| Somewhere
Down There... |
| Passing
Time In The Kingdom Of Qatar |
| When my
husband first asked me what I thought about going to Qatar, I must
admit that I was at a little bit of a loss as to what he was talking about.
When he narrowed it down to a country, I had to delve very deeply into
my geographical knowledge and thought it might be ‘somewhere down there’,
meaning the to me totally unknown Gulf area.I had no idea what to expect
and could only find very limited information about the country, which we
were going to call home for the next few years. I had notions about having
to do my weekly shop on the market and living in very basic accommodation
somewhere in the desert.
Well, was I
in for a shock! Not only do they have supermarkets, even hypermarkets,
here but also proper houses and yes, there is a desert, but you need to
drive a fair way out of town to actually be in the middle of it. |
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Even though
relief flooded through me when I realized that civilization had actually
got as far as Qatar but in a way I must admit I was a little disappointed.
My desert adventure would obviously be a lot more comfortable than I had
anticipated.
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The emirate
of Qatar lies on an 11,437 sq. km large, thumb-shaped peninsula on
the West Coast of the Arabian Gulf. The country is flat with some rocky
outcrops up to 40 ms high and very little natural vegetation. (In the towns,
however, substantial planting has been carried out and there are a lot
of palm trees and flowers.) |
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| The desert
landscape ranges from flat and rocky to beautiful sand dunes with a
lot of very bleak salt flats in the center of the country. Of the estimated
650.000 residents, only 150.000 are Qatari, the remainder are expats, mainly
from India, Pakistan and the Philippines. 75% of the population live in
the capital Doha, on the East Coast of Qatar. Arabic is the native language
but due to the mix of nationalities, everybody speaks English to some extend.
Doha itself
is a compact city that stretches itself around a horseshoe shaped bay.
A 7-km long Corniche lined with palm trees and regularly dotted with themed
and colourfully planted roundabouts stretches alongside the bay. The town
is mainly modern, one of the oldest buildings being the old Emir’s palace,
dating back to the beginning of the century, now part of in the National
museum. There are souqs (market, bazaar like shopping area) |
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Offshore
Resources Gallery
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| But they are
not comparable in atmosphere or tradition with, for instance, Muscat’s
souq. Doha is growing and expanding daily, with the West bay area being
the center of attention. New, architecturally interesting, buildings and
malls are springing up virtually every month and the town has changed dramatically
in just the short time since we arrived here.
To come
and stay in Qatar you will need a visa, unless you are a GCC national
(Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates).
There are tourist and business visas for short-term stays but if you come
to work and live here, you will need a specific working visa. Your company,
who will organise a sponsor for you, will arrange this. Wives and children
also need a visa and are often sponsored by the husband once his residence
permit has been approved.
Customs can
be an adventure all by itself, be mentally prepared to be taken aside and
your luggage searched when you arrive. Be sure not to carry any alcohol,
drugs, pork products and explicit literature or videos with you (be careful
with some women’s magazines, even though most of them are available here,
any nudity or even cleavages are censored). |
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| If you keep
in mind that Qatar is a Muslim country, albeit a lot more open minded than
for instance Saudi Arabia, you will be fine.
Once here,
the first thing you are going to notice is the climate. Qatar has a so-called
‘moderate’ desert climate, but then everything is relative. We arrived
here on the 10th May last year, at 5.30 a.m. in the morning and it was
already 33o Celsius (92o Fahrenheit) in the shade. A bit of a shock
to the system you could say. The best time to arrive in the country,
if you have a choice, would be early spring to give you time to acclimatise
slowly. In summer the temperature goes up to 50o Celsius (122o Fahrenheit)
with the humidity up to 95%. Stepping out of your air-conditioned house
into the damp heat is a little like getting a wet flannel slapped in your
face and after five minutes you need of a shower! Saying that, the winters
are mild, with nighttime temperature down to 10o Celsius (40 Fahrenheit)
and during the daytime it is just like an early summers day. |
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Offshore
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| Escape
From America Magazine - The Magazine To Read To If You Want To Move Overseas |
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| Spring and
Autumn here are lovely and you can organise a Barbecue without having to
fear the inevitable downpour that follows such a thought in Britain.
Bring a sweatshirt
and jeans for the wintertime, but otherwise you will be fine in light summer
clothes. Qatar has a relaxed dress code, but you should still cover up
shoulders and not wear skirts or trousers that are too short or transparent.
In your compound, on the beach or by the pool, swimming costumes, shorts
and even bikinis are quite okay. This dress code goes for both, men and
women. Children can get away with virtually anything. (Don’t they always.)
Talking about
compounds – compounds were built for workers to provide them with housing
coupled with facilities like swimming pools, tennis and squash courts,
and gyms and play areas. A few years back, those facilities very simply
not available outside compounds. Nowadays all the sports facilities are
available in the clubs dotted throughout Doha and thus there is a choice
of either living on a compound or in single villas. For families like ours,
compound life is great, as on most compounds you can send the kids outside
to play safely and there are always some friends around. Compound sizes
range from small (e.g. 5 villas plus one pool) to very large with
even their own supermarket inside, some even have regular school buses
commuting to all the major schools.
Schools in
Doha are about as ubiquitous as the camels are just outside the town. There
is at least one school catering for each nationality available. Most popular
are probably DESS (Doha English Speaking School), which follows
the British curriculum and only employs British trained teachers, Doha
College, which is the follow-on, and the American School, the American
equivalent to DESS. All schools charge quite substantial fees, so see if
you can get the fees paid for in your work contact.
Getting around
Doha is very easy if you are lucky enough to have been provided with a
driver or flag down the ever-present orange and white taxis. Driving your
self is quite a challenging undertaking and I have met a few people that
point blank refuse to drive here, but once you taken the first step, it
can be adrenaline-arousing fun. Once you arrive in Qatar you can drive
on your British license for the first seven days, after that you need to
get a local license. This usually just involves some paperwork and a simple
eye test, but sometimes, luckily only very seldom, it involves a driving
test. This test, quite notoriously, has you reversing most of the way around
a set course and specialises in parallel parking. A number of expats have
previously been reduced to tears by this test, especially considering that
nobody on the road seems to care about rules and regulations and certainly
not about any parking etiquette. Currently there is a government ‘drive’
highlighting the importance of seatbelts and speed limits, but it has not
noticeably changed anything but the number of police cars on the road.
This, on the other hand is of an advantage when (not if) you are involved
in an accident, because anywhere in the Gulf you are required to leave
the cars involved in an accident exactly were the are (even in the middle
of a roundabout), until the police turns up and surveys the scene. If you
move either car, the insurance will not pay up.
The cost
of living is comparable to Britain, however, your salary being paid
to you tax free, does generally soften the blow considerably. You can get
virtually everything in Doha, and lots more than you might be used to,
because the supermarkets do not only stock British brands but also American,
Asian and other European brands, so the variety is great. Fruit and veg
are cheaper if bought in bulk at the market and items like material for
clothes are cheaper in the souqs, but otherwise western shops are good
for everything. There even is a Marks & Spencer’s, Debenhams, BHS,
Next and lots more. When in one of the substantial shopping malls, you
could easily forget where you are, were it not for the Arabic families
in traditional dishdash (men’s long white robe) and abayas (ladies’ black
gown with matching headscarf and facemask).Your free time is well catered
for with all possible sport available, if not on your compound then in
a club. For the children there are fun malls and Palmtree Island, an island
in the middle of Doha bay, offering anything from camel and pony rides
to beaches. We joined one of the many clubs, which work on a membership
only basis and offer places to socialise, partake in sports, restaurants
and libraries and much more. For the weekends there are groups that regularly
drive outside Doha to visit beaches, sand dunes, local forts and the Inland
Sea. The Inland Sea is an inlet in the south of Qatar, which offers spectacular
sand dunes, great spots for scuba diving and even flamingoes. The other
weekend we went out with the National History Group to the salt flats and
dug for ‘desert roses’, a very beautiful crystal like formation, made up
of gypsum and salt.
Healthwise,
everything is available in Doha. For just 100 Riyals (approximately $15.00)
you can obtain a health card from your local health center, that covers
you for all doctors and hospital emergencies with only a small excess to
be paid by yourself. If you know what you are looking for, you can actually
buy most major medicines, even antibiotics, over the counter of the pharmacies,
no questions asked. I have yet to make up my mind, whether that is a good
or a bad idea.
There is a
distinctive advantage to Doha being a relatively small city; say compared
with Dubai, as there is a real family atmosphere around the place. It is
rare that I go out to the supermarket or a mall without bumping into one
or two familiar faces. Qatar is currently trying to drum up tourist business,
but apart from a lot of very plush hotels being built, tourism is very
much in its infancy, if it has got that far yet. Live here is good, absolutely
marvelous for children, and you really could get a lot worse appointments.
So, if it is Qatar you are heading off to next, look forward to it!
For further
information on Qatar, try the following web sites:
American School
email: asdoha@qatar.net.qa
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