What's Behind the Green Door?

This is the Green Door. No, I have not cropped the picture to hide any signs or other indication that something interesting might be contained here. Just a green door.

To find the Green Door, you pretty much have to get instructions from someone "in the know." A wonderful couple who had been here for seven years told us about it. I wish they were still here, because they were so wonderful and because they knew about this kind of cool stuff, but they are now back in Texas enjoying their grand kids and the blue sky and the occasional rain storm.

This is the street in front of the Green Door. That wet looking stuff in the middle? That's raw sewage. It's not supposed to be trickling down the street, but the last two times we've been in the area, the sewage has been leaking out from around a manhole cover.

Expat workers from places like India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka live in multi-story apartment buildings in this area. About 95% of them are men, but we did see a few kiddos coming to the small car across the street as we arrived. Just a taste of one of the many "non-Western" (read non-shiny, non-new, non-fancy, non-functioning, non-clean, etc.) parts of town. All workers are not treated equally...and no one with any power wants to talk about it. The workers are ignored (as long at they do their jobs and stay out of trouble...).

When you walk beyond the green door, here is what you see. It's all furniture and decorations, mostly from India. This stuff arrives by container, so sometimes the outside area (shown here) is empty and sometimes it's very full (like now). The stuff ranges from dark stained to decorated with brass-colored metal work to painted. It is really beautiful!

From what we've been told, nothing "antique" in Qatar can be sold or exported. You can take an old "thing" (gate, door, chair) and make it into something new (turn a door into a table, for example) by adding it to something else or taking it apart. But this stuff, all being from India, is not an issue. Inside, the building is crammed full of the coolest stuff ever. We've bought a few pieces, like bar stools to use at our kitchen counter instead of having a kitchen table, a book shelf, and a small table.

And all of these treasures are guarded by a clan of fantastic cats. Notice the "long" face on the one above under the red table--most cats here look that way, like Egyptian tomb cats that have stowed away on a camel caravan to the Gulf.