Todays adventures began with a trip to Doha to get pictures taken and blood types determined and eventually led to the wild part of the day: the "medical exam". The medical exam consisted of drawing vial of blood and a chest x-ray. Pretty easy, takes about 15 minutes.... Except for the check in process. Now normally if you go to check in to get this kind of stuff done it works pretty much like a bank line. You have some windows or partitions and the people taking care of you would be set up there and everyone would be lined up and waiting for their turn. Ah, but this is Qatar. I'm quickly learning that things are never that simple around here. So the way it really works there are 6 windows(only between 2 and 4 are open at any given moment) and about 15 rows of chairs set up three wide. There's a man speaking fast and angry arabic at the front directing people to the windows. Basically as one line gets down to about 3 people he'll call the next row up(each line had 6 people at most) and either send them all to one line or randomly send them to different lines(it was quite strange). Sometimes he'd go yell at one of the people checking people in and other times one of them would yell at him. The craziness happened as he'd call a row up... There was always someone who would try to advance their spot... and sometimes succeeded. It's a twisted form of musical chairs... As one person I talked to put it "It's a very mercenary society." Basically every man for himself (this doesn't translate well to driving but it's how they operate anyway... more on driving later).
So once I got through check in and got my receipt(which included having a picture taken so they can verify that the person with the receipt is the person they are checking) I proceeded to the line to have my blood drawn. Yes, line. It's a pretty efficient assembly line they have set up... the first lady looks at your paperwork and hands it off to the second who stamps it. You have two people in the room drawing blood at a time. It felt like being in one of those Visa commercials where everyone is very efficiently and happily passing through the line until that one guy comes along and messes the whole thing up. That guy is sharply rebuked in Arabic and quickly tries to get to the next point before further embarrassing himself. The blood draw was probably the least harrowing part of the ordeal. I didn't even have time to look away before he stuck me but it didn't hurt and I don't have a giant bruise so he obviously has a clue what he's doing(makes sense when you're a basically a robot sticking 50 people an hour). After that was the chest x-ray. Imagine a room not unlike a department store dressing room with stalls... and 10-15 sweaty men of rather varied nationalities(Egyptian, Indian, English, Filipino just to name the ones I could figure out right off) without shirts standing in a line front of a door where a very gruff, dark skinned man looks out the door and yells "Next" turns back inside and then yells at the person because he's holding up the line. Inside there are always two people 1 waiting behind the partition and one getting x-rayed. The part that concerned me was that there was nothing between me and the machine... I was touching my chest to something that was never sterilized and had already been touched by 150-200 people, just today... I'd better not break out in some kind of crazy rash or I'm going to be angry.
Once the insanity for the day was over we went out for lunch. The Romanians(3) outnumber the Americans(2) in the car so we went for Turkish food(not that we put up a fight... wouldn't have mattered since me and the other guy had no idea what they were talking about until they told us what they decided). I like Turkish food. Lots of meat. Lots of pita bread and some crazy spreads for the pita bread. I had kababs and some other craziness that I have no hope of ever getting the names right so I'm not going to try. All that matters is that it was good. I ate way too much though. And it looks like we're going to have a huge dinner too. One of the guys in the house is making spaghetti with homemade meatballs, eggplant parmesan, and roasted chicken(we're going to be eating a lot of chicken around here for awhile...)
Now for some pictures...
This is our front gate
This is the front of the Villa
Another shot of the Villa with the pool
More later.
Still missing you all. Bye for now.
1 comment:
The outside looks nice but what does the inside look like? How is work? It is going to be hot here today (high 80s). It sure was quiet around the house this weekend. Hope all is well. I look forward to seeing your next post.
Mom
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