Monday, May 20, 2013

All the things I’ve been meaning to write about living overseas (well, at least the ones I haven’t forgotten yet…) PART I


We’ve been living in Doha, Qatar since August 2011 and the other night, our son Luca (who was four when we moved here) said, “I’m just starting to like it here and we are going to move away.  I think I’m gonna kind of miss this place.”  To his credit, he has spent a greater percentage of his total life here than the rest of us, but I guess I am gonna kind of miss this place as well. 

There are a few things that I have been thinking about over the months that I want to make sure and write down.   I was told by a boss once that I am quite verbose and, although the truth hurts, he was right.  That’s not going to stop me from writing too much.  It’s just going to force me to put these thoughts into a few different blog posts.  

Part 1:

I read on some website before we left Colorado that moving overseas was as traumatic as having a death in the family. 

The Slumps


What could possibly worse than a death in the family and why would anyone subject themselves and their family to something so traumatic?  Don’t get me wrong – we have had our bad days.  Our daughter Wilder, who was 10 when we moved here, was terribly homesick for the first several weeks.  She put up pictures of her friends from home, her cat and her friend Jim Olson.  She cried herself to sleep sometimes and broke my heart on a few occasions by asking me why we had moved away from home.  But then slowly, gradually, she came out of it.  She makes friends easily and is afraid of nothing, so she is actually the perfect candidate for an overseas adventure. 

Innes, who is always so content and happy, admitted to feeling a bit low for a while that first year.  He was missing his friends, his mountain bike and his skis.  Facebook and writing this blog kept him in touch and made him feel less homesick.  Luckily, he was a bit low while I was still doing ok.  We heard that some couples hit the “slump” at the same time.  I can see in hindsight why that would be so hard. 

I went through a slump about five months after moving over here.  I had been told this would happen, but while it was happening I couldn’t seem to convince myself that this was “normal”.  It’s not “normal” to wake up with an anxious knot in your belly every day.  It’s not “normal” to think everyone is mad at me for something.  It’s not “normal” to feel paranoid all the time.  I felt like I was 22 again.  OK, so being 40 and feeling 22 shouldn’t be so bad, right?  But it was all the bad stuff about being 22 – not the “get four hours of sleep, work two jobs, party all night and start over the next day” kind of 22.  It was the “does my butt look fat in these pants?” kind of 22.

Communication


I guess in the old days (circa 1995), packing your bags, moving to the Middle East and leaving your family and friends behind could have been much more traumatic.   After all, you were dependent upon snail mail and a simple phone call cost about $200.   These days, we can Skype to our hearts content for free!  We can call our families or friends and it only costs a few Qatari Riyals.  We can text our friends all over the globe and get an instant response.  We can email anytime we want.  In fact, our Internet and mobile phones work better from over there than they ever did in the US. 

My mom actually said at one point that she thinks she “sees” and talks to me more since I moved halfway around the world than she did when I lived an hour away.  All that said, it is still the best feeling in the world to step off that plane in Colorado and know that our family and friends are nearby.  There is no replacement for human touch.  It’s also comforting to know that no matter where we move around the planet, our friends are still our friends, and even if we forgot their birthdays (again) that we can still pick up right where we left off (like forgetting their birthdays in person). 

First World Problems


Maybe it would have been more traumatic had we moved to a “more difficult” country.  We had these delusions of moving to some third world country to show our kids how most of the world really lives and works.  We thought we would be forced to learn a new language.  Instead, we moved to the country with the highest per capita income in the world and the only language we’ve had to learn is proper English (as opposed to American) or Kiwi (we have MANY friends and co-workers from New Zealand).  The fact that our son Luca thinks his friend British friend Ollie is really Ali and thinks Abraham Lincoln is really Ibrahim Lincoln shows us that he is really the only one learning any Arabic in this family. 

The national pastime in Qatar turns out to be shopping – on steroids.  There is more shopping in this country (and nearby Dubai) than I could have ever imagined.  We left our cozy little Colorado ski resort lifestyle, where people with millions of dollars spend two weeks a year in their $3 million dollar homes, for a country where people with BILLIONS of dollars buy football (aka soccer) teams and Ferrari’s for their 17-year-old sons and spend two weeks a year on their own private islands.  (Ok, well this last part is sort of made up…sort of.)

For a family like ours, the hardest part about living in Qatar has been the lack of sports and athletic pursuits in general, the lack of trails/bike-friendly drivers, and lack of any sort of hill whatsoever.  Every little 5K race or sprint triathlon they put on over here is called a “marathon” (but the prizes they pay out and trophies they give away make winning a 20-minute race feel like you’ve just won the London Marathon).   People act like you are crazy to ride or run outside or regularly partake in any form of exercise.  (Did I mention that Qatar has the highest obesity/diabetes rates per capita in the world?)  That said, we’ve gotten outdoors.  Thanks to Innes we’ve found places to run and ride bikes on dirt – places where camels graze on the sparse weeds and occasionally you’ll stumble across the mummified carcass of a dog, goat, or camel.  And if that smell isn’t something dead, it’s probably the open pit garbage incineration area, just over that big man-made dirt hill that seems to be encroaching on our Friday morning bike route.  However, if you are into road riding, the 4-lane highways here are practically deserted on Friday mornings so you can really get some good kilometers on the pavement.  You always know that the amazing hot, sandy headwind will, at some point, become a tailwind.  If it's hills you need, Innes discovered a great route through the parking structure near our house that is a full kilometer from top to bottom.  I'm not kidding.  That's where he does his hill workouts.  

So yes, maybe the overseas move could have been harder on us emotionally in many ways.  It hasn’t been too bad.   We’ve decided to really test ourselves next time with a big move to Caracas, Venezuela in July.  The city with the highest murder rate in the world, some of the most dire poverty in the world, and a fresh dose of political unrest to boot.  But at least we’ll learn a new language.  Via con dios, for now.  Lisa

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Turkey Space Camp 2013

Turkey Trip 2013 Wilder

I went on a trip with the qatar academy program "school without walls". I got to go to Turkey space camp. My councilor was Ms. Irma and Taylor. We had slumber parties and painted our nails. We all got to get to know each other better.
 On the plane we had so much fun. I got to sit with my friends Lukas and Olivia.
This is our robotics competition. We had to make a robot and program it to do different tasks.

 We went to a amphitheater called metropolis. The guide said it dated back to the hellenistic period.
 We went to a turkish school and we got to teach the students the cup song.
We also got to build and launch rockets. You got to go up and push a big green button that said "Launch".
At the end of Space Camp they took us to the place where we did all our missions and stimulators. We got in line and they gave us our certificates. After That we sat down and they gave individual and group awards. I got an engineering award which means my group fixed our robot the most. My group also got completed mission.
This is our robotics group. This is me and Olivia my friend we where the programmers. Abdullah  and Mohammad  were the engineers.

Here is Olivia teaching a girl who will now follow her everywhere.

These were some girls we met and they where so nice.



Saturday, May 18, 2013

a nice weekend- dhows and ethiopians

I don't think these events actually happened on the same weekend but let's not sweat the small stuff.
Part 1- the Dhow cruise. You can call up a Dhow on the corniche and have them take you out into the bay, fire up the grill, crank tunes, and anchor while you jump in. I had done this once with the Jays and was looking forward to getting back with Lisa and the kids.
Wilder and her friend Mia with the Museum of Islamic Art in the background

Neal, Hannah, and Lisa... and Luca too.

Doha Skyline

Bombs away- the kids were loving launching off the roof.

"Hey- can we get back on the boat yet" 

Last thing we heard Alan say: "Hey watch this!"

Alan had about 5 kids on there scamming a free ride

which made him a bit tired on the return trip
Part 2- The diamond league track meet. If you are a professional track athlete this is the circuit you try to attend- and Doha hosts the opener. It is amazing watching these athletes perform- and the body types for each sport- distance=long and lean, sprinters= muscles, shot put= beasts. On our way in we bought an ethiopian flag figuring we could be honorary citizens for a night- plus the Ethiopian and Kenyan fans have way more fun than anyone else- much singing and dancing. A fun night even though I got busted at security trying to smuggle in water.
Not sure if you can see the Ethiopian fans having a good time in the background.

David Rudisha- won gold in London- made the 800 look easy, he wasn't even breathing hard after the first lap- which was around 50 sec!

Hanging at the start line with Ollie and Bethany.

This is why Lisa thinks I like watching track and field. (womens hurdles)
This is why I think Lisa likes watching track and field. (100 dash)
Steeplechase- because running a 3000 meter race isn't hard enough some people want to add a big jump with water under it. There were distempered sea bass in there as well.



Men's 100 meter dash about to start. 10 minutes to get all ready for a 10 second race.

USA's Jason Gatlin won the 100 then on his victory lap took the time to high five and pose with every single kid- very cool gesture.

Friday, May 17, 2013

The first rule of Spacecamp is...

I knew at a young age I would never qualify to join the Space Program- I get dizzy not just on the merry go round but on the teeter totter and swingset as well- so astronaut bootcamp would never be survived by my weak stomach. Knowing this I jumped at the chance to chaperone a group of our school's 6th graders to Space Camp in Izmir Turkey. Wilder got to go as well and it was fun seeing her travel as a student and classmate rather than just my kid.
Upon arriving we found that the camp doesn't really want you around as a chaperone- so we had to find ways to entertain ourselves- One was to go out on little runs around the compound. The camp is a part of a large industrial park.
Not sure if this is public art or just someone calling it like they see it.
Eerie how much this was like some big digger religious ceremony. If diggers take over the world I know that it all began in Turkey.
One day I was able to head out and see Ephesus a 2000ish year old ruin.

"Excuse me, are these genuine fake watches real?"

Innes, column, ampitheatre

Word on the street is that this is the world's first roundabout. True to my newfound Qatari driving skills I spent some time here cutting people off and honking.





I'm getting artsy.

Good to know that they decent musical taste back in the day
 It wasn't all fun and games- we did have to do some space type activities: rocket building, space simulator testing, and shuttle parking.
They told me not to glue the top on- "what could go wrong?" I thought
"Oh, I see"


Back off dad- I'm trying to drive a shuttle here

Does this helmet make my head look big?

Chris Wade on the zero-gravity wall

We are smiling now- because going up was the easy part- coming down- much harder.

The reason he has a tether on me for the moon walk simulator is because I have such big hops they were worried I wouldn't come back down. Honestly

Then there were the spinny rides- thankfully I did not vomit or wet myself... or let loose a girly shreik... or cry. In fact I performed quite admirably.

I can't believe they gave us the keys to this thing! Chris, Neelam, Emily, and I, a great group of teachers.

*note* although the special effects are spectaculer we were not actually on the moon.
A highlight of the week was our trip to a nearby school. The students had raised money to help the school out- we went into different classrooms and taught the kids games/ songs as a way to get to know them. Then there was the "friendly" soccer match- I swear their team had a few 17 year olds. They put on a cultural show for us and away we went. I would love to know what each of our students took from this experience- we donated 2 laptop computers- they were ecstatic- we come from a school were each kid gets a laptop. 
I'm big in Torbali. This started out as a picture with 2 kids, then a few more squeezed in.

This guy was my friend! He would just chat me up and I would talk right back- neither had any clue what the other was saying.



Our other big excursion was a tour of Izmir- always fun to take 23 kids into a crowded bazaar and say "now don't get lost", luckily we made it back with most of them.
many many shiny things to catch their eye.
We also stopped by a quaint little place called "bead village". I have a feeling the quaint front they were putting up covered a major bead syndicate that sells to bazaars and souqs throughout the middle east. In any case it was a cool spot- I just kept thinking how much my sister Caryn would love it.
6th grade, when she is still okay being seen in public with me.
and before we knew it the week was done and it was time for graduation. I tried to play it cool when they called my name and I got my space pin- but whoo boy I was one excited astronaut!

not technically a license to drive the shuttle but close enough

A word on Turkish Baths:
At some point during the week it was pointed out that there was a good hammam down the street- never having actually experienced a turkish bath and knowing this might be my last chance- off I went. Chris and I figured either there was strength in numbers or misery loves company so we went together. I don't want to spoil it for you if you have never been but let's just say: sauna, cold plunge, turkish guy singing, more sauna, cold plunge, hot marble slab, back crack, vigorous loofa, tiny bubbles, hot water, cold water, even more sauna, cold plunge, sauna, towel headdress. WOW!
It was incredible- I can say no more- but here is how I looked upon completion:





stay tuned: Wilder will be adding her take on space camp soon.