Twice recently I have been struck by things on Qatar that make me think of Ustica, the small island north of Palermo, Sicily where I spent a number of summers excavating and studying the material remains of a Middle Bronze Age fortified village. On one hand, in front of the twin towers in which I live, there are routinely men fishing from the shore. And after dark, in the same location just out on the water, has appeared a light and slowly moved around. It reminds me of the evenings we sat on the veranda of our house on Ustica and watch the lights of fishing boats as they left the island for the nights fishing. In Qatar, however, I cannot firmly establish what this light is – if fishing, why not leave its position close to shore?
Ustica, whose aerial view is above, is a scant 5 km long by 3 km wide. The map (under links) shows the road encircling the island which a handful of the stir-crazed natives would drive around and around with little else to do. (You can walk the road in 3 to 4 hours so imagine how long the car takes.) In Qatar, with a similar oval shape, drivers with no real place to go rush from home to mall to where?, almost always at breakneck speed, as if there is an urgent appointment. One beautiful tomato-soup color sports car recently passed me at high speed, weaving in and out of the three lanes as it sped ahead. When I reached the mall, I found the car two ahead of me waiting for parking. While considerably larger than Ustica and without a circuit road, the Qatar isolation may yet instil in its inhabitants some of the same stir-crazed habits. With nowhere critical to go or be, speed becomes the end rather than the destination. Is that why Fomula 1 racing has become such a hot item in Bahrain or the Losail International Circuit on the outskirts of Doha?
And while Qatar at time makes me think of Ustica, the view from my balcony also takes me back to my office on Long Island where I had a brilliant view of planes on their way to or from taking off or landing at JFK terminal. Here I watch the flights coming into Doha as well as those leaving Doha, both flying a roughly NW/SE trajectory.
Ustica, whose aerial view is above, is a scant 5 km long by 3 km wide. The map (under links) shows the road encircling the island which a handful of the stir-crazed natives would drive around and around with little else to do. (You can walk the road in 3 to 4 hours so imagine how long the car takes.) In Qatar, with a similar oval shape, drivers with no real place to go rush from home to mall to where?, almost always at breakneck speed, as if there is an urgent appointment. One beautiful tomato-soup color sports car recently passed me at high speed, weaving in and out of the three lanes as it sped ahead. When I reached the mall, I found the car two ahead of me waiting for parking. While considerably larger than Ustica and without a circuit road, the Qatar isolation may yet instil in its inhabitants some of the same stir-crazed habits. With nowhere critical to go or be, speed becomes the end rather than the destination. Is that why Fomula 1 racing has become such a hot item in Bahrain or the Losail International Circuit on the outskirts of Doha?
And while Qatar at time makes me think of Ustica, the view from my balcony also takes me back to my office on Long Island where I had a brilliant view of planes on their way to or from taking off or landing at JFK terminal. Here I watch the flights coming into Doha as well as those leaving Doha, both flying a roughly NW/SE trajectory.
