Palm Island
There used to be a resort out on Palm Island, with a couple restaurants, a swimming area, an amusement park and boats that took the trip out there and back every half hour or so. Now, it’s all gone, flattened. All that is left of Palm Island is this:
And it isn’t even a palm tree!
Truck Loading in Doha
We don’t know what is in these huge sacks; we see the same in Kuwait and think it may be cement on the way to be mixed – or sand to mix with the cement. They are not secured. It may be that the sheer weight of whatever is inside glues it to the truck bed, but we don’t want to be anywhere near these trucks when they go around a sharp curve – or a roundabout.
Here is a close-up. You can see they are not secured in any visible way:
Doha Olympics 2016
Although Doha has been eliminated from the competition, the signs are still up, glorious signs. My favorite one is the woman archer:
Although I also like the joy of the young boy with the banner:
Is it just me, or do most of the women on the banners in Doha bear a resemblance to a young Sheika Mosa?
I love the Doha spirit. The 2016 Summer Olympics were a long shot, and Qatar took the chance. It was seriously considered. Not a lot you can do about the “searing” climate, and, unfortunately, it isn’t cold enough or snowy enough to be considered for the winter olympics, but they have some great golf and tennis tournaments, an a big bicycle tour in February.
Doha Dhow Building
We were so sad, visiting Oman, to see that dhow building has gone into decline in Sur, and then equally delighted to see the craft being revised and guarded in Doha. The new dhows being built preserve the design of the older working dhows, and include extra, labor intensive and expensive touches, like the wood carving:
I had to start with this one, because it includes the fabulous QCPI (Qatar Center for the Presentation of Islam) building in the background – what an impact it gives the Doha skyline!
Night and Day, Doha, The Pearl
Visiting Doha, AdventureMan took me out to see the new Pearl going up. AdventureMan cracks up – “It’s NOT reclaimed land” he cackles, “they are demolishing old buildings at an incredible rate, and using all that rubble to build this new crop of hotels and residences!”
We watched it when it was just cranes and sandbars.
They’ve come a long way in an amazingly short time. This is the Doha Pearl (they are having the same kind of dusty weather that we are having in Kuwait)
The window is a little cloudy, but you can see it is all lights, camera, action at the building of The Pearl, even at night:
Searing Heat Vetos Doha Olympics
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Chicago was among the four cities picked as finalists Wednesday for the 2016 Summer Olympics, setting the stage for a high-profile bidding contest between candidates from the United States, Europe and Asia. Also making the IOC shortlist were Madrid, Spain; Tokyo, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Eliminated from the race were Doha, Qatar; Prague, Czech Republic, and Baku, Azerbaijan.
Doha, capital of a tiny but wealthy Arab Gulf country of about 1 million people, had loomed as the wild card as it sought to bring the Olympics to the Middle East for the first time. It cited its hosting of the 2006 Asian Games as evidence that it can handle the Olympics. Due to Qatar’s searing summer heat, Doha proposed holding the games in October, outside the IOC’s preferred time frame of July or August.
Traffic Watch
Never fear, the Qatteri Cat is on traffic watch today. All is well, you can tell by his relaxed stance. Every now and then, he will utter an alarm – birds come by and taunt him because they are flying freely and he is trapped inside. He’s not smart enough to say “yeh, but I get free food, water and medical care in this gilded cage.” All he knows is that he would love to be free to show those birds a thing or two.
Once, in our Qatar villa, a great big pigeon hit a window and then THUNKED to the ground, not 10 feet from QC, who was allowed in the garden as long as someone was with him. The bird was so big and QC was so astounded, that by the time he decided to go investigate, the bird had recovered consciousness, stood up and shook his wings. He was bigger than QC! As QC thought twice about approaching, the pigeon flew off. I am betting that is about the closest QC has been to a real live bird.
One time (one of many) the Qatteri Cat escaped the yard. This time I knew where he was within the first half hour, because I could hear him crying pitifully. I had to ask a neighbor if I could go into her back yard, and there was QC, high up in a tree, scared and unsure how to get down. There was a wind blowing, and the only thing QC could think of, every time the boughs swayed to a strong gust of wind, was to go higher. He had reached the spot where every gust made him sway like a pendulum. He was terrified.
It took me about an hour to talk him down. First, he had to get over his panic, because his terror was paralyzing him. Second, he didn’t know how to climb down, so he had to turn around, to kind of walk down the tree, which, with gravity, was a very scary thing. He kept turning and then turning back.
(How do you teach a cat to back down a tree?)
Finally, I just kept talking. I locked eyes with him, and every time he would look away, I would say his name, get him focused on me again. Slowly, slowly, he worked his way down (he was up very very high, higher than a ladder could reach). He ended up falling the last 20 feet, but I could catch him. His little heart was beating like thunder, his adrenelin was pumping and I had to hold on to him to get him home. He didn’t want to be held, and I have the scars to prove it.
The neighbor thought I was a nut case, I am sure, but I don’t care. A cat can be so paralyzed by fear that they cling to the tree until they are exhausted and drop to their death. Some cats will figure out how to get down, but not all, and not while a wind is blowing and swaying them back and forth.
As much as I love fresh air, we have to keep the windows closed. He’s a sweet cat. His little brain just goes on hold sometimes. If a bird taunted him, he would be out that window in a heartbeat, no second thoughts, just instinct.
Parking Problem
From the Arab Times:
Kuwaiti brothers critically hurt in gang attack over parking row
KUWAIT CITY : Eight persons broke into a Kuwaiti family’s house in Salmiya and attacked three brothers with knives, machetes, sticks and similar weapons just because the brothers did not allow a female student of a nearby institute to park her car opposite their house.
The brothers were critically wounded and had to be admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of Mubarak Al-Kabeer Hospital.
Securitymen, who rushed to the scene after receiving a call from their mother, managed to arrest one of the attackers but the rest of them bolted from the scene.
A case was registered.
By Mizyed Al-Saeedi
Special to the Arab Times
People here can get pretty riled up over parking. One time, my husband and I were attending a social event, and we parked on – well, it looked like a public street to us, and public streets, unless they have numbered, private parking, you are allowed to park on public streets because you are the public. That’s what we thought anyway.
When we came out, we had cars literally blocking us, forward and rear, from getting out. My husband approached the owner of the house in front of whom we were parked, who was around the corner in his diwaniyya (on the public sidewalk) and when my husband said he was sorry, the man said he could put his “assif” (sorry) in his pocket!
Not one to give up easily, AdventureMan schmoozed for a while. The man said he would have his driver take me home, and AM asked him if he would put HIS wife in a car with a strange driver. That got an appreciative grin. Long story short, finally he allowed us to leave. He had some legitimate gripes – the facility where we had attended the performance has people who block his parking access to his house all the time.
My husband visited him again the next day with a parcel of dates to express his appreciation for the guy having let us go, and visited the facility and helped arrange to insure that people would not park in front of this guy’s house again. He and the man became – well, not friends, but cordial acquaintances.
I’ve always been glad AM handled it in a gentlemanly fashion. Imagine, breaking in and stabbing people over a parking spot!
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