My children arrive on Qatar National Day

My children came to visit me over Christmas week, arriving on 18th Dec, the Qatar National Day. This was on a Friday and proceedings were due to start in the afternoon, after Friday prayers. The children came on a night flight especially to make it in time for the celebrations. But the evening before we all got a message on our phones from the mobile telephone companies (there are only 2 in Qatar) that the proceedings will start at 8 in the morning ( a great way of getting a message to all the nation). That was a blow to the schedule. Children arrived at 9:30am and at this time we saw the military planes do the air show, but we only saw them when they came to turn around above us as we were many miles from the main show area. So we missed the air show. I took the children home and they went to sleep for a few hours, during which period we had heavy thunderstorms. Then I realised why the plan had changed from afternoon to early morning, they didn’t want the dignitaries to get wet at the opening ceremony of the celebrations.
The other organised part of the event was to be the firework display, and we sort of missed this as well. The traffic was too heavy around the Corniche, infact, it was virtually stationary, so we headed to The Pearl (the Qatar equivalent of Dubai Palm Islands), and thought we could see the Corniche from a distance. So we sat having a very expensive coffee and the fireworks started, and we didn’t realise that the part of the Corniche where the fireworks were was on the other side of some tall buildings. So we got some distant noises and saw only the topn end of the tall fireworks in the sky. We sort of got the essence of it.
So despite having missed these two major events and getting soaked when the heavens opened (my kids must have brought the clouds with them from UK), we still managed to enjoy the day. This is because the best part of the day was watching the local people parade along the streets doing some crazy things. We’ve all seen a carnival, so imagine an unplanned carnival where everyone does their own thing and has their own way of celebrating. So the floats are cars (mainly land cruisers) and there are many activities around each vehicle, here are some details to help you imagine ...
A car with someone standing on the bonnet (while it’s moving) holding a large Qatari flag and dancing to music coming from within the car, which is decorated with Qatar national colour (purple) hearts, and his friends are sat moving to music on top of the roof.
A whole lane of cars is stopped because a group of middle aged men in full Arab gear decided to get out and do the Qatar national dance in the middle of the street.
All the cars in the three lanes have been stopped by three cars which have slowed down. As the cars in front move forward the road is emptied for a while, and one of the cars comes screeching ahead doing hand brake turns and is spinning round and round in the middle of the road with spectators just meters away.
So imagine three lanes of a road both ways (6 lanes all together) of such spectacles. Mustn’t forget to mention the Ferrari with two posers. A little boy (about 8 years old) stood by the road side and as cars with open windows drove past he would spray silly string into the car which he was hiding behind his back. Well, the occupants of the Ferrari were not too pleased when they were shown up by this little kid and his silly string.
Despite the danger element it is still fun to watch, and its fascinating that such recklessness is allowed in the name of fun and celebration.

First visit back home to UK

So the journey out of Doha was an experience, it seemed that half of Doha (or maybe all) had gathered at the airport for a mass evacuation. Even though I gave myself nearly two hours to departure I just managed to make it to the plane on time. Tempers were flaring as the queues were never ending and at times seemed never moving. Whilst in the queue for check in there were four of us Brits, and a Lebanese couple (amongst others) quite oblivious to our presence just pushed in. Being the polite English we are, we didn’t want to offend her , but quietly moaned that there was no such thing as queuing as we know it in England. We sort of said it loud enough for her to hear and we repeated it a number of times. She heard us but held her head high and continued to queue in front of us. She later heard me saying that I will miss my flight if I don’t get checked-in soon, to which she turned round and said ‘why are you standing there, why don’t you go ahead!’ . Didn’t know how to respond other than, ‘well i was in the queue but people keep pushing in’. So she and the person in front of her let me jump the queue, or shall I say let me take my rightful place in the queue.
The journey was uneventful, as most plane journeys are. You look forward to hearing what the weather is like at your destination, and it was ‘a comfortable 8 degrees’, said the captain, ‘with thunderstorms across Eastern Europe’. So the scene was set for my arrival.
I hadn’t taken any warm clothes with me to Doha. What a mistake, not just for keeping me warm in the office, but also on the return journey to UK. Upon my arrival there was no one at the airport to greet me. My son was at school, and my daughter at work, and I am not important enough in anyone else’s life to warrant a journey to the airport. I take a big sigh at this point, and say ‘never mind’. At least on the return journey to Doha there will be someone at the airport waiting for me, even if it will only be the driver, someone who will smile and say ‘welcome’, it will mean a lot to me.
I had to take a train from Manchester to Leeds. I paid particular attention to the countryside familiarising myself again with the British outdoors. As for the temperature, the plane was warm, as was the train, but I froze just in the 5 minutes that it took to get off the train and make my way to my son’s car.
When I Ieft the UK many colleagues and friends had said that they wanted to meet up before I went, but I was so busy and we had decided that we will meet up when I got back. So I had arranged to have an open house party on Sunday so that friends can come and go all day at their convenience and we could meet up. Some said they would come others said they were busy. As Sunday arrived they slowly cancelled. Only one person came, who wasn’t even on the original invite list. It just reminded me how busy people are here in England. The pace of life is so fast that you forget the important things in life, ie people. Over the past years I have learnt that time and people are very important, once they are gone they never come back, so make the most of them while you have them.
Eid celebrations were good, not all but about half of my brothers and sisters came. They all brought some food and we had a good time together. I felt I had never been away, as I had kept my family and friends informed with e-mails such as this, they knew all about my Doha encounters so there was little new to share with them. So the conversation didn’t focus on me and Doha but the general stuff families talk about, so that was quite nice in a way.
I had been lifted out of my life in UK and transported to Doha, and now I had been lifted out of Doha and back home, as though I had never left. Yes, as though I had never left. The construction workers had started digging up the old drive and putting in a new one and it seemed I was back in my previous life of get this done, get that done, and the list of things to do is never ending. Having said that, I am not in as much of a rush to get things done as I used be. Doha has taught me something, I have learnt to slow down a bit and appreciate life and people, otherwise life will fly by too quickly and I’ll be left wondering where it went.
The children have been fantastic, it’s great to be around them again. It’s just nice being part of a family no matter how small. I cherish each moment I have here with them. Home cooking tastes much nicer when you have loved ones to share it with.
A visit to the supermarket was necessary, all the familiar products in the familiar aisles. Things weren’t in mega packs as in Carfour, but sizes I am accustomed to. A day out shopping with my daughter for shoes and clothes was a must. We love shopping together. We managed a whole six hours and enough stuff to exceed the allowed baggage limit on Qatar Airways. As my children follow me to Doha two weeks later we have agreed that they will bring one suitcase full of my clothes and they will share one for themselves. They said they were bringing empty suitcases anyway as they want to shop in Doha. Although I have been in Doha for six weeks I have not bought clothes or shoes there yet. I am not sure why. Maybe I don’t have my shopping partner, my daughter, or the style of clothes I haven’t got accustomed to. Time will tell whether I continue to shop in England and take stuff back or whether I do start to buy in Doha. I also wonder if my dress sense will change to match that of Doha. But then I am not sure what the dress sense is, as you don’t really get to see what the local women wear, and to be quite honest I haven’t noticed what other expat women wear. I am going to have to be a little more observant when I get back.
Everyone asks me if I am enjoying the weather in the UK. And yes I am because I know I only have to put up with it for one week. If I was going to be here for months on end then obviously the answer would be no. It is dark outside, and rained all day yesterday. This meant that this morning the river at the back of the house flooded. Tonight it will get to -3 and I am told it will get colder by Friday with a possibility of snow. I go back on Saturday back to 25 degrees, nice ...

Settling in

No doubt the life here is what dreams are made of. However during the week I am cooped up in the office and have no sense of what is going on outside. It gets cooler (about 20) in the evening and dark fairly quickly (about 4.30pm) so the week is like any other week anywhere else in the world (during the summer months).

The weekends are special. It’s like being on holiday, especially the weeks where I bring no work home.
Last weekend I decided to keep myself busy as it was a time I didn’t want to be alone (3 years since Javaid passed away). I had a house warming gathering last Friday so spent the day cooking. Had a few friends over from work, about 8 of us and 2 kids. On Saturday we watched the football. The week has been a bit difficult emotionally, spent some nights in tears and especially the 17th but that’s not a bad thing.

When a Polish colleague came to my party last week he came in full Arab gear and looked really good. It was a good effort on his part. Afterwards we played crazy golf as I have this at my compound. He forgot he was wearing this long cloak and decided to jump across the stream that runs between the different sections of the golf. Before we could stop him he took the leap and found his legs wouldn’t open as much as he would like to get him across (because of the cloak). He is a big guy so I had visions of him not making it across and landing with a big splash in the stream. Luckily the front part of his foot caught the edge and I don’t know how but he managed to get across.

The football match between Brazil and England was pretty uneventful with Brazil winning 1-0. The most exciting part was the entertainment outside the stadium and watching the opening and closing ceremonies. The most fun part of the evening was our attempts at Mexican waves. The wave would start at one end of the stadium and go around until it got to one section of the Stadium where there was a lot of white (ie a lot of local arabs sitting) and they wouldn’t get up or raise their hands. The section of the Stadium was the VIP section and they obviously weren’t going to make fools of the themselves. So you would follow your eye across these parts of the Stadium and miraculously the wave would continue from the next part of the Stadium. It was fascinating watching it happen again and again with a pause in between. Part of the opening festivities included a Beatles look alike band and a troop of Queens guards making a mockery of the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace.

This Thursday our boss took us out to lunch at the Sheraton, a nice restaurant by the sea. This was to celebrate our department winning the best implementation award of the year last month. In the evening Slawek had a house warming party so the same crew landed at his place and he cooked for us, that was nice. This weekend I have lots of work so I found a nice spot on the beach at the Four Seasons hotel and sat at a Poolside restaurant having tea and cakes and working on my laptop.

When I used to travel to the middle east men in white cloaks and women in black seemed as though they were from another planet. I used to compare them to aliens as in Men in Black, because they didn’t interact with ex pats and holiday makers. Now that I work with them they are just like normal people. A work collegue had a head teachers meeting last week. All staff in girls’ schools are women and all staff in boys schools are men, so he was at a meeting with a group of girls’ school principals and they were all in black veils, and he couldn’t recognise who was who. One of them (when no one was looking), quickly lifted her veil and said ‘its me’ and put it down again. He found it so amusing. You hear some funny stories about how the girls make contact with the boys here. I am told that the girls put their telephone number as part of their Bluetooth name and have Bluetooth on. This explains why during meetings they are continuously looking at their mobile phones to see who else has their Bluetooth on and if they have received any texts.

Next week is the speed boat racing championships here and they are having qualifying rounds this weekend. So a lot of activity on the cornice with helicopters hovering around. The weather is nice during the day, still around 27, with a cool breeze blowing, just perfect.

I was able to sort out the cold and hunger fairly quickly. Hunger was easy, one trip to Carfour and my cupboard is full of bounty, galaxy and peanut covered chocolates. This gives me the sugar fix I need every two hours. So I have replaced the fruit and veg with chocolates, well done Khawar, do as the English do, not as the Romans do, I mean as the Qataris do. The strange thing is if I say no to my tea boy for something once I don’t get it ever again. I had a newspaper from my hotel, so I said no to him when he came to deliver the daily paper. I now don’t get one at all. I have to hail him down in the corridor every morning, otherwise I don’t get it. He delivers a bottle of water three or four times a day. I don’t drink all mine, so they were collecting on my desk and one day I made the mistake of returning them. Now I don’t get any water at all, just cups of English tea.
As for the cold, the hotel room is kept warm by keeping the window open, so I am hot by the time I leave in the morning. So it takes till lunch time before I start to feel cold. Then I have to hope I have a meeting as the meeting room is on the sunny side and has lots of windows. I go 10mins before everyone else and stand body against the glass, thank heavens for conduction. Failing that trips to the ladies toilets help as there is no air conditioning in there.
I’ve sort of resolved the taxi problem. Each evening I am on a mission to get as many mobile numbers of taxi drivers as possible so I can ring them. The problem is I have now forgotten who starts when and when they finish duty and which day they have off. I have just resorted to standing by the roadside again and hailing one down as needed. Before waiting 10 mins for a taxi seemed like a lifetime, now I can wait 20 mins and so what … When I came here I walked briskly everywhere, at breakfast, in the hotel lobby, in the malls, at work etc. I noticed everyone walks leisurely here. We set off to the meeting room one day, I grabbed my notepad and sped out of my room only to find my boss leisurely strolling towards the meeting room. If I had carried on at my speed I would have overtaken her and that wouldn’t have been good, so I put on my brakes and started strolling behind her. I am getting good at it now. One day I leisurely strolled down the souk only to notice people were overtaking me, I think I’ve slowed down too much.
The company I work for put you up in a hotel and give you a driver for 2-3 weeks until you find your own place. So I had to get my skates on and start hunting for an apartment. Here the agents come and pick you up from your hotel and show you the apartments on sale, so most evenings of the second week were spent doing this. At the end of the viewing I would ask the agent to drop me off at a restaurant and then I would get a taxi back. Shopping for an apartment is akin to shopping for shoes. The one you see first is great but you have to see all the rest and you come back to the one you saw first. Anyway I wasn’t going to be rushed into signing up for one year when I hadn’t seen all that was available on the market. So I found a town house on a compound where you could pay on a daily basis. It’s a lot more than I would pay in an apartment but then it buys me time to look for the ideal apartment. This is when you stop feeling sorry for me. I have a large pool, a fully equipped gym, a massage room, a steam room, a sauna (although I don’t need the latter two as I just need to sit outside). There’s more, a tennis court, a squash court, crazy golf (which I see out of my window so I see a lot of green and water fountains, green is rare here, water fountains are not). I have maid service that come daily to wash and clean for me. I have a driver provided by the compound who takes me to work, brings me back and takes me out in the evening to anywhere I want to go eg shopping, restaurants etc. So the taxi problem is now also sorted. He calls me ‘maam‘, ‘yes maam‘, ‘no maam‘, ‘I’ll be right there ma’am‘. Maam as in madam, not mum. He’s a lovely old Pilipino man with a cute accent.
People who work for ICTQatar are all put up in the same hotel.. When I started an Indian colleague was at the hotel and was in the process of sorting out his house. He has a Japanese wife and two beautiful little boys. I am now the little boys’ aunty and the only ‘relative’ they have in Doha as they left their family behind. When I was moving out of the hotel a Bulgarian girl started and we have become very close friends. We go everywhere together. Now that I have moved out of the hotel she will come to my place. She’ll be coming today and this is my first weekend in my new place.
Last week was busy. They had two major events at the same time, the Doha Film Festival and Ladies Tennis Championships. Here’s where your envy continues: I watched the finals tennis between Serena and Venus Willaims followed by a wonderful closing ceremony. I had to forsake a speech from Robert De Niro because of the film festival closing ceremony was at the same time. Despite my swift walking and good relationships with drivers I couldn’t get from one venue to the other in time. During the festival I watched movies on huge screens built on stages (24m x 10m) in the park and on the beach. A new form of drive in movie, a walk in movie where you sit on deck chairs.
The envy doesn’t end there, yesterday I watched World Volleyball Championships. I have a Polish colleague at work and because Poland was playing he managed to get us free tickets from the Polish Embassy. Poland won the match, so the embassy officials let us have tickets for the final on Sunday too. Next week I have tickets for friendly football match Brazil v England. Somebody asked me if I was a sports fan, I said no, I just watch these to kill time. Oh and last week I understand was the Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi so there was no way I could be in three places at once.
Shopping at Carfour is an experience. Nothing comes in less than 2kg size packs. I still haven’t managed to buy rice as they come in 2 kg packs but 4 packs are taped together. I have got enough soap powder to last me a year, it only comes in those huge boxes. They have no buy one get one free offers, just buy two at a time or 4 at a time (in the case of rice). It costs £4 for a small pack of cheddar cheese. They have umpteen types of other cheeses., but cheddar is the most expensive. I should stop looking for high street brands I am used to in England. Iam not doing so badly, I got Lurpack butter, Flora margarine, Heinz baked beans, but not managed Kellogs Crunchy Nut Cornflakes yet (still on the hunt for them), until then Weetabix is fine.
I bought what looked like milk (red top is semi skimmed here I think), but when I put it in my tea it curdled. So I thought it had gone off in the heat during transportation or something. It was thick and creamy. Milk gone off in England smells sour and horrible, this smelt rather nice, a bit like yoghurt. I thought they have nice milk bacteria here. Anyway I threw it down the sink. Next day I consulted a few people and learnt that I had bought drinking yoghurt, and not milk, I think I need to start learning a bit of Arabic.
When I arrived in my house last weekend I turned off all the air conditioning units (7 altogether). They were my arch enemies. In about two days the temperature normalised and settled at about 27 degrees in all the rooms. This is nice during the day but not at night. All of a sudden I have come to appreciate the air con units, I like them now and can appreciate them. They are set to 25 degrees (22 in the bedroom), and I am happy, warm and content.

I have arrived in Doha

I arrived in Qatar three nights ago. Got to bed about 2am (15 hours after leaving home in England) only to get up again at 6am. First day at work started with being picked up by a driver at 7am and taken to the office. In a whole day I managed to fill out a few forms and get some stationary. Not bad for a days work. Day 2 was a bit better got a laptop, attended two meetings and got documents to read (about 200 pages). Day three had 3 meetings and got a new project to manage as well as hints of loads of work waiting in the pipeline.
Work starts at 7am and finishes at 3pm prompt. Prompt because while I am staying in the hotel the company arrange for a driver to take me to work and bring me back. Once I move into my flat then it is my responsibility to get to and from the office. Then I can start at 8 and finish at 4 if I wish.
A tea boy comes round regularly offering drinks. No one goes out for lunch nor seems to eat lunch. We get a plate of fruit and veg at lunch time (an apple, a banana, two gherkins, and some baby carrots) which was novel to start with but not any more. I need biscuits and cakes. So I asked the tea boy and he brought me some :-). I also showed him how to make English tea, as he was making the cooked/boiled version generally preferred by Asian tea drinkers. When you go into a meeting he automatically brings drinks, he asks guests what they want and brings us our usual whether we want it or not. Today I stole two small bread rolls and butter from breakfast at the hotel, and this with the bowl of fruit was a bit better. Colleagues tell me that there are places to eat but you need a car to get there, and they sometimes go, so I am waiting for them to go. I am still waiting. I think I have to learn to have a big breakfast, that might solve the problem. Today my boss said that we need to have some business meetings with some key people so I can get to know them so there is hope for some food during the day.
The other thing to report on is that I am sooo cold. My office is on the inside of the building ie has no windows so is colder than the offices where the sun comes in. When I get back to my hotel I find that room service have turned on the air conditioning full blast again. I have to open the windows to warm the room and have a hot bath to get myself warmed up. It is around 30 degrees outside but I do not get to go outside much. There are no verandas, no gardens, nowhere to sit outside. I would have to go to the park or one of the souks that has outdoor cafes. Its difficult getting taxis here, I am told you have to think about getting a car before you can think about getting bread. So will have to contemplate getting a car and driving on the right hand side of the road. Today a colleague told me that if I am nervous about driving here then I should get a driver. It will cost the equivalent of what I used to pay for petrol per month in England. Petrol here costs next to nothing, so the idea of having a driver is quite appealing.
First night I went to a mall and ate at a Pizza hut. Yesterday I went to an evening conference, main reason was that they provided food after the event, saved me going to a restaurant and eating alone. I met a Tunisian teacher so have started making friends, she gave me her number. I might go see her at the weekend.
Today I have been sat at the window of the hotel to get warmed up and am contemplating going out to the mall to buy a few essentials, like food that I can take into work to give me fuel to keep me warm.