The Doha Dozen

Stories abound of people arriving in Doha and being so overwhelmed with the newness of everything that it's hard to stick to your healthy eating habits. Hence the pervasive story of 'the Doha dozen' - a dozen pounds that you will gain in your first few months. I am determined not to be a victim of the Doha dozen. While I can say I am doing well so far, it's also true that I'm not making any progress the other way either!

We had what I'm calling our medical adventure last Thursday. This consisted of blood tests (one vial of blood as in your annual physical), a chest x-ray, and another pink prick blood sample from which they do blood typing. This all sounds quite reasonable, right? And in Canada all of this would take about half an hour. Here it took 8 hours which mainly consisted of Kate and I being shunted around from waiting room to waiting room (sometimes returning to the same waiting room several times) before finally having the blood work and x ray 6 hours later. Meanwhile John, who was with the men, got done about 3 hours before us and had to wait in a bus until we were done. And then we had to take the bus to another clinic to have our blood typing done. I have no idea why they couldn't do it all in the same place, especially given the sign in one room of the first medical centre that said 'Blood Typing'. Needless to say the group of women we were with began to get punchy into our fifth hour, at which point we were wondering if pap smears in the cafeteria would be next! We did have a lot of laughs as you simply can't rush anything over here. Kate was completely perplexed when we ended up in the same waiting room for the third time (they had lost our pictures - don't ask) and I found myself shrugging at her questions, saying only in s'hallah (pardon the spelling). When in Doha...

I did try to post a blog earlier this week consisting mainly of pictures but then a notice in Arabic appeared across my screen and I wondered it I wasn't allowed to send them. However I asked one of my new Qatari colleagues about it today and she assured me it was just because it made my blog too big! See below our trip to Souq Waqif for Kate's birthday and I will post more next time of our house, compound, etc.

Kate's first day of school was yesterday and she met kids from many countries and had a great time. After today at school she told me she wants to stay here forever! Given teenage girls' tendency to exaggerate, I will take it with a grain of salt for now but we are really happy that Kate is happy. She is also building herself a nice little babysitting business here on the compound, earning 200 riyals last Thursday night (about $50) with calls coming in fast and furious for this weekend already. Everyone with young children try to firm up babysitters among the teenagers as quickly as possible, and people at the College I don't even know come up to me saying, Don't you have a 12 year old daughter? Does she babysit? Can I have her number? All this while they look furtively around ensuring no one else will scoop her up.

Last Thursday night we were invited to our first TAIT party (Thank Allah It's Thursday - the weekend is Friday and Saturday here).We had a great time - every one is very friendly and helpful as they have all been through this. On Friday we went rug shopping as I am beginning to decorate our villa to make it more homey and we found a nice Persian rug in cream and maroon. On Saturday we took Spoily Dog to Al Wakra Beach, a popular place for dog lovers here. It will be a great place to take her for long runs with the ball once the temperature cools to the mid-twenties between mid-October and April.

I am signing up for softball next week (mixed league with mainly Americans and Canadians) and Kate will either sign up for that too (kids league) or baseball, all run through the American School of Doha. Also doing Zoomba and Aquasize at the College (all free to employees). We have a week off in November for Eid Al Adha so we are going to a resort in Muscat, Oman for snorkeling, etc. For Christmas we are meeting my parents, John's parents, and Ryan in Rome with side trips to Florence and Pompeii. Can't wait to take advantage of how central we are to everything here!

Well this is getting long so I will sign off with a reminder that to post comments you need to register ( see bottom of page). You can also sign up for email alerts (right on page) so you know when I've posted.

Hope everyone is enjoying anticipating the snow (evil, I know, but I couldn't resist!).