November 9, 1989 The Fall of the Wall
Twenty years ago tomorrow, and I still hold my breath in wonder.
I was doing a very untypical thing for me – I was headed for the Czech border with three military-wife friends, to buy crystal. There was an unusual amount of traffic, all coming from the border, and the cars – not the normal beautiful cars you find on the German autobahns, but the fiberglass cars coming out of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc – miles and miles and miles on end, all headed West.
When it happened, we didn’t have a clue. There had been rising signs of unrest in the East, but that happens, and has always been ruthlessly put down.
The US had been in Germany forty years. In the most recent years, all the posts and all the military housing had undergone significant updatings – significant and expensive. If you asked anyone about the possibility of the wall coming down (Berlin Wall, for those of you who were not alive) they would just laugh.
“We’ll be here forever,” they would say.
So too, would Germans say.
“We’ve been divided for too long. We think differently,” they would say “We could never be re-united.”
In one joyful night, that all changed. As we reached our stop and went for dinner in our Gasthaus, the television showed the cars flowing over the borders, and the young dancing on the wall in Berlin. It was one of those rare occasions when the world held it’s breath in wonder and amazement; we did not know this was a possibility. Such joy!
Germany has struggled to make the reunification work. Even now, in the west, Germans will gripe about how all their tax monies are going to the east, and those from the east are taking their jobs, but in essence, the reunification has been a success, and the greater Germany is an amazing fact-of-life I never thought I would see in my life.
I still celebrate November 9th in my heart. Twenty years! It seems like yesterday.
Somalia Returns to Stoning
What gets me about this article I found on BBC News is buried way down is a detail that a 13 year old girl was recently stoned for adultery. What does a 13 year old know? Some say she was raped. What kind of protection is this, for a little girl, to be stoned for something over which she had no control. Oh? She was just so tempting, she must be punished?
Somali adulterer stoned to death
Islamists in southern Somalia have stoned a man to death for adultery but spared his pregnant girlfriend until she gives birth.
Abas Hussein Abdirahman, 33, was killed in front of a crowd of some 300 people in the port town of Merka.
An official from the al-Shabab group said the woman would be killed after she has had her baby.
Islamist groups run much of southern Somalia, while the UN-backed government only control parts of the capital.
This is the third time Islamists have stoned a person to death for adultery in the past year.
Al-Shabab official Sheikh Suldan Aala Mohamed said Mr Abdirahman had confessed to adultery before an Islamic court.
“He was screaming and blood was pouring from his head during the stoning. After seven minutes he stopped moving,” an eyewitness told the BBC.
The BBC’s Mohammed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says that if the woman is also killed, her baby would be given to relatives to look after.
Meanwhile, President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed has accused al-Shabab of spoiling the image of Islam by killing people and harassing women.
“Their actions have nothing to do with Islam,” said the moderate Islamist during a ceremony at which he nominated a new administration for the capital, Mogadishu.
“They are forcing women to wear very heavy clothes, saying they want them to properly cover their bodies but we know they have economic interests behind – they sell these kinds of clothes and want to force people to buy them.”
Last month, two men were stoned to death in the same town after being accused of spying.
A 13-year-old girl was stoned to death for adultery in the southern town of Kismayo last year.
Human rights groups said she had been raped.
Another man has also been punished in this way in the Lower Shabelle region.
Mr Sharif, a former rebel leader, was sworn in as president after UN-brokered peace talks in January.
Although he says he also wants to implement Sharia, al-Shabab says his version of Islamic law would be too lenient.
The country has not had a functioning national government for 18 years.
Update on Animal Market in Kuwait
From the Kuwait edition of the Arab Times today:
Confusion on closure of animal market, need seen to set minimum standards
KUWAIT CITY, Nov 2: Conflicting reports to the Arab Times caused confusion about the shut down of Al Rai animal market. News reports said that the animals were kept as hostages within the stalls to “starve to death”.
Ayesha Al-Humaidhi, from Animal Friends League of Kuwait, assured that shopkeepers do have access to the shops and tend to their animals. “They do enter their shops and do conduct their business, but they can’t run their business openly until they settle the rent dispute with the Municipality,” she said. Al-Humaidhi explained that a number of her friends have gone to Al Rai area and had either purchased animals or animal related products. “It’s logical that if proprietors can access their shops to serve customers, they can enter the same shops to feed their animals,” she explained. She, however, pointed out that if animals kept in the stalls are lacking anything, it would be a proper flow of air.
“My friends told me that birds were the main sufferers, and that is only because of the way they are kept by the shopkeepers. “Up to 50 birds are put in one small cage which causes a relatively higher death rate amongst birds compared to other animals under normal conditions. Slower air flow had cast its toll on the poor birds,” she added.
Al-Humaidhi affirmed that the conditions in which these animals are kept were “hellish to start with”. “The shutting down of these stalls has made it worse. “However, there is a dire need to set minimal standards for shopkeepers to abide by when tending to their animals. “It’s inevitable from the reckless way these shopkeepers tend to their animals that they would not even feed them if they had no market,” she said.
Meanwhile Abu Sulaiman Al-Hadad, one of the shopkeepers, claimed that he, along with other proprietors, have not accessed their shops since these were shut down on Oct 15. “My animals have been imprisoned for more than two weeks and have all died from starvation,” he complained. Asked if he had entered his shop at all during this period he said it’s “impossible”. “If any of us is caught entering a shop we’d be obliged to pay a fine of KD 500, along with other legal action,” Al-Hadad said.
Al-Hadad said that shopkeepers have been selling some of their shop items which they managed to pick before the Municipality shut the shops. Asked about measures taken by him and or other proprietor to “rescue” their businesses and animals, Al-Hadad informed the Arab Times that a law suit has been filed to the Administrative Court. “No one knows how long it will take to be finalized. Our animals have long since choked to death,” he said.
By Dahlia Kholaif
Arab Times Staff
It seems some of the shopkeepers are keeping this story going.
Garden Saga
This has provided us with an ongoing burble of amusement, every time we drive into our compound.
Someone wants the name of the compound in the garden. It seemed a simple enough request, doesn’t it?
The first try I saw, was a perfect ‘A’ followed by a second ‘A’. I started laughing. It was being put in by laborers who are probably illiterate in their own language, much less have any idea about western letters. To them, these are just meaningless shapes, not symbols for sounds. The second ‘A’ was gone the next day, torn out, and replaced with the appropriate letter.
But concrete blocks are big and unwieldy. When the name was finished, it was big, with no spaces between words, and no ‘s’ on the end.
They tore it out, too.
Now, working with smaller bricks, working with templates, working with a diagram, the name is finally being completed accurately. It is actually lovely, so we can’t laugh anymore.
I wonder how we would do, trying to lay out the same in Arabic . . .
Back in Traffic; How Do You Alphabetize / File?
So today I became, once again, a legal driver in Qatar, five months to the day from my arrival. Yep, for those of you who never have the joy of trying to maneuver through the complexity of getting a license in a foreign country – you have NO idea. NO idea. There are people who try and try to get a license and never do.
We are really lucky. We have some very good people who help us get things done. Somehow, it’s my turn to be lucky today.
When I showed up at the office, however, one of the HR girls told me “Oh! Flana is not here today! You will have to come back.”
You all know how nice I am. I smiled at her and said “my husband told me to be here today to get my driver’s license. Someone is going to help me.” Smile again, big smile.
Sure enough, someone is going to help me, and it is someone who I like, someone who has helped me before and who is always calm and patient and knows how to persist pleasantly until he gets what he wants from the bureaucrats. In fact, I admire him, because people end up liking to help him. He is low key. He takes me to the driver’s station, where, because of my advanced age (DO NOT ASK) I have to have an eye test. This leads me to wonder. Doesn’t everyone have to have an eye test?
Then I wait, in the special ladies’ majlis:
I had to wait quite a long time, but I was comfortable, and while I was waiting, I read all the driving safety signs they had up along the ceiling. They were all in English and Arabic, and they were great thoughts, but too many words. Like if you are reading that many words: If you are driving too fast you may not get home alive (that is not a real one, but that was the gist of most of them) so I was creating a new driving safety campaign called the equal campaign:
Speed + Texting = (shows a vehicle turned on its side and all smashed
Speed + Weaving = Two or three crunched vehicles
Texting + Driving = QR (enormous fine)
Something simple to read, graphically simple, something you can glance at and get the meaning.
When I got my driver’s license, I was really happy, except for one tiny little thing – it’s kind of my name but not exactly my name. It’s an easy mistake to make, names can be complicated, but . . . it isn’t my name on my license. It’s my face, it’s my information – it isn’t my name. For half a heartbeat, I consider saying something and then Wisdom kicks in and I zip my lip.
So then, driving home in traffic, I got to thinking about names and how we file things, alphabetically, and even Europeans sometimes file us wrong, which has led us to first class seats because airlines can’t find us, etc. It isn’t always such a bad thing.
Then I started wondering about how Arab speaking people file. Like do you have half the files in the “A” drawer, like Al So-and-So and Al Somebody Else, and how do the sun and moon words affect the filing, like Ar Rayyan, or Ath Thalaka, or As Shams, etc. Once you have filed someone, the goal is to be able to retrieve that information? How does alphabetization work in Arabic? How are things filed?
So being stuck in traffic might not be so bad if someone answers my question and I learn something. 🙂
Stuck in Traffic on Musheirib
With all the re-routing off Al Rayyan as we convert to the Heart of Doha, I found myself inching along Al Musheirib this week, along with the noon-time crowd. When there is nothing else to do – take some photos. We drive right by every day, but do we look?
Many of these spots will disappear.
Boutiques? (!)
And here is one of my favorites – see it, just over the street sign? Cheep and Best?
Halloween Baby
You won’t hear all mother-in-laws say things like this, but you’ll hear me say it, and often – we are so lucky. Our son chose a wife who is a true companion, and whose style suits our own, sometimes so much it is scary.
They are expecting a baby – and she is beginning to be “great with child”. She wrote us this morning that she won a Halloween costume contest. We knew they were toying with the concept, but the reality is hilarious. Alien!
Saturday mornings can be depressing for us, as AdventureMan heads back to his job. Not so this morning – we were dying laughing!
Halloween and Extreme Pumpkins
All it took was one Google: pumpkins carved
It took me to Extreme Pumpkins.com, and it will give you minutes of helpless laughter. People are SO creative!
Yesterday I bought a pumpkin, not the traditional American sugar pumpkin with it’s thin skin, but a thick, ribbed Indian squash, and when I took it, the clerk said “You want the WHOLE thing??”
It’s not that big. But normally, people buying this kind of squash here buy it in pieces, not as an entire (carvable 🙂 ) pumpkin.
This is not my pumpkin; it is another from Extreme Pumpkins.com I am making cat pumpkins this year. 🙂
Women: Unsung Heroes Awards
Wooo HOOOO, Doha! Don’t you love it? Unsung Hero awards for WOMEN, and what women!
This is from today’s Gulf Times
Three women to receive ‘Unsung Hero’ awards
The 21st Century Leaders Foundation will honour three women at their inaugural awards ceremony on Friday at Grand Hyatt Doha.
Qataris Eman Ahmed al-Obaidli and Sara Mohamed al-Shamlan, and Palestinian Helen Shehadeh will be the first recipients of the Unsung Hero Award.
The Doha 21st Century Leaders Awards was established this year to mark the humanitarian and environmental achievements of individuals who have made a serious commitment and a significant impact to their chosen cause.
Eman, a retired elementary school teacher, has spent the past seven years engaging the people of Qatar in becoming more aware of children with physical disabilities.
Eman has also raised significant awareness within Qatar for Caudal Regression Syndrome, a rare spinal disorder that affects her son Ghanim.
With her son as a constant source of inspiration and with a strong belief in his independence, Eman has founded Ghanim’s Wheelchair Foundation which has donated hundreds of wheelchairs to other special needs societies in the Gulf.
She also started Ghanim’s Sport Club in 2008 to allow both physically disabled and able-bodied children to join in activities as varied as karate, skateboarding and basketball.
In the future, Eman’s vision for Qatar’s community includes independent accessibility for wheelchairs and integrated sport clubs.
The second Unsung Hero award goes to 16-year-old Sara, a student from Qatar Academy, who harnessed her passion of photography to raise awareness of some of the poorer expatriate Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi children in Qatar.
Initially started for a community service project for school, she documented a number of young children in the Abu Hamour area of Doha and went on to sell the prints in her father’s jewellery shop and at a jewellery exhibition. Sara quickly raised a huge sum that was used to provide the children with a proper education and basic necessities such as shoes and toys.
Daughter of well-known Qatari businessman Mohamed Marzooq al-Shamlan, managing director of Marzooq Al Shamlan & Sons, Sara considers her father a major catalyst for her way of thinking. Sara’s work is supported by the Qatar Charity.
The third recipient of the Unsung Hero award is Helen Shehadeh, a Palestinian woman who at the age of 75 is actively continuing to teach blind students.
At the age of two, Helen herself lost her eyesight overnight as a result of a diphtheria epidemic. In 1981, Helen founded the Al Shurooq School for the Blind which aimed to provide blind and visually impaired children with an appropriate education and equal opportunity, while rehabilitating and integrating them into the local community.
Other award recipients on the night include film stars Josh Hartnett and Sir Ben Kingsley and film-makers Danny Boyle and Christian Colson.
Women recognized for making a difference. . . Ahhhhhh. . . . it is a red letter day. 😀
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