"What ever happened to the mangroves south of Wakrah?" And other tales from ancient Qatar

I remember the first time that I got out of Doha city on my own in search of something other than concrete and glass. I wanted to find something - anything - resembling nature. I had just got my first rental car, a tiny little blue Chevy Sonic. The car was literally brand new, and just too cute. I had decided to go and try to find the mangrove swamps south of Wakrah, as I had read it was a good place to go walking with your dog. My poor little chihuahua, Farrah, had been cooped up for months never getting out of the apartment (as had I)...

So I did the best that I could to find these swamps, though the best set of directions I could find didn't count for the fact that a massive, deep-sea port was in the process of being planned and executed just off the coast. That fact still depresses me, though to be honest I have to say the Qatari press has done a pretty good job hushing that story. I haven't heard any negative press about it recently. You can, however, find the last story Doha News published on the project. Ironically, you can also find information linking the mangroves south of Wakrah to the Qatar Foundation's "Mapping the Mangroves" initiative, a partnership with international mangroves monitoring authorities which espouse the protection and conservation of the world's mangrove sites. You can also find links to some very sexy videos from the New Port Project website that appear to show some swanky looking QU students (if I'm not mistaken) getting a pretty sweet overview of this super-awesome-fun-time new mega-port project that's going forward.

When I think back to my first visit there it's hard not to laugh. While my directions hadn't taken into account that a massive, massive construction site was just getting underway at the time, they were also from another era entirely. Ok, I happened to read Cities of Salt earlier this year, and it's hard for me not to think of Doha in terms of Harran sometimes. When I first visited the mangroves south of Wakrah, the site of the new mega-port project, I remember being totally over the moon about finally being somewhere where I felt like I could breathe again. My little chihuahua could walk around a bit (though she's always been totally terrified of large bodies of water), and I could walk for a few kilometers at least in what felt like honest-to-god nature. I came across Qataris camping, other Westerners like myself kicking back on the beach at sunset on a camping chair. I passed by a tiny coast guard station that must have been built in the last half of the 19th century, potentially one of the oldest relics of modern Qatar. This wasn't just an abandoned patch of lands where expats could walk their dogs, it was a place that had a history - however brief.

On my first trip to the mangroves, in my tiny little Sonic, I was too nervous to venture off of the roads established by what I now realize was the New Port planning authority, so I just chucked it on the side of one of the roads on which the big yellow dragons rumble around, and walked the last 300 yards to the distinctive Coast Guard station tree on foot, my chihuahua chomping at the bit. I laugh, because when I'd finally returned to my car I had an angry Palestinian supervisor waiting to breathe down my neck when I got back. Though he was clearly softened because I was a strange looking blue-eyed female wearing a Pakistani dubatta and walking a little brown chihuahua, he made it clear that I was a dumbass for parking my car where I had. Looking back I know it was a stupid move, and I was stupid to try and go there with such a tiny car.

I smile and tell myself I would never do something like that again. Partly because I feel like I've grown up and am a bit more realistic about those sorts of things, but also partly because maybe I've lost a little bit of the foolhardiness that even brought me here in the first place; though that's a door I don't really want to open.

But then I also realize that I can't do that again, and the places where something like that are even possible in Qatar are rapidly disappearing. I've been to Al Dhakira Mangroves too (the ones just north of Al Khor around Purple Island), and they rock. Yes, they are also covered in trash, and rubbish, and litter. It's disgusting. I encourage you all to check out I <3 Qatar's mangrove cleanup initiative on the 30th of this month if you can.

But I'm not just talking about mangroves here. Qatar's being eaten up. By multi-billion dollar development projects, by capitalism more generally. It's remarkable how fluid identity is here. What it means to be Qatari, and what Qatar stands for seem to change from year to year. It's amazing how cohesive the country remains as a national entity, and yet how dramatically flexible the definitions of "Qatar" and "Qatari" can be. I'm not trying to be critical in the slightest, I'm just commenting on observations, and to a certain extent I'm actually genuinely impressed at Qatari resilience. By all means, keep on keeping on.

But please, do try to rediscover your roots a bit. We can all benefit from some careful introspection and a reexamination of the things that are important to us. Don't let your priorities by dictated by anyone other than YOU, my friends, and remember to never take anything at face-value. Yes, the government here is popular, and yes, I'll take an al Thani over an al Khalifa or al Maktoum any day of the week, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't remember to hold your leaders accountable to the highest moral standards of conduct. This sort of balance between ruler and ruled that you've got goin' on here can work, but sometimes you've got to shake the branches a bit to make sure they're still sturdy.

Branches, mangroves,... HA. So here we meet again. I guess all I'm trying to say is that really, the Qatari government should take a larger stake in the preservation of what little natural environments, and natural history sites that it has. There really are some diamonds in the rough to be found on this sandy little peninsula, but sometimes I feel like I need to visit them all tomorrow, lest they become the unhappy targets of Qatar's next big economic development plan. So help us God.

We could all use just a little bit more nature in our lives.

Peace & love always <3

A punk in hijab: Cops, peace, and quarter-life crises

“A concept is a brick. It can be used to build a courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window.” 
― Gilles Deleuze

“It is our suffering that brings us together. It is not love. Love does not obey the mind, and turns to hate when forced. The bond that binds us is beyond choice. We are brothers. We are brothers in what we share. In pain, which each of us must suffer alone, in hunger, in poverty, in hope, we know our brotherhood. We know it, because we have had to learn it. We know that there is no help for us but from one another, that no hand will save us if we do not reach out our hand. And the hand that you reach out is empty, as mine is. You have nothing. You possess nothing. You own nothing. You are free. All you have is what you are, and what you give.” 
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed

Another chapter of my life is coming to an end, or a turning point, or a new beginning for all I know. It's daunting to wrap my head around the fact that I'm about to finish all the coursework for my MA degree. I finally started to crank out what will soon become my thesis, and lo and behold - I'm presenting a paper at the University of Cambridge this summer. How the fuck did this happen??

I've reached a point in my life when I'm undergoing a transformation I've resisted tooth and nail up until now. I'm doing that settled thing. Dare I say it, I'm becoming normal. I'll never be totally normal, though who's to really say what that even means. If you've read my blogs up until this point you'll know that I feel as if I've been born with this big hole inside of me, this sick, strange sadness that claws at my very being and rips me apart from the inside out. It's not as big a hole as it used to be, but sometimes this bastard just flares up, burns a searing pain through my chest and renders me immobile.

I've haven't felt that I could ever find a way to soothe this sensation, this feeling of nervousness, of anxiety, and of tension. But I'm learning that I can. I'm learning that I'm strong enough to control this, if I want. I've always felt that life somehow isn't fair, that we have to fight for what we believe is right, because the system as we know it is bound to fail us in one way or another. Human beings aren't perfect. We all mess up. Just so long as you don't mess up early in the morning, going 95 on US I70 twenty miles past the border with Utah and go flying into a gully, you haven't messed up that badly. Some people, though... Some people do go flying into that gully. Most of them don't make it out alive. They die alone and afraid on the bank, staring at the sunrise-soaked autumn sky. Be glad you're alive, even if you're wasting your precious time reading this blog post. Be thankful.

It is because of struggle, of tragedy, and of pain that we grow stronger, that we become more capable of succeeding in this strange place we call Earth. How we measure that success is up to us, but it is only by working hard and putting in the effort that we can achieve any palpable sense of achievement and satisfaction. Though, to be fair, sometimes dedication and hard work bring only achievement, satisfaction is not inherently gained through achievement. I'm talking about real satisfaction, about a sense of calm and contentedness in life. Though we all "play the game", and go after money, fame, and fortune, all we really want is a sense that our life has meaning and value, that we've wisely used the time we've been given - because it is so short.

I thought for a long time that the best use of my time was to shake people up, to get them to see the colors and nuances that I was seeing; the intricacies of life that people blind themselves to. The kinds of things you see when you walk down the street instead of drive, the things you notice about people when you listen instead of talk. Though honestly sometimes I would yell rather than speak or keep quiet. Yell to make people see what was going on around them.

When I was 12 I started to go through this existential life crisis that's bogged me down for the past decade. Suddenly I could see that another world existed, an imperfect world where things weren't how I thought they should be. I dressed in all black, I started wearing heavy, smudgy, black eyeliner. I listened to rock and thought myself a "punk". I would color my hair with permanent marker and dreamed of getting something pierced other than my ears. I wanted to be different. I thought that maybe I could find myself if I transformed into something unrecognizable. I got more and more into this gothic appearance, and yes, I owned at least 5 pairs of those tacky, baggy black pants bedazzled with studs and chains and straps and things.

It was around this time I first had direct contact of any sort with a police officer. I don't remember the exact context, but I was in the 8th grade - the final year of middle school in America - and I was hanging around after school with some of the other "punks". It should be noted that across from my bilingual public school there was a private Catholic K-12 school, The Sacred Heart of Jesus (we would sometimes run up and down in front of the fences and scream "hail satan!!" to get a rise out of kids and teachers alike). This particular day we were hanging around by the school about 1-2 hours after classes had gotten out, up to no particular good but not as much trouble as one might guess by the look of us. With two or three pre-teens on skateboards, others with multi-colored hair, and all head to toe in black, I'm sure we looked much more intimidating than we intended to. I don't know if one of the neighbors called the cops, or if they did just happen to be passing by at that point in time. All I know is that I was crossing the street back over to the school and a cop car rolled up, parked, and two cops got out and approached us. They asked us what we were doing and we told them truthfully we were just waiting for our parents. Not two seconds later my mom pulled up to get me, so I started walking towards her car. The cop, apparently, wasn't done with his side of the conversation, and so he reached out and grabbed my left elbow - hard. It wasn't so violent, it wasn't like he was hitting me or anything, but the way that he did it so purposefully, it hurt more than just my little twelve-year-old elbow. At that point, with my mom seeing her hormonally raging pre-teen daughter in the hands of a cop, and with no context to understand that I hadn't, in fact, done anything wrong, she burst into tears and sobbed "oh MARIA!". I can still hear the sound.

I don't think it's necessary for me to relate every single negative experience I've had with authority since then, because that would take way more time than I have, and I bet most of you would stop reading. All I'm trying to say is that for a long time I've been sure that the best way to overturn this system that's failed us so is to rebel. Of that, I'm sure. But I've often found that this desire, this yearning for rebellion and for activism has come at a cost to me, myself. It's taxing to be a full-time rebel. You're often forced into situations that make you wildly uncomfortable, and you end up regretting a lot of "heat of the moment" passions.

I think that blind faith in anything be it God, Allah, a person, science, authority, a thing, or even yourself is a sure fire recipe for stupidity. You can never fully believe in something you don't question, you don't explore and reconsider. I'm lucky enough to call myself a Muslim, though since I also identify as a Sufi and a Shia, many in the "Islamic ummah" wouldn't dare include me amongst their ranks. I pray on a little pressed stone from Karbala. Sometimes I pray late at night when I'm just staring at the stars. Sometimes I can feel the very essence of the Divine coursing through my veins and into my palms. The problem with religions as establishments is that they try to limit religious experience. The very foundations of our great religions were based on the experiences of various beings, we can call them prophets, and yet today we deny ourselves any exploration or communion with those same ideas. Don't let religion limit you. Let it help you to expand.

One of the many things that we can learn from this religious tradition some call Islam, is that the Prophet Muhammad advocated "the middle path". I'm a big fan of looking into the Prophet of Islam's transcendental experiences, the most well known of which would have to be his "Night Journey", or the Isra wa Miraj . For those that aren't familiar, it's an event during which the Prophet Muhammad is said to have traveled from Mecca to Jerusalem on the back of a winged creature, al Buraq, and then on through the seven levels of heaven (coincidentally the picture that's the background for my blog, in case you've ever wondered). At one point the Prophet was offered a choice of drink (I don't remember who offered him if it was the angel Gabriel or God Himself, or somebody else). He could have either water, milk, or wine. He chose milk, to try to exemplify taking the middle path in life. Now, I myself would have preferred soy milk, but to be fair I don't think widespread agricultural mono cropping of soybeans had quite taken hold yet at the time of the Night Journey.

I think it's time I lay off the wine and go for the (soy)milk.

I'm trying to figure out how to do that. But it's hard, and I have no frame of reference or context to fit this in. All I can do is try to force myself to make conscious decisions, not to just follow the extreme ups and downs I've been accustomed to, but to really put some calculated effort into my life choices. I know that sounds dumb. "You're in Doha!" you might say. Or "you're getting your masters and moving up in the world!", but those aren't the sorts of things I'm talking about. When I die, it won't matter whatsoever if I have a high school education or a PhD or whatever. What will matter,... well... I don't exactly know what will matter. All I know is that I want to be at peace, I want to reach that deep and restful inner peace before I die. The kind of peace where your body and mind are quiet. It's the kind of peace you find at the top of a mountain when you're the only one around. The kind of peace you get when you go to sleep at night in the arms of someone who's proven time and again that they won't let go. The kind of peace you feel when you're laying on the grass in summertime, when there's a cool breeze, and the birds sing, and their song says "all is right with the world." Chirp, chirp.

I want to find that peace. We all do. It's what we're all scrambling for in our last few strokes of the clock, the kind of peace that drives one mad late in their years, when they realize they've never given it a thought before. I want everyone to find this peace. I want for my fellow man what I want for myself.

When you're too content you never know that you should be searching, looking for a way to make peace before you go. I guess I wanted to unsettle people so that they might wake up and start looking to restore their own inner peace. Disturbing the calm was the name of the game, tearing the wool - violently - from your eyes. But it came at a cost, and I have arrived at this point in time more bruised and broken than victoriously triumphant. That can happen when you play the game, too.

It's time for me to sit back, just a bit, and try to find the middle path in my own life. It's a hard trail to follow, but I'm sure the view from the top is pretty sweet.

Peace & love always <3