Hi everyone. Our psychological exam(?) was more to see if we had reasonable expectations and were amenable to living in and dealing with a different culture. We know it will be really different. And sometimes it will put us out. And other customs may bother us a bit at first (or forever, who knows!). We are lucky-we have each other. I was married to a person from another culture entirely and my husband has worked out of the US before-so we aren't totally unprepared for culture shock. Our kids are kind of in for it-but they have us and we have been doing our best to prepare them.
We had to do a thorough physical for the company-we were called V.E.P.'s by the doctor. We are "Very Expensive Persons" so they want to make sure we are physically able to handle it and don't need any medical care that will be unavailable in Qatar. My son recently had some specialized pediatric surgery that would not be available in most of the world, so I appreciate why they do this.
I know this will all still be a shock and we are kidding ourselves thinking we are really prepared for it:) But as much as virgin expats can be prepared, we are. (Hubby did his 2 years abroad as military-not an expat.)
Hi everyone. Our psychological exam(?) was more to see if we had reasonable expectations and were amenable to living in and dealing with a different culture. We know it will be really different. And sometimes it will put us out. And other customs may bother us a bit at first (or forever, who knows!). We are lucky-we have each other. I was married to a person from another culture entirely and my husband has worked out of the US before-so we aren't totally unprepared for culture shock. Our kids are kind of in for it-but they have us and we have been doing our best to prepare them.
We had to do a thorough physical for the company-we were called V.E.P.'s by the doctor. We are "Very Expensive Persons" so they want to make sure we are physically able to handle it and don't need any medical care that will be unavailable in Qatar. My son recently had some specialized pediatric surgery that would not be available in most of the world, so I appreciate why they do this.
I know this will all still be a shock and we are kidding ourselves thinking we are really prepared for it:) But as much as virgin expats can be prepared, we are. (Hubby did his 2 years abroad as military-not an expat.)