Inti Jassim Al Malkooti

Ah...so yes.. I've been in Doha for 7 months now. Its been a good 7 months and I'm slowly broadening my circle of friends but the one nationality of people i seem to be lacking interaction with here are the ones who are native to this small nation the size of Connecticut! Yes i can honestly say that i don't have any Qatari friends...and that's sad. Its not easy for me to make friends...and even more difficult for me to meet Qatari women. I definitely don't want to meet a Qatari guy. when they see me they think of one thing...ok maybe two things.. A woman to sleep with or a future second, third or fourth wife. ;)

I haven't made Qatari friends quite yet but I'm getting closer.. I swear! :) Had a great conversation with 2 qatari female students. I don't want to use names so I'll refer to them as H and F. H and F came to my office and H asked me if she could tell me something and assured me she wasn't trying to offend. "I want your body". The way she said it was strikingly odd. Here i am looking into the eyes of a virtually covered woman telling me how she wants my body. I don't know but there seems to be something paradoxical here. :) "Wow, uh...I've never had a complement said to me quite like that" "Wulla, I'm not kidding you have the perfect body. The first time i saw you i said to my sister...you have to come see this body. Heya Jassim Al Malkooti." "My body what?" F explained, "It means you have the body of an Angel." "Really? oh my gosh wow thank you. I don't see it but thanks. I thought the big booty craze was just an American thing." H told me that the gulf men like the booty too. This so doesn't help me...I was hoping the reason i was getting so many stares from guys was because i was unveiled and it's like oh my gosh a woman not all covered up. Not oh my gosh look at the ass on that woman.. I want that ass. H even asked me what i do to get my body like that. LMAO.. hmmm well I told her i eat a lot of pineapple (FYI pineapple is a good food for a flat stomach) and try to not to eat carbs after 7 but it is a lot harder to do here since everything is rice and bread and dinner at 8:30 pm. I told her too much carbs will give you a big belly. Imagine that...most women are striving for that skeleton model body and here is a thin model framed woman asking me how she can get an ass, hips, and thicker thighs. So we talked a bit more about body image and stuff. It was so refreshing and exciting to be shooting the breeze with these two students. I try to keep in touch with them. I figure since H is a senior, if i make friends with her now, she might invite me to her wedding. I really want to go to a Qatari wedding! you know me, i LOVE ME SOME WEDDINGS.

H is an honors student. Very rooted in her Bedoin traditions and aspires to get her Ph.D and be the first Qatari female Professor at Texas A&M at Qatar. YOU GO GIRL! i exclaimed! More power to you. F wants to prove to her family that she is capable of being an engineer. She was enrolled at Cornell's Pre-med program but didn't make the cut so her family wanted her to just stop going to school and think about getting married, they seemed to doubt her and she was going to prove them wrong. It's like i have always said, change comes from within and change will only be successful if the change comes from the people. And it doesn't happen overnight. The more the people here are exposed to the outside world, the better they will be able to decide what works and doesn't work for them. But let them make that decision for themselves. Yes, looks truly can be deceiving and the more i learn from and about Qatari's, the more i realize how veiled I am from them. But I am slowly lifting my veil and seeing clearer. There is so much to be learned here and I just soak and absorb all i can.

Bronx Representin' in the D-O-H-A!!

Ok so summer is officially over in the USA but the heat is still rising here in Qatar. Worst part is that it's become uncomfortably humid and for some reason the property management decided to put fertilizer on the grass in my compound so its smelly sweatville at my place.

I know i keep saying this but i really have been quite the lazy bum this summer. I didn't want to get too involved in outside activities until i really felt i had a good grasp of my job and felt well adjusted here. I now feel like i can truly call Doha my home. Mi casa es su casa so i hope to see some visitors next year! Anyways i know i can be lengthy but i wanted to share with ya'll (notice my Texan coming out) something really cool that happened to me today.

I was leaving my conversational Arabic level 3 Berlitz class this evening and some students from the next class were taking their seats. My teacher started talking to them and mentioned to this guy AJ that i was from New York City. He told me he was from the Bronx and Queens. I got sooo excited I put my hand up and gave him a high five and said, "Boogie Down BX REPRESENT!" yes i was tryin' a lil too hard...i wanted to ask him for his number and was about to ask him if he was on facebook but thought maybe he would think i'm a stalker. Jen....this is when you say nothing :) and then he asked me what part I was from and i told him Wakefield and he told me he was from Pelham Parkway. "My mom worked in Pelham Parkway" i said emphatically. "Funny my mom worked in Wakefield" I got overly excited and realized i seemed like a dumb asked. asked him what the hell he was doing in Doha, thanked my teacher for a great first Arabic conversation class, (oh my gosh!! i know Fusha and Amiah are similar but i swear i feel like i am learnign an entirely new language) and ran out all excited about my new encounter.

I wish i could back post on here because there were definite times i wanted to post but never got around to it. My Qatari conversation is priceless so i will definitely post that soon.