David, who has worked in a number of schools around the world, shares his views and experiences of life in Qatar. 

 

My wife and I have worked in Qatar on two separate occasions, so I suppose that we went a second time which in itself speaks volumes. However our experiences were very different. Our first adventure was our first international experience and our second was when we were more seasoned travellers.

Arriving and living in Qatar.

When arriving in a new and strange country those first few hours and days can be what makes or breaks the whole experience. Our first trip to Qatar we were employed by an oil company school in an outlying town called Al Khor. The school jointly owned by RAS Gas and Qatar Petroleum mainly catered for employees of the Gas companies’ children.  We were met at the airport and taken by coach to our accommodation located on a walled compound where over 3000 expat families of various nationalities were living.

The accommodation was clean and spacious, the facilities on the compound were of hotel standard, swimming pools, restaurants all heavily subsidised by the oil companies. On our first day we were visited by a Qatar bank, local medical centre etc who helped us quickly set up everything we needed to settle into Qatar life. The school organised all the residency requirements which took about two weeks and once residency was gained we were able to buy alcohol from the government sponsored warehouse!

 

On our second trip we were employed by a privately owned school in Doha, and once again the school met us on arrival and took us through all the residency procedures, although this time it did take about two months. We were house in apartment block in the centre of Doha which was totally occupied by teachers. Our accommodation was again clean and spacious, however we were aware that some teachers were in rather dirty and run down apartments, it was I suppose a bit of a lottery.

Generally speaking we found living in Qatar an easy and reasonable enjoyable experience, the cost of living is generally cheaper than the UK and salaries are higher. The only downside for us was it could get boring, once you have visited the desert and the local shopping malls there is little else to do.

Would we go back….Absolutely!