The Doha Daily: doha daily 5/3/06

Since we’ve last “spoken,” we’ve bought a new car, I was in a fender bender with a friend of mine in HER car and I’ve succumbed to putting up the laundry line in the maid’s room – ugh! Actually, my “wife training” (as Thierry puts it) in France for 3 1/2 months in 1999 prepped me for the laundry line experience - it’s really not too bad, just a little crowded in the maid’s room or STORAGE room, as we like to call it. Buying a car here in Qatar is not like walking into a dealership one sunny Sunday afternoon in the US and driving out with your dream car. Here, first of all, you choose the car. Then, you go to a bank where you obtain a loan – our branch happens to be at The Ritz-Carlton : ). Upon approval of the loan which is almost instantaneous, Thierry then had to get two letters from his Human Resource department - one which outlines his salary for the bank, the other, written in Arabic, gives Thierry permission from his sponsor (The Hotel) to obtain the vehicle in the first place and thus gives him permission to have the car registered in Qatar. Once the bank has these letters, it can issue the purchase order for the car, the Car Salesman picks up the papers from the bank along with Thierry’s residency card, gets the car registered and in an ideal world, calls me when it is ready to be picked up. According to Mohammed at the bank, I met with him on a Thursday, we were going to have the car two days later – WOW, done deal, a new car, can’t wait! There’s one minor detail, though…that letter in Arabic. We were totally dependant on the Qatari representative’s schedule and WHEN he was able to write the letter, so that Thierry could get it to the bank. He arrives to work anytime after 3pm and works generally until 6pm, if he comes to the Hotel at all. So 5 days later, we got the car. One thing I CAN say, we did not experience any “buyer’s remorse,” as it took much longer than expected to get the dang thing in the first place, we were just happy to get it at all. The incredible thing is it costs less to fill up the tank of gasoline than it did my Jetta. 90QR’s ($25) And when I picked up the car, the Salesman had left all of the plastic on the seats and head rests. I asked him to remove it for me and he asked, “All of it?” He explained that in the past they had removed the plastic when selling the cars, but people were getting mad, as they like to keep it on the seats to extend the, “Just bought” feeling. Also, the car cannot be released to its new owners until it is determined during registration that a fire extinguisher resides inside the vehicle on the passenger sides floor – yikes!

Tristan and I happily turned in the rental car. Damage check - no problem. Partial payment of the month - no problem. DMV check on the computer to see if I had incurred any tickets?! Whoa, now THAT was scary. You see, you can incur tickets issued by the police at any time yet NOT know it, as they can simply cite you (without pulling you over) for the infraction and inform the Ministry of Interior in charge of traffic. The only way you may know that you have a ticket is if you check your license plate number on their website, or when you are leaving the country, the ticket agent at the airport issues you a bill. A friend of mine has been driving around her husband’s company car and the company performs weekly updates on the website for their fleet of vehicles. Needless to say, she has a bit of a lead foot and her husband was given a bill, or two, or three to pay. The rental car agent turned to me smiling, however, as the results posted on his computer screen clearly stated that I had a clean slate – WHEW!

Jennifer and I went to the souq one day where we heard they sell a lot of children’s toys – BEEP! WRONG! The only things we got out of it were a) to say that we’ve been there, done that (always important) and b) we now know what to do when involved in an accident in Qatar. Stop, Drop and Roll! No wait, that’s a fire. Jennifer, while backing out of the parking space, hit a stationary pole and her new car sustained visible damage. It happened at

1130ish, (right before lunch…). The first thing you are supposed to do is dial 999 and tell the police. Whenever there is an accident, you are not supposed to move the vehicle at all – no matter if you are blocking all three lanes of traffic - this seems to be the one rule that people here DO respect (see DD 4/22/06), and unfortunately, it is almost an everyday, sometimes twice-a-day occurrence. So, we called the police, told him that no other vehicles were involved, to which he told us to bring the car to the traffic department up near the airport to file a report. I specifically asked him if we should come after 4p as we were approaching the noon hour which remember, means, no workie. He replied, “No problem, come up now please.” To the traffic department we went, which is a converted old villa. We parked the car in the parking lot, Jennifer went inside to ask what to do. The gentlemen at the counter told her to go to the car and wait, so that is what we did. 15 minutes later, after watching various men walk back and forth from car to car, some being policemen, others, regular guys, I grew impatient and went back inside to see what was up. I was instructed to see a Mr. Khalid in the back trailer. I went to Mr. Khalid, who told me he wasn’t doing any more reports as it was lunchtime – ARGH! Get my point?! After Jennifer begged and pleaded, Mr. Khalid started the report process, but she was going to have to come back the next morning to pick it up. She did go back the next day, but was asked to come back the FOLLOWING day as Mr. Khalid was off work and no one else there could do the report. (Jennifer realized that it was a case of no one else FELT like writing the report). One must go through this process if they want their car repaired, because insurance will not authorize ANY repairs to any vehicle unless a police report is written.

Until next time, here are some people in our neighborhood. Rajab is the maintenance manager – he rides around on his bicycle and checks up on the guys working in the compound. He speaks no English and I speak no Arabic, but we manage to understand each other. It’s funny – I’ll say something to him and he’ll look puzzled, so I’ll say the same exact thing, only s…l…o…w…e…r, thinking he will now understand me – same same, no comprende. I’ll then catch myself with what I am doing and go a different route. He is actually teaching me a little Arabic and probably doesn’t even realize it.