Well, CQ has been here for just over two weeks now and has settled in very quickly as those of you who know him would expect, making new friends at the rate of one a day. He is thriving in the multi national environment and different languages don't seem to be a barrier to him to communicate. He has already found several spanish speakers so is practising his Spanish as well as learning Arabic.
He has stopped going to the formal classes as the teacher was not teaching in a very helpful way so his young friend, Mohammed now comes over every day and they have practice sessions by the pool - he is also helping to improve Mohammed's English. Mohammed is Indian descent but has lived in Doha all his life. He is only 25 years old but a very young and naive 25, looking for work in IT at the moment so we took him to the large careers fair with us last week. ictQATAR had a stand to provide advice about careers in ICT so he was very grateful. In return he taxis Colin all over the place. Last week they went to a large bookshop to buy Colin an Arabic/English dictionary. So a strange friendship, but it seems to work.
He is very disciplined - every morning he studies by the pool for a couple of hours, then swims and the afternoon is free before I finish work. I admire him, I don't think I could apply myself so seriously in this heat.
The week before, we had some unusual weather - we had rain for several days on and off - I even had to get my umbrella out of the suitcase one morning to walk to work - even then I got drenched. Because there are no gutters and drains on the roads here, the water stands until it evaporates and the cars drive about in very deep water. When it gets to a certain level, things are at a standstill unless you have a 4x4. It was cloudy every day for almost a week over the whole of the gulf area - very unseasonal. However, it is now back to normal and the temperatures are now up in the late 30 degrees - the last few days it has been between 35 and 38 degrees celsius most days - extremely hot and in the evenings still very warm.
We had a pleasant couple of hours by the pool yesterday before it got too hot at lunchtime, then the pool grill does a full three course buffet lunch for 65 QR which is about ten pounds - very good value - then of course you need a siesta.
In the late afternoon we set off in the car to find the Qatar Distribution Company which is the posh name for the alcohol storage depot. It is owned by the Airport Duty Free company. This is the place where you go to get your liquor licence and then buy the booze. The place is out in the middle of nowhere and quite a challenge to find but we got there and were very proud of ourselves. The usual process of application, after taking your ticket number from the machine in the waiting room. However, we must have arrived at a good time as we did not have to wait. Having filled out the form, had my photo taken for the permit, handed over the returnable deposit of about 150 pounds, I then became the proud owner of my alcohol permit. (It's a good thing I bought a new purse with a lot of credit card slots, as I now have a whole new set of cards with my photo on).
We then proceeded to the supermarket part of the depot to make our purchases. Only permit holders are allowed in but the security guard must have taken pity on me and allowed Colin to accompany me. Inside a surprisingly good choice of wines, spirits and other drinks, quite expensive but as they have a monopoly, you have no choice. My monthly allowance is 2,500 QR - this is the maximum I can spend on alcohol - it is based on my basic salary and is equal to about 400 pounds so is pretty generous. This is tallied up every time you visit to purchase and they keep a close eye on it. There are even machines where you can check your balance. A bottle of standard wine is about ten pounds.
Entertainment in Doha is very varied - if you keep an eye on the newspapers there is plenty happening. We went to an "Elegant Indian musical night". This was an evening of Indian music and dancing provided by a local amateur group, the Punjab Music Group, with an international superstar in the main spot. It ended up being quite hilarious by English standards as it was completely disorganised and half of the advertised acts did not turn up. The compere spent most of his time in between each performer plugging the main sponsors and it got to the point where we were all laughing each time he mentioned "The Gulf Times" and "Mr Broast BBQ". We were spotted as the only Europeans in the audience and thanked publicly for staying as long as we did to watch. All the organisers had very grand titles on the programme and billboard, Chief Organiser, Show Co-ordinator but I certainly wouldn't employ them to organise any event. They were on stage moving the props and rugs around whilst performers were singing - even trying to pull a rug out from under someone at one point. It was hard not to laugh because they were trying very hard to make it a good evening for the audience.
We had another trip to the desert on Friday evening, this time we went in the dark and came back in the dark. You might be wondering why we would do this. We sat on the beach with a campfire for several hours, with a picnic and chatted the hours away, looking up at the stars as the sea came in slowly around us. We were nearly marooned for a while then around 11.30pm we set off back to drive home across the dunes, with no road to follow, just some tracks in the sand and the markers on the car navigation system.
The funny part this time was that whilst we sat, Khawar kept saying that there were some creepy crawlies on the ground sheet of the sun shelter we had erected. We laughed at her as we could not see anything. There were a few small beetles crawling around in the sand so we put it down to that. After we had set off and we were back on the main road to Doha, Amir was driving and Khawar had dozed off in the front seat, me also in the back. She suddenly gave a loud scream, waking us up and saying that a mouse had crawled up her leg. It must have got into the car when the doors were open and then travelled back with us. The following day, she put down some food to lure it out and left the door open. We think it left but she then had ants in the car instead. The morale being, don't leave the car doors open in the desert I think. After this, I might rethink staying overnight - we had originally planned on camping.
I have taken up belly dancing classes again here in Doha - I had been going in England but had stopped for quite sometime so I am very rusty. The classes in Keighley were Egyptian belly dancing which is a more traditional style and here it is a more modern style. The teacher is a very hard taskmaster and makes no allowances for age or inflexibility. This suits Colin very well as the classes are held at the Sheraton Hotel, which just happens to be where the Irish bar is located, so he can wait for me there whilst happy hour is on.
More later.
He has stopped going to the formal classes as the teacher was not teaching in a very helpful way so his young friend, Mohammed now comes over every day and they have practice sessions by the pool - he is also helping to improve Mohammed's English. Mohammed is Indian descent but has lived in Doha all his life. He is only 25 years old but a very young and naive 25, looking for work in IT at the moment so we took him to the large careers fair with us last week. ictQATAR had a stand to provide advice about careers in ICT so he was very grateful. In return he taxis Colin all over the place. Last week they went to a large bookshop to buy Colin an Arabic/English dictionary. So a strange friendship, but it seems to work.
He is very disciplined - every morning he studies by the pool for a couple of hours, then swims and the afternoon is free before I finish work. I admire him, I don't think I could apply myself so seriously in this heat.
The week before, we had some unusual weather - we had rain for several days on and off - I even had to get my umbrella out of the suitcase one morning to walk to work - even then I got drenched. Because there are no gutters and drains on the roads here, the water stands until it evaporates and the cars drive about in very deep water. When it gets to a certain level, things are at a standstill unless you have a 4x4. It was cloudy every day for almost a week over the whole of the gulf area - very unseasonal. However, it is now back to normal and the temperatures are now up in the late 30 degrees - the last few days it has been between 35 and 38 degrees celsius most days - extremely hot and in the evenings still very warm.
We had a pleasant couple of hours by the pool yesterday before it got too hot at lunchtime, then the pool grill does a full three course buffet lunch for 65 QR which is about ten pounds - very good value - then of course you need a siesta.
In the late afternoon we set off in the car to find the Qatar Distribution Company which is the posh name for the alcohol storage depot. It is owned by the Airport Duty Free company. This is the place where you go to get your liquor licence and then buy the booze. The place is out in the middle of nowhere and quite a challenge to find but we got there and were very proud of ourselves. The usual process of application, after taking your ticket number from the machine in the waiting room. However, we must have arrived at a good time as we did not have to wait. Having filled out the form, had my photo taken for the permit, handed over the returnable deposit of about 150 pounds, I then became the proud owner of my alcohol permit. (It's a good thing I bought a new purse with a lot of credit card slots, as I now have a whole new set of cards with my photo on).
We then proceeded to the supermarket part of the depot to make our purchases. Only permit holders are allowed in but the security guard must have taken pity on me and allowed Colin to accompany me. Inside a surprisingly good choice of wines, spirits and other drinks, quite expensive but as they have a monopoly, you have no choice. My monthly allowance is 2,500 QR - this is the maximum I can spend on alcohol - it is based on my basic salary and is equal to about 400 pounds so is pretty generous. This is tallied up every time you visit to purchase and they keep a close eye on it. There are even machines where you can check your balance. A bottle of standard wine is about ten pounds.
Entertainment in Doha is very varied - if you keep an eye on the newspapers there is plenty happening. We went to an "Elegant Indian musical night". This was an evening of Indian music and dancing provided by a local amateur group, the Punjab Music Group, with an international superstar in the main spot. It ended up being quite hilarious by English standards as it was completely disorganised and half of the advertised acts did not turn up. The compere spent most of his time in between each performer plugging the main sponsors and it got to the point where we were all laughing each time he mentioned "The Gulf Times" and "Mr Broast BBQ". We were spotted as the only Europeans in the audience and thanked publicly for staying as long as we did to watch. All the organisers had very grand titles on the programme and billboard, Chief Organiser, Show Co-ordinator but I certainly wouldn't employ them to organise any event. They were on stage moving the props and rugs around whilst performers were singing - even trying to pull a rug out from under someone at one point. It was hard not to laugh because they were trying very hard to make it a good evening for the audience.
We had another trip to the desert on Friday evening, this time we went in the dark and came back in the dark. You might be wondering why we would do this. We sat on the beach with a campfire for several hours, with a picnic and chatted the hours away, looking up at the stars as the sea came in slowly around us. We were nearly marooned for a while then around 11.30pm we set off back to drive home across the dunes, with no road to follow, just some tracks in the sand and the markers on the car navigation system.
The funny part this time was that whilst we sat, Khawar kept saying that there were some creepy crawlies on the ground sheet of the sun shelter we had erected. We laughed at her as we could not see anything. There were a few small beetles crawling around in the sand so we put it down to that. After we had set off and we were back on the main road to Doha, Amir was driving and Khawar had dozed off in the front seat, me also in the back. She suddenly gave a loud scream, waking us up and saying that a mouse had crawled up her leg. It must have got into the car when the doors were open and then travelled back with us. The following day, she put down some food to lure it out and left the door open. We think it left but she then had ants in the car instead. The morale being, don't leave the car doors open in the desert I think. After this, I might rethink staying overnight - we had originally planned on camping.
I have taken up belly dancing classes again here in Doha - I had been going in England but had stopped for quite sometime so I am very rusty. The classes in Keighley were Egyptian belly dancing which is a more traditional style and here it is a more modern style. The teacher is a very hard taskmaster and makes no allowances for age or inflexibility. This suits Colin very well as the classes are held at the Sheraton Hotel, which just happens to be where the Irish bar is located, so he can wait for me there whilst happy hour is on.
More later.
As always Patsy, a jolly good read, written engagingly and with interest - what a life style!
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