Life on the Spot! Life and Leisure in Doha, Qatar

The last few days have given us a change in the weather. There is lesser heat on the afternoons and as proof, our water is tolerable to use for baths late in the afternoon. Before, if we plan to use the tub, we had to fill the tub with water at least an hour before you plunge in. The weather is quite nice, less heat and less humidity. Mavis and I are expecting a cooler winter than last year. Winter here isn’t your winter in America or Canada. I never heard of getting snow here or the temperature going down below zero. The coldest we’ve experienced in Saudi is probably 10-12 degrees and that was on 2002. We were donning thick jackets, caps and Mavis even wore gloves when we go out. It was ok but what made it really cold was the wind which made your hands and ears feel numb. We’ve never experienced that again so we eventually sent some of our thick jackets home to the Philippines.

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Yesterday, we were in the Souk, hoping that we would be able to send money through the remittance office. But to our dismay, we found out that the office won’t open until 7pm. So I just decided to go to a Filipino grocery (not that it’s owned by a Filipino, it only sells items from the Philippines. I was actually looking for a 6 kilogram pack/box of laundry detergent but they only had the smaller ones, so I decided to buy Magnolia Ube Ice Cream. So we went home, then I opened and started eating the ice cream. I was giving Tian some since he was behind the wheels. We were already along D-Ring Road when I suddenly realized that I shouldn’t be eating since it was only 5pm. I’m not a Muslim but out of respect for our Muslim brothers, I felt so embarrassed having eaten almost ¾ of the pint of ice cream. As soon as I realized I stopped eating. Just a thought for other non-Muslims, let us try to be more cautious and aware of our actions especially this season so that we won’t end up or seem to be disrespectful of their beliefs and culture during this time of year.

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Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. Since Islam uses a lunar calendar—with each month starting with the sighting of the new moon, so does Ramadan. More than a billion Muslims around the world, spend Ramadan with prayer, charity and most of all fasting. It is the Muslims belief that during the month of Ramadan, Allah revealed the first verses of the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam to Muhammad their prophet and founder of Islam.

On the holy month of Ramadan, Muslims practice “sawm” or fasting. During this time they cannot eat or drink, including water, while the sun shines. As one of the “Five Pillars (duties)” of Islam, all able Muslims take part in sawm from about age twelve. Thus, families get up early for “suhoor”, a meal eaten before the sun rises. After the sun sets, the fast ends and is followed with a meal known as “iftar”, which usually begins with sweets, like dates.

This year, Ramadan began last Saturday, September 23, a day earlier than the expected date. You’ll know it is Ramadan the moment you leave your house early in the morning or early in the afternoon. There is no traffic on the main thoroughfares of Doha. Whereas before, traffic usually starts to build up at around 6:30, these days, you’ll get into traffic around 8 am. This is so because almost everyone goes to work at this time. Almost all companies have reduced their working hours to 6 hours from the usual 8 hours. My husband, on normal days would be at work from 6:30am-2:30pm but since Ramadan started, he now works from 8:30-1:30. It’s actually great! Who wouldn’t want his working hours shortened? The only trouble during this time of the year is the changes in schedule of operation among the supermarkets and other establishments. Most of them only open for a short period of time during the day and open at night. The thing is, almost everyone also goes out at night to do their shopping and everything. That’s why during this time, the supermarket, fastfoods and restaurants would be the last place you’d like to be in. There are just so many people trying to get their hands on all sorts of grocery items but who can blame them, it’s their only chance to fill their empty stomachs. Well I guess it’s just a matter of knowing the schedules and a bit planning then we’ll get the hang of things in no time at all.

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How many of the people we know were born during this month? I’ve always wondered why a lot of people celebrate their birthdays in September. In Christian’s family alone, 3 of them have their birthdays this month. His sister celebrated her birthday on the 22^nd, then Christian on the 28^th and his mom on the 29^th. An uncle of mine had his birthday today. Just this weekend we attended 2 birthday parties. Our friends had to go to one birthday party after the other almost all the weeks of September. The list could go on and on, and it makes me wonder why. I have two thoughts. First, people born in September were conceived in the month of December, which is a cold month for the most part of the world, thus being conducive for intimacy and you know what I mean. Second, as the song goes, “give love on Christmas day….” I guess some people get a bit carried away and take it literally.  Well, I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing. It’s just something that I’ve often thought about and I don’t know if anyone is as curious as I am.

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