Unfocus

Once we arrived at Muscat International Airport it was a mad rush to Duty Free.

Well? What did you expect?

It was Wednesday and that evening we landed in Sharjah and took a bus to our hotel in Dubai. Immediately the atmosphere changed. Things weren’t so heavy. Three nights and two days spent in the city brought us to souks and sushi. We bought fabric and food and wore clothing that fit us.

“She gets BEAT.”

The brand-new metro zipped above Maserati dealerships, humming its consumer jingle, landing us at the Mall of the Emirates complete with indoor ski-slope. Short dresses, every night we danced; jumping on couches and snaking around hotel suites.

Back alleys fringed in flowers. Jasmine and something orange; Happy Diwali. We ducked in and they rolled up our posters, “Same same coconut”, giving us bindis as we walked out the door.

Thai food, Lebanese, banana gum. We ate at all the wrong times. Three cheese lasagna? From the rooftop pool we saw the Tower in the distance, so dwarfing its compatriots that it looked like an Emerald City backdrop. Tallest building in the world. Everything constantly in some state of improvement or construction; pedestrian detours and makeshift sidewalks.

“Shau-te-eh?” Beach, I asked, bracing against the glass balcony, white waves rolling in.

He pointed his small fingers, “Mh-y. Mh-y.” Water.

He found Scott and me near the grass later. It was near midnight and his mother watched and laughed and took pictures while we pushed him on the swing set. Big eyes. Yousef.

In Abu Dhabi I remember the food. Falafel. Hommos. Honey-roasted almonds and coconut juice with onion-like slivers of pulp. Every night Mamma, Libby and I raced across the eight lane highway separating the girls’ hotel from the boys’. The suites had kitchens.

But we only every used the fridge. These nights were more trying.

“You don’t even know.”

We danced on cold tile and walked back streets. We were separated and then brought together. Unlike Dubai, the group wasn’t given assignments that led us to explore the city. Instead we spent a day in Abu Dhabi’s research center library. And it’s Women’s College. We ad hocked the Sheikh Zayed Mosque into our first day (world's largest carpet/chandelier) and managed to glimpse the Corniche one night. After seeing Dubai we couldn’t help but feel unimpressed. Pistachio shells in the grass, toothpicks in our mouths.

Monday we flew to Doha, Qatar. Sleaver, Mamma, Scott and I ate at the hotel lawn restaurant, our ankles itchy. The Shezan Hotel was a p.o.s. I could feel every single spring beneath my body, in order to lie still I situated both elbows in their own individual spring “cups” so-to-speak, while Mamma and Libby’s mattresses were absolute boards. We visited Al Jazeera’s headquarters the first morning and went on a city tour afterwards. A hundred unfinished buildings, racing toward the sky and everything is empty.

Ghost town downtown.

Ending at the city’s main souk we ate fabulous Indian cuisine served next to a man molding plastic bangles over a hot plate. We bought house dresses and sweets, strands of Qatari pearls and spread our hot bodies on cushions while the sheesha smoke coiled.

Second night, we traded beds. “The Shezan Hotel: Just Like Home”. On Wednesday we were guests at an Interfaith Solidarity Dialogue Conference downtown; talks focused on (or strayed from) cohesion between the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths. The sprawling campuses of Education City came next, and we ended up at the geometric Museum of Islamic Arts. That night we returned to the labyrinth souk, having failed miserably in our attempt to get into Doha’s Intercontinental. We stood and sat. Libby and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Kofta camel sandwich. Coconut nougat with almond. Later, under the stars the five of us breathed. So tired. The whole week I felt that my brain was floating, synapses weren’t firing. It didn’t matter whether the writing was English or Arabic, everything bled. Tile and cloth, wood, smoke. Thursday we flew home.



Pictures posted.