Driving Qatari Style

I have been out and about with work this week and have been visiting with a Qatari colleague. I have written in the past about driving in this country but this was my first chance to be driven around by a Qatari. Any guess to what he drove? Yep, Toyota Landcruiser. So for those of you who are familiar with Qatar.. we headed back down D ring towards the airport. We wanted to turn left at the lights and straight ahead puts you into the airport. The traffic was heavy and the queue at the lights was large. My buddy didn’t worry. He drove down the straight ahead lane looking for a gap to stick his nose in but it was tight. He then spied that the lights for going straight ahead and turning were both green so gunned it down to the lights and did the big sweep left to merge into the turning traffic.
We got onto the corniche and traffic was also heavy. This did not worry my Qatari buddy. He just drove down the carparks on the side of the road. He would foirce his way back into the traffic until the next carpark came along. So after three of these detours we had made fantastic progress. Each time we entered the traffic people would yield. He would acknowledge and so it was all OK. Further into our journey the road stopped and became desert. This didn’t stop us. We just headed out into the sand until we found a track or another road. It was interesting as it felt incredibly safe and I felt confident in his driving ability. Note: after two days of driving around Doha he did actually use his indicators at least four times.

Things I’m not meant to see

I had an unexpected experience this week. I had to visit an organization with an expatriate colleague to view some materials. He had been working with this group for a long time and was in and out of this place regularly. It was a predominantly female organization. The usual process is you arrive. Letsecurity know you’re there. Inside the word goes out that there are men about to enter so everyone covers up. So I was surprised that when I went to visit that the women did not have their abayas on. This was something I had never expected to see. Yeah she had her shayla on but her clothes were Western. That said a lot about the trust my colleague had built up in the 9 months he had been working with her. The irony was that I had to visit the same organisation the following day with a Qatari gentleman. Thank goodness she had the same makeup on as I wouldn’t have recognized her.

Apologies

Apologies for not being as frequent with the stories lately. I’ve sort of become completely absorbed into my job at the moment. It leaves little time for anything else as I get home late afternoon ( not like my first experience here when were able to get to the pool a little earlier) Usually pretty knacked so tend to have a wee moi. I then convince myself it’s too late to walk to the gym (30-35 minutes each way) so go for a quick walk around the block , back for tea and then back into work. The challenge is developing policy, making connections with the stakeholders, establishing and setting up systems and training for a new entity as well as designing an electronic tool which currently doesn’t exist in a form that we can use. This is all being done concurrently. Being male this pushes my multitasking limits to the max. We’ll get there inshallah.

Inside a shopping complex

We went for a tour ( prices for 1brm apartments start at aroudn the $US500k mark and go up a fair bit. Didn't even look atthe price for a villa.) and that let us walk along a section of the water front and through what will become part of a small shopping complex. The marketing guys are very clever as the shops are still yet to be completed so they have put up these large hoardings which from a distance almost make the place look alive,complete. Intertesting to see some of the names of the hoardings of the shops that will be taking up leases. The names are in keeping with the value of housing.

The Pearl

The Pearl is a huge development on the coast to rival some of the other world coastal developments. It is huge, heads out to sea and very high end. Last time we were here it was skeletons of buildings and huge dust clouds. Ithas moved on somewhat and the first section is developing quickly. It is call ed the pearl as it is shaped like a pearl, abit like the palms in Dubai

Night Golf

Got my first chance for a round of golf on Friday night. The 9 hole academy course has floodlight so you can play till about 11pm. The aussies in our buidling go out and I was invited to join them and see if I could find a kiwi partner. Graeme was keen. They even drove us there. The trash talk satted before we hopped in the cars and a small wager was made. Unfortunately for our team we hadn't assessed the conditions. Graeme, who wears glasses struggled with the floodlights so had to take them off, which then meant he struggled to see the ball. We fought well but like most Aussie sports people they just don't take their foot off the throat. In fact I coudl still feel it an hour after the game when we were buyingthe drinks and they were still chipping away. I'll have to come up with a change of the game options for next week. The photo is of the Aussie group playing in front of us.

Another Eid Break

Have just been told I have a holiday coming up, the second Eid break. This could be as long as nine days (a week plus two weekends). It is sometime in early December so will have to come up with a plan. Need to get is sorted soon. There are a lot of places you can visit within six hours from here. You can get as far as Bangkok to the east and Paris to the North West.

Team Cooghan

This is the kiwi team who are here for a month and share AL Hitmi with me. This was on our trip out to the inland sea. We're just waiting for the tyre pressure to be adjusted. They drop the pressure to 15 psi so you don't get stuck in the sand. we come together for a meal every couple of days and this morning Pip made pancakes for the team which was a bonus. I think it had something to do with the very large bottle of maple syrup she had bought and wants to get rid of. Had to go out to work today so was pleased to have a great breakfast

The Financial Crisis

Yep it's having an effct here. We''re paid in NZ dollars for our work and the Riyal is pegged to the US dollars. When we arrived in Qatar in March the figure on the left read $667.00 so basically there was a 3 to 1 difference. Add that do sales and there were some real bargins. Now we are almost at 2 to 1. Our buying power has diminished significantly. So no more suits. A drink at the hotel now costs $15NZ. Thats tough given it is so hot and you do get thirsty

Adaption

I think the photos shows how these dogs (which you do not see many of I may add) adapt to their environment.

technology malfunction

I had a slight tech problem this week. I took a couple of photos of this guy.. what guy you may ask?. The guy cleaning the windows a couple of floors up by standing out on the ledge and holding on to the open window for dear life. I took photos from the other side to show the height but the camera / computer had a fit and while I can see it on my machine the file is corrupt so can't show you. So this guy worked his way along the windows with a squeegy and clothes. We were in a room having a meeting and I had difficult concentraing as I was facing the window and was interested to see if this guy was going to last the distance.

The Singing Waiters

Another Murph farewell dinner. This one was at the Italian at the Ramada. They have singing waiting staff. They have like a kareoke style music machine pumping out in the background and them they just launch into song. They had incredible voices and I wonder if it was more important to be able to sing than to "wait". The guy in the photo did some wonderful "camp" numbers which had peiople in hysterics. I think the kiwis are there in a few weeks for a farewell dinner so will try and grab some video

Chopsticks

The evening / morning ..(the 3.45am flight to Dubai for those of you who have been up here )before Murph flew out we went back to the Grand Regency for a farewell dinner. It was Susan's last week as well (she worked upstairs in the restaurant) Again a token kiwi in a bunch of Aussies. It was great to be back and catch up with Suresh and Mazen. The food was great and then the staff bought out a cake for Murph alomng with the moroccan singers. Fanatastic evening. The staff really had valued his time there and the way that he treated them. we even had the flaming candle, the same as when we were there for Dam's birthday

Me Ozzie Cobbers!

I think I have before about some Aussies whom we met the first time we were here. The GR5 helped them out when they first landed and they really appreciated that and have stayed in touch. Barry and Graeme (Baz and Murph) were the first of the team and they were joined by Keren (Kez) and Rick (Rick) just shortly before we left . They are living in my building and some of them will be around till mid-late December which is cool as the kiwis ship out in a couple of weeks.

Murph has been pretty unhappy with how things are going since he got back for his second stint and to cut a long story short was able to cut his contract short and was able to leave with a weeks notice. So it has been a week of celebrations as the Aussies farewell him. He has a really out their personality. We would describe him as a brash aussie. He's fun to be around and like us has really connected with the workers. So I have been the lone kiwi to several farewell functions so has been tough as work is full on at the moment mixed with late nights and early prayer calls. I'm so pleased it's the weekend

Sand Dunes

The video doesn't quite capture the thrill. Hopefully the sound effects do