All the Things I've Been Meaning to Write About Living Overseas - Part II

 

Physically Strong Woman Seeks to Lift Heavy Box in Male Dominated Society

I have always been physically strong.  I have never imagined that being a physically strong female was not normal.  In the mountains of Colorado, strong women are just the status quo.  Most of my girlfriends at home are faster than their husbands, after all.  It wasn't until I moved to Qatar that I realized what an anomaly it was for a woman to move her own heavy boxes.

Qatar Academy, where Innes and I have been working for the past two years, has almost as many auxiliary staff (custodians, cafeteria staff, security guards, coffee boys and girls - yes, someone serves you coffee in your office or classroom at QA if you ask for it) as it does faculty and staff.  That means there is someone to clean EVERY bathroom, wash every window, stand guard at every door, make all of your copies, deliver your mail and - yes, finally to my point - carry every heavy box that you might ever need.

I work on a staff with three lovely ladies who have this system dialed in perfectly.  Their espressos are delivered each morning, their copies are picked up and dropped off, and their heavy boxes are moved all over campus...by someone else.  These ladies gently chide me for taking the stairs - literally a 20 second endeavor - while they take the elevator (but I still beat them to all of our meetings).

Even after two years, I can't get used to this system of having a (VERY) low paid worker doing all the things I can do myself.  I understand the argument that these jobs are giving people from around the world a chance to make a living and to send money to their families back home in Sri Lanka, India or Pakistan, for example.  But the side of me with the German work ethic can't embrace this part of the culture, not just here in Qatar but I think in many parts of the world.

Back to the heavy box:  I work in the PR department where supplies and gifts for students, staff, VIPs and VVIPs (Qatar has more than its fair share of VERY Very Important People)  are being delivered almost daily.  The ladies I work with are shocked when we are all in the store room and I start to pick up boxes.  I don't think twice about it, I just get to work.  We work on a very large campus and I will often move boxes from one school to the other, just so that it gets done more quickly and also to get me away from my desk.  Whenever a man sees me doing this, he invariably tries to help.  He will stop whatever he is doing to try to take whatever it is that I am carrying.  If a delivery is being made and several boxes are to be moved, I normally jump in and start moving boxes - which creates a great deal of embarrassment for pretty much everyone but me.

 A couple of weeks ago, one of the ladies I work with was called in at the last minute to help set up a booth at a huge career fair here in Doha.  She really needed to show a video on a flat screen TV but couldn't find a company that could provide a TV stand on such short notice.  I knew we had this big ugly glass TV stand in a closet at home, so I went home to get it for her.  I loaded it into the back of my car alone and drove it over to the school.  When I got to the school, I went inside and asked a security guard to help me take it from my car to the school.  He stood at my car and tried to do it alone.  When I tried to help him he walked away.  I thought he was quitting so I started to pull it out alone when the security guard returned with two other men to carry the stand for me.  He stood and ordered them around while I stood and well...watched.

Men are not used to seeing a woman biking or running in this country either.  When we first moved here, I started running out in the desert behind Education City.  Innes scoped out the route and thought it would be fine for me to be out there alone, but I was still nervous.  I also didn't want to get lost.  One day I was out running and glancing back over my shoulder every few moments to make sure I knew how to get back to the right street when I saw this police vehicle come barreling out across the desert.  These two men pulled up next to me and asked me if I spoke Arabic and then asked me in English if I was ok.  They thought I was running away from someone!  They both had big smiles on their faces and had no idea how scared I was.  I thought I was getting busted for trespassing.  I asked them if it was ok for me to be out there or if I was on someone's land and they said it was fine. They said there were no laws against being out there and then they drove off.  This happened twice in two years - the second time the police men (called Fazah) took pictures!  (They said they were taking pictures of the dog that I was running with but I think they were taking pictures to show all of their friends this crazy American woman running in the desert alone.)

Another time I was riding my road bike down a very deserted 4-lane highway.  Innes stopped to get some water and I kept riding.  Suddenly this man in a Land Cruiser pulls up next to me and just starts talking.  He was so happy to see us out riding our bikes and asked where we were from and why we were there.  He said he was an off-duty policeman (what is it with the Fazah?) and then he pulled a bottle of water out of his console and reached all the way across his vehicle - while his was still driving ON the highway - to give it to me.  Very nice, but can you imagine riding down I-70 with a man driving next to you offering you water?

A final example I want to share has to do with Wilder.  She loves to play football (soccer) and joined a small after-school program at a local football pitch earlier this year.  I signed her up, hoping that by playing with a bunch of boys she would get pushed a little harder. Only about six kids went out for the program and she was the only girl.  I knew there was something amiss the first time I came to pick her up and her coach said, "I'm sorry but she only wanted to play goalie.  I told her it was a very difficult position and she might get hurt, but she insisted.  I told the boys to not kick it very hard so she wouldn't get hurt."  He was embarrassed and sheepish - I think he thought I would be upset.  I laughed and said, "Oh she's tough, she's been playing goalie for years.  She won't get hurt."  However, the discrimination continued with the coach even telling the boys to run two warm-up laps and Wilder to only do one.  Needless to say, she didn't go back after the 6-week session was done. (To be fair, there are some really good football programs for boys and girls here in Qatar where Wilder would never be treated differently.  There are even co-ed rugby teams for her age group and believe me, they would never take it easy on a girl.)  I am just glad that she recognized the treatment for what it was and that she was upset about it.  She knew it wasn't ok.

Ironically, the women I work with and the women I have met over here are some of the absolute strongest women I know.  Some have come up from very difficult backgrounds to become well-educated and self-sufficient. While still others have lost fathers and husbands to war in recent years and are managing their households on their own.  I have learned a lot from these ladies over the past two years - and I will share some of those stories in Part III.

What I'm going to miss

It's been a funny week, we are in the midst of returning to Colorado for a one month dose of home before shaking the snowglobe that is our family again and setting it down in Venezuela. It's hot, windy, dusty, the kids are tired, Lisa and I are beat- and on the one hand we ARE SO READY TO LEAVE THIS SANDBOX! But on the other- I am feeling a bit melancholic about the whole thing- so what will I miss? Here goes:

things I will miss:


Friends
this one is the obvious one- we have met so many amazing people and feel so lucky to have gained them as friends.  I keep telling Luca to not be too sad because once you have a friend you get to keep them and then go make more somewhere else- but Luca is right-its sad to be leaving good friends. And how did I get thru 2 years here without one good picture of Andre?

Camels 
Yup, Camels- I don't know what it is about them but call me a fan.

Drivers-
Yeah- I would have thought that I would put this on the not going to miss column but it is kind of a case of so bad its good. The drivers here are just so bad and rude it makes me laugh. Mike Simpson said he has started to be able to read the body language of cars and know when he is going to get cut off- its true... or just the it's just that you are always going to get cut off so you always expect it. Also- they paint the sweetest cars the weirdest colors: I have seen orange land cruisers and tennis ball green mercedes.

bouncy castles
they love the bouncy castle in this country- they are everywhere- and I am intrigued because if you invite me to your birthday party and it is over 95 degrees and you tell me to play on a bouncy castle inferno I might just politely decline. but the kids love em.


call to prayer
especially the one right at dusk- makes me feel like I live in a far off distant other country or something

smiles- my first time in new york Nate told me :you don't have to say hi to every single person" I guess I've always been a head nodder- a smiler. That doesn't happen as much here- there seems to be a lot of just walking by other people. I have walked, biked, or ran past many a fierce looking construction worker just staring at me- I smile... and they smile. They don't worry about U.S.- Pakistani relations- they just smile. So I'm going to keep being my own little naive country mouse and keep smiling- What's the worse thing they could do?  Don't answer that

Just smile to turn this...

into this.

It also helps to have Luca or Wilder with you to get people smiling.

learning to wear new styles of clothing
not saying I'm going to start wearing these new styles but it sure is fun to try them out.

   

                                                                         

hummus- they do have really good hummus, and baba ganouj, and moutabel, oh and the sunsets are nice as well- I've always been a sucker for watching the sunset with a good bowl of hummus.



What I won't miss-wind, beige, hot


Thanks to everyone who has made this adventure a blast- I so look forward to keeping in touch- and to continuing the stories from Caracas. We love you all

Once more into the brink

It's funny how there are things you don't miss until you don't have them anymore- or are told you can't have them. Watch any siblings under the age of 6 and as soon as one has something... the other one wants it- really bad.
Alcohol and Pork are kind of like that- I don't really need them but once they become hard to get- I sure... appreciate them more. I have yet to throw a tantrum if I don't have them but I've only been here 2 years!
The process for getting the two are actually quite simple- its not like I live in Saudi and have to brew it up in my bathtub.
First step: you get your permit card.

they have a special camera that is designed to make you look like a criminal who should be sitting on the group W bench.

Second step: Drive out to the edge of town and find a non descript building mysteriously labeled QDC on town maps. Its the only one in town... actually its the only one in the whole country!

Step 3: Like a kid in a candy store! bright colors, shiny labels, forbidden fruit. 

It's not like I even go there that much- it's just one of those funny little differences. I guess I have been reflecting on this as I just took my last trip to the liquor souk- turned in my card- got my deposit back. Now if I run out I will have to fire up the bathtub still- just like great grandpappy Oakley.

Cheers

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

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.

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.