“I am in love with this place”

She has had plenty of firsts in Qatar. While diplomacy features prominently among them, others are equally exhilarating. Her first ever ambassadorial posting as her country’s first ambassador to Qatar came with the opportunity to discover her love of the desert.
It provided Rossana Surballe, ambassador of Argentina to Qatar, with a unique opportunity to practice meditation, a habit she has been following regularly in life.
“I like meditation and for me desert is a very special place. I practice yoga every day. We also practice yoga there. Last year, a yoga instructor friend of mine visited from Argentina and we practiced yoga in the desert. It was great,” Surballe tells Community as she sheds light on her experiences in more than two and half years of her posting in Qatar, her first in the Middle East.
“I had never been to the desert before and I am in love with this place. I like to remain close to nature and this is a different kind of experience,” says the ambassador. Born in 1964, Surballe join the diplomatic services of her country in 2000 before working as a lawyer and journalist besides serving at different positions in public sector.
Before coming to Qatar, she was in charge of trade and economic affairs at her country’s embassy in Mexico. In September 2013, she arrived in Doha with a mission to set up Argentina’s embassy here.
“We had to work from scratch. I had to focus not just on developing bilateral relations with Qatar but also building up the embassy and that part has really been a learning experience,” alludes Surballe.
She has since been spearheading the diplomatic mission as the first ambassador of Argentina in Qatar. As a diplomat, it was her first ever posting in this region and she feels she has learnt a lot from the experience, which is “very important for your evolution as a person.”  
The culture attached with the desert, for instance, has a special place in her heart. “I like how people run to help you whenever you are in any trouble in the desert and show solidarity. I have seen the falconry festival in Sealine and what I enjoy the most is to see how falconry travels from one generation to the other,” Surballe says, sitting in her neat office space equally divided between her work-station and the sitting area.  
She keeps the maps of Argentina at hand. Sifting through a variety of them, she points to multiple tourism attractions and destinations in different parts of Argentina. “We have all four seasons and all kinds of landscape. Depending on your interest, you can explore the country with excellent facilities available for tourists,” details Surballe.  
The number of young Qatari people and families going to Argentina from Doha for tourism has been steadily increasing, she says. She has a tourism promotion section at the embassy that advises people on tourism attractions in Argentina.
In Qatar, she likes Katara Cultural Village, not just for its architectural magnificence, but for its role in promoting cultures from different countries through events. Besides other things, Surballe says she experienced Ramadan for the first time here in Qatar.
“It was a lot of firsts here in Qatar for me. I like Ramadan. I really enjoy the spirit of Ramadan. It is an opportunity to get in touch with God or with your own soul and that is very touching,” says Surballe, who loves travelling, and that too by herself.
She likes driving and is a fan of speed, always keen on travelling by car. Whenever she goes to Europe, she gets hold of one and hits the road with no particular plans or destinations in mind. While in Qatar, she likes to take a stroll along the aesthetically adorned avenues in The Pearl Qatar. Corniche also attracts her.    
She likes Souq Waqif and mostly takes visiting family and friends from Argentina to one of the many traditional eateries of the souq, offering cuisines from different countries. For herself, she mostly prefers heating healthy and organic.
Surballe does however, have a taste for Japanese and Arabic cuisines. And she says she finds ample options in Doha. This diversity is something she loves about Qatar.
“I really enjoy the possibility of meeting people from so many different nationalities here. I am someone who enjoys diversity and I love it whenever I find something that is different from my customs,” says Surballe.
And this was the primary reason she chose a diplomatic career. “You get an opportunity to represent your country in the world. It gives you the chance to live in other countries and meet different people and to see the world,” she explains. The ambassador says she has received immense love from the people of Qatar during her stay in the country.
Food and music, she believes, are the easiest and fastest ways to connect with a culture. Through her embassy, she regularly arranges for trips of cultural troupes and musicians from Argentina to Qatar.
Argentina, Surballe says, has much more than just Tango (a World Heritage) to offer. It is a big country with diverse cultures in different parts and produces great musicians.
Herself an ardent fan of Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra (QPO), in general, and classical music, in particular, Surballe says the embassy has planned a number of events in Qatar this year, the Bicentennial year of Argentina as an independent country.
The first of them is coming up next month with a ‘Rocio Perez and Leandro Rouco Duet, folk and tango show in Drama Theatre at Katara to be followed by Argentina’s National Day celebrations on May 25.
The ambassador says her country has a small but very active community in Qatar. Most of the 200 or more Argentinians living in Qatar are professionals working in different sectors such as aviation, engineering, oil and gas, public sector, food and hospitality industry and sports.
Her country imports LNG from Qatar and exports multiple products in return. In 2015, Argentina exported to Qatar products worth about QAR 115 million. Surballe says Argentina has a very well developed agriculture sector and looks forward to have enhanced agriculture and food security cooperation with Qatar.
Surballe says her country can also offer expertise in oil and gas sector besides sports. Her personal favourite sport is football and Argentinian star player Lionel Messi is her favourite player.
She watched from Doha when her national team made it to the finals of the World Cup 2014 before losing to Germany. “We did our best. This is how life is. I believe you have to give your best every day, but you can’t control everything. Sometimes others are good as well,” reasons Surballe.