Katara, our own "cultural" village

When I first heard that a place called Katara, cultural village, was going to open in Qatar I imagined that it would only include events and restaurants related to Qatari culture. But I figured out I was completely wrong as soon as I entered Katara as the first place that you see is an italian ice cream shop, La Gelateria Fina, where people are crowding around the ice cream parlor trying to decide on their preferred flavor.

As I continued walking, I noticed there was a variety of restaurants that were all on the left-hand side of the walk and each of them served food from different countries; which included Indian, Egyptian and Turkish. Inside each on of the restaurants there are ornaments and cultural objects that complete the traditional atmosphere that the restaurant tries to enhance.

Opposite to the restaurants there are different stands where local Qatari men and women sit and practice a particular craft. I went to cultural village on saturday and I also went on saturday a week before that and both times I went, I realized there were different stands and different craft every week. On the first saturday there were different stands about fishing, which included making the nets and getting the pearls. Last saturday the main focus was on traditional qatari clothing, the art of sewing and spices. In the first stand there was a qatari woman sitting on the floor working with her large needles and threads, making beautiful tapestries and cloth hangings.

The other stand had traditional qatari clothing for both men and females and the jewelry that would usually compliment the clothes.

There are a variety of different spices that are put in Qatari food. In one of the stands there were a few spices that were displayed and the way those spices were made was also shown by a local qatari man, who was sitting in the store.

Instruments used to make spices.

There are also performances that occur on weekends that are both by international countries and by Qataris. When I was at Katara there was both a european band playing on a stage and a qatari band performing local songs that was playing on another stage.

A group of Qatari men playing traditional khaleeji songs on arabic instruments.

Only a few meters away there was another stage where a European band was playing a completely different style of music.