livin' in the desert

I really do live in the desert now. The most edificially congested area is the Corniche, which seems to produce a new sky scraper daily. Aside from that area around the bay, Doha is very dispersed, with big open spaces filled with sand between every few buildings, even in the center of the city. Everything is sand-colored, it seems, and most cars are even white or silver. The drivers, just like I was told before I arrived, are crazy. Everyone says that a sand storm is on the way...

But everything here is great. The three girls on the outgoing MC (national staff, for all you non-AIESECers) have taken me in and are being so sweet to me! The members are being wonderful, taking me out for coffee and making plans to see movies with me. I've been told that I'll be going ice skating soon (there's a rink in one of the malls), and we've talked about everything from AIESEC roll calls to censorship to our families to pop culture, religion and tradition. And that's only in the past 48ish hours!

Strangely enough, the MC and the EB (Executive Board) from the female campus of Qatar University went to dinner tonight, and everyone wanted to go to Applebee's. Yes, an American restaurant. And then, I had plans to go see Ocean's 13 with some of the members. I don't think I I needed to travel for 22 hours across the world to have an American evening, but it was a great time and it was with people that I wouldn't have known had I not come to Qatar.

An interesting thing that I've noticed is that while there is much censorship here, especially with TV, movies and print media, the music is almost all American and pretty raunchy at that. I wonder why, with Americans blaming the music that kids listen to for bad behavior, the same problems aren't present in Qatar. It's one of the safest countries in the world... people routinely leave their cars running outside while they run into a store for an errand, and there is almost no graffiti anywhere. The response I get from our members: it's the combination of religion and tradition.

I'll post pics soon, I promise!