A sense of direction

One of the ways I most quickly acclimatize to a new place is getting familiar with the roads.  Until I can get from one important place to another confidently, I feel adrift, images in my head whirling around as I try (and fail) to get my bearings while someone else is driving.  It doesn't help that I have a very poor understanding North, South, East, and West.  Coming of age in Hawaii where the major directions are "toward the ocean" and "toward the mountains" has always hurt me when it comes to orienting myself on a compass.  Fortunately, I have a fabulous ability to orient myself to landmarks.  If I drive to a place once, I can get back there again, following landmarks.

But Qatar is challenging my skillz, yo!  The constant construction here means that routes change without notice.  The lawless driving means that new "roads" appear daily as some lemming-like urge suddenly causes people to drive across empty lots and fields and create their own paths, which may or may not conflict with already established traffic patterns.  Even electronic maps can't keep up with the  new developments in official roads, let alone account for construction blockages and sheer driver bullheadedness.   Plus, road names here are virtually meaningless anyway.  You would think the fact that everyone gives directions via landmarks would work for me, but here it just results in people never bothering to find out the names of major roads so you find yourself saying things like I did the other day when I was trying to give directions to someone who was coming to pick up some empty boxes we had: "You know the flyover on X road after the expressway?  So you go through the roundabout under the flyover, then straight through the next roundabout, then you pass Y compound on your right, then at the next roundabout with the two petrol stations you flip a U turn and then take your second right and look for the mosque on your left and then you will see our compound where the road dead-ends."  Unfortunately, this is as good as it gets, since only one of these roundabouts even has an unofficial name, the road you turn on to get to my place isn't named at all, and our compound doesn't show up on any maps yet.  Sheesh!

So I am persevering, and I am winning the battle, slowly, with the help of GPS and my landmarks.  Sometimes, ever more frequently, without the help of GPS, which brings me inordinate satisfaction.  The other day, we were trying to get to the wholesale vegetable market from a new direction.  The lovely voice of Google Maps told me to get on the expressway to shorten our trip, but when I took the suggested route, I discovered that the expressway entrance recommended had been closed without any indication signs or suggested detours.  I knew more or less where we were and how to get back to another major road so I started making my way back there.  Meanwhile, the voice kept trying to route me back to the expressway, again and again telling me to turn the way I didn't want to go, but I didn't have time to turn it off, so I ignored it.

All the sudden, J asked "Has that lady ever BEEN to the vegetable market?? Cause she really doesn't know where she is going, does she?"  After laughing for quite a while, we had a fun discussion about maps and electronic information and computer algorithms and artificial intelligence as I tried to explain that the voice didn't really belong to a person but to a computer (because that's the kind of thing we always discuss in the car, no joke!) as we made our way back to a route that Google Maps recognized and the voice started to be helpful again.  At the end of our chat and our journey, J said indignantly "I think we need to help them correct their maps so that she doesn't tell people the wrong way to go!"  Ever since that day, whenever we use Google Maps, which is thankfully less and less each week, he is quick to ask if she is sending us the right way or not.  Usually, I now know enough to be able to scan ahead and make sure we aren't about to go on a wild goose chase through areas I know are full of construction, but I know J still believes she can't be trusted!

Easy listening

There are only three English language radio stations here.  One is the Qatar Foundation station, which has strange programming, beginning with a meditation hour which is followed by an English morning show (your typical two DJs and their cast of characters, with sports, interviews, and music thrown in. And by music, I mean Jefferson Airplane and Elton John, etc.).  Want to feel completely out of your depth? Listen to a British sports announcer discuss what happened in cricket and soccer over the weekend.  I have NO IDEA what anyone is saying ever!  After the morning show, classical music and instrumental oldies are interspersed randomly interspersed with recorded interviews with members of the Qatar Foundation describing their work and bizarre information pieces on topics like the origins of ice cream or comets.  I like the morning show, but it doesn't start until after I drop the kids off at school, and the later programming is sometimes frustrating because you never know when there is going to be music, muzak, or talk.

The second station, Qatar Radio, plays international music sung in English, which mainly consists of wacky songs from all sorts of genres (mostly pop songs by Filipino artists) mixed in with a few top 40 UK or American artists (I just switched to that station and they were playing Royals by Lorde followed by Want Dem All by Seal Paul...?  Never heard of it?  Me either.  Apparently he's Jamaican?)  Most of the pop is really frenetic, and I find it difficult to listen to that music while dealing with the crazy traffic so I mostly skip this station.

The third station is the audio feed from the English language station of Al Jazeera television.  You knew Al Jazeera was based in Qatar, right?  It's one of the country's greatest claims to fame--or infamy, depending on your perspective--and certainly the country's biggest contribution to the international scene.  And as much as I love listening to the news, I can only take so much of it.  The world is far to depressing for a steady diet of news.

So what to listen to when trapped for long periods of the day in the car?  Ladies and gentlemen, I have become the queen of the podcasts!

You see, it occurred to me shortly after I arrived here and was pushed into got an iPhone that surely there was something within all those available apps that could help me.  And what was this new kind of broadcasting all the kids were talking about...five to ten years ago?  (I live in the vanguard of technology, I know!)  After a little searching, I found the podcast app, and I have never looked back.  I'm hooked!

What's on the menu?

I've posted before about how Qatar is vexing my efforts in the kitchen.  The other day, at church, I was relieved to hear that I'm not alone in this.  A new friend of mine who arrived here shortly after I did told me she gets so discouraged by her own cooking she wants to throw in the dish towel and quit altogether.  I hear ya, Sister!

So I feel like I need to celebrate the few moments when things go right, when I do manage to cook something not only edible but even, dare I say it, delicious!

Today I had a bunch of red and yellow cherry tomatoes in danger of going bad, the result of my eyes being MUCH bigger than my stomach while I was shopping at the vegetable market and the fact that the yellow tomatoes were inexplicably CHEAPER than the red ones.  What is up with that??  Like I said, I was so shocked I bought a half kilo of the yellows when I had already bought a half kilo of the reds!  (NOTE: a half kilo is my new favorite measurement.  When I'm at the market, I have a hard time estimating how much I will need of a given vegetable or fruit and talking about pounds is useless, but I have discovered that if I get a half kilo of most things, it's just about enough to get my family through the week.  Plus, when I ask for a half kilo, they invariably give me more anyway, because it's so novel for a white woman to be buying her own produce and carrying it herself--thank you giant reusable shopping bags--and with a half kilo, a few more won't hurt, but with a full kilo, pretty soon I've got way more than we can eat.  Just sayin!).

Anywho, I had all these yummy tomatoes that I didn't want to waste, so I looked for something simple and yummier I could do with them and I ran into this recipe and roasted cherry tomato sauce sounds pretty good, doesn't it?  As a bonus, I had all the ingredients on hand (except I only had dried basil instead of fresh but CLOSE ENOUGH!).  And, even better, it didn't violate my five ingredients or fewer goal for all my favorite recipes (spices you always have on hand don't count in your five ingredient total), and it looked super simple and virtually foolproof, which meant it might even be Qatar-proof!  And it was!  Omigosh, folks, this stuff is luscious!  I want to eat it on everything.  I think tonight we will try it on pita pizzas to class them up a bit.  Granted, mine didn't look as beautiful as hers does, because you know what happens when you char yellow and red cherry tomatoes a little bit until they burst?  They turn a different color but they still taste so so good, so I don't care!

My success buoyed me on to do some menu planning.  It was a painstaking process but I persevered.

Step 1: Brainstorm recipes your family likes.  Wonder at your list: are we really that American??

Step 2: Delete those recipes that contain ingredients that aren't available locally or cost more than your first child will ever make in his whole life.  (Deletions will include your favorite pasta salad, pumpkin soup, and anything involving ham or other pork products.)

Step 3: Cry a little, take a deep breath, and brainstorm some more.  Wonder about your fixation with pork.

Step 4: Come up with a 7 day rotation, talk to the husband about something else entirely, find out he has decided he doesn't really want to eat pasta any more, take off the (still cheap in Qatar, dang it!) pasta options, revamp your rotation, and try to expand into a 14 day rotation because you are a glutton for punishment.

Step 5: Make up a loose shopping list for your menu plan, bearing in mind always that many items may just not be in stock for some unknown reason, now or ever again, and decide to look at the whole process as a game!

Step 6: Go out for dinner!

70 Sharpies

That's the number of Sharpies I have unpacked (so far).  Don't let the roundish number fool you.  All but 8 and 12 of those came in packs of two or three or even one at a time.  I have every color of the rainbow and then some, every size and shape the fine people at Sharpie make, from tiny, thin lines to giant thick ones, including Sharpies that hang from your key chain.

When I was packing, sorting, selling stuff, many sources, including my world-traveling sister, told me only to pack those things I wouldn't miss if my container fell off into the ocean.  And I dutifully sent most of our memorabilia home to our parents' houses.  And then I pared down A LOT, and I thought I was only bringing the most necessary things with me.  And I DID do a pretty good job, overall.  I brought art supplies they don't have here, enough activity books to keep the boys entertained in church and restaurants until they're 12 and 14, toys they have played with non-stop since they arrived, books we are so happy to be reading, and lots of other things I have sorely missed.

But 70 Sharpies??

I do use Sharpies, almost daily, because I am a labeling fiend, I have small boys who can't seem to keep track of all the clothes they are wearing, and I buy cheap shoes (Sharpie-ing those bad boys up can make them last for YEARS, I tell you).  And they probably do sell Sharpies here, though I haven't seen them, and, if they do, I bet they cost much more than I have ever paid or want to pay.  However, if those Sharpies had fallen into the ocean, I wouldn't have missed them.  Or a bucket of counting bears.  Or seven blank notebooks.  Or an old flip cell phone.  Or a giant Canadian flag.

You know what I was happiest to unpack?  Two rolls of Quilted Northern toilet paper and a box and a half of Puff Plus Lotion kleenex that I had forgotten were under the sink in one of my old bathrooms. I practically shouted with glee when I uncovered those!  Who'd a thunk it?

So now I have a new goal, in keeping with my new home: keep purging, until I'm down to what we could take on the airplane with us without paying excess baggage fees.  This means a few more loads to take with us when we visit the States and a massive garage sale/friend donation when we leave or move to a new house, whenever that is.  It means donating all my now empty boxes to women at my church group, some of whom are moving themselves shortly.  And it means not buying very much new stuff, which is easier than it has ever been with the prices here.

Which leads me to goal number two: replace things with experiences.  You know what doesn't take up any space in a suitcase?  Visits to castles and and a boat trip up the Rhine!  And both are on order for our upcoming trip to Germany.  It's going to be great!

I think it's going to take some time for us to really make this switch, but after all this sorting and packing and unpacking and re-sorting, I am ready to be done with the STUFF!

Who's with me?!

Go, go, GO speed racer!

I feel like it's a trope of moving, everyone has to comment on everyone else's driving.  Either the drivers where you just moved are terrible, awful, the worst, or the drivers you just left are horrible, dangerous, unbelievable.  Or people make other equally untrue and outlandish statements: in Utah, where my parents live, some folks swear up and down that all the bad drivers in town are immigrants from some other state (not in my experience) while in South Carolina, all locals maintain that the bad drivers are tourists (also not true, in my experience).

Add in foreign travel, where the rules of the road are different and in some places people drive on the other (not wrong, by the way!) side of the road, and the number of complaints seems to expand exponentially.  I have been guilty of this myself: when I visited Taiwan in high school, I was convinced we were going to die each and every time we got on the road.  Yes, our bus did get side-swiped once and yes, we were taken to a very shady area by a seemingly narcoleptic taxi driver who then left us there, presumably to be fallen upon by thieves had not another taxi driver swooped in but really, the traffic there was probably just as bad as any major city anywhere but certainly worse than I knew, given that I didn't have a driver's license at the time and had never driven a car in my life.

So I get it, I do, drivers are bad everywhere.  I totally, completely get it.  Really!  Qatar doesn't even rank in the top 20 countries with the most traffic fatalities (though my experience here has me seriously questioning how the data that ranks those countries is even gathered, let alone how accurate it is!)

BUT sheesh, omigosh, aaahhh, the driving here is aggravating, horrendous, often incredibly frightening, and sometimes life-threatening!  Why, you ask?  Well, for one, roundabouts.  ROUNDABOUTS!

Now, I know the rotaries are the norm in many countries, and I am not knocking them in principle, but I am against them as they manifest themselves here.  You see, there are, as hard as it may be for Americans to believe, actually rules with regard to proper roundabout usage.  In fact, one might even call them laws!  Also in fact, the state of Qatar might call them laws and does in its little driver
instruction manual, but in actuality, roundabouts in this country are lawless circles of death.  I am not kidding.  There are roundabouts on either side of my house, so I have to pass through them no matter where I go or take tiny, unmapped back roads (and I do this a lot, trust me).  One is bigger than the other and it's an oval, for some reason, so it's even more difficult to maneuver than the others.  But the problem is not the roundabouts, per se, it's the conduct of the drivers in the roundabouts.

Where is my Reading Rainbow?

We are a family of readers.  Our books have finally arrived, and we couldn't be happier!  We were missing them sorely these last few months.  And we have always loved spending time at our local libraries.  One of the only initiatives I was able to oversee from start to finish during my short time as preschool co-op president was the establishment of a lending library for the preschoolers.  And our town library down the street in Shaker Heights was one of the finest community libraries I have ever seen, with a huge collection and lots of programming for all ages.  We visited at least once a week, often more, and checked out 15-20 books per visit.   Even then, we often blew through those before we had planned to go back and had to make an emergency library run.  J's favorite day of the week was library day in Kindergarten and the book fair that took place before we left was a family affair.  My personal favorite activity of all time is visiting a used book store or sale and our libraries in Ohio, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania always put on great sales at which I could spend hours and hours and only a few dollars, since the prices were so good.  All in all, we have been lucky to have all sorts of book resources everywhere we have lived.

Naturally, when we learned we were moving here, one of the first things I did was research the library situation.  What I found was disheartening, to say the least.  Sadly, Qatar is not a very reader-friendly place.  First, there are few libraries.  The Qatar National Library exists only virtually at the moment, though it's supposed to open soon (which means absolutely nothing).  Supposedly, there will be a large children's section and robust programming for kids when the library is completed, but I will believe all that when I see it.  The enterprising group of expat mothers, DohaMums, has worked hard to create its own lending library, which you can join for a fee after you pay another fee to join DohaMums.  The fees aren't much, about $70 a year in total, but for that you can only check out 5 books per child per visit and you need to RSVP at least 36 hours in advance to one of the three or four weekly two-hour blocks when the library is staffed by volunteers.  The kids do have a school library they visit once a week, but the collection isn't very large.

If you want to supplement the lack of libraries by buying books, you are also out of luck.  There are quite a few "bookstores" here, but every single one I have visited (and I have seen a few of the big names so far) is either an electronics store that happens to stock a few books or a glorified stationary store.  And the children's books they do stock are all licensed Disney character books that cost a gazillion dollars and barely count as books in my opinion.  We have picked up a few secondhand books at some craft bazaars, but the secondhand market is just beginning here and, of course, folks don't have many books to begin with.  (When we leave and sell off all our outgrown books, I am going to make a killing!)  You can order from Amazon if you have a courier service that forwards the mail on from the US, but you get charged by the kilo for those orders so you want to be very sure you need every book you order.  Another company, Bookdepository.com, is actually owned by Amazon and based in the UK, and they will ship books anywhere in the world for free, but their offerings are quite expensive in comparison with Amazon's prices, so you have to balance reduced prices and shipping costs with higher prices and free shipping...and the costs end up being almost the same.  Besides, I hate to pay anywhere near retail for books anyway!

To review, I am so, so grateful our own books have arrived!  They have been gone so long they are all new to the boys while at the same time having shelves filled with books they recognize makes the villa seem even more familiar to them.  The boys haven't actually read all the books we own (I was visiting a library book sale just one week before we packed up the shipping container, actually!) so we have still got surprises and new favorites for them to discover.  But one of my big goals when we go to the States (or anywhere else for that matter) is going to be buying up a suitcase full of books to bring back with us, at least until the national library opens.  In fact, I have been looking into getting hired at the library, even just as a circulation clerk, so I can maximize our involvement in the library's offerings.  Extreme?  Perhaps.  But totally justified, trust me!

Compound fractures

We live in a compound.  (See how I tricked you into reading there?  Just keep going!)

In 95% of the cases, that's not as forbidding are it sounds!  Most compounds here consist of groups of townhouses surrounding a clubhouse that usually contains a pool, sports courts, pool tables, a coffee shop, a little grocery store, a projection room, and assorted other amenities.  Club "house" is really sort of a misnomer, come to think of it.  Usually, these places are fun-filled meeting areas around which compound life revolves.

But not in our compound!  You see, ours is new, and we are experiencing a few growing pains.  At first, I was willing to let all these things go because I know things are evolving here, and I didn't want to be one to rock the boat in a new country at a new job with new rules.  You see, most employers either pay a housing stipend and let you find your own compound or build compounds of their own for their employees.  Even if employers don't sponsor their own compound, lots of people who work together live together anyway, because when one family likes a compound, they usually share the wealth with their friends.  Our compound is sponsored by the husband's company, so we live with fellow employees.  But, because of hiring issues and hierarchies (did I forget to mention that housing allotments are determined by job rank here?  So our complex is designated for managers and above.  Don't even get me started on this plan.  Rank means that a manager gets a two or three bedroom apartment, while a director or above gets a four bedroom villa, regardless of number of dependents.  It's craziness!), our complex is still fairly empty and because of licensing issues I don't fully understand, the additional amenities you find elsewhere are slow in coming.  And because of some design choices which are in keeping with the ultra modern vibe here, our buildings are square and grey and therefore the complex as a whole looks a bit like a prison on the outside.  Just a little bit!

Supposedly, we will soon be getting a replacement for the hazardous play structure they abruptly moved out of our playroom the other day (we do have a few rooms that are in working order-ish: a playroom, now minus its central feature, a weight room with individual monitors on the machines that don't work, and a game room with a few pool tables that do function perfectly, depending on who is playing, of course!).  And also soon (which is very relative and not as soon as the other soon) we will be getting an outdoor play structure covered by a sun shade to be located by our pool.  Because we do have a pool, a giant, beautiful, ENORMOUS pool that no one uses except for three hardy children from New Zealand because the water is too gosh darn cold right now, but hey, there it is.  In the meantime, we wait.  (But trust me, in a few weeks, we are going to be loving that pool!)

In Qatar, you do a lot of waiting, oh so very much waiting, but because I am not one to just hope that things get done, I have been pressuring the husband to pressure the powers that be so that these promises are actually kept.  And I have put our names on a wait list for another compound that is older (and therefore has all the kinks worked out) and closer to the boys' school.  This complex is beautiful and therefore highly in demand, so I figure we might have a long, long time to wait on that list, but that gives our current compound time to catch up, so we have nothing to lose.

Our place has such potential, which is largely unrealized at this point, which makes living here a teeny bit more frustrating than I would wish.  And, of course, it feels silly to complain about a missing projection room or swing set or convenience store (first world problems, much??), but these sorts of things really are the norm here, so when in Rome!