Qatar Foundation (the generous benefactor of Education City) sponsored a Ramadan Bazaar on Thursday night to celebrate the holy month and highlight Qatari culture. So we packed up the kids and went out to see what we could see.
It starts with the tent. Tents are a big part of Qatari culture - it comes from the nomadic heritage. Now, of course, we have nice big buildings with air conditioning, electricity and other modern conveniences. Qataris appreciate these conveniences and bring them into their tents. They're just your basic event canopy, white, with steel post supports and side walls, the floor covered with carpets. It's air conditioned, of course, because everything here is. Ramadan tents are giant spaces but I've seen small ones too that are privately owned and used for casual entertaining. Those ones have cushy furniture inside and satellite dishes to watch TV. I don't expect I'll get inside one of those.
Anyhow, the Ramadan Bazaar was interesting in a good way. They had a ladies' area showing traditional crafts like basket weaving, embroidery, and henna. I got a henna design on my right hand - it's very cool, and I hear it will look good for a week or two then slowly fade away.
I wanted to take a picture of the ladies doing the crafts but the one I asked indicated I should take a picture of the handwork rather than of her. So I guess it's good I asked but they did look like something, the row of women with their crafts in their abayas. Here she is embroidering with silver thread on a sheer black fabric.
There was also a group of boys doing acrobatics and playing traditional Qatari games like Batta Batta Waza (that's Duck Duck Goose and yes, I did have to look up those words and no, I'm not sure they're right). You can just see the ladies doing henna painting in the background under the green drapery.
And what kind of celebration would it be without men dancing and waving swords in the air? These are not ceremonial dress - that's the thobe I mentioned in a recent entry.
Here A is playing with a toy horse they brought in. I liked the outfit the boy next to her is wearing.
I didn't get a picture of the food they had: two flatbreads on griddles and a pureed meat and rice concoction. I actually found a recipe for that one but it just doesn't translate well to the Western palate. You can imagine. I liked the flat bread though, especially the one where the lady rubbed dough on a hot griddle and pulled off all but the crust directly touching the plate. It came out like a giant ancient cracker.
It was a fun evening, and we saw lots of things that I don't know we would have seen otherwise. But in the end, the incense got the better of J, A was falling asleep on Dad's shoulder, and C had fixated on buying everything in sight. We packed it in by 9:00.
