Ankur and Genny’s Meandering Tour

For the first time in almost 2 years of living in Doha, Ankur and I were scolded for being inappropriate in a place of business. Now for those of you who don't know us very well, we're not the most affectionate couple particularly in public. We call each other dude and joke around more than anything. We occasionally hold hands in public (scandalous, right?). Since we live in a more conservative country we are conscious of their culture and would not want to offend anyone. Anyway, we did not deserve to be pulled aside and scolded! This was the scenario:

We were waiting for our car to be inspected at the Qatar Technical Inspection (similar to the emissions testing in the US). Like everything else in Doha this involves a lot of random queues and waiting. So we have a seat and start watching an episode of Scrubs on Ankur's fancy phone. We only have one set of headphones so we split the earbuds and sit close together to see the little screen. To get more comfortable Ankur puts his arm around me. Actually it was more on the back of the chair than on my shoulder. Apparently that is inappropriate in a place of business! I think we were too much in shock to argue plus our car was just about done.

Anyway, this is of course rare in Doha. People are generally more open here.

Egyptian born Yusuf Qaradawi (sp?) announced a fatwa allowing for the consumption of alcohol as long as it does not exceed 0.5%. An typical beer has 5% alcohol by volume - meaning that you would have to drink 9ish glasses of water after a beer and you would be ok. Or conservatively speaking, a tiny amount would not be "haram".

Qaradawi is usually considered a moderate cleric and has spoken against violence against civilians after 9/11. He also said that Music and Arts are a good thing. But the super-conservative types fight everything he has to say. There is a lengthy page about how he is "misguided" and where all of his points are rebutted: http://www.islamicweb.com/beliefs/misguided/qaradawi.htm.

Anyhow, Qaradawi lives in Qatar. I'm curious to see if there will be a backlash against this fatwa.

I forgot to post this last month but Ankur and my good friends in Doha threw me a surprise baby shower in early March :) Apparently they had been planning for quite awhile but I was completely in the dark. As you can see in the photo I was totally shocked!!! Here I am, thinking I'm going to spend a nice quiet evening with my friend before she leaves on her 5 month trip. Suddenly there's like 20 people, cake, gifts, and little cute pink things everywhere. I don't know how I managed to miss all the hints.

Here are some of them:
1) People talked about at the office (to my defense it was always in Arabic)
2) Ankur's cousin, Nehal, flew in to visit us (she was close by in Bombay and we hadn't seen Rohi yet!)
3) Ankur kept asking if I wanted a baby shower or not (my answer was always no but really I meant yes :) he knows me really really well)
4) Best of all...Steve said, "Ankur just called to ask me about a baby shower..." (I thought it was a bit odd but Ankur had just asked me the night before about a baby shower also. So I thought maybe he's just getting someone else's opinion. I don't know?!?)

Anyway, it was a fantastic surprise :)

Who knew they had beauty contests for camels and to top it off could get sold for $2.7million!?!! Of course, I've only seen your everyday 10-riyal-to-ride-the-camel camel and not any prize winning ones. Personally, they look pretty wonky to me: giant lips, messed up teeth and weird shaped heads. We're planning to go see a camel race this weekend though so if I see any million dollar camels I will post the photos.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hG7wiVHHmYeblP9oagy7DUG8Xp4AD8VTUAU01

- Gen

On Friday, a B1 Bomber crashed and burned at the military base in Doha. Craziness.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7E60053C-EE39-4E26-A244-6446F7076ADB

No injuries or anything, but still interesting.

We usually hear them (fighter jets) once a week or so by my unofficial tally, but this is the first time I've heard of an accident. Although since I don't know where the base actually is, I'm probably not the best source of information.

According to BBC - Zimbabwe's annual inflation is above 100,000% in February.

That's ridiculous. Like seriously.

The same article on BBC states that "In 1980, US$1 bought 80 Zimbabwean cents, in early March that figure is about Z$50m. A loaf of bread cost Z$7m."

On Aljazeera, "One hundred dollars bought nearly 20kg of local currency on Wednesday "

There's an old video on YouTube about how Zimbabweans were struggling in 2006 when the inflation was only 1200%.

I posted some pictures from Zanzibar. Take a look:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?s=int&w=all&q=%22200803xx+-+Zanzibar%22&m=tags

Money is a tricky proposition in Zanzibar. Some places quote prices in USD, others in Tanzanian Shillings, and even some hotels in Euros.

The only places that we found that would accept credit cards were the big hotels and some places in stone town (not all though).

Upon arrival into Tanzania, we switched a lot of our currency into Shillings. But then the first hotel would only accept USD. (No problem they said, go one hour to a local currency exchange, or we can exchange it back to dollars for a horrible rate). We chose the horrible rate.

We actually had some USD, but no place in Zanzibar will accept the USD small head bills (only the newer version of the Dollar). The same hotel had different currency charges for each thing. Their room rates were in dollars and their food/drinks were in Shillings. No idea. hakuna matata, i guess.

There are actually a few ATMs in Zanzibar, but all of them are around Stone Town (none at the airport for instance). But the first day we went to get cash, there was a power outage on the island, so no ATM's worked.

We managed ok in the end, but it was kinda annoying. Apparently their credit cards and ATM machines are new, so hopefully it'll keep getting better.

We had two interesting baggage claim experiences this latest trip.

First - upon arrival into Zanzibar, we kinda just walked through immigration (got the visa in Dar es Salaam). On the other side of the empty booths was this room where they just took the bags off the cart and piled them on the shelves. no revolving escalator things. super high tech.

Second - Doha is a heavy "transit" airport. Most people travel here as a stop over to someplace less hot. Our flight from Dar was packed (every seat). When we arrived into Doha, we had our e-gate cards and used our fingerprints to get through immigration instantly. So we waited for our bag for a minute and out it came. And then the carousel stopped. Apparently, we were the only ones that had Doha as our final destination.

Lovers exchange blows after man breaks wind

http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/08/03/05/10194830.html

"Two lovers are standing trial for having an illicit relationship and exchanging blows after the man broke wind while in bed. "

-Gen

Picture from Mondoagogo on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mondoagogo/