Qatar Airways golden call to Doha, week by week: the visa, the medical, the flight, the first seven days, from someone who landed last month

Casablanca open day, call on day 31, and I landed in Doha four weeks ago. Sara wrote the two months after the call. This is the arrival, because the first week is the part nobody describes and it is disorienting in a specific way.

The flight

Booked by the airline, economy, Casablanca to Doha, with three other new joiners from the same event on the same flight, which I only found out at the gate. We sat together. We were all quiet. The crew on the flight knew we were new joiners (it is on the manifest) and the purser came to say hello and it was the kindest thing anyone did that day.

Arrival

Met at the airport by a company representative with a sign. A bus to the accommodation. It was 2am and 36 degrees and the humidity hit like a wet towel at the aircraft door. The bus was silent. Everyone was looking out of the window at the lights.

Day one

The apartment: two bedrooms, a flatmate from the Philippines who had arrived the week before and had already worked out the corner shop, the bus stop and the wifi. A welcome pack with a SIM card, a map, the rules, and a schedule for the week. Sleep, badly.

Days two to four

Induction. The ID card, the bank account (opened for you, with forms), the medical registration, the residence permit process (fingerprints, photo, a queue), the uniform fitting, the training schedule. A company bus for everything. A lot of forms. A lot of waiting rooms with new joiners from thirty countries all looking equally lost, which is comforting.

Day five

The first free day. The flatmate took me to the mall, then the Corniche at sunset, and I understood for the first time that I lived here. I called my mother from the Corniche. She cried. I did not, until later.

Days six and seven

The uniform arrived. Training starts on day eight. The apartment has a kettle now, and the corned beef rice has been demonstrated. I have been to the crew building's small gym and seen the senior crew who look ten years younger than their passports. I have learned three words of Gulf Arabic that are different from mine.

What surprised me

How organised it is. How quiet the new joiners are for the first three days. How quickly the flatmate becomes the most important person in your life. How the heat is a wall and then, by day five, a fact. And how the mother call from the Corniche is the moment it becomes real for everyone, apparently, because my flatmate did the same from the same spot the week before.

For the day 12 people: this is what is waiting. It is fine. It is more than fine. Bring a kettle.