|
Who Am I? | Site Map | Music | FAQ | Contact Me |
An American in Qatar: Going Home When I posted my last entry a few months ago, I'd been living in Qatar for over two years, things were going well and I was "loving life," as they say. As I described in that entry, I’d adjusted to life in the Middle East reasonably well and had become comfortable with the cultural differences. In fact, I hadn't made a major faux pas in months. I also liked my job, doing computer mapping work for Atkins engineers at the 120-person Central Planning Office (CPO) in downtown Doha. I missed America, of course, but greatly enjoyed my new life and job in Qatar and envisioned staying in Doha for many more years.
I had a growing sense of concern, however, because every time in my life that I've felt things were going well, the other shoe would always drop. Sure enough, in November, a week after I had cautiously admitted to a friend back in America that I was the happiest I'd been in years, I got some bad news at work. Everyone in the Central Planning Office was called to an all-staff meeting on the 16th floor one afternoon and we learned that our contract was being terminated. The entire office was being cut due to a sharp decline in oil prices and a growing economic slump in the Middle East.
The economy of every Persian Gulf country was being hammered by a sharp drop in oil prices. Consequently, mass layoffs like this were becoming common. I had sensed the first tremors in Qatar about a year earlier when I started hearing rumors about massive cutbacks. Thousands of expats like myself had poured into the Persian Gulf region a few years earlier when oil prices were above $120 a barrel. But now, with oil prices sinking to $29 a barrel, thousands of expats were flocking to the airport departure gates, heading home.
Things in the Middle East happen very fast. The Central Planning Office was created in 2011 within just a few weeks of the initial idea, as I described in my December 2013 update. And now it was being liquidated, and almost just as fast. Gulf economies are very much "boom and bust" and if you work there, you have to always be prepared – emotionally, financially and every other way – for the worst.
I wasn’t terribly saddened about going home, though, because I had spent almost three years in Qatar, I’d saved up a little money and had had an amazing adventure. I would’ve much preferred to stay in Qatar because I loved living and working there, but I was fine with moving back to the U.S., too, because I missed home and was looking forward to taking some time off and starting my next adventure. In fact, the first thought that popped into my head after I heard about our office’s demise was, “Road Trip!”
Fortunately the Central Planning Office was given four months of notice, meaning that our jobs wouldn’t disappear until March 1, 2016. Therefore I spent most of those four months planning a major road trip around America, which would start in the spring of 2016 shortly after I returned to America. I also spent a lot of time perusing the Toyota.com website while deciding what kind of truck I wanted to buy when I got back to Portland, having sold my Honda van in 2013 shortly before I moved to the Middle East. I knew it was going to be a Toyota truck because I drove my 1985 Toyota pickup truck over 250,000 miles around the country and to all Lower 48 states before I gave it to a friend in 2010. But the big decision was between gray and white. I eventually settled on a gray, 2016 four-wheel drive V6 Tacoma.
I also spent time during my last four months in Doha saying goodbye to many of the wonderful places I had known in Qatar. That especially included the Corniche, Doha's beautiful, six-mile long waterfront park, where I had walked almost every weekend over the past three years. I walked on the Corniche just about every weekend except during the hot summer months, of course, when hardly anyone in Qatar ventures outside for more than a few minutes.
Each year in October, after enduring the long, hot summer and when daily high temperatures had dropped to "only" about 95 degrees, I started venturing out of my apartment every weekend, usually on a Friday but sometimes on Saturday (weekends in the Middle East are on Friday and Saturday). Then I walked about three miles down the Corniche to a little spot that I called "Del's Beach," one of the few patches of sand on Doha Bay. Some weekends I walked the entire six miles to the end, to the Museum of Islamic Art Park, and then back to my apartment, for 12 miles total.
I continued this weekly Corniche trek through the winter months and into the spring until about May, when temperatures once again reached the mid-90s. There usually weren't a lot of people on the Corniche in hot-and-humid October, but by December, when the weather was perfect with high temperatures only in the 70s, the Corniche was often packed with pedestrians, joggers and bikers. While walking down the Corniche during the winter months, you see people from, literally, almost every country in the world. I didn't have a car in Qatar, so walking on the Corniche every weekend was always one of my highlights of the week and I visited it often during my last four months in Qatar, saying a quiet and bittersweet farewell.
Above left: Doha's Corniche starts here at the iconic Sheraton Hotel. The hotel was built in the 1980s. At that time, this modern area of high-rises, which is today called "West Bay," was nothing but sand. Above right: And here's what the West Bay area of Doha looks like today. This is Al Dafna Park on the Corniche. That's the Tornado Tower towards the center, another iconic building in Qatar.
Above left: Fishing is popular on the Corniche, too, – though frankly, I never saw anyone catch a fish. Above right: The leaders of Qatar on the side of a building. On the left is the former emir, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who stepped down in 2013. It was the first peaceful transfer of power of any country in the Persian Gulf. On the right is his son and the current emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
Above left: This was my destination during my weekly walks down the Corniche, a small patch of sand that I called "Del's Beach." Catchy name, huh? Above right: Another Friday morning on Del's Beach.
Above left: The Corniche was crowded on National Day, December 18, equivalent to the Fourth of July in America. The temperature was "only" about 75, so folks were wearing heavy clothing. We're just not used to this cold weather! Above right: Kicking back at the end of the Corniche. That's me and my 10-year old JanSport daypack at the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) Park, enjoying the view.
|
