Category: A to Z Challenge

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Q is for Qatar

Fast Facts:

  • Named for: Ancient land of Catarhei, according to Pliny the Elder.
  • Capital: Doha
  • Long/Lat: 25.2 N/51.3 E, 8000 miles and 16 hours east of Castro Valley
  • Population: 3.2 million, or 48 CVs. Approx 90% are migrant workers or expatriates.
  • Size: 4400 sq mi, 240 CVs. High population density.
  • Avg temp in April: 93 F/32 C
  • Median household income: $75,000 annually
  • Ethnicity: 48% Arab, 43% South Asian
  • Main industries: Oil, trade, commerce, tourism

Qatar is the only country that starts with a “Q,” and I never do this challenge if I can’t manage the Q, so there you go. Even though I just wrote of Oman, here we are again at another country right in the middle of the Strait of Hormuz.

In fact, yesterday the NYTimes pointed out that Qatar is between a rock and a hard place. That is, they are friendly with the U.S., meaning strong business ties and a military base, but they are also on good relations with Iran. Neither country is cheerful about dealing with a compromiser. As a result, Qatar has been subject to 700 missile and drone attacks since the Trump War started.

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P is for Panama

The country of Panama, on the isthmus situated between Costa Rica and Colombia.

Fast Facts

  • Named for: Possibly “butterflies” or “bannaba”=distant place or “place of many fish,” both in indigenous tongue.
  • Capital: Panama City
  • Long/Lat: 8.6 N/79.3 W, only 6 hours or 3000 miles SE of Castro Valley. Very close to the equator.
  • Population: 4.3 million, 65 Castro Valleys
  • Size: 29,000 sq mi, or 1600 Castro Valleys
  • Avg temp in April: 90 F/32 C (humidity 85%/ CV usually around 70%)
  • Median household income: $7,800
  • Ethnicity: 65% mestizo (mixed), 12% indigenous, 10% Black, 7% white.
  • Main industries: Trade, commerce, shrimp, copper, hydropower

Sometimes there is serendipity; the stars align. Things can be helped along by choice, but happy accidents may begin the process. Today is the day to write a post on “P” and today, as it happens, we are going through the Panama Canal. The A to Z challenge meets the travel blogs! Due to this exciting circumstance, I will write two posts. Today, I will cover the country of Panama in the same fashion as before, A through O. Tomorrow we will talk about the reason for the trip: going through the Canal.

The Most Ancient History of Panama

Today, let’s focus on early pre-Canal history. Really early, 200 million years ago: Pangaea.

Pangaea, Pinterest graphic.

If long-lived intelligent beings were to look through a telescope at this part of Earth, they might ask, Can’t they make up their minds? First, it’s all land, then it’s all sea, then land, then sea, then land… In other words: Pangaea, the Central American Seaway (CAS), the isthmus, the canal, then all the bridges. Humans want all the ways to go, sometimes through the water and sometimes on the roads.

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N is for North Macedonia

North Macedonia is a landlocked country in the Balkans, i.e., the old Kingdom of Macedonia. Graphic from Countryreports.org.

Fast Facts

  • Named for: Macedonia means “tall people” according to ancient Greeks
  • Capital: Skopje
  • Long/Lat: 42.0 N/21.2 E, 6500 mi & 13 hrs East of CV
  • Population: 1.8 million or 27 CVs, big for a “small” country
  • Size: 9800 sq mi, 540 CVs
  • Avg temp in April: 64 F/16 F, similar
  • Median household income: $7,000
  • Ethnicity: 55% Macedonian, 24% Albanian, 4% Turks
  • Main industries: Chemicals, Manufacturing. Embargoes and trade conflicts are common.

Sadly, there is no South Macedonia. Neither is there an East or West Macedonia, and when Macedonia gained independence in 1991 and tried to be the whole Macedonia, the Greeks blpcked them. It’s pretty ironic, since the Macedonians once conquered Greece, and the Greeks have never conquered Macedonia.

Those Greeks do act as if they run the show. They think they invented everything, and slap labels on things like the Pythagorean theorem (Pythagoras was great, but the Babylonians knew about the right-triangle relationships way before that) or the Metonic cycle (Babylonians again) and so on. Alexander the Great, the Macedonian emperor who spread “Greek” culture into the east, was tutored by a Greek, but he wasn’t Greek. Such a long time ago, who pays attention?

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