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These are recent stories - the rest are in my latest book,"Walking Through Adversity."

Stories about Middle East Trips (2)

Rob bryant
2006-01-09 11:39:38

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rolled through the airport like a mad man. They told me I needed an escort for security reasons, but he was much too slow, so I grabbed my passport from him and took off. However, just then a woman stepped in front of my chair and I stopped to let her by. I reached the gate in another 15 minutes and they were holding the plane for me. The flight attendant said she wanted to meet the, "wild infidel rolling too fast, but stops for women." She told me in broken English that this was the way the man described me that I took the passport from. They thought this was funny - so they held the plane. They put me in the only open seat which happened to be in business class (alright).

Qatar Lessons - I flew an hour west to Doha, Qatar from the UAE and discovered that this is one of the stricter countries in the Islamic faith. Most of the women here wear very plain black or white full-length dresses and only show their eyes through slits in their scarves. Some of them wore face guards made of cloth that looked like metal. They are totally dominated by men, cannot talk while a man is (I would like that one at home sometimes) and they have to walk behind their husbands. The men however wear very formal full-length garbs made of expensive silk called a Dish-Dash. The hat rings they wear are different for each country. For instance white hat rings are worn in UAE, black in Qatar, many-colors in Saudi Arabia, and white with threads for Religious Police who enforce the dress code and prayer times. I could not talk about Christ without fear of being arrested. The men here are pleasant until offended, then they can become fierce in defense of their religion or women. I was picked up at the airport by the program manager who drove me though Doha to see the town. After driving by the Persian Gulf for a few miles, he took me to the Pyramid-Sheraton Hotel. On Saturday morning (their first day of the week), I ate breakfast with the program manager, at ...