Ramadan 2019, Day 1 - Settling In

Ramadan started off with an alarm ringing at 3:10am, so that I could get up and have my sohour meal before first light appeared to inform the world that it was time to fast. Being roused from a deep sleep was annoying but I got up and ate the meal on the nightstand. It took me a while to get back to sleep though.

What I forgot about was how bad the traffic would be in the morning. Almost everywhere is on reduced hours and they all start at the same time (at least it appeared to be that way) so everyone is driving to work together. Usually there are staggered hours, most Ministries and Government offices start at 7 or 7:30, other offices at 8 or 9, but now the Ministries are on 9 to 2 as is everyone else. Traffic was worse than usual, yet when I looked out the office windows an hour-and-a-half later the streets had only light traffic. Repeat when work finishes. I came in a half-hour early so that I could leave a half-hour early and beat the rush. It didn't help. Still took double the usual time to get home. Combine that with the fact that everyone is hungry, thirsty, and possibly craving a smoke, and it makes for a bit of tension on the roads. You need to be extra careful as people are more impatient and more likely to quickly switch lanes and speed around.

Got home, and despite having a decent night's sleep I still felt lethargic and wound up napping for an hour. Wasn't feeling great after waking up, a little headachey, which I'm guessing is residual caffeine withdrawal.

Got my iftar prepared:

Vegetable soup with pasta, apple, dates, a hard-boiled egg, slice of wheat bread and two rice cakes, and lots of water of course. No nuts this time, I'm going to try to replace high-calorie nuts with eggs or tuna as the protein. As for dates Muslims will eat an odd number of them when breaking the fast -- it's a hadith that the Prophet would eat an odd number.

It's a bigger meal than most Muslims will eat, they have to go to prayer so they will usually eat a lighter meal, go to prayer, then eat a bigger meal when they return.

It's almost time, just waiting for the call from the mosques to indicate when you can break the fast. If there isn't much noise I can also hear the Ramadan Cannon. I'm sure I'll feel fine after eating.

Ramadan 2019 is here!

The month of Ramadan has officially started. I happened to be playing padel tennis with some friends as the sun was setting when suddenly we heard a series of thundering booms. It was the Ramadan Cannon at the State Mosque, which happened to be nearby. The Cannon was fired four or five times to tell everyone that Ramadan has arrived and the Holy Month has begun.

So time to get meals prepared. The first prayer of the day is at 3:32am so you have to eat the final meal a bit before that, then you fast for the rest of the day, until just after 6pm. No food, not even water. What I always do is keep a meal on my nightstand (dry cereal, nuts, fruit, anything easy to grab and eat in the dark) along with two big glasses of water and a glass of laban. I will be setting an alarm for 3:10am, eat the meal, then go back to bed. Muslims won't be going to sleep, they've got to go pray, hopefully getting a bit more sleep after they return from prayers before heading off to work.

Work hours are reduced because Muslims are fasting. My office has 5-hour work days during Ramadan, but naturally no lunch break. Not that a lunch break would matter much, all the restaurants are closed during the day and eating or drinking in public during the day is a major faux pas. It can be serious, if police are around they'll ask you to stop.

While fasting you can't smoke either so smokers can really suffer, and like food & drink you can't smoke in public during the day. You would think more people would take this opportunity to quit smoking but it seems like smokers just bear with it.


Here's hoping for a great Holy Month. Ramadan Kareem everyone!

Ramadan is Fast Approaching

Another year, and another Ramadan is upon us. My understanding is that the Ministry will be looking for the Moon tonight (which will signify the beginning of the new month in the Islamic calendar). If they spot it then Ramadan begins and fasting starts tomorrow. Otherwise they will look for it the following night and fasting will start on Monday.

As usual I will be fasting like most people here. The first couple of days will be a challenge but after that you get into a groove and it's not so difficult to manage. I've already been working on decaffinating and now I barely drink any caffeinated beverages. Going cold-turkey on caffeine would be the worst and I'm not sure how many people do it. Some of my friends have said, "You get headaches for a couple of days then it's fine", ummm, that's not fine, going through caffeine withdrawal is not my idea of a good time when you're not allowed to eat or drink anything during the day.

Just need to do a bit of shopping to stock up on supplies. If I can keep the Iftar's small, and get out of the apartment so that I'm not tempted to snack, I might actually lose a bit of weight this month. We'll see.

13 Years!

Hard to believe but the 1st of May will mark my 13th year in Qatar. 13 years! I never would have guessed that I would have been here this long.

Coming here was a straight-forward expat story. I was looking for a new job and it so happened that a former colleague had moved to Qatar so when his office was looking for someone with my background he sent me an email to see if I would be interested in applying. A couple of interviews later and I had the job so I packed up and moved to Qatar. Aside from flying in for the interview (and for that I was here less than 24 hours) I had never been to the Middle East before. But it wasn’t the first time I packed up my life and moved somewhere I wasn’t familiar with, when I took a job in Bermuda I hadn’t even been flown in for the interview so I already had accepted the job when I moved there. I like travelling and seeing new places so it wasn’t as intimidating as it might be for many. Being single helped too.

When I arrived Qatar was already in the grips of large-scale change as the Emir was ambitiously transforming the country. Skyscrapers were going up, roads were being built, new malls and museums were under construction, new apartment buildings and compounds were going up everywhere, and Qatar Airways was growing like crazy. When I arrived the population was something like 850,000 people, now it’s 2.7 million. It’s a staggering average growth of 9% a year, and that’s through the 2008 financial crisis and the 2014 slowdown due to the oil price drop so in fact most years it was more, I think in the early days 15% population growth was fairly standard. Construction couldn’t keep up with demand and for a long time the rental prices for homes and offices were sky-high. Everything was challenged by the growth. Ever been to a car dealership where staff didn’t bother you? I have. They didn’t need to bother you, the cars were selling as fast as they were bringing them in so if you weren’t buying it didn’t matter, someone would.

Thankfully the pressure has eased and population growth has slowed somewhat, with the population growing only 50,000 or so a year (only!). Vacancies are up and rents have been easing to a more affordable range. Traffic is still bad though, hopefully when the Metro is finished it will ease things a bit.

Being in Qatar this long has made me an ‘old-timer’ amongst a lot of expats. I actually get gasps of disbelief sometimes when I tell someone how long I’ve been here. I think it’s odd, plenty of expats have been here longer than I have, but in expat circles it seems like 3-5 years is the norm before you move on. My office has something like 100 employees and only two of them have been there longer than I have so I suppose frequent turnover does happen. I think some of the issue has to do with how in the early days there was not a lot to do. Most of the amenities and shopping areas that people use now did not exist when I first arrived: three-quarters of the buildings, 80% of the hotels, most of the malls, Souq Waqif, Katara, the Pearl, Aspire Zone, the museums, they weren’t here. I remember when a new hotel would open, EVERYONE went there (if it served alcohol as hotels were the only new things to get a liquor license), and for the next month it would pretty much be the only place anyone wanted to go. It was somewhere new! Now a new hotel opens and it’s just not an event, there’s tons of hotels so a new one is lost under the radar. I just found out a new 5-star hotel opened months ago. In the early days everyone would be talking weeks in advance of its opening. Not that I go to bars much anymore.

It's surprising how over time my friend group had fewer and fewer Western expats and instead it slowly became more Muslim and Arab. Hence why I do not go to bars anymore, none of my friends drink. I count myself fortunate to have a lot of local friends now, I think it really helped me to settle in and stay for the long-term. In the early days I probably would not have had an issue leaving after 4-5 years if a good enough opportunity came along, now it is not as easy, why abandon a comfortable life to start anew? In other words, I’m not in a rush to go anywhere. Not saying it’s not impossible, life happens and circumstances change, but so far the plan is to be here for anniversary number 14.

Calorie Counts on Menus

In the last few weeks I’ve noticed that cafes are now displaying nutritional information, including calorie counts, of their food and drinks. When I saw Tim Hortons doing it I thought it was a nice thing for them to be doing, but when I noticed a second cafe, then a third, also displaying it that’s when I knew it must have been a change in the law.

I didn’t recall hearing an announcement about that so a quick internet search showed that it wasn’t a recent change. The Ministry of Economy had announced it in mid-2018 but first did a six-month pilot project before it would roll out the new requirements. Looks like the pilot phase is finished and cafes have started putting up signs.

I definitely welcome this change. Trying to figure out the calories in prepared foods can be a real challenge and most times people watching calories tend to under-estimate the amount of calories in a meal. Sometimes logic and instinct don’t work – you’d think that vegetarian falafel sandwich would have fewer calories than the steak and cheese, right? Nope, the falafel is deep-fried and (I’m guessing) comes with high-calorie tahini sauce. Displaying calories and other information has definitely been a wake-up call about some of the things I used to order and I’ve switched to other lower-calorie items.

There are still some challenges with the new rules that the Ministry should issue clarification on. One place gave the nutrition information ‘per 100 grams’, but then doesn’t tell you the weight of the sandwich or muffin. Why not just tell you how many calories are in the entire sandwich? Another cafe displayed calories counts of around 220-280 for most of their sandwiches, I’m a bit skeptical about that and I’m betting that’s for ½ a sandwich or per 100 grams or something like that. The Ministry should tighten the guidelines on this and just tell you the calories in the entire item.

And as far as I can tell it’s only cafes that have been displaying the nutritional information. In the past few weeks I’ve been to three restaurants that I frequent and so far none of them have changed the menus to display the calories. Maybe they have a longer time to phase it in, or maybe it’s optional. Nandos just announced updated menus, hopefully others will follow suit shortly. [update: apparently the rules are different for franchise restaurants vs single-owned places]

The next step would be more education around nutrition. Qataris and other Gulf Arabs have some of the highest obesity rates in the world so need to be more mindful about calories, salt and other issues around food nutrition. Telling someone a meal is 1000 calories doesn’t mean much if you don’t know how many calories you should be eating in a day.

Seatbelt Laws

A long time ago on this blog I noted one of the things that, to this day, I have still not gotten used to, which is seeing children jumping around in a moving vehicle because they are not wearing seatbelts or being in a child safety seat. It’s jarring. I guess it’s because in Canada they are pretty strict about this so the thought of driving around without a seatbelt is just weird to me. But to let kids roam around in a moving car? I don’t think that’s been allowed in Canada since the 1970s.

In Qatar the law is that you only have to wear seatbelts when sitting in the front seats. No requirements if you’re in the back, no requirements to use child safety seats. If I’m in the back of a friend’s car I’ll always wear a seatbelt, it’s just habit so I don’t even think about it, but occasionally someone points it out. Everyone is used to not wearing one so it’s odd to them that I do. But I am an outlier, a recent study published in the UAE noted that only 1 in 8 people wear a seatbelt when in the rear seats – and in the UAE, unlike Qatar, the law requires seatbelt use.

In Qatar the lack of a law for rear seatbelts is having the results that you would expect, lots of children suffering injuries when involved in a traffic accidents.

https://www.hamad.qa/EN/news/2018/February/Pages/Children-and-Teenagers-Most-Vulnerable-to-Injury-and-Death-from-Road-Traffic-Crashes.aspx

Thankfully it looks like things are slowly changing in Qatar. There is a recent educational initiative to promote using child safety seats and wearing seatbelts when in the rear seats. More interesting is that they’ve announced plans to amend the seatbelt law to require mandatory wearing of seatbelts when in the rear seats.

It’s a positive step but I’m hesitant to call it a victory just yet:

–- It’s a plan to change the law. That doesn’t mean it’s final or that it is guaranteed to happen.

–- There was no timetable for when the law would change. It could be this year, could be much later.

–- If the law is changed then it is up to how well it is enforced. If you look at the above link discussing the UAE they have laws requiring rear seatbelt use but everyone is ignoring it. The news article calls for better enforcement of the law to ensure people are complying. A similar situation is going to happen here is Qatar, without significant monitoring and enforcement the law will be ignored and few people will change.


I’m glad that there is a push to change the law in Qatar, and I hope it comes about soon.

Sports Day 2019

In mid-February Qatar has a national holiday to promote sports and exercise, Sports Day. It's held mid-week (probably so that people don't just take advantage of the long weekend to go on vacation).

My office, like many organizations, had activities planned but I received an invite from a friend at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to attend their event at the Diplomatic Club. So on Tuesday morning I met my friend at the event and wandered around.

The Ministry had set up a ton of activities and there were hundreds of people there, I'm guessing mostly embassy workers and their families. Kids really enjoyed the camel and horse rides.

A nice buffet was also available in a hall, but they put the calorie counts with all the food, which guilted me into healthier choices.

I hung out with a falcon for a bit. But for sport my friend and I wound up playing tennis at their court. I knew that they had a tennis court so I brought some racquets in anticipation.

The exercise was probably all for naught though as we left there around noon to go to lunch at a French restaurant on the Pearl. The restaurant is well known in Qatar as it only serves one main dish -- steak with mustard sauce and fries.

It was a good steak though.

Qatar Won the AFC Cup!

Yesterday was an incredible day as Qatar beat Japan 3-1 in the finals to win the Asian Championships. Tons of firsts for Qatar:

-- first time winning (heck, they had never made it out of the group stages before)
-- their star striker, Almoez Ali, had 9 goals in the tournament, a new record
-- Almoez of course won the MVP award
-- Qatar's goalie Saad won best goalkeeper, only 1 goal was scored against Qatar the entire tournament

All the Qataris were telling me that they weren't too fussed if Qatar lost to Japan, beating UAE to reach the finals was good enough. You wouldn't have known that based on the celebrations last night! Massive crowds poured out onto the streets to celebrate the historic win. I was at a friend's majlis watching the game so we didn't go down to the Corniche to get stuck in traffic, but my social media accounts exploded as everyone was posting comments and videos. I must have seen Qatar's goals at least 20 times now.

The timing couldn't have been better. When Qatar was awarded as host for the World Cup in 2022 one of the criticisms was that Qatar had never even qualified for the World Cup before because they never had a great team. No one is saying that now.

Some of the credit would have to be given to the vision of the Aspire Program. Started in 2004, it trains promising kids at Aspire's world-class facilities and provides them with free schooling as well. Some of the early graduates from the Aspire program are now on Qatar's team. It made a big difference.

But the football doesn't stop there. Qatar has been invited to play in the Copa America in June, where they'll play against South American teams. I hope they do well.

Everyone is now really excited to see how the team will do in 2022!

Asian Football Championships

The AFC tournament has been going on for the last month and the tournament has been closely watched by everyone here in Qatar. The tournament is being hosted by the UAE, one of the countries blockading Qatar, but as it was an international FIFA tournament it had to allow Qatar to play. So the Qatari team could go but because of the blockade the fans couldn't go, not an ideal situation. It doesn't help that in the UAE it is against he law to show sympathy for Qatar, punishable by fines and jail time.

Qatar has done really well this tournament. Some credit I think should go to the Aspire Program, allowing young players access to top trainers and facilities. Aspire opened over a decade ago and it looks like it is now starting to bear fruit as the team is really punching above it's weight, Qatar is usually ranked in the 80s-90s in the FIFA rankings but you wouldn't know it from this tournament.

The blockade has added a political dimension to the tournament and everyone was a bit nervous when Qatar had to play against blockade-leaders Saudi Arabia. It turned out fine, clearly players on both teams had been warned to not do anything antagonizing as the game was one of the 'cleanest' I had seen in a soccer match. Few fouls and a more respectful atmosphere than I expected. There were a few Qatari fans (some foreign residents from other countries that decided to support Qatar because they'd have no fans there) and a number of Omanis were showing up to support Qatar. Oman is the most neutral of the Gulf countries and many Omanis were showing up to Qatar games to give an overall message of "Arabs are all brothers and we should support each other".

Qatar made it through to the semi-finals where they would face . . . the hosts, UAE. Ouch, this was going to be tense and there was a lot riding on it. A year-and-a-half long blockade has really upped the rivalry between the countries.

The game was last night and everyone in Qatar was watching. I watched it at a majlis with about a dozen friends. Sadly, it was uglier than the Saudi game. Apparently someone (or multiple) people in the UAE Government purchased all of the tickets and gave them out for free but only to Emirati supporters, thus even the Omanis weren't going to be able to attend. In essence the stadium was an all-Emirates crowd. Lots of booing by the crowd, and when Qatar scored a second goal the crowd started throwing sandals and bottles (why was the stadium selling drinks in plastic bottles anyway?!). Qatar only had one corner kick that game and it was a challenge to do as people were throwing stuff at the kicker. Ugly scenes. The Qatari Team stayed cool and went on to a 4-0 victory, a pretty crushing defeat of the UAE. Qatari players did not stick around long after the match as the coach and others were hurrying them off the field, probably for safety.

In Qatar however the victory was huge. People were out in the streets, and a parade of cars descended on the Corniche. There was no denying it was a comprehensive win.

Qatar now plays the Finals on Friday vs Japan. I've spoken to many Qataris and no one is fussed if Qatar loses that game.

"We won our final", one Qatari proudly told me.

Qatar Has New "Sin Taxes" so Alcohol is Now Really Expensive

On January 1, Qatar announced new taxes. Taxes are pretty rare in this region but in the last while, mostly due to pressure from the oil price dropping, taxes have been introduced across the GCC. The other countries are introducing a 5% VAT. Qatar was going to as well, not that it needed to given it was not running huge deficits, since the other countries in the GCC were introducing the VAT Qatar decided to as well. With the advent of the blockade there was no need for policies that were unified with the other countries so Qatar has postponed implementing a VAT but instead introduced a new tax.

The tax targets specific goods -- soft drinks, energy drinks, alcohol and tobacco. Essentially a "sin tax". And rationale is that the tax will help offset rising healthcare costs due to unhealthy lifestyle choices (alcohol, smoking etc). The tax is huge, upward of 100% on alcohol and tobacco, less (I think 50%) for soda.

So I did something I've not done for a long time, visit a bar in Qatar. I wanted to see what kind of prices the bars were going to have. I went to a place that was more "low end" to get a sense of the base price. Wow!

48 riyal ($US 13.10) for a pint and 42 riyal ($US 11.50) for a bottle! And this wasn't at a 5-star hotel bar, where I will assume it's even more expensive. It's a big jump in price, I think it was around 30 riyal before.

Tobacco has had similar increases. Friends of mine who like to smoke cigars told me that the small box of cigars that they would normally buy for ~250 riyal is now more than 400 riyal.

I do not expect a significant increase to the price of soda. At the store a can is 1.5 riyal ($US 0.40) so if it increased to 2 or 2.5 riyal a can that's not too burdensome.


Smokers and drinkers are I'm sure outraged by the hefty tax but I'm guessing they are here to stay. Alcohol is forbidden in Islam, and tobacco is "makruh" (not forbidden but instead is strongly not recommended) so I doubt many Qataris are going to publicly support removing the tax and thus have their name associated with alcohol and tobacco. Without some support from Qatari citizens the chances of foreigners getting the tax reduced is pretty much nil.

Expensive drinks are here to stay. Drinkers might need to cut back (the whole point of the tax of course).

2019 ExxonMobil Tennis Tournament

It's tennis season again here in Qatar and this week was the men's tournament. A friend of mine got a bunch of us tickets to the final.

Now I like following tennis and Doha is always an important tournament, it's in the opening week of the tennis year and for many players the tournaments held this week (Doha, Pune and Brisbane) are the only warm-up tournament a player will enter before the Australian Open. Thus tennis watchers keep an eye on who is doing well and who is struggling as it might indicate front-runners for the Australian. Doha pays better-than-average money so lots of players come here. This year the buzz was around world #1 Novak Djokovic (is he still in his impressive form from last season?), 3-time Grand Slam winner Stan Wawrinka (has he recovered from injury?), up-and-coming young-gun Karen Khachanov, and top-10 Thiem who has been a dangerous opponent in 2017.

Well, none of them made it to the final. Both Djokovic and Wawrinka lost to the Spanish player Bautista-Agut, a sometimes top-20 player who is a bit of a wild card as he gets the occasional fairy-tale run. Like this week.

Hey, whatever works. The final was Bautista-Agut against back-from-injury top-10 player Tomas Berdych. Odds favoured Berdych but Bautista-Agut kept the magic run going and won. It was a bit tense in the 3rd set, Bautista-Agut has triple break point and blew it, then faced double break point the next game, but managed to calm down, refocus, and get out of trouble.

Had you asked me at the start of the week I'd have never picked Bautista-Agut as a potential winner but his win was well deserved. The tennis world is now abuzz about it, he beat three solid players in a row (Wawrinka, Djokovic and Berdych) to win. Wow! Thanks to the win be sure to look for Bautista-Agut's name as one of the bookie's dark-horse candidates for a deep run in the Australian Open.

In February is the ladies tournament. I hope some top players show up for that.

Reflections on 2018

So ends another year in Qatar. I have no plans to move so with luck I'll be here for a while yet. Meantime, as is my usual custom, here's a recap of some photos throughout the year.

At the Robot Restaurant. Shinjuku, Japan.

With a new friend. Vancouver.

Trying a brainwave detector. Seattle.

On the beach having a shisha. Bodrum, Turkey.

This guy did a good job singing Beatles covers despite not knowing English (he memorized the words). Random bar on the side of a highway, near the Laos border, Northern Thailand

Enjoying the skyline. Osaka, Japan

At the corner of Haight and Ashbury. San Francisco

Wandering around Souq Al Wakra, Qatar.

It's raining but it's still a nice view. Phuket, Thailand.

Trying out a new hairstyle, courtesy of my niece.

I did alright. The Strip, Las Vegas.

A watch, immobilized at the time the bomb hit. Hiroshima, Japan.

At a Borg exhibit. Seattle.

A resort in the jungles near Chiang Mai, Thailand

At a camp with friends (and friends of friends). Dukhan, Qatar.

Witnessing the sacrifice of animals for Eid Al-Adha. Mudanya, Turkey

Owls! They're so soft and cute. An owl cafe, Ikebukuro, Japan

And best wishes to everyone for the New Year!

Souq Waqif Update

It's winter! That means the temperature is nice enough to go walking around in the evening. It had been a while since I've been to Souq Waqif so I went down to see what changed over the summer.

First, the latest stock of falcons is in the shops. I saw a few Qataris looking at the birds, shopping around for the perfect hunting falcon.

Crossing over to the restaurant area I was surprised to see that a Novo Cinema opened in the Souq! It doesn't look very big but actually most of it is underground, the building is just the entrance.

And at the end of the restaurant area they've opened the stairway to the new Musherib neighbourhood. Some of the Musherib area is open and it looks like there will soon be shops and cafes opening. There was also a new hotel that looked like it would open soon.

I didn't realize that Musherib also is developing a light rail service to take people around the neighbourhood.

That rail service will be a great way to get around when everyone arrived at the metro station. It looks like it's almost ready but the buildings around the station are still under construction.

I'm really looking forward to the metro. Some of it will be open soon. There were rumours there would be a soft opening on Dec 19th but Qatar Rail made a press release denouncing the rumour. Anyway, it'll be soon.

Dhow Festival at Katara

Thursday was American Thanksgiving and I was invited by some friends to a restaurant that had a special Thanksgiving menu for that evening. Dinner was going smoothly when at around 8pm we noticed through the restaurant window some fireworks at Katara. We weren't sure what it was (it certainly wasn't to celebrate Thanksgiving) so I did a quick look at Katara's website and found out it was the annual Dhow Festival week and they had fireworks in the evening.

On Saturday evening I happened to be in West Bay and didn't have anything much to do so I remembered the Dhow Festival and went to Katara to check it out. Surprisingly the traffic was pretty heavy at Katara. I didn't think there would be big crowds but it looks like the festival has gained in popularity over the years so there were a lot of cars. Parking on the street was impossible so I went into the underground car park, which though crowded still had plenty of spots at the back.

Katara was full of people for the event.

On display were a number of dhows and areas where reenactments of back in the day when working on dhows was a significant part of Qatar's economy, whether for fishing, pearling or trading. Back before oil came along. I don't think many Qataris are involved in operating traditional dhows anymore, at the Festival it looked like it was mostly Omanis demonstrating the traditional ways.

The dhows were parked just offshore but they had large piers so you could walk to them. A couple of them were even open for people to climb onto. Apparently there were some races earlier in the day as some had signs declaring they had won a race.

Unfortunately the Festival is over now. Next year if you get a chance take the family. You might want to bring snacks though, every restaurant and food stall (and many had been set up for the festival) was busy.