Doha Diaries, no 2

Okay, so it's been a month since I've posted...sorry. I'm sure nobody's been waiting at the edge of their seats. To sum up the time: some important things have changed. I don't even know where to begin, so I have to resort to the drudgery of bullet points:

• Banking/Lending: opening a bank account in a developing country is a bizarre and archaic experience. Trying to finance a vehicle purchase only makes this more complicated. For example, you need not have money to open an account, but you can walk away with an activated debit card for said account, on the spot. One cannot get a car loan until at least one direct salary deposit has hit your account. When this happens, you can apply for the loan. If you are approved for the loan, you then physically write out 48 (for a 4-yr loan) checks in the amount of loan payment and hand them to the banker. The bank will then deposit/cash one check each month on the due date of ones loan. In order to facilitate getting a car loan for a new minivan, Hubby promptly opened an account and filled out the paperwork to have his payroll direct deposited into his Doha account. Good right? Yeah, except that the finance dept. works about one month in advance, and he was two days past the cutoff for getting October's payroll into the Doha bank. This means we cannot even apply for the car loan now until November 1st, when his payroll hits. Seriously, this is beyond ridiculous. Now, we're stuck leasing two vehicles for this month, one of which is covered by one car allowance, the second of which (a Chevy Tahoe) will cost approximately $1,000 for the month (after the car allowance is applied).
• We made it through Ramadan just fine, but living within the limitations of Ramadan operating/working hours was inconvenient to say the least.
• Hannah and I went back to the US for the Eid break that follows Ramadan. I'll skip the nightmare that was the possibility of us not getting our passports back from the immigration office in time to leave....We had a great time back home: shopping, eating (one day I managed to eat pork at breakfast, lunch, and dinner--yum), the State Fair, and college football! I even organized a clothing drive for the troops that are on the base in Doha (they aren't allowed to leave the base without civilian clothing, and most of them don't have any). But, the trip was bittersweet. On one hand, I wanted to stay, but on the other hand, I desperately missed Hubby and my two little ones back in Doha. The airport scene to come back to Qatar involved Hannah in tears, clinging to a chair, and begging to stay in Home State with my parents and them trying to pry her off the chair. I'm not hopeful that this scene will improve with future trips.
• My classes continue to go quite well. My students are sweet, funny, interesting, and (usually) eager to learn. I brought my film students blueberry muffins, and it was the very first time most of them had ever tasted them. One asked, "What do you call this again?" I plan to make pecan pies for them in the future :)
• Hannah is unhappy with school. I'd heard her make a few general complaints after we got back from the US, but last night she opened up and explained that she feels out of place, behind, and lost in the classroom. Part of this is because many of the kids have been going to ASD previously, so they've learned the methods being taught. Part of it is that she doesn't feel comfortable asking questions because she's afraid people will think she's stupid. She doesn't want me to tell her teacher that she has ADHD because she doesn't want to be given special treatment. She has great friends in our compound, and she admitted how much she loves spending time with them, but she hasn't made any connections to other girls in her class.
• I've grown a bit unhappy here as well. I like my job...I really love only having two classes (with a grand total of 25 students combined), and God knows the money is just what we need to pay off our credit cards and get some of our student loan debt erased. However, I don't have any close friends, and there isn't really an academic or intellectual community for the humanities faculty here (much less one more specifically concerned with literature). Granted, I knew this beforehand, but there's one faculty member in another humanities department that specializes in my period, and I thought that person might be someone with whom I might connect in academic matters. Someone to share work with, discuss matters in the field, etc. Well, not so much.
• Also, I have no quality time with Hubby. No babysitter in a world full of South Asian nannies. We're brainstorming ways around this problem, and we may end up "skipping" work one day to just be together, but for now, this really sucks. I don't remember the last time we really kissed each other.
• Add that fact that Hannah is increasingly unhappy with her school, and Hubby and I are at the point that we're willing to break contract if we were to secure tenure-track jobs back in the US. Indeed, after my talk with Hannah last night, we've made an agreement with her.

Option 1: Hubby and I will apply for t-t jobs in the spring. Most likely, we'll keep it to ones that we have particularly promising chances at...If either of us lands one, we will go back to States. This will mean paying taxes on our salary for the time we've been here and we'll have to pay back the relocation allowance advanced to us when we moved here.

Option 2: If neither of us get a job (or there turns out to be no spring job market), AND if Hannah is still unhappy with school at the end of this academic year, we'll stay for the second (and final) year of our contracts, but Hubby and I will home-school Hannah. We'll learn the curriculum over the summer and seek help from others in our compound who home-school their children, and we'll do the best we can. The good part about that option is the flexibility it would allow for all sorts of things, but especially travel back to the US.

This doesn't cover everything...one post really couldn't. Life here is a daily something. It may be an adventure one day, and a nightmare the next. Some might say that this is true about life anywhere, and maybe it is. But here, there's an overwhelming feeling of helplessness. The feeling that you don't know the rules, so you can't really respond logically. Of course, it doesn't help when sometimes (and this is really true) the rules are, literally, not written down (as in the case of traffic laws).

I'm still giving it my best effort. I will remain hopeful, not only for my sake but also for the sake of my family. I still believe it is in our best interest to remain here, fulfill our contracts, and use this time to work on getting published and hitting the job market with as much marketability as possible. It's just that some days are harder than others to remember this...

Doha Diaries, no. 1

What I've learned so far on the occasion of living in Doha for one month:

• I can do this...the time will pass quicker than I think, and we will all be better for it
• Ramadan, in some ways, is like Christmas without the capitalism. You have the feasting before sunrise and after sunset, but the idea of being more charitable, doing good deeds, and getting closer to God --- without the giant exchange of store-bought gifts --- is quite nice. I'm not so much into fasting, but we've found ourselves easily respecting and going along with all other things Ramadan.
• I can now get to all major shopping malls, grocery stores, and the schools my children attend without using a map (or getting lost)!
• I know, in general, which stores to go to for various items (i.e. we can only find meat that doesn't taste funny at Family Food Center, which is right near our compound).
• I have a fantastic boss! Seriously folks, because Hubby and I overlap for one hour in our teaching schedule, my boss offered to watch the baby in his office...She stayed with him for the hour yesterday, and everything went fine. This is just temporary, until the montessori opens the baby program back up on Sept. 6th.
• Driving around roundabouts can be tricky, but I might like them better than stoplights...maybe.
• How much I appreciate air-conditioned school buses that also have seat belts!
• How much I miss all things familiar: my favorite mascara, street names I know by heart, BBQ pork of any kind, my friends and family, anything that doesn't get weighed/measured using the metric system, and water I can drink right out of the tap.
• That there will be me before Doha, and then there will be a different me after Doha. It's only been a month, and I have such a different perspective on so many things. For example, Hubby and I were watching _A Mighty Heart_ the other night, a film about the life and kidnapping of Daniel Pearl (Angelina Jolie was, I think, nominated for an Oscar for her role as his wife). One of the opening scenes begins with a shot of a mosque and the call to prayer. Hubby and I just looked at each other and knew we were thinking the same thing: "We know that sound now...it's part of our daily lives." We recognized that, prior to moving here, we had no idea what the call to prayer sounded like, when it happened, where it happened, what the effects of it were, etc. But now, I know the time of day based on the call, without even needing to look at a clock. I can tell by the stream of men in white thobes walking in the same direction.

I know there are lots of other things I haven't covered, but these are the things that come to mind immediately. Things have settled down now that we're done with our immigration processing, our shipment from the US arrived, and we've finished unpacking. It still doesn't feel like home, and I'm not sure if our house ever will...but it's "home for now". The kids are doing well, and the financial peace of mind is actually taking some getting used to. We're still in the broke graduate student/utilitarian state of mind, and I still look at the price of everything before buying. The bottom line is that we are very fortunate to have these jobs and this opportunity, and I couldn't be more thankful.

The Roller Coaster Ride

...that is international relocation to the Middle East is at a high point for the moment. Two fabulous things happened today: our things arrived from the States, and Hannah got accepted into ASD (the American School of Doha)! She tested yesterday and thought she did well, but said she had some problems with the reading part of the test...just some words she wasn't familiar with. Evidently, she did just fine, because she's IN!

It's like Christmas in our house now! Eliza keeps saying how much she loves the boxes of her stuff....doesn't always even know what's inside, but she's so happy to just have her things here that she's smiling from ear to ear. Our own swing (not one borrowed from the neighbors), our own wagon, our other car seats, my kitchenware, which has been so very missed (the other night, I pounded chicken breasts with the bottom of a rum bottle).

HANGERS! Hangers with the clips on them! You have know idea how important these are until you move to a place where they don't exist. Pictures of my girls, our family, things that will finally make it feel like we're living in our home instead of a McMansion in the desert.

These first two weeks or so have been harder than I ever could have imagined. My days ususally start off hopeful and positive, but by the end of the day, I'm exhausted, depressed, homesick, and wondering if we bit off more than we can chew. I was warned this is how it would go...that this is all normal, but I don't have much patience for simply surviving it each day. But today--just for today--I'm happy to have the rest of all the little pieces of our life back.

More to come on: being in the presence of a Sheikh, what Eliza thinks about how people dress here, and getting a medical exam at a government-run medical clinic.

Pictures to come...

The madness continues.

Driving in this country may, in fact, make me crazy, but as long as everyone survives and leaves the country uninjured, I can deal. I must note, however, that I am horribly saddened every time I pass a vehicle with Arab children roaming freely about the seats (front and back). I can't imagine how many children end up hurt or dead from traffic accidents here because car seats (or seat belts) aren't legally required.

The worst of it? We still have no routine. No groove. Every day seems to be a tiny bit better, but there's no rhythm, we merely survive. More than half the children in our compound are still on holiday, so Hannah is a little disappointed in the slim pickings she has for friends right now, especially since she's not allowed to go swimming by herself. Eliza started visiting her Montessori this week, and she'll start full time next week. That will help, simply because we'll be forced to get up early enough to get her there on time in the mornings. The administrative workers are trying to get us "processed" as quickly as possible, but sometimes this involves calling us at 9:00 a.m. to let us know they need one of us there within an hour, which isn't easy with three kids.

I'm very happy to have a friend of ours over helping us for the week! She's the exact opposite personality from me, so she's relaxed, chilled out, and willing to do anything. Without her, I'd be in tears daily. We've gotten lost going to or returning from several places more times than I can count now, but I'm determined to keep trying. I still have no sense of my meal planning/cooking routine. After a week and a half, we've managed to eat two meals at their normal times, which probably isn't a big deal to anyone but me, but ya know?? It bugs the shit outta me!

On top of everything, Eliza got a quick stomach bug last week and we were completely dependent upon the driver from Human Resources--Mohammed-- to lead us to the hospital. He's from Yemen, so English is not his native language, and it turned out that he led us to an emergency pediatric clinic. He promised that this is the place where he takes his children and that "they speak good here" (as opposed to the other hospital where they send you from desk to desk and want lots of money up front). This man went beyond the call of duty as he picked up my vomit-covered child out of her car seat and carried her into the clinic to get us checked in. Within a minute she was admitted to a triage room and they began examining her. Because we'd only been in the country 6 days and she was exhibiting 2 of the symptoms (fever and vomiting), she had to be tested (the booger sucking tube) for Swine Flu. They gave her a shot for the vomiting, waited, then said if she could hold fluids down after 30 minutes we could go home. She did, and though the doctor wanted to put her on Tamiflu, I never gave her the medicine because I knew she didn't have the flu. The whole time, Mohammed kept a close eye on Eliza, making sure she was comfortable, getting her a blanket, asking the nurse questions to make sure he understood how they were treating her, and getting everyone to move promptly. When it was time to go, the whole thing (which took just over a couple hours) cost approximately $3.00, which he refused to let me pay. $3.00 freakin dollars!! This is an unfathomable contrast to what happens in emergency rooms back in the States. I still can't believe how kind everyone was. One of my worst fears was immediately put to the test, and everything turned out fine. Eliza was back to her normal self by bedtime that night.

There's simply too much difference, too many experiences, too many small details to fit into a few posts, so I'll have to be choosy. For now, it's safe to say that nothing could have ever fully prepared me for living here. It's not just another country. It's another culture, another language, and they are both completely foreign to me. Little things like not knowing the Celsius scale so I could give the doctor Eliza's temperature, or knowing how much lunchmeat I'm asking for when I say 250 grams, or taking for granted the all KFCs in the world serve biscuits....these have turned out to be huge reminders of how small my world has been my whole life. Don't get me wrong, I don't regret coming. But there are definitely some things I wish I'd thought about, learned about, and/or brought with me before leaving the U.S.

Dispatch from Doha - The Early Days

We're here. I've taken in an enormous amount of information in the past 48 hours, and there's too much to cover in one post but some of the highlights include:

• Children that did beautifully on the flight over (15 hours)
• Children that are just barely getting over jetlag. The first two nights, the oldes two woke up at 3:00 a.m. hungry and wide awake. They had pb&j's, eventually went back to sleep, and didn't get up until we woke them up at noon!
• Our home phone still doesn't work, and it costs a small fortune to make an international call on the cell phone. This sucks because I can talk faster than I type, and I can squeeze in a phone call much easier than I can the time to compose an e-mail.
• I've visited three separate grocery stores in two days, spending more than $800, and I still have a one-page list of things I need for this "furnished" house (i.e. dish towels, hand towels, bigger pillows, baskets, cereal bowls, etc.)
• It's 5:20 am here, and the baby still hasn't woken up yet, so this is very good.
• We can't find Amelia's formula here. They have several kinds of Similac, but not the Sensitive Formula for babies that are gassy. Our options right now are to ship it (expensive), use lactose-free (not sure we need to do that), or see how she does on the regular formula. I bought a container of the regular stuff for now, and a friend suggested that we look at a pharmacy to see if they might have it there.
• A new order/restriction is in place regarding driver's licences. There's a chance I might not be able to take my driver's license exam for more than a month. This is very, very bad for all sorts of reasons.
• We blew up the portable DVD because we didn't have a converter (just an adaptor), we are in dire need of expanded cable or immediate entertainment for the children. Hannah has already made a couple of friends, but one is leaving for Saudi today, and the other is kept on an unusually tight leash (slightly weird, but extremely nice, home-schooling Mom, who btw had three bags of toys and blueberry muffins waiting for us when we arrived!!) They'd also stocked the house with some basic items: milk, bread, crackers, peanut butter, jelly, etc. Then I came to find that she only has these items because she's been having them shipped weekly from the states. Evidently, one can't actually get grape jelly in Doha.
• The call to prayer is beautiful. It's a somber, comforting reminder that many people are stopping whatever they're doing to be dutiful to their religious practice, no matter how inconvenient. I gotta respect that. Don't get me wrong, I'm soooo happy that I can't hear it from inside my house unless the front door is open, but I do like listening to it.
• I drove for the first time yesterday. The roundabouts weren't as bad as I though they'd be, but it will still take a lot of getting used to in terms of finding my way back home and figuring out the consequences of not having left turns.
• I can't wait for our stuff to get here! I've done my best to make it feel like home, but right now it still feels like we're on vacaction in a luxury home in an American compound.
• Still no word on the American School for Hannah. Or, I should say, one set of people thinks she'll get in, one person yesterday said he didn't think any other kids that weren't already accepted have a snowball's chance in hell. Thus, we'll look at a couple of other schools and let her see the campuses.
• The first night here, on the way home from the airport, I did the unthinkable. I rode in a vehicle with Amelia in my arms. It's a long story, but it involved her screaming at the top of her lungs, projectile vomiting her bottle up all over herself because she was so worked up, and her really just wanting to be held. I not-so-nimbly flew into the backseat and picked her up and held her for the 15-minute drive home and prayed we didn't have an accident.
• Nothing could have prepared me for how different things are here...even our previous visit.
• Oh, and they don't really believe in tampons. That's just freakin great. I packed enough to get me through my next cycle, but I'll be having my friend stash extra in her suitcase when she comes over....and THANK GOD someone is coming over to help! We just need an extra set of hands right now.

This is just a nutshell version of the first few days. Today is my first day on campus, and the driver is coming to pick me up in a few hours, so I'm off to shower, make myself presentable, and get formula made for the day. I'm hoping to get to post more frequently once the kids get back to their regular schedules, but everything is just a bit crazy now. Until next time, the roller coaster ride continues :)

EconoLodge Limbo

The international relocation company has come and gone. Unfortunately, they forgot to get several drawers of clothes out of my dresser, which has left me with more stuff than my luggage can hold. So, I can either throw them out, put them in storage, or pay an enormous amount of money to have them shipped over. For now, I'm hoping the campus support office will make an exception and let me get by with shipping a box through them :)

The garage sale has come and gone. I had two wonderful friends spend hours and hours in the hot sweaty garage, setting the whole thing up. We did really well, clearing about $700, which isn't bad for a garage sale and doesn't include the $250 we sold our living room furniture for.

The moving crew came back yesterday to move our remaining stuff into storage. There were some kinks in the deal, a private arrangement between us and them...an off-the-clock kinda job. Luckily, everything worked out okay, and they wrapped our stuff air tight. I really think it will stay protected while we're gone.

Today was my birthday present: a spa day! Nothing like a Swedish massage and European facial to work off some of the stress of moving.

Good karma came our way when the orthodontist decided not to charge us the $350 to transfer Hannah's file out---woohoo! That definitely made it easy for me to make the decision to just hire someone to clean the house. Never mind that one of the people doing the cleaning is totally high on meth!! Yes, that's right. Totally wacked out, scratching her hair, sunken cheeks, hopped up higher than groceries. The whole story is that the assistant teacher in the baby's room at the montessori mentioned that her mother does housecleaning. I called, offered her $150 for the job, she accepted and said she could do it tonight. When she showed up, she explained that she'd brought a friend to help her do the job in order to make sure it got finished tonight. It took less than a minute for me to tell that this other lady was completely strung out. Don't get me wrong, she's on speed, so she's cleaning faster than Wonder Woman over there. And they both seem really broke and really shocked at the amount I offered to pay, so I don't doubt that they'll get the job done. I just still can't believe a freakin meth head showed up to clean my house....well, it used to be my house.

Now, I live in EconoLodge Limbo. We've set up shop, complete with bottles, formula, bottle drying rack, brush, way too much luggage, and a couple more boxes of stuff I need to figure out whether I need to take or not. What sucks right now is that I can't find my cell phone charger or a book that was lent to me by my department head....argh! Hopefully, they'll show up soon.

We still have a walk-through for the house tomorrow, I need to pick up medical files for myself and Hannah, and we have an emergency appointment with HR because there's some screw up with the benefit enrollment for Amelia, which should've been taken care of two weeks ago when we met with the HR coordinator!

At this point, I'm feeling more calm than I thought I'd be, yet there's still plenty of stress. I feel like I'm bound to forget a thousand things, and I'm just ready to be at my mom's house, spending a few extra minutes with her and going through the stuff that *will* fit in my luggage. On top of everything, we still have to take a look at the short-term housing units back in Home State on Thursday and re-pack all of Hannah's stuff after her being at her grandma's house for a week (with God knows how many shopping trips!).

A Brief Post from Home State

Yes, I'm still here...temporarily. We've been back in my hometown since last Friday, and the internet connection at my mom's house is intermittent at best. Finally, Hubby and I worked out an arrangement in which he got four hours to work at the local coffee shop yesterday, while I watched the kids, and today is my turn. Unfortunately, I actually have work to do and cannot sit here endlessly kvetching about all the drama that has unfolded over our one-week visit. Let's just say that it is no longer a healthy option for all involved to have my family of five invade my mother's home for any longer than a 3-day stay. There's just too much crazy and too little space.

Some good things have happened though:

• We have both a pack-out date and a fly-out date! The moving company will come to pack up our things on Friday, July 17th. We will fly out of Houston for Doha on Saturday, July 25th. I still sometimes can't believe we're doing this.
• Somehow, my 10-week old baby managed to sleep through the entire night last night! Seriously, from 9:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. Don't know what caused this, but man I'm a well-rested Mama today!
• We found a storage unit for the mani-van. We'll store it here in Hometown, and when we come back for breaks, my mom can simply use it to come pick us up at the airport, and she'll be able to drive it periodically to keep it in working condition. The owner of the storage place was willing to give us a really good rate, too, because we're willing to sign a long-term lease.
• We also got more solid information on the availability of a 3-bedroom, furnished corporate apartment. Since my hometown is about 40 minutes away from the airport (and capital city), this works out well for all sorts of reasons.
• I got to take a picture of all my girls with my last remaining grandparent, my grandmother, who has Alzheimers. To be honest, I don't think she even remembered that I had been pregnant. In fact, one of my cousins told me that she'd previously told him I'd had a miscarriage. Regardless, she was thrilled for us to visit, and she was even able to hold the baby. It did, however, cause her to break down in tears. Every birth of another great-grandchild makes her happy, but sad that my grandfather isn't here to enjoy it with her. The loss of her husband almost 20 years ago is the dominating memory in her mind, and she seems increasingly haunted by his absence from her daily life.

Okay, this will have to suffice for now. My task for today is to go through the entire dissertation and review my advisor's suggestions, questions, etc. and make sure I understand exactly what she's asking me to do in terms of revision. We've agreed to meet one more time before we leave the States, which will give me the chance to ask for any clarification I might need. So, to the real work.