An English Girl Abroad – Life in Qatar

Week2: Where life in Qatar is not all as it seems

The Pearl Doha

 It has amazed me that I am now into week two, my third post, and my ever cautious husband has yet to warn me on what I can and can’t say about Qatar. Qatar is a perpetually self promoting – relentlessly ‘positive news’ PR machine. The press is basically a party political flyer for the government, except the ruling family are the only political show in town. Therefore, you don’t speak out against them or their country – do you? No – is the answer to that if you intend to stay.

However, there is rule of law here, due process and some democratically elected commissioners / councillors so it is way ahead of many Middle Eastern countries. There have been several very high profile conferences here on issues such as human rights and supporting the migrant workforce which somewhat heartens the soul. But there’s no two ways about it, there is an ocean wide gulf (small G – see what I did there?!) between the mainly Sunni Qatari’s and white immigrants in one camp and everyone else, mainly Indian and Asian workers, who literally live in cheap camps outside the city.

So this week I was floating about looking for a place to live, a very important step in settling into this place I’m sure you’d agree. I imagined me in my news summer clothes, poshed up and bought for this purpose, which are instead languishing sadly somewhere in Gatwick or Delhi – we weren’t sure. It turns out suitcase was dumped at Heathrow. So in scruffy jeans and one constantly recycled t shirt I go out with various different agents to look for flats and villas found through trawling the web.

There are basically three choices for the slightly upper end ex-pat living which are as follows: luxury apartments with en-suites, maid’s room and swimming pool. Or compound villas with the previous attributes plus secure streets for kids to play around, central pool/club house and detached homes. Or stand alone villas. Whilst there are great positives to any of these choices, we decided against compound living as we felt the villas, although built and decorated to high standards, are all too close together and the club house had the old colonial feel to it, not for us, we’re really quite quiet and private people. I think boring might be the commonly applied term. Read more…

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An English Girl Abroad – Life Qatar – Week One Stilll

The first few days are real high. The weather is so warm, the spacious marble floored apartment so chic, the air so full of expectant promise that we are both on a pink cloud. Vince doesn’t start work until Sunday – (yes Sunday is the first day of the week here and that takes some getting used to I can tell you.)

We thought we’d be really productive and get phones and a bank account, but its difficult enough getting into the centre of town. Although when we finally get a taxi – and as a general rule of thumb don’t stand by the road side in the midday heat and expect to flag a cab, great in theory, but in practise there just aren’t enough cabs in Doha - its only a fiver to the City Centre Mall. It’s lovely and cool and huge and we’re on the verge of giving up when we find a Vodafone shop. But leave with no phones tho armed with some info on how it works here. There’s no rip off contractual tie-in’s, but no free phones either. I’d like an iphone4 – who wouldn’t –but that will set me back around £600, pause for thought.

Bank also no joy, you need your Resident Permit to set up a current account – no exceptions, except for the exception someone else got, apparently. You can set up a savings account, handy in order to get paid, but no cheque book, which we need to rent apartment, no credit either which is also needed for apartment and possibly buying a car for me. When will we get RP, who bleedin knows???  

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An English Girl Abroad – Life Qatar

We’re here for three weeks today, although it does seem longer. This was such a longed for trip, I’m not too sure why I feel so melancholy. One reason might be that I’m not using my grey matter much so have decided to keep a blog on what it’s like being here. These early days provide a unique insight into the upheaval of relocation and the complicated structure of a new society which we want to integrate into. On that basis it’s high time I got started.

We left Brighton in blaze of glorious sunshine, really pissed me off. The miserable grey weather was one of the main motivators behind leaving the country, but our house by the sea had never looked so fabulous in its recently painted, overhauled, de-cluttered occupation by us.

The packers had been through the house like mini tornados over the past two days and we were sure if we stayed still for a minute we’d have been rammed in a box, covered in bubble wrap and packed in the container. We slept overnight at Gatwick Hilton and without much of a backward glance, flew away.

We both were anticipating a hellish time at the other end, our previous trip had seen us spend a gruelling hour queuing up for passport control and we thought this time would be worse, plus waiting for luggage but we were wrong, straight through and out the other end in less then half an hour, very pleasantly surprised.

However we were not surprised that our driver had not turned up again – !!! but better prepared, we  grabbed a taxi and I bit my nails as I watched the meter clock up the Riyals from ten to 20 to 30,  then remembered that’s only a fiver. It turns out you can get to anywhere in Doha, pretty much, with a fiver.

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