The Stove

In my 29 years here on earth, I can honestly say I have spent minimal time thinking about the stove. It turns on, it cooks your food and it turns off.

However, in the past three weeks since my induction into all things Arab, I have used many of my jet lagged hours lying awake contemplating this amazing appliance. More accurately, contemplating this amazing appliance we didn't have. You see, in what we now recognize as a gross error in judgement, we rented a Villa here in Doha with absolutely nothing in it. A brand new five bedroom, 4.5 bath Villa.

I can recall the naive discussion we had when making this decision i.e. "It will be nice to pick out our own stuff" and "in the end it will cost the same as renting a furnished one..." and so on. Hence, there we were, stoveless, AND bedless, fridgeless, sofaless, tableless, sheetless, toweless and well, you get the idea.

Mark beat me to Doha by a day and had a lovely candlelight "picnic" waiting for us when we arrived from the airport. Thanks to Carrefour, the local "Wal-Mart", he was able to rustle up the world's second most uncomfortable bed in the form of an air mattress, some towels and sheets for our first night. I was especially thankful for those sheets the next morning when we awoke at 6:30 am to find a little Indian man tinkering around in our bathroom. Our master bathroom that he had to walk right through our bedroom to get to.

Due to a slight mix-up with the landlord, our villa wasn't quite finished when we arrived and it was covered in an inch of dirt and dust and was sporting several leaking fixtures along with the most intense sewer smell you can ever imagine in the master bathroom. The dirt and dust are now gone, the smell is not.

In the following days we found a website similar to Craigslist(www.qatarliving.com) that is popular with expats leaving the country and were able to locate the worlds MOST uncomfortable bed (only temporary since ours is being shipped from the U.S.), a beautiful dining room table and chairs and some other odds and ends for ridiculously good prices. Yet stoveless we remained.

Now it is definitely true that you don't know what you've got until it's gone and stoves are not exempt from this rule. "If we just had a stove, then...." and "I can't do that because we don't have a stove" or "Once we get a stove we will...". Who knew something as inanimate as a stove could become so empowered??

Finally!! We meet Mr. Emad and his wife...Mrs. Emad. Mr. Emad has just lost his job contract and has to leave Qatar, and his stove, behind. While I am sad for the Emads, I am not sad for the Emad's almost brand new stainless steel stove which has found a lovely new home at the low price of 1600 Riyal ($438.00).

Two non-English speaking Pakistanis, a 1972 pickup, another 300 Riyal and an electrician with no shoes later, we are the proud new owners of said stove.



Now that we are no longer stoveless, anything is possible! We will create culinary masterpieces fit for a Sheik. We will become fit and strong, working out religiously 4-6 hours a day. Our dogs will behave like Westminster's finest. We will start a charity, giving away millions and become fluent in 7 languages while training for the Ididerod. We have a stove. We can do anything.

Thanks for reading everyone!!

Next week's title: The Dishwasher.