The Yemeni Honey Man

Well there’s this section of Doha that is so interesting. It is called the Karhaba District. We first went there shortly after I got here to go to a lovely Indian Restaurant called The Garden. Well we got lost and loster and then finally we found it. After several more attempts, we have learned to get to this district easily ... with only the occasional screw-up. The district is largely Indian-seeming and has narrow streets lined with shops selling fabric and sarees and jewellery and musical instruments and sweets and bread and honey. There is a little shop that sells Yemeni honey and it has become a favourite destination.

I was interested in Yemeni honey because the day before we went to Al Karhaba, I got a note from my friend Arlene about the virtues of Sidr honey from the mountains of Yemen and its amazing ability to fight infections, especially sinus and respiratory infections ... even killing MRSA bacteria – the superbug!

Sidr honey is pretty costly ... could be the most expensive honey in the world. It comes from the Hadramaut Mountains in the Southwestern Arabian Peninsula, where it is harvested only twice per year. The honey is from bees who feast only on the pollen of the Sidr tree. The Sidr tree is considered by many to be a holy tree and is one of the most resilient, ancient tree varieties in the area. In fact the newest large health facility here in Doha is called the Sidra Medical and Research Center. Sidr honey is reputed to have many medicinal benefits and has an unusually high level of antioxidants, as well as a rich, unforgettable taste.

So Mr Hussein Hytham Askar has tea, ginseng, honey, honeycomb, baskets and who-knows-what-else in his small shop on Al Karhaba. He is a very entertaining guy, who is likely to give you a high five or a very complicated handshake upon entering his shop. He will often have customers sitting near his desk, trying out different types of honey and he mixes special potions. He has at least two cell phones on the go and is always interspersing his various activities. One time I was in his store and he was mixing in a light powder about half and half with the honey for a man who had come in the shop. With some difficulty I was trying to figure out what he was mixing in and I thought it might be ginseng ... he laughed and laughed and said ... no .... for his fourth wife he needs ginseng ... right now, he has a cough! Finally we determined he was mixing in powdered ginger! Mr. Hussein really likes Errol and always compliments him on his Arabic. Yesterday we went and got a daughter discount ... he had us all in stitches. Today we went to Souq Waqif and met his son and little granddaughter Anoud.

Well we recently learned that the Karhaba District will start to be torn down, starting January 1. What a shame ... it is such a vibrant and interesting area and so full of life. Most of the Indian shopkeepers we spoke to the other day were not very happy and felt there was little compensation if any. One store, called Bombay Silk, which has the most beautiful fabrics and lovely sarees and shalwar kameez will be given nothing according to the owner. Some owners will be offered shops in the Souq Waqif, where their rents will be considerably higher. We feel very sorry for everyone concerned. And it is a densely populated area, with lots of small and inexpensive apartments, so of course there will be many people dislocated and needing to find other accommodation. On the weekends, the area is inundated with bachelors, who can get food from Kerala, Goa, Punjab – in fact, all parts of South Asia. So, where will they all go?

Mr Hussein may be better off ... he says he will be happy in Souq Waqif and there will be lots of parking. Who knows? We will miss Al Karhaba with its sights, sounds, smells, and vitality!

Here we go!

Regular classes are over for the semester and next week is set for final exams. My class will be having a small Grammar quiz and then full Reading and Writing exams. I messed up and put Reading first, which was not smart, because, Of course, it takes longer to mark Writing. Owell. I have a small class (13) and so it shouldn’t take too long to mark, as I don’t have to make comments or return them.

My class is quite exhausted. They all have presentations and assignments in their Nursing courses and are all quite stressed about that. So, when arranging next week, it became clear that they were too stressed to think about a goodbye celebration next Thursday and I could tell they were not too enthusiastic ... they crave sleep! I suggested we do something when the new semester starts ... but they arranged a surprise breakfast at the end of class last Thursday! We had fetayehs and juice and a huge cake that was half chocolate and half fruit flan. Omigoodness the cake was wonderful! The best part was the students going around and talking about the semester and what they had learned and how they felt they had improved and grown. It was very lovely. I was so impressed by their ability to articulate their thoughts and feelings in English, their natural graciousness, and by the fact that they initiated it. I can remember many lifeskills classes where this part was like pulling teeth. And I appreciated their very kind words. I will miss them.

So after next week it will be Eid Al Adha. It will be nice for the students to have a day to prepare for Eid. So many of them have family responsibilities ... either because they are married and have to do it themselves or because they are eldest daughters and need to help.

Next Thursday evening, the university will have a party at the Ritz-Carleton (“Yes, we are fancy schmancy people”, read the invitationJ). People from UC-Q are pouring out of here starting on Friday. Well, some have left already if truth be told. Some folks are going home to Newfoundland and Calgary and others are going on Mediterranean cruises and Turkey and India and England and the USA and Korea and Malaysia and Sweden and Australia. A couple of people had arranged to go to Thailand, and so I think their trips are in a state of flux.

There are so many Indians here and I wonder how it is for them to be away from their country considering the attacks in Mumbai. Most of the people I know are from Kerala, quite far from Mumbai, so they haven’t been affected too much, except the distance and lack of information is unsettling for them. Then again, sometimes their information is quite up-to-date. Errol did talk to a man who was leaving for Mumbai yesterday for his son’s wedding, and he was somewhat apprehensive, but lived far away from the hotels, so didn‘t think he would be directly affected. The English-language newspaper prominently printed quite a strong official condemnation of the terrorist acts in Mumbai from the Qatari government, but it also identified an Indian Islamic militant that they felt had been involved in several other bombings. I hadn’t heard this person’s name on BBC or Al Jazeera, so I am not sure what that is all about.

The big doins this week is the UN conference on Economics. The State of Qatar stopped issuing visitor visas from Nov 28-Dec 5, as all the 5-star hotels are full (go figure when we are entering a global recession) and I suppose they have security concerns. I was interested to note that Robert Mugabe is in town for the meetings and will be watching to see if the Emir meets with him. With thousands of Zimbabweans dying of cholera, he is here, strutting his stuff. My students, however, are all abuzz about a special Doha Debate that has been scheduled with Bono. Several of them applied for the seats we are allocated, but nobody approached me about goingJ We have plans to see a high-school production of West Side story that night anyway, so no big deal!

We will not be going anywhere for Eid, but have pledged to do lots of things to learn more about Doha. The Museum of Islamic Art has just opened to great fanfare and will be open to the public after December 1, so that will have a prominent place on the itinerary. Major digression ... This is quite typical of Doha ... they had a huge fireworks display (apparently $12 million) to mark the opening but they didn’t publicize it. So most of us saw pics in the paper the next day. They brought in Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble to play, but that was a private event. I.M. Pei came and received a commemoration of some sort, as he was the architect of the building, which is really quite stunning. At any rate, we hope to see a few things. The Qatar Natural History Group will hold a Christmas BBQ at the singing sands ... an area of dunes where the sound effects are quite lovely (so I hear). I hope we can go to that. Then of course, our little chick will arrive and we will show her Doha and then go off to Kathmandu. Most of the security guards at UC-Q are Nepali so they are schooling me in the art of saying Namaste properly.

We went walking on Al Corniche the other evening and it was so lovely. It is the walkway that goes along the waterfront for 5 or 6 kilometres. Hundreds of people go there every evening to walk, jog, sit, relax. We walked by a group of women sitting on a patch of grass with their kids and the smell of cardamom and coffee just wafted over to us. Big smiles.

We moved villa last week as #4 was near the highway and quite noisy. Now we are in #11 and it is much quieter. We have villas behind us and trees overhanging our wall. And we can hear a rooster sometimes and bulbuls.

Hope those of you who celebrate American Thanksgiving had a blessed one. For hose who celebrate Christmas. I hope you advent candles are burning bright and that your calendars yield lots of chocolate. And I hope the coming Christmas season is a good one.

Bless bless (Icelandic goodbye) from Doha.