This week has been busy...late nights at work, relatively hectic days, and Ramadan issues. The normal US business day goes from 5:00 PM to 2:00 AM Qatar time, so late night is the best time to get fast response times on technical support, sales, etc. Otherwise there's a 24-hour lag between each day's communications, which can be a serious impediment at times. I don't have an internet connection at the house yet, so I'm office-bound for network stuff. The weather has been fantastic...low 80s (F) during the day, mid to low 60s at night, clear skies, bright sun. It will get a little cooler on into December, but this is pretty much winter over here. What a deal!
This week was fingerprinting week. Zach, Danna, and I went downtown to get printed so we could get a driver's license and a residence permit (we take a lot of freedoms for granted in the US, and we're going to lose them if we're not careful). It was the usual drill: the Qatar Foundation driver picked us up and took us to the fingerprinting compound, where another QF associate met us and magically ushered us to the front of the line (he first took Danna to the ladies' side of things, then came back and took care of us). The fingerprinting compound consisted of a six-meter-high perimeter wall, inside of which were a row of offices. The center courtyard was probably 25 or 30 meters square, with a 4x8 meter two-room office in the center. They had erected a shade canopy between one side of the center office and the perimeter offices, and had placed benches under the shade for those waiting to be fingerprinted. Ink was everywhere--on the walls, doors, doorframes, benches--smeared by folks who were trying to get the ink off of their hands (and it gets all over your hands) but who apparently hadn't seen the large sink over in an alcove against the outer wall. We were ushered into the center office, where a police officer was busily printing someone. He told us where to sit, and called us up when he decided it was our turn, which was almost immediately since we had the QF clout working for us.
I daresay his fingerprinting job wouldn't pass muster with the FBI, but that's fine with me...if my prints are going to be on file over here, I'd just as soon they be as smudged as possible. :) He had a blob of nasty-looking black ink in the middle of his table, and he'd use a roller to scoop up some ink and roll it onto a whetstone-like panel mounted on the front edge of the table. One by one, he would roll your fingers on the inkstone and then onto the paper, then finally he'd roll ink directly onto your entire palm and get a full handprint. It was a relatively standard fingerprinting setup, and he had his job down to an art. While he was printing me, another fellow walked into the room, up to the table, and apparently demanded that he be next in line (in Arabic, of course). The officer answered to the contrary, and then the two had a brief shouting match, with my face right between them because the officer was still holding my hand. I thought they were going to throw down right there, and I was trying to figure out how best to leap out of the way without getting ink all over myself. It was quite an experience. The man finally realized that he was defeating his own purpose by arguing with the officer in charge of fingerprinting, so he sat down and looked sullen.
Tuesday, we had a visit from Pam Vader (no relation to Darth), an Aggie working for Conoco who's in Doha scouting housing and office space for a planned Conoco office here. They're planning to have 100 employees over here within the next year or two. Apparently the world's largest natural gas field, and the willingness of the Emir to negotiate contracts, is a powerful draw for the oil companies. A group of us took Pam to Turkey Central, a Turkish restaurant downtown, and shopped afterward. We found a pet store across the street from TC. Their stock included lots of cold-water fish (goldfish and koi, mostly), finches, parrakeets, exotic birds, cats, ducklings, quail, and one lonely gerbil. They're not big on dogs over here...I wish it weren't so cost-prohibitive to bring Luke over here.
Friday morning, I took my instruments with me to church and sat in on the music. The worship leader had been called the night before and asked to lead music (they have something like a six-week rotation of worship teams, and it wasn't his turn), so he had pulled out several of the "old standbys" like "Holy, Holy, Holy", "Oh Lord, You're Beautiful," etc. The pianist was a Lebanese fellow named Sami, who has a couple of young sons. He plays reasonably well, but I miss Kathy! After the service, I spoke with a Mr. Shaw who, with his wife Judy, has six homeschooled kids, half of whom are redheads. Now that I know there's at least one large homeschool family in the area, I must say I feel a bit more at home. :)
Posted by jon at November 7, 2003 09:34 AM