More Qatari treats over the last couple of days:
i) On Saturday we went to the Cultural Quarter, an area called Katara, that has museums, art galleries and different aspects of Qatari culture. We had gone specifically to see a Martin Parr photographic exhibition - very good with lots of reminders of why Britain is at one and the same time great and not so, and an exhibition called 'Halal Hal Qatar' highlighting the lifestyle and agricultural practises that Qatar was originally built on. Farming was mostly sheep and goat herding, and they had some weird and wonderful breeds. Several of the goat breeds had extremely long ears, possibly three feet long, and in some it looked as though they were trimmed but what for I have no idea - food, kid gloves!
ii) Last night I went to a football match, the QNB Final Cup, between two of the local professional teams - Al Arabi and El Jaish - the latter winning 2-0. But for all its pretencions of being the top Qatar league the standard of football was not great, even with a sprinkling of former top notch players from around the world. Thankfully though the fans, especially those of El Jaish, were a sight to behold and the Arabic/samba beat with constant changing singers was the real highlight of the evening. In middle of it all, just to add another level of strangeness, was an Arab guy playing a full-set of tartan bagpipes; thankfully in an Arab stylee and not the dirge that our Celtic soul brothers usually force upon us.
All this for the pricely sum of QR10 about £1.70; shame the very grand stadium (probaly seating about twelve thousand) was nearly empty. I think nthere were nearly as many security guards as spectators!
Anyway still very entertaining. Off out to a pub quiz now!
i) On Saturday we went to the Cultural Quarter, an area called Katara, that has museums, art galleries and different aspects of Qatari culture. We had gone specifically to see a Martin Parr photographic exhibition - very good with lots of reminders of why Britain is at one and the same time great and not so, and an exhibition called 'Halal Hal Qatar' highlighting the lifestyle and agricultural practises that Qatar was originally built on. Farming was mostly sheep and goat herding, and they had some weird and wonderful breeds. Several of the goat breeds had extremely long ears, possibly three feet long, and in some it looked as though they were trimmed but what for I have no idea - food, kid gloves!
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| Cath in a re-construction of a Qatari house probably from the 1960's |
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| Can you spot the bagpipes right in the centre? |
Anyway still very entertaining. Off out to a pub quiz now!
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