Many of you may have noticed that our Computer Tech Byron Stuart is missing.  He has been in Qatar serving in the Untied States Air Force.  Byron writes what his daily life is like far from home:

Life here in Qatar really isn’t that much different from life in the states. I’ve been to other countries before and most of them aren’t even as advanced as Qatar. Qatar is a very wealthy country and from what I’ve been told, it supplies most of the world it’s natural gas resource. It is located east of Saudi Arabia in the the Persian Gulf. We are located approxiamelty 30km (18.75 miles) outside of Doha, Captial of Qatar.

Downtown Doha is like any large city you would see in the states. It’s very busy with traffic and construction. They have large malls here with all the same sort of stores you have in any large city. The only thing I’ve noticed to be a lot different here are the homes and the way women dress. Homes here look like they are made out of concrete and made to look like small castles almost. Just picture Aladdin’s house, but much smaller. The women here dress VERY CONSERVATIVE. But just like in the states, you have different degrees of how people dress. Most of the women are dressed to where their body is completely covered with no skin showing, all the way down to the way a conversative woman would dress in the states.

As for the local land, there isn’t any real vegetation and looks much like you see on tv. There is sand as far as you can see, no trees and extremely hot during the days. When you get closer to the city, you’ll see a few patches of grass and a couple trees, but that’s about it. The weather here is much like the weather of Missouri in Mid/Late July. Temperatures average 85-90 during the day and 75 at night, during the months of Sept-Apr.

The Base:  The base where we are stationed isn’t really any different than any military base in the states. We have everything you have there and even a little more because of its deployed location. We have a dining facility that is open 24-hours a day for food when you get hungry; they have shops such as Dairy Queen, Popeye’s Chicken, Subway, Pizza Hut and a few others. We actually have a movie theater opening up here. It will start showing new releases; everyone here is really excited about that.

I live in a building that resembles a college dorm in many ways. My room shares a kitchen and a bathroom with one other person, which is nice. Most of the individuals here that are lower in rank stay in trailers, and everyone shares a large community bathroom. Community bathrooms may have 15-20 showers and other facilities, but will service an area of the compound that houses over 200 people. So sharing a kitchen and a bathroom with one other person is AWESOME! We an education center here where you can take classes and earn college credit.  We have a bx (like a small wal-mart) to buy things you might want or need, and also a CAC (Community Activity Center). The CAC is really neat.  It has pool tables, large tv’s that plays all the sporting events, video game room, virtual golf room (broken now), and other stuff to keep you busy when you get bored.

Work:  My job title here is Customs/Immigrations Liaison. Basically what I do is make sure people immigrate/emmigrate in and out the country correctly. I am also the individual responsible for making sure people don’t try to smuggle illegal items in such as weapons, drugs, alcohol and pornography. They are very strict over here about those items, and if caught bringing any of those into the country, they will arrest you. No slap on the hands here! One of the perks of my job is that because Al Udeid is the major hub for military bases in the Middle East, we get to see everyone! So if anyone is coming into the Middle East and going “down range”…AKA: Afganistan/Kuwait/Iraq, they have to come through customs here. We have famous people come through a lot of times, and I missed the Fox news crew last week, was off work that night. But we have people like Kid Rock and Carlos Mencia coming in the first week of December. Hopefully their plane will arrive when they get here, and I will get to do there paperwork and get a few pics with them.

We will stay in touch with Byron in the next few months.  If you have any questions for him, please email them to doughtyh@wspgs.com.

Byron Stuart