Into the Desert

I arrived in Qatar on a Turkish plane one evening after midnight. I was greeted by an Indian cab driver who took me to my Islamic hotel where I slept next to a Quran written only in Arabic. First impressions were the warm and dry air at night, a soft breeze from the gulf, and another impressive skyline dominated by cranes and lights and other strange super structures. I knew little about Qatar then, and still do not know enough now, but this odd peninsula supported by hydrocarbons and expatriote labor has since turned into an equally odd sort of makeshift home.

Qatar itself has a uninteresting history, notable only for fishing and pearls until recent memory. But with the discovery of obscene quantities of natural gas in the latter half of the 20th century, the last ten years especially have taken it from a splotch of desert to hosting the World Trade Organization, the World Cup 2022, and US Central Command for the Middle East.

At its core, Doha is about money. Everyone from oil executives to high level escorts are here for it, and they have it in large quantities -- amongst the highest in the world -- only leaving them bored without enough ways to spend it. Then there is the other end of the spectrum, where thousands of blue collar workers from Ethiopia to Nepal have flooded the country to support the exploding economy, only to be exploited on a employer sponsorship system that leaves them stuck in a modernized form of 21st century slavery. As I sit somewhere in the middle, gazing out pensively at both sides, I realize neither side is really me so I am probably best set as I am.

There are other facts too that have their implications. A country 75% men and 80% Muslim is a tough world that lends itself to a general aura of peculiar masculine frustration. We are indeed in the conservative Islamic world, but I will not be in Qatar forever, or even six months, so it seems silly to miss other places and not take it in as another place that exists, another reality that people live.

I recently went out into the desert -- the most authentic and natural part of Qatar. It is a barren landscape that spans hundreds of miles into Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Iran, and Iraq, supported by sand dunes that roll continuously on unchanged. It is rough country, occasionally spotted by refineries and gas flames, but one that has always resonated well with me at other periods in my life I needed to get away and look panoramically at nothing in particular. I laid down in the sand, looking out on the Persian Gulf while keeping a careful eye for scorpions, and felt the hot sun on my neck and back. The quiet is calming -- a welcomed change from Doha -- and so the vastness let the last few weeks settle in.