QATAR

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Sophia Al-Maria

*This book review is part of my “Reading Around the World” Project which you can read about here

One thing that this book reading “challenge” has reinforced for me is that borders are really a lot of malarkey (as sleepy Joe would say) and that they are some real colonialist, capitalistic bullshit. This observation has almost nothing to do with this book in particular, but is something I have noticed throughout my reading. People and cultures cannot be easily contained and categorized geographically, as it turns out. OK, now about this book in particular. I was excited about this find because it is written by a woman who is roughly within my age range who grew up splitting her time between Washington and Qatar. The story is interesting in itself, but I found the writing fell a little bit flat for me; I always felt as though I was being told the story of her life by someone a few degrees separated from her.

Al-Maria’s origin story is definitely an interesting one. Her father grew up on the Arabian Gulf and ended up applying for school in Washington state. This was a particularly big move as no one in his family had left the region before (and he didn’t seem to have a sense of just how far away he was going). He arrived at SeaTac knowing little to no English, and had to navigate his way around a foreign, racist, country that was completely different from anything he had known, with no assistance. During his early days in Washington he met Gale and they became a couple. Gale quickly got pregnant with Sophia and they got hastily married.

Al-Maria grew up with her mother, as her father returned to the Arabian Gulf when she and her sister were tiny – saying he would send for them when he could. Sophia, her mother, and her sister did briefly move to the Gulf but ended up returning to Washington where  they remained until her teenage years. Al-Maria’s mother was caring but paranoid, and tended to be strict with her. Eventually, Gale started to feel as though Sophia was “out of control,” so she was sent to Qatar to stay with her Baba (her father). The rest of the story focuses on her experiences while in Qatar with her father and extended family.

Reading about Al-Maria’s experience bouncing between these two very different cultures made me think a lot about how cultures and countries are discussed. There is a tendency to act as though other cultures are incomprehensibly different from one another. And in a way that is true, but not in the ways people think. I am sure there was some discomfort when she first arrived in Qatar, but she quickly adjusted to living in a house full of extended family in what was, outwardly, a very different environment and situation. Humans are relatively adaptable, able to learn surprisingly quickly how to move through places that feel foreign. I think that significant cultural differences are much more nuanced and hard to put your finger on. The things that seem obviously different are easier to adjust to; we learn to code switch and fit in. In my experience it is the little, nearly indescribable things that cause cross-cultural disconnect. (All this with the caveat that I am not particularly well traveled and do not necessarily  have a ton of cross cultural experience).

Almost none of this was touched on in the book, which I actually think is appropriate because the story is not a study in culture: it is a memoir about Al-Maria’s childhood. It truly is an interesting story but I felt outside of it, which made it hard for me to connect. I wanted to know more about her relationships with various family members, to know more about how she felt about her experiences, but she never delved into that. Perhaps this was out of respect for her family, and not wanting to tell stories that were not hers (or only half belonged to her) but it made it difficult to love the book. It was a pretty quick and easy read, so I wouldn’t say to skip it altogether, but I think it left a lot to be desired.