Another Face

Hassan is a Qatari colleague with whom I work with in my current job. When I first got here somebody had suggested to me that most Qatari don’t work hard as they are cared for financially by the state so lack the motivation. My experience has been quite the opposite. In my previous role and this one I have been fortunate to work with Qatari who have a great work ethic. Hassan is no exception. His English is a lot better than my Arabic but we work on his English every day. Hassan has been great in allowing me to see some of the life of Qatari men. A recent highlight for him was when he took me to one of the big clubs here where his son was being tutored by a Moroccan art teacher. This bloke was helping his son prepare for an art competition. We sat down and had a drink and talked about the art. Now this bloke was quite easy to understand but also had limited English. I think Hassan has got so use to my kiwi accent that when I was explaining a concept to the tutor which obviously confused him Hassan knew what I was saying and translated it into Arabic for him. When I pointed out that he was my new translator he just beamed because in the group that I work with Hassan would have the least English and so more often than not someone translates for him. He was so excited that the next day he went around telling everyone about it.