Doha, 18.

Juni 2010 10:40 local time

Plenty of knee room on Qatar this time. Where other airlines

squeeze in extra seats, Qatar is kicking out a row or two. Quietly
giving their customers satisfaction without advertising it (“ohne es
an die große Glocke zu hängen”) – satisfaction which is taken note
of – not only not to be treated like cattle but as people. The night
consequently bearable. Three films – Shutter Island, It is
complicated and a Swiss film Der Fürsorger.
Seven hours stop-over in Doha airport. For the first time I find Arab
men and women’s garb including the burkha for the women
attractive. In the desert and in greater numbers and in snow-white
… and silk black garb the eyes stand out, warm and loving eyes and
the men are tall and proud with their head-gear.
Many, as it seems, people from Asia, possibly contract workers,
sleeping on the floor, or sitting in groups, relaxed and as if at home.
In the men’s room a Muslim man washes his hands, and arms slowly
and carefully, touches his hair with a wet hand and his legs. I ask
him whether he is preparing for church. I am preparing myself for
the Mosque, I am washing myself for prayer and then he uses
another word for religious service. He did not like the word church
and I feel the word church created a distance, yet, I deliberately
used the word church not to step into his own cultural realm and he
kept me there, and did not smile understandingly. Colleen felt the
ladies room was inadequate in that sense disrespectful. Are the
male architects ignorant of ladies needs?

19 June, Paris

Downtown Doha in the distance, obscured by dust rising from the

desert. No newsstand anywhere at first, we find one later. Lots of
open, clean spaces.
Another 7 hours to Paris. Two more movies: “The Good, the Bad and
the Ugly” and “The Last Station”.
We take the train into the Paris, change-over at Gard du Nord, Metro
to Place de Bastille. Masses of African people coming our way. One
helps Colleen to lift her suit case up the stairs. On our way to the
apartment we pass the Opera Bastille and masses of African and
Parisian people, some with red flags and hammer and sickle
emblems on them. Africans are squatting in front of the Opera. We
are squeezing our way through. Later we find out it is a
demonstration of Africans “sans papiers” – immigrants from Franco-
African countries without residence papers who are squatting on the
place of civil rights and liberty to draw the attention of the public to
their case and cause. The next morning everything is gone and
cleaned up. What happened to the people? Are they all locked up?
And going to be deported?
The empire strikes back. As Sihle Kumahlo did write in his “Heart of
Africa” – why did the Africans never go to Europe to colonize it …
Now it seems, they are on the march, not to colonize but to go and
visit the colonizers asking for papers, a cup of tea and a job and
maybe a better education and a chance to make it in this world. And
in their throngs flooding down to the metro they were strong and
beautiful in their war dance like attitude, not threatening, but
powerful, strong. And one of them carried Colleen’s suitcase.
Visiting with Maria and Guy Livingston-Sperling. Their boy Renzo is
an old soul as Colleen calls it, spirited from an older world. He will
bring with him a lot without having to learn it first. Walked to the
Pantheon and the magistrate’s court opposite where Gugus and Guy
had been married, walked alongside the Seine vis-à-vis Notre Dame.
The tourists are a bit of a pain but then, so are we – touring Paris. A
lovely image we have kept. In a small park area a group of people
practicing Tai Chi.
Our feet are tired, our spirits refreshed.

20 June, Paris

Mess in Notre Dame at 8:30 before the tourist invasion. The church
service was well attended. Breakfast at our little apartment under
the roof – but not quite over the roofs of Paris and a walk to the
biggest market in Paris at the Place d’Aligre just down the road from
us. From there to Paris’ biggest cemetery, the Cimetière du Père-
Lachaise where we visited the graves of Balzac, Gerard de Nerval,
Delacroix, Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, Chopin and the
tomb of Abélard and Heloïse. Tomorrow it is time to spend the day
in the Louvre. Warmer weather is predicted too which makes being
in Paris all the more exciting. Up to now an icy wind came rushing
down the boulevards.
Tomorrow is the 21 of June, the longest day in Europe and in Paris a
day of music out on the streets all day long, we are told.