Lionel and neighbour arrived at the mosque to find complete chaos. One of the worshippers had been run over by a learner driver, there were sirens blaring along with the muezzin’s call to prayer and no sign of the curtain makers. Our neighbour was still berating them on my phone when they sheepishly emerged from the mosque, where they had stopped, not to pray, but to have a pee. Thankfully the worshipper was not badly hurt.
The other good landmark for finding us is the local petrol station. Everyone seems to know it, probably because of its array of tacky fast-food shops. Directions from it are very straightforward assuming you are driving past it on the main road. Unfortunately it is impossible to exit the petrol station directly onto the main road. Instead there are a myriad of routes through the fast-food shops, with one-way signs which are completely ignored so that eventually you find your way out of a back entrance and if you go the wrong way, end up looking at the main road from the blind end of a cul-de-sac.
I was judiciously making a three-point-turn at this point when a tiny car zoomed past me and proceeded to venture off-road through the desert whereupon I saw him literally tumble onto the main road causing several vehicles to swerve and screech their brakes. Suffice it to say, the best way to direct people from Abu Hamour petrol station is to go and find them among the fast-food outlet melee.
Our recent foray into the legal field over here also gave us a link to the driving school. For various complicated reasons involving having a part delivered to our boat in Turkey, we had to have a document attested by a Notary Public - and quickly, as the Turkish customs would not release the goods. We were advised that the embassy could do this, but not on Boxing Day and although we know the Ambassador, we thought that contacting him to sort out our yacht was pushing our luck! Luckily we discovered a local lawyer who proudly advertised his location near the Al Khebra driving school.
The Turks were happy with an Arabic lawyer, so Lionel made an appointment and pitched up. The lawyer proudly told him about the business he had in relation to the driving school, either pupils complaining about their instructors or victims of accidents complaining about the pupils. It all had a ring of truth. The lawyer duly witnessed, signed and stamped our document, whereupon Lionel noticed that he was also a magician.
As his clerk was summoned after Lionel had paid the fee, the hundred riyal note was deftly thrust into the long pocket of his thobe and the rest of the documentation handed over. No one pays any tax, so who knows what dodgy business he was doing, but from our point of view it worked. The subsequent story in Turkey was less satisfactory with a multitude of sharp practices by customs, courier company and lorry drivers before we finally received our goods.
In the eternal traffic jams, we listen to the radio. There is an English speaking-station that is broadcast by the national broadcasting company. It is certainly not the BBC World Service nor Radio Four but it has news bulletins, music and chanting. The latter is the call to prayer, which interrupts whatever is being broadcast at the time. The music is generally dreadful and the disc jockeys unbelievably anodyne. Lionel has a view that they are the rejects from Radio 1, but he is being kind.
The news is certainly different. Bulletins are brief, preceded by a spot of martial music before the 7am newsreader comes on air. She has a beautiful mellow voice with perfect English pronunciation but seems to read the Arabic names with an authentic accent too. There is little time for much news after the escapades of the Emir, Sheikha and other sundry members of the Royal family have been reported. These might be as exciting as congratulating the new president of the USA on his re-election and every announcement is made very formally, so for example:
“His Highness, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani sent letters of congratulation to President Obama on the occasion of his re-election as president. The Prime Minister, His Excellency, Sheikh ... bin ... Al Thani also sent letters of congratulation.”
Names are very long, with the given name first, followed by the father’s, followed by the family name. There are a few notable powerful families and the main offices of state tend to be taken by members of the same (Royal) family. Bin means son of and Bint, daughter of. Given names often have a theme; for example I attended a meeting last week with an Abdul theme. There was an Abdul, an Abdulla, an Abdulaziz, an Abdulattif and an Abdulmajid, so once you get the hang of it, it becomes quite easy.
We have taken to early rising since moving into our house. This allows us to miss the traffic in the morning but also means that we miss the music and get the Middle Eastern equivalent of Thought or Prayer for the Day - for an hour. It starts with thirty minutes of reading from the Holy Qur’an, delivered in perfect BBC English. Actually it is quite interesting and philosophically there is a lot of sense, a few parables and a few references to Old Testament figures such as Moses, Noah and Abraham.
The next broadcast comprises readings from the life of the Prophet (may peace be upon him). The brackets are because this phrase is used after every reference to Mohammed the Prophet (may be peace be upon him), which makes for a somewhat turgid narrative. Yesterday there was a long piece about whether it was forbidden to eat lizards or not. The answer was that it was allowed but the Prophet himself (may peace be upon him) didn’t really like them so declined the lizard meat when offered. This straightforward message took about fifteen minutes on air as we heard about Miriam, daughter of etc. etc. who had cooked a lizard, then someone else who wondered about the probity of eating lizards, all the while punctuated by the appropriate offering of peace.
It is a good illustration of how religion is closely woven into the fabric of daily life. Apart from missing the traffic, the real reason for getting up early is the dawn call to prayer. Our local man from the mosque at the end of the road is very loud, very enthusiastic and very persistent. Just when you think it is all over and are trying to snooze with head stuffed firmly under pillow, he starts up again and there is no escape. Easier simply to get up and get going, with a spot of religion to help you on your way. The broadcast is punctuated with bursts of beautiful Arabian music.
I was listening to this as I drove along a dusty road with the sun just rising, giving everything a dusky rose-coloured hue. An old man in a long white robe wearing a turban tied in the Omani style was wandering along the desert scrub closely followed by a girl dressed in a shalwar kameez (long shirt and baggy trousers) of vibrant oranges and reds. These different nationalities and styles of dress have now become commonplace to us, but observing it while listening to such haunting music exemplified what a different world this is to our green, gently undulating Hampshire valley.
I am not given to homesickness but am occasionally knocked sideways by small things such as sea-shanties being played on the radio. Suddenly I find myself missing dank, cold misty mornings, winter evenings around the fire and muddy walks over the fields and stiles. Temporary homesickness. When we did go home on leave, we soon missed the warmth of the desert.
We never missed the traffic or the driving. The school run is definitely something to be avoided, particularly at home time. Our local English town of Bishops Waltham is fairly chaotic with parents parking along the road and the lollipop lady stopping the traffic at frequent intervals, but at least the cars are parked in an orderly fashion with deference given to those with right of way. In Qatar there is no concept of a right of way and pedestrians take to the roads unwillingly (unless they are certifiably mad).
So when school is out, the cars are randomly parked on the adjacent scrubland. Parents march their children through the cars, which move in any direction like Brownian motion - completely random. I witness this in horror and watch aghast as the school gates open and about fifteen school buses, conveying about thirty children apiece, drive out in parallel formation. I say parallel but this configuration does not last long before the buses start vying for a place on the road, criss-crossing each other, blasting their horns while a few policemen try vainly to stop th
e utter carnage which I am convinced is about to ensue.
Each bus could be considered a competitor at the start of a cross-country run: a long journey ahead, and essential to win psychological advantage by pushing the competition off the track, but not really intent on injury - that would simply be an unintended consequence. We are surrounded by schools and it is the same at all of them. Somehow everyone survives.
The builders are everywhere. We live opposite a building site where we are privileged every Saturday morning to hear the pile-driver digging the foundations for the new houses opposite ours, thereby precluding a gentle lie-in. The rate at which the buildings progress is remarkable. This is partly due to the numerous workers who toil day and night. At one stage I count thirty workmen on the roof of a moderate sized house opposite ours.
Driving home today in the dark, I was sitting in the traffic and struck by the work proceeding by spotlight on the new monorail system. The traffic was composed of new Land Cruisers and fast sports cars, all driven by Arabs in full thobe and ghutra. A few westerners like me drive similar cars; these are interspersed with buses taking labourers home to their camps. Unlike our cars which are all air-conditioned, the buses have open windows, and have often seen life elsewhere, such as the old yellow school buses from America which still have legends on their doors exhorting motorists to watch out for children.
The labourers, as they are unashamedly called, are frequently fast asleep, with heads lolling onto shoulders. They look exhausted, which is unsurprising considering the hard physical work they do in conditions of intense heat. There is a shortage of housing for the ever-increasing population here that partly explains the building boom, but the other major factor is the soccer World Cup which is being hosted here in 2022.
Locals are given land when they marry and have children, so they build new houses. Some of these are extremely extravagant such as the palace that is being built next to a roundabout on my route home. You might imagine that this is not the ideal spot for a grand house, but it gets worse: not only is there a large roundabout but also a complicated double flyover feeding traffic onto the cross-city highway.
Location, location, location is the mantra of estate agents, yet this couldn’t be a worse spot - unless you want easy access to the motorway perhaps? In truth, we believe that the locals don’t care. Not remotely interested in the outdoors, their gardens are small and all grandeur is carefully secreted inside in heavily air-conditioned surroundings.
With this in mind we were amused by a recent review of Psychiatry services where recommendations from the UK Royal College were invoked, one of which was that psychiatric in-patients would benefit from some gentle gardening. The Psychiatric building is located in the middle of two dual carriageways, surrounded by a bit of desert and the thought that patients might wish to grow a few radishes or tend the roses in such an environment is truly laughable.
The palace is still in concrete form but the elements of diverse architectural styles can be clearly seen. There are grand porticos, columns, arches, domes and a few random turrets for good measure. Some palaces employ more recognisable styles such as the exact replica of the military staff college at Sandhurst that is situated on the main road next to one of the more extravagant shopping malls. This particular mall has fake Venetian buildings, clouds painted on the ceilings and indoor canals with battery-powered gondolas driven by Filipinos in stripy shirts.
From the road, as I watch the labourers attacking the ground with pickaxes, while listening to Mozart on my car stereo, I wonder about the difference in our lives. The labourers undoubtedly earn more than in their home countries but nevertheless, they are indentured workers, virtually slaves. A recent newspaper article stated:
The International Trade Union Confederation slammed the country as a “21st-century slave state” earlier this year over its alleged poor conditions for guest workers and human rights abuses.
The world’s leading union claimed that 191 Nepali workers died in Qatar in 2010, most of them because of heart attacks caused by outdoor temperatures rising to up to 50C.
We know that living conditions for such workers are poor and when they do arrive in hospital, there are often angry scenes if they are seen by a doctor before a local patient, even when triage shows their needs are more urgent. This is such a pressing problem that government policy is to build several new hospitals designated Labourers Hospitals.
My first reaction is that this is a form of apartheid and a highly distasteful concept. Nevertheless, it would mean that these workers have equal access to healthcare and on balance it is a reasonable, pragmatic solution. Don’t imagine that local doctors approve of the potential imbalance in healthcare provision: the chair of rehabilitation medicine is a feisty Qatari woman who trained in Scandinavia and works tirelessly to ensure her patients have good access to care, especially when they are discharged from hospital.
The problem is that many of the labourers are here alone, with families thousands of miles away and their accommodation is entirely unsuitable for someone with a disability. Family members are unable to visit as they cannot afford the flights, so there are repatriation schemes and charitable schemes that help such patients.
All workers here (including us) have to be sponsored, but if a worker becomes ill or injured, even as a result of an industrial accident, the companies sometimes try to absolve themselves of all responsibility.
My feisty rehab doctor has ways of dealing with this. As a senior figure in local society, with plenty of wasta, she simply tips off the Ministry of Labour when companies are being difficult. Somehow, her patients suddenly get a better deal.
In a society where the common language is not the mother tongue of most people, well over fifty percent of communication is non-verbal. English may be the universal language but although many seem to speak it, it soon becomes apparent that their competency is limited. To make things more difficult, the mobile phone is the main means of communication. Lionel is alarmed as he observes me offering my phone number to some random shopkeeper who hasn’t even asked for it (I have to admit that said shopkeeper is a smooth, good-looking Italian!).
“Well, most people want it,” I respond to his perplexed look.
Since non-verbal clues are irrelevant over the phone, conversations with non-English speakers can be difficult. Our curtain maker is a case in point. As usual he failed to turn up for an appointment on time, so I phone and get the response, “Sorry I am now remembering,” which roughly translates as “Oops, I forgot”.
We find ourselves speaking in Pidgin English. For example, when giving directions, we say “Go straight, go right, go left, go straight”, rather than elaborating about pertinent landmarks such as traffic lights, roundabouts or similar. I have always been intrigued by the novelist Amitav Ghosh’s depiction of language (in his book Sea of Poppies) amongst seafarers in colonial India and the Far East; now it makes sense:
Zachary soon found himself speaking to the serang with an unaccustomed ease: it was as if his oddly patterned speech had unloosed his own tongue. “Serang Ali, where you from?” he asked.
“Serang Ali blongi Rohingya - from Arakan-side.”
“And where’d you learn that kinda talk?”
“Afeem ship,” came the answer. “Chinaside.”
I am constantly astonished by the ability of other nationalities to speak English. Nonetheless, some of the expressions bring out a puerile sense of humour in me. For example, when trying to guide a recovery vehicle to my broken-down car (it had a puncture), the man on the end of the mobile phone assured me he knew where I was with the wonderful phrase, “I am looking up your backside, madam.”
All in all, people generally are very courteous. We recently bought a silk Kashmiri carpet to hang on the wall. This process takes time and there is a ritual that must be followed. We are asked to sit, given jasmine tea to drink and the carpets are displayed with
a great flourish. We are expected to ponder, look at certain ones again and have them turned upside down as the colours change depending on the pile. A magnifying glass and dividers are brought out so that we can accurately determine the number of knots per square inch and the longer we take on our deliberations, the more the price is reduced.
Having finally made our choice, the carpet is delivered and hung on the wall although Lionel ends up doing some DIY, since the carpet vendor, in spite of his protestations, doesn’t know one end of a drill from the other. When we return to the same shop we admire the vendor’s fabulously ornate copy of the Qur’an, clearly a prized possession, and from which he was reading as we arrived. Our admiration is countered by his offering the book as a gift - we decline but with difficulty.
Lionel recently drove himself up to the hospital in the north of the country. Maps are incomplete and the Sat-Nav is almost worse than useless but he had plenty of advice before he left which went along the lines of, “It’s easy to find and you can’t miss it”.
All of this is true but only when you know where you are going. Needless to say, he was lost and stopped in the middle of the desert to consult his useless map, whereupon out of nowhere an itinerant Arab appeared wearing a grubby green thobe and carrying a roughly hewn staff. Communication was limited but the Arab pointed at the map.
“Al Khor?” he asked.
“Yes!” replied Lionel, delighted.
Within seconds the Arab had leaped into the car and sat in the passenger seat with his staff propped up between his knees. A lift wasn’t exactly what Lionel had proposed but it seemed fair enough so he took him to the town, whereupon the Arab gestured where he needed dropping off, leaving Lionel still completely clueless as to the whereabouts of the hospital.
800 Days in Doha Page 6
