Cost of Living Update: Food Items

"Look at these lemons," said my wife recently as I walked into the kitchen. The pack of four lemons had a price tag of 12 riyals. "They were a riyal each not long ago."

I realised it was time for an update on the cost of living. I don't believe in giving estimates of how much it costs to live in a country, because it is different for everybody - some people survive on less than a 1000 riyals a month (although survive rather than live is the appropriate word) - while others struggle on 20,000. One thing you should do before accepting a job is build some slack into your cost of living expenses. Unless Qatar abandons the dollar peg, prices will continue to rise.

The cost of goods here were taken either from Carrefour or from Family Food Centre, two of the major food stores in Doha. On balance, Carrefour has proven to be the cheaper of the two.

Exchange rates:

The riyals is roughly equivalent to the following:

1 riyal = 0.27 US dollars/ 0.14 pounds / 11 Indian Rupees / 11.5 Philippine Pesos

To convert riyals to any other currency use this Qatar Currency converter, and to see a more complete and up-to-date list of currencies see this list of Qatar exchange rates. To see more posts on the cost of living click on the cost of living label below.

Note: we will be following this up with updates on the cost of accommodation, buying a car and going out in Qatar.

Food/Drink	Price in Qatar Riyals
Tea Bags (100 bags)	8.50
Sugar	2.50
Salt	2.50
Flour	4
Butter (100 gr)	2.75
Coffee Nescafe (250 grammes)	28.75
Water (1 gallon)	8
Milk (2 litres)	10
Juice (2 litres)	9
Whole chicken (medium)	18
Beef (local)
Beef 1kg (New Zealand)	32
Lamb (local)
Lamb (New Zealand)	34
Tin of tuna	5
Sadia chicken nuggets	13
Chicken sausages (1 can)	9.50
Tin of sardines	1.50
Loaf of bread (white)	4
Jasmine rice (1kg)	10.25
Potato (1 kg)	4.00
Packet of pasta	3
Instant noodles (pack of 5)	4.50
Tray of eggs (24)	23
Cornflakes	10
Tomato ( 1kg)	5.50
Broccoli (1 kg)	21.00
Corn oil ((750 ml)	8.50

Discuss this on the Cost of Living thread

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Qatar Visitor Forum

Update: The forum is now live, and the competition running.

When we first started the Qatar Visitor website in July last year, we discussed whether or not to have a forum. We decided against it, at least for the time being. There were other forums out there, we didn't think we had enough visitors at the time to make it work and we didn't see the need.

We changed our minds.



One reason is that we felt the need to make the website more interactive. At present, there is no way for people to give us any feedback, ask us any questions or just discuss matters with us. This is just one of the ways we hope to change this - we are also in the process of adding a comments section to the articles.

We realise that there are tonnes of good chat and social sites out there - Facebook has a huge Qatar group, and many local users also favour Qatar living for their online chatting. However, the majority of our users (who now number about a 1000 a day) are coming to Qatar Visitor to look for jobs or for information about moving to Qatar - we often get emails when visitors don't find answers to their questions on our site - and we hope to specialise in answering their questions on the forum.

Finally, the best forum in Qatar has started a Qatar guide section - so we thought why not start a Qatar forum section for our guide :)

We will be officially launching the forum on Monday 5th May. At the same time we will be having a competition to celebrate its launch - details and prizes to be announced!

As always, any suggestions will be gratefully received!

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Colour Perception

The human brain is a strange and wonderful thing. It's ability to perceive colour is by no means straight forward.

For instance, take the colour red; it has a tendency to come forward so that a red object looks comparatively closer to the viewer than it actually is. Some people have put forward the suggestion that this is because the earth's atmosphere is blue and that objects far away will have a blue cast to them as the light from them passes through more and more blue atmosphere and that this produces the psychological effect of bringing red objects closer.

Sounds reasonable doesn't it. But at night, green objects look closer and red looks less 'forward'. Try seeing if you can notice this effect with traffic lights, comparing daytime to nighttime.

Most people think of their eyes as the organ that sees the world around us. This is not strictly true as the real visual processing is done with our brains; if the central processing unit (CPU or microprocessor) is the computer equivalent of our brain then our eyes would be the equivalent of the keyboard; they are simply the input device. Our brains are far more complex and capable than any current computer's CPU and this is reflected in the way it works.

For example think of a photograph you have taken indoors, almost certainly with a sodium light bulb (normal household lamp). The photo had an orange colour cast didn't it. That is because the camera can only reproduce what it sees and what is saw was a room flooded with orange light; sodium lamps produce more of the red colours of the visible spectrum than the green/blue end (all the colours of a rainbow mixed together produce white light - literally). If you take a photograph of a room lit by fluorescent lamps the colour cast in the print will be green. But you didn't see an orange or green room when you took the photo did you.

That is because the brain is using its power to 'normalize' the view. It looks at the entire spectrum it sees before it and registers where the ends of the light spectrum are (red at one end and blue the other). It then moves the visible spectrum of the view along so that everything fits into what it thinks is correct. If there is a piece of pure blue paper in the room, the orange lamp would make it look less blue and more orange and a camera would reproduce this effect in the print. However, our brains see the blue paper as being the bluest object in the room otherwise others colours would not fit into its know spectrum. So it slides the spectrum along so that you see the paper as being pure blue.

Moreover, it can make these adjustments at an incredibly fast pace. If you walk out of a shop lit by fluorescent lamps (green cast) you do not momentarily see everything with a blue tint as you walk into the street, the scene in the street outside the shop is immediately corrected to the right colours and no disorientation takes place.




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Qatar Archeology: Discovering Qatar's Past

In the latest of her series of articles on Qatar's Natural History, Francis Gillespie, local author and journalist and coordinator of the Qatar Archeology Project, writes about Qatar's Archeology.

In the article she explores how archeology in Qatar - which, prior to the 1950's, was considered unimportant by locals and of little interest compared to Bahrain - was a late starter. However, when archeologists did come to Qatar they immediately started to make discoveries, with finds dating back to 6000 BC.

Numerous finds have been made since then, some linking Qatar with major civilisations in the past. More discoveries have been made in the last few years, and we are still waiting to find out what excavations currently underway will discover.

Also see:
Qatar History: The Rise of the Al Thanis
Qatar's Early History
Pearl Divers in Qatar

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At the Typists in Sofatel, Doha

Today I was down in the Sofatel area - the area around the Mercure (formerly the Sofatel). We couldn't help noticing the difference between this grimier and grottier area of town - which has been marked for demolition - which is a stark contrast to much of the newer and remodeled Doha.


However, there is a reason people go this area. Not just because of the myriad of small computer shops hidden away below the basement of the Mercure - which contain products you can't find anywhere else in Doha - but also because of the humble but immensely valuable typist shop.



These gentlemen not only type up your documents, they also have an encyclopedic knowledge of Qatar's beaurocracy. They are able to tell you what docyments you need - and what documents you don't need despite having been told you do need - where to go and what to do. They also keep copies of the forms for you to use for free.



All for the cost of a miserly five riyals. And they refused my tip!

Also see: Qatar Visas and our Doha Guide

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Al Jazeera Film Festival starts today

The Al Jazeera international documentary film festival will start today at the Sheraton Hotel, with 90 different films being held over four days. For a schedule and for more information visit the film festival's website.


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Gondolas in the Desert

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Villagio Shopping Mall

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Hunting with Falcons

Our latest website article looks at falconry in Qatar and Arabia, including its history, present day practice and issues with the declining number of falcons and houbara, the favourite prey of Arab falconers. You can also listen to the sounds of the falcons and watch a video of a falconer hunting gazelle.

You may also be interested in the movie below, which shows two saluki hounds and a falcon working together to catch a rabbit.

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Changes to Qatar Sponsorship system

There were dramatically different accounts of what will happen to the sponsorship system in Qatar in Gulf Times and the Peninsula today.

According to the Gulf Times there is to be little change in the sponsorship law, and expatriates hoping for liberalisation of sponsership rules - which currently break international conventions, and have been criticised by the US as encouraging people trafficking - will be disappointed.

One of the so-called changes, removing the right of the employer to retain the employees passport, was already included in Qatar Labour Law, and in any case makes little difference when the employee does not have the right to leave the country without an exit permit.
Intriguingly, the Peninsula has a completely different interpretation:

"The exit permit system is all set to be removed under a new sponsorship regime, suggests the draft of the proposed legislation..."

Expats discussing the law on Qatar Living seem to have accepted the Gulf Times story, and the lack of proposed change has sparked anger, with expats wondering whether they should continue to support the Olympics Games Bids, and questioning the purpose of recent conferences held in Qatar on democracy and human rights.

Also see: Qatar Labour Law

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Qatar Schools: Educational Vouchers

Both the Gulf Times and the Peninsula today reported on the introduction of educational vouchers for parents. Parents who wish to choose approved private or international schools over local education will be given a voucher. The fee is to be the equivalent to the cost of schooling a student in one of the Supreme Education Councils Independent schools. It was not clear from the article whether this voucher will be extended to residents or is only open to Qataris.

The introduction of vouchers is the latest step in a long process of reforming the Education System in Qatar. Rather than trying to overhaul the beaurocratic Ministry of Education the Government decided to set up a new body, the Supreme Education Council.

Independent schools have been set up under the auspices of the SEC, within which a number of different systems of education are used. The takeover process will shortly be completed, with the Ministry of Education finally shutting its doors in 2010.

There have been some concerns over the new independent schools - some subjects, for example, need to be taught in English, but the quality of teachers' English varies hugely. There have also been worries expressed over how well qualified some of the teachers' are. Reform takes time, though, and the new schools are a definite improvement over the older schools.

Many parents in Qatar - including Qataris - choose private schools, which, despite the current inflationary environment, remain very good value compared to many other countries. Children attending the better of these private schools are also more likely to be able to enter some of the world class universities that are coming to Qatar - and which have very stringent entry requirements.

Also see:

Directory of Private and International Schools in Qatar
Directory of Nurseries in Qatar
Directory of Colleges and Universities in Qatar
Directory of Language Schools in Qatar

Image by Nick Q.




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Qatar Lonely PLanet Video

My Google video alert came up with this today - a Lonely Planet video of Qatar. I have actually seen it before, a long time ago, but it is very funny...

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Qatar Expeditions

Qatar resident Fernando De Guama is planning, with the help of his Qatar Sponsors, to walk to the North Pole next year and raise the Qatar flag there. He is also planning to spend the next year training for the trip, with much of the training taking place on the Corniche. You can check out his website on the link below to keep up with the expedition and the training and to see pictures and video podcasts.

Qatar Expeditions website

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Fox report on New Church in Qatar

An American Fox new report on the new church in Qatar.

A rather dumbed down report. At the end the reverend/reporter says:

"Reciprocity - that big word - explained from a Muslim".

You may also be interested in our report on the church: "The Cross shall not be raised in Qatar"

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Qatar Jobs: Do you work harder in Qatar?

Hours of work vary enormously in Qatar. Some people work six or five and a 1/2 days a week, other five, or four and a half, some finish at three or earlier, while others have to double shift. The car salesman who sold me my first car told me he was working 6 1/2 days a week - if this was true his employer was breaking the law, as there are strict rules regulating jobs, and about how many hours and days you can work.

I recently asked a few people if they thought they worked harder than in their home country.

The person who owns my local shop is certainly breaking the rules, if his employees are not exaggerating - one of the employees told me that they work seven days a week, often for fourteen hours a day. They certainly always look tired.

Jeff, a 40 year old American computer engineer, reckoned that he did about the same amount of work as he would do in his home country.

"However, I am asked to do more here, because I have to cover for people who don't do their work."

A friend who works in a major Qatar company also complained about the difference in the amount of work people do.

"There are the new people who have been brought in, who have a different attitude, and want to get things done. Then there are the people who have been here years, and who aim to do as little as possible."

She wasn't the only person who felt that local conditions made more work. I spoke to a Western woman with a senior position in a large organisation who was working very long hours, often finishing late at night, and usually going into work on one of her two days off. I asked her if she had worked as hard in her home country.

"It depends on the position - I have worked very hard before. But I find that I work harder here because of all the inefficiency I have to deal with."

Another Westerner told me that although he had been told he would do five days a week when he joined up, when he started work he found that it was normal to do 6 days a week. It was something he went along with for the first three months until his wife arrived, after which he insisted on having two days a week off.

Government jobs are generally considered the best, although particularly vulnerable to Qatarisation, forworking hours. However, in the Government the amount of work done can vary considerably. Some teachers working for the Ministry of Education actually teach very few hours, while those working for the Supreme Education Council really have to work hard, both with lesson preparation and form filling - and often have to attend training sessions too.

"They tell us we are lucky we don't work in the West," one tired teacher told me. She may be right. An English man who has a senior position at an international school told me that while he works hard here, it was nothing like what he was doing in England.

"My wife and I were working till one every morning, marking and doing administration. And it was at one o' clock in the morning that we decided we had had enough of working in the UK, and started looking for jobs abroad."

However, in my opinion the people with the hardest jobs, especially in the summer, are the laborers. Doing hard physical work in temperatures well above 40 degrees is killing, and you can often see the exhausted workers resting in a scrap of shade intheir lunch time break. Unfortunately for them, they also get some of the lowest wages - despite often having borrowed money to pay their way into Qatar.

I'll finish, though, with my Japanese friend, who thinks Qatar is wonderful.

"In my own country I work very hard. Most nights I only sleep 3 hours, although of course I sleep more on the weekends. In Qatar I sleep five hours every night, and I can still get up and go for a run before work. Qatar is paradise!"

Also see:

Working women in Qatar

Jobs and in Qatar

Qatar Jobs Listing

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The Real Sounds of Qatar: what you can hear from your bedroom

We have been collecting the sounds of Qatar for some time now - I especially like the sound of the Adhan and the animal market. However, while lying awake at three o' clock in the morning listening to the sound of a jack hammer that was so loud it seemed to be in my room, I realised that this is not what I really hear everyday. So I collected the sounds from outside my house over a few days and this podcast is the result:

Qatar Real Sounds

What can you hear from your bedroom?






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Qtel's Mozaic TV+ : review

Review and Information on Qtel's Mozaic TV+ package

(Note - this is a review of the Mozaic bundled tv, telephone and wireless internet service - details of Mozaic Mob can be found on the Qtel website.)

Mozaic’s bundle of wireless internet, telephone and television costs just a little more than their telephone and adsl package would cost otherwise. There are two basic TV packages, Asian or Arabic, and we chose Asian as there seemed to be more English language channels.

Most of the channels available on the Mozaic television are available free on satellite television, but you can easily upgrade to paid packages which are quite reasonable in price: 25 riyals for a children’s package, 25 riyals for an Asian films package and 75 riyals for an international films packages.

To be honest, the clinching factor for us was when our US Robotics router decided to malfunction again, leaving us without wireless internet.

Obtaining Mozaic

As usual with Qtel, you cannot order services over the telephone but actually have to go to a service center and order it.

We went to Hyatt Plaza one afternoon as we have found the service center there to be quiet. Sure enough, there was no one in front of us, so we only had to wait 20 minutes before being called by the surly and rude customer service representative. Mozaic was installed two weeks later.

This time the engineer couldn’t be more polite and helpful. Unfortunately, after four hours the system stopped working and it took two more visits by Qtel before it started working again. On the positive side, Qtel did respond promptly after we reported the problem.

On the negative side the engineers were more like the customer service representative this time. The first one left without solving the problem. In fact we didn't know he was gone - he told us he was just going out to check the external wiring and we never saw him again. The second one did manage to sort the problem, but left us with an unsecure network because it was three o' clock and that was his knock off time.

Did I mention that the first engineer was from a company subcontracted by Qtel?

Price

The standard Mozaic package starts at 250 riyals a month. That's what swung it for us, as we were already paying QAR200 just for our ADSL service. Note that the price only counts for one TV set - additional sets cost extra. There are additional pay per view programmes and films, although we haven't tried using these yet. We weren't charged anything for the installation or the hardware.

What you need to order Mozaic

We took along our telephone number, Qtel number, account number, reference number and so on. It wasn’t enough – you also need your eletricity number. When we gave the customer service representative our Qtel number we were told that we were out of range, despite the fact that three of our neighbours have the service. However, after phoning home to get our electricity number Qtel's computer decided that we were now in range.

Hardware

The hardware consists of a large router (Tilgin AB model Vood 453w_A) which is attached to your telephone socket. While your computer connects to the router via wireless, your television is connected to a Motorala set-top-box which is in turn connected to the router by a wire.

Service

We were a little bit worried about reports of flickering and interrupted service, but any interruptions to our service has been minimal. A friend who has had Mozaic longer than us says the service has improved since he first had it installed. After the first hiccup the television set box has failed to work once, but was fine after being turned on and off.

Friends have reported the same thing to me. While it is not a big problem, it would be very annoying if you wanted to watch a program at a certain time, as the top set box does not start straight away but takes several minutes to load up.

One thing that does me is when the television starts up you get the Qtel logo with the same annoying music that you have to listen when you are waiting to speak to Qtel on the phone. However, that goes as soon as you change channels.

The internet has worked smoothly since being installed - in fact, if anything it is faster and smoother than or previous adsl service. The range of the wireless also appears to be good - I haven't used my wireless extender since installing Mozaic.

Conclusion

So far, so good - although we have kept our satellite box in case anything goes wrong with Mozaic...

More info

Ring Qtel on 111 (option 5)

Your opinion?

Have you installed Mozaic? Had any problems, or is it working well? Let us know!

Also see our website articles; Qtel and Telephony in Qatar and Mobile Phones in Qatar

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Qatar Archeology: Romans in Qatar?

Actually, no - or at least not many.

A recent article in the Gulf Times, based on claims by a rogue archeologist, claimed that Qatar was settled by traders from the Indus Valley, and that the Romans had settlements in Fuwarit, Jessasiya and Umm Almah. You can read the article on the Gulf Times website.

I was very impressed and mentioned it to an archeologist friend - who told me that it was all rubbish. The article was based on claims by an amateur archeologist who had, shall we say, misinterpreted and exaggerated the facts.

According to the Amiri Diwan website the Romans may have been in Qatar at some point - however, this seems to have been limited to a temporary fishing station. The truth is that for centuries Bahrain was more attractive to settlers, because of its fresh water springs and reserves - many of which are now sadly drying up due to over development. As a result Bahrain has a far more interesting history (although not necessarily a happier one!)

Qatar probably was, however, part of Dilmun, a bronze age kingdom that was - wait for it - based in Bahrain. You can read more on our article on Qatar's Early History. (It's not that boring honest. Well, it's short, anyway.)

Excavations in Qatar are continuing and real finds are being made by a Danish team of archaeologists here, and which should be reported shortly.

Image by Stuck in Customs

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Qatar Environment: Waste, Solar Panels and Electricity

After writing my recent post on environment in Qatar, I was impressed to see that Qatar is now planning to start producing electricity from waste.

According to an article in the Gulf Times today, a waste plant which will be opened next year will produce enough electricity (40 mega watts) both to power all the plant's needs and those of its 400 employees and their families. The electricity will be generated through the process of composting organic domestic waste, which can then be used as fertilizer. In total, the plant hopes to recycle 50% of domestic rubbish.

The story follows on from news in February that reports Qatar is considering building one of the largest solar power complexes in the world to meet soaring electricity demand, which is predicted to increase by up to four times in the next 30 years. The solar farm would have a capacity of 3,500 megawatts.

Qatar is also considering additional energy from a nuclear power plant.

Also see Qatar's Natural History by author Frances Gillespie

(Image above by Gin Able)

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