Spacey with a side of useless

My current challenge is my kitchen.  Well, not just my kitchen but also my small appliances.  And my large appliances.  And the grocery stores.  It's a conspiracy!

Have I told you about my kitchen here?  Like the entire complex in which we live, my kitchen is ultra-modern, all gun-metal grey mirror tiles and a paint job and hidden appliances, and a microwave and convention oven sunken into the wall.  All the small kitchen appliances came with the house, too, like a rice cooker, toaster, blender, etc.  And all the large appliances are also space-age.  The stove is a flat-top ceramic with "buttons" that aren't really buttons but pressure sensitive spots.  And the fridge and the oven and the microwave and the oven hood and the stove all beep to let you know you've left them open or on or what have you.  It's all very Jetsons and chic!

But I HATE it all!  For example, the stove top is out to get me!  Last night, the stove started beeping at me again while I was cooking dinner, boiling water for macaroni and cheese and browning ground chicken.  I tried to figure out what the issue was but the beeping continued and then, without any more notice, the burners I was using shut down.  Umm, I'm trying to boil water here!  And feed two hungry kids who were already whining about dinner.  Those burners never did come back on that night; I eventually got one other burner to come on and got the water boiled and then browned the meat later. It worked but it really slowed me down!  And in past days, the oven's beeping has continued even after we've shut it off, and we have no idea why.  So very frustrating!

Then, the day before, I tried to make stir fried vegetables and rice.  The rice cooker cooked along nicely...and produced uncooked rice!  What?  It's a rice cooker.  It has one job!  Meanwhile, the stir fry, made with the soy sauce I bought at a local grocery store, was sooo salty it was almost inedible.  Oops, I forgot that I have only ever used reduced-sodium soy sauce.  Fortunately, I finally did find the reduced sodium variety, after going to multiple stores and looking in all the obvious and not at all obvious places (I found it in one of those, by the way), but not before several meals had been ruined.

Listen, I am not a gourmet cook, by any means, but I am a better cook than this!  I promise!  Am I going to win any food awards?  Nope, unless the award is for ability to make semi-edible meals in less than cooperative circumstances, but that's not an award I want to win, dang it!

Welcome to school, at last!

After many trials and tribulations, the boys finally, FINALLY started school on Sunday.  They will be attending an American school that is quite new, only open for this year and last, but attached to another, long-standing school with a great reputation, so we have big hopes for the school.  Right now, to be honest, it's a little rough around the edges.  They have a new building for the middle school but it hasn't been approved by Civil Defense yet, so all the students, preschool through 8th grade, are in one building and they are taking up all available space.  The principal apparently left abruptly for a mysterious medical reason, and they have a new director that begins in August, but I am still optimistic.  They are beginning the candidate process to become an IB school, and you know I love a good IB school (all hail Fernway Elementary!).  So we shall see.  If things don't pan out, we can always switch the boys, though I will have to be really unhappy for that to happen.

Because the school application process is a BEAST here!  First we submitted sheafs of paperwork for each child including voluminous records, teacher recommendations, medical forms and the like, then we communicated via email for months with the administrations of various schools, then we had campus visits and then campus assessments for the children, preschooler E included, then we waited...and waited...and submitted more documents...and waited some more.  In fact, our other school hasn't even had the assessment yet, but we just decided to forego any more waiting and stick with this admission to spare the boys any more time out of school.  

Schools here, even a quote unquote American school, are run quite differently from schools in the States, in some good ways and in some not so good ways.  On the good side: the classes in this particular school are small.  J has 16 kids in his class, one lead teacher and one teacher's aide who is also a fully certified teacher.  E has fewer, with the same amount of teachers.  In addition, there are all sorts of aides/housekeepers, one for each classroom, who take the kids to the bathroom, pick them up from their parents in the morning if necessary, and take them to the cars in the afternoons.  And there are several full time security guards who wouldn't let me into the school to pick E up early without holding my ID and logging my attempt.  So that's more secure than we're used to, for sure!  J's class has dedicated art, music, computer, and PE teachers, and he visits them more than once a week, which is great.  On the less good side: kids E's age are expected to stay in school for five hours a day, five days a week.  He is NOT ready for that, so right now I am picking him up at three hours, and we will see when or if we move him up to the full day.  J's reading curriculum is NOT phonics-based, as it was in Ohio, so he feels behind in his reading and is starting at the lowest level in their new system.  They are ahead in math as well, and they don't have regularly scheduled recess.  And, most distressingly for J, students cannot bring lunches or snacks from home, and the Kindergarteners are given a packed lunch with no choices given.  So far, those lunches have not contained the foods J likes, so he is a bit put out about that!

But in general, the school feels like a familiar place, so the boys are settling in.  And they get to wear uniforms!

They either look like little business men in their everyday uniforms or little sportsmen in their PE uniforms.  J was reluctant to wear them at first, but then he realized he was wearing the colors of the Qatari flag and he got right on board!  E doesn't really care what he wears, ever, as long as he gets to wear a superman shirt once in a while, so he was fine.  They both like the PE outfits best, and E can actually wear those every day if we want, and J has to wear them the three days a week he has PE scheduled, so they are both pretty happy with their new wardrobes.  And I like not ever having to think about clothes as long as I keep up with the laundry.  These outfits cost us a pretty penny (there is one supplier and they can charge whatever they want.  This being Qatar, they do!), and we may still have to supplement with a few more shirts or even the bermuda shorts when it gets hotter, but we are good for now!

More mint!

You know what?  I have decided we don't use nearly enough mint in the United States.  At least, I don't.  Every once in a while I will use mint flavoring to make, heh heh, mints and I have had mint tea on a rare occasion, and I have made Indian raita with mint a few times.  But that's about it.

But here in Qatar?  Mint is in all sorts of things, and it's fabulous!  I have already waxed lyrical on my new favorite drink, lemon mint, which is basically lemonade with mint blended in, served either as a drink or a slush, but let me revisit that drink once again because it. is. AWESOME!  So refreshing and delicious and always good, no matter how it's made, which is kind of amazing and also fortuitous for me because I am bound and determined to try it every time it's offered for the rest of my who knows how many years here.  Just this week I tried a bottled version they sell in the grocery stores with the rest of the juices and discovered that it, too, is very yummy.  (Side note: they also routinely sell kiwi lime and strawberry juices here, next to the apple and orange juices, for the same price.  Love this!)

Then there are the mint sauces.  Raita I have had and love, but mint sauces, with or without yogurt, paired with various meats and eaten on bread or over rice, are everywhere here and always delicious.  My only complaint is that no one will ever tell me how their particular sauce is made, afraid, I guess, that I will take the recipe and never return to eat with them, but that is patently absurd, because knowing the recipe only increases my loyalty to a particular establishment's dish, silly geese!

Mint tea is also much more popular here than elsewhere, and often the mint is mixed with various other flavors that make the tea even better than mint alone.

But by far, my favorite way to eat mint so far is in za'atar, a mixture of mint, thyme, oregano, and sumac combined with sesame seeds.  Added to olive oil, this spice combination makes a great dip for bread or, better yet, a topping for toasted flatbread pizza as they do here.  Actually, they put zatar (like everything here, the spelling varies widely) on everything and it's all great!

We all need more mint in our lives!  Come to Qatar and try it!

How may I serve you? Or not.

So many things are notable here it's hard to know what to talk about first!  Today's topic: customer service.  In the US, customer service varies from company to company, establishment to establishment, and, by and large, interactions with customer service, in my experience, are not all that helpful.  However, generally speaking, if something is really wrong, you can usually go up some sort of chain of command and get your concern resolved, particularly if you follow up with email or letters or documentation of some kind.

Not so in Qatar.  On the one hand, everyday customer service is somewhat shockingly comprehensive.  For example, take fast food: Burger King and McDonalds and every other fast or not so fast food establishment deliver, for no extra charge, just as a matter of course.  And if you need to pay by credit card?  No worries, the driver will take your card, drive back to the establishment, run the charge, then drive back to your house for your signature.  Because he is here to serve you!  And "drive through" service means you pull up to the front of McDonalds and someone will rush out to get your order and then bring it back out for you.  And if you decide to eat inside?  They will wave you away as soon as you place your order and then come find you and bring it to you when it's ready. Or take grocery shopping: when your groceries are bagged, someone will offer to roll your cart out to your car for you so you don't have to carry them yourself or even push your own cart.  Actually, come to think of it, if you want someone to push your cart around the entire store and pick up the items that you indicate, someone will do that for you, too.  Or so I've seen; I can't even imagine letting someone do that for me so I haven't availed myself of this particular brand of service.  But sometimes it can't be avoided: at the vegetable market, men with wheelbarrows will follow you around to carry your purchases and practically wrestle them out of your hands if you are not firm.  They are hoping for a tip, but the grocery store folks don't even expect that.

Even a company built on self service like Ikea operates differently here.  Throughout Ikea, employees are stationed with pencils ready to write down what your'e looking for and then follow you through the store to finish your order.  They will then pull the items off the shelves for you and deliver it to your house if you want.  It's craziness!  And it's the norm: I asked someone to tell me if they had a certain mattress pad in stock, and he handed me back a printout and asked for my signature.  When I asked him why he needed my signature, he said "So we can purchase this for you on your account and deliver it to your house."  I said, no, I would just like to know where it was in the store so I could pull it myself and take it home with me, and he actually laughed and shook his head and then pointed to the location, chuckling the whole time.  In Ikea!!

It's hard for me to get used to this kind of behavior, actually, after living in cities where most on the ground employees can't be bothered to know where anything is in the store, let alone help you find it. I try not to take advantage of the system, but yesterday I was looking for some decorations for a birthday party (more on that adventure after the party!), and I saw some foam dinosaurs flying in the air.  I asked where they were in the store and first one man and then another led me to where they were, only to discover they were out.  Both men were extremely apologetic and almost as a joke I asked if I could buy the two on the ceiling.  Immediately one ran to get a ladder and the other quoted me a ridiculously low price (especially for Qatar) and then ran back to where I was checking out to add them to my bill.  And I walked out with both dinosaurs and many smiles all around, even from the man who climbed up on top of a stool perched on top of rolling cart to cut them down for us!

However, this level of customer service has limits and those limits stop at the door to the stores.  Government offices seem to revel in obfuscation here; they even have names that sound like something out of a sci-fi novel, like the Supreme Ministry of Health.  Landlords and administrations of all kinds act in mysterious, seemingly illogical ways, and often when something happens, there is never any reason given or any redress available.  And an unspoken class system governs every interaction.  For example, our playroom here in our compound contains an antiquated play metal play structure, with exposed bolts and big metal pieces ready to come crashing down the minute play gets even a tad enthusiastic.  We were always there with the boys, who are fairly rough and tumble anyway, so it never bothered us.  But apparently it bothered someone important enough to say something to someone else of equal or greater importance (who?? couldn't tell you on either count), and today when we showed up to play, that structure had been dismantled.  Someone from the landlord's office told us it was unsafe (duh--it's been here for over 6 months unsafe) and it was being taken away.  Its replacement would come...some time in the future.  It would be plastic...or fiber glass...or something, but don't worry, it would take some time because it was being custom-made.  Translation: we may or may not ever see a replacement, and there is nothing we can do one way or the other.  Oh well!  At least someone will bring me a hamburger, right?

Little bits of life

I'm still a little too scattered for a long, coherent post.  Instead, a few (totally, oh so very) random observations.

Ways in which living in Qatar is awesome:

• The weather right now!  Oh my goodness, when I hear about the deep freeze hitting the Midwest this week, am I grateful to be living in the Middle East instead.  On Saturday, we went to an outdoor bazaar at the Museum of Islamic Art, and it was so very beautiful outside.  Sunny, not hot, wind blowing in off the Gulf (the Persian Gulf, that is), the perfect day to be outdoors.  We walked around the bazaar (basically an outdoor craft and random vendor market), went around the museum for a bit, then headed down to the other side of the park and played for a long time at this amazing playground filled with lots of other kids enjoying the weather along with us.  By the time we left around 4pm, the grassy areas in the park were just starting to fill with families on picnic blankets ready to enjoy the cool evening.  Honestly, the weather here in December rivals Hawaii's weather, truth be told.

• I went into my local grocery store and picked up a random package of pita bread (Qbake brand, for those wondering), mainly because it was warm (!) and it turned out to be the best pita bread EVER!  No, really, it was fabulous.  And I love that I can go into pretty much any store and pick up any other package from any other brand and chances are it will be just as good, because  pita (and all flat breads like unto it) are big business here.

• And speaking of the food, I am loving the food here (although it often doesn't love me back, but that's no surprise!). Even the tiniest little hole in the wall eatery makes better samosas than you have tried and the next restaurant makes something you've never heard of that is now your favorite food.  This place near us makes something called Meat or Chicken Barg, which is marinated steak or chicken grilled and served on flat bread, and I have no idea what they put on it but that meat is delicious!  Barg is served alongside a big bowl of cucumber, tomato, onion, and cabbage salad that I also like and the boys will eat by the bowlful.  Every place we go in another adventure and often another favorite.

• Our house.  Apart from the overabundance of insane furniture (TWO red velvet couches!), the place really is nice.  Tile floors, lots of room, a little yard, nice (though few) neighbors, peaceful and quiet (even during the daily calls to prayer, despite the fact that there is a mosque just outside the compound gates), and more or less conveniently located in the center of things. The boys have settled right in, even without all their things, and I have even learned to use the washer and dryer to my satisfaction, so we are making ourselves right at home!

Ways in which living in Qatar is less than awesome:

• I still, STILL don't have my residence permit and neither do the boys, because there was an anomaly on my chest X-ray.  If I could ever just talk to a doctor associated with the Supreme Medical Commission, I could explain that the "anomaly" is my PFO closure device, nothing to be worried about, but instead I have had to take X-rays three times now and in the meantime, they won't like the boys' permit go forward without mine, even though that would greatly aid our attempts to get into school.  Today we went to go get fingerprints and after an hour and a half of waiting, we were told the X-rays we took on our latest odyssey to the commission were not back yet so we couldn't go get our fingers printed after all.  Sigh!

• Driving really is horrendous here.  I was able to drive some last week and practice while many folks were on vacation and even that was challenging at times, but I am so glad I did then because it's even worse now that everyone is back.  People drive like Nascar drivers just as a matter of course and honk constantly, zoom into tiny spaces, pull up on or over curbs that happen to get in their way, and generally don't seem to care about danger.  And the roundabouts!!  These are going to be the bane of my existence, I can tell!

• And driving is complicated by the fact that no one gives directions well here and street addresses don't exist.  It drives me NUTS!  We went to the World Trade Festival Doha the other day.  I had read about it, and then someone on a listserv I'm on mentioned they had gone and it was fun and they gave the following directions to get there: "the turning is a couple of streets before villagio on the right near green village compound--it has been set up in the muraikh area not too far from Appletree nursery (aspire zone)."  Actually, it turns out you turn RIGHT at a huge NAMED intersection that is nowhere near the nursery mentioned and the compound mentioned isn't visible at all on the way there.  We only found it by sheer determination, when just a BIT more precise directions would have helped a lot.  But, you say, this is just some poor person you're picking on here, it's not her (it's a women's listserv) fault she can't give better driving instructions.  Don't worry, I consulted the local newspaper's article on the event and the event website itself and all they told me is that the event would take place in the Al Waab area, which is a HUGE, undefined set of neighborhoods bordering Al Waab street, a major thoroughfare.  It boggles the mind that anyone ever gets anywhere here!

On balance, we are still coming out on the plus side!  The residence permit hullabaloo will get resolved sooner rather than later, though the bureaucratic craziness will continue over and over again (see upcoming post on getting into schools for the boys!), and I will find my zen about both the driving and the lack of addresses (helped by both Google Maps and remembering that this is how things were in Guatemala as well--though I didn't love it then, either).  Soon enough I will have the wherewithal for real, descriptive posts again, I promise, but for now I need to buy some more groceries and get busy meal planning again (shopping for and preparing food is another post in and of itself).  Besides, right now some random maintenance worker is wandering around my backyard so I need to go find out what's going on (don't worry, happens every other day!  Nothing to see here!).