Pros and Cons of Living in Doha, Qatar

In anticipation of our impending bid season, I'm doing a little 'pay it forward' to other bidders out there by describing some pros and cons of our post. I'll keep with five of each (like I did previously with our other post, Suva and Tbilisi). So without further ado, here are some pros and cons for Doha.

Pros:

1. Modern. Since the country oil industry really boomed about 50 years ago, so most development/growth has exploded has occurred recently. That along with the profitability of gas/oil industry the country has lots of money to spend (and when you have money your can import your own cows and milk them with a state of the art rotary milk parlor (I talked about after I had gone to Baladna Farms). All the high rises (and the sky line changes constantly) are shiny, modern, and unique.

2. Surprisingly ecologically diverse. When we got here, I had a book from Amazon waiting for us. Initially you think desert - there is going to be a whole lot of nothing. I've been out to the mangroves kayaking, gone birding, to the coast for a beach cleanup/girl scout trip, and gone SCUBA diving...each time I've seen some interesting critters. I also know there are whale sharks and the largest dugong population outside of Australia offshore (those are a bit more elusive and you can't easily spot them).

3. Lots of variety activities for entertainment. For kids, I've mention Clarissa does Girl Scouts, there is also Boy Scouts, ice skating, hockey, swimming, baseball, basketball, soccer, volleyball, horseback riding (it is high demand to to take lessons with Arabian horses!!), academic games, biking trails (apparently there are several that run parallel to roads but do not cross traffic if that is your thing). For adults, a lot of those activities have adult leagues as well. In addition, when we went to the Al Zubarah Fort we passed groups of cyclist out for a ride (motor and pedal), there are SCUBA groups, fishing groups, bowling leagues, Friday brunch clubs, card game/mahjong groups to just name a few. 

4. Museums, museums and more museums. There are a lot of museums/places to stimulate the mind. With the metro recently opening getting to them has gotten easier as well. There is Katara, a cultural village; the Museum of Islamic Art, which houses art from the entire region; the recently renovated Qatar National Museum, telling the history of the country and its people and wildlife; the Fire Station Art Gallery, which displays modern art; the Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum, I haven't been here guessing sport stuff; the Qatar National Library in addition to being amazing library it also houses a historical exhibit in the basement on the country's heritage. That is just in Doha! Outside the city there is also the UNESCO site and Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani Museum to name a few! Though the metro and the museums are all temporarily closed due to COVID-19.

5. Phenomenal Air Conditioning. After coming from Fiji, where you'd be sweating in the grocery store doing your weekly shopping due to no AC in the store (and that was at the big chains!), it has been wonderful to shop in the cool. At times, you do have to throw a jacket/sweater so you aren't covered in goose bumps shopping, lol. There is even outdoor air conditioning at Katara, World Cup/sports arenas, and some of the bus stops! Our house has nine units just to keep it running at optimal temperatures. Here's some pictures of them....they are not tiny little air cons like we had in Fiji that would fill up with gecko eggs....note the name....these are heavy duty "Desertmasters"!

Cons:

1. The Hot Summers. This is a no brainer, Qatar is primarily desert on the located on the 25°N latitude (the Florida Keys are the only part of the US that is located in the 25°N latitude). Though, Qatar is an oddly humid desert, so with the 100°+ temps thrown in with 30+% humidity.....heat indexes can get hot. Just as people living in cold areas really don't go outside in the winter and just get bundled up for the dash from house to car and car to store; in Doha, we don't go out much in the summer during the day. We make the mad dash from AC cooled home to the AC cooled car to AC cooled mall. We will walk to the pool at night and it is still sweltering and feels like stepping into an oven. You will be practically dried off in the 5 minute walk home from the pool (and that is after the sun has gone down). (The dash pictures below are from May....it gets even a bit hotter by August. I got the humidity from our indoor/outdoor thermometer).

2. Drivers. With a country full of expats, this is not a huge surprise. I think traffic circles cause the most gray hairs. While it is better than Georgia's free for all, you always have to be prepared for the random car coming from the far inside lane to exit the traffic circle. In addition, if you don't jump into the traffic circle quickly enough the car behind you is always kind enough to alert you to go (seriously, if you honk it isn't going to make me go get t-boned by incoming traffic). The second the light turns green, somebody 5-6 cars back will be laying on their horn for people to go. If I am getting ready to make a left turn at the next intersection in bumper to bumper rush hour traffic, if you flash your high beams at me repeatedly I'm not going to move right just so you can go fast and cause me to miss my turn being unable to get back over. So we just shake our heads a lot and say "really?" when someone does something crazy or think "slow down, I'll go when I go" if someone tries to hurry us along. Here's a little blip of a quiet traffic circle where you see the exiting from the inside lane, an almost t-boning as oppose to slowing down to yield into the intersection, and construction all in 40 seconds.....

This little summary was recently published of 'reminders of what not to do' (because so many people do them). 

3. Growing Pains. The country is gearing up for World Cup 2022. Therefore infrastructure needs to be upgraded and repaired, so there is a lot of road construction. At one point, over a few ice skating classes even though I was taking the same road home, the road/route changed each day. The country is also removing roundabouts, so more road work associated with that. For anyone bidding, this will likely not be a con by the time they arrive.

4. Water & Hair/Skin problems. We live in the desert, so water is scarce (obviously). From what we understand, most of the tap water is desalinated and then chlorinated. This leads to it causing problems with dry skin and hair falling out in the shower at a more rapid than normal pace. Apparently, this problem is not unique to Qatar. It's a general problem through out the Middle East. A recently article was written about it here. So after our first few months, I was starting to name the daily hair balls that would fall out of my head in the shower they were so huge (I'm only slightly kidding). I ordered us a shower filter on Amazon. There are also some available locally at Ace Hardware and at the different hair salons (the one I got also adds vitamin C to soften your skin after removing the chlorine/other impurities). I feel it has helped with my hair loss. I just changed out our filter (which I do every 3 months)....Here is the before and after.....eeh! We do get inexpensive refillable 5-gallon cooler water for drinking just because it is chilled and it has been recommended since drinking desalinated water all the time can throw off your electrolytes and cause other health risks. Though given from a biological safety point the tap water is fine, we are able to cook with and brush our teeth with the tap water and not be concerned.

5. Prices/Sin Tax. So having access to everything has its draw backs. It is expensive to get things here from New Zealand (looking at you delicious golden kiwi), Europe, and the United States....the stores aren't going to eat that cost. So you see your favorites in the store, but get sticker shock. Some items we deem too expensive and go without or only buy for super special occasions (ie birthdays, good report cards, etc). Prior to our arrival, we used a cost of living calculator, things seemed to be on par with DC prices BUT I think that calculation has a lot to do with brand and may have been done before the embargo occurred in June 2017 which has affected prices as the routing of goods into the country has changed. In addition, Muslims don’t drink alcohol or eat pork because they are following the scripture. Therefore it is not available in grocery stores and they certainly do not have package stores on every corner. In fact, we are lucky enough that there is one shop in town that we can purchase alcohol and pork products at. The items are obviously also imported and typically expensive and add on to that "sin tax" - it makes them super expensive. Luckily, Mason and I don't eat meat, so we don't need to buy much pork. Obviously, the kids don't drink and I very rarely have a drink (I cook more with alcohol), so we can get by going to the store every few months. At the beginning of 2019, the sin tax increased by 100%....Eeek.

To summarize, we have felt like Doha has been a bit of a hidden gem. After living in 2nd and 3rd World Countries, it has been a bit of a cake walk here.

Pros and Cons of Living in Suva, Fiji

In anticipation of our impending bid season, I'm doing a little 'pay it forward' to other bidders out there by describing some pros and cons of our post. I'll keep with five of each (like I did previously with our first post). So with out further ado, here are some pros & cons for Suva.

Pros:

1. Phenomenal Sea Life. The reefs are amazing here! So much life and diversity. I feel places I have snorkeled here, I have seen more than I did on dives I did in the Florida Keys/off the California coastline. So then, when I do dives here...mind blown! We plan to do the Shark Dive that is touted in all the dive magazines before we go (college roommate....kindly waiting on you....) and we have also just finished setting up our snorkel with the Manta Rays when they are migrating through trip (fingers crossed for good weather).

Both kids have mastered snorkeling here because it's so easy (right off the beach at most resorts) and as soon as you put your face in the water you see fish. The other night, I was telling Clarissa I had never snorkeled until I was in college and here she is 6 years old and this little super snorkeler. She seemed surprised and perplexed.

2. Beautiful Beaches/Scenery. You get to travel a relatively short distance (compared to a flight from the US) and step into post cards. I have two routes home from the grocery store....when given the chance I prefer the route where I can see water (I heard it helps relieve stress too). Here's the view from my roadside drive....(don't worry I pulled over to take this...but do note: in Suva - sea wall and then water - no beach).

3. Friendly & Happy People. Fijians are some of the most genuinely nice people you will ever meet. I honestly can't think of a rude person in our time here. They are happy too....I recall seeing a photo of a town flooding again during TC Zena right after TC Winston and in the middle of the photo was a man wading through the water, holding his belongings on his head, smiling at the camera.

For one of the women' groups, we did a scavenger hunt around town. We had to find locations based on clues and take a photo of the group there. Here our cab drive took the photo for us at the presidential palace, then we asked second VERY tall military guard if we could take our photo with him too (bonus points for a photo with someone in uniform)....he agreed and is almost smiling! Definitely don't see anything like that happening in New York City...lol!

4. Good for families/kids...in particular, elementary and middle school aged kids. We have been very pleased with the International School Suva. There have been some administration changes while we have been at post, which I feel have gone relatively smoothly. The school is growing, both in new buildings and in size. Clarissa is learning some Fijian and Hindi in school; Mason is learning Chinese (Mandarin). I've been very pleased with size of the school library (and kids can use it during breaks). The school uniforms aren't too shabby either!

After school activities, there are a ton! Mason has done acting/drama club with an Australian/Hollywood actor, tennis lessons, chess club (and is going to get his Jr SCUBA Certification). Clarissa has done swimming, soccer, science club, (and is doing ballet next term...overlaps with swimming this term). There is, of course, RUGBY, martial arts, netball (I'm still not sure what that is), Pacific Island dancing, foreign language courses, cooking classes, and that is just to name a few.

5. Household Help is affordable. We have both a housekeeper and a gardener, both part time. Our housekeeper comes twice a week and also works for two other families part-time. Given the kids are both older and in school, we don't see the need for someone full time to help with them (but a lot of families with young children do have full time help). She does the cleaning, some laundry, ironing and will occasionally help me with some food prep. We asked her to come an extra day to help with Clarissa's birthday party and that was the great too. Given it is summer year round, you need a gardener year round. Ours comes once a week, takes care of the grass, trims the plants, removes debris, plant things (pineapple tops, orchids from the market, etc), will harvest the fruit when ripe (i.e. hard to know when is the right time to cut the bananas down or when to pick the soursop).

Cons:

1. Fiji Time. I think this is the one that drives Richard most nuts...being the middle man between Washington who wants everything done yesterday and the local staff who will get around to fixing that problem "soon". Island time x 3. It is difficult to get things accomplished in a timely or efficient manner. When trying to plan weekends away, it will take multiple emails/phone calls to just get a response/reservation sometimes. Don't expect to get billed on a timely manner either. While we want to be honest and pay our bills, more often than not the pool company won't even send us a bill/will forget their receipt book so we can't pay them for weeks. We receive our internet bill after the please pay by date?!?! When we first arrived we decided to get cable service (since there is a data cap on internet...so no unlimited streaming) and it took close to 6 months before we had that set up!

2. Rain, rain, and more rain. Suva is on the rainy side of the island, even good ole wikipedia describes Suva as a rainforest climate (and uses the word "copious" to describe the amount of rainfall). Annual average is 3,000 mm (118.11 inches). With no real wet or dry season, it rains year round. Cyclone season (November - April) tends to be a little wetter when tropical depressions and cyclones swing by the islands (or stop and linger for a week). With all the rain, your house will be humid and there can be mold/mildew problems (dehumidifiers do help with that though). Forget about storing anything outside though as the rain/humidity will ruin it. Here is a typical forecast check on the weather app. Grant it, the weather app is not always correct and sometimes the rain for the day occurs at night....but you typically have an umbrella handy.

3. Pricey to go anywhere. To go to the above mentioned beautiful beaches, you have to stay at a resort ($$). To get to said beaches you have to drive at least an hour (time and $) or take a boat ($$)/plane ($$$) to get to another island. If you have a bit of island fever and craving some first world luxuries, closest get away is New Zealand...3 hour flight...even with Bula Specials for 4 people it can quickly get $$$$. Hence, we only get out of town about once a month. Oh, and those nice beaches you see on postcards? While they are in Fiji....they are not in Suva. Suva is a port city with mangrove trees and muddy shorelines.

4. Fiji is a Third World Country. When at the resorts, you see a lot of first world accommodations and luxuries, but once you leave the bubble of resort land you quickly realize, that is not how the rest of Fiji lives. When Richard's parents were here (as well as my cousin and her daughter) they all commented how surprised they were with the lack of development and poverty in Fiji. There are a lot of villages without electricity still (especially on remote islands, but even on the main island), though they do supplement with generators/solar power. Just driving around town, I don't think a very large portion of the population has air conditioning in their homes due to the number of open windows you see. In chatting with locals that work in the tourism industry. A good number of them will tell you what village they are from and how often they get to go home (in particular the island resorts' staff has to stay on the island for ~6 days before they can go home for ~3...or so we've been told when chatting on boat rides). That's tough to be away from your family/children that long to make a living.

Being a tree hugger, it drives me nuts on how much trash there is too. Most bigger/nicer resorts will clean up their property (we stayed at a smaller one, where our walks on the beach were all about avoiding stepping on broken glass instead of searching for beautiful shells). I think some of it comes from old practices of using all natural things, drink out of the coconut, finish, the ocean takes it away, it biodegrades. Now, drink out of plastic bottle, finish, ocean takes it to another beach, and it looks ugly. The trash trucks all have big signs about recycling to reduce the amount of trash, but the local recycling program is very tiny (one gas station chain has some recycle bins you can take your recyclables to and a local beer company will reuse their bottles (a truck drives around honking to pick up the bottles, which they will pay you for....but only the one brand of bottles)). For a service project last year, Mason and a friend cleaned up trash. In one hour, between about where I took the photo to the first groyne protruding from the sea wall they picked up 14 bags of trash!

5. Food. I'm going to put food as a con, let me explain. While we love having bananas, pawpaw, and pineapple growing in our yard. Also, I don't think I have ever had pineapples as delicious as the ones here (and we eat 3+ pineapples a week). For the local food, there is not a lot of variety in fruits and vegetables and you somewhat burn out of the same things all the time. To add some variety, you then have to pay ($$) for imported fruits and veggies from Australia and New Zealand, which can be very pricey! For example, a little half pint of fresh blueberries is $19.xxFJD ($10USD) right now (and it is blueberry season in New Zealand!)....sorry, I don't want fresh blueberries that badly. Fijian prawns were overfished, so most prawns sold locally are imported. Fresh fish can be bought hanging roadside (they do swat the flies away), so that's a bit scary and I just don't know how to prepare fish. There is not a lot of ready made anything here. So while healthier, since there are less preservatives, making meals from scratch with the same ingredients week after week....you do get in food ruts. With Richard's work schedule, we also don't know when he will be getting off in the evenings, so that makes it trickier for us to meet somewhere/go out to eat on weeknights....

From the outside looking in, people say "you are in Fiji life should be great!" and don't realize how hard and expensive it can be to live here. I guess if we lived at a resort for the whole tour it would be nice....but we don't.

Pros and Cons of Living in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia

Some of us bloggy bloggers are doing a little 'pay it forward' for the summertime bidders by describing some pros and cons of our post. So with out further ado, here are some for Tbilisi.

Pros:

1. Food - so being a vegetarian one of the key things we look at is availability of produce at a post. Happily, there are plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables available here. Things are obviously seasonal. Watermelons are appearing roadside already (I always associated watermelons with 4th of July...not late April), last June tons of blueberries (and I filled my freezer with a huge bag of them) and then mid-summer/early fall we couldn't find zucchini for a couple months. So it seems the seasons are a little different with some foods. Beyond cooking at home. There is plenty of good Georgian food, lobiani is my favorite (bean pie), Richard likes shashlyk (meat kabob), both kids like the tonis puri (fresh bread), and the Eastern European fries are soooooo good! Of course you can't forget the national dish, khachapuri, cheese bread/pizza type dish. Each region has their own twist, my favorite Imeruli khachapuri from Imereti region. If you look here on wikipedia, there is a huge list of national foods..... Still don't believe me that the food is good, well Thrillist ranked all 48 countries in Europe on food/drink.....good ole Georgia came in 4th place.

2. Wine - Georgia is consider the cradle of wine making. Evidence of wine making dates back 8000 years.......that is a long time! The Georgians have had time to perfect the craft. Many families have their own family wine that ferments in the qvevris (clay pots) in the basement of their homes. One thing Richard has enjoyed is due to the wine fermenting in clay as oppose to oak barrels is he doesn't have a histamine/allergy reaction like he does with US wines. If I remember correctly, there are 60 varieties of grapes that are grown Georgia (only a few are seedless though). For a good history, dinner and wine tasting, Pheasant's Tears is our favorite place to go. The best part of all this wine making....in the fall during harvest season you can go pick and crush grapes......mark that off the bucket list!

3. Day Trips - The Republic of Georgia is only about the size of West Virginia. So you can visit most of the country in under a day's drive from Tbilisi. Sighnaghi is about 2 hours away, Kutaisi is about 3 hours (and has very tropical/FL keys feel), Mestia is about 8 hours away (you go slower as you go through the mountains), Ushguli is another about 3 hours from Mestia (even though it is only 35 kilometers away), Batumi is about a 5 hour drive (or 5.5 hours on a train). Each of these areas are so different from each other and each so beautiful to see/hike around.

Sventi area just outside of Mestia

4. Household Help - We have a housekeeper, she comes three days a week and does the cleaning, laundry, ironing.....she has cleaned things I didn't even know could be/needed cleaning. We pay less per week then we did for a bi-weekly service in the States (and they just did your basic cleaning). Most everyone I know has a housekeeper, those with younger kids also have a nanny, and a good number of people also employ drivers.

5. Good for kids/families - I feel this a very family friendly post. Georgians are very friendly in general and they really love kids. Clarissa is super shy but has had many Georgians try and talk with her or wave at her. One night at dinner, a group of Georgian men danced with all the kids at our table. The schools are really good as well. We send our kids to QSI Tbilisi. It is the primary embassy school. We live close enough the kids can walk to school, but they also offer bus service to other parts of town (including the downtown area). We have been every happy with QSI, they got a new director this year and he has made many positive changes to the school. Beginning in 1st grade (6 year olds), kids start taking a foreign language (options are Georgian, Russian, French and German) five days a week. Mason is taking Russian and he talked with a Russian speaker last summer and she was very impressed with his accent. There are some special needs kids at QSI and the school helps with coordinating extra things they need. There is also a British School in Tbilisi that offers the IB diploma program, there are some embassy kids that go there as well. In addition, several families send their children to the French School. The French School teaches in all French but some English is spoken in the school, so if you want a French immersion that is the school to go to. A number of the schools are doing Destination Imagination and we get kids from all the schools together for events. There are a lot of parks and playgrounds and they are regularly used. The botanical garden in Old Town is one of the more fun ones we have been to with a climbing web and a kids zip line.

Cons:

1. Drivers - The drivers are crazy here, they all drive how you would imagine a 16 yo boy with extreme ADHD....all over the place and fast. In a way, it is kind of fun: missed your turn, no worries throw it reverse; can't decide which lane you want to drive in, no worries drive in both; can't find a place to park, no worries the sidewalk is open; gotta go potty, no worries just park on a curve in a lane of traffic and go up the hill a bit so no one sees your winkie as they swerve to miss your car. I'm not really sure the meaning of a yield sign here, maybe it is to warn people in the main lane of traffic to watch out. I think my biggest pet peeve is people who will go around you at stop sign/turn if they deem you are taking too long, I especially love it when they attempt to go around me and get stuck because there is truly no opening. Also, not only are the drivers crazy, BBC did a documentary on how dangerous the roads are in parts of Georgia are. You can watch it here.

2. Old Habits - Georgia declared their independence from Russia in 1991, so not that long ago (I am not a history buff, the length of Georgian history (from approximately 600 BC) is amazing to learn about). So there is a large portion of the population that lived/were raised during soviet times. Some habits are hard to break. The one we notice most is lines.....or lack of (probably left over from food line days). People will constantly cut in front of you, especially in the grocery store. You bag your produce and then take it to the weigh station to get a bar code label placed on your bag. Lots of pushing/cutting there. At the airport....boarding by zones....forget about it.

3. Smoking - It seems everyone smokes here. Having lived in California when the ban on smoking in bar/restaurants went into effect, it definitely takes a bit to get used to all the smoke. Most of the time when you go out to eat, there will be smokers at all the tables around you. Outdoor restaurants do help a bit. The smoking does deter us from going out to eat some. CLO came up with a list of restaurants that are smoke-free which is great.

4. Flights - Flying into or out of Tbilisi is painful! I would say about 90% of daily arrivals/departures occur between 3 and 6 am.....yes you read that right, butt-crack of dawn! Given those flight times, you typically end up with insanely long layovers en route to/from Tbilisi (Coming from DC, 13 hours in Munich...sounds great! CLO even did an article a few years ago about tips for surviving the layover since there really isn't anyway around it).

5. Hmmm -  Can't think of anything else, maybe check out the photos on this blog for more reasons to not come to Georgia....

Overall, we have really enjoyed this post. It is our first post, so we worry that the bar has been set really high for all future posts. If it is on your list, I recommend bidding it high!