As I near the end of my last week in Doha in 2009, I pause to ponder the things I will miss during my time back in London as well as the things that I shan’t be heartbroken to leave behind.
Having resigned from my job, I finished work last week on a high with the Managing Director pronouncing his new office ‘mumtaz’ (excellent). The very nice people at the gas company where I had been based for the last 8 months or so gave me a special plaque in the shape of their logo which has a gold model of the building I was working on and an inscription referring to my ‘creative fingerprints’ lingering on the building for years to come. Now that’s something you don’t get when you leave a job in London - there’s nothing a Qatari company likes more than a bit of inscription and something to put on your credenza. They also presented me with a huge bunch of flowers that our cats spent the next week nibbling on. Not going to work every day certainly has its advantages, and not having to waddle around building sites avoiding noxious smells whilst 6 months pregnant is welcome, but I bet I’ll miss it soon and will no doubt start to reminisce fondly about my former life as an Architect. The terminal benefit payment (where your final paycheck includes a lumpsum for every year worked – it’s Qatari law) has softened the blow of it being my last for a while, and Mr A is already dropping substantial hints about getting back in to the swing of things post-baby so this unemployment is unlikely to last long.
This means I’ve joined the Qatari army of stay-at-home wives though to really be part of this club I should get us a maid and spend a lot more time discussing supermarkets. No doubt the imminent baby chat will more than qualify me for the role. To get into the swing of things, I went to my last coffee morning for a bit (at which I never drink coffee).
We had our last Doha hospital visit earlier this week. Sitting in the same waiting area every couple of weeks for up to an hour is not something I’m going to miss. I am intrigued to see whether every scan I have in the UK will involve close focus on the baby’s willy. Literally every time we go the hospital here we get a good look – often for much longer than we spend on the heart and we haven’t even glimpsed other organs. I suspect this is partly because we are, of course, having the much wished for son (something that lots of people can’t help themselves congratulating us for) rather than a daughter. I don’t think they like it when I start going on about how apparently sons wee in your face when you change their nappy (a rumour that has been substantiated by every mother that I’ve met – the lack of outrage can only be explained by such unconditional love that suddenly you don’t mind a face full of urine). The doctor was running through what appointments we should make when we return in January with (insh’allah) the babe, and said I should see her to get advice on when we could ‘try again’. I think I looked utterly horrified because she hastily explained that young Qatari women always want to know how quickly they can get pregnant again. I guess if you’re going to have 15 children (like the relative of someone I met) then you need to get a move on.
We walked down to the ‘beach’ at the end of our road recently. The quotation marks acknowledge that this is a vacant lot between two embassies which happen to be on the edge of the sea, and is more some rocks and rubbish on the edge of land, rather than a sandy idyll. Shockingly, this was the first time we had turned right out of our building by foot in two years. We see it every day from our windows. I think waking up to a view of the sea every morning might be missed when compared with a rainy London street.
I will definitely also miss cheap-as-chips mangoes, pomegranates, avocadoes, pineapples… our friends F and Z, who visited from Sudan last weekend, highlighted the fact that we shouldn’t take this for granted. Coming from where they do, the availability of pesto and fresh vegetables seemed to over-excite them a little. Incidentally we have now got quite good at giving tours of Doha, even finding new stuff to see. At the souq we admired the police stables which have been cunningly designed to look very similar to the re-built old buildings nearby. The horses are extremely elegant though I thought the ones sleeping on the floor looked suspiciously dead - I guess that’s what happens if you’re a very hot horse. A bearded man walking around with his retinue of fully-covered black-clad women took a shine to Z and made jokes about one of the horses hairstyle looking like Michael Jackson which wasn’t exactly what we were expecting.
And finally we all visited the fabric souq and tried to find any fabric that might have cotton content and not spontaneously combust at the first hint of a naked flame. They sure are fond of brightly-coloured polyester here. It’s a wonder they don’t all have yeast-infections in this heat.Talking of which, it’s been a little sticky around here. 
It had been a fairly pleasant summer with the low-50s of July giving way to temperatures in the high 30s/late 40s through August (so cool!). We’d even been sitting outside in the evenings. Then the humidity arrived late and the last few days have been absolutely disgusting. Being outside (or anywhere not fully enclosed) is an extremely damp experience and feels much hotter than it actually is. For example, it is apparently 36 deg C today but with the 71% humidity it feels like 55 degrees. That, my friends, is horrible, and leads to condensation dripping everywhere including from your own body. I think it is these conditions which led to me opening a wardrobe in a spare bedroom and finding a wall full of mould. Yuck. That will not be missed.
In theory I really like the idea of being part of Ramadan in Doha – being given dates while you wait at traffic lights at sunset, going to Iftar and Suhour feasts. It is the only time of year that you feel like you might be part of something bigger than just your own friendship group. In practice, I don’t think I’ll miss the crazy driving (due to hunger/dehydration during the day, and then sugar rush/exuberance in the evening), surreptitious drinking and eating (as a pregnant women I would be exempt from the law against eating and drinking outside during the whole period, but in practice I’d feel really uncomfortable), restaurants only offering extremely expensive buffets, all bars being closed for the month and weird opening hours for shops and services.
Ramadan kareem.
