Qatar does not participate in daylight savings time so instead of EST being 8 hours behind us, it's only 7. This is both good and bad. When we were in France, 6 hours was just managable. It wasn't so different that it seemed like a different world when we were speaking to our friends and family on the east coast. Once we creep past 6 hours, for me it just seems not only harder to calculate, but just more complicated to make calls. We have been generally telling our friends and family as a rule of thumb not to call us past 1pm EST on any given day. That way, we won't be woken up in the middle of the night :) Before daylight savings time set in, I would wake up at 5am and make my phone calls because it was 9pm in NY; not too bad! But, now that we're 7 hours difference, I almost need to wake up before 5am and that's just too early most days!!!
When we first arrived here, Eric informed me that he would be getting a ride with a shuttle to work (90KM away) and he would be leaving at 5:15am. I decided before we moved here that I wanted to get the most out of my days so I would wake up with him. We would wake up a 4:30, just before call for morning prayer....Since this is a Muslim country, all the mosques (there are over 200 mosques in Doha) have speakers at the top. Five times per day, the Muslims are called to prayer by a singing or chating into the microphone that then is broadcasted throught the city. All of the mosques do this. Then they do it 10 minutse after the first call to remind the Muslims that they will be praying now and if you are not at the Mosque, get yourself there quickly! It was a little frightening the first time we heard it because it has a very distinct sound and it sometimes sounds like the man singing, calling people to prayer, is in pain. In total, we hear this 10 times per day. Once at sunrise, ten minutes later, then at mid-morning and ten minutes later, then mid-day and ten minutes later, then mid-afternoon and ten minutes later and then at sun-set and ten minutes later. There are many days that I don't even hear the call to prayer which is strange because it is loud and broadcasted in all of the stores, etc but it's become something we have grown to appreciate about living here.
So, for two weeks, we had a great schedule of waking up around 4:30am, having some breakfast, and being able to talk before Eric left for work. Unfortunately, Eric found someone in our complex who leaves at 4am so Eric now rides with him. He wakes up at 3:20am!!! That to me, is just the middle of the night! I told him I just couldn't wake up that early.
Anyhow, waking up relatively early (5:30 or 6am) is not a problem here. In France I had the hardest time waking up in the winter because it would be 8:30AM before it got light. Even then, it was light but mostly overcast. Not in Doha! It starts to get light around 5:45am. By 7am, it feels like it's 10am because the sun is shining so brightly.
Another thing that I might have mentioned before is that the work week is Sunday to Thursday. This is because Friday is the Muslim's holy day. I don't have a big problem with the Thursday being the start of the weekend, but it's when we are working on Sunday and I make a phone call to someone in NY or wherever on early Sunday morning and it's still Saturday night for them....that's the hard part. People who have been living here for 5 years tell me they still call the work week Monday to Friday.
More info on our life to follow in another post...
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