Published: November 30, 2009 10:15 am      

Chance meeting in Qatar

Doha.

The 184-year-old capital city sits on the eastern edge of a small peninsula off Saudia Arabia that is the nation of Qatar. Surrounded by desert and located on the coast of the Persian Gulf, it is a city both very old and boundlessly new. It has a market that hints of times long ago snuggled next to a metropolitan downtown with futuristic skyscrapers challenging those seen in its well-known neighbor across the Gulf, Dubai.

It is also the home of Goshen native Mindy Parsons and her family.

The Parsons are no strangers to adapting to new surroundings. Mindy’s husband works for Exxon Mobil, and the family has lived all over the United States, moving to wherever his next assignment leads them. She was surprised, however, when she learned his newest placement would take them to the Middle East.

“It was the first time either of us had really been outside of the country, so when he said Qatar I literally had to get out a map,” she said.

Thanks to a prior stay in Virginia, the family has a close friend who works for the FBI, and they contacted him to ask what they were getting themselves into. After being assured by him that it was one of the best places in the Middle East and not even a blip on the radar of dangerous areas in the region, they prepared themselves and moved to the country in April.

After a two-month retreat to Goshen to escape the summer heat in June and July, when temperatures were well in excess of 100 degrees every day, the Parsons family returned in time for the girls to go back to school.

Not long after, Mindy heard of a wonderful coincidence. Organizers of the Tribeca Film Festival, founded by Robert DeNiro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, were going to hold the first Doha Tribeca Film Festival, the first time the festival was ever held outside the United States. Intrigued and excited, Mindy signed up as a festival volunteer.

A world apart

Nearly 7,000 miles away in New York City, another Goshen native received a phone call from Tribeca Film Festival staff. Jennifer Feeney was their pick to help develop the Doha program, and although her work had taken her all over the world, she didn’t know what to expect.

“I didn’t really know anything about Doha,” Feeney said. “I knew a little bit about the Middle East, but not as much, clearly, as I do now. I was getting a lot of mixed messages about going to the Middle East, whether it was a safe place and what to expect.”

Like the Parsons family, Feeney had her own contact for information — her father, a former Marine and Vietnam veteran.

“He mentioned that there was an American military base set up in Doha, and that Qatar is one of the safest countries in the Middle East,” she said.

So Feeney agreed, and in September she left for Doha.

Crossing paths

One day, while checking her Facebook site, Mindy read a post from a friend and fellow Goshenite living in Phoenix noting how hot it was there. To her amazement, under his post was a response from Feeney, who had been a close friend of hers while they were both attending Goshen High School in the late 1980s.

“Jen had posted on his blog, ‘Oh, you don’t know hot until you’ve been in Doha,’” Parsons said. “I was like ‘What!? She’s in Doha?”

She quickly sent a message to Feeney, double-checking that what she had read was indeed true. Feeney herself was shocked to learn of Mindy’s whereabouts.

“I thought she meant she was some place back in the States with the same name, not in Qatar,” Feeney said.

They also discovered they were both working at the film festival.

The pair’s surprises, however, weren’t finished there.

In Doha, there is a market called Souq Waqif, or “the standing market.” There, visitors may find any number of traditional goods as well as an increasing number of art galleries and events. It is where Feeney found herself one day when the real shock came.

“Mindy and her mom walked up to me and tapped me on the shoulder,” Feeney said. “I recognized her mom, but I hadn’t seen them in 25 years. The last time I had seen them was in downtown Goshen in Mindy’s house.”

The three only had a short time to reminisce before Feeney had to return to her work, but not before they scheduled time to get together again after the end of the film festival.

Doha Tribeca

During the festival, Mindy was awed by the people she got to see as she worked the red carpet as a greeter opening night and as the festival progressed. Among the glimpses she caught were DeNiro as well as actress Patricia Clarkson.

For Feeney, the story of her meeting with Mindy drew much attention from the festival’s multicultural staff.

“They got a kick out of the fact that Mindy knew me from high school in a small town in Indiana,” Feeney said. “They would like to talk about it during the day and at work. It was kind of a fun novelty for them.”

Together again

Once the festivities had concluded and all their work was done, the two once again met up and spent the following two weeks taking in the sights and sounds of Doha together.

“It was a big reunion,” Parsons said. “It was so funny, it’s such a crazy small world.”

Beyond reconnecting with an old friend, Mindy was also excited to share the wonders of the city with another American.

“It is quite beautiful,” Parsons said of Doha, “and I’m also glad someone else from the States got to experience the beauty of their culture.”

For Feeney, their time together fundamentally changed her experience of the region.

“It was such a wonderful feeling because it felt like home, like having a little bit of Goshen in the Middle East,” Feeney said. “It made it almost magical, because I just wasn’t expecting it and it was so amazing already — but to have that comfort from home there, it added a lot of depth and made it very memorable in a different way.”