Ramadan Kareem!!

Today is the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. This means that all Muslims refrain from eating or drinking anything from sunrise to sunset. Today, in Qatar, those time are approximately 3:58am to 5:41pm. They also avoid smoking, sex, gossip, and negative thoughts during these times. Most get up around 3:30am to eat something, then they nap or just chill in the late afternoon, and then after sunset they visit with family and friends until the wee hours of the morning.

This pretty much changes everything about life in Doha for the next month: traffic patterns change because work hours do. Student programming is practically non-existent because they're exhausted and race home for dinner right after class. There are a lot of charity events to attend because Ramadan is the month to pay special attention to the poor. Meanwhile, the non-Muslims eat covertly in a closed office because all of the restaurants are closed during the day. We dress even more conservatively than usual. All of the bars and the liquor store are closed, and we make up for it by having house parties every weekend from now until Eid (the festival at the end of Ramadan).

That's pretty much Ramadan in a nutshell. Because work slows so much, I'll make more of an effort this month to blog about the things I've learned in the past couple months.


Also, Happy New Year to all of my Jewish friends!! Someone please post an explanation of Rosh Hashanah so I can stop feeling bad about focusing on Ramadan in my post. Unfortunately there's not much learning about Jewish holidays to be done here in Qatar.

Its really really hot

July is almost the hottest month of the year here. August is worse because its more humid, but the weather has been steady around 110 F (42 C), and these temperatures will probably continue through August and September.

The temperature itself isn't really blog-worthy. Anyone can find out the current temperature in Doha just by looking online. So I'll try to explain to you some of the consequences of living in this climate, so you can see why I'm so excited at the possibility of rain while I'm on vacation next week.

The silver lining on the cloud of 110-plus temperatures is that I can't stand to be outside too long, so I haven't gotten sunburned yet, yay!

Its not very often in Pennsylvania that the weather outside is hotter than your body temperature. It can feel hot, but its nothing compared to when the wind hitting you is hotter than your skin. My pool is chilled, thank goodness, because the ones that aren't feel like bathwater. [Wow, how spoiled do I sound in that last sentence?]

The "cold" water containers are also on the roof of the apartment. With the 4:30am sunrise, that means that all your cold water is scalding by about 8:00am (think putting a bottle of water in your car in the middle of summer). The water usually cools off around 9:00pm, but don't even think about taking a shower in the middle of the day. Brushing your teeth can be done, but its pretty gross.

Forget about parking my black car outside.

The worst part of the summer temperatures is that my office is FREEZING. Apparently, someone decided that the hotter it gets outside, the colder they should make it inside. I think I'm down to about 55 degrees F in this damn office. Not only is it uncomfortable and inconvenient, let alone the fact that extreme temperature shifts can't be good for you, but we all look like jackasses sitting in our offices wrapped in blankets and sweaters.

So for those of you who have recently arrived in Doha or are due to get here soon, don't worry. Stick it out for awhile. October will be tolerable :-)

Travel and Leisure Magazine says you should visit me

Here's the article on all the cool stuff that Doha has (or will have) for tourists. It talks about the new museums and all the shopping, and then it also has pictures and mentions Education City and the new libraries, and other cultural stuff they're building.

The past month

Happy Father's Day, Dad! Look, I got you a blog post!

Well the most important event of the past few weeks is that Gloria informed me that my job responsibilities will be changing for the next year! I'm pretty excited about this, not because I wasn't interested in what I was doing in Student Activities, but because I think my talents are more applicable to my two new offices... The Office of International Education, which organizes study abroad for our students and helps our international students here in Doha; and the office of Professional Development, which does internships, and this year will actually be helping our first graduating class to get jobs :-)

Relatedly, we are getting six new people in the Carnegie Mellon Qatar Student Affairs Office. Three new Student Development Coordinators (like me!), a new Administrative Assistant, and new Directors of International Education and Health and Wellness. This means that on a team of 11 people, 6 of them will be new. I like my old team. But I also like new people. So we'll see how it goes.

Ramzi visited! He went back to his family's place in Saudi after graduation and before his move to NYC, so he came over to Doha for a couple of days. He was working with the business club most of the time, but I got to see him in the evenings. It was great to have him back, even if it did mostly involve driving him back and forth to his hotel and to the Qatar Airways office. Then it was sad again when he left. He showed me pictures of his place in New York, though, and it looks awesome, and he said I'm welcome any time. With a direct flight from Doha to Newark starting, I might take him up on that offer.

We also had an intern in student affairs for the past three weeks! Megan is from the Pittsburgh campus, and was living in my compound. She's really cool, but unfortunately her time here was too too short. Luckily for everyone, she's coming back to study here in the fall, as our first Pittsburgh-Doha exchange student, which will be awesome.













Ben, Drew, me, and Megan. (Mollie's behind the camera). Georgetown cooked, Carnegie Mellon baked. It worked out well :-)

We've been to three beaches around Qatar in the past couple of weeks. The first was all the way at the north and had some good snorkeling. The second two were both on the west coast, one just north of Dukhan and one a bit more south in Umm Bab (that's right, say it outloud. Then sing.) Its getting rediculously hot here, so I'm thinking that was the last beach trip until September or October. We also attempted to go to Bahrain, but it was expensive for just a weekend. Rumor still has it that they are working on the bridge from Qatar to Bahrain, but I'm sure I'll be gone way before that actually opens. For now its the airport, or just don't leave Qatar.

I'm pretty much running a kennel this week for my friends' animals. I have Nikki's dog Athena with me for the month. Kathryn's three cats are staying in her place but I'm feeding them for the week. And tonight Drew is dropping off a plant that I'm supposed to keep alive for a month until Ben gets home. (Drew and Ben share this plant, and while they are both out of the country - Drew for good and Ben for a month - I have the responsibility to keep it alive. While I realize that a plant is not a "pet" per se, I fear that this will be the most difficult for me to keep alive. For those of you who have seen "How to lose a guy in 10 days", if I kill Ben and Drew's love fern, I'm gonna feel really bad...)

I bought the Mika CD. Megan tells me that Mika is not as popular in the States and this is a shame. He's Lebanese-British, pure pop, and awesome. The album is "Life in Cartoon Motion" and for downloads, I recommend the songs Grace Kelly, Relax (Take It Easy), Love Today, Stuck in the Middle, and My Interpretation. "Grace Kelly" was Number 1 on the World Charts a couple of months ago. Check it out.

We had a trivial pursuit night last Friday. Boys vs. girls. The boys won, but it was tied at the end and they got their last question right first. The girls also had less people, so we did well (especially considering that we got more than one sports question right, and I hate to be stereotypical, but those sports questions are really obscure).

People continue to leave, either for vacation or to go back to the States forever. Next week is probably going to be the emptiest Doha has been in awhile. NIkki, Marjorie, Dave, Karen, Megan, Ben, Drew, and Kathryn are all gone, and Mollie will be too if she gets her visa to Iran. I have the dog to keep me company, but she's not quite as good as people. I have been reading a good book, "My Name is Red" by Orhan Pamuk. Its really good, but I took it to the pool and the sun melted the glue in the binding so now some of the pages are falling out. Anyway, if you have more book suggestions, send them my way!

See, Caryl... that post wasn't so hard... you should do it more often.

Placeholder post

Post of substance coming shortly! Until then, enjoy this, copied from marjorie's blog, which she in turn took from a facebook group for Cornell TAs in Doha.

You know you've been a TA in Doha when...

• You've spent an entire conversation explaining how safe Doha is and how much you love it there, only to have the conversation conclude with "Stay safe" or "I'm praying for you."


• You think tank tops are for whores.


• The first day of school you could pronounce 1-2 students' names correctly; the last day of school, you knew all the names, but could still only pronounce 1-2 correctly.


• A 5-hour flight is no big deal, and a 30-hour one is ok for the weekend.


• If you pay more than $10 for a huge meal you think it's too expensive.


• It's ok to pay $10 for a box of cereal.


• You are ok with water costing more than gas.


• You're upset when there is a new conflict in the Middle East because it means you can't go to that country for vacation.


• You miss the color green, and long for a rainy day.


• Driving in the States scares you because people use turn signals and don't cut you off.


• You refer to certain liquids as "reagents" and know that they can only be procured at a certain "distribution center," aka the "b**$ souq"


• You know at least 5 different ways to pronounce "Qatar" -- and know that all of them are wrong.


• You don't speak Arabic, except for the words habibi, yallah, inshallah, and khalas -- which you use in every other sentence.

Back down to Earth

The other day, a bunch of us were all in the pool at my compound. Now, its been quite hot out recently, and usually they chill the pool in the summer, but for some reason the chiller wasn't working and the pool felt like bathwater by the middle of the afternoon. At one point, I even said, "If this is the biggest complaint in our lives right now guys, that our pool is too hot, then I think we're all doin' ok." Everyone agreed.

A few days later, I realized that my nails looked like crap, and I hadn't been feeling well, so I decided to make a manicure-pedicure appointment at my normal place. The woman doing my pedicure asked me if I was from America, how long I had been in Doha and why I was here, and I asked her the same. I asked her if she was from the Philippines, even though I already knew she was. I knew because everyone in the service industry in Qatar is Filipino. They work the registers and the floor at every chain store and most small shops; they bring tea to employees at work, patients at the hospital, and everywhere in between; they are drivers, nannies, maids, secretaries, security, waiters, and manicurists... the list goes on. To be honest, not once have I had a bad interaction with a Filipino employee, but neither have I really had a chance to talk with any. Our CMU employees are always too busy working, and I, alas, do not have a nanny, maid, personal driver, etc. But manicures are long and there's really not much to do but chat, so I figured this would be a good chance.

Turns out that this particular woman has only been in Doha for three weeks. She said that all of the employees of the spa live together, within walking distance of work. She seemed ok with that, but had a lot of questions for me about what it was like to work at the university, and the benefits of being an American ex-pat. Then she told me that she left her 6 year old daughter and 11 year old son in the Philippines. I couldn't bring myself to ask what circumstances led her to leave her kids and come to work in Doha. I think that's a second manicure conversation.

Everyone is leaving :-(

I'm discovering one of the more unfortunate parts of ex-pat reality. Make new friends, then they leave. And being that I associate mostly with people from universities, they all leave at the same time. Tim left a week ago, Ramzi on Thursday, Erik and Silvia on Friday, Ryan yesterday, and I took Andrew to the airport this morning. Mollie and Gregg leave at the end of the month. Lauren will be here until June and Drew until July but they're still leaving.

The flip side is that there are new people coming in all the time. And its a small ex-pat world in Doha. Side story: The other day I met a girl named Jinynn, who has only been here a few weeks, and we were just chatting about her work and other stuff. Turns out she knows Jen, the first friend to leave this semester (way back in March) because she is now doing the job that Jen had at Qatar University. I went to put her name and number in my phone, and she says, "oh I'll spell my name 'cause it has a weird 'y' in it." I was like, "no way, my name has a weird 'y' in it too, its c-a-r-y-l." And she goes, "wait! you're c-a-r-y-l! you're in my phone already!" So it turns out that she has Jen's phone, and Jen left some numbers in there and instructed Jinynn to call Mollie, who would introduce her to the rest of the people in the phone. So she's already gotten together with Mollie, Drew, and some other people, and she and I decided that we're destined to become friends. Yay!

I like it when my happy side stories become longer than my sad main entry.

Woohoo weekend!

In an effort to update my blog more often, I risk boring you with the little details that you don't really care about. Eh, we'll see how this blog blitz goes and then maybe over the summer I'll try to find a happy medium :-)

The weekend was so good. I should mention that the weekend was destined to go well, since last Tuesday I finally got my lazy butt to Qatar Distribution Company to renew my liquor permit. Thursday night we went to the Intercontinental Hotel for our faculty and staff party, then I sat on Ramzi's couch and watched a movie - super chill way to end the craziness that was last week.

On Friday, I found cute cheap patio furniture at Carrefour (if you need a comparison, its like Super-Duper Walmart) and spent the afternoon watching Love Actually while putting it together. Also while putting it together, I realized that my Jeep came with a whole set of tools that I never knew about - how cool is that?! That night I had people over to drink my newly purchased booze and sit around my newly purchased patio table. Then we went downstairs to Silvia's apartment for the most ridiculous party. There are pictures but I would need permission from people to post them. And possibly risk having my blog censored by Q-Tel. But - here's a good one from the party. Tim, myself, Ramzi, and Ryan...

I'm gonna miss my boys so much!












Anyway, after finally getting to bed around 3:30am, Ryan and I woke up at 6:30 on Saturday to go to campus and proctor the ACT test for a group of 200 high school boys. They were not taking the test seriously at all (I don't even know why mobile phones are allowed in the room!), but it was worth the getting up early - I got QR300, free starbucks, and the chance to teach a couple of Qatari boys why its a bad idea to mess with white women.

After the test we went to the mall, where I picked up my ring from the jewelry cleaners - now, not only does it sparkle, but they bent it back into a proper ring shape! Then Ryan and I went to the high school botball competition that is sponsored by CMU-Q, but alas we had no idea what was going on and were both pretty much asleep. I went home, took a nap, and woke up just in time for the NFL draft to start!

I watched until the Steelers pick, which happened around 10:30pm Doha time, and then had to go to sleep. I liked the draft - it caught me up on all the NFL and college news of the past year in just 4 hours. On another note, for those of you who saw it, how impressive was Brady Quinn? Poised, articulate, and good-natured in each of the three interviews over the course of the first 21, even though after the Dolphins at #9 he had to be some combination of worried and pissed. It is so unfortunate that he finally went to Cleveland, 'cause now I have to hate him for the rest of the year. Oh well, it was a nice couple of hours.

Important Travel Information

For those of you in Qatar:
They are tearing up D-Ring way faster than they are putting it back down. From Landmark to Salwa flyover, you can't use any of it, and then one lane is closed from the flyover to the Roundabout with the light. Allow an extra 15 minutes for all trips in the general area of D-ring. Which is most of Doha.

For those of you not in Qatar:
Qatar Airways is starting non-stop flights (daily) to Washington Dulles this summer, and Newark (4 flights/week) on June 28th. Book now! But don't actually come in the summer - wait til the weather is nice, like November.

Airbus A380

As I was watching EuroNews this morning, a story came on about the launch of the Airbus A380. Apparently all of the airlines that have ordered one got their logo painted on the side of the new plane, and sure enough, there was Qatar Airways, home of my not-so-many but ever-increasing frequent flyer miles. Apparently QA is planning on nearly tripling the size of their fleet, which currently has 54 planes and orders for 94 more (including two A380s). They are also starting non-stop flights this summer to Newark and Washington Dulles. This is good news for a travel-holic such as myself.

Insha'allah

If I ever write an anthropology paper or book about Qatar and the Gulf, its going to be called simply "Insha'allah."

Literally, insha'allah means "God willing" or "if God intends it." Basically, any time Westerners say the word "hopefully," someone in the Gulf could substitute "Insha'allah." The origin comes from the belief in Islam that God controls all aspects of our everyday life. Not only an all-powerful God but an extremely involved one as well.

Here are some common examples:

It can mean that another person will try to keep a commitment, but something could come up (a family situation, traffic, etc.) that will keep them from it. For example, when I say "let's meet tomorrow at 2:00pm," a student is very likely to respond "Insha'allah" - which means "probably I'll be here, unless something else happens."

Or it could indicate desire with doubt, for example the management at my compound once told me, "the part to fix your air conditioner will be here by the end of the week insha'allah." Yeah, my AC wasn't going to be working anytime within the next month, and we all knew it.

It can also indicate desire with uncertainty, for example I could also say "I will return to India one day insha'allah." I personally think this is the best use of the phrase, because it doesn't frustrate me so much as the others.

Not surprisingly, the excessive use of "insha'allah" frustrates Westerners because we come from a culture in which structuring our time and actions is just what we do. The structure is an effective stress-relief mechanism in the West. In Islam, the ultimate faith in God is the stress management mechanism, and so structure is unnecessary.

More surprisingly, I know many very pious Muslims who also get frustrated by the excessive use of "insha'allah." In my first example, in their minds, it is acceptable to use it if you think that you may miss your meeting because a family member is seriously ill, but unacceptable if you simply think that there might be more traffic than you accounted for. This comes from a belief among more devout Muslims that you should only use God's name when it is truly something that is in His hands, not when you are trying only to avoid responsibility for a situation.

Anyway, I mostly put this concept out there because I often find myself wanting to type "insha'allah" in my blog posts, but not being able to because I haven't explained what it means.

H&M opening in Doha :-)

Today, the first H&M store in Doha opens. Last night there was an invitation-only, 20% off party at the store. The "who's who of Doha's bargain hunters" were there, as Ryan put it. I dropped QR550 (US$150) on 9 items at the opening, and every riyal was worth it.

Asian Games Opening Ceremonies

Jumana, Dave, Lisa, Karen and I in front of the Asian Games Torch tower.

The Asian Games is definitely the largest event that Doha has ever hosted. They've been preparing for about three years, and took place from December 1-15th. There were a decent amount of tourists in, and thousands of athletes and media from all over Asia. Since this is the first time that the Middle East has hosted, everyone wanted it to go well. Many expats fled the country, others planned to hide in our apartments, and some brave souls decided that they wanted to actually try to attend the games. Tickets were expensive for the opening ceremony, but we decided it would be worth it, so we had planned all along to do that. When we realized how cheap the tickets for most of the games were, we couldn't really resist seeing other sports, too.

The opening ceremonies were most impressive. Luckily our seats were under cover, because it poured all day long. The rain let up for the actual ceremony, and then started coming down in buckets again on my walk home.

The beginning of the ceremony featured hundreds (maybe thousands) of men in thobe with torches spelling out "Peace be upon you" in English ("Al-salaam alaykum" in Arabic).

The East Asia Silk Road sequence had hundreds of performers, dancers, and people moving these massive caravans.

The City of the Future segment focused on education, technology, and natural resources (and had some pretty sweet pyro). Interestingly, there was a pretty long section on science, and most people couldn't figure out the purpose of that. After some discussion, we wondered if maybe, since this is the first Asian Games from the Middle East, they wanted to do something to subtley refute the idea that everything is always focused on Allah. It could be much simpler, like they are trying to show another part of their history here, but anyway we thought it was interesting.

I thought one of the coolest parts was the parade of athletes from all different countries. Aside from Qatar, of course, the countries that got the loudest ovations were Iraq, Iran, Syria, the UAE, Jordan, Bahrain (Middle East countries) and then India and the Philippines (lots of workers from those countries live in Qatar).

The lighting of the Asian Games torch was one of coolest, and definitely the most suspenseful, moment of the ceremonies. They had trained a few of the Emir's horses to be able to make the climb from the stadium floor to the highest part of the stadium, and I guess on the night of, they just picked the one that was least skittish, but the rain had made the ramp slippery and the horse barely made it. Also, the rider of the horse is one of the Emir's sons (but I didn't know which one!) and at some point later that week I said something about that particular son being cute. Then someone from Education City told me he was 19 and goes to Georgetown here - oops! But I felt better when one of the Georgetown staff told me that women all over Georgetown were talking about him too, and they are in their 40s and knew who he was at the time!

Dave and I with part of our audience participation kit, which was so cool. Except we got so mad at the people (Qataris) who weren't following the directions on when to use each part, 'cause there was a whole list of directions, but they just turned their lights on whenever they felt like it, and then as soon as one person did, the whole rest of the stadium joined in. Yeah this is definitely a relationship-based culture, not a process-driven one.

More to come with pics of the actual sporting events!

Disaster strikes Qatar...

I lost my liquor permit. Seriously, I have no idea where it is. (edit 17 December: I found it! I had forgotten which jeans I wore the last time I went, put on my cute jeans for the club the other night and there it was, yay!) That little card is the only thing that gets me into the Qatari liquor store. Instead of panic, I am trying to focus on the positives. For example, while looking for it, I found: two bobby pins, Uncle Tom's contact info, 150 Indian rupee, 6 riyal worth of Pizza Hut coupons, a DC metro card, a peppermint Cert, and about 82 American cents.

Another positive - I get an opportunity to post in my blog about the complex process of buying alcohol in this semi-conservative Middle Eastern country.

First, you have to get your liquor permit. This requires a letter from your Human Resources Director stating where you work and what your title is, where you live, whether you are single or married, and how much you make per month. You then fill out a form repeating most of that information, and adding your contact information and religion. You take the letter, the form, your passport, and QR1000 ($274.74) to the liquor store, where you have an interview. My interview was pretty much the simplest thing ever - they saw an American passport, and I had put "Catholic" as my religion, so they didn't ask me anything really. Just processed the paperwork. Then they took my picture and gave me a little blue card (this is what I have lost - so sad!) Encoded on this magical card is your permit limit - the amount of money you can spend at the liquor store per month. It is proportional to your salary, for example I get QR2000/month to spend. (Don't worry Mom and Dad, I've never come close to this amount).

Some other interesting facts:
~ There is just the one liquor store in all Qatar. It looks like a duty free shop inside. Apparently, a permit used to come with a specific day that you could shop on, and people without permits could accompany people with them. They now allow those with permits to come any day, but no one else is allowed in the store.

~ The store in closed on Fridays (like Sundays in Pennsylvania) as well as for the whole month of Ramadan. Luckily, they triple your allowance for the month before Ramadan. I didn't have my permit yet then, but from what I hear every expat in Qatar was there the week before Ramadan. We even have new friends because of the hour-long line to check out (Hi Mark!)

~ The store is owned and operated by Qatar Airways, the official Qatari airline. Pretty sure this is how they manage to turn such a sweet profit. Oh wait, that could be also be the US$400 it costs for the half-hour flight to Dubai. But I digress.

~ Judging by how long the Pakinstani guy in front of me was in the office, I think that the interview is much harder if you put "Muslim" as your religion on the form. Also, Qataris aren't allowed to get permits, but this problem is easily solved by giving their Indian driver a letter that says their salary is 30,000 riyal/month.

~ And finally, the Emir recently gave the Catholic church some land on the outskirts of Doha to build a new church. Where is it? About 2 minutes from the liquor store. My first thought: "Now isn't that stereotyping." Second thought: "Actually, how convenient!"

Ok, I feel a bit better...

The Jeep Cherokee Sport

Before I start this post, I'd like to go back a few years to something that Allie told me once when I was working in Central PA. She said: "I can tell how bored you are by your incredibly up-to-date blog." Well get ready, everyone, 'cause December is here, the students are gone, and I've been saving up stuff to say. Now, onto today's post. About....

MY NEW CAR!!!

I bought my wonderful little Jeep about a month ago, and it still has the new car smell :-) I got it because my rental car was a tiny little car, and everytime I entered a roundabout, I was pretty sure I was going to get smushed between a Land Cruisar and a construction vehicle. It can go over construction instead of around it, and now I can get to Dunkin Donuts (and various other places) by going over the dirt and rocks, which is much faster than the road. Also, it is much cheaper to buy than to rent it. So yay, I have a new car!

Unfortunately, I am now driving an SUV in a country that has never even heard of emissions standards, let alone implemented any. I'm gonna be driving a hybrid for the rest of my life to make up for this one.

I also thought this might be a good opportunity to explain some stuff about driving in Qatar. I'll probably get pulled over at least once a week for a month or so when I return to driving in the States. Here goes:

1. The Land Cruisar Phenomenon. The creme de la creme of vehicles in Qatar. The must-have of everyone who is anyone. The only way to start a list of "things to know about driving in Qatar." This Toyota SUV is made for taking on desert dunes and picking up otherwise respectable women. If you aren't driving one, just get out of its way.

2. The roundabout.
One of the bigger roundabouts in Doha, very close to Education City.





These exist instead of intersections at most places, and at first they are very daunting. There are literally hundreds of them all over the city, and you simply pull into them when no one is coming, and then exit at your "turn." Cars on the left (the inside) have the right of way. This is convenient when you don't know your exact road, because you can go around the roundabout until you figure out which to take, but it also causes a lot of accidents because many people forget to yield to the person on their inside, and there are a lot of quick speed ups and slow downs.

3. Left turns. Are impossible to make anywhere in the country, unless you want to take your car over the median that exists in the center of every road. If you want to go left, you either have to make three rights or go to the next intersection and make a U-turn. This is usually ok, but if you are running late or there's traffic, its a huge pain in the butt.

4. Intersections. The intersections that do exist have at least two lanes for going straight, one for going right, and two for going left. There is enough space for this because they all used to be roundabouts. There are two lanes for going left because the one on the far left is actually the U-turn lane (see Number 2.) When making a U-turn, one gets in the far left lane and uses the turn signal. When actually turning left, one gets in the center-left lane and does not use the turn signal, lest someone think that you are trying to make a U-turn from the center-left lane. All of this can be moot, as I have seen many people make U-turns from the far right lane, but its usually your best bet for avoiding accidents.

5. Getting lost. It happens all the time. Doha has possibly the worst urban planning I have ever seen. The concept is ok. The port is a half-circle, and the roads are built in concentric circles around the port, with other intersecting roads appearing as spokes to the wheel. Fine. Unfortunately, as the city got more crowded, they started adding half-circles and partial spokes all over the city and now its a big ol' mess. Take lots of gas with you whenever you go out, especially into the old part of town.

6. Accidents. Qatar has the highest per capita rate of injuries sustained in car accidents in the world. However, because so many of them happen at very low speeds in the roundabouts, the rate of death is much much lower. When you have an accident (and we always say "when," not "if" in Doha) you must first call the police. Even for fender-benders, because shops can't do any repair work without a police order. If you've colided with a Qatari man, just be quiet. Its your fault.
6a. There are a few things you can do to avoid accidents: (a) don't hit the person in front of you, and in turn, the person behind you will try not to hit you, (b) always yield to the bigger or more expensive car, and (c) always be on the lookout for someone behind you speeding and flashing their headlights. when this happens, switch lanes as soon as possible so they can pass you without being inconvenienced by switching lanes. even when in a hurry, don't actually do this yourself... it makes you an asshole.
6b. If one hits a pedestrian or cyclist, the fines are directly proportional to the nationality (i.e. social status) of that individual. In order of most expensive to least, this is: Qatari, other Arab or Western expat, Phillipino service industry employee, Indian skilled worker, Nepali or Indian construction worker.

7. All traffic laws are negotiable if you are a Qatari in a Land Cruisar.