![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Thursday night was the third annual Umseya night, a Ramadan celebration Qatar Foundation puts on for its faculty, staff and employees. The celebration takes place in the campus stud farm (yup), which is fully carpeted and lavishly decorated for the evening.
Over the course of Ramadan we usually end up at a couple different iftars -- evening fast-breaking meals -- but Umseya is the only suhoor we usually go to. If you look up suhoor online, you'll find that it's a light pre-dawn meal that's eaten during Ramadan. Here in Qatar, though, people seem to take their eating more seriously; this particular suhoor was scheduled for 11:30 p.m. and could hardly be called "light."
Generally, this Umseya didn't live up to my memories of last year's. Maybe it was because we were so new last year, and little things like watching traditional cooking and getting henna were much more exciting. Maybe it was because a mob of guests attacked the food tables a full two hours before scheduled, so most of the food was gone before serving utensils were even found. (I even saw a man furtively fleeing the dessert table with an entire pineapple -- the first act of dessert looting I've ever witnessed.) Or maybe it was because the highlight of the evening, a reenactment of the key features of Ramadan, was a little less organized than last year's and strayed oddly into advocating for the old marriage customs... I guess they figured we know about Ramadan by now and their plot could expand.
Or maybe it was just because I stupidly stayed up until midnight the night before, watching an awesome Junkyard Wars special wherein American, British and French teams competed to build entire 1910-style airplanes in TWO DAYS, entirely out of scrap and without power tools. (And they all flew! It was amazing!) And then I had to get to school early for Arabic class, so I was pretty tired by the time Umseya even began.
However, as Darlene's boyfriend sardonically pointed out, we couldn't really ask for our money back. (It was free.) So I won't complain too much! I should also mention the coolest addition to the schedule this year: a show of some of the stud farm's Arabian horses.
We didn't take pictures this year, so you'll have to look at last year's pictures on Justin's blog and play make-believe.
Over the course of Ramadan we usually end up at a couple different iftars -- evening fast-breaking meals -- but Umseya is the only suhoor we usually go to. If you look up suhoor online, you'll find that it's a light pre-dawn meal that's eaten during Ramadan. Here in Qatar, though, people seem to take their eating more seriously; this particular suhoor was scheduled for 11:30 p.m. and could hardly be called "light."
Generally, this Umseya didn't live up to my memories of last year's. Maybe it was because we were so new last year, and little things like watching traditional cooking and getting henna were much more exciting. Maybe it was because a mob of guests attacked the food tables a full two hours before scheduled, so most of the food was gone before serving utensils were even found. (I even saw a man furtively fleeing the dessert table with an entire pineapple -- the first act of dessert looting I've ever witnessed.) Or maybe it was because the highlight of the evening, a reenactment of the key features of Ramadan, was a little less organized than last year's and strayed oddly into advocating for the old marriage customs... I guess they figured we know about Ramadan by now and their plot could expand.
Or maybe it was just because I stupidly stayed up until midnight the night before, watching an awesome Junkyard Wars special wherein American, British and French teams competed to build entire 1910-style airplanes in TWO DAYS, entirely out of scrap and without power tools. (And they all flew! It was amazing!) And then I had to get to school early for Arabic class, so I was pretty tired by the time Umseya even began.
However, as Darlene's boyfriend sardonically pointed out, we couldn't really ask for our money back. (It was free.) So I won't complain too much! I should also mention the coolest addition to the schedule this year: a show of some of the stud farm's Arabian horses.
We didn't take pictures this year, so you'll have to look at last year's pictures on Justin's blog and play make-believe.
