Faux Qatari

Last week, I got the following note from J's Arabic teacher:

Greetings xxxxxxxx Parents,

On Thursday, June 4th your child will be participating in the Qatar Heritage celebration.  Your child will need to wear his or her traditional clothes.  Thank you for your support.

As usual when I get something from the Arabic teachers, I had a few questions.  Did she mean traditional Qatari clothes or clothes from J's own heritage--not that I knew what those would be--pioneer togs?  cowboys?  And was he to wear these clothes to school or change into them later (they have done both)?  I consulted with J, who was no help except to say that he thought he might need to wear the white Qatari clothes but he really, REALLY didn't want to because he wasn't Qatari (a valid point).  So I emailed the teacher, who confirmed that yes, she meant Qatari clothes.

And then I took a deep breath.

Let me just insert here that although many folks around me are wearing traditional thobes (for the men) and abayas (for the women), I haven't the slightest idea where to purchase something like this, but I had the sinking suspicion the souq or outdoor market was going to be involved and I was very leery of trying to find something at the souq.  Don't get me wrong, I love the souq, but I have not had that much luck finding specific things there.  I like to wander about, but I always seem to wander the same way, and I have yet to find all sorts of hidden nooks and crannies everyone is always telling me about.  I feel like there are hidden parts of the souq I have yet to uncover and I was pretty sure the thobes for little boys were going to be found in one of those parts.

But first I sent out a call for information to my favorite local Facebook group, When, Where, and How in Doha, a veritable treasure trove of helpful people willing to share invaluable information.  After many people suggested the souq, of course, I asked for more specifics, and got lots of more detailed directions than I had received before, which was great.  However, I also got some suggestions for brick and mortar places where I could buy a thobe that were not at the souq, which made me very happy, since I am much more confident in my ability to find buildings here, as opposed to random stalls in the warren of hallways that is the souq.

My plan was to try out a few of these locations first and then head to the souq if I struck out.  And since I was in the neighborhood, I decided to start with the Thursday and Friday Market, since I had been meaning to go there anyway. This is another souq but smaller, with actual store fronts and doors.  I walked into the first one I saw that had the headdresses in the window and asked for a thobe for a seven year old, much to the surprise of the 8 men who at first just sat there and stared at me  And then began the comedy of errors of their guessing sizes (badly) and me asking for all the pieces (since I have no idea what the entire outfit entails) and then their quoting me all sorts of prices and then knocking them down "for you, madame," and all of this happening with only a few words in common--one spoke Arabic, several spoke Bengali, and I, of course, spoke English and the international language of pointing and shaking my head yes or no.  In the end, the cost for the whole outfit was less than I thought it was going to be just for the outer garment, and they were very solicitous as I asked to see multiple sizes, so I was happy to pay whatever price they decided on.

A full length shot: he is wearing a thobe, white pants underneath,
a white skull cap on his head, with the long white ghutra on top of that,
 the black coiled iqal on top of that, with the corners of the
ghutra thrown back over the iqal as they do here.

J was VERY pleased with the effect.  He had been giving me a
hard time about wearing these clothes for a few days before and after
 he tried them on, he told me he had been worried they would be uncomfortable,
but they felt so nice!  He is definitely his mother's son in that regard!

In the end, J was sick on Thursday when he was supposed to perform, so he stayed home with me until just before the celebration and then we went, he changed, and he did his part, which was to sit at the feet of a girl pretending to be a grandmother who was telling the children, including J, a fairy tale in Arabic that may or may not have been something like Cinderella.  J was less than impressed in his sick state and we left shortly after his part, but now we have the full regalia and I am sure we will have use for it in the future!