Day 203 - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

I give credit to Lincoln Jones for meeting my husband. The day of Lincoln's memorial service, the day that I asked members of Doha Players what I could do that evening so I could avoid going home to spend the evening alone, that was the day I met Alex. And the reason I met Alex was that I spent that evening thinking about what Lincoln would do if he were in my place.

Image by Valerie Everett, via Flickr.com

For example, instead of just standing behind the table with the T-shirts and trinkets with the Doha Players logo on them, waiting for the people on the other side of the table to ask me questions of tell me they would like to buy something, I asked each person if they had been to a play at Doha Players before. Through that simple question, I learned who was also new in town and who had been in Doha for years. One of the people I met that way was James who was in Doha teaching English as a Second Language, something I had in common with him, or at least something my former self had in common with him. As a result of that conversation, James knew that I was new in town so he invited me to the party that was always held on the last night of a show. If I hadn't struck up a conversation with him, he might have assumed I already knew about the party which would have meant I would have gone home after the performance.

So I followed James to the party. When I arrived, I didn't sit back and wait for people to ask me questions. i started asking questions of everyone I met there, too. Simple questions, not earth-shaking ones.

British Bar

There was music in another room, but I stayed in the foyer where the bar was - nearly every Brit in Doha had a bar at the entrance of their home or in a corner of the living room. And I talked with the people around me. One couple I met that night, Dave and Anne, had been in Doha for many years. In addition to his work for a Qatari company, Dave had a weekly radio program featuring jazz. Since there was only one English-language radio station in Doha, all the Brits and Americans knew Dave's voice. I was delighted to meet Dave in person that night.

There were two other Brits, Doha Players members, who had daily radio programs, featuring Western popular music - the Top Ten hits and other rock and roll music: Chris and Matt. Chris was nearing middle-age, although he had a Peter Pan quality. He seemed pleased when he told me that he had been having an affair with both a woman his age and her daughter. I think he was trying to impress me, but it certainly didn't work. He was the director of most Doha Players productions and well-known for getting involved with the youngest leading lady of each production.

Matt, in contrast, was still in high school. For Doha Players, Matt was usually in charge of the sound system and helped out with the lights - a backstage star.

While I was sitting at the bar with Anne and Dave, Alex walked by and Dave grabbed his arm to introduce him to me. He advised me to get to know Alex because he was a Geordie, the salt of the earth. Alex and another Doha Player member,Tom, had built the set for the play, but Alex had been back in England the two weeks of the performances so he hadn't seen it. Dave's biggest reason for advising me to get to know Alex was that Dave warned me the wives of the men who were in Doha would be suspicious of me unless I was known to be in the company of one man all of the time. Most of the wives would leave Doha for the summer so I guess they would worry about the designs of the single women on their husbands.

Alex asked me to dance at that point and he told me he would only be in Doha for another nine weeks as his three-year contract was about to end, but he would be happy to show me around all corners of Qatar - the good bits, the bad bits, and the ugly bits. At that point I had only three weeks before I planned to leave Doha for a month of R&R so of the nine weeks Alex had left on his contract, I would only be in Doha for six of them.

When it seemed time to leave the party, everyone seemed worried about my driving home alone. They all knew someone who had been stopped by the traffic police at night, so many people only took taxis at night. I assured everyone that it was unlikely I would be stopped since my car had diplomatic plates. Besides, I knew I had a guardian angel.

The next week Alex offered to take me to see the Doha Zoo. I didn't even know there was a zoo in Qatar. I wasn't sure there were any animals in Qatar that were big enough to need cages in a zoo. While I was in Washington during my training ahead of my move to Qatar, I had gone to the National Zoo and had looked throughout the entire campus for animals native to the Arabian peninsula. The only ones I found were large-eared, hopping mice called jerboas, kangaroo rats, dung beetles, other insects and snakes. I knew there was a species of antelope called the oryx, but I don't recall seeing one at the National Zoo.

Sandra and Alex

Alex showed me around much of Qatar in the three weeks before I left for my R&R trip home. On my return to Doha, I flew through London where I changed planes. When I got onto the plane for the London to Doha leg of my flight, I found Alex in the seat next to mine. He had flown back to England to make arrangements to extend his stay in Doha by two more years so that we could leave Doha together at the end of my tour.

And that is what we did.