Old (Current) Airport

Went for a drive the other day to show Kerry where the Traffic Dept I had to go to was. After all this time I have only just worked out that when you see reference to the “old airport” area, it isn’t actually where the old airport “was” but rather is where the old airport is (as in the current airport). If you follow that!

Ever since the plans were laid for the new airport, which is under construction (and will continue to be an artists impression for another couple of years still), the area beside the airport has been called Old Airport… which is more or less Najma where the apartments that some of the AJA staff are housed are. Anyway as we were driving down Oqba Bin Nafie (the road the traffic dept is on and don’t ask for a pronunciation) we saw just how close it is to the airport!

Al Matar (road), which is also known as Old Airport Road is at the end of Oqba Bin Nafie… but of course they are currently rebuilding Al Matar, so maybe it will be called New Old Airport Road! As far as I can tell most roads seem to have at least two names, and of course even if you can pronounce the Arabic name the chances of anyone knowing what you are talking about are pretty limited. Hence everyone takes directions from landmarks and roundabouts, but the newer issue here is that some of the roundabouts have been replaced with traffic lights, so the intersections have become “interchanges” rather than roundabouts. So even they have their old roundabout name and their newer interchange name. I guess the funny thing is that since most of the Karwa taxi drivers are relatively new to Qatar, many of them really have little idea where they are going… no wonder!

Ah but we are now locals... or at least we can always head towards the tower that can be seen from just about everywhere (as long as they turn the lights on) and pretend we are never lost!