Don't You Wish You Had a Dial, or Day 21 in Doha

Besides the fact that everything in my life is due on Tuesday, today was very important for my cultural development. For my Islamic Feminism class, we were given the opportunity to see Dr. Aseel Al-Awadhi, one of the first four women elected to the Kuwaiti parliament. She came and spoke to a small group of us (about 20) about her journey and her methods. She cares a lot about having a young staff and young presence in the National Assembly, and as a former professor, she has a good network of college-age students to draw experiences upon.

The class is taught by a Qatari woman, Amal Al-Malki, and there is me, an Egyptian guy, and about a dozen Arabic (and mostly Qatari) girls, almost all of them in abbayas.

The discussions in this class are one of the experiences around here that bring joy to my heart. We do have to listen to some boring stuff, and the stuff we read is dense, but when you distil it down and get to talk about it in class, it is such an experience.

After the talk and discussion, we went with Dr. Aseel and her assistant, Abdullah, to The Pearl, where we sat down at le "Relais de l'Entrecote", some new French steakhouse. (I was not impressed at all, with waitresses in cheesy French maid outfits, not-so-classy steak and french fries, bad service, and just a cheap-looking place... but that's all I'll say about that.)

This was the first opportunity I got to talk to many of the girls outside of class. At the beginning of dinner, Dr. Aseel got asked a question about her family and their supported, and she started talking for a few minutes in Arabic. Then she looked over at me, apologized, and switched back to English.

Later in the evening, I looked over to the other side of the table where, again, a conversation was happening in Arabic. One of the girls caught my eye, and, after a bit, she said, "Don't you wish you had a dial or something, to turn conversations from Arabic to English?" I told her my plan was actually to shock people if they started speaking unintelligible Arabic around me. I don't often mind the switch to Arabic for short conversations, since I know I'm the foreign one around here. However, I know all of these girls were bilingual, so I gave them a hard time about not even realizing what language they were even speaking in.

I got a ride back to Education City with a few of the Qatari girls, and we talked about arranged marriages (since one of the girls just got married over the summer) and Qatari weddings (since we passed the men's part of a wedding as we were driving home). And, of course, the fact that I cook for myself didn't go unnoticed. I'll invite them over for lunch before class one of these weeks.

Culture culture culture.

Dr. Aseel is speaking again tomorrow downtown, and I would go except that my life is due on Tuesday. So I'll be having fun designing and programming instead. Just like right now.