It is 9th July and the highest time for latest updates from my World Cup experiences in Qatar its been 5 weeks of the Doha paradise and the paradise for the fans of football continues. There are only two games left and the tension and excitement is seen everywhere. The biggest question at the moment is whether Spain is going to be our winner. It has been my personal favourite just after England lost defeated by Germany and I think I will keep my fingers crossed for Spanish "football warriors".
A day off football and a day free for personal reflection on my Doha experience so far.
Apart from all my days filled with football filming, football watching and football analysis, I have also had some time to compare and think about the cultural differences between West and Middle East. As I have never been to Middle East it has been quite a cultural shock for me.
Local camera operators were always incredibly friendly and helpful as well as very professional what made work enjoyable. Despite cultural and daily habits we managed to work well as proved successful in every situation. What was quite an incredible experience to mix our who cultures and learn about each other, as we have experienced praying is quite a priority in a place like Qatar it has its deeply religious practices and some of the Muslim practitioners put prayers in front of work schedule. They follow their beliefs and practice their religious traditions fully, which was quite an amazing thing to learn about them. We respected their practices and they were happy to tell us more about it and fill our curious minds. We respected each other's differences and after all every country has its own history and unique traditions that makes it so special.
What I have also learnt was that, because of the temperatures the pace of carrying out certain tasks around here differs, rush is rather not preferable, I suppose it is a little bit similar to Spain or Greece in that way. Yes, chasing up and repetitive requests are definitely the key to get things done in every production team, where ever it is in the world, I realised that it is crucial to do to make sure of the things getting done properly. As sometimes we were carrying out duties of floor manager we learnt that making sure of having everything on time is definitely not an easy thing. Communication is important and chasing up the tasks is part of the daily routine for every floor manager. Yes, language barer was sometimes an issue but we managed to overcome that challenge too.
We have learnt few words too and got a small dictionary to communicate better for quicker effects in aspect of team work. As teamwork it is crucial, sustaining good relations and clear communication between work colleagues is very important, and that was exactly what we have been working on during these last five weeks in here.
The dress code was also dictated by the traditional behaviours and customs, females were not allowed to show their knees and shoulders, they are to be covered at all times and we have been following these instructions with the respect to their culture and religion.
Other habits we learnt was that men are not to show their knees and not to initiate a conversation with a woman that would wear traditional clothing covering their face or the entire body. It would usually be black and showing only their eyes. It would indicate that the woman is married and allowed to show certain parts of her body only to her husband and family at home. Some of them would even have their whole face covered, so there would be only her hands uncovered. It was all another incredible thing to learn about this culture, I felt quite privileged to be able to see for myself and learn about Qatari traditions.
The only thing that I couldn't quite understand was the reason for the colour of women's dress code on some women, it would be black and that was the most extreme thing for me to gather with my mind for a woman to need to cover herself fully in black in 45degrees heat whereas men would were white clothing. I'm sure there must be some reasons for this colours to be worn by men and women, I just must admit it was quite shocking for me. As we found out covering of women's body is a matter of tradition rather than religion and it depends on habits and customs within certain families and in some cases it could be a matter of woman's choice to wear it or not to wear it as well.
In the structure of the society and systems ooutside of work... I found out that there are no taxes in here and government makes up for it with the product prices. I was told that being a baby boy born in Qatar would mean having the most generous start of life that you could ever imagine, some of Qatar men do not even have to work, and if they do so, it is not of need but to find aims and keeping busy. And therefore some of local men have a rather different attitude towards work as you can imagine. Seeing such a jump between the classes of poor and rich and nothing in between was quite a strange thing to understand. All that along with the latest technologies in TV, modernised and incredibly expensive lifestyle, beautiful cars and sea as worm as bath...
Quite a contrasting ideas, which would make it a little controversial in a way, some would say. Extreme wealth next to poverty, big jump in standards of living. Some of the people do not have to work at all and some will work for little money in extreme weather conditions for very long hours... an immense number of sky scrapers and modern "Yale glassy boxes" next to building side with new skyscrapers being built, one next to another. All that I have learnt from only short period of time living among these skyscrapers. It's a completely different world to ours, but how fascinating and certainly unique.
The studios we are working at now were built two months before the The World Cup coverage in English started. Quite not easy to imagine to have happened back in England, isn't it. It shows fantastic skills of local builders and workers. The question I asked myself, are thy well rewarded for their hard work? From what I heard from local people, they are paid not much and expected to not demand more.
Well, that was certainly not a positive thing to have heard, but all I had to do was to accept the way things are structured and respect their tradition and practices. And so I did. I'm glad that I could experience other culture myself. I have met incredible people and made great friends who I will never forget. They will stay here in the world of camels, sky scrapers and worm sea while I will return to my rainy and how beautiful England enriched in experiences that I will never forget and friends that I will try my best to keep.
