The one place (beyond home and office) I have been to a thousand times in Doha is the corniche, a curved six kilometer pathway along the water in the center of the city. It is here that I exercise daily; it is the one place in Doha where it seems socially acceptable to sweat, run, jog, and otherwise exert oneself. Exertion is not all that popular, so there is indeed only one place, and it is never all that crowded. The aqua blue water, green grass, palm trees and skyline view together create a scene that is aesthetically pleasing--also another anomaly. I have repeatedly told my visitors that if it weren’t for the corniche, I never would have made it for four years in Doha.
Stanka and I stretching before a jog on the corniche during her and Tony's visit in January, 2010.
Since I do most of my thinking while I’m running, it is on the corniche where I have tried to see Doha with a thousand different sets of eyes, each day conjuring (or trying to) a different view of the same world. It has made me flirt with the idea that if the place you’re trying to find by traveling the world is the landscape of your own soul, you don’t actually have to go anywhere. You just have to learn to look at your place in the landscape in those thousand ways, and relearn each time what you already knew.
The corniche has taught me a lot about what I already know about myself. A few examples:
Number One: I take pictures all day long, with or without a camera. Since I mostly go running about the time of sunset, I had seen this photograph hundreds of times before I went back to take it. It is the sculpture in a nearby roundabout, but at this particular spot on the corniche it aligns with the setting sun, creating beauty out of the mundane.
Number Two: The gatoraid campaign is just as ugly to me here as in Education City, but here it has the brilliant effect of making people take pictures of it, generating free advertising ad infinitum for Qatar Foundation. That does make you think...
Number Three: I like equality, but especially equality with men, and Plessy vs. Ferguson still exists here. Bathrooms and urination are two needs one occasionally has while exercising. My first two years in Doha, the only available facilities at the mid-way point of the corniche were in a restaurant, and I learned how to slip through the back door from the waterside patio and make use of them. Simple enough. Thereafter, they built a fancy automated underground public bathroom near the restaurant. It seemed like progress. Except the women’s side was always malfunctioning. The door remained locked, while the men’s side seemed to always be working perfectly. There was no apologetic sign on the door, and the men went in and out of their side without an issue. This made me very angry, especially when I was tense for other physiological reasons. The difference persisted for months; separate meant unequal. I would revert to the restaurant, but it put me in a very foul mood to do so. One day, having walked down the stairs to the locked door, I decided to just pee on the door. This surprised me, but I was teaching a class that semester on dissent and civil disobedience. It seemed necessary. It made me feel very American. After the initial adrenaline rush, I was glad no one saw me. But not sorry I did it.
The fully automated toilets, in Qatar, still require the humiliation of an attendant who does nothing, and who was still present when it was not operational.
Number Four: I have personal space issues and feel persecuted. At its narrowest point, the corniche is about five meters across. There is lots of space for everyone. Yet on many occasions, while walking with my headphones on, men come up behind me, within six inches, practically breathing on my neck, and carry on with their exercise. Listening to my music, sometimes it takes me a moment to register this invasive presence. When I do notice, I have done many charming things, including screaming obscenities, shouting, and coming very close to physically assaulting these men. 90% of the time, the reaction of the men has been to laugh loudly. It’s a game they play, apparently, called ‘prove that the expat woman is crazy.’ It means I limit my walking and run most of the distance. They can’t keep up with me if I’m running; they’re not fit enough. When I walk, I glance behind every few steps, as if being persecuted.
Number Five: I believe in manners, including sidewalk manners. Some days the corniche inspires me to run sociological experiments with other people's manners. My favorite is an old game: I run or walk straight toward someone and measure how long it takes them to step out of the way. I have in my mind those funny sidewalk moments, especially in the UK, where two people get so obsessed with stepping out of the way for the other that they inadvertently step into each other, mocked by the silent comedy routines of Charlie Chaplin and others. It’s funny because they’re both trying too hard to be polite and mannerly, and in the process run into each other when they’re trying not to run into each other. What happens in Doha? The opposite. It’s an aggressive game of chicken where no one will step out of the way, and with me, at least, they proceed on a collision course assuming it is my responsibility to step out of the way. Is it because I’m a woman? Because I’m a foreigner? I’m supposed to be subservient? I have entertained all explanations, but the fact is that reproducing that comedic moment of excessive politeness has been impossible for me on the corniche. Unless, of course, the other person is a white foreigner, at which time we engage in the dance routine of trying to allow the other to pass first. Stereotypes and clichés are sometimes most amazing when they’re true.
Number Six: I like to run away from my problems. It doesn’t matter if I run the same path every day, afterwards I still feel farther from my problems. Until the next day, when I’m no further away, and I start again.
Numbers Seven through one thousand: too boring to detail here...
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