Need help with timing of move

If you are on the West Bay side of town - I highly rec. Starfish Lane Kids. Great place.

If you call the Qatar Embassy in Washington DC - they will send you a welcome package and it should include the Marhaba (welcome) book. All the nurseries advertise in there and it is a good source of information in general about living here.  

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Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

for premium (or executive) housing due to your husband's CL level, then you are one lucky girl!     You will be given around 4200sq ft home.   4 large bedrooms, living room, dining room, 2 family rooms, office etc etc.   Large yard, possibly even with a private pool.  All EM villas (even 3 bedroom ones)  come with maid's quarters. 

On another note,    if the family comes all together you are much more likely to get into your permanent villa.   Like he says, if the husband arrives solo, he will be put into an apartment.   He is right that you risk others scooping up the available home the later you arrive.   It's a first come, first served basis, with families having precedence over single arrivals.

Everything he said was true, sounds like he is a good source of information.

Also, your child will not qualify for ASD (American School of Doha) as they have to be 4 when school begins.  

That's great info, deedee -- thanks.  He will likely arrive around the third week of April and hopefully I can convince him of the importance of getting our son signed up (or on a waitlist) somewhere.

My husband's predecessor, who is still in Doha, sent us an e-mail last night (see below).  Let me know if you have any thoughts on it.  Again, many thanks for any/all advice. For what it's worth, we "qualify" for the "premium" housing. . .but I suspect that "qualify" by no means can be translated as "you are guaranteed"

He said:

On your question of coming solo until ummer is over really depends on your personal/family situation. Personally  would think about bringing them along in April to try to get them cclimated and plugged into the network (pre-schooling/maid/etc). Schooling is tight (even at the American School of Doha), but I have confirmed that

it should not be a problem to get your child into pre-K provided they are age qualified (I think it's 4, but may be birth date specific - HR should be able to advise on this and getting the paperwork in). Nursery/day-care schools are more challenging and hence this is where the network can help.

Summer is when most of the movement happens so you will be able to possibly

pick up a maid from a departing family (good to be here in advance to get

the network built and word out that you are looking). It is not easy to

find live-in maids, but you will eventually be able to. We struggled for a

short time, using others' maids to clean house a couple days per week for

the first couple of months. We ended up finding our live-in by "word of

mouth" referral from a neighbor whose maid knew of someone coming from the

Philippines. We've had her with us the whole time we've been here and she

is quite good, but she is not going to be available as a live-in once we

depart (she may have part time availability). With your kids ages I would

highly recommend the live-in to give you and your wife maximum social

flexibility.

On Housing, it will be up to the housing committee. That said, they have a

process (not 100% clear to all, but they try to be consistent). CL 31 or

above qualify for "premium" housing - essentially 2 open houses in Laguna

Beach and one in QIPCO (both of these are in the West Bay area close to the

golf course. CL 28-30 can still get into some nice new units in the West

Bay area as I know some are available. If you come solo, you will likely be

in corp/apartment housing until closer to when the family comes out in

August. That said if you are only a month ahead of the family they will

probably just put you into your house. The risk of the family coming later

is that you will be in the summer crush and others may get here sooner and

scoop you on some nice available homes.

 There is probably 0% chance you will get the villa of the person your husband is replacing.  It does not work that way.

All the  EM compounds are in the West Bay area.   Concentrate your preschool search there.  You will not want to travel far for preschool,  trust me.  The traffic in Doha is horrendous!!!!  DO NOT spend your money coming for a look around.   Your are not trying to get them into Harvard at this point.  Have your husband spend a morning looking at a couple of schools and sign your child up.   He can even hold places by registering at 2 or 3 schools and then let you decide in the fall.   However, EM will only reimburse you for 1 registration fee.   I held places at 2 schools for my son  (500QR each  or $125) before making a final choice    Here are some choices in West Bay that a lot of EM kids attend:

 Creative Child

Starfish Lane

Fun First

like CESK said, Have your husband get the Marhaba Magazine (he can get this from work or the grocery stores) and send it to you.    It has tons of info on Qatar and is a fabulous resource.

You will be able to get domestic help if you want it.   Many EM people have live-in maids/nanny's.    It is quite reasonable here.    With 2 little ones you may wish to consider it.   It's the quality of the help that takes a while to sort out, but it can happen.  Good luck

hi everybody my name is saravanakumar from india . how is the cost of living in doha near airport

Here's the link from doing a search on the www.expatwoman.com site (old expat woman qatar site) 

http://www.expatwoman.com/vbulletin/search.php?s=&action=showresults&searchid=874844&sortby=&sortorder=

This is the new site www.expatwomanqatar.com

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Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

To be honest, there are many good reliable agencies where you can hire nannies/maids from (a bit pricey but better going with an agency) if one doesn't work out they will bring another (within the first 2 months I think) without extra charge.  I would advise you to be strict but fair! By all means treat them well etc. but beware, I know many expats that have fallen into the trap of letting them have too much freedom, which has ended with the maid being deported/jailed and the sponsor (you!) in deep trouble, after all you are responsible.  I will get the list of pre-schools off to you tomorrow.  If there's anything else please feel free to post or PM me directly.  I've been here over 20 years, so should be able to help in most ways!  It's a great place to live, especially with young children, but you have to make the effort, it doesn't always just come to you.   

That would be very helpful -- thanks so much.  (BTW -- what is forum etiquette on replies like this -- should I send it to you privately?  My apologies if I've violated a rule.)

We have no idea where we're staying yet.  Apparently the guy my husband is replacing lives in a very nice villa, but I don't know if that's the one we'll be getting.  The fact that I probably won't be moving over until the Fall further complicates things because I can't imagine the company moving my husband into the house while we're still here in Houston.. .so maybe we'll get that house (no idea where it is) and maybe we won't, which means that he can contact the schools and maybe even get him into one, but it may or may not work well with where we're living.

Int'l moves are such a pain in the butt. . .sigh. . .this is my first one with kids, too.  I was really hoping we'd end up somewhere with a plethora of quality domestic help, but it doesn't sound like that's the case either. 

Hi,Sorry to hear about your dilema!  As Novita and everyone else say, summer is too hot, especially coming from the 'real' world!  Come in Sept or even Oct when the heat dies down a little.  If your husband is due over in April/May let him get in touch with the pre-schools (Marhaba Mag is an excellent source of info.) I suggest you give him a list of questions you want answering, let him call first , then short list a few to visit.  Do you know which area you are staying in yet?  The traffic is awful so it's something to consider too. If you will be doing the school run, or near your husbands work if he will be.  I can email you a brief list of contact numbers of pre-school, some have email too.  Hope this helps.

Sorry to be an idiot, but could you give me the link to the forum I should be searching on Expat Woman? I am searching and searching but not finding the right one.

Thanks in advance! 

Thanks. ..that's what I needed to hear, even if it was exactly what I did not WANT to hear

Will take a look at the Expat Woman site for the nanny question - thanks for the referral. 

Just saw on the other thread that your oldest is only 2.5. I wouldn't fly over here for nursery school. At worst he'll just have to hang out at the house or a "not-your-first-choice" nursery for a while until a place opens up at a place you like. Move over no earlier than Sept ( if you want to avoid some pretty bad heat), get settled and then find a place you like near your house.  

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Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

September will be too late to get him into anywhere decent. Most places right now is too late. You need to get on the phone and see which ones will put you on the waiting list via the phone or you need to fly over and start pounding the pavement. Most waiting list are closed out or full. Need lots of friendly PR work to be successful.

Another helpful site -

www.expatwomanqatar.com

For your nanny questions - search the old expat woman site -

www.expatwoman.com - then go to the Qatar/Other Middle East chatboard - this is for searching purposes only as the new site is up and running.  I don't think the new site's database is hooked up to the old forum so that's why you should search the old site but post questions on the new site. Whew, sorry so long!

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Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

Will I still be able to get him into school for the fall if I don't show up until September?  Should we do a quick look-see visit (at our expense for the entire family - ugh) just to fill  out paperwork for the preschools.  We don't know where we'll be living yet, so I worry about that. . .last thing I want to do is to put him in a school that ends up being a bad commute. . .or worse than average

Thanks! 

i agree with novita, weather will be too much hot like Novita

"keep smiling"

"Make a difference or make way"

Its gonna be really hot at that time. Like Novita said....everyone tries to leave the place at that point in time. Other than that everything works out fine I guess

july / august in Doha .... the place is like ghost town. Most mums went home with kiddies ... all coffee morning and expat gathering shuts.

1 or 2 nurseries opened for summer camp ... but apart of that everything is dead.

mind you traffic would be dead quiet though