A Move into the Unknown
April 2018
Never in her life did Judi Pope see herself living in a compound in a chaotic, remote city in the Middle East.
In 2003, the partially retired primary teacher received a call from her friend who was living in Doha in Qatar wondering if she would be interested in a position as an infant teacher at an international school there.
Judi was living in the Victorian town of Clunes working as a relief teacher and jumped at the thought of moving to a foreign city she had never heard of.
After contacting the school, Al Jazeera Academy and completing an interview, she was offered the job.
With little time to think about it all Judi accepted the position and within three weeks she packed up her belongings and headed into the unknown.
57-year-old Judi found herself living in a dusty old compound very different to her small, clean town in Australia.
“I lived in a compound and there were many different nationalities there…Iranians, Iraqis, quite a few Lebanese families, Spanish and Japanese” she said.
A few months after Judi moved to the Arabic country, the Gulf War broke out in the nearby country Iraq.
Qatar’s Foreign Minister who also owned Qatar Airways assured Judi and the international staff at Al Jazeera that if anything bad was to happen in Qatar they would be safely flown home.
During that time Judi felt so safe that she occasionally forgot there was a war happening close by.
“I used to go down to the Diplomatic Club with some of the other staff – it was just sort of a beach club – and you’d be lying by the pool… and there were war planes going overhead and it was a bit of reminder that you’re actually in a war zone”.
Judi’s move to Qatar led her to plenty of travel opportunities.
“It totally changed things for me… Living in small town Victoria doing a bit of relief teaching, I wouldn’t have been able to afford to travel to places like Croatia, Egypt, India…
“When my contract expired after 18 months, I wasn’t ready to go back to Australia so I looked for other international jobs and ended up in Southern China in Guangzhou… for four years… and after the four years I moved back to Victoria.”