Bittersweet escape

Yesterday I had one of those heart-stopping moments you dread.

The husband texted me and asked if I was okay and I said sure, why?  He then said there had been an explosion at a gas station near Landmark Mall.  It took me a second to remember which mall that was...and then another long second as I slowly realized it was the mall right beside the park where J was having a field day field trip.  I could barely type the letters as I texted that to the husband and then frantically put the area into google maps to see where the park was in relation to the station.  I was shaking and holding my breath and praying and hoping, but I couldn't find the location and all the news reports were too sketchy to be of any help.  The husband texted back to say he had heard that the gas station was one kilometer away from the park.

One kilometer was far too close.  School wasn't out for another hour and half, but I grabbed E and we got into the car and headed to school as quickly as I could.  This is a new school, and they are undergoing some changes in administration and email blasts aren't really a thing here yet, so I have found that face to face communication is really the only kind of communication that works.

The school secretary told me all the kids were already back safe and sound.  Apparently they had heard the blast and gotten the kids loaded onto the buses quickly but without alarming them at all (J had no idea why they left early and couldn't care less).  She asked if I wanted to take him then and since there were only 40 mins left in the day, I said yes.  A few minutes later, he was running up to me, bubbling about his sports day and the cool buses that looked like airplanes inside.

It turns out that a propane tank exploded at Turkish restaurant by the gas station.  Last I heard, 12 people are dead and more than 30 injured.  It was a tragedy and not the first time something like this has happened.  Safety inspections are lax if they exist at all and there is little enforcement of the laws that do exist.  The pictures from the aftermath were awful, and my heart breaks for the families of the lost and wounded.  All I could do was hug J tighter last night and be grateful he was safely right next to me.

Let's do brunch

Brunch is a big deal in Qatar.  Every hotel or restaurant has a Friday brunch (Friday is the equivalent of Sunday in the West) and often a Saturday brunch as well.  And almost any holiday can be celebrated with a special brunch or two...or twenty.  In fact, buffets in general are big here, for any meal and every occasion.

And I have to say, I wholeheartedly approve of the Qatari approach to buffets in general and brunch in particular.  You see, in the States, your typical brunch has some sweet and some savory breakfast items, lots of carbohydrates in all sorts of varieties, maybe some salads or pasta or cold buts, a few "stations," perhaps for omelets or waffles or pancakes, some fruit, and usually some sort of signature savory dish like hash or breakfast burritos or, if you're in Charleston, shrimp and grits.  Basically, all the brunches I have been to in the states are simply bigger breakfasts later in the day.

Not so in Qatar!  At our last brunch (at the golf club that was hosting the Qatar Masters the next weekend), we walked into a room and were greeted by the usual breadbasket...only there were three or four baskets and loaves to slice and lots of pita bread.  Then there was, in no particular order, a roast beef carving station, chicken tikka masala and a korma, rice, lots of potato dishes, lamb and vegetable kabobs, a big assortment of sushi and sashimi, an assemble it yourself cold cut sandwich station, a huge array of Arabic mezze dishes including hummus, babaganoush, and labneh, a salad bar that included capers, salmon, and 6 different kinds of olives, 8 kinds of fresh fruit including pineapple and lychees, AND an amazing dessert spread containing, among other items, baklava, bread pudding, fruit and cream tarts, brownies, and lots of sauces.  And there was more than all this, even, but I couldn't sample everything there was to eat, so some of it escapes my memory.  Everything I did eat, however, was scrumptious!   I'd never thought about it before, but don't you want to be able to have crab rolls and hummus and chocolate dipped strawberries at the same meal?  You could never make yourself all that for one meal at home, so I love that I can this at every brunch I visit here!

And buffets are more of the same, with no default to any particular cuisine.  At our sports day festivities, we had peanut bean sprout salad (E devoured this), biryani rice, petite steaks, mezze dishes, pancakes with sweet sauces, tomato and mozzarella salad, corn on the cob, grilled lamb (J was very much the carnivore this day, eating his weight in steak, chicken, and lamb), hamburger sliders, and veggie kabobs, among other dishes.  And so many desserts!!   I could get used to this!

We went to a lavish Christmas Eve buffet I couldn't even describe to you, but the principle was the same, in hyperdrive.  Oh, you want sushi AND a fish station serving lobster, oysters, crab, shrimp, and prawns next to an ice cream sundae bar?  Done!  You would like traditional English holiday dishes next to dishes from India, Asia, and Morocco?  Done!  Even if I had only had one bite of everything, I would have gotten too full too quickly to sample it all.  I find this kind of eclectic excess     endearing...and delicious!

Stuff and nonsense

As I have noted before, when the boys and I cam here, we came with 6 suitcases and 6 carry-ons and nothing else.  Since we've been here, we have acquired little else besides school uniforms, prices for everything being so much higher than I can stomach.

So our time has been an inadvertent experiment in minimalism, which is not only out of character for us, it's out of character for a large sub-set of the population here, where excess and consumption are a way of life for some.

When we sold off half our possessions, I only had a few twinges of regret during the process (goodbye carefully curated library), but I was fairly certain that the things with which we were left were either important enough to keep, of sentimental value, or kids' toys and books.  I made the boys go through their toys to get rid of excess weight, and they were troopers during the process, happily saying goodbye to half their dinosaurs and matchbox cars for instance, but I still let them bring the majority of the toys and all of the children's books, because I didn't want them to lose all that was familiar all at once, and I had a sneaking suspicion that it might be difficult to get quality toys and books here.   I think that was the right decision, but now I wonder about some of the other decisions I made about what to take, and soon I will have to face a time of reckoning, since we have finally received word that our shipping container has arrived in Doha.  We won't have it for up to two more weeks while it passes through customs, but soon enough all those many...many...so many boxes and packages will be here...and I already sort of feel like I want to have another garage sale!

Don't get me wrong: some things I miss terribly, like different clothes (note to self: I have proven that I could do a 30 pieces of clothes for 30 days challenge or something similar, but I really wouldn't enjoy it!) in different colors (navy, black, and coral were a great choice, but I am SO tired of these colors now.  And how did I manage to move halfway across the globe and bring only one article of green clothing??) and my kitchen supplies (my kingdom for measuring cups and a giant non-stick skillet!).  But I've started to remember some of the other things I brought and sometimes I wonder "what was I thinking? Why didn't I sell that?!"

Part of the problem is one of storage.  We had a garage before, and lots of items lived in the garage, like the tool box and the golf clubs and the bikes, but we have no garage here.  We also had a basement before, and lots of other things lived in the basement, like the camping equipment and 72 hour kits and our luggage, but we have no basement here.  In fact, we have very few closets at all in Doha.  Storage is not something integral to the constructions plans here like it is in the States, not because we have more stuff in North America (although, arguably, that is probably true), but because many of us don't like to see all our stuff out at once like folks enjoy here.  What that means for me right now, in a practical sense, is that I need to completely rethink the bins and boxes that will soon arrive on my doorstep...and perhaps get rid of even more of them!

Some choices I stand by: bringing bins of art and craft supplies was a very good idea.  Bringing a box of new-to-us toys for future gifts and birthday presents was also prescient.  However, I probably could have gotten rid of even more of my kitchen paraphernalia, and I should have been more ruthless about the boys' clothes, particularly since they have both grown since we've arrived and they hardly wear anything but uniforms now.  I do miss my towels, but it turns out that the mattresses here are just SLIGHTLY different sizes than the standard ones in the US, so I could have eliminated even more of my linens.   Some choices I just don't know how to address: while I am glad there are board games coming (we have gotten a tad Uno-ed out), I have no idea where we will keep them.  I am happy we packed both our fold-up tables, but I couldn't tell you where we will store them when not in use.

And perhaps what I should do, instead of finding places for all these things, is ask myself once again if we really and truly need them and, if not, give them away or sell them.  Perhaps this is our opportunity to embrace minimalism in preparation for our eventual departure from the Middle East.  Because we have already committed to leaving with much less than we came with.  Our goal is to leave with just our suitcases and perhaps a few boxes of books sent home, but we will not be shipping a container back to the States or to wherever we move next.  So the long, gradual purge we began last year will continue, it seems, more quickly than perhaps we imagined.

And in the future perhaps we should always look for houses with very few closets!

Wardrobe MVP

If you were moving to the Middle East from the Midwest in the middle of winter, you might be tempted to ditch all your cold weather togs and bring only shorts and tees and swimsuits.  You would fight against this urge, knowing that you were going to arrive in the middle of their winter, too, but it would be hard to imagine needing any of those things while you compared their weather report (balmy mid 60s) to yours (frigid low 20s).  On the one hand, if you were me, you would know from your time growing up in Hawaii and then living in South Carolina that even the mid 60s can be chilly if that's what one is used to.  On the other hand, even though your kids were born in the South, they had two Ohio winters under their belts and were used to walking to school through the snow, even if only for two blocks.  On the third hand (you're going to need more hands), it's still the desert, right?  And it's still going to be very warm in comparison to your current locale, right?

With all these hands to consider, you might be very confused about what to pack.  Eventually, all your clothes would follow you to the desert, but that would take some time (two months and counting, folks), so you needed to make smart choices now about your mid-winter wardrobe for Qatar.  Despite the confusion, I made pretty good choices for myself and the boys, with one crucial mistake.  In the end, I brought more pairs of pants for all of us than I really thought necessary, but we have needed every pair.  I also brought two fleeces each for the boys as well as one for me, which was  an excellent decision, since we have used those as well in the early morning cold here.

What I didn't bring enough of, sadly, were cardigans.  You see, the real secret to successful Western attire in Qatar is cardigans, lots and lots of cardigans.  I brought two, one black, one navy, and that was not nearly enough.  And I had loads of them at home to choose from, but no, many of those were sold or given away (poor choice on my part), and the rest are safely (I hope) stored in our shipping container, doing me no good at the moment.

And why are cardigans the best look for Qatar?  For oh so many reasons!  One, no matter what the weather outside, everywhere in Doha is VERY well air conditioned, which means that year round, as soon as you go indoors, you are freezing.  Enter the cardigan.  Two, modesty here is no joke.  In fact, immodesty is an offense punishable by fines and imprisonment if someone were inclined to follow the letter of the law.  Technically, for Westerners, the rule is that you should have your knees and shoulders covered in public to be safe and said coverings should also not be too revealing.  I'd rather not have anyone decide that my shirt is too tight for public decency's stake, so if I am ever concerned,  or I don't want to have to give my outfit a second thought throughout the day, I just throw on a demure cardigan and breathe easy.  Three, as a general rule, everyone here is a bit more dressed up than folks back home on a day to day basis.  No one goes out in yoga pants, you know what I'm saying?  I've heard that some in the fashion world say one simple key to looking more put together is wearing at least three items of clothing (not counting shoes and accessories).  I think this might be a good rule of thumb, particularly in a place in which most women are dressed to the nines, even if some of their designer clothes are hidden under their abayas.  You can still tell that the attire bar is set quite a bit higher here.  So cardigans are my go-to third item of clothing.  Add a scarf (also a popular piece here) and lose the flip flops (which I only do when I really want to impress--I really love my flip flops!), and I look presentable by the standards of my new home.

Long live the cardigan, queen of the closet!

I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien!

Not only to I now have my residence permit and my US passport safely back in my possession, I am also a legal driver in Qatar!

Believe me, this is a definite reason for celebration.  And cause for a deep sigh of relief.  I have been driving since we arrived, but since I didn't have my residence permit yet, I was driving quasi-legally and couldn't actually get a Qatari license until I had my RP anyway.  Then I got it, hurray, and decided it was time to actually get legal, a decision propelled along more quickly by the husband hearing that if I were to get into an accident while a legal resident but without a legal license, I could be put in prison for three months.  Gulp!  This may or may not be true (it's hard to tell the difference between rumor and truth here at times, but assuming the worst is true is a good place to start!), but it was the motivation I needed to get serious.  The process is grueling for Americans: eye test, written exam, and driving road test (the rumor in this case is that some member of Qatari royalty was forced to take a road test while living in the States and so now all Americans must do this though residents of other Western countries do not).  Most people flunk one of these tests at least once, usually more.  Okay, let's go!

First step, an eye exam.  The husband had his exam done at the driving school behind our house so I went there yesterday...and the exam place was closed.  Will it be open today?  No, closed today.  Will it be open tomorrow?  Maybe.  Umm, okay, thanks.  Any optician, any optical clinic, any one.  You go there.  Again, thanks.  At this point, it was almost 8 and very few businesses in Qatar open before 10.  But, on the off chance that I could find an open place, I went to the nearest mall (there are a million malls here).  And I did find one, that opened at 9.  I needed to be back to pick up E at 10 so I figured IF they opened on time, and IF they did the right exam, and IF it was quick, I could be done in time to go pick him up 20 minutes away--a lot of ifs, which often don't turn out the way we want in Doha.  BUT, miraculously, they did open on time, the doctor was only five minutes late, and the exam took three minutes (I passed), so I was on the road and early to get E.

Buoyed by my success, I decided to take E with me back to the driving school to schedule my "theory" exam, a computer test on traffic signals and road signs.  They directed me to the traffic department next door...which was closed, lights off, at 11am, for no apparent reason.  Again, no reason why, though I was gratified to see a Qatari man there banging on the same door I had peered through, and he was even more upset than I was, so at least there wasn't some obscure holiday I didn't know about happening.  Small consolation, but consolation nonetheless.

We're all so sporty!

This week we celebrated Qatar's National Sports Day, a fabulous holiday we should implement in the US.  The premise is simple: everyone gets a day off to celebrate and engage in "sport" as a family.  Many companies, like the husband's throw parties for employees, as does the state, at venues all over the city.  Our celebration was held at the Hyatt Grand Hotel Beach and Gardens and involved, among other activities, yoga, beach volleyball, kayaking, paddle boarding, a bounce house and games for the kids, table tennis, and a huge lunch buffet.  The kids played in the ocean and bounced themselves silly before we all ate our fill of chicken tikka, steak, salads galore, potato dishes I have never seen before, tons of rice, and many, many, many desserts (after all that sport you deserve to eat, apparently).  After a full day at the beach, only one of us ended up with a sunburn (the husband escaped my vigilance) and only one of us had a meltdown (not me!).  It was great fun and a success, though we have a better plan of attack for next year's celebration so we can minimize down time and maximize fun.  And there was swag: we all walked away with t-shirts, the boys got wooden paddle ball games, and the husband picked up a hat, beach towel, and small knapsack.  What's not to love about all of that!

Here the husband and J are floating on some sort of inflatable climbing ball...structure...thingy.  It was actually great fun, as you can see from their expressions, though this picture was taken just before J got shot off the side and would have broken his neck but for the husband's lightening reflexes: he actually caught him before he hit the water!

There was face painting, very sporty, and J got his faced painted like the Qatari flag!

It was too cold in the water to do more than wade, but everyone enjoyed digging in the sand (and yet, that's a yogurt container doubling as a sand bucket, thank you.  Our shipping container STILL hasn't arrived!).

And E spent basically the whole day playing in the sand making castles and mud pies, much too busy to pose for pictures, Mom!

Round the World?

Before we began our current adventure, I was deep in the throes of planning another adventure, a round the world trip for an entire year.  My thinking was that we would take this trip between our last job and the next, when the boys were far along enough in school that they could read independently (so I could attempt road schooling without wanting to kill myself), and we could take off some time while the husband was job hunting.  I also believe very strongly in the "if you build it they will come" mentality, so all my planning was my way of assuring that we actually did this, took this trip at some point in the future.

And then we moved to the Middle East out of the blue.

And at first, I thought this just meant we were going to change our timetable a bit, go on our trip a bit later, when the boys were a bit older.

And then I had an epiphany!

My main goals for taking an extended RTW trip were traveling to many exciting destinations and educating the kids about life in other climes and other cultures without breaking the bank.  I could buy into the backpacking ethic because it appealed to my "travel light" upbringing and my love of frugality, but I wasn't enamored of the idea of trekking across the globe in hiking boots.  (I did that once, actually, backpacked through Europe in college one spring with absolutely zero preparation beyond borrowing someone's backpack, and it was fun and all but doing it with kids seems...less fun.)  But how else could I accomplish my goals?

How indeed?  Now we find ourselves living in Qatar, smack in the middle of a new-to-us culture, home to many other cultural traditions, peoples, and foods, all of which we meet almost daily.  Eradicating cultural myopia?  Educating the boys about the world beyond?  Check, check!

And while Qatar is in many ways an exciting destination in its own right, and we are exploring more every day, my epiphany is this: I can take the family to all sorts of fun and exciting places from here, using our new home as a home-base, keeping them in school at the same time, taking advantage of both their copious vacation time and our location in the center of the globe AND the wonder that is family adventure touring, which I have only just discovered.  So we WILL be traveling around the world, just in short legs, usually one country at a time.  And we will be traveling light, with just our backpacks as carry-ons, my favorite way to go anyway.  We will get to see new parts of the world, and I will only have to plan part of it sometimes and let the tour companies do the rest.  AND, best of all, we will be able to try on a small scale what what we hoped to do on a large scale and see if it is really for us.

So, after I shared my epiphany and my research with my husband, we sat down to decide where we want to go.  And here's where the husband's ideas crashed into mine. You see, I have traveled some already in my life, enough to know there are whole regions of the world I don't need to (re)visit.  My list includes various countries, but I'm not very particular about what I see there.  For example, I want to visit Greece, India, Morocco, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Australia/New Zealand, Spain, and perhaps somewhere in Southeast Asia.  The husband, on the other hand, has the following on his travel list: motorcycling and golfing in Scotland, scuba diving with whale sharks, rafting down the Snake River, and hiking the Incan Trail, all of this with the boys.  There are more, but you get the idea.  A bit specific, no?  I'm so glad I asked!  We did determine that many of his wishes can only occur at some point in the future, after, say, the boys learn to swim...and get scuba certified...and learn to play golf...and drive!  Fortunately, he also has a complementary plan that he and the boys will go on summer adventures together starting when J is 16, so several of these ideas will become those summer outings, which let's me off the hook for the time being.

In the meantime, we are scheduled for our first trip in April, to Frankfurt, Germany!  I know, I know, it's not really that sexy of a destination and it's on neither of our lists, but the husband has never been to Germany though his whole family lived there for awhile AND we happen to have an LDS temple there, so we are killing lots of birds with one stone and starting our travels the easy way, by going to Europe.  I'm planning this one and so far we have a boat trip up the Rhine, trips to multiple zoos, a ride on a funicular, and multiple museum visits on the schedule, including a visit to a pharmacy museum (but of course!).  It's like dipping our little toe in the vast travel ocean.  I think it's going to be fabulous and just the first of many fun family trips.  Stay tuned!

Tips to survive grocery shopping in Qatar

Expat shopping is always a game, but right now I am on the verge of winning!  It is still taking a little work to get used to the fact that everything costs two to three times what it does in the States AT LEAST, but once you wrap your mind around that and establish a "three times the normal price is the new normal" mindset, things start to go much better!  So, in the interests of helping out the next person who moves here and does the same exhaustive Googling I did, here are some tricks I've picked up so far:

1. Arabic writing on labels is your friend, especially if you recognize the label otherwise.  Philadelphia cream cheese imported from the US?  A gazillion Riyals.  Philadelphia cream cheese with labels in Greek and Arabic?  The same price as a local product also called "cream cheese."  I haven't tried this one out yet, but there's no need when Philly is also available!
2. Which leads me to my second tip: try the local brands.  No, better yet, love the local brands!  As I said, most food items are two to three times more expensive than I'm used to (although my Canadian friends here find Qatar to be quite reasonable, which makes me sad for our neighbors to the North), but imported foods are always at least that and then some.  (Just one example from today's grocery run, I just saw Ragu pasta sauce for over $6 a jar.  Fancy Italian-American brand I could have bought at home but never did?  $9 a jar.)  And yet, right there on the same shelf, other brands of pasta sauce (with Arabic) for only $2-3 for the same size.  My theory is try them all and find the local one you like best.  And never look back.  Your wallet will thank you!
3. Embrace the unexpected.  I told you all about my love for bottled lemon mint, right?  A friend here mentioned that her son loves that carrot-orange juice and is so sad when he is back in the States and can't have it.  I am all about finding new favorites and eating them into oblivion and then mourning their loss on our visits elsewhere instead of constantly obsessing over things I can't have (root beer, I'm decidedly NOT looking in your direction).  Have you heard of Tim Tam cookies?  They're caramel-filled, chocolate-coated biscuits that taste a lot like Twix bars but are much, much cheaper and kept with the crackers so you feel almost virtuous picking them up!
4. Suspend logic in favor of diligence.  What's that, you say, it makes no sense that applesauce would be kept with all the other sauces, like barbecue sauce or cocktail sauce or hoisin sauce, so why would you think to look there?  But oh, my friend, if you didn't, then no applesauce for you.  And why are tortillas kept in three different parts of the store, including with the "ethnic" foods, in the refrigerated imported snacks aisle, and in the bread section?  No idea, but the ones in the bread section are cheapest, though still a staggering $4 for a package of 6 (it hurts me even to type that, let alone pick up two packages).
5. Become a hoarder.  The availability of products varies wildly here.  If you see something you know you use and love and haven't seen before much, like, say, today's bounty, corn meal (I am so excited about this, I can't even tell you!!!) buy as many as you think you can use before the expiration date.  Actually, today was a red-letter day: not only did I find Quaker yellow corn meal (!!!), I also found another product I'd never seen before called Aunt Jemima's self-rising white corn meal mix that contains corn meal and leavening agents and will also make great cornbread.  I bought both.  I will probably go back tomorrow and buy some more of the yellow corn meal just to be safe.  I know people who have stock piles of canned black beans, which are notoriously difficult to find here.  And don't think I won't stockpile them myself if I am ever lucky enough to beat them next time!

I'm sure I will have more tidbits in the future; I'm only a month in, folks! I am planning on being an expert at this before I leave, whenever that is!