english conversation hour #1

Yesterday, we had our first "English Conversation Hour." Members from AIESEC Qatar meet me at a coffee or juice place and we chat in English for an hour about whatever we want in an effort to improve their English skills and help me learn more about the culture.

I was pleasantly surprised to see seven members waiting for me when I walked up the stairs to our favorite meeting place. We started out slowly, talking about how everyone's day was... and conversation was significantly lagging. So, to spice things up, I introduced a topic. And I said many disclaimers on the topic before I brought it up, that we didn't have to talk about it and if anyone felt uncomfortable to say so right away. So we started talking about 9/11. I know, I know... great topic for a bunch of Middle Easterners and an American to chat about.

It was actually one of the most significant and impactful conversations I've had since I've been here (a month and a day, to be exact). I so appreciate the way the members opened up to me. My first question was how the media covered the event in the Middle East, and we progressed to what they thought about the event. We talked about stereotypes of Americans and Arabs, media bias, current conflicts, religion, politics, Iraq... what a great conversation! It was one of the first times that I felt like I was on the same level as the members, especially because we were all learning about each other in ways that we don't from the normal conversations of movies and music and AIESEC.

I'm looking forward to next week!

In other news, I leave tomorrow night for Bahrain for the weekend! I'll be back Sunday night.

Slate: How to get rid of Us vs. Them

For some reason, I haven't been able to get enough political commentary in the past few days. Here's the latest from Slate, about how to defeat Al Qaeda in the war on terror:

"The way to win this war [agaist Al Qaeda] is to define us and them based on clear principles and resist all divisions based on religion or ethnicity. The central principle we stand for is pluralism, the commitment to a society where people with different beliefs live in equal dignity and mutual loyalty. People who believe in pluralism come from all backgrounds—Christian and Muslim, believer and atheist, Arab and American.

Their central principle is totalitarianism, the conviction that one group should dominate and everyone else should suffocate. Totalitarians are an equally diverse but much smaller population. But there is a somewhat larger group of people who are susceptible to the totalitarian message, especially if they feel like the pluralists have already written them off.

Sun Tzu wrote in the Art of War, "If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle." Every time a mainstream Muslim is accused of being a terrorist because of his accent, his beard, or his prayers, we violate our central principle and erode our essential identity. Every time the sacred symbols of Islam are desecrated, we arm the enemy. The sooner we learn this lesson, the faster we win this war."

Read more: Is Your Muslim Doctor the Enemy? How Terrorist Groups Target Middle-class Muslims (Slate)

"I am someone concrete!"

From the New York Times, quoting Nicolas Sarkozy, the new President of France, in his new governmental policy to get the French to think less and work more:

"Certainly, the new president himself has cultivated his image as a nonintellectual. “I am not a theoretician,” he told a television interviewer last month. “I am not an ideologue. Oh, I am not an intellectual! I am someone concrete!”

But the disdain for reflection may be going a bit too far. It certainly has set the French intellectual class on edge.

“How absurd to say we should think less!” said Alain Finkielkraut, the philosopher, writer, professor and radio show host. “If you have the chance to consecrate your life to thinking, you work all the time, even in your sleep. Thinking requires setbacks, suffering, a lot of sweat.”

Bernard-Henri Lévy, the much more splashy philosopher-journalist who wrote a book retracing Tocqueville’s 19th-century travels throughout the United States, is similarly appalled by [Finance Minister Christine Lagarde]’s comments.

“This is the sort of thing you can hear in cafe conversations from morons who drink too much,” said Mr. Lévy, who is so well-known in French that he is known simply by his initials B.H.L. “To my knowledge this is the first time in modern French history that a minister dares to utter such phrases. I’m pro-American and pro-market, so I could have voted for Nicolas Sarkozy, but this anti-intellectual tendency is one of the reasons that I did not.”"

I would think that the intellectuals compose one category of elites that you don't want to alienate in a country like France. It seems to me that the new leadership didn't think their policy through very well... but at least the article is amusing. :)

Read more: New Leaders Say Pensive French Think Too Much (NYT)

Bridging the Gulf: Is Doha the new cultural capital of the Middle East?

"Along the semicircular bay in Doha, in the tiny Gulf emirate of Qatar, dozens of glittering new skyscrapers are rising out of the blazing desert sands. Marble-lined shopping malls and luxury hotels proliferate, while opulent waterfront apartment complexes meant to invoke the Italian Riviera and other far-flung locales are emerging alongside futuristic private villas. And just offshore, on its own man-made island, an eye-popping stone-clad ziggurat floats above the blue waters of the Arabian Gulf: the new Museum of Islamic Art, designed by I. M. Pei, the first of at least half a dozen major art museums in the works here."

"Until now, this sun-scorched city was best known to Americans, if they were aware of it at all, as headquarters of the Al-Jazeera satellite television network. But significant changes are under way. With the country rich in petrodollars, Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, is intent on reinventing Doha as nothing short of the cultural hub of the Middle East and the center of an educational and scientific renaissance in the Arab world. Other Persian Gulf states have been touting plans to boost their cultural offerings—most recently, Abu Dhabi unveiled a quartet of designs by celebrity architects for a lavish museum district. But Qatar’s efforts in this direction are the furthest along in reality."

Read more about my new home from Travel + Leisure Magazine... the article tries too hard to portray Doha as emerging out of conservatism, but the educational renaissance efforts are true through and through.

on jumping in head first

Since my second week here, a feeling has been creeping up on me. Every day, I've started to feel more and more alive, more like myself, more passionate, more capable, more powerful. It hit me today: I love my life. I love that I'm in Qatar right now. I love that a month and a half ago, this wasn't in any of my plans I had ever made for myself and I love that when the opportunity presented itself, I said YES without thinking twice and just picked my life up from Madison and moved halfway across the world. Most of all, I'm appreciative that I have the support in my life that enabled me to do it; at the same time, I'm proud of myself for taking a risk on something that I would have dreamed of doing had I thought it was remotely possible...

(Side note: I'm going to Bahrain next weekend! AND I'm going to IC in Turkey from August 17 to 31 (insh'allah...i still need to get my tickets)! Three new countries in two months isn't bad...)

Before I left Madison, I was trying hard not to think of the things I was giving up and not to contemplate how difficult the experience was going to be for me. I was so scared, but I tried not to think about that, either. To be honest, I had no idea what to expect, so it was easier to be excited about going to some far-off exotic land than to piece together exactly what I would be doing and how it would feel.

I'm beginning to remember how I felt when I lived in DC for the first time, just over two years ago. I felt like the city, my job, my life there fit. It was clear to me that the opportunity came at the exact point in my life when I needed it. It was like two pieces of my life puzzle suddenly snapped into place. At that point, I had the right amount of challenges in the new context to push me to who I needed to become in that phase of my development.

Now, it's almost the same. In some ways, like professionally, I know that the challenges are too great for who I am right now and I have to work to catch up; in other ways, (connecting to others socially when I don't speak the language, for example) I have to push myself, but the obstacles are well within my circle of influence. It's an interesting dynamic... my person has never been this segmented in my mind... to know that some parts of me are fulfilling their potential and to see that the potential in other parts, even if it were being achieved, still isn't enough to get the job done.

But I'm so happy here right now. I'm comfortable, even when I'm in one of the many awkward situations I encounter every day... (and oh, there are so many!). I have good friends and we do fun things, and I've even stopped talking about AIESEC all the time. Everywhere I go is new and fresh. I'm still in awe of where I am. I think I've maybe started to embrace the culture shock.

I can feel the steep uphill slope leveling off. And even though I know there will be more mountains to climb, I'm happy that I'm reaching the first summit. :)

curiosities

On the signs outside all the salons here, it says "saloon."

I drove around one of the millions of crazy roundabouts in Doha today. Almost a traumatic experience, but I felt surprisingly victorious once I successfully navigated it, although I was whimpering to myself the whole time.

Everyone has a tape player in their car and stacks of music-filled tapes that they listen to while driving. On Qatari radio, they play American songs like "Mambo No.5." On Qatari TV, they play movies like "Steel Magnolias."

I have meetings with Qatar Airways and Qatar Petroleum this week. Probably two of the most important meetings I've had in my career so far. At Qatar Airways, we're asking for ten free tickets to IC in Turkey in August. At QP, we're asking for them to fund our 400,000QR PBoX.
That's a lot of money.

Nobody checks their e-mail religiously, answers cell phones when they should (instead, they answer during meetings) or has voicemail. Sooooo frustrating.

The mango juice is heavenly and the shwarma is delicious.

The city puts little bags on the palm trees up at the top to catch the coconuts when they fall so they don't go in the street.

I don't really feel the heat any more. I wear pants and long sleeves, and I know I'm sweating, but I don't even register that it's over 100F every time I step outside.

When there's an accident in the street, the cars are forbidden from moving. The must stay in the exact same position until the police arrives and gives them a note saying that the scene was inspected. Because people are crazy drivers and because there are a lot of people in Doha, this causes a TON of traffic delays. I saw an accident as it was happening two lanes away from me today.

There are almost no bugs here.

Whenever people hear that I'm part Argentinian, they ask if I can teach them how to Salsa.

The sand here is not so much sand as it is either dust or forms clumps of material almost harder than rock.

mo' money

So many people here are so rich it blows my mind. We have one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. I'm still getting used to it when members say, "my driver is waiting." Hummers, jewlery, hand-embroidered abayas, exclusive designer sunglasses up the wazoo. But I have to say that they do know how to rock it, too. People here have money AND style. Hot.

K, you would love the shopping. :)

all good

I'm definitely getting the hang of things now... I just have so much work to catch up on that I feel like I'm already behind!

Went to Carrefour, a huge WalMart/grocery store thing, yesterday in preparation for an evening trip to the beach. Spent an hour looking for basics, like sugar and milk, because things are placed in such a weird way. I was searching and searching for the eggs near the dairy aisle, because that's where I'm used to seeing them. That's my life right now... trying like crazy to understand and figure things out in a world with which I'm totally unfamiliar.

The good news is that I found the eggs. They were next to the frozen chickens. Duh.

Also baked choco chip cookies for the dinner picnic. Delicious! [lx, I'll have to bring some to Bahrain when I visit as a GCC MC friendship offering]

The beach, on an island within view of Doha (yet surprisingly deserted) was gorgeous. We spent the afternoon and evening swimming in incredibly salty but pleasantly warm water, eating delicious food, including hummus, roast chicken and couscous, laying out on the beach and watching the sun set on Doha. At 10:30 PM, when we thought the motorboat driver had forgotten about us and we were stranded, he showed up in the nick of time and we had a nice trip back to shore.

The plan for tomorrow: send a ton of e-mails, meet with a member to finish InsightXP certification [which I've decided that @US needs to require for exchange], switch our car for an automatic [I think I've given up trying to drive manual], more LC transitioning and picking up Layial, who will be here until the 15th!!

culture shock

Yesterday was rough for me. All the culture shock hit me at once. I was very emotional and confused and the prospect of developing @ in Qatar further seemed almost impossible to me. But I realized that it was a roadblock in my own mind and I had to get past it if I was going to ever function here. I love the members, I love the other MC members, I love my life here so far, but I was totally freaking out. And I gave myself permission to freak out. I think it's healthy, especially given the situation I'm in right now. I knew coming here was going to be hard, but I had no idea just how many things here are obstacles to the way I'm used to thinking.

It was so much easier at home...I never thought I'd be here, doing what I'm doing. Working hard - and I mean HARD - to understand how you fit into a structure that you're supposed to develop in a culture that you don't completely understand, when you're working with seventy real peoples' lives and dreams and time and commitments, when you want more than anything to reach your potential in every possible way for the next year of your life because it means that those people you're working with would be that much much closer to reaching theirs.... My personal commitment here is to the members, above anything else.

But today, Kristina, outgoing MCP of @Qatar, left for good for home. And that made everything I was feeling yesterday so much more real, because I know that I need to step up. It's my turn.

Ironically, today was governed by a different feeling. By a feeling of competency and preparation. I moved into Kristina's old room [the instant I put a red-and-white Badger football tassle on my mirror I felt a little better]. I unpacked my suitcases after ten days of living out of them. I did laundry. I went grocery shopping. I had a fantastic lunch with several of the members at a Qatari restaurant. I called my parents and my two best friends from my own Qatari cell phone.

The members know me a little better and I know myself a little better. After ten days, I am starting to find my niche. And although my niche will change as Layial and Lonneke arrive and as the old team leaves and although it will progress and regress throughout the next year, it feels so good to start having my own context for the next twelve months. It's even better to feel like myself again.

Question:

How much of one's self-image has to do with the way one is perceived by others?

How much does it depend on religion? On one's culture? On the choices one makes? What happens when there aren't others who can serve as a lens through which to view one's self?

And how do new experiences change one's beliefs about what is and what is not possible in this world?

Happy Birthday, USA

The United States won independence from England on July 4, 1776; Qatar won independence from England on September 3, 1971.

Interesting.

education, the Bill of Rights and loyalty

Finally, I not only feel like an American, I am proud to be an American. Not because I necessarily like what our country now stands for abroad; not because I always seem to be saying, "In the States, we..." or because I miss Madison and DC and my family and friends; not because I am perceived to be an American by many people here. I am beginning to appreciate how ridiculously fortunate we are. To grow up in a country with freedom of speech, where a petty criminal can't be deported for a small offense, where our decisions are made by a [somewhat] democratic process, where I can elect my representatives in government, where I have a choice of world-class Universities and I can pick any major in the world and choose any career I desire, and where I can do all those things while being an autonomous female. It is not necessarily doing those things that I appreciate, but the system that allows it to be so.

I also have found a fierce loyalty to AIESEC US. I am the only one that knows the @US system here, and I'm surrounded by people that are close with AIESEC International. Although there are flaws with both the AI and @US systems, I defend the US when it's unjustly criticized and I do my best to set the record straight. I had no idea that I had that kind of loyalty for the organization, especially in light of the realization that @US failed in its responsibility to teach all its members about the policies and recent changes of its parent organization [like how many people know about the Rae group-AI lawsuit? How about the AIESEC 2010 goals? The fact that AI focuses on leadership development, while @US focuses on exchange?] and despite the fact that I feel somewhat abandoned by the organization, which pledged such strong support to me and the Qatar team in New York City only two weeks ago.

So here I am, in Qatar, learning new things about myself and about the world and changing the lives of people every day. I can't imagine a better first real job.