Disaster strikes. There is now a speed camera on the road to work. Okay, only one in the whole 20km drive, but it might as well be signposted: ‘Thin Edge of The Wedge’. My 110 km per hour hoon-head days are clearly coming to an end.
The camera is signposted, in fact. Twice. Just before the camera there is a speed limit sign which reads ‘60’. And then there is another, just after the speed camera, which reads ‘80’.
Hmmm…
My initial reaction was, “Perhaps this is another small and beautiful act of revenge by the Pakistani road construction workers?” But then I realised, no. It was merely another case of khalas.
Khalas is absolutely my favourite Arabic word. It means, variously:
1. I’ve finished,
2. stop it,
3. problem solved,
4. there is no getting around this rule,
5. I’ve had it with you, him (and everyone else) and,
6. most commonly, and everyday in Qatar: “Madam, we have run out”
Qatar runs out of everything, and I’m not talking about a single retail outlet here. We did about 5 weeks recently with no eggs in the entire country. Currently, for example, you can’t buy Listerine for love nor money. Previously there were shortages of water crackers, salmon, A4 paper, keys (pre-cut), blue tack, chicken thighs and pocket diaries (there are lots of others, but just not that I can think of off-hand).
So my current theory on the 60 speed limit sign is that they ran out of 80 km signs, and thought that any sign would be better than none (since there is probably a law saying there have to be signs near the cameras, Qatar being a country that is obsessed with rules and regulations governing the utterly trivial). I imagined the Pakistanis being approached by a supervisor and then simply saying with all the fatalism that accompanies thinking in this country: “khalas”.
God giveth, God taketh away, and God refuseth to do any logistics planning which might mean there were enough bloody 80km signs (and eggs, Listerine, paper etc) in the country.
Oh well.
Morocco. Well I went there at the last moment. Not enough time to get an Iranian visa. Too many tourists getting shot in Yemen. And it turned into the holiday of my life. Why? Moroccans are unbelievable!
It may be conceivable that complete strangers you meet in a taxi queue invite you home and teach you how to cook once while you are foreign country - less likely that this happens 4 times... And have you ever heard of taxi drivers ANYWHERE repeatedly trying to return tips on the basis that you have given them too much money?!?!?
Me either.
Zakiya and her fabulous Lamb & Prune Tagine - and with 4 generations of mothers & daughters. Great Grandma is 105 years old.
Everywhere I went people looked after me despite my total lack of French and Arabic. I went up into the Atlas Mountains, jammed into taxis with 6 others (yeah – serious case of Crushed-Bum-Syndrome), saw a 3rd century BC village, hooned around Fes itself, seeing 12th Century remains on the back of a tiny motor-scooter, had a jelaba (cloak that looks exactly like something out of Lord of the Rings) tailor-made, and walked the old Medina Souq, which is 2-3 kilometers long and 1km wide, with all the streets 1-2 metres wide, buying, chatting, exploring, eating, and being overwhelmed by the constant care and hospitality…
The Old City of Fes
Little boy wearing jelaba at Souq/Old City entrance
Tanning Leather on the Rooves of Fes
Mosque Man breaks tour to greet cat
Chicken & Egg Souq Stall Chook visits the Shoe Stall
3rd Century BC Roman Town, Volubilis
The Coast at Essouira
Cats and Seagulls live the Good Life in Essaouira
Clubbing in Casablanca with Nadia & her fab sisters. People just get up and (belly) dance.
You must go, but in the meantime, here’s a taste. This is Zakiya’s Lamb & Prune Tagine recipe:
Ingredients: Lamb - Prunes - Diced Onions - Ground Ginger - Ground Black Pepper - Sugar - Ground Cinnamon - Salt - Saffron - Oil
Method:
1. Sprinkle ginger, pepper, salt and saffron liberally over lamb
2. Add oil and diced onions and mix the spices and lamb well.
3. Bake or heat on stove top in pan, or ceramic casserole until colour changes.
4. Add enough water so there is an 2-3cm of water at the bottom of the dish.
5. Cook slowly for 2 hours.
6. 20 minutes before lamb is ready, add prunes and sugar and cinnamon to taste.
7. Serve with crusty bread – this is used instead of knives and forks.
8. Eat. Yum!
Apart from that, life goes on as usual in Qatar. Ant is growing up slowly - long-ways in the strange way of Arab cats – and has taken to hanging from the fly-wire to get a good look at the world into which she is still too scared to venture after her first exploits. I offered to place furniture here, but she declined the offer on the grounds that it negatively impacted the dual joys of trashing the wire and leaving cat paw marks on the wall.
Ant checks up on neigbours
Attack Cat in Camouflage Cushions
Speaking of trashing things, a Qatari in a massive 4WD ran into the back of me this week, but fortunately the guy agreed that he had caused the accident so no major drama.
Bigger news is that I started a Bus Club at the university. A lot of the non-Qatar women have grown up here, but apart from going from home to school or university, have never seen anything in Qatar (this is also true of some Qatari women). This means they are highly competent and socialised within familial environments, but very nervous in other contexts in which they have no experience. They also don’t get many opportunities to just have fun on campus. Not good, I decided. Very, very not good.
And so I texted the girls from my old Japanese Club Management Committee, and we started the Bus Club. We designed a new logo, tickets, and the first trip advertisement. We ran a competition for teachers to make them explain the event to their students. We posted the ads around the Women’s Campus (I stock-piled blue-tack when it was last in shops, in case you’re wondering). Then, one day before we were to go on our first trip to an old Qatari stone village on a beach where we would picnic and play games – huge numbers signed up and paid, the University cancelled the thing on the grounds that they hadn’t given permission for the trip to go ahead.
Pissed off!
But that is Qatar. It doesn’t upset me as much as it used to. In fact, I’ve been much happier lately. I figure, I’ve got friends, I’ve got a big apartment, I’ve learnt to drive again, my cat loves me (so long as I keep up the tuna supplies), I get to go to some of the most wondrous places in the world, and the Prime Minister has finally said sorry to our indigenous people. So on that happier note,
Khalas!
Simone
PS: Hope life is treating you well too.
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