It’s very hot in Qatar. A desert nation bordering an ocean, average August temperatures reach 43° C (109° F) with a heat index of 50° C (122° F). To give you an idea of what I deal with every day, whenever I walk outside wearing glasses, I quickly become blind as the lenses immediately fog up. Furthermore, when I’m standing outside waiting for the shuttle bus to transport me the short distance from one building to the next, I’ve usually sweated through my shirt. Thankfully, by the end of October, the weather will be slightly more pleasant at 32° C or 90° F. I’ve heard November and December in Doha will resemble summer in many parts of the US (70-80° F), which I hope to enjoy while my peers in the US begin to struggle with snow.
Rising up from the hot summer ground are hundreds of tower cranes, which decorate numerous construction sights funded by natural gas money. Unsurprisingly, not much can be done during the incredibly hot summers. When we visited The Pearl (below), the rapidly growing expat residential area of Doha, it was dead. No one was outside; buildings stood half-completed as if suddenly abandoned by society.
Just as it’s important for construction workers to stop working long hours during a hot Qatari summer, I realized that during the heat of the moment of a study abroad experience, it’s vital for me to take a step back and recognize where I really am. Qatar has notably been under pressure in the press recently for human rights violations in preparation for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. It’s easy to criticize this small conservative nation for what it hasn’t done well – and many complaints are valid; the government certainly has a long way to go. However, from what I’ve experienced so far, Qatar has achieved several positive milestones that should not be forgotten.
This year marks the tenth year Georgetown has had a campus in Qatar. In 2005, the Jesuit university joined other prestigious institutions in Education City, an initiative launched by the Qatar Foundation to foster education in the Persian Gulf. In a sense, Education City illustrates how Qatar truly is one of the world’s hubs of globalism. There are almost 2 million people living in Qatar. Only 250,000 are Qatari; the rest are expats and migrant workers. An Islamic state run by Sharia Law, all religions are welcome as long as the Islamic tradition is respected.
Education City is an embodiment of how Qatar’s leaders have recognized the importance of geopolitical and socioeconomic diversity. Each institution here represents a different part of academia. Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service (SFS-Q) has a presence here, while Northwestern-Q covers Journalism while aspiring medical students attend Cornell-Q, just to name a few. Similarly, Doha attracts experts from across the world in all sorts of fields.
With globalization, each member of the world community brings something different to the table. However, at the same time, we all share common values despite our different skill-sets and backgrounds. Two examples from my experience thus far illustrate this point very well. The first is a performance by Hamad Al-Amari, a Qatari comedian who spoke to us at El Jam3a, a cultural festival sponsored by the Qatar foundation. There were about 60 nations represented at this event, yet we shared common laughter as the comedic genius made joke after joke.
One of the best moments of the night came when Hamad and an unsuspecting member of the audience demonstrated a traditional greeting among Qatari men in which the two parties touch noses (above). It’s quite the hilarious sight, but the meaning is clear: by touching noses, the two men acknowledge that neither of them is automatically better than the other.
My second example is Georgetown’s Pluralism in Action activity during orientation, in which we made sandwiches for the migrant workers who serve our community. We then broke bread and shared the meal with them. My group sat down with two Nepali workers who arrived in Doha at the age of 17 and have not returned to their country in five years. Although I could never imagine what it must be like for my new Nepali friends to leave home for so long at such a young age, I could still relate to some of the themes of their life stories.
The two migrant workers we spoke to love their family and would do anything to provide a better life for them. And all they want in return is for the people in Qatar to show them dignity and respect, just like Qatari officials expect expats to respect Sharia Law. And then it hit me. I would do anything for my family, as would anyone else. The coming together of so many people from across the world to an arid desert city full of potential stems from the values we – as humans – all share.
