Qatar 2000
Doha, Qatar
July 2000
Motzsalama from Doha and Qatar!
It is hot hot hot here! It reached 50 degrees Celsius in Doha last week. According to my calculations, 50 degrees Celsius converts to 123 degrees Fahrenheit. Like most places in the Middle East and India, water is not piped, but stored in containers at each location that have be refilled from water trucks. Most houses have water tanks on the roof since the trucks have pumps anyway, and then gravity provides the water to all faucets in the house. In Yemen and India, I found this frustrating in that there’s no warning, just suddenly you’re out of water. Fortunately, when my living quarters depended on it, water never ran out in the middle of a shower, although it did frequently run out during dinner preparation or just after using the restroom and a flush was necessary. Of course these tanks can be extremely fertile grounds for bacteria and other goodies, since it only takes one bad load of water or a truck that has handled a bad load in the last century to introduce unwanted elements into a water tank.
Now, I have become aware of another water hazard. The local Finance Manager (Andrew) stated he didn’t get up enough after sunrise (at 4:30 am here) to shower. I just looked at him and asked if he used a hose in the front yard and needed privacy or what? He laughed and said that during summer in Doha, it gets so hot that the water inside the water tank on the roofs of the houses reaches mega-scalding temperature within an hour or two of direct sunlight. He said overnight, the water will eventually drop to a chilly 110-120 degrees in which you can shower without getting burned. That explains why everyone in the crowed elevators or other close quarters I end up in haven’t had a bath, but it doesn’t explain why they’re not wearing deodorant.
It also doesn’t explain why the men hold hands and wear dresses. Andrew and I went to a Ponderosa Steak house. It was just like one at home except all the waiters and staff were Filipino. Other than that, it was just like a Bonanza or Ponderosa back home. And, back home the huge neon sign in front isn’t in both English and Arabic. Otherwise, you’d never know – oh yeah, and all the Qatari business men in their white dish-dashes (Arabic for “no, this isn’t a dress”). Maybe on second thought, this wasn’t like any Ponderosa Steak house I’d ever been in. Ben, Adam, Hoss and Little Joe had been replaced by Abdullah, Mohammed, Khalid and Wee Ahmed. Hop-sing, however, was still the cook. I started to joke to Andrew about men who wear dresses, but after I started with “Just why would any man want to parade around in…,” it dawned on me he was Scottish and the only difference between his native attire and theirs’ was that he thinks plaid goes with everything. So I ended up saying something like “…thoooose…stupid looking white meshadas (I think that’s what the hats from sheets, except those worn by the KKK, are called). Evidently it was religious freedom AND the right of men to wear pants that started the migration to America.
I figured out that the reason Hell has the worms that eat your flesh is that the continual burning of your flesh without consumption wouldn’t scare the Bedouins, who dwell in the desert where it is even hotter than in Doha, and may have even encouraged the homesick ones to sin more.
My last trip here, I stayed more in Dukhan than Doha. Dukhan is very small and in the early morning, I would go jogging along the Persian Gulf away from town. A few mornings, camels would start to follow me. This concerned me because I didn’t want an irate Bedouin accusing me of trying to steal his camels. I would stop every 15-20 minutes, turn around and shoe the camels away. But before I ran a quarter of a mile, they were all lined up behind me again. A couple of days, I had as many as 5 camels following in a neat line.
Also in Dukhan is a sand golf course. Someone took a bulldozer and made fairways through the desert. The greens are called browns because they are raised mounds with the hole made entirely out of sand. To keep the sound from blowing away, it is mixed with diesel. The tee is a 3’ x 6’ concrete slab. The difficult factor has got to be high. While there are sand traps, the actual fairway might be rocky or sandy only a few feet away. So even in the middle of the fairway, hit the sand and the ball stops. Hit the rocks and it might bounce erratically for a half a mile. I was told that each brown is raked by an attendant that follows each set of golfers so the next group has a smooth brown for putting. So in addition to a caddy, sand golf requires a raker.
In the hotel the water must be stored indoors; it is cool. I forgot that in the Middle East for some reason they always put the tubs in hotels and apartments about 6 inches off the floor. During the time it takes me to shower, I forget I stepped over the side of the tub and UP to get in. This means that when I step out and my foot doesn’t stop when I expect it to, I usually end up running into the wall about 6 foot away in an effort to not fall. Falling would look stupid. In 1995 when I shared an apartment in Yemen with another auditor, I could tell when he was through showering when I heard him slam into the bathroom door, which was exactly opposite the raised tub. The bathroom door was 10 feet directly in front of the front door. I always wondered if I’d picked the bathroom lock while he was showering and stood with the front door open waiting to time throwing the bathroom door open with his stepping out of the shower, if he’d ended up in the hall wearing only a smile and an desire to kill me.
Andrew said driving through the desert at this time of the year can be very hazardous, even on the paved roads. (I noted that they tell me this now, when I am spending most of my time in Doha. Last trip here in ’97 when we were driving twice a week across the desert to the operations, no one thought to mention it then.) They enforce a strict 120 km/hr (about 75 mph) speed limit in the desert for safety. Not the hokey slower speed for safety like back home, which translates into small-town municipal funding. In the summer the combination of the temperature heating the pavement and the heat caused by friction, blowouts are common. Andrew had a blowout last summer coming back across the desert from Dukhan and when he managed to stop the car to change his tire, he found that the tire, although still holding air, had melted around the tire iron on which it was laying “in the boot.” He finally managed to loosen the tire iron by bouncing the tire around, but he was afraid to drive very fast because of the scar left by the tire iron. Fortunately, he took so long working out his problems it was winter by the time he made it back to Doha, so the tire held. Just kidding…it was only late fall. The cars all have an annoying “beep-beep-beep” when you go over 120 km/hr. That would get annoying. I usually hit 120 km/hr backing out of the drive at home.
Qatar is surrounded by the Persian Gulf, so the humidity has got to be in the upper 90s. I know that when I walk outside, my glasses fog up in a mega-second and take about 1-2 minutes to normalize. I need to bring my treated goggle rag I use skiing so I can see when I step outside. Most people wouldn’t think you’d need an accessory you use snow skiing when you’re at sea level and 123 degrees!
Oh well, although I wouldn’t vacation here, it’s not that bad, actually. I hope all is well with you. If you get a chance, drop a line. It’s always good to hear from home.
Motzsalama, (I think it works both ends of a letter or conversation!)
-Keith
May camels spit on your enemies.