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A Winter of Fun (and Stress) My final two months in Qatar, from mid-January until early March of 2016, was an endless stream of logistical hurdles as I prepared to move back to America. One the the biggest challenges was my furniture, which had been shipped from Portland to Qatar in 2013 on a container ship. My parent company, Atkins engineers, had agreed to do that as part of my job contract, and they were also responsible for shipping everything back to America for me.
I spent a lot of time organizing the move: meeting with several estimators at my apartment who surveyed my belongings, getting quotes, then having the movers pack everything and haul it off before they stuffed it all into a 20-foot steel container for the long boat ride through the Suez Canal, across the Atlantic and back to America.
I also spent a lot of time closing out my apartment lease at the Beverly Hills Tower and running around town closing my various accounts. And, of course, I said goodbye to my colleagues at CPO, many of whom I’d grown close to during the previous three years. The last day of the Central Planning Office was February 29 and that afternoon we had a group lunch at a fancy restaurant across the street – the first (and last) group lunch in CPO's nearly four-year history. The farewell lunch was both sad and joyful.
And then there was my food situation. Shipments of food to Qatar, as I described in an earlier entry, are sporadic so if you see something you like on the grocery shelves you should buy a lot of it, because you may not see it again for months. I've always been a food packrat, like always having at least 12 boxes of cereal in my pantry (because you can never have enough cereal), but that tendency was greatly amplified in Qatar. I'd accumulated a large stash of canned and bottled food over the previous months (years?) and now I had to find someone to give it to.
Above left: My food stash. Who wants 17 bottles of Hunt's BBQ sauce? Above right: Fortunately, my colleague Michael and his Aussie girlfriend did.
I had started whittling down my stash in November when I learned about the upcoming layoff, but frankly you can only eat so much spaghetti and pickles in three months, so by February I still had a lot of food left. Fortunately, I found a colleague at CPO, Michael, from Australia, who was staying in Qatar. So on the Saturday before I left Doha, I invited him and his girlfriend over to my apartment. They happily raided my pantry and carried off 17 bottles of Hunts barbeque sauce, 13 boxes of Tuna Helper, 12 bottles of "Chicken Tonight" and three large jars of Vlasic pickles, among other goodies.
Life was crazy during my last few months, but before I left Qatar I decided to have some fun. I realized that even though I had been living in Qatar for nearly three years, I hadn’t seen much of the desert (nor had I ridden a camel). So in early February I decided to go on an all-day “desert safari" to do both. I invited a few friends from work, including Nafez, my Jordanian friend from Sacramento; Shashi, my IT friend from India who had joined me on my “Qatar in One Day” drive around the country in 2014; and Mubeen, an IT colleague from Chicago. All of us, and Mubeen's son, met early on a Saturday morning for a guided tour of the desert dunes.
Our white-robed driver picked us up in Doha and we rode several miles south of town, then we pulled off into a sandy parking area. It was camel time! My friends didn’t want to join me on the five-minute ride – they’d had their fill of camels, apparently – but I was thrilled to ride a camel for the first time. Riding a camel, as I discovered, is easier than riding a horse because instead of rocking from side to side, like on a horse, you glide gently from front to back. It’s very soothing and rhythmic, so much that I almost fell asleep.
While I was on the camel, our tour guide, a young Arab guy who spoke little English, partially-deflated the tires of his SUV to improve the traction in the sand. Then we embarked on our thrilling journey across the sand dunes. Actually the word “thrilling” doesn’t do it justice because our driver was borderline-crazy. He drove along the crest of a massive sand dune, right to the precipice, then turned the steering wheel and we plummeted down the dune. Have you ever heard four grown men (and one boy) shriek with unrestrained terror? It’s not pretty. Then the somewhat-sadistic driver did it again, and again. It was exciting, I have to admit, and something like riding on a sandy roller coaster.
After a half-hour of dune bashing, as they call it, and racing across the sand flats, we reached our destination: several large, white tents perched on the edge of the Persian Gulf, where we spent the afternoon. First we played volleyball in the sand, which I enjoyed immensely. As I mentioned in one of my first entries of DelsJourney back in 2001, I played volleyball almost every Friday night for 10 years at Portland Community College, but I hadn't touched a volleyball since then and really missed it.
Afterwards I went swimming in the placid waters of the Persian Gulf. Yes, it’s just as warm as you imagine, well over 80 degrees. Floating in the peaceful waters of the Persian Gulf was blissful and I could’ve stayed there for hours. But it was time to eat, so I joined my friends for a barbeque chicken lunch on the beach. Then around 4 p.m., we all piled into the SUV and drove back across the dunes with our crazy driver. He reinflated the tires near the highway, then we got back on the pavement and rode back to Doha. It had been one of the most exciting and interesting days of my three-year stay in Qatar and was well worth the $40 each of us had paid.
Above left: Our group early on Saturday morning before heading to the dunes. Those are my co-workers Nafez, Shashi and Mubeen (with his son). Our crazy driver is on the right. Above right: That's "Del of Arabia" on the right. This was my first, and so far only, camel ride. I loved it!
Above left: After the camel ride, it was off to the dunes! Above right: Our first stop was on the Persian Gulf in southern Qatar. That's Shashi with his new selfie stick.
Above left: Mubeen decided to roll up his pants and enjoy the sand. Above right: That's the forbidden country of Saudi Arabia in the distance. Saudi is very conservative and is much more difficult to visit that more moderate Gulf countries like Qatar or the UAE. This was the closest I've ever been to Saudi.
Above left: Back in the SUV, we continued on our merry way across the dunes. Above center: We reached our destination around 1 p.m., an outpost on the edge of the Persian Gulf. Above right: We spent the afternoon here, swimming in the Gulf, playing volleyball and eating a delicious lunch.
Above left: The happy crew cooking up our BBQ lunch. Above right: And the happy crew eating it.
Above left: The happy crew getting ready to depart. We all had a lot of fun on our desert safari. In fact, it was one of the best things I've done in Qatar since I arrived here in 2013. Above right: Reinflating the tires before we hit the pavement again. They had partially-deflated the tires earlier to give the SUVs more traction in the sand. What a great day!
Above left: Back at work: This was the last day of the Central Planning Office, on Monday, February 29, 2016. That's my desk on the 14th Floor. I've posted on my wall the Arabic alphabet. And my monitors have photos of Oregon's Multnomah Falls. Above right: Three of the senior managers at the Central Planning Office on our last day: Gerry, Joep, and Geoff. Joep is from the Netherlands, while Gerry and Geoff are from the UK. Everyone was heading home.
Above left: As were my colleagues Nafez (back to Sacramento, California) and Shashi (back to India). It was a sad day. Above right: Our group lunch during the last day of CPO.
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