Pottery and Palestine

It’s all about Palestine of late. The 60^th Anniversary of the Nakba (meaning “catastrophe”, the Arab term for the creation of Israel) has loomed large. Al Jazeera gave it 14 straight days of coverage. A friend of ours made a documentary about it for the English channel and got Darren Jordan, who used to be Mr 6 o’clock news, to do his voice-over – very smooth. The Qatar Red Crescent put on a ‘film festival’ which showed an unashamedly propagandist short film about East Jerusalem and a slightly better documentary called 9 Star Hotel about young Palestinians sneaking across the wall to work on new-build Israeli towns whilst camping in the mountains, occasionally being pursued by Israeli Army or Secret Police who send them back to the West Bank, where there are no jobs.

Fittingly we spent an evening last week with a Palestinian Al Jazeera journalist and his family at their house. We were thinking supper. We got there, sat around on the huge, dark velvet sofas that Arab families love so much (with very bright overhead lights on) and chatted in Arabic which was testing (for me) after so long of doing everything in English. After a little while the maid bought us all plates of fruit. Interesting, we thought. Not the usual starter, but let’s go with the flow. So we munched some melon, a few plums, thinking that we mustn’t eat too much because these things so often progress to you being offered enough food to feed Ethiopia. Fruit disappeared, but rather than the expected hummus, out come huge slabs of chocolate cake, with mint tea. Ah, so it’s not supper. We work our way through the cake, and move on to cups of coffee. I don’t drink coffee. I never have drunk coffee. But what can you do? Luckily this coffee had so much milk and sugar in it that it tasted more like hot chocolate, but unluckily a thick skin formed on the top of it and both Mr A and I flopped the skin all over our faces when we drank it. Later, Mr A said our host had sounded hesitant when he suggested 8pm - presumably they’d eaten their huge meal a couple of hours before we arrived. In the end we ate big bowls of chilli con carne at home at 11.30pm. Anyway, the 14 year old daughter of our host spent the evening showing me Palestinian Debki dancing and almost salivating over (admittedly quite hot) young Palestinian men.

The Qataris love a bit of Middle-East peace process action too: only last month the Israeli foreign minister was rather controversially here. But this week we got up close and personal with a co-founder of Hamas, at a BBC World “Doha Debate”. Interesting questions asked by the audience, a wide range of attitudes, but almost every answer he gave involved giving a lengthy description of what the Israelis had done first, before saying anything about Hamas. All a bit depressingly repetitive. So maybe that concludes our Palestinian focus for a while. Or maybe not – the Palestine/Israel issue is always around when living in the Arab world…

In less heavy news, we have been busy as bees. Since my last post, we had a friend to stay from London and took him to Dunestock – Qatar’s answer to Woodstock. Only it’s in a desert, solely attended by foreigners and the bands playing could charitably be described as enthusiastic. The set-up was actually pretty amazing, but sadly, it was also at the epicentre of a sandstorm which meant we were pelted by painful winds for an hour, listened to a dire man with a guitar and then left. I think we gave our guest a unique experience.

We celebrated HM Queen’s Birthday at a big party where only two guests accidentally submerged themselves to waist level in landscaped water features; otherwise it was a great success. At the end of the evening, we gave a lift in a taxi to two guests with no other transport. Since there five of us fitting in to a small car, I had to sit on Mr A’s lap, squashed in the back with these two men who I hadn’t yet met. As I attempted to look as small as possible so we weren’t stopped by police, I turned to them and asked ‘so, are you guys journalists?’. Reply from older gentleman on other side of back seat: ‘um, no, actually I’m an obscure backbench MP’. Argh…

Continuing my education in the ways of the establishment, I’ve now also been to a cocktail party on a British Navy ship, a slightly bizarre event – so many sailors, all in their white uniforms which just always look a little teensy bit camp. We drank gin and tonics, advised them on the best drinking places in Doha, and admired the helicopter on deck. Someone blew a loud whistle whenever anyone important came onboard. Weird shit.

Then we went to Muscat for a couple of days for my very late Christmas present. We stayed at the Chedi hotel which is THE most amazing hotel (and the most expensive) we have ever stayed in. Everything about it was beautiful – the buildings, the food, the pools, the beach, the way they fold your towels on the sun loungers, the way they bring ice to your room at 6pm for Gin and Tonics, the dressing gowns, the massages. I could go on.

We went on a boat and saw loads of dolphins but the splendour of the hotel meant we found it quite difficult to leave. We were determined to visit the Grand Mosque, but left it too late and failed. We did get to the souq, and marvelled that we must have acclimatised since we found the 41 degree heat manageable.

Less beautiful was the major eye infection Mr A contracted, which meant a visit to the doctor and a huge white bandage over one eye – disabled-pirate-style – for 48 hours. Or the stomach bug and bladder infection that I developed, leading to a temperature over 100 and some strong antibiotics. Luckily, the infection didn’t really take hold until we returned to Doha and I went to see a doctor who gave me a magical injection in my bum which made everything better. My sister arrived as the fever was subsiding, just in time to make me numerous cups of tea and watch endless episodes of ER. This helped me to forget my frustration at having read 90% of a Boris Johnson novel before leaving it on the plane. I was going to ask for it at Lost Property, but then couldn’t bring myself to explain I was reading a book about Islamic terrorism called ’72 Virgins’. Serves me right for reading Boris in the first place.

Sister stayed for 10 whole days so got to experience Doha in it’s fullest – shopping malls, fast food restaurants, beach (taken there by Mr A who made her walk up and down rocky outcrops before finding a small cove adorned with rubbish and sandflies), drunken dhow trips (with Al Jazeera people where she failed to follow a single conversation about Middle East politics), swimming in the sea in her pants, brunches with men dressed as elephants. She was an awesome guest – getting shopping from the supermarket, cooking us supper (for some reason wearing a Lambeth Council recycling bag as an apron). She was here for my birthday, and I was allowed to drink champagne after speaking to Doctor Dad who advised ‘one or two glasses shouldn’t be a problem’. Hurrah. We went to an Italian restaurant where the Phillipino waiters (in white jump suits) sang Happy Birthday while a huge fire cracker on top of a slice of cheesecake burnt away. I took sister to the fabric souq where she tried to buy some of the ugliest fabric I’ve ever seen and we bartered away with the Qatari ladies. We bought keffiyehs as presents for people in London ( cheaper than Topshop - email me your orders) and she came for a drink with some friends of ours to be told she was ‘as cute as a button’. All in a days work for mini-Ajnabiya.

I’ve been taking a pottery class every weekend with a friend, where we’ve been very carefully making pots that look like the work of 5 year olds. It was fun though – the class was small, a mixture of British, American, Lebanese and Qatari. The Qataris are a lovely young couple: the husband got really into it and bought books on the internet about building your own kiln, which he may do later in the year on some of his ‘spare’ land.

On a more cultural note, we went to an exhibition of photographs of Yemen in a little-used Palace. It had almost no publicity and was only on for a month so we weren’t expecting much. The palace is a little worn down, and we were the only visitors when we went but, as is typical in Doha, when the authorities decide to do something, they do it properly. Stunning photographs were beautifully displayed in specially constructed rooms, with (expensive) lighting, projections, sound effects. It made us desperate to visit Yemen if only it was a little less unsafe at the moment. On our way out the security guard asked if we’d like to see some photos of Qatar, and led us across a deserted courtyard with abandoned pavilions to a specially built room with loads of historical photographs of Doha from the last 70 years, and presented us with specially printed books about the exhibition. Obviously barely touched since it was put together for the Asian Games in 2006, some of the photos are peeling off the wall. It’s so peculiar that places like this exist, ready to go, yet they aren’t open to visitors, in a city with NO museums.

We continue to observe the progess of the Pearl – the ‘rediscovered island’, about 20 multi storey towers being built on reclaimed land – from our balcony.

We went to the beach last weekend and, miraculously, managed to have a lovely afternoon with a light breeze and minimal jet skis racing past. A Phillipina and her husband Mike, who is possibly feeling a bit unloved, had obviously got there before us.

At work, I have realised that I shouldn’t visit sites mid-morning as all the workers have a nap, or sit in big circles eating their lunches out of tiffin boxes. I always come across little packages of food waiting to be eaten in side rooms. At one site, they seem to love writing on various building materials……

On a more immediate note, I’ve just come back from the hairdresser where my request for a quick trim has resulted in full-on Lebanese-style coiffure. The man spent at least half an hour blowdrying, hairspraying and titivating. I noted four different potions, at least half a can of hairspray, and a lot of backcombing. It now feels like a wig and the cloud of toxic hairspray encircling my face is making me feel nauseous. Better get in the shower……

We’ll be in London mid-July for a couple of weeks. Hope to see lots of you then…

Xx

P.S. My resolution for June is to write less, more often, so it hopefully won’t be almost two months before the next post…..