god's will strikes again!

We've previously discussed the tendency of the people here (including myself -- it's definitely rubbed off on me!) to caveat every pronouncement of the future with the Arabic phrase, "Insha'allah" (if God wills). This can sometimes be said when a person actually has no intention of following through with the future plans, or doesn't believe that something will get done, as a way of smoothing over the interaction -- rather than saying a blunt no, the person nicely leaves it in the hands of God. Then if it doesn't get done, it's not his fault!

But of course, it can also be used as a respectful term, symbolizing the idea that we are not omnipotent and no matter how well we lay our plans, there are other forces at work that may stop them from coming to fruition. In fact, it's often used in a very humble manner, and I really believe that when people say to me, "Insha'allah," after I say, "See you on Tuesday!", that they are praying, even subconsciously, that God allows them to arrive at that day happy and healthy. Jews say "Shehekeyanu" after something good happens; Muslims do it preemptively.

So I should have known that, when the helpful administrative assistant told me that my business cards would be done by 1 pm Tuesday, and when I said with a smile, "Insha'allah," and she cut me off with another "No, they will be done," -- I should have known that this would surely incur God's wrath. See, I need business cards for my upcoming conference in the US. For reasons truly beyond my comprehension -- perhaps someone didn't say "Insha'allah" -- although all the new faculty and staff have been working at SFS-Q since August 9, we have yet to receive our business cards. Oh, I did just get a proof -- which had mistakes on it -- but that only served to make me more depressed, knowing that I would probably arrive back from the most important conference of the year to see a nice box of cards belatedly sitting on my desk. I was already having a bad day on Tuesday, and this fiasco just made me more depressed. Yet as I was explaining my poor mood to my professor during class, a student spoke up with a solution: She worked in an office that was able to print its own business cards, and she was sure she could get 20-50 cards printed up for me by the time I left that afternoon. Grateful for this opportunity, I rushed to the office, talked to the assistant, and the fateful absence of "Insha'allah" occurred.

Thus, when I went down to the office at 1 pm, I was completely unsurprised to see that the printer had messed up, ruining the few remaining sheets of business cards, and they hadn't been able to find any more good quality business card sheets, so they were currently printing out some cards on paper quality that would be tough to pass off as anything more than a home job at the conference. I really appreciated their effort -- it made me feel a lot better to know that someone cared enough to volunteer their time to try to help me -- but after all, God didn't will that I should have business cards for my conference. And that's that. :)


Photo credit:
Business card

tribeca comes to doha

Well, this was best weekend ever in Doha (WTA championship tennis, Halloween parties, and..... Tribeca!). The Tribeca film festival, started after the 9/11 attacks by Robert DeNiro and others to stimulate the NYC economy through the arts, has come to Doha with the first annual Doha Tribeca Film Festival!

Nick and I can count the number of times we've been to the cinemas here on one hand -- usually they only import the biggest blockbusters (which do, usually, suck -- see Exhibit A, Terminator 3). We often wistfully think of Providence's Cable Car Cinema and the Avon Theater, and DC's E Street Cinema, with their varied independent offerings. So having Tribeca come to Doha, with tickets for all movies at 10 QR each (that's ~$2.50), was an incredible breath of cultural fresh air. Luckily, we went to the box office a couple weeks ahead of time and managed to snag the last tickets to several shows of interest... and we were eagerly anticipating this weekend's shows.

And we were not disappointed! The four films we saw were all interesting and thought-provoking, and two of them won festival awards -- Team Qatar for best festival film and Pomegranates and Myrrh for best Arab film -- so I guess we chose well! (Although, mental note: I definitely want to see Road, Movie, a film from India, at some point in the future...) Following are the synopses of the films, along with our reviews... but first, a report on the celebrity schmoozing. :)

Besides the films, we got to go to the "exclusive" opening night-after party at the Four Seasons hotel, thanks to our well-connected friend Jovitta. Nick and I got all dolled up -- him more than me -- in anticipation of all the celebrity sightings we were sure we'd make. Many celebrities had been invited, including Robert DeNiro, Brad Pitt, and all the tennis stars (including Venus and Serena). Yet as we scanned the crowd, our (well, my) heels sunk into the squishy turf of the humid outdoor area overlooking the bay, eating free lobster and mourning the lack of an open bar, we began to realize that if you were actually a celebrity, there would be absolutely no reason to actually show up at such a peon-populated event as this. Martin Scorcese and Ben Kingsley were apparently spotted, although we did no such spotting, but I did miss an opportunity to have a casual interaction with Patricia Clarkson, who strolled by me wearing the most incredible peach silk dress. I, of course, only had eyes for the dress, and almost stopped her just to compliment her on it, but I didn't... and then a Georgetown colleague came up to chat, pointed at the retreating back of the peach silk dress, and said, "That's Patricia Clarkson!" Wouldn't it have been a better story if I had just complimented her five seconds earlier?

Of course, we weren't the only people frantically scanning the crowd for celebrities. The best part of the evening -- besides the entire bowl of lobster freshly sauteed in butter and garlic that I wolfed down -- was when Nick, James, and I were sitting in one of the majlis areas around midnight, and a lady shyly came up to Nick and asked to have her picture taken with him. Perhaps seeing my face, she hastily amended her request to, "...with ALL of you," and so we all had our picture taken with this lady who clearly thought my husband was slightly more important than he actually is. But who, who did she think he was?!? It was a great moment. Apparently Nick's decisions to pop both his shirt AND jacket collar, wear sunglasses all night, and keep his Brad Pitt-esque stubble paid off. Until next year...


About Elly, Iran, Director: Asghar Farhadi

The winner of the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival’s Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature, Asghar Farhadi's About Elly is a tense ensemble drama that unmasks male-female relationships in middle class Iran. Sepideh (Golshifteh Farahani) plans a weekend getaway to the Caspian Sea with some friends, and invites her son's kindergarten teacher, Elly (Taraneh Alidoosti), to finally introduce her to the newly single Ahmad (Shahab Hosseini). However, her well-intentioned game of cupid turns foul when the trip is struck by sudden tragedy and Elly disappears. Fear and guilt riddle the group as they try to find Elly but Sepideh's secret soon triggers a web of lies where saving face becomes more important than revealing the truth. Farhadi skillfully sculpts a well-acted and powerful drama while maintaining the pace of a suspenseful mystery. A sophisticated and effective work of Iranian Cinema, Farhadi continues to illuminate the complexities and contradictions of Iranian life.

Our take: The movie dragged on a bit too long... but considering it had powerful and subtle character development, dealt with the "what happens after" shock and grief of tragedy, and painted a truly interesting portrait of Iranian culture (especially as it deals with women), we still really enjoyed it.


Pomegranates and Myrrh, Palestine, Director: Najwa Najjar

Najwa Najjar’s first feature film, Pomegranates and Myrrh, shot in the Palestinian territories, is a beautiful love triangle set against the backdrop of occupation. Talented dancer Kamar (Yasmine Al Massri, Caramel) has just married the man of her dreams, Zaid (Ashraf Farah). Their honeymoon is short-lived, however, when he is arrested by Israeli forces after refusing to give up his land, which is being confiscated. When Zaid is sent to prison, Kamar finds escape from her loneliness through dance classes with handsome choreographer Kais (Ali Suleiman, Paradise Now). Hailed as being the first truly Palestinian production, Najjar’s film is both a portrait of a strong woman as well as a look at the bittersweet reality of life under conflict. In a way, her feature, like her previous shorts, is Najjar’s own stand against the occupation — the conflict being only the frame to her picture.

Our take: We were captivated throughout by the excellent characters and the compelling story, and several times I found myself close to tears (including when I briefly broke down after the movie ended). The decision to tell the story through the viewpoint of a main character who barely speaks was an apt symbol for the Palestinian voice today. Some of the images were incredible and heart-breaking. I'm not surprised it won the prize for Best Arab Film at the festival and I encourage everyone to see it.


South of the Border, USA, Director: Oliver Stone

In January 2009, Oliver Stone traveled to Venezuela to interview President Hugo Chávez to examine how he has been portrayed in the U.S. media. Once the journey began, however, Stone and his crew found themselves going beyond Venezuela to several other countries, and interviewing seven Presidents in the region, telling a larger and even more compelling story. In casual conversation, Stone sits down with Presidents Chávez, Evo Morales (Bolivia), Lula da Silva (Brazil), Cristina Kirchner (Argentina), as well as her husband and ex-President Néstor Kirchner, Fernando Lugo (Paraguay), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), and Raúl Castro (Cuba).

Our take: We thought it would be interesting to hear, in their own words, the various populist leaders of South America describe their relationship with the US. Of course, Oliver Stone brings his own viewpoint to this "documentary," resulting in a very one-sided look. It could have been a great film if the information given by the leaders (especially Venezuela's Hugo Chavez) had been balanced by some additional facts. For example, Stone shows how Chavez has been vilified in the US media (especially during the Bush administration, and especially on the FOX channel). However, if you just watched this film, you'd be unaware of any reasons to criticize Chavez (such as his increased suppression of the independent media, his attempts to change the constitution to give the presidency more power, and his influencing of elections through use of state funds to support his preferred candidates as well as banning of candidates and parties that don't agree with him). We appreciated the opportunity to see these leaders in an alternative way, but just as with Michael Moore's documentaries, only an educated person who is willing to fact-check for themselves should go see this film.


Team Qatar, UK, Director: Liz Mermin

The government of Arab emirate Qatar hired a team of recent Oxford grads to coach the country's first national high school debate team. Led by the springy, quintessentially witty Brit Alex, the five multicultural 15- to 17-year-olds are setting their sights high: their first competitive debate will take place at the World Schools Debating Championship in Washington, DC. Team Qatar follows the group on a whirlwind crash course in debate that takes them from Doha to London to New York. A suspenseful competition movie while also closely examining the culture, Team Qatar invites us into the lives of a group of young Middle Easterners with diverse backgrounds and different ideas. Their candid conversations about religion and politics captured by director Liz Mermin's fly-on-the-wall camera, reveal varying degrees of worldliness, but they always challenge stereotypes.

Our take: We chose to see Team Qatar over Michael Moore's Capitalism and India's Road, Movie because we felt we should support a film based on recent events in Qatar: namely, the creation of the first Qatari high school debate team and their competition in the World Debates in Washington, DC. Several stars of the film, including the British coach, were in attendance at the film (along with a huge fan base of friends and family), which made it even more fun to watch. The movie itself didn't teach us much about Qatari culture that we didn't already know, but we would certainly recommend it to those who would like to learn a little about it in an amusing and engaging way. One interesting observation is that, of the five kids on the debate team, only one is of Qatari nationality -- but that 20% is about the ratio of Qataris to expats, so it's only normal for this society. I would have liked the film to delve a little deeper into Qatari culture and society -- perhaps by doing some informative segues a la documentarians Michael Moore or Morgan Spurlock -- but as a time capsule of this one team's experience in this one competition, it was enjoyable. I do suspect a bit of hometown favoritism in the awarding of the Best Festival Film, however. :)


Credits:
Picture of Patricia Clarkson, Michael Buckner, Getty Images
About Elly screenshot, Doha Tribeca Film Festival
Pomegranates and Myrrh screenshot, International Film Festival Rotterdam
South of the Border screenshot, Doha Tribeca Film Festival
Team Qatar, BBC
Synopses of the movies from Doha Tribeca Film Festival webpage

rooftop halloween, take two

For the second year in a row, THE rooftop Halloween party (as it was billed on Facebook) did not disappoint!

For those who thought Nick and I had hit our high-water mark with last year's Zombie McCain and Sarah P, we outdid ourselves with our co-costume for this year. To explain what on earth is happening in the picture above -- ever been to a Qatari camel race? As Nick detailed in our trip to the racetrack last year, "Robotic camel jockeys!... The tiny metal box sits atop the camel's back and is controlled via remote control from the owner's Land Cruiser, who drives alongside the track during the race. When the owner thinks the camel needs a little "boost" he can press a button and the robotic jockey swings into action- whirling a whip around that repeatedly strike the camel's ass. If this doesn't work to inspire the camel to increase his pace, the owner might have one of their friends lean out of the car and yell some encouraging remarks or whack at the track fence with a large encouragement stick. I'm not sure which race was more entertaining- watching the camels or the Land Cruisers." When we witnessed a Qatari, leaning out of his car window, beating the fence with a stick, and screaming at his frothing-at-the-mouth camel, which was being whipped about 100 times a minute by a demonic striped box attached to its hump -- we knew we had found our Halloween costumes.

Now, even though I loved my Halloween costume -- jockey pants and jacket, boots, hat, authentic whip, and an adorable stuffed camel strapped to my waist with the tie from my robe -- the true star, I have to say, was my husband, who had made his mini replica Land Cruiser entirely from scratch. (Well, I did the Arabic bumper stickers and license plate.) He spent hours sequestered in our spare room creating this monstrosity and his efforts really paid off; he was the most popular man of the evening, and that wasn't just bbecause he looks extremely good in a thobe, or that the hood of the Land Cruiser doubled as a drinks table. (Although these things certainly helped.) I was reduced to whipping people just to get some attention. Ah, the price we pay for celebrity.

But of course there were many other excellent Halloween costumes at this always-inventive gathering! Following are pictures of some of the best -- and most disturbing -- costumes of the night.

Policewoman Anne's not taking any bull from the thobes in the Land Cruiser (Nick and Whalin)

Possibly the most disturbing costume of the night

Duffman and Pirate play Guitar Hero, while Wolverine rocks on

Jellyfish, 70's Prom Date, Sports Roundabout, Joan from Mad Men, Mother Nature, and Samurai (with, yes, a real Samurai sword -- that's safe!)

Joe (aka wife of Whalin) shows some leg

Alhamdul'lah (thanks be to God) and goodnight!

another 1,000 words

Some images of the randomness that is Doha...!

Yes, all ten of these suitcases would be ours... on our way back to Doha!












Being greeted by our fearless leaders :)









Of course, seeing the Emir and Sheikha Mozah in person (behind us here, at Layali restaurant) was even better than a car decal.








So our plan to unplug our battery for the summer and then hook it back up seemed to have worked perfectly... until our car refused to turn on after a day at Georgetown's orientation workshops. Luckily Hussein, one of my HR reps, came to my rescue... driving a Land Cruiser, of course!





Playing poker with a deck of US Army "most wanted" cards from the Saddam Hussein regime. Here pictured is the guy who now lives in Qatar and works down the hall from Leo. Don't worry, I'm sure he's innocent. :)






At the Intercon for Oktoberfest... hilarity ensued when, after frenzied dancing on the benches, the one beneath Mark collapsed in a heap on the ground. I like how he continued standing on it anyway, though.










The view from the 11th floor of the Marriott looking toward the city center -- a quite disturbing sight! There was an electrical fire at one of the old souq stores and sadly it spread to several stores before finally being put out hours later. Luckily no one was hurt but some stores and housing were completely gutted...





Watching hockey in the middle of a mall in the middle of the desert... of course.








A truly excellent picture.









But before you start laughing too hard at the previous picture, remember this Toyoto's exhortation! (I actually swerved into the busier lane of traffic at a roundabout just to take this picture.)







Abdullah and I at the original "control room" of Al Jazeera television station. (We got a tour of the facilities through Georgetown.)







The view from the General Post Office of the Corniche, the downtown construction, and the massive sign (they are all over Doha now) trumpeting the 2022 World Cup bid.







Every time I see this sign, I crack up. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.












And then, of course, once in a while, we get a view like this... and it makes it all better. TID - This is Doha!

A new TV is born, an old PlayStation dies

After an entire year of continuous lobbying, I convinced Jocelyn that we should invest in a bigger TV. The final straw was Joce's recent obsession with playing Rock Band on our PlayStation, and I sweet talked her with fantasies of how amazing the game would look on a large, flat, high-definition screen.

So as soon as we got back to Doha I started earnestly price-hunting for an HD bargain. Pretty quickly I realized that Doha is not a good location for comparison shopping since every store has essentially the same price- when you ask even the expensive looking places with high listed prices quickly come down to match Carrefour's price, which apparently define the price floor for all goods sold in Qatar! So I settled on a 42-inch plama Samsung, and saved quite a bit buying the 720p model instead of the more expensive 1080p versions (for a good explanation of why you don't need to fork over a ton of cash for 1080p on a set less than 50 inches, check this website out)
Luckily the monstrous box fit in our Honda, so we didn't need to wait another minute to get it home and set it up.

In my excitement to witness the miracle of high definition, I wasn't quite as careful as I should have been hooking up the new TV. I confused the connections for the PlayStation and the cable box, so when I thought I had plugged in the cable box I had actually plugged in the PlayStation, which I then turned on. When I went to hook up the cable box (actually the running PlayStaion) a spark jumped from the PS to the TV and everything went dead. My heart sank. Joce glared at me with dagger eyes. At that point I thought I might have just fried our precious plasma, but when I flipped back the circuit breaker in the fuse box the new TV and all the electronics came back to life. Disaster averted! Or so I thought... "Why isn't the PlayStation still on?" Joce asked. I pressed its power button- nothing. The PlayStation was completely unresponsive.

I hoped that it was only a blown fuse, and a quick internet search revealed that there was actually a Sony Service Shop in Doha near Jarir Bookstore. Since it was Ramadan and not too late, we drove over immediately to try to get it fixed. After waiting for over an hour in line, while the Service Shop closed and locked it's doors to prevent customers from continuing to stream in (who instead just beat on the doors in desperation), I finally got to the front of the queue and explained my situation. To my disappointment they told me that they can't actually repair PlayStations, they only send them to Dubia for repair if they are under warranty (which mine wasn't of course). Jocelyn was ready to summarily execute me for dragging her along through this ordeal, but they did give me the name of another service shop- Technical Care Center- that I hoped would save the day.


So the next night I dropped of my unresponsive PlayStation at the TCC on Al Murgab street, and they told me they would get back to me tomorrow about whether it could be fixed. A day later, I got my answer- the motherboard was fried. Since replacing the motherboard would cost more than a new PlayStation, it was dead for good. So much for saving money on our new TV!

Luckily for us, Jocelyn's fellow Georgetown TA Chris happened to be going to a conference in Canada that weekend, and he agreed to pick us up a new PS3 on his trip. This saved us a few hundred dollars because of how pricey PlayStations are here, and we in fact got an upgraded PS3 in the deal, because Sony had just come out with the 120 GB slim PS3. So in a few days and 300 dollars later, our new sleek PS3 arrived with Chris. This time around I hooked up the Ps3 and TV with Budda-like concentration, so everything was connected just right. Then the moment of truth....
As Joce captioned the photo: Nick presses the "on" button of our new 120GB PS3... and our lives become framed in 42" plasma.

That's all I can write for now, I've got some video games to go play.... :)

Bumper sticker politics

Each year in Qatar you have to re-register your car with the Traffic Department of the Ministry of Interior. In order to re-register your car must first pass an inspection of the technical aspects of the car (brakes, exhaust, etc) as well as the cosmetic aspects (the body and paint job). Apparently Qatar doesn't want any beat up and dented cars driving around. We heard stories of people failing the inspection for all sorts of ridiculous reasons like tiny dents and scratches, so naturally we were a little concerned that our multiple rubs with pillars and curbs last year might jeopardize our chances (most recently Joce had put a nice crunch in the rear right side of our car and we opted for the cheaper quick fix, so the crumpled tin can appearance of that side remained). Like any law-abiding country, we also heard that the inspection would be no problem if we paid some of ASD's well-connected expediters to take care of it for us, so we coughed up a few Riyals and hoped for the best.

Well, our slightly dented and scratched Honda passed the inspection. On the technical side, it passed with flying colors, and as expected our dents and scratches were duly noted on the report, but what we didn't expect to raise eyebrows was our bumper stickers! On the report "Sticker on body" was listed as a MAJOR LEGAL FAULT, which sounded pretty serious until the expediters assured us this would not prevent our car from getting re-registered.

Now bumper stickers aren't nearly as common in Qatar as in the States, but it is extremely common for a car to have an artistic Arabic "Thanks be to Allah" or "The beauty of God's work" sticker plastered on the window. We thought these looked pretty cool and got one of each for our car last year. But I don't think either of these was the cause for the MAJOR LEGAL FAULT, instead it must have been our Obama '08 sticker that they took issue with. Whether this was a comment on Qatar's relations with the US, or a criticism of Obama's politics, we have no idea. Maybe next year we'll slap on a Bush '04 and see if we get a similar violation... then again, if we do that we may never see our car again.

Karwa taxis: Qatarded?

Background information: When I last called for a taxi to take me to the airport (for my business class flight in May), I was told the night before that the taxis were fully booked for the next morning. Yes, basically, in this country, if I didn't have a husband willing to wake up early to drive me to the airport, I wouldn't have been able to get there. That's how good the national taxi service is. (And yes, I called Fox Taxi too -- and they were also fully booked!)

So today I called Karwa to see if I could book a taxi for our Monday morning flight. Considering schools are beginning to let out, I figured it could be quite busy at the airport and that it was best to book early. The conversation:

Me: "Hi, I'd like to book a taxi for Monday morning."

Karwa: "Sorry, ma'am, we only take bookings the day before. Can you call back on Sunday?"

Me: "But I need to go to the airport, and last time I called at night, you were fully booked the next morning. I can't make an advance reservation?"

Karwa: "It's a problem with our system. We are only booking a day in advance now because we had a problem with losing all the advance bookings. You can try calling back tomorrow because then maybe they can help you."

Me: "So the system is broken now, but it will be fixed tomorrow?"

Karwa: "Maybe."

That's how bad it is -- the Karwa operator couldn't even bring herself to say "inshallah!" Not being able to book a taxi four days in advance to the airport? That's so Qatarded.