it. It was the first time I had heard about the Istisqaa Prayer but Qataris take this prayer seriously -- it was led by the Emir himself. Two days later we had a big thunderstorm and a whole heap of rain. You have to be careful what you wish for though, enough rain fell that many of the streets were flooded and there were a lot of car accidents.
I joked with a couple of my Qatari colleagues about the Prayer, asking whether they did any kind of dance akin to Western stereotypes about Native "rain dances", and they laughed and noted that it was simply a set of specific prayers. I learned later that the Prayer is not just about rain, it is a more of a ritual based on repentance as part of the Prayer involves asking Allah for forgiveness for prior sins. Maybe the rain that you pray for represents washing away one's sins? I think that this Prayer may be unique to Arabia as I am not sure how widespread it is throughout the rest of the Islamic world, especially in places where they get lots of rain like Malaysia.
It was also reported that Qatar has now reached a population of 1.5 million. Considering two and half years ago when I arrived the population was just under a million it goes to show just how quickly this country is growing. The paper also reported that in the last month alone 28,000 people arrived, mostly labourers of course. Also of note was that they estimated that out of the 1.5 million people 1.18 million were men, which means that the gender ratio of men to women is close to 4:1, the highest such imbalance in the world. It can be a little unsettling to women at times, especially if you are in neighbourhoods popular with labourers such as the area just outside the Souq Waqif area, as there could literally be hundreds of men on the street and not a single woman to be seen. It also means that women can be subject to a lot of stares and leering. Couple that with strict enforcement against prostitution and "illicit relations" and you have thousands of frustrated men roaming around. I can see why women might be nervous walking around on their own.
As for my knees they are definitely improving now that I am doing proper exercises to strengthen the muscles, which has made me a happier person. One downside though is that I've had to stop swimming in the compound pool because it is just too bloody cold! The pool is unheated so the water is freezing, and the temperatures are starting to drop now so in a week or two it will be too uncomfortable to walk around without a jacket, let alone just wearing a swimsuit. I will have to find some other exercise to keep me busy for the next couple of months.
And finally the second Eid holiday has begun. I'm not sticking around in Qatar for this holiday. I have three days off work and couple that with the weekend and you got the makings of a nice getaway holiday. So I found myself a great deal to . . .
. . . ready . . .
Singapore! I leave tomorrow. Plans are to mostly relax and enjoy the food. A work colleague is from Singapore so he gave me a list of all sorts of great places to eat, as well as a couple of things to do. The Night Safari at the Zoo to see the nocturnal animals is a definite must as everyone who has been to Singapore has told me it is great. A bumboat tour of the river (apparantly there are boats called bumboats there), and a Singapore Sling at the Raffles hotel should be enough activity for a low-key relaxing trip. I'll blog about it when I get back.
Eid Mubarak to all those Muslims reading the blog, enjoy the holiday.
So where are the pictures of the glyphs?
Once again the Compound computers were crashing out, and work computers block picture sites so hopefully this works . . .
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Rain & Glyphs
It finally rained! On Friday a few rainclouds went over the country and gave it the first decent rain since January. It was maybe 1 cm max but it was nice to have a bit of rain hit your face. Now I just have to get my car cleaned again -- the raindrops pick up the dust in the air so when it dries your car is all dusty. The air is clearer though.
This Friday I went out with the Qatar Natural History Group to see a group of petroglyphs in the north of the country at Jabal al Jassassiya. The glyphs had always been mentioned in tourist guides but I've been here almost three years and never went out to see them so I did not want to miss the field trip.
The glyphs are a number of carvings, date unknown, made into the limestone rocks. When they were first discovered back in the 60s there were over 900 of them, but for some inexplicable reason a company started blowing up the limestone mounds as part of a quarry. Now about half of the glyphs are gone but thankfully I do not believe there are any plans to blow up the rest.
The carvings are mostly on the ground rather than on vertical surfaces and most of the carvings are of two themes -- boats shown from above, and a series of dots, usually 7x2 (like this ::::::: ). What the dots represent no one is quite sure of, there is some speculation it was for a game as the placement and spacing of the dots is similar to an African game. Others have pointed out that some of the series of dots are carved in the angles of the rock that would make them useless for holding counters. Because they cannot be dated, and no archaeological expedition has been undertaken to try to see if there was a nearby village or settlement, the origins of the carvings remain a mystery.
They were interesting to see as they were a lot bigger than I thought, some of them were over a foot long so would have taken a bit of effort to carve. Tonight I'll attach a couple of pictures that I took of the glyphs, hopefully you can see them and not a big red X.
This Friday I went out with the Qatar Natural History Group to see a group of petroglyphs in the north of the country at Jabal al Jassassiya. The glyphs had always been mentioned in tourist guides but I've been here almost three years and never went out to see them so I did not want to miss the field trip.
The glyphs are a number of carvings, date unknown, made into the limestone rocks. When they were first discovered back in the 60s there were over 900 of them, but for some inexplicable reason a company started blowing up the limestone mounds as part of a quarry. Now about half of the glyphs are gone but thankfully I do not believe there are any plans to blow up the rest.
The carvings are mostly on the ground rather than on vertical surfaces and most of the carvings are of two themes -- boats shown from above, and a series of dots, usually 7x2 (like this ::::::: ). What the dots represent no one is quite sure of, there is some speculation it was for a game as the placement and spacing of the dots is similar to an African game. Others have pointed out that some of the series of dots are carved in the angles of the rock that would make them useless for holding counters. Because they cannot be dated, and no archaeological expedition has been undertaken to try to see if there was a nearby village or settlement, the origins of the carvings remain a mystery.
They were interesting to see as they were a lot bigger than I thought, some of them were over a foot long so would have taken a bit of effort to carve. Tonight I'll attach a couple of pictures that I took of the glyphs, hopefully you can see them and not a big red X.
Friday, November 28, 2008
End of November updates
So far the changes I've taken to help heal my knees have been going well. Every day I have been doing my isometric exercises, balance exercises, and swimming 10 laps of the compound pool (yes, a lap is to the end and back). One positive thing that should keep me doing the exercises is that after a day at the office my knees feel sore but after doing the exercises they feel better, so I start doing some my exercises as soon as I return home. My sister also sent me some other exercises and I have been starting to try them out. Hopefully they help as well. I don't think I will be able to get into physiotherapy until January because the physiotherapists here are very busy.
As for the diet it is also going well. Breakfast is a small bowl of healthy cereal, no dipping into the snacks at work, and lunch has been usually a chicken taco salad (no sour cream and I do not eat the bowl). Since lunch is my "big" meal as well as my daily source of protein dinner is usually a couple of slices of wholegrain bread, a banana and an apple. If I manage to stick to eating along these lines then the weight should gradually come off. My only lapse has been on Wednesday, when my friend Serdar offered a chocolate-covered marzipan that he brought back from Germany, and one of my Qatari colleagues was going around offering every one fresh dates stuffed with walnuts. I didn't think I could refuse when an Arab offers you dates, y'know? The other days at work I was good.
Let's see how this goes, my knees are definitely feeling better than they were last week so I'm not complaining.
In other news the men's Tennis tournament has been announced for January 5-January 12, and both Federer and Nadal are scheduled to play! This would mean that in the span of two months I will have seen both the top two men's and ladies tennis players. I sure hope they can both make it, I have never seen either one of them play before so I'm looking forward to watching their matches.
The property market in Dubai is starting to reel, and I don't think anyone is pretending it is not going to go down. Conservative estimates are 20%, while I have heard estimates as much as 60%. Banks in the region have really tightened their lending for mortgages and hundreds have been laid off from the real estate developers. There is even some concern that if the crash is big enough it will take a few regional banks with it and everyone is analysing bank financial statements to see how exposed they are to real estate. The three big property developers in Dubai have already agreed to scale back the completion dates for many projects so that further oversupply does not hit the market. However I think this means that anyone who put a down payment on an apartment in said projects is out of luck -- their apartment or villa will be delayed likely for a year or more and I highly doubt they will be getting whatever money they paid back. Let's see how this plays out over the next few weeks.
As for the diet it is also going well. Breakfast is a small bowl of healthy cereal, no dipping into the snacks at work, and lunch has been usually a chicken taco salad (no sour cream and I do not eat the bowl). Since lunch is my "big" meal as well as my daily source of protein dinner is usually a couple of slices of wholegrain bread, a banana and an apple. If I manage to stick to eating along these lines then the weight should gradually come off. My only lapse has been on Wednesday, when my friend Serdar offered a chocolate-covered marzipan that he brought back from Germany, and one of my Qatari colleagues was going around offering every one fresh dates stuffed with walnuts. I didn't think I could refuse when an Arab offers you dates, y'know? The other days at work I was good.
Let's see how this goes, my knees are definitely feeling better than they were last week so I'm not complaining.
In other news the men's Tennis tournament has been announced for January 5-January 12, and both Federer and Nadal are scheduled to play! This would mean that in the span of two months I will have seen both the top two men's and ladies tennis players. I sure hope they can both make it, I have never seen either one of them play before so I'm looking forward to watching their matches.
The property market in Dubai is starting to reel, and I don't think anyone is pretending it is not going to go down. Conservative estimates are 20%, while I have heard estimates as much as 60%. Banks in the region have really tightened their lending for mortgages and hundreds have been laid off from the real estate developers. There is even some concern that if the crash is big enough it will take a few regional banks with it and everyone is analysing bank financial statements to see how exposed they are to real estate. The three big property developers in Dubai have already agreed to scale back the completion dates for many projects so that further oversupply does not hit the market. However I think this means that anyone who put a down payment on an apartment in said projects is out of luck -- their apartment or villa will be delayed likely for a year or more and I highly doubt they will be getting whatever money they paid back. Let's see how this plays out over the next few weeks.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Hajj
Last week I saw an ad in the local paper for a lecture on the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) at the Islamic Cultural Centre. I remember some of my Qatari colleagues telling me about all the little rituals and things you had to do during Hajj so I figured I'd go to the lecture to hear about all the details. The city of Mecca is closed to non-Muslims so going to a lecture about the Hajj is probably the closest thing I'm going to get since there is no way I will be able to actually witness it.
The Islamic Cultural Centre actually has a really nice lecture hall capable of holding at least 300 or 400 people at the ground level, with an upper tier that can probably hold another 100 to 150. Men sat on the ground level while women sat in the upper tier. I guess at least a hundred men or more showed up for the lecture, a number of women were there as well but I'm not sure how many. The lecturer was Dr. Bilal Phillips, a Canadian who converted to Islam in the early 1970s and became an Islamic scholar.
It turns out the lecture was part of a series that was being held throughout the week to prepare pilgrims for the Hajj, which is in early December. Unfortunately this lecture was about the historical/religious underpinnings for why the Hajj takes place. Dr. Phillips was very specific in the Q&A that people not ask about specific details as that would be covered in two other lectures later that week. Thus the talk didn't have the kind of stuff I was hoping to hear discussed but it still was pretty good. The first part of it was more like a sermon, discussing the story of the prophet Abraham and his second wife Hagar. There were a few stabs at Christianity and the Bible, discussing how some of the biblical accounts had to be wrong since prophets such as Abraham and Soloman would never act in a manner depicted in the Bible. There were also attacks against the Catholic rites of confession, with Dr Phillips pointing out that only Allah (God) can forgive sins, a man (i.e. a priest) cannot grant forgiveness for sins.
I was not fussed by the criticisms of Christianity. The Qur'an states that the Bible cannot be relied upon because priests have modified the text over the centuries, thus the actual message of God has been lost (according to the Qur'an this was why God chose to reveal His word to the prophet Muhammed because the Bible does not truly reflect His word). So it came as no surprise to me that an Islamic scholar would say that biblical accounts are incorrect, it is a core belief of the religion. The stuff about Catholicism was unexpected for a lecture about the Hajj but again I wouldn't expect an Islamic scholar to be overly positive about catholic rituals -- heck most other denominations of Christianity are not positive on them either.
For me the most interesting part was the question and answer as it revealed a few details I was not aware of about the Hajj, or the views of other Islamic societies towards it.
-- you can do the Hajj on behalf of someone else, even a deceased person, but then it does not count as your Hajj
-- you can do the Hajj multiple times for yourself if you have the opportunity, but it is the first one that counts the most
-- it is a requirement in the Qur'an that any Muslim who has the opportunity to do so (and can afford it) must perform it at least once in their life. Therefore if someone offers to pay for your Hajj you should not instead use the money for other expenses like food for your family etc. as you are now being given the opportunity to perform the Hajj.
-- similarly, you should not hold off performing the Hajj until you have finished things like marrying off your daughters. If you have the means and the opportunity to perform Hajj then you should do so and it should take precedence above other matters.
-- an Umrah is a similar ritual to the Hajj, but performed on different days than the Hajj is supposed to (i.e. going to Mecca and performing the pilgrimage at a different time of the year). If one has the means and opportunity to perform Umrah, but not Hajj, then by all means perform Umrah, then start saving for Hajj. Dr Phillips noted that you if you don't you have no idea what is going to happen in the future, you might die suddenly, at which point you performed neither the Umrah nor the Hajj.
-- an Umrah does not take the place of a Hajj, but is still a valuable ritual
-- part of the ritual requires drinking water from some sacred source in ?Mecca? called "Zamzam". Dr Phillips was against Muslims doing things like bathing themselves in it, bottling some for later, or washing a shroud in it so that when you die you can be buried in a "blessed" shroud. None of these things are mentioned in the ancient Islamic teachings. Also, the water is unlikely to heal people so should not be seen as some healing fountain or Fountain of Youth. Dr Phillips noted that while some people have had medical problems that they claimed were cured by drinking Zamzam many people have not been cured, ancient Islamic accounts do not mention miraculous cures from the water, and similar claims of miraculous healings have occurred at non-Islamic places (for example Lourdes).
-- it is okay to be assisted during the Hajj if for medical reasons or age you are unable to do all the walking on your own. In ancient times you could perform the Hajj riding a camel, but nowadays you can't because there are too many pilgrims.
-- if you mess up one of the rituals there are apparently various atonements that you can do afterwards to make up for the error.
While I am intrigued about what other details there are to the Hajj I am not sure if I will attend the other lectures. It seemed to me from listening to Dr Phillips that the subsequent lectures really are meant for Muslims about to go on the pilgrimage, so I am hesitant to intrude. I will talk to my Qatari colleagues and see what they have to say.
The Islamic Cultural Centre actually has a really nice lecture hall capable of holding at least 300 or 400 people at the ground level, with an upper tier that can probably hold another 100 to 150. Men sat on the ground level while women sat in the upper tier. I guess at least a hundred men or more showed up for the lecture, a number of women were there as well but I'm not sure how many. The lecturer was Dr. Bilal Phillips, a Canadian who converted to Islam in the early 1970s and became an Islamic scholar.
It turns out the lecture was part of a series that was being held throughout the week to prepare pilgrims for the Hajj, which is in early December. Unfortunately this lecture was about the historical/religious underpinnings for why the Hajj takes place. Dr. Phillips was very specific in the Q&A that people not ask about specific details as that would be covered in two other lectures later that week. Thus the talk didn't have the kind of stuff I was hoping to hear discussed but it still was pretty good. The first part of it was more like a sermon, discussing the story of the prophet Abraham and his second wife Hagar. There were a few stabs at Christianity and the Bible, discussing how some of the biblical accounts had to be wrong since prophets such as Abraham and Soloman would never act in a manner depicted in the Bible. There were also attacks against the Catholic rites of confession, with Dr Phillips pointing out that only Allah (God) can forgive sins, a man (i.e. a priest) cannot grant forgiveness for sins.
I was not fussed by the criticisms of Christianity. The Qur'an states that the Bible cannot be relied upon because priests have modified the text over the centuries, thus the actual message of God has been lost (according to the Qur'an this was why God chose to reveal His word to the prophet Muhammed because the Bible does not truly reflect His word). So it came as no surprise to me that an Islamic scholar would say that biblical accounts are incorrect, it is a core belief of the religion. The stuff about Catholicism was unexpected for a lecture about the Hajj but again I wouldn't expect an Islamic scholar to be overly positive about catholic rituals -- heck most other denominations of Christianity are not positive on them either.
For me the most interesting part was the question and answer as it revealed a few details I was not aware of about the Hajj, or the views of other Islamic societies towards it.
-- you can do the Hajj on behalf of someone else, even a deceased person, but then it does not count as your Hajj
-- you can do the Hajj multiple times for yourself if you have the opportunity, but it is the first one that counts the most
-- it is a requirement in the Qur'an that any Muslim who has the opportunity to do so (and can afford it) must perform it at least once in their life. Therefore if someone offers to pay for your Hajj you should not instead use the money for other expenses like food for your family etc. as you are now being given the opportunity to perform the Hajj.
-- similarly, you should not hold off performing the Hajj until you have finished things like marrying off your daughters. If you have the means and the opportunity to perform Hajj then you should do so and it should take precedence above other matters.
-- an Umrah is a similar ritual to the Hajj, but performed on different days than the Hajj is supposed to (i.e. going to Mecca and performing the pilgrimage at a different time of the year). If one has the means and opportunity to perform Umrah, but not Hajj, then by all means perform Umrah, then start saving for Hajj. Dr Phillips noted that you if you don't you have no idea what is going to happen in the future, you might die suddenly, at which point you performed neither the Umrah nor the Hajj.
-- an Umrah does not take the place of a Hajj, but is still a valuable ritual
-- part of the ritual requires drinking water from some sacred source in ?Mecca? called "Zamzam". Dr Phillips was against Muslims doing things like bathing themselves in it, bottling some for later, or washing a shroud in it so that when you die you can be buried in a "blessed" shroud. None of these things are mentioned in the ancient Islamic teachings. Also, the water is unlikely to heal people so should not be seen as some healing fountain or Fountain of Youth. Dr Phillips noted that while some people have had medical problems that they claimed were cured by drinking Zamzam many people have not been cured, ancient Islamic accounts do not mention miraculous cures from the water, and similar claims of miraculous healings have occurred at non-Islamic places (for example Lourdes).
-- it is okay to be assisted during the Hajj if for medical reasons or age you are unable to do all the walking on your own. In ancient times you could perform the Hajj riding a camel, but nowadays you can't because there are too many pilgrims.
-- if you mess up one of the rituals there are apparently various atonements that you can do afterwards to make up for the error.
While I am intrigued about what other details there are to the Hajj I am not sure if I will attend the other lectures. It seemed to me from listening to Dr Phillips that the subsequent lectures really are meant for Muslims about to go on the pilgrimage, so I am hesitant to intrude. I will talk to my Qatari colleagues and see what they have to say.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
While all of you up in Canada and Europe sit there shivering in perhaps the latest cold snap I am proud to announce that I have finally turned off my air conditioners. The temperature has finally dropped consistently below 30°C and now the evenings are pretty pleasant, so I no longer need the air conditioners on during the day and can sleep without one during the night. And it only took until late-November.
Health update
Well I got back from the doctor and, not surprisingly, I need to do more physiotherapy and work harder at this. I explained to him the exercise programme I had been undergoing with my physiotherapist and then three weeks after I stopped physiotherapy I did my exercises (exercise bike) and the next day my knees were in agony. I figured I was pushing myself too much so did not exercise for the next two weeks to let the knees rest and heal. The doctor was not happy with me for that.
Apparently there are three ways I can do this: not exercise (bad), exercise but do it incorrectly (very bad), and exercise properly (good). He figures what was happening was that the exercise bike had too large of a radius on the pedals so I was either straightening my leg out completely on the bike, which is not good because it rubs the kneecap into the cartlidge, or I was bending the knee too much, which is also bad because it pushes the kneecap into the cartlidge. I need to make sure that I do neither of those things because it will make the injury a lot worse, as I discovered. But stopping exercise is also bad because the only way I will get better is if the quadricep muscles strengthen to help hold the kneecap steadier.
Then it was time for the Serious Talk. My legs are not perfectly straight and the knees bend inward a little. (I think it is genetic as I recall my father had problems with his knees as well.) This causes the bones and the knee to rub a little more against the medial cartlidge than it should, wearing down the cartlidge and causing inflammation. While this is the first time I have had this pain in my knees it was only a matter of time. The injury from the hiking and walking around during my summer vacation only highlighted the issue early, even if that hadn't happened I would have been in the same situation maybe a few years later. So the doctor said to consider this as a very early stage osteoarthrosis (i.e. arthritis). It is likely that sometime in the future I will develop arthritis in the knee joints. How long in the future depends on me, if I do not take this seriously and don't do the right exercises and strengthening then arthritis will set in early, do the right thing and it could be a long time (?decades?), if ever. But this is not a problem that will just go away, my knees will never just "feel better after a rest" and then I can go back to living the way I did before. I have got to keep up a proper exercise regimen to prevent this occurring in the future. He was even using terms like "it will help reduce the pain and discomfort and make it more manageable".
Make it more manageable!?! Arthritis!? Never go away!? *Ack*
So that was that. More physiotherapy, proper exercise, take this seriously. I also have an MRI scheduled for late December just to see how much the cartlidge is damaged.
Surprisingly I took it rather positively. I think it's because I'm one of those types of people who would rather know what was going on, even if it was not a great diagnosis, then be in discomfort and have no idea what was going on. Uncertainty makes me nervous. So having more information such as why I was in agony after exercising a few weeks back was really helpful and made me feel relieved. We had a long talk about proper exercises and other things to do. I left his office feeling fairly upbeat to be honest, which on reflection is strange considering I have a chronic long-term problem.
So that means it is time for serious changes:
1) Physiotherapy. I did six sessions before, the doctor told me that was not enough and I should be doing a lot more.
2) Exercise. Something I've always done but now the type of exercise has got to change.
Out: running, hiking/long walks, stairclimber
In: swimming, isometrics, exercise bike (proper size, might have to buy one)
Maybe: weight training (doc warned me that if I do weights it is VERY important I do that properly because if I don't it will really mess my knees up)
3) Take care in how I sit at work, I should avoid folding my legs under the chair as that bends the knees a lot.
4) Lose weight. Simple logic, the less you weigh the less stress there is on the knees.
Now I have always been on the overweight side but never obese (according to BMI). Like many people I lose weight and regain it, and so on. Unlike most people that yo-yo-ing is only in a range of 10-12kg (22-27 pounds). I think in the last 10 years I have never been out of that range. Time for that to change, and that will likely be the hardest part of this all. But I've started already -- the fridge is now full of fresh fruit and vegetables. For the last two days I have been cutting back on portions, and will tell friends and colleagues why I am dieting so that hopefully they will help stop me if I start reaching for the treats and snacks that seem to flow frequently around the workplace. Hopefully after a few months my weight will have dropped a decent amount.
And so starts a new beginning...
Apparently there are three ways I can do this: not exercise (bad), exercise but do it incorrectly (very bad), and exercise properly (good). He figures what was happening was that the exercise bike had too large of a radius on the pedals so I was either straightening my leg out completely on the bike, which is not good because it rubs the kneecap into the cartlidge, or I was bending the knee too much, which is also bad because it pushes the kneecap into the cartlidge. I need to make sure that I do neither of those things because it will make the injury a lot worse, as I discovered. But stopping exercise is also bad because the only way I will get better is if the quadricep muscles strengthen to help hold the kneecap steadier.
Then it was time for the Serious Talk. My legs are not perfectly straight and the knees bend inward a little. (I think it is genetic as I recall my father had problems with his knees as well.) This causes the bones and the knee to rub a little more against the medial cartlidge than it should, wearing down the cartlidge and causing inflammation. While this is the first time I have had this pain in my knees it was only a matter of time. The injury from the hiking and walking around during my summer vacation only highlighted the issue early, even if that hadn't happened I would have been in the same situation maybe a few years later. So the doctor said to consider this as a very early stage osteoarthrosis (i.e. arthritis). It is likely that sometime in the future I will develop arthritis in the knee joints. How long in the future depends on me, if I do not take this seriously and don't do the right exercises and strengthening then arthritis will set in early, do the right thing and it could be a long time (?decades?), if ever. But this is not a problem that will just go away, my knees will never just "feel better after a rest" and then I can go back to living the way I did before. I have got to keep up a proper exercise regimen to prevent this occurring in the future. He was even using terms like "it will help reduce the pain and discomfort and make it more manageable".
Make it more manageable!?! Arthritis!? Never go away!? *Ack*
So that was that. More physiotherapy, proper exercise, take this seriously. I also have an MRI scheduled for late December just to see how much the cartlidge is damaged.
Surprisingly I took it rather positively. I think it's because I'm one of those types of people who would rather know what was going on, even if it was not a great diagnosis, then be in discomfort and have no idea what was going on. Uncertainty makes me nervous. So having more information such as why I was in agony after exercising a few weeks back was really helpful and made me feel relieved. We had a long talk about proper exercises and other things to do. I left his office feeling fairly upbeat to be honest, which on reflection is strange considering I have a chronic long-term problem.
So that means it is time for serious changes:
1) Physiotherapy. I did six sessions before, the doctor told me that was not enough and I should be doing a lot more.
2) Exercise. Something I've always done but now the type of exercise has got to change.
Out: running, hiking/long walks, stairclimber
In: swimming, isometrics, exercise bike (proper size, might have to buy one)
Maybe: weight training (doc warned me that if I do weights it is VERY important I do that properly because if I don't it will really mess my knees up)
3) Take care in how I sit at work, I should avoid folding my legs under the chair as that bends the knees a lot.
4) Lose weight. Simple logic, the less you weigh the less stress there is on the knees.
Now I have always been on the overweight side but never obese (according to BMI). Like many people I lose weight and regain it, and so on. Unlike most people that yo-yo-ing is only in a range of 10-12kg (22-27 pounds). I think in the last 10 years I have never been out of that range. Time for that to change, and that will likely be the hardest part of this all. But I've started already -- the fridge is now full of fresh fruit and vegetables. For the last two days I have been cutting back on portions, and will tell friends and colleagues why I am dieting so that hopefully they will help stop me if I start reaching for the treats and snacks that seem to flow frequently around the workplace. Hopefully after a few months my weight will have dropped a decent amount.
And so starts a new beginning...
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Camping Qatari-style
I was speaking to one of my Qatari colleagues the other day about his plans for the weekend and he said that he was probably going to go camping with his friends. That sounded intriguing, I did not know young Qataris go camping in the desert, so I asked him more about camping in Qatar. The conversation kind of went something like this.
(me jokingly) " so how do you guys camp, a big tent with an air conditioner?"
"No, it's cool enough now that we don't need one, but we will have a generator"
"A generator? What for?"
"Well for the lights and the television."
"Television?! You guys are going to bring a television?"
"Yeah, one of my friends is going to bring one."
(laughing) "What, you guys have a satellite dish or something as well?"
"No"
"So why bring a television?"
"Well my friend had better bring one because I'm bringing my Xbox."
(laughing, then sarcastically) "Sounds like you guys are really roughing it! And do you have servants do the cooking for you as well?"
"One of my friends is looking for one to bring along."
"Huh . . . WHAT?! He is going to bring a servant?! What for??"
"For the cooking and cleaning. I don't have a problem with doing it myself but some of my friends don't know how to cook, so if only some of you are doing the cooking and cleaning it will just lead to arguments, in which case it is better to have someone else do it." . . . "and he can watch our stuff while we are away at the dunes."
"ummmmmm . . . let me get this straight. Camping = a big tent with a generator, a television with Xbox, and a servant doing all the cooking and cleaning."
"Yeah, it's fun."
I joked that setting up a tent on the beach of the 5-star Sharq Resort would be roughing it more -- you would have waiter service but not have electricity.
Is he pulling my leg? Maybe, but he is a decent guy and devout Muslim so is not the type who would usually make up extravagant lies as a practical joke. If anyone out there can verify the Qatari "camping" experience let me know. It sure is a heck of a lot different than what Canadians consider camping.
(me jokingly) " so how do you guys camp, a big tent with an air conditioner?"
"No, it's cool enough now that we don't need one, but we will have a generator"
"A generator? What for?"
"Well for the lights and the television."
"Television?! You guys are going to bring a television?"
"Yeah, one of my friends is going to bring one."
(laughing) "What, you guys have a satellite dish or something as well?"
"No"
"So why bring a television?"
"Well my friend had better bring one because I'm bringing my Xbox."
(laughing, then sarcastically) "Sounds like you guys are really roughing it! And do you have servants do the cooking for you as well?"
"One of my friends is looking for one to bring along."
"Huh . . . WHAT?! He is going to bring a servant?! What for??"
"For the cooking and cleaning. I don't have a problem with doing it myself but some of my friends don't know how to cook, so if only some of you are doing the cooking and cleaning it will just lead to arguments, in which case it is better to have someone else do it." . . . "and he can watch our stuff while we are away at the dunes."
"ummmmmm . . . let me get this straight. Camping = a big tent with a generator, a television with Xbox, and a servant doing all the cooking and cleaning."
"Yeah, it's fun."
I joked that setting up a tent on the beach of the 5-star Sharq Resort would be roughing it more -- you would have waiter service but not have electricity.
Is he pulling my leg? Maybe, but he is a decent guy and devout Muslim so is not the type who would usually make up extravagant lies as a practical joke. If anyone out there can verify the Qatari "camping" experience let me know. It sure is a heck of a lot different than what Canadians consider camping.
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