First Impressions

Dave Votaw, Supervisor, The RTI Project

14 May 2019

Dinner out on our first night in country, with Samson and Sam, the students we are working with.

Karen and I arrived here on Sunday, May 12 and it was immediately apparent that we were in a whole new world. Here are some first impressions, along with a few photos.

Our time here almost exactly overlaps the month of Ramadan, the most holy month in the Islam faith. We received this snack box on our Qatar airlines flight. The words “Ramadan Kareem” mean “Have a blessed Ramadan.” Note the decorations on the box – this is typical of the culture. They decorate everything with detailed, colorful designs.

Impressions from the Middle East…

Time flows differently here. Everything takes two or three times longer than estimated. People are relaxed; they’re not in a hurry. The workers here have picked up on this cultural trend and they do it too!

There are no left turns. The highways are not designed for them. You drive on the right, and you can turn right. But if you want to turn left, you drive past the desired street, do a U-turn, get in the right lane and turn right. They have specially designated U-turn spots (in the middle of the block) for you to do this.

We traveled here on Qatar Airlines, and they are a first-class organization who take faith seriously. I was impressed to see this sign on my movie screen.

Electricity is not a given. Your home’s electricity supply may shut off at any time, and you don’t know when it will return. Sometimes this is a problem! Newer apartment blocks have better back-up electrical supplies, so those apartments are in greater demand.

You’re not supposed to drink the tap water. Both Karen and I forgot today, and we each downed a glassful before we remembered. So far, we are okay.

The restaurant where we ate last night with a couple from the English teaching facility in town. They have two small children, who made a big hit with the woman who served us. The restaurant food was excellent!

Here’s the food we were served on our first night here, with Sam and Samson. All meals have rice, sometimes more than one type. This is a chicken kebab, seasoned very well and quite tasty. They like to make salads of cucumber and tomato.

We are here during the month of Ramadan, when Muslims are supposed to fast during the day. But this city seems to be pretty secular. We’ve seen restaurants open and people eating in them.

Driving is a hoot. The lines on the road are relevant only when traffic is free-flowing; when there is a jam – and there are a lot of jams – people crowd over regardless of road markings or space available. Horns honk all the time. A honking horn means either “watch out”, “I see you”, “that was bad”, “get out of my way”, or “thank you.” I’ve seen no crashes, but they miss by inches. Pedestrians have no rights at all, even in crosswalks. It’s like Frogger.

This is the nicest grocery store in town, and it’s in the nicest shopping center in town. I enjoyed the slight mistranslation from “supermarket”.

Generally the food tastes good. I’ve been to several restaurants now, all quite different from each other, and it’s all been good. Food quality in grocery stores and produce stands varies widely; there is a lot of poor quality produce and meat out there. I’m glad Karen knows what she’s doing.

They don’t use debit or credit cards here. Everything is cash. The most commonly-used bill is the 5000 dinar bill, which is worth a little over $4. I wanted to get some cash from an ATM and they took me to a row of them near the grocery store. I think there were five or six machines there, but only one of them (the fifth one I tried) would give me any cash.

Here’s a display in the mall of nuts, dried fruits, and candy.

People have treated us very well. They are respectful and courteous, and patient with our lack of understanding.

Women here seem obsessed with appearance. They wear a lot of makeup. Thick, black eyebrows are all the rage; they paint them on.

Signs here are in two alphabets – the flowing Arabic script and also Western letters of the alphabet, usually in English. The latter doesn’t seem to be done for the English-speaking tourists. There are not very many of us, that’s for sure, so I guess the locals have to learn both alphabets.