Week One in Qatar

After 15 hours of flying, we arrived around 1 AM local time (that would be Greenwich Mean Time+2 (GMT+2) in case you are trying to keep track!). We got all of our luggage (because they had been marked priority!) and our ride took us to our new home! We have what is considered a 2 bedroom duplex – all tile floors, neutral colors, beautiful walk-in closets, fully furnished, 4 different air conditioning controls. They were also kind enough to provide us with some staples in our refrigerator: eggs, OJ, milk, etc. It’s very nice and will soon feel homey!

Our supervisor and soon-to-be friend, Kevin (or Qatari Kevin, even though he is American) was introducing us to some of the quirks of the duplex. There is a small backyard with grass (?!) and plants some small trees that are all cared for by others. There is also a drainage pipe coming out of the side of our home for waterfrom the Air Conditioner on the roof which is growing some lovely algae. In the bathrooms we have showers that you walk in to with glass doors. The interesting feature is that the floors are not graded in any way whatsoever – the water from the showers does not run into the drain in the shower, but out into the center of the bathroom floor (since it is not graded toward the other drain in the bathroom either). When you shower, you have a little lake that forms in your bathroom. Solution: buy squeegees to squeegee the water toward a drain after the shower! Also, each bathroom has either a true bidet or a hand-sprayer in it for your backside. I will admit, I did try the bidet – it’s very freaky. If you ever want to try one, you have to come and visit us. Our laundry room has the dryer on top of the washer – however the door to the unit would not open. It turns our door is just a LITTLE BIT too large for the space. Solution: never close the door all the way. It also does not vent the heat or the lint out anywhere – that should be fun. We also have lots of plugs and several plug adaptors, but they don’t fit the appliances they provided like the toaster or the iron. Luckily we didn’t want toast for breakfast anyway . . .

On our first full day, Friday, we met up with all of the new people in our department for lunch and some shopping. Lunch was at Bennigan’s – they are just like in the US – with a Monte Cristo sandwich and everything. They also list all of the drinks with alcohol, but as we are in a Muslim country, they are all virgin drinks. Luckily they still charge the price you would pay with booze in them. Everyone seems nice and just as tired and jet-lagged as we are. We then hit the grocery, and boy was that a ride. In case you are interested they have whole lambs (or goats, I couldn’t decipher) in the meat department. Other than that, it was pretty much like a US grocery store. They had some recognizable US brands, and others that we just went with. Thus far fruits have been tasty, vegetables less so. We need to get better at this.

That evening we ran some additional errands with two colleagues, Qatari Kevin and Lindsay. We were out and about until past 11PM and we saw MANY families in the stores and eating places. We did have one of our favorite meals here yet – at the orange chicken place. That’s not its name, but that’s what is on their sign. It was a chicken shawarma that was OUT OF THIS WORLD!!! Curt and I both agreed we could eat that every day. For one pita and a can of coke, it was about $2 USD (7.30 Qatari Riyal). It’s been said that shopping is the national sport – there’s not a ton of other things to do, especially when it’s so hot. And because it’s so hot, many people do things with their families until late at night. I totally understand that, but it’s still a little weird to see lots of 4 or 5 year olds in the grocery at 1030 PM.

This of course leads us to the weather. It’s hot here. Damn hot. Too hot. I haven’t had a blow dryer for the last 4 days, so I would go outside for about 5 minutes to fully dry my hair. That’s all it takes. The average temp has been about 105F every day. It gets down into the 90s at night. We will include some pictures of the surrounding area, but on the whole it is dry and dusty with very little greenery. Your sunglasses fog up every time you go outside and it can feel oppressive in the backseat of a car.

On day three of our arrival we had our health appointment with the state. We were picked up with several other new employees of the foundation and the branch campuses. At the state health department (or whatever it is called) we got our blood drawn and chest x-rays (no TB thank you!). Of course, the men and women are separated and have completely separate experiences. The other way in which people are separated is by class. If you are an “employee”(professional worker) you will go in to wait inside the air-conditioning. You will also get to go to the front of the lines, no matter how long they are. If you are a “worker”(laborer) you wait outside in the heat for as long as it takes. There is little shade and no place to sit. There were probably 300 “worker” men waiting outside when we arrived. For women, there was maybe a tenth of that. We had been told to expect the process to take upwards of 4 hours, as professionals we finished everything in about an hour and 15 minutes.

Our blood work was VERY quick. The chest x-ray was awkward at best. While there was a large waiting area with lots of seats, there was a smaller room just before the x-ray that they ushered us into. This was about 8’X12’ and had close to 45 or 50 women in it in various stages of undress. There was a small woman (Qatari or Indian?) who was shouting directions in a mish-mash of languages at everyone. Of course you can’t wear an under-wire bra for the x-ray, but they don’t easily hand out the clean hospital gowns – they kept handing people the ones others had been wearing. Apparently they also don’t want any older women to wait; Nancy from our group was ushered to the very front of the line after the woman in charge tried to manually remove her bra for her.

As we slowly moved toward the door to the x-ray room we noted several things. 1) the door to the x-ray room was open and there was nothing being done to prevent any radiation from coming into our area, nor did they seem to be concerned about ensuring all of the women wore the lead belt – you had to specially request it. 2) The woman in charge had locked us all in the room. Apparently she wanted to control traffic flow in, but this meant that there was then a line of women waiting to get out. Once we realized we were locked in, one woman in our group commented she felt like she was in a Turkish prison. The other thing we noticed was the professional women were not forced to remove their clothing and wear the used hospital gowns – we were allowed to have our X-ray as long as we didn’t have an under-wire on. The “worker” women were all forced to change into the gowns, and sometimes to completely remove them for the x-ray even though their clothing was just like mine and they had removed their bra. Class is clear and distinct here.

We have spent some time in the office in the last few days trying to get settled. Probably the main thing that is most disconcerting to us is the “tea boys”. These are gentleman whose job is to provide snacks and beverages to the employees and any guests they are meeting with. Jaya (sp?) is the one who mainly serves our area. He young and is very nice and seems to be from somewhere in Indonesia. After 3 days he now knows we are most likely to just ask for a bottle of water, but they also have cookies, juices (mango is my favorite), coffee, tea, you name it. He is very kind, but it’s really bizarre to be waited on like that. As I commented to Curt, even though his job isn’t very exciting, he doesn’t have to work out in the heat. I’m guessing his class is higher than other workers here.