I’ve been stuck for a while on what to write. I don't want to seem like I'm always complaining, or always grasping for some shred of what I appreciate about Qatar so it won't seem like I'm always complaining. The weather’s getting hotter, friends are
busier as the school year winds up and I am dreaming of a certain little valley
in Vermont every single night.
Doha can seem like a microcosm of all the worst ways of
humanity: greed, laziness, disregard for environment, poor treatment of
animals, starkly stratified class system, how much human civilization has been
about manipulating everything we can reach for our own ease and glory. It gets me down and makes me fantasize about
living elsewhere.
Dreamworld interlude (meaning I don’t have to be fair and
balanced and realistic): I want to live in a little cabin within walking
distance from my nearest neighbor. I
want to have a garden and some fruit trees that provide most of what I need to
eat, a large pantry for storing food and a big fridge and freezer. I want a
porch with some rocking chairs and a table with benches for eating at and a
screened-in part for sleeping in good weather.
I would like a few goats and some chickens for milk, cheese, eggs, and
meat. I would like a toolshed with all the tools I will need to work and
maintain the place and an art studio with big windows that can open. I want friendly neighbors who are as welcome
at my house as I am at theirs. I want
mountains and trails nearby. I want seasons I want to be able to avoid getting
in a car or going to a store for days at a time. I don’t
want to be global anymore, I want to be thoroughly locally connected to the
people and land around me.
Exit dreamworld (because it will not happen anytime soon
and I have responsibilities in the here and now)
What to do? Sink into the sofa for hours and weeks on end
staring into a tiny handheld screen in hopes of connection with someone anyone
from the outside because my living room windows just look out onto a wall ten
feet across our brick-floored backyard? No, except for sometimes. Find other expats who loathe Doha and meet
them at Starbucks so we can tear the place down over lattes? No because I am
very picky about the friends with whom I choose to complain. Do I follow the
advice of the cranky people on the internet who say if you don’t like it then
leave? No, obviously.
And so I
work hard on it. When the ridiculousness
of it all starts to get me down I narrow my focus to kids, art, and long walks,
appreciate small connections, try to minimize time spent in traffic. And then out of the blue I get a gift like the
one a few weeks ago: my youngest had been stuck inside all day so we decided to
go for a walk to a little store to get ice cream. The path leads across huge empty lots both
paved and gravelly, past compounds, rubbish heaps, mansions under construction
and mansions fully decked out with gardens and fountains and expensive cars.
There is one spot where the sand is full of shells, though we’re miles from the
sea. We decided to take the long way around to say hello to some horses and came
upon some Qatari people apparently having a party. They invited us over and then a few minutes
later we were up on camels having rides!
I've been appreciating the hard part
of the work because then I can feel very acutely what’s wrong, what’s out of
balance, and not slip into complacency. And there are still powerful examples of the good
parts of humanity here too, like the Qataris who shared their camels and these people who are helping the porters in the central market, that I can start to feel more hopeful that we aren’t totally
at the mercy of these people who spend millions on license plate numbers. No way I will fix it but maybe little by little I can shift my momentum
in a more positive way.
