qatarperegrine | Hand, hand, fingers, thumb

Last Friday afternoon,

lelandinqatar and I went to go watch a Gulf Cup handball game. I had never even heard of team handball before the most recent Olympics; I guess it's a more important sport here than in the U.S.

It wasn't quite as fun as the football game, mostly I think because we were mystified by the rules. One second before the end of the game, for example, a Qatari player was given a 2-minute suspension for no reason we could discern.

At any rate, here are

foobart's pictures of the game:


The poor goalies don't really have a fighting chance; the opposing player is so close to the goal when he throws the ball that the goalie has little opportunity to dive for the ball. Instead, the goalie's strategy seems to be to flail his arms and legs around as much as possible in the hopes that the ball will hit him and not the goal. Ooof.	A Qatari player catches some serious air while making a shot. They're not the most Qatari looking folks, are they? Qatari citizenship works by jus sanguinis and jus athletis: the only way to acquire citizenship is to be a world-class athlete. BTW, the strange mascot in the corner is not the Hamburgler, a stuffed pita or a pistachio (our friends' guesses), but an oyster. I think.

Random action shot. Note that the UAE team have portraits of Sheikh Zayed silkscreened on their uniforms. What is it with Gulf athletes and silkscreening sheikhs?	The teams congratulating each other after the game. Note Qatar's #19 (in the blue elbow brace) hugging the UAE's #19. In this picture it looks like a typical Western "we're manly men, so I will show affection by giving you this noogie" pose, but in fact a second before this picture was taken, they gave each other a big old smooch. You wouldn't see that in the U.S. of A.