Life in Qatar: What Qatar needs but doesn’t have...
I usually write about what Qatar has, so for a change I thought about what Qatar doesn’t have. It’s not quite as full a list as it would have been when I first came here (Virgin has come, with a decent range of books, as have apple computers, a decent forum (Qatar Living) and a decent online newspaper (Qatar Journal)) but Doha is still far behind many other international cities.
1. An ice-cream parlor. On the Corniche, with decent ice-cream (not the rubbish they sell at the cafe near the Sheraton), air-conditioning (of course) and comfortable seats with views overlooking the bay.
2. A theatre. And I mean a theatre where productions are actually put on, not the National Theatre where nothing ever seems to happen.
3. An opera house. Not that I like opera personally, but if Doha is ever going to become a respected international city it needs an opera house.
4. A decent supermarket. Carrefour is just not as good as a British supermarket. (Why on earth do you have to queue to weigh your vegetables, when you could do it at the same time at the checkout?)
5. A leisure centre. And I don’t mean a five star hotel where you can become a guest to use the facilities, but a facility provided by the government with reasonable prices, where people can swim, go down slides, play badminton e.t.c.
6. Public swimming pools. Same again - why do I have to join a club to go for a swim?
7. Swimming courses for young children. I asked for my daughter in one of the hotels and the instructor laughed. “You can’t teach children younger than six,” he replied. I didn’t tell him that my wife and daughter attended a course in the UK when my daughter was just a few months old. (Now available - see update below.)
8. Better libraries. If you go to the National Library you’ll find that most of the books on Qatar are just not there. That said, you can find the odd gem there.
9. Mother and toddler community. (My wife’s suggestion – she misses hers from the UK.)
10. Maintained beaches. You shouldn’t need to own a landcruiser to get to a decent beach, and you shouldn’t need to keep sandals on your children’s feet so they don’t cut their feet on glass. And you should be able to buy an ice-cream or rent a beach shade while you are there. In fact, there is probably a killing waiting to be made for some business minded person...
In fact I was in Spain over the summer, and every morning they had the beaches cleaned. If Spain can do it, Qatar, which despite being incredibly rich has no minimum wage, can certainly do so.
11. Amusement park. Yes, I have been to Aladdin’s Kingdom, and no, I won’t be going back. The good news is that Qatar will have a theme park – several in fact – when Entertainment City is finished. The bad news is it’s going to be some time before it’s finished.
12. A decent postal service. Why do I have to join Aramex to get my goods delivered on time?
13. And a postman to deliver the mail.
14. And an address for him to deliver it to.
15. An island with palm trees. Wouldn't it be nice to have a beautiful island in the middle of the bay, which you could visit by dhow, where you could relax under a tree on a beach ... You could call it something like Palm Tree Island... What? They had one and demolished it? Nooooo.....
16. Solar power. How can they have all this sun and not make use of any of it?
Anyone, that's all I can think of now. I am sure I'll be adding to this list, though. Please leave a comment if you think I have missed anything!
Update: One of the comments left below suggested an update two years on from the original post. To be honest, not a lot has changed, and some things have got worse (with Al Wakra's beach being demolished.) One thing that has improved is swimming - there are now a number of swimming clubs where children can learn from a young age.
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