Sunday

Sunday we were all taken out to Al Jazeera Academy for our introduction and tour. The school is quite large and all enclosed so you don’t need to leave the air-con to get from one class to another. It has a full-sized indoor swimming pool and basketball court as well as the co-ed primary, boys and girl’s secondary schools, plus the Early Learning Centre (where Kerry works, that is the only building that isn’t under the main roof). All the facilities are 1st class as you would expect, as AJA is owned by Qatar’s Foreign Minister & First Deputy Prime Minister and his wife, with the Sheikha being the Academy Chairperson.

It actually isn’t that far from the compound, but further than we had thought. Added to this, it is through at least 2 of the scary major roundabouts that adds to the drama in getting from here to there. To get there you have to drive past two of the major market areas in Doha; the wholesale souq (fish, fruit and vegetable), and the animal souq (for all your livestock, bird and camel needs) that adds further to the overall traffic chaos.

Regardless of all this we decided to get a one month lease on a car. The rep from the rental company was at school on the Sunday so all we needed to do was go back on the Monday and pick it up – QAR1650 for a month with a max QAR500 to pay if we have an accident that is our fault (seems like a safe way to go if you ask me). So we have done a few small trips around to the shops and to school. Driving on the wrong (or right depending which way you look at it) side of the road is no problem at all, just dodging all the other traffic that doesn’t follow the road rules. It is all very much like riding a motorbike I think, so not all that bad, but do worry about having Kerry and Ashur in the car.

Although it seemed like a good idea at the time, now can’t drive for the moment anyway! Although we have been to have our blood group type done at a clinic, thus far that is the only element of the Resident Permit process that has been completed with everything else being delayed for one reason or another. Thrown into this is our passports are in the system somewhere until the permits are in there. This means that we are currently on an extended business visa and as we don’t have access to my passport I can’t actually go and get a temporary driver’s license (which was supposed to be done within 7 days of arrival). All a bit messy and confusing if you ask me, but once everything is sorted we can then go for our medicals and be fingerprinted we will have our permits and can go and collect a drivers license and whatever else we need our permit for.

Anyway I digress! Sunday was also the day for our blood group test. This consisted of getting in the bus and driving around in circles for a while until the drivers worked out where the clinic was. We were greeted by some AJA people, given a form and shuffled into a waiting room. The actual test (which we thought was going to be a full blood test) consisted of someone sticking a surgical pin in the end of our thumbs and spreading blood all over one of things that goes in a microscope… I said ouch because it did hurt, Kerry cried, Ashur sat down and held is finger out quite happily and got a round of applause from everyone in the waiting room for being so brave … I think he was far braver than Kerry or I! The actual clinic was very clean and modern inside which was a bit of a relief, as most the buildings (at least the ones that don’t fit in the tall glass category) are dusty and crumbly looking (I know what I mean).

Next was our journey to the infamous LuLu Hypermarket. We had seen this place mentioned many times on discussion forums prior to arriving, but realistically it is just another hypermarket. We did buy various bits and pieces including some speakers for the laptop so we have music once again, and a DVD player (which was changed to Region 0 in store at our request). Ended up with a trolley full of bits and pieces watching the cats laze around outside.


Note 1 – The Cats of Doha
There seem to be a lot of cats here. Although they are supposed to be feral, many are very friendly and look like they have just wandered out of someone’s house. If what I have read is true there once was quite a bad rat problem in Doha. When many expats left Qatar in a hurry at the outbreak of the first Iraq war, they left their cats. These cats have now made a home for themselves by keeping the rat population down. I think there have been moves to reduce the number, but if you remove all the cats logic would suggest the rats would return… give me cats any day! We even have one that comes for a visit to the back door of our villa around dinnertime.

M