SEALINE BEACH, QATAR — I’m sitting on top of a camel.
It’s worth repeating. I’m sitting … on top of … .
It sounds absurd, and yet, somehow, strangely, against all common sense and better judgment, it’s true. This camel’s hair is tan; its toenails, white with dark spots; its mask, knitted, mostly blue, with yellow-and-red trim. There’s a harness to grasp for balance and a feed bag resting atop the hump. I’m told by the friendly tour guides at Ali Camel Safari that they call their brood of 45 camels, informally, The Ships of the Desert. I guess that means I’m sailing but on sand.
It’s mid-morning here on Wednesday, and there’s only one reasonable question to float into the cosmos. How in the world did I end up here? Remember: I’m sitting on top of a camel, and this camel is being led by a man from Sudan, who I met only a few minutes earlier. And I only met through a random encounter with a friendly taxi driver from India who talked me into a full day of exploration and insisted we stop here first, without any in-depth explanation of the whole camel-ride-in-the-desert plan.
There’s a story here, one born from an absurd, magical and, at times, uneasy 10 hours. It’s about this man, this day and this country—and what all three say about the World Cup. In some ways, those hours explain what soccer fans from all over the world can expect upon arrival. In others, they explain Qatar outside of Doha, its sprawling metropolis, the contrast evident in the country’s oldest known village, a historic fort, a fishing hub and miles upon miles traversed in my new friend Pradeep’s small white cab.
