Trials of Exile and Survival
Years far from home, and a night in San Salvador when the earth shook.
اقرأ بالعربية ←
Difficulties and Challenges: Alienation and Approaching Death
Whoever seeks glory stays up all night, and Dr. Hamad’s nights were long, and his days were busy. He began his journey of diligence and work as a young man. He traveled and lived far away from his family, seeking knowledge and learning.
It was a difficult but enriching experience that determined his path and directions, and one of the most important challenges and difficult situations that are difficult to forget was his near death during his visit to the city of San Salvador to represent Qatar at the inauguration ceremony of President Nayib Bukele, the elected El Salvadoran president. After a busy day at the reception, he went to bed late, hoping for a peaceful and restful sleep after a hard day of travel.
At three o'clock in the morning, he felt as if he were inside a plane and that extremely strong turbulence was shaking the plane north and south, making it almost fall. He woke up terrified and found that it was not a dream, but the reality of an earthquake occurring. Things fell to the floor, chairs and fruit were scattered, the walls were cracked, and the ceiling of the room almost collapsed. Everything was shaking violently.
Then he realized that death had come, so he recited the (Shahada) and headed to the door with difficulty. He almost fell due to the ground shaking, then the big tremor was followed by smaller tremors, and the atmosphere of terror continued. People were rushing to reach the door of the stairs to descend from the fourth floor.
He quickly came down the stairs, and in the lobby and at the hotel door, he met the guests in moments of terrible terror. The large tremor lasted 90 seconds, with a magnitude of 6 on the Richter scale, but to him it seemed like an eternity. After screaming and crying, people started talking to each other, and everyone talked about their experience with the earthquake.
After a while, some of them returned to their rooms, and some of them were afraid to go up to the end. Their bags were dropped off and they left, but Dr. Hamad did not go up to the room until he had breakfast in the morning after eight o’clock.