My first week

I arrived in Doha on Saturday at 9am and was met by a driver to take me to the guest house where i’m now staying. There were about 15 of us from a couple of different flights. The men and women were separated into two different busses and we were taken to the Luxurious Apartments. Its lovely here, there are 3 apartments on each floor, 5 floors with a gym on the top floor. I share with two other girls, one from Melbourne and the other from the Torino Italy Winter Olympics. We each have a room, there are 3 toilets a massive kitchen, lounge and dining room, big tv! It’s fully furnished and so flash. A little cold at times as everyone in this country insists on having the air-conditioning set to minus 10!! Ok 21 but that’s cold when you come inside from a muggy 35 degrees. We stay here for free for 2 weeks while we find accommodation or wait to be placed in DAGOC Company housing. Due to the little “falling down” incident it’s likely we’ll be here for about a month. Free! Sounds good to me!

Saturday we were picked up by Lauren who has been living in Doha about 6 weeks. She took us to a big shopping centre so we could have some lunch and go to the supermarket ect. She then took us on a quick tour of the offices and the HUGE Athletes Village which is where i’m working. The village for the Asian Games will house over 10,300 athletes and officials so its going to be a big job, twice the size of the Commonwealth Games.

Here the week starts on Sunday and goes till Thursday. Sunday morning we caught the work shuttle from the guest house at 6:45am! Work hours here are 7:30-2:30. We were taken to a medical centre to have a blood test and an x-ray as they test for certain things for us to be allegeable for our residency permits. There was a lot of waiting around, almost 5 hours so we were thankful to get home to have a rest before going into town again.

Monday we had a city tour. We were taken first to the camel, sheep and goat sale yards. These camels are brought for meat and later we were shown the huge pots and pans they use for cooking and I mean HUGE!!! Camel meat is quite popular in the local families but it’s illegal to sell it in restaurants. Next we were taken to the Fruit and Vegetable Souqs. Souq is the word for market and there are fish, gold, vegetable and fruit and goods souqs. The prices are very reasonable and I brought lots of very fresh vegetables and fruit for only 16QR. The gold markets were amazing, I have never seen anything like the jewelry they have here it’s unbelievable. I spoke to one of the store men about the diamonds he was selling and the best quality one he had sparkled like nothing I have ever seen before, it was about the size of 2 pin heads and was US$7,000. Didn’t spend too long looking in that shop. It was funny walking around thought and being hassled into coming into their stores with such invites as “missy please come you no buy just take a look, its ok just take a look, the pretty lady discount store.” Heehee

We visited the Souq Waqif where you can buy dried fruit, nuts and spices, clothing, fabric and cooking equipment, big enough to cook a camel! It was full of amazing sites and smells. Before settling down for a cold drink we walked into a bird store. The local people have falcons and eagles for pets and this store was full of birds and birding accessories such as little hats and cages. Many of the places you stop for drinks and food also sell Sisha which is a traditional pipe for smoking tobacco, often flavored. You often see men sharing these pipes in the coffee houses.
Monday afternoon we went out to the Diplomatic club, one of the many country clubs in Qatar. One of the girls i’m living with organized her membership from the USA and we went with her to collect her membership card and have a look around. Very posh, even had its own private beach. There was a swimming pool, gym, sports facilities and sail, canoe, windsurfing hire as well as 3 lovely restaurants. We had lunch at one on the beach. We ordered drinks and before we had even ordered food they brought out plates of bread, pickled vegetables, olives and fresh vegetables, bringing more baskets of bread before we had event finished the first one.

Tuesday was our induction day; we arrived at work as usual at 7am and waited till 8am to start the session. We were given masses of forms to fill out and told about the company and the games. This finished about 11am and we were taken back to the guesthouse. A friend and I decided to go out in search of an internet café. Risking our lives in the sweltering heat and to cross the ever threatening Qatari roads where you have to look in the other direction, got to get used to that. That evening I went to a training centre to help with the first induction of our volunteers for the village and to meet others in my department.

Wednesday we were taken to immigration for finger printing and blood typing. Another day with lots of waiting around. We had every possible section of our fingers and palms inked and printed about 3 times. Then taken to another medical centre to get a finger prick for blood typing. Not sure why they needed that and would really trust the results as his documenting methods left many chances for sabotage, mostly by the air-conditioning fan blowing right onto his desk. He would take the register sheet from us and put it at the bottom of his pile, no number or anything. Prick our finger and rub it on the slide which he then placed in a line with all the others, also with no numbers?????? Dodgy system.

Over all this place is going great and i’m loving it. It’s great to be a newy with everyone else, also knowing that there are new people coming all the time. Work is pretty slow at the moment in our department so I’ve been told to make my stack of manual and policy reading take as long as I can. Apparently there is a lunch lady that will cook you lunch everyday for a monthly fee. It’s all very easy and we are being very well looked after. Cannot complain. Hopefully they will build our house a little stronger than the other one!

Unfortunately due to the coming summer months and the heat many of the desert tours have been suspended until September. We are entitled to 25 days annual leave which we cannot take until our 2 month probationary period is up which is about the 11 August. We found out today that all leave is suspended from the 17th August until the end of the games as we are needed to work so that shortens my holiday plans a little. There are the weekends though and we can get trips to Dubai and other surrounding countries for a good price to travel on the weekend.
The camel racing season begins in October and there are countless beaches, social clubs, classes and water sports to keep us entertained. Life here is going to be great.