doha | how a city became an adjective

It's our first day of work and we're waiting at the bus stop. Let me pause right there. You may picture an actual bus stop. What I mean by bus stop is someplace on a dirt road, somewhere near our housing complex, where a bus may or may not come to pick us up. Rewind back to that first day of work... So, we're standing there on our first day of work and we're supposed to be picked up at 8:00. By we, I mean the group of us that live in the same housing compound and work at the same place - all of us new to this city and this job - 8am rolls around. And it passes. 8:10. 8:15. 8:30... no bus. Being new, we all begin to panic a bit. It's our first day. This is a new job. We don't have our residence permits yet. We're all American teachers used to American standards. You don't just show up an hour late on your first day of work. I can't speak for the other teachers who were standing there. Waiting. But I had visions of being taken into an office, gracefully fired, and subsequently sent back to the United States with our kids (and dog) in tow. It was a frightening thought. One of us finally had the nerve to call a supervisor. The conversation went something like this:

One of us: "Ummm, Hi... we're waiting at our housing compound and were supposed to be picked up at 8am. The bus isn't here and it's after 8:30."

Supervisor: "Oh, you're fine! Welcome to Doha. You're on Doha time now!"

One of us: awkward silence... "okay...?" followed by awkward goodbye.

Fortunately, our first day of 'work' started with being taken to some medical clinic. I wish I could put everything in quotes to indicate that it's not necessarily what you or I would conisder to be a true and accurate way of describing something. For instance - I'd like to put 'bus stop' in quotes and 'medical clinic' and 'grocery store' and 'sidewalk'. That would be far too taxing. And annoying. At the medical clinic men and women are separated. The men have to wait in a common area and the women are swept away to a more private room. The genders don't mix publically. Who knew? I do...now. At the clinic we have to have our blood typed. A practice I'm still not sure as to the relevance of, but I'm a guest here and I won't question it. After a lengthy episode at the clinic we were split into separate busses depending on who needed to go where. Some people needed to get their mobile phones figured out, others needed groceries - the list was extensive. Why don't we just drive ourselves you may ask? Oh, American driving licenses aren't recognized here. That one I did question. The response? It's Doha.

We're two days in and living the dream in our sweet villa. I'm trying to take a shower and you'll never guess what happens... wait for it.

Wait for it....

The water slows to a trickle and disappears.

Me and showers. We're not doing well lately. As you might expect, we call maintenance. Steve tries to talk to the man in charge and he insists in his fabulous accent (I mean fabulous with all sincerity. I love the accents here), "No, sir, no. There is no problem. It is new. It is new. No problem. No problem." Steve replies, "Yes. Big problem. We don't have water!" "No, no, no sir...it is new!" Cue Emily picking up her cell phone and calling her boss...again..."Ummmm, Jason. We don't have water..."

His response? Doha.

Sigh.

We've lost hot water. We've lost cold water. There have been tears. The bus forgot us again this morning. It took two or three trips to the grocery story before we figured out how to buy produce. We've had to pour an embarrassing amount of (and this one does get quotes because it has fully earned them) "milk" down the drain because the dairy drink of choice here is not milk at all, but something called laban. Google it. You don't want it on your cereal.

But, really - through it all. We are having the time of our lives. This place has been amazing, in spite of it's Dohaness. Our supervisors. Our teams. Our new friends who experience this wild ride right along with us. All amazing people.

And our villa... can't complain about that! Well, I can complain about the water - but the villa? It's pretty sweet.




The view from right near our villa. Pretty amazing...at least at sunset.




The street running perpendicular to where our compound is.



The entrance to our our little community. Sounds friendlier than compound.



Ours is the one on the right with the lamp post in front of it.




Our for now home.



The one picture I've taken on the inside. Don't worry - more inside shots coming as soon as we finish unpacking. No one wants to see photos of our half empty boxes strewn all over the place.