If you read old links on this site and expatwoman.com, you can have a lot of questions answered. When my husband and I were planning on moving out here, we used the forums extensively to find out as much as I can.
I'll try to tackle two of your questons here: pet and maid.
Pet: Again, I posted an extensive message relaying my experience of bringing a pet out to Doha about a month ago. Instead of retyping, I'll summarize briefly. There are two types of restrictions here: breed restriction imposed by the Qatari gov't and the travel restrction imposed by airline. Again, you can find the breed restriction list on this forum but I heard that an exception can be made. The restriction is mostly for flat-nosed dogs and really big dogs. I highly recommend that you use a pet relocation service located here in Doha. As far as travel restriction is concerned, yes, there is a restriciton. Airlines will not allow pet tranport usually during the summer b/c it gets too hot. I'm not sure when you'll be moving out here but now would be the perfect time. My dog came out here mid-Oct and it was still hot here in Doha (90's) and not so much elsewhere. Again, look for my previous post and if you have any more questions, feel free to email me at [email protected]. Oh yeah, the raw diet? Forget about it. I can't even find Science Diet here so i'm having it shipped from the states. Bring lots of treats for your dog as they are hard to find.
Maid: You find find a lot more postings on expatwoman.com on this question. First of all, don't expect to find a quality maid right away. It took us a month and a half and we were extremely lucky. We have a live-in but didn't go through an agecy (lucky for us). She's the sister of our friend's nanny. She's extremely conscientious and loves my son and really tolerates my dog (who can be very annoying). Initially I paid 1000 QR/month plus 300 QR for food. Beginning next year (since the trial period has ended), we will give her a raise to 1300QR + 300 QR for food. We'll continue to give her a raise every 3-6 months. We also give her Fri off and Thursday night off. It was really hard to find a maid locally. One prospective I interviewed wanted 3000 QR!! I said, you've got to be sh**ing me! We didn't like her anyway. So we thought we had to go through an agency. However, you need a RP to find someone through an agency and that took forever. We ended up finding a part-time nanny for Jamie until we found our current live-in. You're better off finding someone by a word of mouth than any agency. Even then, you have to take a leap of faith...
Expat Sueno,
If you read old links on this site and expatwoman.com, you can have a lot of questions answered. When my husband and I were planning on moving out here, we used the forums extensively to find out as much as I can.
I'll try to tackle two of your questons here: pet and maid.
Pet: Again, I posted an extensive message relaying my experience of bringing a pet out to Doha about a month ago. Instead of retyping, I'll summarize briefly. There are two types of restrictions here: breed restriction imposed by the Qatari gov't and the travel restrction imposed by airline. Again, you can find the breed restriction list on this forum but I heard that an exception can be made. The restriction is mostly for flat-nosed dogs and really big dogs. I highly recommend that you use a pet relocation service located here in Doha. As far as travel restriction is concerned, yes, there is a restriciton. Airlines will not allow pet tranport usually during the summer b/c it gets too hot. I'm not sure when you'll be moving out here but now would be the perfect time. My dog came out here mid-Oct and it was still hot here in Doha (90's) and not so much elsewhere. Again, look for my previous post and if you have any more questions, feel free to email me at [email protected]. Oh yeah, the raw diet? Forget about it. I can't even find Science Diet here so i'm having it shipped from the states. Bring lots of treats for your dog as they are hard to find.
Maid: You find find a lot more postings on expatwoman.com on this question. First of all, don't expect to find a quality maid right away. It took us a month and a half and we were extremely lucky. We have a live-in but didn't go through an agecy (lucky for us). She's the sister of our friend's nanny. She's extremely conscientious and loves my son and really tolerates my dog (who can be very annoying). Initially I paid 1000 QR/month plus 300 QR for food. Beginning next year (since the trial period has ended), we will give her a raise to 1300QR + 300 QR for food. We'll continue to give her a raise every 3-6 months. We also give her Fri off and Thursday night off. It was really hard to find a maid locally. One prospective I interviewed wanted 3000 QR!! I said, you've got to be sh**ing me! We didn't like her anyway. So we thought we had to go through an agency. However, you need a RP to find someone through an agency and that took forever. We ended up finding a part-time nanny for Jamie until we found our current live-in. You're better off finding someone by a word of mouth than any agency. Even then, you have to take a leap of faith...
Any questions, let me know..