Doha Days

Well, yesterday was the most fun I have had in a loooooooooong time. It was downtown day, and we boogied all over Doha, to every inch of it, and back again.

We started out here at the office at 0830, because we had to sign off of base. That way if we turn up missing the next day, base leadership knows that we went downtown and how to find us. So we did that. I met the two guys I was going with, Leo and Willie. They were very sweet and up for anything. So we got in a truck and headed towards Doha.

It was about a 30 minute drive downtown. Not too much to see along the way, except for the palace just off of base that the Emir (kind of like the king of Qatar) is building for his daughter. Um, it is freaking huge. Once we got into Doha I was like a kid, all giggly and staring in a million different directions. What an interesting place. It is a fairly small city with two distinct sections...one is the more historical working-class side where all of the souqs and bus stations and slums are and one is full of many many high-rises which are all being built at the same time and Ferrari dealerships and shopping centers. In between them is a busy highway lined on one side by the Persian Gulf (the water here is a GORGEOUS color of teal-green) and boats and palm trees and beautiful flowers.

So we started off at the gold souq, which were mostly tiny jewelry stores (with hidden stashes of knock-off purses). We spent a couple of hours there, looking in each store for the best prices. I was looking for saltwater pearls and some funky gold jewelry (since I always wear silver). I found a pearl dealer that, after having looked at all of the other pearl dealers, seems to have the best quality for the best price. I will go back there on my next trip. I soon figured out I could not afford the gold jewelry, even the hoop earrings were out of my price range. Everything here is 21karat gold and one sweetheart of a guy in one of the nicer stores gently laughed at me when I told him what I was looking to spend in his store and said "let me walk you to a store that has items in your price range". He was a cutie in his dishdasha (robe) and I apologized to him for "being poor". He said "poor people are okay too, small money adds up to big money!"

So he walked me down to this guy named Jack (his real name is Hafit but he took the name Jack from "Titanic") who says "wasssssuuuuuuup" with this big beautiful smile when you walk in his store and all the Americans that walked by the door knew him and loved him and would say "wassssssssuuuuuuuup" back to him when they were walking by. So funny! Jack was a 30ish strikingly-handsome man who was actually really very cool. He said he just does that whole "wasssssuuuuup" routine so people will come in his store, and he knows it is totally gay. I spent a long time in his store talking to him and ended up buying a ring from him - a silver one, no less, but it is super cool. He laughed at me too when I offered him my price for a pair of gold earrings, so I think I won't be shopping for gold anymore. Could I afford what they are asking? Sure. But do I really want to pay that much for jewelry? Nah. Not at this juncture anyway. Jack's originally from Yemen (he asked me if I knew anything about Yemen, I said "ummmmmm, no."), he told me how beautiful I was about fifty times (he might have been lying but it's nice to hear anyway), and he gave me his e-mail address to make dinner plans which I promptly lost. ;-)

After doing that and buying a black-marketed DVDs in a really weird toy store, we went to lunch at the BAM (Big Ass Mall). It was a big ass mall. The souqs close between 1-4 so you have to find somewhere else to go in the meantime. In reality the mall was not much different than what you would see in the states. Same stores pretty much. Same restaurants. Mall. Blah.

But anyway, next we went to the souq Waqif (aka the "old souq"). This was my favorite part of town. It is where the people of Doha socialize, buy their spices, clothes, and home goods, enjoy dinner and smoke hookahs, etc. It was beautiful!! We walked through the markets and I kept walking in the spice stores because they smelled SO GOOD. Just these huge bins full of every spice you could think of and nuts and raisins and dried flowers...it was wonderful. We kind of strolled through and didn't stop too much until we got to a sidewalk cafe that Leo had been to before. We sat down in their comfy chairs, ordered glasses of fresh mango juice, and smoked hookahs packed with strawberry-flavored tobacco. It was so COOL!! The sunset prayer sounded off while we were sitting out there (I got a small video clip of the sound). At night, with the souqs all lit up and the vision of the huge mosque lit up, too, it was a beautiful vision. So many people out and walking around enjoying the evening... really really cool stuff.

Leo, one of the guys that I went with, was my saving grace. We really hit it off and stayed together the whole time. He was as excited to be there as I was and wanted to do all the same things I did. The best part of it was that he was very cautious of how men approached me in the markets and made sure I was close by wherever he was. The other guy we were with, Willie, could have given a crap if I was snatched up by a gaggle of men and introduced into their harems - he was always twenty feet in front of me. But it made me feel good to go into that situation with someone who cared about my safety and just treated me like a lady in general. Pulled out chairs for me when we sat down, made sure I was enjoying whatever drink we were having or that I was comfortable wherever we were. I tend to pay a lot of attention to whether others are comfortable, if they are safe, if they are happy - and it felt good to have someone looking out for me yesterday. Not knowing too many people here and spending so much time alone after work, you can feel sometimes that everybody's looking out for #1. I work with a great guy named Jason who takes good care of me and I take good care of him, but we work opposite schedules so I don't get to spend time with him. Anyway, I felt safe with Leo around. I am glad I met him and I think we'll be hanging out again before he heads back to Vegas in a month or so.

We headed back to base - literally hardly able to keep our eyes open. Once you get on base the security forces guys have to search your car (underneath and inside) and all of your belongings. So you go inside this big room with a bunch of other people who are waiting, too, and you sit for about 30 minutes while the SFS guys do their searches of all of the cars at once. When they are done, they set you free to go back on base. I hear they confiscate all kinds of weird stuff that people try to smuggle back on base when they search your car.

My head hit the pillow and I laid there thinking of how blessed I am to be having these experiences. I get lonely here a lot, but it will be worth it in the end if I can have the opportunity to fill some of my time with days like this. And I am sure that once the new rotation of people gets settled in I will have the opportunity to meet even more amazing people.

I'll post pics on FB sometime this week. Love you all.

xo