We are well into the last trimester of school for the boys (I think trimesters remind me far too much of pregnancy; I don't like them) and looking forward to our triumphant (?) return to the homeland soon, so it is probably a good time to check in on ourselves and see how we are doing here in the tiny country of Qatar. How have we adjusted? How are we doing? How is it all going? In short, is it everything we thought it would be?? In a word: almost!
The Husband: It turns out opening a North American hospital in a Middle Eastern country is quite the project! No surprise there. The particulars are as maddening as you might imagine, marrying all sorts of bureaucracies with international corporate cultures and different cultural climates and doing it all on a tight deadline. The husband is being a trooper and soldiering on with his tiny but dedicated staff through the many challenges and some days he feels productive and some days he feels frustrated but fortunately the former outweigh the latter! The reality of foreign income taxes minus any real provisions for tax shelters has just hit us recently but even with all that, we still come out ahead financially, which was one of the big appeals of this job in the first place.
The Boys: Settling into a routine has been hard for them, as I have said, but school has been going well, thankfully. This school has felt like it is held together with scotch tape at times, and I have yet to meet the mysterious missing principal, but fortunately all this lack of administrative structure has meant that there has been a lot of room for me to be a presence at the boys' school. (Just today I was able to go in and make sure the boys are in the classrooms I want for them for the next academic year. Sometimes being nosy and proactive has its privileges. Okay, actually that's most times, truth be told!) The pathetic, heart-rending cries of "I want to go back to Shaker Heights!" come less and less frequently, but the acting-out/outbursts at home are still pretty regular. Both boys have made some friends at school, but only E has a friend in the compound...though even if there were another child J's age, I'm not sure they would be friends. (We're working on that!) They have also settled in at church finally, which took so much longer than we wished and was such a difficult transition for them, for some reason. The pool and the late days at school have so far made the heat tolerable, but I don't think they will be riding their bikes again until long after we return from summer break. They are really looking forward to leaving, and I hope will be looking forward to coming back just as much. Fingers crossed!
Me: I am slowly, slowly finding my way here. So slowly.... Grocery shopping is only totally aggravating about every third time (today, for instance, no lemonade, no baguettes of any kind for dinner, no medicine that was supposed to be in the pharmacy...argh!) which is really an improvement over the constant consternation of the past. I told someone the other day that I bought 150 riyals worth of cheddar cheese when I found it unexpectedly at the store one morning and she said "you have officially adjusted to living here!" since hoarding really is the name of the game most of the time. I have found substitutes or work-arounds for almost every ingredient I've been missing, which has made the kitchen less forbidding. I am volunteering twice a month at a small private children's library and am liking that, though I could probably go more often and may still do so. I feel more comfortable driving, though it's still a daily roller coaster ride...mixed with a small molotov cocktail! I volunteered to chair a newly formed welcoming committee at church so I could convince myself I am no longer "new" and help others have a smoother transition...if at all possible! And I spend a lot of time at the kids' school, some on purpose, some the result of an inordinate amount in the school parking lot, but it keeps me busy!
The Strange: Some days I feel like everything here has become normal to me...and then something totally unexpected happens like my child contracts scarlet freaking fever, and I remember how utterly bizarre my life really is in some ways. Don't get me wrong, I really do think coming here was the right choice, is the right choice, and I feel we are learning so many new things, having so many new experiences, and growing in so many new ways that everything we are doing is worth all the strangeness. But the strangeness abides, believe me! Stay tuned....
The Husband: It turns out opening a North American hospital in a Middle Eastern country is quite the project! No surprise there. The particulars are as maddening as you might imagine, marrying all sorts of bureaucracies with international corporate cultures and different cultural climates and doing it all on a tight deadline. The husband is being a trooper and soldiering on with his tiny but dedicated staff through the many challenges and some days he feels productive and some days he feels frustrated but fortunately the former outweigh the latter! The reality of foreign income taxes minus any real provisions for tax shelters has just hit us recently but even with all that, we still come out ahead financially, which was one of the big appeals of this job in the first place.
The Boys: Settling into a routine has been hard for them, as I have said, but school has been going well, thankfully. This school has felt like it is held together with scotch tape at times, and I have yet to meet the mysterious missing principal, but fortunately all this lack of administrative structure has meant that there has been a lot of room for me to be a presence at the boys' school. (Just today I was able to go in and make sure the boys are in the classrooms I want for them for the next academic year. Sometimes being nosy and proactive has its privileges. Okay, actually that's most times, truth be told!) The pathetic, heart-rending cries of "I want to go back to Shaker Heights!" come less and less frequently, but the acting-out/outbursts at home are still pretty regular. Both boys have made some friends at school, but only E has a friend in the compound...though even if there were another child J's age, I'm not sure they would be friends. (We're working on that!) They have also settled in at church finally, which took so much longer than we wished and was such a difficult transition for them, for some reason. The pool and the late days at school have so far made the heat tolerable, but I don't think they will be riding their bikes again until long after we return from summer break. They are really looking forward to leaving, and I hope will be looking forward to coming back just as much. Fingers crossed!
Me: I am slowly, slowly finding my way here. So slowly.... Grocery shopping is only totally aggravating about every third time (today, for instance, no lemonade, no baguettes of any kind for dinner, no medicine that was supposed to be in the pharmacy...argh!) which is really an improvement over the constant consternation of the past. I told someone the other day that I bought 150 riyals worth of cheddar cheese when I found it unexpectedly at the store one morning and she said "you have officially adjusted to living here!" since hoarding really is the name of the game most of the time. I have found substitutes or work-arounds for almost every ingredient I've been missing, which has made the kitchen less forbidding. I am volunteering twice a month at a small private children's library and am liking that, though I could probably go more often and may still do so. I feel more comfortable driving, though it's still a daily roller coaster ride...mixed with a small molotov cocktail! I volunteered to chair a newly formed welcoming committee at church so I could convince myself I am no longer "new" and help others have a smoother transition...if at all possible! And I spend a lot of time at the kids' school, some on purpose, some the result of an inordinate amount in the school parking lot, but it keeps me busy!
The Strange: Some days I feel like everything here has become normal to me...and then something totally unexpected happens like my child contracts scarlet freaking fever, and I remember how utterly bizarre my life really is in some ways. Don't get me wrong, I really do think coming here was the right choice, is the right choice, and I feel we are learning so many new things, having so many new experiences, and growing in so many new ways that everything we are doing is worth all the strangeness. But the strangeness abides, believe me! Stay tuned....
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