Two Fine Saturdays

I’ve now been in Qatar for over a month. In that time, I’ve moved into a very comfortable apartment in the corporate housing complex with a middle-aged British engineer, attended church three three, hiked a sand dune, gotten lost in the desert, purchased a sword, taken many pictures, met many Filipinos and Indians (but no Qataris), worked many long days, and seen our relationship with the client go from poor to almost normal to bizarre and back to almost normal.

Three weeks ago on Saturday, I attended church here for the first time at Grace Fellowship. (The weekend here is Friday and Saturday. Friday is mosque day, but many churches meet on Saturday). In contrast to Saudi Arabia, which is only a short drive away, expatriates are allowed to worship freely, although “proselytization” of Muslims is strictly forbidden and harshly punished. The largest contingent of Christians is actually from India, meeting in nearly 30 congregations. Grace Fellowship is an English-speaking congregation, so it’s mostly American, but there are Africans, Koreans, Chinese, and Brits in attendance as well.

Aftewards, I drove out to the Singing Sand Dunes with my co-worker Troy and his wife Angela. Most of the desert in Qatar is flat and rocky, with desert shrubs. In the center, however, are massive sand dunes such as these.

Driving on further, we came to a herd of camels. Camel crossing signs are frequently seen along the road, but camels themselves are little more rare.

We then got our directions confused and were lost for about an hour, at one point driving through a tiny village where sheep were crossing the road. Why anyone would keep sheep in the desert is beyond me. Finding our way, we passed the huge American military base and headed to the souks (traditional Arab marketplaces) in Doha.

We could not visit the “Old Souk,” souk wariq, as it was under renovation… to make it look older! This is unsurprising given the country’s sudden advance from relative poverty to having one of the highest per capita GDP in the world. Qatar has some of the oldest archaeological sites in the Gulf, but few cities or structures of any consequence were built prior to 50 years ago. Now, as Troy put it, “Their culture is construction.”

Nevertheless, wandering through the souks was the first time I felt genuinely immersed in Arab culture. Imagine a shopping mall filled only with local stores and built like a maze, with the shoppers speaking a myriad of languages as they browse for everything from gold jewelry and Persian rugs to hookas and traditional clothing.

The following Saturday after church, my roommate and I took these pictures along the Corniche in Doha Bay. The Corniche itself provides a haven for joggers and picnickers, but at noon in the heat of the summer not many people are outside. Across the bay, the rapidly developing skyline in the City Center area testifies to this tiny nation’s vast petroleum wealth (it holds the largest non-associated natural gas reserves in the world and exports nearly 1/3 of the world’s liquefied natural gas) and grand ambitions. Doha hosted the 2006 Asian Games, yet the even after then the pace of construction has not slowed. Doha aims to compete with Dubai as the resort center, Bahrain as the financial center, and Cairo as the educational and cultural center of the Middle East.

(The last image shows the palace of the Emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, who is known as one of the more progressive rulers in the region).

Still, nothing in Doha can compare to the sheer size and complexity of Ras Laffan Industrial City, which ought to be called one of the industrial wonders of the world. Representing at least $50 billion in investment, it has brought to together technical expertise, sophisticated parts, labor, capital, and corporate muscle from every continent to exploit the abundant resources lying beneath the waters of the Gulf in the North Field. Sadly, cameras are not allowed.