pockets full of sand

When I got home from Dunestock '06 last Friday night, I had sand everywhere. In the rolled-up legs of my jeans, filling my pockets, crunching between my teeth, making my eyes teary. I shook my head and heard grains of it skittering across the tile of my bathroom floor. I guess it's inevitable when you go to a music festival set on a 50-foot-high sand dune. I didn't go to Dunestock for the music, and thank goodness for that because if I had I would have been sorely disappointed (but more on that later). I went just to see it. And if only for the spectacle, it was worth it. We drove just 30 km or so out of town to the place where the dunes supposedly sing as the wind whistles across the sand. (Due to the off-key screeching of Irish ballads, however, the music of the natural landscape was unfortunately drowned out.) As we approached from the parking area, we beheld a very respectably sized stage facing a huge parabolic sand dune that acted as a natural ampitheatre, accentuating the oddly monotonal cover of The Edge's guitar solo from With Or Without You. At the foot of the dune was a large flat area where most people were sitting. Some people, like our motley crew of Cornell employees and Turkish architects, were perched mid-dune, carving out benches and trying to avoid the constant cascade of sand descending from the feet of toddlers throwing themselves willy-nilly across the euphorically forgiving terrain of the dune. Still others ringed the upper edge, with a bird's eye view of everything: the stage, the beery, dancing expats, the 4 corners of the constellation Orion piercing through the humid sky, the 3/4 moon suspended directly overhead. Mostly we just lounged on the dune sipping our contraband and wincing at the painful covers of "Summer of '69", "Cherry Bomb", and other variations on Aerosmith and Neil Young. Autumn and I ate overpriced chicken shawarma and wondered at where all the handsome expats we saw there usually hung out. Definately not at Rydges, our usual Thursday night haunt. There must be a bar for good-looking expats that we just haven't found yet... At one point we heard a country tune and I took Autumn out in the dusty patch in front of the stage for a lesson in the 2-step. The yellow lights made everyone's pallor sort of sickly but beautiful in a way, too, in that hazy romantic way that stage lights can make almost anyone into a sex symbol. At one point there was a very talented jazz ensemble that took the stage, but it was a short set, and as the next band started up (named "Hard Khor" for the district of Doha from which the members hailed, called Al Khor--very funny) we decided it was definately time to head home. But before we left we *had* to climb up to the top of the dune and then...what? Should we run down? Slide? We decided to take the most infantile approach and descend the dune log-roll style, like you do when you're 10 years old on grassy hills at the playground. Sand, sand, sand everywhere! Filling my mouth and my pockets and my ears. My hair was thick with it, my nose itchy. But it was so worth it. Though Autumn and I somewhat ill-advisedly started together and clonked heads a couple of times on the way down, we managed to avoid injury and any major humiliation. It reminded me of the time I almost got kicked out of the Starwood ampitheatre in Nashville for rolling down the hill at a Spin Doctors concert, and I knew it was the only appropriate way to close the festival.

So, this Friday I head off to Turkey for 10 days. More postings and photos to come after that trip. I hope this finds all of my loved ones well, and I hope that spring is finding you in your respective latitudes. Don't forget to leave comments. I love to read them!

Lots of sandy love,
Emelie

how to amuse yourself in the desert?

Drive around. Whether on the wide open sand flats just outside of town where I like to run or over the sand dunes an hour to the south that I visited on Saturday, driving SUVs in the sand seems to be the primary leisure activity in this bleak country. A group of my friends from work left from the Cornell parking lot around 2:00 Saturday afternoon, and after only a few minutes the sheen of Doha was scoured away by the harsh landscape of a country that bleeds natural gas.
After driving for an hour or so across an unchanging landscape punctuated by yet more piles of rubble ("yay! new rubble!") we arrived at the point where the tarmac ends and the road becomes a well-beaten track into the dunes. The experience of riding in an SUV piloted by a professional dune-driver is somewhat akin to riding a controlled but unpredictable rollercoaster. The goal, of course, is to get the tourists to squeal without rolling the vehicle over. We were happy to provide the obligatory but genuinely involuntary squeals.
Despite my general disdain for motorized amusement of this sort (a la jet skis, 4-wheelers, and the like) it was pretty damn fun. Still, my father's voice echoed in my head as I gazed out at the dunes criss-crossed with tire tracks: "I wonder what this does to the desert ecology?" Thanks for always ruining my fun, dad.

Anyhow, after 45 minutes or so the entertainment shifted from thrill-seeking to sight-seeing as we approached the famed Inland Sea that separates Qatar from Saudi Arabia. As we rolled up our pant legs and wiggled our toes in the briny water, we gazed across the wee inlet on the other side of which I, as a woman, would not be allowed to drive a car. As we watched the light changing on the beautiful rock formations rising from the beach across the water, someone from the group sighed, "Awww. Saudi has topography. No fair."
As we splashed in the shallows, we amused ourselves by taking pictures of each other in the gorgeous evening light and picking out collections of pretty shells. This latter activity became even more diverting when we realized that many of the shells still had very vivacious inhabitants.

The trip was capped off with a stop at a faux Bedouin camp set up by the tour company complete with icy soda pop and piles of dates. It actually was pretty lovely, and a nice place to sit and just watch the light fade and as night crept over the desert.It is weird how the wind changes here. I have noticed it especially in the evening hours on the beach. One minute the breeze will be hot and dry, turning my skin to parchment, but within minutes my hair is curling and a light sheen of moisture forms on the soft hair of my forearms and the wind shifts direction to blow in from the ocean and the air becomes thick and heavy. As a result, twilight comes sooner than you would expect and stars are harder to see, due only to the thickness of the atmosphere and the moisture in the air. But the long shadows cast across the salt flats by the looming dunes left me awestruck, and more than made up for the paltry smattering of stars in the desert sky.

And so, another entry comes to a close. Next weekend is the annual Dunestock festival (no, I'm not kidding) at the "singing sand dunes" about 40 km to the west. I already have a subject for the next post. Hope you are all well and that spring is pushing up the crocuses wherever you are.

Intrepidly Yours,
Emelie

fun with balls

This week I got my fix of spectator sports, since the Qatar World Tennis Open and the group A Asia Cup qualifying game (soccer) were both in town. On Tueday I got to see Martina Navratilova lose a very close doubles match. The venue was tiny and there was hardly anyone there, so i sat close enough to her that we could have had a conversation had she not been otherwise occupied. It was cool and a bit surreal to see live such an icon of my pre-teen afternoons in front of the TV, as my parents tried vainly to get me interested in the sport that they both played and enjoyed. I know you would have loved to see her play, dad, and mom i have to admit that tennis is one more thing i wish i had let you teach me (along with the piano).

On Thursday night Autumn and I made up our minds that we were going to go to the Asia Cup qualifying match between Qatar and Uzbekistan. After driving counterproductively through acres of construction and miles of diverted roadways, we finally found the entrance to the stadium (which we had been circling while in sight of for about 30 minutes) with about half of the second period yet to play. The stadium is amazing (I forgot my camera--sorry Carl!)--just one more part of the brand new sports facilities that are going up all over the place in preparation for the December 2006 Asian Games to be held here. So we walked into the gleaming new facility and looked out over the sea of throbes (the long white tunics and head coverings worn by Qatari men) and quickly realized that we were the ONLY women in the ENTIRE stadium. No one scowled at us so we were confident that we hadn't broken any taboos by going there, but as we scanned the stadium for seats our dilemma became clear. There were no empty seats on the ends of any rows. In Qatar, men and women who are strangers are not supposed to touch. Should we push past a row of be-throbed and traditional-looking men, risking offense, to get to a seat? Or should we just stand in the back like the outcasts we were? As we milled about wondering what to do, we spotted a couple of seats in the middle of a row but at the top, just in front of the uppermost railing. The security guard graciously allowed us to slip through the bars of the railing into the seats, thereby eliminating the need to brush by any white-sateen-clad male knees. Problem solved.

While of course not approaching the frenzy of a Brazilian football game, the crowd was surprisingly animated and music played throughout the game. The actual soccer was pretty second-rate, but the home team won and everyone was in a festive mood as the place cleared out, waving their Qatari flags and grinning. As we tried to leave, we for some reason found ourselves moving against the tide of the crowd, but despite the crush of people, i have never been so un-jostled in such a crowded place. As we slowly moved pointedly in the wrong direction, the masses parted wordlessly for us. Until, that is, a typical pair of 13-year-old boys approached and as I watched, one of the boys grabbed his friend by the wrist and, giggling furiously, moved his friends hand to touch my arm in a gesture of "I made you touch the girl, I made you touch the girl!". They skittered away laughing even harder, and i couldn't help but crack up in return. It was THE funniest thing that has happened to me in this country.

but the adventures didn't end there! another posting soon to come. love to you all!
emelie