The Doha Phenomenon

There's a strange phenomenon about living in Doha. Any new task you need to do, different product or service you need to buy, or new place you need to go to can be unfeasibly difficult. There are few street names, and anyway people never use them and instead navigate by landmarks or roundabouts which all have their own names. As well, all streets seem to be simultaneously under construction or reconstruction and so a new map you buy today is likely to be already out of date. It is hard to track down a phone book. Names of businesses change. Prices are not fixed. Everything is word of mouth. Customer service is polite but ineffectual. There is no postal delivery service. And it's hot so you often feel uncomfortable when you are trying to work it all out. If you are someone who needs everything to be written down and stable, better to live somewhere else. Strangely it all sort of works and you get used to it but there are some days when it all seems chaotic and frustrating. Yet people here can be extraordinarily charming, kind and helpful. Yesterday was a fine example of the Doha Phenomenon.

It started when I went to visit a new friend, Leila. She's a lovely Lebanese Canadian. Her husband is called Ossama, anglicised to Sam. He and Ian get on like a house on fire and when they talk they look comically like twins. These were the directions to their house: Go to Rayyan Municipality roundabout, turn left back towards Al Waab. Go to another roundabout, turn right. Pass an almost-completed 90 villa compound and turn right after the compound. Turn first left in front of a mosque onto a gravel road. Go to the end and bear left to the second to last villa at the end of a group of ten villas.

These directions are completely typical. Always followed by the contact number so that you can ring from your mobile when you get lost.

I nearly made it.

I ended up driving through an unexpected building site and calling Leila to talk me in to her house. Unfortunately just as I was near her house I hit a curb where a parking bay jutted out and my tyre went flat within three seconds. The wall of the tyre was ripped out. Leila came out and we were starting to figure out how all the tyre changing stuff worked. She had never changed a tyre in her entire life. Of course I hadn't practised tyre changing in my new car. But we got out the spare and had all the jack and tyre changing bits and pieces out and were just getting started.

Then all this wondrous help came out of the woodwork. A Qatari man pulled up behind us and walked over, resplendent in his snowy-white thoub (robe) and agool/gutra (headcloth and the black device that holds it on). He walked up to the front tyre. "Very bad," he said, "and this is no kind of work for ladies!" He set to work and refused any kind of assistance from us, or from the drivers of all the other multiple cars that pulled up and offered to help. "Thank-you so much, shukran jazila," I said. Leila was much more effusive. "Qatari people are so kind," she said, "and during such a special time of the year [ramadan]. Bless you, and bless your family." His agool and gutra came off and were put on the bonnet and at one stage he was sitting on the dirty pavement. When he finished, his thoub was dirty and he had a huge smudge of tyre rubber on his forehead and nose. "Your nose is dirty," I said when he finished, "and look at your clothes!" "I know," he twinkled, "I can see it when I look down. But it does not matter, I live very close." He took the tissue I offered and wiped his face and off he went. "Ma'asalaama!" Leila and I went back to her house to cool down before I went to pick up the kids from school.

When I got home I started trying to find out where to get a new tyre and if I needed to get a police report. There's a major holiday, Eid al Fitr, beginning on Saturday and I had one day to sort it out. After some clever sleuthing, I found the number of the Hyundai Service Centre in Doha. I was told to ring their Spare Parts Centre. Which wasn't open until 8pm, "Ramadan hours Ma'am." At 8pm I started again. I called the Spare Parts Centre. "What make of tyre is it, Ma'am?" I went out in the dark and peered at the tyre and could make out faint Arabic letters. "I can't tell you," I said, "but I need it fixed tomorrow. Please tell me how I can get my tyre fixed." "Do you have tyre warranty Ma'am. It should have been given to you with your new car papers." "No, I was not given any tyre warranty with my new car papers." "Well Ma'am," said the voice on the phone, "anyway you cannot get tyres from the Spare Parts Centre." "Where then," I asked with restraint, "can I go to get my tyre fixed?" "Madam, you need to go outside." Silent scream. "Can you give me the name of the outside place that will fix my tyre?" I asked. "Oh yes Ma'am. I have the number right here."

You just need to find the right question to ask.

I called the outside tyre place and asked where they were. "Just over the Jaidah Flyover Ma'am. Directly opposite Home Centre. You know Home Centre near Jaidah Flyover? You come now. It will be 500 riyals." Great. I know the area alright, right in the middle of massive ramadan evening traffic, ten minutes away during light traffic but three-quarters of an hour at that point in the day. Ian arrived home from work at that moment, just as I was feeling a bit tired. "No, absolutely not dorling. You are not going off in the middle of the night to get your tyre changed. Give me the keys."

It took him three-quarters of an hour to get there. The tyre place directly opposite the Home Centre was not the place I had been talking to. When Ian refused to have them fit a non-matching tyre to the car, they then pointed him towards the tyre shop he had been trying to get to. It was down an alley opposite Home Centre. But you could see Home Centre when you stood outside their shop. They efficiently fitted the proper tyre. "That will be 1,300 riyals," they said to Ian. He put on his Face of Thunder and used his Growly Voice. They checked with a Higher Authority. "That will be 380 riyals sir."

That's the sort of day I call the Doha Phenomenon.