Abayas and avocados

Assalaam aleiykum,

Greetings from Doha. I hope this finds you all well.

We continue to settle in to Doha. Perhaps we are now settled, but in the absence of any definable criteria it’s difficult to tell. I have been working away on an interior design project with a client who wants the building finished as soon as possible but never makes a decision about anything. I went to a meeting with a Qatari gentleman who is building a new house for himself, his wife and his youngest daughter. It’s on a new development – the ‘rediscovered island’ called The Pearl. ‘Rediscovered’ seems to be stretching the definition of the word – it’s a brand new series of islands much like the World or the Palm in Dubai. It’s going to be Doha’s ‘premier address’, so it’s lucky there will be plenty of place for people to revel in being premier – they’re building at least 20 identical multi-storey towers. Anyway, this guy is building this enormous villa for himself (8 bedrooms, multiple reception rooms, servant quarters etc) and has bought the 5 adjacent plots so his married sons and daughters can build their homes nearby. His house will include an outside swimming pool, and an underground ‘den’ which has a big window opening on to the swimming pool so you can see people swimming underwater. Is that a bit weird?

Otherwise, I’ve been working on an office-refurbishment which is on site at the moment. I visited last week to check construction progress. Visiting sites in the UK was always a pretty male affair, but here you would have thought a wild animal had just walked in judging by the look of awe/surprise on the face of builders. I think the clients find it a bit strange too – an Egyptian guy swore (mildly) in front of me last week during a meeting before apologising profusely and saying it’s just because he’s not used to working around women.

Mr A has been busy too. His office has moved to a spanking new building where the air conditioning works and it’s not a national disgrace to invite someone to a meeting. He’s realising the lack of work/life separation when living in post, as everyone we ever meet asks his opinion about the latest political issue, hoping they’ll get some titbit from him that they haven’t yet read in the press. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they get the longest, most diplomatic explanation. That’ll teach them to ask questions.

The day-to-day reality of living in Qatar continues to amaze/ divert/ amuse. I sat next to a Qatari family having lunch in a shopping mall where the mother was wearing a full-black abaya, with a huge diamante ‘DIOR’ on the back. You can bet that it was probably genuine. Her daughter were all eating Café Paul cakes, or not eating them because the portion of cake was huge and the girls were tiny, so the Philipina maid (who was about the same size as the 7 year old) was eating the cake remains. Driving around, I have got used to seeing at least one Hummer a day. Generally being driven by a Qatari man on his own, stopping off to buy some chicken shwarma. I’m sure that’s exactly what the military designers had in mind when they finalised the bullet-proof exterior. In the local press, they are careful to keep astride of breaking news. Page 3: Brigadier Honours Young Qatari National (who handed a wallet he found in the street).

The weather here is a total mystery. Some days it is beautifully sunny and if you go outside in the middle of the day, it’s hot. Mid-February, it was truly appalling (ah, the shimaal wind, the old-timers say knowingly). It was really windy, cold and there was yet more fog. Leaving work one day Mr A warned me to be careful of the fog. I said I would, thinking to myself that he really was a bit worrisome since there was near-perfect visibility outside my office. I merrily started driving home, and steadily saw less and less. I can’t remember ever being in such visible, thick clouds, only they are around your car rather than up in the sky. I could see the clouds being blown by the wind, and could literally only see about 1m in front. On the corniche, usually fast moving, everyone was driving at 30km/hr with their hazards on. The only time I’ve been followed by a Hummer, rather than seeing the back of it as it overtakes on the inside. (photos show the view from our balcony before- and after- superfog).

We chose the beginning of this weather-phenomenon to go to a beach in the North. It wasn’t at all warm, so we walked along it rather than sunbathing on it. This gave us the opportunity to see what a well-liked Qatari beach is all about – a long line of tents and portaloos on the sand with the odd abandoned vintage car.

Some of them have installed 3-piece suites to ensure a sea-side view in a comfortable seat.

You also walk along the 4x4 and dune-buggy tracks, but luckily the wind had scared off the drivers and it was brilliant to be in open air.

We had brought a picnic with us, and the new car came into its own as we put the boot up and camped out in the back, sheltered from the gales. Suitably sated, we went to find the infamous Qatar rock carvings. ‘Head right in to the desert’. Admittedly they may not be prime examples, but we did find at least 5 small circles carved in a line. And a lot of camels. All in a landscape which resembles the moon.

Of course, we celebrated Valentine’s day as the anniversary of us first getting together all those years ago. All of the alcohol-licensed restaurants were advertising hideous romantic meals, only four billion riyals each, including every sickly love-inspired trinket a girl could want. We decided to cook supper at home. Mr A was in charge of the starters. A lengthy phone call to Mum resulted in an idea for Avocado Surprise. A surprise it was when he realised that all of the 8 avocados he had bought were so unripe they were inedible. Abandoning that plan, we got stuck in to the champagne before starting on the main course of fish pie. I had bought some unbelievably expensive mussels and was geared up to cook Nigel Slater’s finest. Opening up the packet unleashed a foul smell but determined to get value for money, I steamed them anyway. The warm smell made Mr A feel so nauseous that he had to leave the kitchen and light every candle we own. I threw the mussels away. Ploughing on with the remaining ingredients, I realised fish pie takes a really long time to cook and so by the time we ate our romantic meal at 11pm, we were quite drunk, not very hungry, and certainly had no room for the delicious apple tarts I was going to whip up as the finale. Next year we might be tempted by the overpriced Italian….

In order to be good sports (hee hee), we participated in a sports day organised by the Qatari Olympic organisation. It was at a ‘camp’ in the desert – go to the resort and turn right in the desert, we’d been told. And that is literally what the meant – we got to the resort, and turned right across sand dunes and plains, in order to find a random assortment of tents and (very small) pitches surrounded by sand dunes. Unfortunately no-one seemed to have told the coach driver that you really need a 4x4 to drive through sand as we passed the 70-seater coach stranded 2 metres in.

Mr A marshalled the troops and there were full teams for football, volleyball, and ping –pong, which were all duly knocked-out in the first round. Mr A scored the team’s only goal in the football match, but failed to get his penalty in. He did better than his somewhat podgy team-mate who had a cigarette as a warm-up and lasted 5 minutes. The volleyball team hadn’t quite got round to training and the 17-3 score didn’t accurately reflect the effort they put in. I, of course, stayed well clear of any actual sport and only exerted myself in order to climb up a big sand dune.

Which was really quite exhausting. We had to go and have a boozy lunch looking out over the sea to recover.

On the sport theme, we went to watch some women’s tennis. We saw two Eastern Europeans play in the quarter-finals (I can’t remember what their names were. I think that gives away my marginal lack of interest in tennis) which was so packed (mostly men, can’t think what interest they had in two women in very short skirts) that we had to stand at the back. This was during the aforementioned windy spell and it was so bloody cold we had to leave as Sharapova came on. We then tried to go to the final. We had tickets, which you may think meant we might get in to the stadium. Silly you. Of course, they close the doors before the match starts and don’t tell you why. We met the Al Jazeera sports correspondent who couldn’t get in either. We went to eat Moroccan food instead and so missed Sharapova being presented with her Harley Davidson….

Finally, we have met lots of lovely people in the past month which confirms that enjoying a place is mostly about chatting / drinking / eating with interesting people. We’ve been honing our socialising skills at suppers with millionaires, and rating receptions (I’m going to start refusing to go unless they’re at the Four Seasons and have free sushi). We have also come across people who are unlikely to be our friends, but make up for it by being unfeasibly entertaining. We went for a swim yesterday and were next to a middle-aged European man. On approach, we’d seen him slip a plastic carton out of his bag and pour a clear liquid into his orange juice. Ah, suspicious. As we sunbathed and read papers, relaxing into our weekend, he put in his earphones (connected to a really old-school walkman the like of which you haven’t seen since the eighties) and began his karaoke…. ‘miles and miles…… miiiiyllles and mi-i-i-i-i-iles…… head wouuunnd…… on the magic buuuuus.’ This went on for about 25 minutes. I think he proved that some people are driven mad by Doha. And that drinking very strong vodka-oranges doesn’t improve one’s singing.

Very best wishes for March

x

Hangovers, hard-hats and helipads

Hello! Remember me? I know it’s been a very long time since I last sent one of these. Somehow December disappeared in work, weddings, Christmas and general coldness/fog in the UK. Then January disappeared in work, laziness and general coldness/fog in Qatar.

Before we went ‘home’ over Christmas, we went to some more Al Jazeera parties and drank far too much. In fact, neither of us have felt that bad the following morning for an incredibly long time (probably not since the day after our leaving party in London) and did that thing of waking up quite early because your dehydrated brain hurts so much you can’t even sleep. After some Nurofen, we passed out again and didn’t wake until 3.30pm. Considering we had a load of people from Mr A’s office coming round for drinks at 5.30pm, and we didn’t have any drinks, this was less than ideal. We sprang in to action and while I manically cleaned the flat, Mr A went to purchase said drinks and snacks. Of course, everyone else in Doha had been up for hours and there is nothing the average Doha-ite likes better than to do a spot of shopping/mooching at the Mall on a Friday afternoon. So he sat in a traffic jam for half an hour and failed to get a parking place so failed to get into the supermarket. He then went to the other, slightly rubbish, smaller supermarket which didn’t sell half the things we needed. Colleagues arrived just as we had made ourselves look human and our flat presentable, and asked innocent questions like ‘what have you been up to today?’….’Um, you know, hanging out. Not much really.’ I didn’t touch anything but orange juice and water until 11pm. The smell of serving wine to others almost made me vomit, and both of us had to keep disappearing in to the kitchen for some bites of an emergency sandwich.

In the UK, we realised we were not in any way prepared for the cold. Mr A almost left Doha with one jumper and no coat. We went to a beautiful Lebanese/British wedding and, almost as good, went for a huge fry-up the next morning with LOADS of bacon and sausages. We then went to Debenhams and bought as many hats, gloves and scarves as we could realistically fit on ourselves. All this made us late for Aladdin the panto, but luckily we snuck in and apart from my sister very loudly asking what time we thought it was, no-one noticed. Especially not my sister’s boyfriend who was far too busy belting out catchy panto songs and throwing sweets at children to bother with us.

Christmas and New Year passed in a very pleasant blur of pork, potatoes and wine. We spent huge amounts of quality time with our families doing wholesome things like playing charades and walking the dog. My sister made me almost pee myself with laughter by hitting herself on the head with a muddy Wellington boot whilst trying to sort out her tangled sock in the middle of a wood. And she almost made me kill myself by singing Leona ‘I keep bleeding’ Lewis songs at us all. The other sister managed to do all her shouting whilst we were staying with Mr A’s parents which was lucky. And she gave me a Habitat mug which is making my tea drinking in Doha a simple but never-ending pleasure.

Since we’ve been back, we’ve been working hard. The joy of driving a brand-new car is yet to fade, though sitting at traffic lights is definitely boring. I continue to appreciate the subtle diversions Doha has to offer. Like the fact that barely any construction workers wear hard-hats when they’re welding huge pieces of steel or walking under moving cranes, but a gang of 50 of them were all wearing brand-new yellow hard-hats to sweep a road. Or that the only piece of abandoned furniture or rubbish I’ve seen is a huge, brown armchair neatly placed at a bus stop.

I’ve been spending many a lunchtime in Costa coffee, appreciating the genuinely Qatari experience of them not having had any hot chocolate for over two months – ‘sorry Madam, would you like an espresso instead’. It is an amazing place to people watch – I followed the progress of a young Qatari man pushing a trolley with two small shopping bags in it down a flight of stairs, along a half-build pavement, across a flower bed, across a grass lawn, down a kerb, along a road, through a trench, and up another kerb. Rather than just picking up the bags and carrying them to his Land Cruiser. I continue to be mystified by Qatari women wearing a full veil (with thin black fabric over their heads so you can’t see any facial features), and then sunglasses over the top. Inside shops. I also got to go up on to the helipad of a new building (about 35 stories up) where there are no side-rails or walls on the edge. Amazing views. Less amazing stories from the (Lebanese) Contractor who built it, earnestly telling me that when they were laying the concrete screed it was so windy that (Indian, Pakistani, and Nepali) workers were being blown from one side of the helipad to the other. But of course they were strapped to a harness, and he couldn’t stop them working because ‘once you show them you’re soft, they won’t have any respect for you’.

I can tell that I’ve been at my office for a while because the call to prayer that I can hear from my desk is a way of measuring the day, and I am highly discombobulated when it’s not the usual muezzin. Mr A can tell that he’s been at his office for a while because he had to clear up all the pieces of paper that he’s been putting on a big pile for 3 months in order to move to a new building.

We have been spending time to doing all sorts of things that would never occur to us in the UK, and appreciating the sporting diversions Qatar has to offer. Of course, not actually playing any of them, but watching Andy Murray win the Qatar Open, and lots of quite camp golfers not win the Qatar Masters. I found the tennis quite stressful because they’d obviously got some local kids to be ball boys and they permanently looked like they were going to take out a player with one of their balls. And old Murray is really quite aggressive with a split personality disorder where he shouts at himself between games: ‘you can do better than that Andy, you f***ing twat’.

We celebrated Australian National Day (and no-one mentioned that apparently the Aborigines call it Invasion Day) at a compound barbecue. We continue to walk along the corniche almost every week (us and a lot of women in black abayas and bright white trainers) and visit souq waqif, where if you’re lucky Qatari men are banging drums. We also visited the Islamic Cultural Centre where a very nice man wrote our names in Arabic calligraphy, and a very nice woman tried to convert me to Islam.

I went to meet Mr A in Cairo for the weekend mid-January, since he was already there for a conference. We spent a fantastic 48 hours visiting pyramids south of Cairo, looking around mosques (including Ibn Tulun – one of my favourites, though you do have to wear special foot covers which make you look quite silly but better than the ewok outfit in Damascus), climbing minarets, drinking in smoke-filled ‘pubs’, going to posh-British-Arabic-students parties and eating curry.

It was really enjoyable being in a bustling, chaotic, grubby city where there are people on the streets and everyone speaks Arabic. Almost as different to Doha as being in London.

Hope you all enjoyed January…
xx

Cars, crashes and crooners

Hello,

So, it’s been a busy couple of weeks. I’ve been working for over three whole weeks, and am exhausted. I’m really not wildly keen on early mornings, and everyone in the whole of the Middle East seems to think it’s a great idea to start work at 8am or earlier. The also think it’s a great idea to have gaping holes in the side of buildings on the 21st floor, but at least they make you wear a hard hat, so that will definitely save you on the way down.

I’ve been familiarising myself with foreign working practices – being called Ma’am every time you ask someone a question on the phone, and no-one in the WHOLE country having voicemail. No-one has a proper address either and there are no street numbers. Everyone has a PO Box but if you actually want to visit them you get complicated instructions based on landmarks and roundabouts... 'turn left at TV roundabout, keep going past Heritage Village, and it's opposite the Hamad Hospital, above the Mercedes showroom....'

Mr A has been busying himself with more cerebral matters. Like how small Ahmedinejad really is (he was in town talking to the Gulf leaders) and how delicious the pizzas are at the posh café he takes journalists to lunch in – ‘Sir, how lovely to see you AGAIN.’ He is a regular in the ‘local news’ section of the papers here, was quoted on the front page of an Arab newspaper this week (‘an official source said….’) and got the top of his head onto Al-Jazeera so is pretty much a local celebrity.

I’ve been disgracing myself on the car front. As if the car-man didn’t already think I was totally clueless (though he wound back the mileometer on the car we’ve just bought from him so I don’t know who’s more in the wrong in the grand scale of things), I somehow managed to drive one of his hire cars into the back of a pick-up in possibly one of the most embarrassing car accidents ever. We were in a traffic jam - the pickup wasn’t even moving. Nor were the twenty cars in front of him, or the twenty cars behind me. But in the stress of it being 7.15am, not knowing where my really important meeting was, and trying to work out on the map where the hell I was, I had some kind of brain freeze. Fortunately, apart from a very small scratch on his chrome bumper and my numberplate looking somewhat crumpled, it seems to have been minor. Apart from to my ego, which is seriously bruised. More optimistically, we have bought two new cars, which I’m trying very hard not to screw up. I get to drive the brand new 4x4 while Mr A trundles around in the second-hand saloon. Now that’s what modern marriage is all about. My car smells amazing, has almighty acceleration and everyone gets out of my way as I push through crowded roundabouts. I have been loving the cruising, throwing my environmental principles out the window. You realise you’re in the Middle East when you fill it up with 70 litres of petrol and pay less than £10. We have also finally got a Doha bank account. In fact we have a Priority bank account, which is normally only for people who have £100,000 in their account. Not very likely. But we snuck in and now have a personal banker who is one of the smoothest Lebanese men ever, and invited us to go clubbing with him (guestlist of course).

We’ve been investigating Qatar and discovered a beach on the north east coast with crazy rocks and men riding horses. When bastards on dune buggies aren’t destroying the tranquillity, it’s extremely pleasant. The weather is now sufficiently chilly to require a jumper when the sun goes down, but there are worse ways to spend a Saturday….

We have become friends with a lovely Jordanian guy and took him to watch an Am Dram play by the local drama group, where he was the only non-Westerner and us three were lowering the average age by about thirty years. On another night, we watched Some Like it Hot on the edge of the lagoon, eating fruit pastries and drinking white wine spritzers. We went for brunch at the Sheraton – unlimited food (omelettes, crepes, seafood, chocolate fountain, not necessarily in that order) and prosecco whilst listening to a sincere Russian woman singing old classics in the tightest lime green catsuit you’ve ever seen. The other musical entertainment is at another hotel – a Phillipino band murdering rock standards in their black and metal stud outfits, with a female singer wearing more make-up than is necessary. At home, I’ve been discovering the joys of So You Think You Can Dance? as a meagre substitute for Strictly Come Dancing, and going to a yoga class where the call to prayer from the mosque next door makes for atmospheric meditation.

I leave you with an excerpt from one of the local paper. I could send one of these every day… “An Asian expatriate has been arrested and sentenced to two years' prison on charges of indulging in black magic and witchcraft. After losing his job, the man posed as a religious personage capable of "driving away evil spirits, curing sick souls and dispelling evil eyes". He recited verses from the Qur'an and gave amulets. One sufferer made an official complaint after several visits to the fraudster; the police swooped into action and confiscated many suspicious items in his room. On being cross-examined, the magician confessed to his crimes.” This is nothing compared to the incisive radio news headlines: ‘The Emir His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani received today a letter from the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy. The letter was delivered through diplomatic channels and set out bilateral relations between the two countries and how these could be improved in future.’

Coffee (mornings) and (window) cleaners

Marhaba! I write this as the last missive from unemployed-wife since from Wednesday onwards I will be employed-as-an-architect-wife! So that’s exciting, but of course there are downsides. For one, it means I won’t be able to go to any more wives’ coffee mornings. There are more coffee mornings here than you can shake a stick at; in cafes, in hotels, in houses. Granted, I’m generally the youngest there by about 20 years but if you want chat about how you can’t do anything in the UK for ‘health and safety’ these days, or the bad driving of Arabs, then these are the place for you. You also meet some very amusing, very friendly people – one lady was explaining why she hasn’t made or decorated cakes for years – ‘I stopped making them when me and my daughters all got fat’.

I have finally found somewhere in Doha that teaches Arabic and went for a ‘placement test’ to find out what level I was. I had a chat with a woman, who despite me saying I had learnt Syrian Colloquial Arabic, wittered away to me in Fus-ha (very formal) and then told me I was Level 2 but it wasn’t ‘haram’ (forbidden/taboo) to go in at Level 1 (the lowest) if I felt more comfortable. Haram, my arse. I did not spend six months learning how to say ‘I liked Patrick Swayze’s bum in Dirty Dancing when I was 13’ in Arabic to then sit in a classroom learning the numbers. So, Level 2 it is and once she realises I can READ and WRITE (which her test didn’t bother to find out) she’ll be sorry.

Meanwhile, our flat is looking increasingly like ours rather than a hotel, and I’ve realised that you can’t walk around naked on the 18th floor because sometimes men appear at the windows unannounced to clean them. We have been taking advantage of the facilities, and are kicking ourselves for not having procreated so our kids could use the special children’s gym – complete with brightly coloured, mini rowing machines. We continue to attempt to walk around our area and are challenged by pavements-not-yet-built and piles of bricks.

We went to an 8 Hour Motorbike Endurance race. Yes, 8 hours, round and round a racetrack, on motorbikes. We stayed for an hour, eating puddings in the VIP room with no real clue what was going on. We’ve been visiting the malls some more, and discovered that all the drugs you need a prescription for in the UK you can just buy in a pharmacy here. I spent a day at an Islamic Art conference which, because it was ‘supported’ by the Emir, was not only free to anyone who wanted to go but involved a load of academics flown in from the UK, US, Lebanon and Egypt and an obscene number of freebies. We’ve also been strolling along the cornice, along with practically every other child in Qatar and their bikes. There’s a lovely café, and the Bahraini man there gave us tea AND spoke Arabic to us. What a result.

And I watched some French jets do some impressive stunts from our balcony. Mr A assures me that this is NOTHING compared to this weekend’s Red Arrows display.

Now we really need to sort out booze licenses and buying a car (or two). Both seem to be crucial. There is only one alcohol distributor in the country, and you need your special ‘infidel westerner’ card to buy anything. In terms of getting around, there is very little public transport and not many taxis so we really need some permanent wheels. We went to talk to a man about a car… ‘What kind of car are you looking for?’ … ‘Um, one with four wheels, maybe even this four-wheel-drive we’ve heard about, four doors, automatic…’ So that’s only half the cars in Qatar then……

Condensation and consumerism

(Written in Qatar, 28 October 2007)


We have now been here a week and are working our way through our boxes. Luckily we've found the Lambeth Council recycling bags.

Mr A has done his first full week of work for a year and a half, and is only mildly in shock. His colleagues are probably still recovering from his first day when he sported patches of un-shaved beard that he'd missed in the steamed up bathroom mirror. We are getting used to the low hum of Doha as a million air conditioning units whirr away, and the sounds of construction work beginning in the middle of the night. In fact the city of Doha is almost one very large construction site, which as an architect makes me feel right at home.

We walked down to the Corniche yesterday and failed to join in with celebrations to mark the opening of Qatar's bid for the 2016 Olympics. Qatari officials were keeping people on the dual carriageway running parallel to the corniche, rather than allowing them in to the fun as the crowds were too large. Since everyone in Doha had been invited to join the fun, this meant a lot of people standing on top of flower beds feeling a little disenfranchised which doesn't fill me with enthusiasm for their ability to organise an Olympics. Luckily we walked back via the Sheraton and watched the Olympic-fireworks across the bay whilst sipping beers which more than made up for any frustration. Then we got take-away Pizza Express salads and watched ER which, I think, summarises nicely the creature comforts.

We have also found the Cigar Bar of the Four Seasons Hotel (Note: hotels are going to crop up a lot. They're the only places you can get an alcoholic beverage) and hung out with Al Jazeera journalists who we're hoping will be our new friends. And we have been shopping, a number of times. There are a couple of malls which are ENORMOUS and one of them ('Villagio'!) has gondoliers pushing small children down a 'canal' - Hennes on the left, Topshop on the right, Gap just coming up.....

We don't officially exist in Qatar yet, since we don't have the all important ID cards. But we have had our fingers pricked, our blood smeared onto a glass slide, and our blood groups ascertained so apparently we're on the way. The weather isn't as hot as we were expecting - about 30-35 degrees - but quite humid. It's always mildly disconcerting when your cereal bowl drips on to your legs as the condensation forms on the side from the cold milk you've put in it. And we do have a lot of cold milk as we attempt to fill the enormous fridge in our kitchen. In fact, we need a lot more of everything as we expand to fill a 3-bedroom, 4-bathroom, 5 television apartment. We have been forcing ourselves to use the outdoor swimming pool downstairs too. Actually, I used it a bit too enthusiastically with some ill-advised breast stroke and have buggered my neck. Which leaves Mr A to unpack the remaining books...... what a shame.

We are of course always keen for news and messages of love. Don't send any pork.

Damascus and Doha

(Written in Syria, 30 September 2007)


Yes, we’re leaving. Syria is in mourning. To help the nation get over it, we’re not leaving by plane but by train, on a sort of farewell tour if you will. From Damascus we go to Aleppo in the north. And from Aleppo we take a 30 hour train (where there is apparently no food or water provided, yippee) to Istanbul. Where we link up with the pride of Britain, Easyjet, for a return flight to beautiful and historic Luton.

In our last month here, we did a little tour of Jordan, when I abandoned my principles and got behind the wheel of a massive 4x4 with two vast petrol tanks. Mr A realised he still obviously looks 12 years old, judging by the number of strange looks he got driving it across the border. We visited the ancient city of Petra (of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade fame) where we rode two farting donkeys up about 500 extremely precarious steps to see a ruined monastery – the donkeys were determined to overtake each other on hairpin corners overhanging 100 foot drops, which made it quite an eventful ride. Walking down in 45 degree heat was pretty tiring, so we felt sorry for the larger German lady struggling up on her own. We would have recommended she take a donkey but we suspect the Bedu didn’t want to risk losing one under the strain.

We also toured Wadi Rum (of Lawrence of Arabia fame) in the 4x4 with a Bedu tour guide. I cautioned Mr A to drive slowly to preserve the environment and avoid disturbing the desert tranquillity. But eventually our guide demanded the keys to what was obviously one of the more fun cars he’d been in that week – and he drove us round the various sites at about 70mph, handbrake turning around sand dunes. And finally we swam in the Dead Sea after caking ourselves in strange grey mud. The water feels more like salty oil really, but still, the floating sensation is quite amazing, kind of like being a spaceman. It does make sleazing a lot easier, as slimy men have obviously discovered through practice that women are unable to swim away from them as they ask questions like “Why don’t you want to talk to me? I’m just saying you’re beautiful! You’re Russian? My father went to Ukraine once!”

Back in Syria, I bought a dead cow’s back from the leather market here, and made the whole house stink of dead animal. The idea was to make a bag out of it, but in the end I have traced the patterns of the leaves in our garden and cut out lots of small leather leaves. Obviously.

While I was away, Mr A spent a rather crazy weekend in a Syrian friend’s village about 4 hours drive from Damascus. It was the very definition of ‘immersion’ training – he was forced to wear a jalabia for the most of the weekend, including while taking a motorcycle tour of the region, pretend to smoke a cigarette through a hollow branch (still no idea what the point was), eat enough to feed a family, drink probably 25 cups of Arabic coffee, and explain at least 10 times why he had so far failed to conceive a child. (“But I have been married for only three years and I have six children!”) It was all very good for the Arabic as no-one in the family spoke a word and he heard new usages, such as “ALLAH!!”, shouted in expectation of impending doom by his friend’s elderly mother every time he went over a speed bump while driving.

He also spent a couple of hours at a Christian festival, held on the first day of Ramadan. While the rest of the country was solemnly fasting and abstaining from any prohibited substances, Christians in a few villages were out on the streets with litre-bottles of Arak, dancing and setting off firecrackers from 4pm until dawn the next day. The British delegation found the ‘liberal’ attitude to fireworks amusing for a while, but after a couple of hours of enormous Beirut-style explosions going off around them, they tired and decided to leave. They were then confronted by a fantastic example of Syrian policing, as a roadblock had been erected to stop cars getting in AND OUT of the village. Their protests that they didn’t want to stay for the next 12 hours and that there was a pregnant woman in the car, were, until a senior officer turned up, meeting deaf ears. They were not an exceptional case, apparently, as “everyone’s pregnant today”.

My uncle R was here for a week. He arrived tired and moaning of sitting next to some idiot that kept sticking his elbows into him while he was sleeping. That idiot turned out to be visiting our friend here and coming to supper at ours the next night. Cue some rather embarrassing conversations about how cramped plane seats are these days. His first night was also a bit of a disaster as he got here on the second day of Ramadan, which plays havoc with all opening and closing times, and means that some restaurants only serve food at certain times. But you would think when you book a table at a restaurant miles from anywhere else for 9.30pm that they might tell you that there is no food until Suhur at 12.30am. “But sir, there is no problem. We can serve you tea for 3 hours while you wait.”

It’s also been exam time - I went back to the UK for my viva and passed. Mr A has also taken his final exam. He is now ready to speak Arabic in a city where everyone speaks English fluently.

Finally, there is a happy ending for the tortoises, as they are being transferred to a garden where they will be looked after by professionals (i.e. the handyman). We thought we had lost the female one since we hadn’t seen her for a week. But happily we are writing this to the dulcet tones of tortoi rutting…

Mobiles and MC Jabu

(Written in Syria, 22 August 2007)


A penultimate update from sweltering Syria… we’re now just over a month away from finishing our time here. Boo. I write in the midst of an exciting week for me… last Tuesday I became perhaps the first person ever in Syria to have my car towed away, by leaving it in front of the Polish Embassy and a big no-parking sign (‘I thought it said please park here’). Luckily I carefully noted down exactly where the car had been taken, so we could easily direct a taxi there – ‘karaj hajaz’, ‘the car-pound’. Eventually, a £3.50 fine to recover the car gave us a new appreciation of why you should always commit parking violations outside the London borough of Lambeth. My erratic behaviour (I may be suffering from some sort of tropical brainrot) continued until this morning, when I very kindly gave Mr A’s mobile phone (left on the bed) a thorough spin in the washing machine. ‘What’s that bashing noise?’ he asked. The response: ‘The washing is very heavy today.’

We’ve also had a number of visitors in July and August, who did their best to destroy the good reputation we had built up over 6 months here. For example, T showed cultural sensitivity by kicking a man’s prayer beads away while visiting a mosque. (He later got his comeuppance though, walking straight into a road sign with a loud clang - a Syrian found this so funny he actually got up from his seat in order to stand and point) H, Mr A’s brother, enjoyed his visit, and won’t forget his special ‘medical’ massage at the hammam which was slightly more intimate than he expected… but he didn’t quite stay long enough to fully adjust to the Middle-East, making the observation just before he left, as Mr A cut up a taxi, that ‘maybe it’s just me, but when I see a car full of angry Arab men my instinct is to be scared.’ A visit to the Umayyad Mosque with them meant I had to wear the ewok outfit again (full length brown cloak with hood). We went to visit St Simeon with M and N, where a very pious man (you guessed it, St Simeon) stood on a 15m column for 39 years over a thousand years ago. It was rather windy, and Mr A spent an hour translating the ramblings of a man who decided to tell us everything we already knew about the place. For an hour. On a really hot day.

Other notable events (from our point of view) since we last wrote:

- Two weeks in Egypt, spent pottering around mosques and pyramids in Cairo and learning to dive in Sharm el Sheikh. In Cairo, we remembered how many slimy men there are, and sailed up the Nile whilst surreptitiously sipping bottles of beer. In Sharm we were amazed by huge numbers of semi-naked drunk British tourists being calmly watched by Gulfi ladies in full niqabs sipping tea and smoking shisha. Also, Mr A had a brainfreeze in a strong current and descended accidentally to 37m (18 being the maximum allowed for idiots like him). His ears hurt. I looked pretty cool in my diving garb. We then stayed in a posh resort (also in Sharm) with permanently horrific loud music and we saw as many fish snorkelling off the coast as we had in the whole of our (very expensive) diving.

- A good day for the 1 million-plus Iraqis living in Damascus, when they won the Asian cup. Mr A watched it in a café full of Iraqis, who found it mystifyingly hilarious when the commentator starting going on about how ‘today, all of Iraq is glued to this game. Today, for just 90 minutes, even the suicide bombers are taking a break… etc etc.’

- Our first visit to the ‘hakawati’, a story teller in the centre of the old city. His routine is to veer between the sublime – impassioned recitals of great works of Arab literature, maintaining the centuries-old Arab tradition of oratory – and the ridiculous – answering his mobile mid-way through an exciting bit of the story, yelling at teenagers that aren’t paying him sufficient respect, and suddenly bringing down his enormous cane on a metal plate in order to scare the crap out of Italian tourists.

- The birth of even more kittens in our garden, causing me severe anguish. Caught between finding them sweet and vulnerable, and knowing we can’t keep them, I spent half the time giving them milk and the other half ignoring their pitiful squeaks as like lemmings they dutifully climbed up onto the wall by our kitchen to be with their mother, then inevitably fell 8 foot onto the stone floor below, one after the other.

- Two somewhat surreal concerts – the first an Arabic rap outfit playing in the finest old Damascene house (Arabic lyrics we picked up – ‘I’m drunk… there’s a carbomb’… not sure how the ideas related), the second a Los Angeles latino-rap fusion group in a Roman amphitheatre in northern Jordan. The highlight of the latter was clearly the moment when the elegant elderly Jordanian man next to us, who had up until that point appeared more interested in his Gauloise cigarettes than the music, developed a curious passion for one of the rappers, standing up to yell ‘yalla M.C. Jabu, yalla! Salaam! Salaam!’

- A Saturday night at the family house of our Arabic teacher, the only old-town house still occupied by the family that built it – a beautiful courtyard house with fountain and huge lemon trees. We mainly played with his son for four hours since he is possibly the most adorable one year old in the world. And then we listened to Russian folk music on a record player.

- Last but not least, the tortoises’ becoming frankly disturbing with their energy levels. We have some explicit video we may try to put on the internet to truly appreciate the abuses that go on everyday in our garden.

Got to run - we’re going to Jordan to get very hot and look at some more old stuff (Petra).