Day 15 – 17 May, 2011

SOUQS

Went to the souqs last night with Joanne. What a blast. The souqs is a gigantic market, rife with narrow passageways and all manner of shops, restaurants and people. This wasn’t my first time, I went once before by myself, shortly after I moved into my apartment. However, that time, I stupidly wore my normal western clothes, which, in my case, isn’t a whole lot. Little sundress with spaghetti straps. Didn’t take me long to learn not to dress like that in the souqs. With my upper arms and lower leg, covered in tattoos, I got a lot of unwanted stares. This time I wore my work clothes (we have to wear sleeves that cover our elbows and pants, shorts or a skirt that covers the knees). However, I still can’t hide the huge tattoo on my calf or the one on my wrist. So I got fewer stares, but still quite a bit of attention. Tattoos are forbidden in Islam, because it’s defiling the body. Now, some people are open-minded and understand I may have different beliefs than they do and I do sometimes get compliments. But last night, there was this one man in a wheelbarrow (passageways of the souqs are full of men, shopkeepers and old men with wheelbarrows who will carry your purchases if you want) who saw my tattoo and did some wild gesticulating, pointing at his calf, shaking his head and clucking his tongue, and then raising his arms up to the sky. Despite the lack of verbal expression, it was pretty clear he was letting me know I was offending Allah. Oh well, I guess I won’t go to muslim heaven after all. So the next two photos show one of the wheelbarrow men and the Fanar Centre (the spiral mosque), an Islamic cultural centre.

Anyway, Joanne had a couple of errand type things to do but mainly we just walked around kind of aimlessly. We stopped at the camel lot (where they sell camels). I asked her how much she thinks a camel costs, she figured perhaps upwards of 500 000 QR (around 135 000,00 $ CDN). Too bad – I was planning on buying a pair, now I guess I’ll have to limit myself to one. In particular, there are piles of shops that sell fabric, in fact, I’ve never seen so many bolts of fabric in one geographic area, let alone a single market. There are also many shops that sell the traditional arab garb, nuts, spices and sweets, strange and unusual trinkets and toys (there’s one shop that sells more sponge bob things than I could have ever imagined existed.

Quite disturbing was the domestic animal area. Bunnies, cats, dogs, ornamental pigeons (Darwin would be thrilled, I bet), ducks, parrots (mainly budgies, Congo African greys and blue-fronted Amazons, nearly all very young individuals, but also some cockatiels, ring-necked parakeets and a green-winged macaw). Many of these animals are in deplorable conditions, crammed several individuals into small cages (see photos), though less so the parrots, they were mostly out of their cages, free to bite the closest unwary finger. Of course, their wings were all trimmed incorrectly, outer primaries intact, but inner primaries and outer secondaries clipped so that the bird can gain speed and lift but can’t land safely without smashing its keel or beak on the ground. But most appalling was the dyed animals, specifically baby chickens – see video below. I can’t begin to understand what that’s about.

We also went to the gold souqs, which is an area (indoors mainly) of stores selling nothing but gold. I’ve never seen anything remotely like the jewelry these people covet. It kind of defies description. The gaudiest, heaviest, most ridiculous stuff. I asked about this one necklace which was like a series of interconnected shields, with all kinds of fancy filigree and ornamentation. I asked where people here would wear something like that (to a wedding) and how much these pieces weigh (up to a kg!). Holy moly, that’s a whole lot of gold. I’ve attached a video.

The best part of the evening was our dinner. We went to an Iranian restaurant, called Isfahan. Never in my life have I seen a décor like this. It was absolutely incredible. Extremely ornate, with mirrored mosaics, crazy chandeliers, a fountain, amazing wall decorations (these murals and sort of statues built into the walls). It was way, and I do mean way, over the top, but exquisitely beautiful just the same. I was completely enthralled. I’ve attached a photo of a chandelier – I took video as well, but I have to rotate it and that takes forever, or I may not have to - let's see - if I can, I'll put the video instead. The meal was great, the service was too, and they had live Iranian music – a violinist and a guy on keyboard/vocals. The violinist was amazing – both Joanne and I detected a slight Celtic influence in some of the songs, which was really unexpected, but very cool. Man, I’ve missed listening to live music (and my practicing barre chords is more torture than listening pleasure.

Tomorrow, I’m supposed to go back to Fuwayriit to see if we can manage to see a female sea turtle actually laying her eggs. CJ and I (and possibly Suzanne) will leave straight from work, have a picnic on the beach and hopefully await the arrival of a turtle.

One last thing. I have NO MONEY. My bank card for some strange reason simply wouldn’t work, not in any of the 5 ATMs I tried. I haven’t had any problems till now and I phoned the bank when I got back to my appartement last night, but they couldn’t see what the problem was. I did try again this afternoon – same deal. I may have to ask someone to wire me a large sum (via western union) and I’ll pay them back immediately via email money transfer – please let me know if you’re willing to do this. I do have the money to cover it.

Oh, and I can’t phone anyone because out of the blue, for like the first time, skype asked me for a password. I have no bloody clue what it is. Greg set up my account for me and I thought I knew what it was, but clearly I don’t. That’s mildly annoying. And the reset email they sent me for some reason hasn’t arrived – how long can that possibly take?


UPDATE: Skype situation fixed this morning (wednesday) and $$ situation resolved by CJ, who offered to take me to a better bank this afternoon and if that doesn't work, to exchange cash for friendship (haha!), no to exchange cash for an email $$ transfer. Man, the UCQ people are awesome.