WORK IN THE MIDDLE EAST AS AN OVERSEAS CONTRACT WORKER: THE QATAR EXPERIENCE

Who would have thought I'd be adding to my bucket list an adventure in the Middle East.  Allow me to welcome you to Doha, the capital of the Arab state of Qatar. I went here on a soul-searching journey during my mid-life crisis where my life took a turn to the uncertain.  Thanks to my supportive brother Melfred who helped me to come here and recover from a personal problem.  I  arrived here as a tourist but with the intent of working thru the duration of my stay.  This place we are standing on now is the Pearl which I think is the country's symbol.  This is situated along Corniche Boulevard, the equivalent of Roxas Boulevard back in the Philippines.

Since the country is in an accelerated growth rate, the primary industry here is infrastructure were job opportunities abound.  So I applied to the prestigious Arab Engineering Bureau and much to my surprise and  my brother, I was immediately hired.  I don't know whether it was my credentials or probably they prefer Filipino applicants who walks in first.  I got a job as a Project Secretary of one of the most prestigious local Architectural and Engineering firm in the country.  There were many Filipinos in the company and in no time I developed a friendship among the younger employees in the company and got together as a group in sickness, happiness, gimmicks, problems and everything under the sun.

Life in Doha or in any other Middle East country is not easy for an OFW.  Away from your family and in an environment that is completely different from ours, one has to adapt to difficult conditions in order to cope with the challenges of work and office pressure.  Our friendship served as the motivation to help keep us going.  In order to keep homesickness at bay,  we frequently go out on sorties like this one.

One of the favorite places in the city are the so-called "Souq" which is "market" in English.  This is where most of our countrymen converge and mingle with each other.  One of the nice attractions here are the hordes of doves in the area where you can feed and frolic with.  Being in the company of these birds is one way of relieving you of the stress of work and homesickness.

The resort here is situated in desert beaches.  They are nothing compared to the beautiful beaches of the Philippines.  We just have to make do and enjoy with what the country has.  The best thing that Filipinos do here in the beaches is the catching crabs at night and cooking them over a campfire.

Qatar is a country of concrete and sand.  The dwellings like this one situated in the outskirts of the city are all similar in architecture, color and appearance.  It would be difficult to find your way through  neighborhood where all the houses look the same and there are no street names and numbers to distinguish them from each other.  You just have to rely on your sense of direction, familiarize yourself with landmarks and learn to orient yourself with the sun.  This is the accommodation where my brother is staying.  I frequently stay here because of its peaceful ambiance away from the city.  The main past-time activity here is basketball and exercise to kill time.  In the background is an exclusive school for girls that in the duration of my stay I never saw a single schoolgirl.  Talk about being exclusive, strict and prohibitive in the superlative.

Travelling in this country is difficult. There are no tricycles, jeep and pedicabs.  The main mode of public commuting is the state-run buses and taxis which are few and not so efficient.  It's hard to get a ride during rush hours.  So the alternative of many people who have cars is to take in hitchikers for a fee, which is a very lucrative for some Filipinos.  This is the Lancer car of my brother.  I was able to drive it for some time when he went back to the Philippines for a vacation.  I do not have a Qatari driver's license and it just took pure courage and confidence to drive around the city despite the stiff penalty, jail time and deportation if ever I got caught driving without a license.  It was a challenging experience for me, deserving an inclusion to my bucket list of adventures.

This is the desert of Qatar. Their sand is not as white as I was expecting.  It has a shade of brown and a little rocky from where we took this picture.  But there are places where sand dunes abound and that is where some desert safaris using SUVs are operated for tourists.

When one goes to the Middle East, people back home will always expect to see you riding a camel and that's what I did!  We got the opportunity during the Christmas break where me and my brother's family who arrived for the holidays went on a road trip to a desert beach resort. 

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It was very cold during that time so there were only few vacationers who are bold enough to take a dip in the ocean.  But there were plenty of foreign tourists who were sunbathing and that's enough already for some of my coworkers to gaze upon for sight-seeing.  You just have to be very careful though because the foreign guests will complain to the management if you are taking pictures of them.