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.