shimweasel

I hope you’re happy, Bean - I left a perfectly serviceable party to write this.

Anyway. It’s the beginning of Ramadan in Qatar at the moment. Ramadan starts at the beginning of the crescent moon in the ninth month of the year according to the Islamic calendar, rendering the dates more or less a matter of guesswork for Westerners.

Ramadan means a slew of restrictions. Muslims cannot eat or drink, even water, between dawn and dusk. Even for non-Muslims, eating in public is an offence. All the bars shut down, immodest clothing (ie, shorts or t-shirts) are forbidden, and you can’t buy food in daylight.

This all sounds a tad grim, but I’m enjoying it much more than I expected to, so far. While our canteen still operates, the food here is dismal enough that I don’t eat a lot during the day. The shops are empty, and as they’re staffed by Asians who are, by and large, not Muslims, there’s a strange sort of party atmosphere. The staff joke and laugh, and smile at you conspiratorially. The checkout chick even started flirting with me - I got a wink, which in this culture is equivalent to a leg-wrapping tackle-and-kiss.

The sole drawback so far is the crazy behaviour on the roads. Traffic is down, but I was almost taken out this morning by a Qatari who decided he couldn’t be bothered going all the way around the roundabout. I don’t look forward to riding in rush hour.

I’m hoping to go to a Ramadan tent at one of the hotels soon - apparently they’re pretty lavish affairs. I apologise for the lack of insight into Arabic culture, but they’re very hard people to get to know. One of the problems with having a culture which values hospitality highly is that people tend to be much more choosy as to who they consider friends.

Work continues on the opening ceremony. Some of my work will apparently be used in one of the major props - I can’t really talk about it, but it should be extremely cool.