Life in Middle East (Qatar)

[mediawhore]

First off, sorry for typos, have a sleepign baby on me.

Ayway.my husband amd I have been discussing living abroad. A possibility of a job has come up in Qatar - though in my work there are loads of opps in other ME countries.

Need your experiences, opinions, advice please about making the move.

We have 3 kids between ages of 11 and 4 months.

We would be able to stay with my parents whenever we returned to UK and would rent out our house here.

My Hudbamd will be a SAHD. What would he be able to do to stop himself going insane (looking after kids aside obv).

Thanks for any advice.

Hello, I'm in Dubai, not Qatar but I would definitely recommend www.expatwoman.com for a more detailed response to what you will get here. They have a Qatar forum.

There is a poster on here - FellatioNelson - who I believe lives in Qatar - might be worth a pm!

Fab, thanks :)

Ok I'm in Qatar. Felaltio is as well.

I love Qatar but not everyone does. I suggest you check out www.expatwoman.com which should give you a more balanced view than just my positivity.

From my point of view, Qatar offers a good income, decent lifestyle, very safe environment with minimal crime (I often don't lock my car) and the ability to interact with different cultures (which can also be a negative but overall a good thing). I've been here 5 years and have two kids.

Key things are:

1. Qatar is expensive to live in. Rents are on a par with central London. Children have to attend private school and the fees are (reasonably) high, although not necessarily more than in the UK. You're looking at about GBP 8-10k per child per year (and it increases the older they get). You need to make sure the package you get is decent enough to make it worth your while to move.
2. School places are very difficult to get. Not impossible but you might find it difficult and (assuming education is a priority) you should check out school places before making a committment
3. There are a lot of non-working spouses in Qatar but 99% of them are wives. This is changing slowly and I know of about 2 stay-at-home dads but they are limited in numbers. Your husband will find things to do but he will be surrounded by women. I'm not sure how different this is to the UK.
4. The normal way immigration works for stay-at-home parents/trailing spouses is that they are sponsored by the working spouse. This is easy (ish) for SAHM's but not all companies are able to arrange this for SAHD's. I would go so far as to say the majority can't. There are ways around this (for example he can fly in and out of the country on visa runs) but it's something to ask the company you're interviewing with.
5. What field are you in? If you're talking about jobs all over the Middle East I'm guessing construction. Several sectors in Qatar (including construction) operate on a six-day week basis i.e. only Friday's off. You also need to be very careful about who you work for. There are lots of companys who will tell you unrealistic things at interview (for example that the hours are 8-3 and then you get there to discover they didn't mention the 4 additional hours of unpaid overtime expected a day). Construction in particular can be bad for this as there are a lot of small(ish) subcontractors who just seem to ignore the employment law at times but it's a risk in all sectors.

Feel free to PM me.

We did this very thing about 3 years ago and it was incredibly hard on DH. He ended up spending most of the summer in the UK with the kids and found that he didn't really meet any likeminded people there. He was lucky in that he had a few projects he could work on but it is not easy and the worst offenders in the 'looking down' stakes were other expat men who were working.

Its doable but if you will be working very long hours or in a semi-public role (and Doha is tiny so any senior role can be like that) then you need to think this through very carefully.

Feel free to contact me direct if you want further advice.