January 10, 2008
Doha, Qatar

Ok, so I sent this email to my folks about getting the medical exam done and I thought it might be interesting. Before I put that in here I got to try some Lebanese food last night. It was good but it was so much food! I love the flat breads here. They are good for dipping in soups and dips. I am not a huge fan of hummas, but it was pretty good at the restaurant.

Went to the medical exam today. Let me tell you about it. First we were in the small van for about 30-40 minutes getting to the medical place. I think it was called The National Medical Authority, or something like that. The men were shown to one portion and the women to another portion of the building. So we walked in and then we went to a nurse who filled out a form and asked us is we were married or single. We then got in line to pay the QR 100. After we paid they gave us this form saying what we needed with our information on it. This form was scanned at every stop. We paid and they sent us to the blood drawing room. They had at least 2 rooms with 2 tables each for getting blood out. The lady had a hard time with me, she had to go out of the top of my right hand and it hurt. They weren’t able to get much and I almost passed out. They waved an alcohol swab in front of my face and made me lie down. After that they had a doctor escort me to the x-ray room so if I fainted I would be with someone. I changed into my white shirt, thank God I brought that!, and they took the x-ray. They stamped my form at both places. After I got dressed again after the xray I was done. The changing room was disgusting, like body order, which isn’t uncommon around here. I waited for another lady and was able to talk to 2 of the other ladies that came with us. One is from Dijon, France (like the mustard) and works for a nonprofit here, the other came with her husband and is looking for a job. The lady without a job is from Egypt and she taught be the numbers from 0-10 in Arabic, yes it is hard. I know the Arabic letters for the numbers too. After a little bit everyone came back out of the building and we headed back to campus. Inside the women’s side there were no men, not even doctors. A lot of the women wore the abyas (spelling?) with the ninja masks (that is what we call them). As a female, they had no problems touching me, which was interesting. They also put a Qatar Foundation sticker on the back of my passport with the TAMUQ logo on it. I guess that is so they know who my sponsor is in country. I should get the passport back soon. To do the paperwork I had to give up my passport until, well, when they give it back. It shouldn’t be too much longer.