A Sprinkle of Al Sharq

Tit for Tat

2012-02-15T11:42:00.003+03:00

It's all about diplomacy. Or the lack of. My sister failed her driving test. I did too the first time, but unlike her, I still walked away with a license. If we were British we could just present our UK license and automatically get a Qatari one. Since the US requires Qataris to take a driving test and apply for licenses in the US, Americans have to do a driving test and apply for a license in Qatar.

There are limited times for women to get licenses. It's all very clandestine, intimidating and frightening to those who don't know any better. I was picked up at 0430 to get to the driving school at 0500. It felt like I was doing something illegal, under the cover of darkness. I joined a few other women and stood in line, freezing, in the dark, until the police arrived at 0530. In the order that we arrived we had to do the 'reading test'. Identify a stop sign on a filthy laminated card of various road signs. That was it. Seriously. After that we waited in little huddles, shivering, until it was light enough to do the 'parking test'.

This consisted of pulling a sharp right into a single parking space on a steep gradient, reversing out and driving forward, all in one movement without stopping or correcting. That was no problem for the new drivers who had attended the driving school, all they do is drill that move into them to get their students to pass the test. For me and the handful of other Americans it was a disaster. Unlike the newbies who wouldn't survive a day on the streets, we'd all held licenses from around the world and been driving for years. Each and every one of us was stopped, told to get out, and that we had failed within seconds of starting the engine. We had one cop yelling at us in Arabic to pull forward, another shouting at us to stop, and another telling us to go back.

I was not about to go through the early morning madness again so as the others stood around complaining I walked over to the row of offices and knocked on the door of the guy with the most stripes on his shoulder. I wished him a good morning, introduced myself, and said that I was there to get a license. I explained that I wasn't sure what was going on but that I believed I had been failed before I had driven at all, that lots of people were shouting at us but that the other English speakers and I didn't understand what we were supposed to do. I asked nicely if it would be possible to have a policeman explain in English to give us a fair chance. He agreed and voilà, we all passed the 'parking' test. We could join the group going on to do the 'street test'.

We had to wait around for another hour until after school traffic had died down and the roads wouldn't be quite so busy. Then a police man jumped in a driving school car and two buses full of us women followed to the designated area, a street of about 1/2 km with three roundabouts one after another. The convoy pulled over onto the shoulder. A women from the first bus got into the driver's side of the car with the policeman in the passenger seat. As she pulled into traffic, so did we. The whole convoy followed her as she indicated, successfully manoeuvred her way through a roundabout, and then pulled over. I had never seen anything like it. The whole thing was repeated with another lady, then another. Sitting on the filthy smelly bus as it lurched into traffic, then screeched to a grinding halt on the side of the road, I was getting ready to vomit. Watching the women taking the test was might have been entertaining otherwise. Some used the wrong indicators, some didn't use them at all, some took the racing line through the roundabouts, some pulled out without checking oncoming traffic, some were stopped for speeding and some didn't creep up over 10 kph.

When it was my turn I have to admit I was nervous. The same policeman who had 'failed' my parking test was waiting for me. I buckled up and adjusted my mirrors. Then I asked him in Arabic what he wanted me to do, to show him that I could actually understand him earlier. He answered, in perfect English, "nothing, I know you can drive". And that was it. I didn't even drive. But I passed the driving test.

The Escalator

2012-02-10T12:00:00.003+03:00

I'm back. From a timewarp of sleep, fever, chills that started with my daughter two weeks ago and that she kindly passed on to me last week. It was only a matter of time, I feel like I've been holding on by my fingernails for a while now.

I'm not sure I want to be back. I dragged myself into work yesterday only to drive home in tears. I had asked either to use a day of annual leave or for a 1.5 hour class to be covered Sunday morning so that I could attend my daughter's first Sports Day. The request was denied. My precious four year old, with no one to cheer her on, hold her hand, praise her, it broke my heart. Admittedly I was feeling pretty fragile already, the flu will do that to you, but that was the last straw.

My company has become increasingly difficult, and I'm sure they feel the same about me. I'm the only single mother they have to deal with. None of the management have children. I've requested not to work evening shifts or weekends which goes against their policy of distributing hours 'fairly' between staff. I have had to stay home with my sick child. I have asked to use my annual leave days for time off to watch her first school concert, and now her first sports day. I'm not sure how normal those requests would be in the real world. Here, it seems it is too much to ask.

I fought it, luckily the manager who had refused is away on leave so his decision was overturned. But he'll be back and the schedule will change again next week. I'm dreading it after last time. I'm tired of fighting them. The latest is our annual leave flights. Those are the words in our contracts. And those words have meant exactly that in the six years I've worked for the organisation up till now. Now they're telling us it's a mistake and should really just be one flight per two year contract. So they aren't honouring our contracts.

It's kind of ironic. In Saudi I was all about my career, working 10 hours a day (my husband wasn't around and it was long before I had a baby so I had nothing else to do), earning three promotions in three years, doubling my salary in four, proving myself, being independent, I was going to do it all.

Now there is nothing I want more than to stay at home, to have the time to prepare healthy meals for us, to have the time to take her to ballet, or swimming, instead of rushing to school between shifts to pick her up, feed her lunch, and leave again for a second shift, getting home long after she's been put to bed.

I feel like I'm walking up a down escalator with burnout nipping at my heels.

Tug of War

2012-01-31T08:46:00.001+03:00

I sometimes feel that I have a little angel perched on one shoulder whose voice I hear saying:

"you can do it you can do it you can do it".

On the other shoulder is a little devil saying:

"you're gonna crack you're gonna crack you're gonna crack".

Making Time Count

2012-01-30T22:09:00.001+03:00

I found breathing space.

Being a Mother

2012-01-29T10:36:00.005+03:00

A lot of friends have been posting and liking this mommy article recently on facebook. While it resonates with many of them, it doesn't quite do it for me.

Yes, being a mother is a struggle. I think that would be the case no matter how many children one had. But I also think that life is a struggle whether you have children or not. I find that being a mother is empowering, I do more than I ever thought I would, I love more than I ever knew I could, and my patience has depths I never knew it did. Sometimes something has to give and it is frustrating and disappointing not to be able to do it all. My choice. My priorities. Other people's opinions don't enter the equation.

The only thing that did strike a chord was when the author wrote about waiting for that key to turn in the lock at the end of the day. Oh how I used to wait. And wait. And now there isn't one. No one is coming home to talk to, to listen to, to touch or to be held by. Recently that's been my struggle. Not the juggling act.

And that we do it all "Only so that you can become strong enough to be a woman who will be left." Because if you do it right, they leave. I wonder where I will be and who I will be when that happens, if I will be left alone.

But I need to snap out of it. While everyone else sees smiles and laughter, my daughter quietly takes my hand and says "mommy why are you sad?"

Another Hurdle

2012-01-21T20:09:00.006+03:00

My baby is four, actually, as of a couple of weeks ago but given everything that has been going on I waited to do a party. I would rather face deadlines such as year end reports or forecasts than a child's birthday party, and that's when it isn't even my own. But it went perfectly. Everyone helped make it happen.

The best part was that I realised I've overcome another hurdle. I'm so grateful her father is who he is, and relieved that we've reached the point where we can still work together as a team when it matters. I never want our daughter to feel that she doesn't deserve or isn't important enough for the two of us to put aside our problems and get along for her sake.

She was the happiest little girl in the world and that made me the happiest mommy in the world.

Anticlimax

2012-01-17T19:08:00.000+03:00

I've been waiting to blog until today, hoping I'd have An Announcement following the latest appointment at the hospital, a new diagnosis perhaps, preferably one that could be treated and would result in me being miraculously cured. What was I thinking.

The day actually started last night, with a circuit tripping out so I lost power in the kitchen of all places. Three times. Fridges don't do such a good job at keeping food cool without electricity. I woke up feeling like I hadn't slept, listening to a little voice in my head singing "pain pain go away... don't come back another day..." I turned off my blaring alarm at 0530 and stumbled into the cold dark bathroom only to find that there was no water. The problem with the electricity was actually caused by the motor on the water pump blowing yesterday. Mad rush to get my daughter to school, stop for a shower on the way to work at my parents and then get to the hospital before the doctor left for the day. Just made it.

And he had the results of last week's tests. Apparently my Vitamin D levels are less than a third of what they should be which isn't a surprise but they expected worse given the symptoms I've been showing. So much for that theory. They decided to start me on Vitamin D injections anyway to monitor for any improvement. I thought that it was all under control, I would be done in time to grab lunch (breakfast!) on the way to pick my daughter up after school. Until I tried standing up after the injection.

Everything went a little swirly and white but I still thought I had it under control, I held onto the hospital bed for a couple seconds and then started walking out the door. Only my leg was numb. So plan B. Lay down and facebook on my crackberry until I could walk to my car. The injection was in my left hip and all I needed to drive was my right side, right? Yes. But sitting in traffic for 45 mins was not the best feeling.

Ah well, the hurricane is in bed. It's all downhill from here. I only have to hang three sets of curtains, change 6 bulbs, and wrap millions of layers of presents for pass the parcel for The Birthday Party on Thursday.

The Newest Theory

2012-01-14T09:24:00.004+03:00

By the end of the day of the last post I was in so much pain I was doubled over and my mother decided to take me in to the hospital rather than wait for my appointment the next day. I spent four hours seeing doctors, doing x-rays, waiting for lab results, etc. To share with you my level of frustration let me just say that after waiting for an hour to see the internal medicine specialist at the end of the night, (standing in the hallway outside his office because the nurse had announced that she was finishing her shift and no one would come to the waiting room to get us so we all had to line up - this girl grabbed a desk chair from the empty office next door) he looked at the x-rays for two seconds and said "ok, we'll see what the orthopaedic surgeon says tomorrow, but you shouldn't wear pantalons (trousers), women should wear dresses or skirts". In this part of the world, nothing should surprise me. But for a split second I imagined myself lunging across his desk and squeezing my hands around his throat until his eyes bulged out of his face. Almost as bad as the one a couple of weeks ago who said I should become Muslim so Allah would cure me.

The next day I went to the orthopaedic surgeon who restored some of my faith in the medical profession. He had a new theory. One that would replace my original diagnosis of fibromyalia (fingers crossed). Severe Vitamin D deficiency, untreated for such an extended amount of time, that levels of toxins might be so severe that they could be attacking my core muscles and causing the ridiculous amount of pain that I am in at the slightest thing. Interesting, and hopefully correct because it would be treatable with injections, unlike fibromyalgia which is a diagnosis I have never been happy with.

Despite sunlight 365 days a year, it is so hot here that the idea is to avoid it. I love the feel of the sun on my skin but it's been drilled into me. To stay indoors, to cover up (not by choice in Saudi) and to slather on sunscreen. It's a surprisingly common problem and supposedly the Ministry of Health is finally contemplating fortifying dairy products with Vitamin D.

So I wait. Again. But I'm much happier waiting for these results at this end of the week than I was waiting for CT Scans and a biopsy at the beginning of the week.

Nursery Rhymes

2012-01-11T02:39:00.000+03:00

I woke up thinking in cartoon or nursery rhymes:

"Pain pain go away, don't come back another day"

or 'heigh ho, heigh ho, it's off to the doc I go..." as per Snow White.

The fact that it is 0215 might have something to do with it. I fell asleep around 2000, that's practically a whole night's sleep for me. I think I woke up because of the pain. The latest theory is a pinched nerve near my hip which is probably rotated or out of whack and pulling, stretching, twisting, spasming muscles and ligaments through my abdomen. Is it just me or does it sound like they're grasping at straws?

Exhale

2012-01-09T21:50:00.001+03:00

What a surreal 48 hours, in a very shaky and brittle way.

My grandfather died this morning. They kept the machines on until everyone had gathered around him in California and said their goodbyes, then he slipped away. I hope he knew everyone was there and how much we all loved him. A cousin on her way in from Europe collapsed in an airport in New Jersey and was taken to a hospital for emergency surgery in New York. I can't imagine how torn her mother must feel between her father on the west coast and her daughter on the east. A fraught and emotional time.

Here in Qatar I went in for my biopsy after my morning shift. As the radiologist did the MRI to identify the location for the pathologist who stood ready with a nurse holding her tray of needles and slides, they stopped. They couldn't find the mass that the surgeon had wanted checked based on the CT Scan results. To be relieved or skeptical, that is the question.

Without doubt the worst experience of my life. Wondering what would happen to my daughter.

Relationship Status

2012-01-09T04:12:00.001+03:00

"Sprinkle is Single". I got tired of waiting for the divorce to come through and after discussing it with my husband, we decided to take the facebook plunge and change our relationship statuses. I didn't do it when I first left because I felt too breakable and didn't want to deal with questions. I hoped (naïvely perhaps) that it would quietly appear on my info page for anyone who bothered to look. Instead there was an announcement. It achieved its purpose, people get it now.

Rather than regretting the public nature of the status change, I wish I had done it sooner. Facebook is a strange platform for such personal, private, and painful life events but I have found so much support and encouragement from the messages people have sent. Similar to when I found that I had to announce my miscarriage as people would have started asking about the baby they were expecting me to have.

The timing was perfect apparently. The same evening that I changed the status I got an email from the lawyer saying that the divorce has finally been approved. Third time must have been the charm. I'm free. It's over. Book closed. The euphoria I expected to feel is somewhat overshadowed by everything else that is going on this week.

Waiting

2012-01-08T15:29:00.008+03:00

0830

I've been waiting for a CT scan for a few days, now it is finally time. I can safely say this may be the most terrified I have ever been. Sitting in the hospital drinking a barium sulphate smoothie for breakfast tops everything that has come before. Life in Saudi, terrorists in Saudi, abusive relationships, I have always known would survive. This is a new experience for me. Hopefully a one-off. Everyone else here is with someone. A wife with her husband, a mother and daughter, sisters. And looking at the empty seats next to me in sympathy. I have had more CT Scans, MRIs, etc. than I can remember as each new doctor tries to re-diagnose me, so I am trying to look at this as just another one. And do it on my own. But it's different. I think that once you've been told you have to have a scan, you should have it. The waiting is awful.

0930
The scan took half an hour. First a couple of images were taken without contrast injected, then with. Three separate times a nurse, then a doctor, then another doctor who had been called in to look at the images, came in to take my hand, ask me if I was in pain, or if I was ok. I'm not sure that was meant to be comforting, it seemed a bit much for regular customer care and has got me worried.

1030

Scan done. Hopefully the report will be done and I can see the doctor this evening. Before starting the back to school rollercoaster tomorrow.

2200

Saw the doctor. Biopsy on Monday. Not a good week.

My fears may be irrational but a few years ago in Saudi I lost a good friend to cancer. My age. With a four year old daughter. Maybe because I was in such a detached emotional state then, it is all hitting me now?

Goodbye Grandpa

2012-01-06T20:17:00.004+03:00

Tonight my father got on a plane to go say goodbye to his father. I hope he makes it in time, Qatar to California is a long way, especially via Kuwait. I wish I was going. It is very difficult to be so far away, not to share in the grief, not to have one last... anything.

So this is my goodbye to my grandfather.

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
~ Irish Blessing

I love you Grandpa, x

Trying

2012-01-04T17:00:00.010+03:00

I am honestly. Trying to be positive, upbeat, happy. I've had feedback that the blog portrays me negatively, as a negative person. I think everyone has that facet that isn't so shiny and cheerful, that grumbles, has insecurities, and fears, and this is where it comes out for me. This stuff has to go somewhere and it sure as hell isn't going to make it's way onto my facebook profile or conversation over dinner.

I am in so much pain and it is not the usual fibromyalgia. I actually had to leave a room at work this morning to double over. The lump is back. Bruised and painful to touch. I tried getting through to the hospital to get in to show the doctor because Murphy's law is that by the time I get an appointment, it will have subsided. But no luck.

I admit that last night I spent hours putting Christmas away, moving furniture and carrying boxes, but I thought I could handle it given the second opinion I received last week. Yesterday's visit over-ruled the second opinion, no hemorrhagic cysts apparently, so CT scans are scheduled for next week. Maybe the original diagnosis of a hernia was right.

I hear the whole 'asking for help' theory but here's the thing. I have a lifetime of experience of being sick, with a condition no one really recognises, and looking healthy and fine. People think I'm just being pathetic. It would be easier if I had a cast or a limp, something visible to indicate that I needed help. Even people who have known me my whole life don't get it. I asked for help recently to deal with a shipment held up by customs at the port in Doha. Not a place women usually go. Not something women usually do. A mandoob, (officer runner) usually handles such things. I was asked if I wanted "to be an independant career woman or a housewife?" In other words, 'deal with it'. The response was crushing, the old me would have switched off just a little and dealt with it. I know I've said this before but being let down is just another form of rejection, and what is lonelier than rejection? I think being thrown away after giving someone everything has left me with rejection issues. But I asked someone else for help who proved that people do step up.

So I'm trying. I'm still happy. I'm still looking forward to 2012. But right now I hurt and it's scary. I'm dreading starting the school run again next week and losing those extra hours of sleep, because I feel like I'm walking a very thin line right now.

Something Beautiful

2011-12-30T21:00:00.001+03:00

Distance

2011-12-29T22:50:00.003+03:00

On the surface I'm sure my family and I look like nothing about getting on a plane to fly around the world phases us in the slightest. No drawn out farewells for us as we jet off to far away continents. And no one can wield luggage one armed with a toddler in tow like I can. My example was my mother who went around the world on numerous occasions with four of us little ones on her own.

But it wrenches every time.

One of the things about living overseas is that for as long as I can remember, I've wondered if each goodbye might be the last. Each airport drop off. Each take off. The last time I see, touch, hold, or hug that person. It's especially difficult with family. I wonder if that's normal or if I'm particularly morbid?

My father says that we are not human beings who have a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings who have a human experience. I find that comforting. Tonight someone I love on the other side of the world was taken into hospital. And I can't sit next to them and hold their hand. I'm so far away.

Next summer I am going to take my daughter to England to see my husband's family, especially her grandparents, who are similar in age to my grandparents. Hopefully she is old enough that she'll remember the visit and have memories of them.

This Time Last Year

2011-12-27T20:50:00.005+03:00

I had left Saudi and was about to spend the first night of my new life in Qatar (not counting previous holiday visits).

It's funny but I feel more unsure about the year ahead, than I did then about 2011; leaving my home, job, husband, friends, and life of ten years. Because at that point I knew what I had to do, there was a clear checklist to work through; start a new job, find a place to live, get my daughter settled in school, make a home for the two of us, start a new life...

So now what?

As I said to Rebecca, in comments on Christmas, 2012 looms like an abyss.

Dark. Endless. Unknown.

The Rest Of My Life.

Timeline

2011-12-27T08:36:00.004+03:00

I recently updated my Facebook profile to Timeline and as I went through the last two years in Saudi, so much came rushing back. I was surprised by how much made me laugh and smile, usually comments and encouragement from friends.

Here's a song my brother sent me at my lowest, very apt. Probably about the time I wrote 'Life in the Box'. And below are the kinds of quotes I was posting. Nothing has made me realise how far I've come more than rereading these.

"The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears" J.V. Cheney

"Disappointment is a sort of bankruptcy - the bankruptcy of a soul that expends too much in hope and expectation." Hoffer

"The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it." Henry David Thoreau

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T00:53:00.004+03:00

I have just finished being Santa for the first time (that my daughter is old enough to be excited about). I love it. Everything is set up and I'm so excited about tomorrow morning and seeing my angel's face when she comes downstairs. For us that will be about 0430. Now that we don't have the white noise of the a/c units on, the early morning prayer call wakes her up and then her cold little toes on my stomach, after she crawls into my bed, wake me up.

I just hope I've done a convincing job. Left enough cookie crumbs on the plate to make her think Santa stopped for a snack. Remembered not to use the same wrapping paper on gifts from me. Maybe I should have put reindeer prints outside the back door...

The last few days have been manic, in a good, normal, run-up to Christmas sort of way. Baking, shopping, wrapping, visiting... Which feels great. It feels Normal. Decorations in the shops. Christmas music playing. Christingles at church, Christmas carols, the solo for Once in Royal David's City. Evenings with friends over mince pies and mulled wine. People greeting each other with a 'Merry Christmas' or a 'have a Happy New Year' if they're uncomfortable with going too far over the religious line. Even Qataris. A long way from Christmases Past in Saudi. I know it's a difficult adjustment to people who are spending their first Christmas here when they compare it to the US or Europe, but for me it's been wonderful.

It makes me realise how far we've come from this time last year. What a ride. Thank you all for your support and encouragement. Merry Christmas to you and yours, have a safe wonderful day wherever you are, xx

PS. I would love to know where in the world you are so if you haven't dropped me a line already, say hi!

Reflections

2011-12-12T13:59:00.004+03:00

Apparently I'm a reflective person, a nice way of saying I think too much? Well obviously, as regular readers will know. I hate sitting in traffic for that very reason, there is nothing to do but think.

In the last post I said I wasn't going to take on other people's problems as I usually do, but the truth is that they're a great distraction from my own. As a step back I'm trying to leave it at people watching and trying to figure out what makes them tick. It's Ball Season in Doha which has proven to be very entertaining, perfect for providing people watching material. I've been to three in the last four weeks. Each for very different reasons, one with the British contingent, one with the Scots for St. Andrew's, and one by Al-Jazeera. It's interesting how people change when they get all dressed up, as if donning a costume or persona. And it's interesting how some people don't.

I think I'm pretty consistent. As my friend J said: "Surely you, of all people, don't really care what others might think?" I don't, perhaps to a bit of an extreme, but that's me (in a very take-it-or-leave-it sort of way).

Reprieve

2011-12-04T22:30:00.005+03:00

There were times over the last few days when I wondered if my daughter and I might have been better if we had stayed in Saudi. Gasp. Shock. Horror.

My new schedule was given to me Thursday night. Effective immediately, starting this morning. Less morning hours. More evening hours. All I could think was that I can't make it work anymore. It isn't simply the work schedule, it all just gets a bit much sometimes. I simply felt Done.

In the post A Night in the Life I wrote about how the situation was affecting my daughter. I didn't think it could get worse. Those of you who know me would expect me to be rolling up my sleeves and daring them to take me on. I admit I used to relish the outlet for anger, having someone or something to take it out on. Probably why I was so effective at what I did. But I'm so tired of fighting, and tired in general, that I felt like I was at the foot of a wall I couldn't even see the top or end of, without the energy to poke it let alone pull out a sledgehammer. I blubbered for a couple of days until some friends took me and V out on their boat which helped me clear my head.

This might seem like an overreaction to a petty issue and granted it's exasperated by fatigue, but nothing is more important to me than my daughter. She's all I have.

Focussing on that I sent a very succinct email last night that included words like single mother, disability, work-life balance, and equal opportunities and diversity. I followed up this morning in person. It was unpleasant, I do not enjoy confrontation. But I know how to play and I walked away, for the first time in a year, with a schedule that will allow me to pick my daughter up from school every day and be home to tuck her in bed 3 out of 5 week nights. We won't have had this much time together since moving to Qatar almost a year ago.

I still have two splits that will start at 0900 and finish at 2100 but I can exhale. For the next three months. Then it will be back to square one but at least now they know I'll fight my corner.

Christmas Past

2011-11-29T22:11:00.003+03:00

Yesterday I put up our Christmas tree. Early I know, not even December. When my husband came to visit over the weekend my daughter decided she wanted him to help her put up her own little tree someone had given her. Down came all the decorations from the tops of the cupboards.

I thought it would be easier just to finish it off so I could put the boxes away. But I forget about these things called emotions and hit a wall. Despite encouraging other single friends to do it, I couldn't. Decorating a Christmas tree alone seemed so wrong. After putting it off for a couple of evenings I eventually asked my mother to come over and use my kitchen for her baking so I would have some company. She made me listen to Christmas music which was a little grating at first but then this came on one of the albums, which I love but hadn't heard in a long time.

For years I hated Christmas. It was the annual slap in the face. It would start with a call in the morning supposedly requesting him to go into work "but he'd be back in an hour". The first year I believed him and carried on making a Christmas meal. By nightfall I realised he wasn't coming home and dumped it all. When he finally showed up we ordered delivery.

The next year it was "I'm going in to check on things then I'll come home". Take two of the previous year. I had had invitations from people who knew he might "be working" and turned them down. Even as people called to wish me Merry Christmas and found out I was home alone, they offered to pick me up so I could join them. I turned them down saying that he'd be back. But he never was. I was nine months pregnant that time. It didn't change after our daughter was born, he would still leave as quickly as he could, as soon as the presents were open. But at least I had a reason to go through the motions after she came along. Except the one Christmas we spent at my parents, the one Christmas we spent together.

So this week, when he said he wanted to come to Qatar to spend Christmas with her, I said no. Needless to say it wasn't pleasant and he isn't very happy about it. Anger is back in the building. Initially I thought having him here might make Christmas happier for my daughter. But that's short term thinking. I want to start as I mean to go on, which means Christmas morning will be me and V. No playing Happy Families or setting her up for future disillusionment or disappointment. And maybe I'm wrong but if I, and then we, weren't worth enough and didn't mean enough for him to spend Christmas together then, why now?

Beautiful People

2011-11-29T12:15:00.001+03:00

On Thanksgiving I posted this on facebook with no explanation but I posted it with you in mind. My strong, beautiful, amazing friends and readers who encourage and inspire me with the love and support you share, even as so many of you are fighting your own battles with life.

Now What?

2011-11-27T08:09:00.014+03:00

I have received another email from the lawyer. The judge has rejected the divorce. Again. How hard can this be? Everything has been agreed and signed. In a few weeks we will have lived apart for a year already. There is a shortage of family law lawyers in Qatar. Unless I want an Islamic divorce. So now what? After all the paperwork and expense of filing for divorce in the US, do I start over in the UK?

Apparently the state I filed in requires a certificate of attendance for both parties for a co-parenting class provided by the court. Those papers have to be submitted to the court with the petition for divorce. On my last morning in Vegas I went into the lawyer's office to drop off more signed documents. Just as I was about to leave the receptionist remembered that I had to attend one of these classes. There went my plans for my last evening in Vegas (although I did still catch the late show of Cirque Du Soleil's Viva Elvis).

It was torturous, 4 hours, tailored for Clark County's lowest common denominator. I think half the people in the group were on something, straight from the set of Jerry Springer. They wanted to use the session to vent, rant and rave, and seek free legal advice.

But there were a few others like me, ticking the legal boxes. I attended the class, got the certificate and it was filed. He, being in Saudi and not wanting to get divorced, did not attend the class, will never attend the class, so there will be no certificate for him in the file. And that is the problem, this time. (Last time it was the judge not getting that 'weekends' in this part of the world are not Saturday and Sunday as far as visitation is concerned).

I did walk away from the session with two things. First, going through a divorce is like going through the grief cycle (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance). I hadn't thought of that but it is true. I've been there, done that. I've been playing a waiting game for years now and just want it over. The second point was that the spousal relationship was over. To move forward as co-parents the relationship should move into that of a teacher-parent. Discussions about the child/children should remain about the child/children, courteous, professional, distant. Not moving into personal territory such as the "where were you, who were you with...?" interrogation that I used to get (he's learned that it would be wiser not to ask). I thought that was a good starting point at least for the new undefined relationship to develop from.

A lot of time was spent on the impact on the children, what they would be coping with, how not to use them against each other. I did think at that point that it would have been useful for my husband to have attended. As a teacher I've seen how devastating divorce can be for children, especially when they're the rope in a tug of war.

Epiphany

2011-11-23T20:27:00.022+03:00

I don't like spending so much time alone. But something has been switched off, I have had absolutely no interest in finding anyone yet. And I've wondered what is wrong with me, why I've been so detached. Rationale:

a) too soon, don't need emotional entanglement or more to juggle

b) not interested in casual sex

c) fear of introducing the wrong person into my daughter's life (I have a great track record)

This week someone threw all those theories out the window and replaced them with this one. That I view relationships, and sex, as sacrifice. Not the good kind of sacrifice, the mutual kind of compromise that takes place in a healthy relationship, but the kind where you find the switch to your soul and turn it off.

Interesting theory. I used to escape to music in my head. Where do you go when you escape?

Now I own myself, my space, my decisions, my body. Why would I want to go down that road again?

Finding Peace

2011-11-20T23:52:00.008+03:00

I find peace in nature. Or maybe I need nature to find peace, to breathe. Someone once said, "I'd rather walk in the mountains than sail on a cruise ship". When I was a child my favourite place to go was the mountains. Picnics, camping, hiking, climbing, building forts and having pinecone fights. Over the rocks, through the pine and juniper trees, along streams of icy mountain water and under waterfalls. My favourite thing even then was to get lost by myself and be still in the clear mountain air. Of course I was never lost, but I could get far enough away from everything and everyone to feel free.

Troodos Mountains, Cyprus

At the time I took for granted that I had water too. Growing up on an island, and this wasn't just any island, it was Cyprus, water was within an hour's drive in any direction. This is a picture I took of my favourite place to swim, snorkel, and dive, on a visit 'home' in 2004.

Cape Greco, Cyprus

I didn't realise how much I needed to be by the water until I left for university. Then I found a park with a 3 km walk around a river. I used to walk it every night to settle, and think, usually between midnight and 0200 because that was when I could be alone. It drove everyone back on the other side of the world crazy with worry but I needed it. And the local cops kept an eye on me.

Fox River, Waukesha, WI

Qatar is a peninsula. I'm practically surrounded by water again. But I can't find anywhere to go to just disappear, to be have space and breathe. The beaches I have seen are either private, hotels, glitzy, bikini-heels-fake-boob combos inevitably trailed by salivating greasy haired men strutting around in speedos, or are public access, nothing but scraps of land between the city and the coast. Covered with litter, in plain view of anyone who wants to stare, with creepy men skulking around. But I want to get away from Doha and away from people. Unless I'm with someone who can appreciate the peace with me. I want to breathe. I want solitude. Next week when I'm off of work using up leave days I'm going to drop my daughter off at school in the mornings and go exploring. Open space, find a place out of sight, away. I've heard there are some nice beaches on the other side of the country (1 hour drive) or up on the north coast. This is what I'm craving.

Nature's Valley, South Africa, 2007

Your Honour Or Your Life

2011-11-19T23:24:00.008+03:00

A recent fire drill at work reminded me of a time we had a real fire at work in Saudi. Women's institutions were usually guarded to keep the women in and men out. In one I worked at a metal gate was pulled across the entrance and locked by a guard who then took the key and went away until the end of the work day when we were allowed out. In an almost identical building which was a school for girls (age 16+, any unmarried woman is considered a girl, known as a bint) several women were burned and crushed to death when a fire broke out in Mecca in 2002. The Mutawa (religious police) also known as the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Squad (seriously, it was on their logo on their vehicles) wouldn't let the women out or firemen in because the women weren't veiled appropriately. In 2010 a law was finally passed to allow emergency personnel to enter women's facilities in life or death situations.

A few years after that incident I had just been employed by a global British organisation that followed all the health and safety requirements laid out for UK government employees posted overseas. We had all the latest security equipment, cameras, alarms, fire systems with emergency lights and sprinklers, you name it, it was supposed to be in place.

One day I was working in one of our women's branches. We had a floor in a 'women's building' which was surrounded by a wall with male security at the entrance outside and female security inside to check under our veils to make sure only women entered. As I walked down a hall one morning I noticed a haze in the air and the smell of smoke. In the split second that I realised we had a fire, we lost electricity and it went quite dark. Windows of women's institutions often had screens over them to prevent anyone from seeing inside, or women from getting out. The branch manager came out of her office to find out what was happening. Our emergency lights hadn't come on. Our alarms hadn't come on. By now the smoke was heavier and people were starting to poke their heads out of rooms to find out what was going on.

I left the branch manager (who was Lebanese and spoke Arabic) to organise everyone while I went to check the emergency exit which was at the back of the office. I found the exit locked from the outside by the landlord. It was blocked, they were using the stairwell for storage. The fire was coming from that direction anyway which ruled it out for evacaution.

The only other option was the main entry/exit point of our office which was an armoured security airlock. Normally only one door would open at a time on either side of a 4x4 room of armoured glass. The doors could only be unlocked by a staff member with a key card or a receptionist who monitored the doors on security cameras pressing a switch. In emergencies the airlock was supposed to deactivate so that both doors could be opened simultaneously, allowing evacuation. It didn't.

When I made my way back to the front I found a mass of women in black pushing their way into the airlock while the branch manager held the internal door open for them. There were so many it couldn't be closed so the external door couldn't be opened and nobody could get out. I asked her to do a walk-through and check restrooms, storage rooms, meeting rooms etc. Once she was out of the way I got everyone to line up on one side of the corridor. I put UK staff members with key cards on each door and eventually everyone filed out and made their way downstairs. I grabbed security lists so we could double check everyone was out and left with the branch manager after doing my own walk-through.

Once we were all outside of the building and in the courtyard area, we were were surrounded by all the other women who shared the facility with us, all fully veiled. It was difficult to identify everyone who was part of our operation who by then had also covered. As upset as they were about the fire they were equally disturbed that us 'UK' staff had gone outside without stopping to put on our abayas and veils. What I really wasn't expecting was the hysteria that broke out when the fire department and police did finally arrive because men were actually entering the courtyard. Some women actually pushed and ran towards the fire, to hide and protect their honour.

It was electrical fire, common across the region. Other than smoke inhalation, none of us were seriously injured.

With male senior staff not able to access the women's facilities, the local branch manager had operated with little accountability. The lack of procedures and equipment failure only highlighted her shortcomings which gradually became more apparent. Following the fire I did an audit of our systems, had parts replaced as necessary, and implemented a regular testing and preventative maintenance schedule. I was asked to write, implement, and train staff on evacuation procedures that would take 'modesty issues' into account. I also had strong words with the landlord which resulted in us getting our own keys to the stairwell so we could do spot checks to make sure our emergency exit would be kept clear. While senior management were pleased with the results, it was the first of many nails in the coffin of my relationship with the branch manager who didn't appreciate the new, American, 26 year old, being given her job.

A Night in the Life

2011-11-15T23:29:00.012+03:00

My current work schedule is taking its toll on both my daughter and I.

For weeks my daughter has been coming into my room in the night to look for me, and recently, sobbing her heart out as she stumbles in. She's afraid that I won't be there, that she's been left all alone. She did the same thing just after we moved to Qatar and into our own place after leaving my husband. I think it is happening again because I'm not there when she gets home from school and still not there when she goes to bed at night.

The other night it started at 2200 and took until 0100 to calm her down enough that she cried herself to sleep. She clung and sobbed as I put her back into her own bed for the umpteenth time. She wants to sleep with me. That isn't a habit I want to encourage, I would get even less sleep. She uses my face as a pillow, keeps an arm wrapped around my neck, holds onto my hair, and at least one leg has to lay across me. She is desperate to have contact, to hold on, even in her sleep, and has to be physically forced to let go if she's awake. I think it hurts me more than it hurts her and by 0100 she isn't the only one crying herself to sleep. Half at the sound of her tears and wanting to hold her, and half at the thought of getting through another 11 hours at work the next day on four hours of sleep, missing my baby, and so tired I'm on autopilot long before I have to get in the car to drive home at night.

This is not sustainable. And the fear of getting sick again constantly hangs over my head. I can't afford to end up in hospital on an IV again.

A Day In The Life

2011-11-15T23:15:00.008+03:00

At 0500 the alarm on my cell goes off. I pull the charger cable out, hit snooze, and shove it under my pillow hoping it hasn't woken my angel up. If I'm lucky I can doze until 0530 then I have to drag myself out of bed and into the shower. Once I can focus with both eyes open the clock starts ticking.

I have 45 mins to get myself ready for work before waking her up at 0615. She snuggles in my arms for a couple of minutes then demands her cheerios and honey as if I've been keeping her waiting. While she eats breakfast I pack her bags with the snacks and lunch I put together the night before, unload the dishwasher I ran overnight, and get whatever laundry done that I can to minimise what will be waiting for me when I get home that night. If we're having a good morning she'll eat, and let me help her brush teeth and get dressed so we get out the door by 0700. Sometimes we're ready earlier but I still usher her out the door before she thinks she has time to start a DVD or get toys out. If there are toys out from the day before it's a recipe for disaster, once she sees them that's it. "I don't wanna go to schoooooool", "I wanna play with my aaaaaaanimals and diiiiiisonaurs...."

For me it's a victory to get out of the door, in my black pants (of which I have a kazillion pairs so that's usually what I end up wearing) sans yogurt, milk, toothpaste, lotion or any other gooey substances (let's not mention tears - mine, and snot - hers, on days like this one). We sit in a time warp of traffic for 20-45 mins (to get to her school which is 5 mins away) listening to her highness' choices, everything from Alice Martineau, to Placebo, to Disney (which makes you feel like you've entered an alternate cartoon reality). After kissing her goodbye it's back into traffic for another 20-30 mins to get to work which is my chance to grab an Alpen bar for breakfast on the road and down coffee if I had time to make a flask.

This is not a complaint. While I'm not a fan of repetition, it is anything but monotonous. I love the normalcy of it all, even as I want to tear my hair out. After life in Saudi driving my child to school is something I don't take for granted. I love our time in the mornings, singing along together, the snuggles and cuddles and hugs, because that's all we've got.

I usually get to work between 0800 - 0830, and leave by 1900. Nothing in between is worth mentioning. She is usually asleep by the time I get home so I don't see her until the following morning. I light candles, listen to music as I do the housework, sometimes even enjoy a glass of wine as I blog, trying to make the most of the peace and quiet, the adult time. But I miss her, and it's too quiet. The last thing I do before bed is lay my hand gently on her back to feel the rise and fall of her breathing.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

2011-11-12T13:33:00.005+03:00

Giving up being angry has been good for me. I was doing well until yesterday when I got an email, then text messages, then phone calls from my 'ex' telling me I owed him money.

It should be funny. I felt so guilty about leaving and taking our daughter that I cleared his debts and topped up his bank accounts. I should just laugh it off. But I find it frightening to have someone come after me for money. And it makes me angry all over again.

Remember

2011-11-11T17:50:00.008+03:00

Remembrance Day has always been special. Marked at school, brownies, girl guides, church, the familiarity of the poems, the hymns, the readings, and the silence, all seem too little for the enormity of what it means. I was asked how it compares to the American Memorial Day, or Veteran's Day. I wouldn't know. But the first thing that comes to mind is the solemnity which I prefer to flag flying and parades. To each his own.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John Alexander McCrae
(November 30, 1872 – January 28, 1918)

And here's another opinion.

Tick √

2011-11-11T12:36:00.012+03:00

A lot of people have asked me what I would look for in my 'next relationship'. They're expecting a salary bracket, an age range, a nationality or body type. Respect, Trust and Loyalty are the first things that come to mind. And Love they ask? Apparently it isn't that hard to find, you just need a list of essential and desired criteria and once you find someone who ticks more boxes than anyone else, you've found it.

I think I'll wait for someone to tick my heart, not a list.

Or maybe not. My sister sang The Water is Wide at my wedding, it's still a favourite, but I prefer this version's ending.

3 Going On 13

2011-11-09T11:02:00.009+03:00

This summer we stayed in San Diego with my brother. The local mall had a great little pet store where kids could hold and pet the puppies in little play areas. Every time we went there we had to stop and play with the puppies. Naturally, my little angel decided she wanted a puppy. She had a particular favourite, and I have to admit if we'd lived there I might even have been tempted. It made her so happy.

Then the requests for a puppy started. And continued. So about a month ago I decided some distraction was necessary and surprised her with a little fish tank. I went down to the souk and bought a dozen little neons, small, colourful, too fast to count, so that if one had to go for a ride on the porcelain express she'd never notice or miss it.

Then one day I found the tank had turned green, practically overnight, a chair pushed over to the counter, and half a bottle of fish food gone. I showed her what happened when we put too much food in the tank, and hid the fish food. After putting her to bed that night, I poured a glass of red wine, turned on some Joni Mitchell and rolled up my sleeves.

The other day I found her trying to feed them again, having climbed up on the counter and found the fish food in a kitchen cabinet. I explained that fish didn't know when they were full and would eat until they went SPLAT so they only needed a little bit!

When faced with something she doesn't want to eat the little angel says "I'm full" to which the standard response is "three more bites because you're three".

Only now she has a comeback: "but Mom, I will go SPLAT like a fish!"

Down Time

2011-11-06T21:09:00.008+03:00

It's Eid again. A week of family and feasting for Qataris, and travel and adventure for most western expats. It feels like the place has been deserted except for a few of us stragglers left behind. I turned down a trip to Istanbul last Eid, but I regretted it. I love travelling and miss it, I feel caged and restless. But I turned down going to Malaysia this Eid.

I need the down time. My health has been slipping and I can't afford a relapse. A friend has been staying with me and I can't put into words the relief of having another adult around the house. One day last week I fell asleep on the couch after dropping my daughter off at school. I slept through a large light fixture falling out of the kitchen ceiling, my friend calling the maintenance men, and a crew of them coming in to fix it. I slept until it was time to pick my daughter up after school, drop her off, and go to work for my afternoon shift.

I need time with my daughter and she needs time with me. We don't see each other during the week and she's been showing little signs of insecurity that I haven't seen since we left Saudi and my husband last December. But it doesn't look like my work schedule is going to get any better any time soon. We're off at the same time this week and making the most of it.

Today she flew a kite for the first time, we fed ducks at a local park, and had ice-cream which is not an everyday occurrence. Quality over quantity.

So I keep reminding myself that I have travelled quite a lot already, 31 countries is nothing to sneeze at, and that I will travel again when it is the right time and place. Now isn't.

Le Creep

2011-11-01T13:16:00.009+03:00

Actually, there isn’t just one, they all are, with few exceptions. Le Creep was at an embassy function, I attended this last weekend. I left early, made my way out of the grounds, through security, down the street to the car park and to my car at the back by a wall. As I opened my door I heard a voice. Freeze frame.

I had a stalker in college. The nasty kind. An abusive boyfriend who didn’t want to break up. There were hospital reports, police reports, restraining orders, broken windows from break-ins and once a dead animal left at my door cut open from the neck down with it’s entrails spilling out for me to find when I got home. He had threatened me with a gun on numerous occasions. I carried pepper spray and was taken to learn to shoot when I turned down the police’s suggestion that I temporarily move into a women’s shelter. So I should know better.

Back to the present, how did I get all the way to my car without the slightest awareness that there was someone following so closely!? I had walked past him as I left. As if that wasn’t disturbing enough, he gave me this spiel about how he was just waiting for his taxi (at the back of the parking lot?) and I was so anxious to get away that when he finally asked I gave him my real number. It gets creepier.

I have a colleague going through a difficult time and calling me a lot, usually when I’m working, putting my daughter to bed, or trying to sleep myself. Yesterday I texted her apologising for not being able to take her calls and invite her round for coffee. I used her name, saying ‘Hi Diane’ and we went back and forth setting up a time and place, her signing off as ‘Diane’. Then last night I had a text saying she was looking forward to it, only it was signed with this guy’s name. It was him all along. At least we had arranged to go out and not meet at my place!

He isn’t an exception. I was introduced to a guy at a party, we exchanged the usual handshake, first names, and a “what do you do here?”. Next day I had 3 messages from managers at work passing on messages from him trying to get in touch with me. What takes the cake is the two guys at a BBQ who did a classic ‘try/test the preacher’s daughter’ which I hadn’t experienced since high school. Another called me a 'MILF' as if it was the highest form of flattery.

Enough to want to hide out under my duvet indefinitely. Thank goodness for the decent people in my life who balance it all out!

And Done

2011-10-25T22:26:00.013+03:00

I've decided that 33 is a good place to draw a line. When I blogged that I was going to start writing about what happened in Saudi for therapy until I stopped being angry, I didn't actually believe it would work. But as I relived parts of the last few last years in the last few posts, I realised I am tired of thinking about it. I'm tired of being angry about it. At first anger was self-preservation, a buffer. Now it's a weight I don't want to carry anymore. The situation I've been angry at doesn't exist anymore. The person I've been angry with doesn't exist anymore. It's just wearing me down.

"Anger is a killing thing. It kills the one who angers, for each rage leaves him less than he had been before - it takes something from him" Louis L'Amour

A wonderful friend sent me this:

It isn't all magically fine. I'm sure I will still look back with anger at times. I don't know how to lose the filter of distrust, suspicion and cynicism, or if I want to, they're nice buffers too. And letting go of the anger seems to have made room for tears that weren't there before, who knew I had any left! But it's a starting point in reinventing myself in the most important way. Not from being a victim, or an invalid, or moving from Saudi to Qatar, or giving up a solid position to take up teaching, or even getting divorced and becoming a single mom. My reinvention is that I want to see life in technicolor instead of in shades of grey.

Zap

2011-10-22T23:53:00.009+03:00

Tonight. I was changing light bulbs. I'm overtired and distracted as usual, perfect set-up for a Sprinkle moment. Although last time I had this kind of an accident it was because of a faulty stove top that caused a burner to heat up without actually being turned on, so that when I leaned on it I burned and stuck my fingers to it. But it wasn't my fault.

Tonight was my fault and on the stupidity scale ranks right up there with this story. I have a decorative hanging lamp in a corner of a room and the bulb blew. I had just caught up with replacing bulbs and was irritated that there was yet another one to deal with. The electrical surges in this area are ridiculous. So, I turned the light off, climbed up on a chair and opened up the lamp. I grabbed the fixture and the bulb which was a bayonet. The bulb didn't budge and the fixture was cracked so the cover slid up the cord. Really irritated that I now had a fixture to replace at some point I grabbed it again harder, only this time I made contact with the pins. I hadn't unplugged it at the socket.

My first thought was that I couldn't let go, then it was of pain, then the realisation that I was being shocked, then that I had been knocked off the chair. Probably all in the space of one second, although it felt longer. I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach, although the contact was only in my hand. Hours later my arm still feels heavy, I have a few small burns from the points of the pins but no middle of the night ER trip necessary this time.

My heart isn't racing anymore but my chest still feels like it's been stepped on. Apparently the muscles spasmed enough to pull a rib slightly out, again.

Deep Breath

2011-10-16T23:27:00.013+03:00

My not-ex-yet-husband gets back from his annual leave in the UK tomorrow to spend a few days with our daughter here in Qatar before going back to work in Saudi. It doesn't make me tense or anxious anymore, we've reached a place where we can be amicable for her sake as long as we don't talk about the past.

That is difficult for me because he wants to talk about the progress he's making. The steps of the programme he is in, his new understanding of himself, the 'disease' of addiction, etc. He wants to be listened to, encouraged, and congratulated. So I do. But I'm biting my tongue.

It's all about him, the addict, the victim, in this case of a cold hard wife incapable of love who drove him to it. Without of course looking at the reasons I may have become a cold hard wife incapable of love.

I am happier now than I have ever been and I am happy for him that it is going so well. But I am angry because I'm not ok. I want to ask at what stage in his process do they discuss the other victims of his 'disease', the rest of us who were hurt, scared, put at risk, or whose lives were changed forever. Where is my twelve step programme? What is my recovery process supposed to be?

So I'm going to start writing about the last four years of my life in Saudi. What happened there. I'm going to try to do it about me and not use it to rant about him. I'm going to try to limit it to just a few posts to be written as needed. And I want to stop being angry by the end of it. Ha! What are the odds?

For a long time 'just keep breathing' has been my mantra. Maybe now that my daughter has started school and the limbo of the last 9 months is over, it's time for me to start thinking about letting go and moving on.

High Road?

2011-10-16T07:18:00.008+03:00

Crash. Again. This time, first of out six so far, it was my fault. It was on the way to drop my daughter off at school on the morning I described in the last post. Just what I needed. And the poor lady I rear-ended.

The process here is very simple, if you have all the right papers and do everything correctly. Cars cannot be repaired (officially) without police papers. That includes bumps on cars doors from parking lots. You have 48 hours to report anything so any accident means driving to the police station, establishing fault, printing the forms out (which have to be paid for) and you go on your way. Insurance is billed, end of story. Rates don't increase according to claims so it isn't a big deal.

Except the woman I hit was driving illegally, with expired car registration. For days she put me off going to the police. She worked at my daughter's school and it was my fault so I tried to be nice about it. But I had bumped my radiator, caused a leak in the coolant, and my car couldn't be driven without overheating. Without her at the police station, I couldn't get it fixed. I could have gone in to report it myself and a) dropped them in it for a fine of QR 6-7k ($1800) or b) pretended I didn't know who the other driver was, that they had just driven away because their car wasn't damaged or something, leaving the woman to deal with her own damages.

Unfortunately I have a conscience and couldn't do it. I waited. And waited. The husband got involved, talking in circles, making excuses, changing times, I was getting frustrated. Finally I gave them a deadline to show up, with the correct papers (almost a week later). They did. Everything got sorted out as it should have initially. They said that the reason they're behind in their paperwork is that the husband has cancer and is undergoing chemo.

I am very glad I waited and didn't add to their troubles. And at the same time, I wonder if that's the truth. And I think it would be nice to be able to trust people and think the best of them rather than the worst.

Breathe Much?

2011-10-12T11:29:00.005+03:00

For the first time since leaving my husband and moving to Qatar last December, this week I wished I had a man around the house.

It was building up for a while, at first it was the jar of cherry jam that I couldn't open for three weeks. Then it was the realisation that I now have 10+ light bulbs to replace around the house which is lit by chandeliers (being on a ladder is not my favourite place to be). Then it was getting the electricity bill which is triple what it should be and will require numerous trips from one hot smelly office full of men who barely speak English to the next arguing pointlessly till I'm blue in the face. Then finally, in the last few days, actually being blue in the face.

I have been having problems breathing this week. I had a cold a few weeks ago and just when I thought I was recovered we had a couple of very windy days which created such dust storms that my lungs now think it is Khamsin Season. The Khamsin (means 50 in Arabic) is a period of approximately 50 days usually in late winter or early spring, when sandstorms blow across North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. This even used to affect me as a child in Cyprus as it blew from the Sahara across the Mediterranean. Here's a picture of the sun in the morning during the Khamsin last year, from our house in Saudi.

I don't have asthma but every year when this hits I can't breathe and use an inhaler. The inhaler is not working. I've had days of coughing fits so violent that I can't keep anything down and I can't catch my breath.

The scales tipped while getting my daughter to school this week. Silly little things, she didn't want to eat breakfast, go to the bathroom, brush her teeth, get dressed, get out the door... at 3.5 she has the attitude of a 13.5 year old. I felt so sick I actually crossed the line of wishing I had someone else to say "you do it" to. Moment of weakness.

33

2011-10-11T10:27:00.015+03:00

Last weekend a friend surprised me for my 33rd birthday. I knew we were going to Dubai so I arranged for my daughter to spend a couple nights at my parents. I didn't know what the plan was.

It started with being met off the plane. I'm used to that from travelling for work, being met, escorted to an armoured vehicle and whisked away. I'm not used to being driven through the airport in a club car to a private limo, no lines, handed a bouquet of flowers by the chauffeur, given a selection of drinks and a music menu for the ride. And I was not expecting to be driven to the entrance of the Burj Al Arab.

My friend thought it would be nice to mark my 33rd by checking off bucket list item #51, Stay in a Seven Star Hotel. I haven't blogged about it yet because it is difficult to do it justice, you'll have to click on the link to the promo clip. It was fabulous. I was treated like a princess. Even the slightest detail was taken care of. I felt pampered, spoiled, and cared for, it was wonderful.

We went to Al Mahara at the Burj Al Arab for dinner on the first night, Atlantis at the Palm for lunch the next day, The Address to watch Dubai's dancing fountains the next night, and to the top of the Burj Khalifa the following day, to name a few. I experienced the world's tallest building, biggest mall, largest waterpark, biggest aquarium, and most luxurious hotel. Have you noticed a pattern? Dubai likes to do things in superlatives. The impression it leaves is of a very superficial, temporary and egocentric society.

I have to admit the fountains in Dubai were classier than Vegas, but there was no music! I suppose I prefer authenticity. Here's a link to an article I've posted before, and I'll leave you with the view from the Burj Khalifa.

A Better Moment

2011-10-03T20:03:00.005+03:00

Tonight I rushed out of work and made it home before my angel was asleep. She heard me coming up the stairs and was sitting up in her bed with outstretched arms, waiting for me. She asked for a drink of water and a snuggle, probably delaying tactics but I couldn't resist pulling her into my arms.

She then asked for her sleepy song, the dancing one. As close to country as I'll ever get, I Hope You Dance by Lee Ann Womack. So I carried her into my room where the laptop was by the bed and put it on, the first time she'd seen the youtube clip. She was fascinated by the girls dancing and sat up facing me so she could see better. We looked into each others eyes, dancing with our hands and arms, swaying to the music and singing along.

When it finished she leaned forward and lay her head on my chest and closed her eyes, saying "I can go to bed now mommy".

Let The Music Play On

2011-10-02T21:17:00.011+03:00

Ok, the last 24 hours were tough but I'm over it. If there were tears to cry, it might make me feel better, but I don't have time for that. After dropping my daughter off at school I threw myself into clearing out my storeroom and tackling the guest room, which somehow always seems to turn into a dumping ground for anything and everything. The best part of the self-inflicted 'therapy' was that I blasted my own music.

That's a big deal. I didn't listen to my music for years. My husband didn't want to hear it around the house. Since women can't drive in Saudi I listened to his music when he drove, or Bangladeshi music, or Arabic music, depending on the taxi driver. Turning on my iPod was like finding an old friend, there's comfort in the familiarity. I'm almost afraid for anyone else to hear and criticise, as if they could take it away from me again.

I also stopped playing the piano, flute, and singing. Same reason as above, he didn't want to hear it. But in this case I'm not sure I'll ever go back to it. I used to be a music teacher, I loved it. For a while after moving here I housed an electric piano for my parents but I didn't play it, I was afraid to touch it. I could hear the music in my head and look at the familiar notes on the page, but my hands wouldn't cooperate, I didn't recognise the sound they made. Any musician knows how skipping even a day of practice is noticeable. It's been too long now, I don't feel there's any point in going back. One day I might teach my daughter as much as she'll let me.

A few weeks ago the piano was moved on, so that's that, no more elephant in the room.

The point is the crash is over, and I have music again. But I miss my piano.

Not Single

2011-10-01T17:45:00.010+03:00

Last night I was on my way to a BBQ when my blackberry beeped to tell me I had an email. I've decided to disable notifications because there are some things I just don't want to know unless I'm sitting down and ready to deal with them. It was from the lawyer.

The court has 'decided not to accept' the decree of divorce. Visitation specified every other weekend, Thursdays and Fridays. That's my husband's weekend in Saudi, when he would drive down to Qatar to see our daughter. But those are not weekend days in the US where apparently our visitation schedule has caused confusion.

I quickly sent off a reply with details for them to resubmit and then decided not to think about it. So I didn't.

And now I can't avoid thinking about it anymore. Resubmitting the paperwork will result in additional court costs and lawyer fees. Best case scenario is they can reprint a page with the new details and it will get accepted. Worst case scenario is that new papers will have to be drawn up, signed and notarised here, sent back to the US, and then resubmitted. I cannot imagine asking my husband to sign the divorce papers again.

If I close my eyes will it all go away?

Another Kind of Moment

2011-09-28T19:39:00.012+03:00

My weekday evenings are really exciting. Once my daughter is fed, bathed, storied, and tucked in, I usually go downstairs, unpack her school bag, pack her a new lunch for the next day, and finish laundry and cleaning up before I go to bed myself. Bed is a better option than staying awake alone, sometimes the couch is a better option than going to bed alone.

Anyway, her school bag always comes home with a pink plastic wallet in it that goes back and forth with letters for parents, her school work from the day, or things the school has asked parents to send in. Last night I found a request for a family picture. They were discussing mommies, daddies, brothers and sisters, and the children were supposed to bring one in for a show and tell.

I couldn't even bring to mind a single printed photo of the three of us so I went upstairs to dig through boxes. I couldn't find one. At the time taking 'family' pictures seemed like such a farce. But we had been a family, even for such a short time, and I was almost frantic to find proof. For her.

So then I went through all my digital photos. I found a few of the three of us, mostly on holiday, taken by friends or family, nothing more recent than a year old. Finally I found one for her to take in. I emailed it to my mom who printed it out and brought it over for me.

I've heard my daughter telling her teacher and classroom assistants about her daddy and noticed they are not aware of the situation. This morning I decided that since families is going to be the topic for a while I would let them know about the divorce and that V's dad isn't around, so they could be a little sensitive. V is too young to understand more than he lives in 'Sawdi Awabia' for his work. I've never actually spoken to her teacher other than to say hi and bye and thank you, she's usually busy in a corner or with prying a clingy child away from an equally clingy mother. (We were away over the summer when the nursery dept. had an open day/meet and greet.) So I started to explain to one of the assistants that there were no recent pictures and why. And I choked. Teared up. Couldn't speak for the lump in my throat.

It just hit me like a wave. What this is doing to our daughter. She loves and misses her daddy so much. They will miss out on so much of each others' lives. And she will probably never have the brother or sister I wanted so much for her (recently she's been pretending her stuffed toys are 'brothers' and 'sisters'). She will always have this, and here it will make her the odd one out. In the US it wouldn't be so obvious, having two parents married and still together might be the exception. But here, when the daddy's are dropping off their kids, or picking them up, she asks for hers. And it breaks my heart.

Abaya Day

2011-09-27T00:47:00.009+03:00

I admit it, today I wished I could just throw on an abaya over my pyjamas, wrap a veil (hijab) around my hair and stick some sunglasses on over my puffy eyes to take my daughter to school. I am still not feeling well, missing my third day of work this week. There were benefits to having an abaya day, as opposed to a pyjama day. No one would notice that you hadn't bothered to get dressed or do your hair and make-up. And no one would care. Here I can only imagine the gossip it would stir up amongst the other mothers at school. Getting up at 0530 to get myself showered and dressed before waking V up for breakfast is not my idea of fun, at least I don't have to get myself office-ready and worry about packing my own meals for 11 hours at work.

In Saudi it was normal on the weekend to throw an abaya on over whatever, stick some sunglasses on over make-up-less eyes and head out the door. Hot grubby taxis, shops with questionable a/c, stepping over rubbish in the dusty streets as mangy stray cats darted out from under your feet, and inhaling odours you knew were permeating everything you were wearing - it made sense to save getting showered and properly dressed for after you returned home. It was also a convenient way to protect your clothes from it all although I have to admit in the really hot sweltering heat of summer, there were no clothes on underneath to protect.

I'm talking about the downtown area and souks. By the time I left there were so many new modern shopping centres that newcomers didn't even know about the old areas or souks. It was almost rare to see westerners around anymore, the number of Filipinos there instead earned it the nickname 'Little Manila'. Looking back nostalgically I almost think that's sad. And then I remember waiting in the glaring sun in a stifling abaya on the dusty streets until prayer time was over and we could re-enter the shops we'd been forced to wait outside of. No nostalgia here!

Memory Lane

2011-09-26T11:29:00.019+03:00

I love the messages I've been getting about the new layout, I'm glad you like it. (Although yes, I know it is still a bit dark, and that my sister would prefer I used an emerald green colour somewhere.) Obviously given the anger that's come through in the last few posts, I have a ways to go yet, but I am lightening up, promise.

In an email to desertsprinkle@hotmail.com I was asked about my upbringing and what 'nationality' I consider myself. Where would 'home' be? Such a complicated question as you'll know from previous posts. American but... Born in Cyprus. Home is currently the Middle East. Etc. If I thought about it though I would say that the strongest influence on my upbringing was British. I actually say "yeah but no but" to people when the occasion arises.

In a nutshell; I went to nursery school and learned to swim on the now closed British Base at Berengaria. I went on to British schools, at one we could watch the Red Arrows pracitising at the Royal Air Force Base at Akrotiri during break times. I went to an Anglican church and joined Brownies, then British Girl Guides, and would go camping at RAF Episkopi (Happy Valley wasn't only for Prince Charles' polo games, it was also the best location on the island for Capture the Flag after dark and our school sports days) and of course there were the swimming galas at SBA (Sovereign Base Area) Dhekelia. As a teenager I listened to BFBS and an annual event was the Last Night of the Proms under the stars in the ancient roman amphitheatre Kurion, set in a cliff overlooking the coast. It wasn't just exposure to an educational system.

I stayed in British schools until the age of 14 when I switched to an American International School doing the International Baccalaureate before going to university in the US. I returned to the British system for my post grad studies, both attending university at that level in the UK for one qualification, and completing a number of others by distance learning from UK universities. I was married to a Brit, and have a daughter who is a dual citizen. I have also worked in British Schools and for British companies/organisations my entire professional life.

What a walk down memory lane. My upbringing and beyond has been far more British than American. The upside is I can function easily on both sides of the pond, the downside is that neither feels like home. And I probably still haven't answered the question.

Patience, Not One Of My Virtues

2011-09-25T16:37:00.015+03:00

But I need some, quick. Before I get deported.

By now you have an idea of what the driving is like. I have to admit that I flip the bird. Often. The penalty is usually jail followed by deportation, which means job loss, etc. So not smart. But it's practically an involuntary reaction to stupidity. And there's a lot of stupidity.

There's also a lot of hypocrisy given that flipping someone the bird is not nearly as insulting or offensive as being driven off the road or almost being killed in traffic but one rule for us, one rule for them, c'est la vie.

I could blame today's incidence of bird-flipping on being sick. I have probably gone through a box of chamomile tea, a box of panadol cold and flu sachets, and multiple boxes of tissues in the last 24 hours. But the truth is, I am always like this.

I have a nasty streak. And nothing triggers it like hypocrisy, lack of consideration and laziness, and being taken advantage of.

For example, I live in a villa by the entrance of my compound. Staff sleep in a room by the gate at night for security but they are busy working around the place during the day. Residents have gate clickers, guests, delivery people, etc. are expected to have the mobile/cell number of the person they are visiting so they can call to be let in. Except they're too damn lazy to call. They sit there leaning on their horns until the gate magically opens for them, usually by a resident like me who is sick to death of listening to them.

One day I went out to a western woman who sat in her car at the gate for 10 mins beeping her horn, and told her I was not going to open it for her, what kind of example was she setting for her car full of children about respecting others, to get her phone out and call the resident she was visiting, who lived at the other end of the compound. Now I've wised up. I stay in my villa, at the window and open the gate for them. The gate is actually two giant doors that open inward on hinges from each side and meet in the middle. And then as they start to drive in, I close it on their car. Let them try and prove it was me, and not a malfunction. Juvenile I know, I'm having a moment.

Splat

2011-09-20T21:57:00.012+03:00

Reading about my driving escapades is probably going to start sounding like a broken record. Each experience is successively traumatising and it is amazing how low my opinion of local drivers can go, just when I think they can't get any worse.

First a round up: T-Boned by a bus, run off the road once by someone trying to overtake me on the inside of a turn, run off the road again by someone driving straight at me trying to overtake, and run into the side of the highway once, (still pass my skid marks on the road surface and tires marks on the side wall everyday).

And in the last 24 hours, three more. On the way to school yesterday morning a guy decided to turn into my lane across traffic from the left, as I was driving past him, despite the fact that the road was clear behind me. He just couldn't wait. I was run off the road and barely came to a stop in the dirt before hitting a wall. First time with my daughter in the car, I shook the rest of the way to her school and wanted to vomit when I got there.

On the way home from work last night (long after dark) I was driving along when a van without lights pulled out across the road from a field on my right, forcing me to swerve around him into oncoming traffic and oncoming traffic to swerve onto the dirt 'shoulder' to avoid me. There wasn't even time to brake.

Tonight I was driving on a main road at about 80 kph, the exit lane to my right was bumper to bumper when a guy decided he was tired of waiting and pulled out just in front of me. Again, no time to break but the lane to my left was clear so I tried to move into it. And then he really pissed me off. He slammed on his breaks to force me to slow down and then as I tried to pass him he would accelerate, move in front of me and slam his breaks on again. A common game they play but this was after 11 hours straight at the office, after hours of being on my feet teaching. If I had access to a stash of RPGs there would be a hell of a lot less Toyota Land Cruisers in this country.

Without fail each incident has been the result of their failure to acknowledge there is anyone on the roads except themselves. What upsets me the most is the utter lack of respect they have for life. I could be a bug on their windscreen. I don't care about their lives and they obviously don't either, (letting their toddlers stand between the driver's knees, kids hang out of the sunroof, windows, etc.), but what about my life, and my daughter's life? That our lives have no value to them fills me with rage, disgust, sadness, and fear.

Little Dragon Starts School

2011-09-17T21:02:00.014+03:00

My daughter started preschool last week. She goes to an English School here in Qatar so it is called nursery. She only had to attend the last two days of the week which was good, a little step to start with. But that meant the tension built all week. Worrying about if I could fit the school run around my work schedule. Worrying about if she would cling in terror, sobbing or screaming. She would be more likely to pull back and into herself, giving me a stare that asks "why are you doing this to me" the little frown between her eyes and tiny chin wobble betraying her true feelings of hurt and abandonment. I admit, I was a slight wreck.

Silly me. Today is the first day of the new week. This morning she stripped off her pyjamas and ran around in her panties yelling at me to hurry up and get her uniform on. The same kid who had refused to try it on all summer. She opened up her bags to check if I had remembered to pack her snacks and lunch, and she was banging on the front door at 0645 telling me to hurry up so she wouldn't be late.

I am still waiting for the trauma that should mark this milestone. But I'm so relieved to not have to deal with the wrenching departure every morning, tears, and guilt all day wondering how she's coping.

On her first day she saw some large rubbery/plastic dragons on a shelf in the classroom. She made a beeline for them as other children huddled against their parents, or drivers, or nannies. The toys were too big and there were too many for her to pick them all up so she swept them onto the floor and sat on them, her arms around them to prevent anyone else from playing with them. She wouldn't even let go to give me a hug goodbye, and I needed it! Just a dismissive "bye mom, I love you too."

This is thanks to the movie "How To Train Your Dragon". My brothers got her hooked on it this summer in the US. Since then she has lived in a world where she is a dragon. She doesn't walk, she flies, flapping and waving her arms around the house and through the malls. I have been known as 'Mommy Dragon' and she must be referred to as 'Toothless', or 'Little Dragon' if she is holding a toy in her hand that has taken on the role of Toothless. She may also remind me that "no mommy, I'm Hiccup today". It's hard to keep up.

So my baby started big school. I survived. She loved it. She is convinced that it all exists just for her. The other children wearing 'her' uniform only confirms it.

And Rising...

2011-09-13T08:23:00.011+03:00

It is normal for my blood pressure to be 70/50, in fact two weeks ago when I went to the dentist it was 60/43.

When I go to the hospital to see a doctor it is normal to have to wait 30 mins before they take my blood pressure because after dealing with traffic and parking it's usually double (which would be in the normal range for a normal person). In fact if someone's BP looks high, it is not uncommon for them to be asked if they have just arrived and if they drove themselves. Not that being driven would make a difference, dealing with drivers and taxis to get from A to B in Saudi had the same effect on me.

Why today? Because today I did The School Run. My daughter starts tomorrow but after hearing the horror stories I decided to do a dry run of both the drop off and the pick up, to see if I could make it with my work schedule. I can't. It's something you would have to see to believe. The chaos, the madness, the sweet smiling cupcake-bearing mothers transformed into snarling demons behind tons of hurtling steel.

The mornings are fine, I start work at 0900 and leave the house to take her to school at 0700.

Time to her school from home: 5 mins.

Time to my office from home: 10 mins.

Time to to my office via the school this morning: 80 mins.

And that's the good news. The afternoons aren't so great. The only alternative to working an afternoon/evening shift (which would mean I never see her) is to work a split shift. There isn't enough time to pick her up from school and get back to work which means there isn't any point in going home. So I work straight through.

In fact, I still won't be home in time to see her before she goes to bed those nights so what is the point of working the splits instead of straight evenings, where at least I would be able to drop her off and pick her up everyday? If I did evenings I wouldn't get to sleep until 0100 and waking up at 0530 to get everything going in the mornings would send me into an instant relapse. So my schedule doesn't really give me any more time with my daughter than I would have otherwise, it just means I get home slightly earlier so I can still function, barely.

9/11 Ten Years Later, from the Middle East

2011-09-10T23:12:00.024+03:00

When I first went to live in the US in the mid-nineties, after growing up overseas, it was to study politics at university. I was convinced that the next big World Conflict would have its epicenter in the Middle East and I couldn't believe that there were no Middle Eastern studies options where I was. It was shocking to me how disassociated the average American was from what was happening in the Middle East, given the role the US government was playing. And by extension, the role that each and every American was playing, at least through the eyes of those who were affected by those policies on a daily basis.

Even then, before the neocon wave, I was called unpatriotic, 'anti-Semitic' (?!), and told that I should go 'home', that I didn't deserve an American passport for daring to look critically at American foreign policy and to question it. And there I thought I had just left the censorship of the developing world for the land of the free. After spending my life in the Middle East (a very collective culture), I grew up used to every conflict inthe world being blamed on American policies, arms, etc. My mother sometimes tells others stories of how my siblings and I were bullied at school and in the neighborhood just for being American, and not just by Arabs or Muslims. Luckily we had very posh British accents at the time which probably minimised a great deal of it. Going back as far as my childhood in the eighties, I was aware of and understood the hatred directed towards Americans. At the risk of repeating myself, I couldn't believe the lack of awareness or concern for Middle Eastern politics in the States in the 1990s.

Fast forward. I was in Saudi Arabia on 9/11/2001, and had just got home from work when we got the call to turn on the news in time to watch in horror as the plane hit the second tower. There were many Saudis who expressed sadness and outrage. But I wasn't working where most Americans were, in the offices of oil companies with Saudis educated in the US. I was out 'in the field' working with Saudis who had never seen a western non-Muslim before, let alone an American. They viewed the 9/11 attacks as liberating and empowering, that 'finally someone had stood up to The Americans', it was an excuse to spew their hatred. I understood perfectly well the derogatory terms and threats hissed in Arabic that followed me down the corridors. It was not a comfortable time. The tension only built until we were attacked in 2004.

I have to say that the real horror of 9/11 has been overshadowed for me with all the 'victim' rhetoric that has been nauseatingly inescapable in the news all week. Where is some real political analysis of the 'why' and what lessons have been learnt? In my opinion, too few. On the eve of the 10th anniversary my father is in Baghdad, working with Christian Iraqis at far more risk, and far more persecuted, than they have ever been. For most of the world's population it is normal to live in a state of terror or under the threat of war, to suffer from war related violence, the effects of landmines and IEDs, to experience discrimination and persecution such as torture for their gender, beliefs, heritage, gender, sexual preferences, etc. To not know if you or your family members will still be there at the end of the day.

Today in Foreign Policy: "The Arab world is still an ongoing war," cautions Riad Kahwaji, a security analyst at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, a think tank with offices in Dubai and Beirut. "They're reminded day in and day out of al Qaeda and terrorism. Sept. 11 happened 10 years ago. Since that day we didn't have a single successful terrorist operation in the U.S. Meanwhile, in the Arab world every other week we have a major successful al Qaeda attack."

When I put 'victim' in quotes I'm not referring to real victims, who suffered loss, trauma, and fear. I'm talking about the average American who other than TSA harassment has not suffered directly because of 9/11. There is a difference between PTSD for those who have actually experienced trauma and 'PTSD' for those caught up in the hype of a 'perceived threat' and rightwing rhetoric. I've had enough of the interviews with Joe Schmo talking about how 9/11 changed his life so much that now he has to carry concealed weapons so he's 'prepared' to defend himself and his family against terrorist threat at the local 7 eleven deep in 'The Heartland'. Here is the best thing I've seen all week, a propaganda-free reminder of what 9/11 is really all about.

So for a reality check, which I am sure will be very different from anything airing in the US tomorrow, watch this, something I found very refreshing which is the kind of thing America should be watching today and presents my thoughts on the matter quite well. Too bad Al Jazeera is still written off by so many as a 'terrorist loving' propaganda station, they could use the perspective. Of course sucking up Fox News doesn't require too much brain power. It's easier not to be confronted with reality and made to think for yourself.

The Expat Wife's Prayer

2011-09-10T09:01:00.007+03:00

I Did Not Write This. Part funny, part appalling, part true, I came across it and thought I'd share:

The Expat Wife's Prayer

Heavenly Father, look down on us your humble obedient expat wives, who are doomed to travel this earth following our loved ones through their working lives to lands unknown.

We beseech you O Lord, to see that our plane is not hijacked, our luggage is not lost or pillaged and our overweight baggage goes unnoticed.

Give us this day divine guidance in our selection of houses and maids. We pray that the telephone works, the roofs do not leak, the power cuts are few, and the rats and cockroaches are fewer. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from weevils. Save us this day from our daily dread - Qataris in Land Cruisers.

Grant us the strength to smile at our maids over shrunken laundry and broken treasures remembering our own mistakes in menial matters. Give us divine patience when we explain for the hundredth time the way we want things.

Dear God, protect us from bargains we don’t need or can’t afford. Lead us not into temptation for we know not what we do. Give us the wisdom to tip correctly in currencies we do not understand, Make the natives love us for what we are, and not what we appear to be worth.

Almighty Father, keep our husbands from looking at foreign women and comparing them to us. Save them from making fools of themselves in nightclubs and company functions. Above all, please do not forgive them their trespasses, for they know exactly what they do.

And when our expat days are over Lord, grant us the favour of finding someone who will look at our photographs and listen to our stories, so our lives as expat wives will not have been in vain.

Amen

Assimilation

2011-09-04T11:07:00.006+03:00

My daughter loves MacDonald's Happy Meals. Correction, she loves the Happy Meal toys. She'd rather have a side of carrots or peas than fries so I tend to eat her junk food and give her the toy from what ends up being my cheeseburger or nugget Happy Meal. Not good!

One day I pulled into one of many vacant parking spaces in front of MacDonald's and we went in to place our order. The staff love my daughter, and I like her to say thank you in person for the balloons and toys they shower her with. On this occasion we went back out to the car only to find a black sedan parked perpendicularly behind us. Despite the empty spaces next to us. It is common for the locals to pull up, without even parking, and beep their horns until someone comes out to serve them at their car window. But this was a 'western' woman whose nationality I will try to refrain from mentioning. It is bad enough when the locals do it, their sense of entitlement is off the scale. But seeing someone who should know better act like that made my blood boil.

She sat on her fat @$$ as I started my car and turned on my a/c and buckled my daughter into her car seat. She continued to sit on her fat @$$ as I opened up my daughter's Happy Meal and put in on her lap, and continued to sit on her fat @$$ as I walked over to her car window.

Leaning down I asked her nicely if she could move her car. She said she was waiting for service. I asked her why she couldn't pull into one of the vacant spaces next to me instead of blocking me, or use the drive thru if she was in such a rush she couldn't get out of her car.

The woman in her thickly accented voice told me it was none of my business 'bitch' and she could bloody well do as she pleased. I pointed out that it was my business since she had blocked me from leaving but she said I could F-ing wait.

I replied that just because she found herself in Qatar and able to afford a car, obviously for the first time in her life, didn't mean she needed to act like the trash she came from.

I couldn't help it. It just slipped out.

She definitely wasn't going to move her car after that. So I told her it was obvious by the existing dents in hers that she wouldn't mind a few more. My car was bigger than hers so when I got in and started reversing she got the hell out of my way.

Irony

2011-09-04T00:06:00.009+03:00

I recently posted on Facebook that irony was a Qatari driver giving me the 'shwayeh shwayeh' gesture to slow down. (I've decided that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.)

I also recently posted this pic and was told that it was a much better example of irony given that I am one of the most cynical people ever to breathe. But I love the message. I would love to be the kind of person that actually believes it. Until then, it's a good reminder.

Facelift

2011-09-03T02:09:00.013+03:00

I was bored, time for a blog facelift. Or veil removal.

Adios to the dark and depressing old Saudi blog look:

Current readers/followers can now see the link on FB but it is not visible to everyone. Feedback welcome by comments, FB, or email desertsprinkle@hotmail.com, it's a work in progress.

Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy

2011-09-01T12:07:00.007+03:00

It is 10:00, that's in the morning, and I'm laying in bed with a latte (complete with melted marshmellows) on the bedside table next to me. I got 9 hours of sleep, read 'em, 9! No little fingers pulling my eyelids open or tickling my feet today, she spent the night at my parents. And I'm starting my day with a laugh thanks to this clip that was posted on facebook:

Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy

It certainly puts things in perspective. The last 24 hours have been so ridiculous, the old Sprinkle would have been looking for a punch bag. But right now I can only think about how funny life can be sometimes. Amazing what a difference some sleep can make!

Yesterday my ex (?) former husband (?) father of my daughter (?) was driving to Qatar to visit our daughter for the weekend. At noon I got a call saying he was at the Saudi border but couldn't get out of the car to take his passport in for immigration. He had put his Trailblazer in park but the car was still in drive and he couldn't take his foot off the brake without it moving forward. His only option was to turn it off but then it wouldn't start up again.

We thought he would have to leave it there since it was Eid and nothing was open so I started the one hour drive to the border to pick him up. Our daughter wasn't about to be left behind so I stocked up on drinks and snacks and brought her along to 'rescue daddy'. We arrived and ended up sitting there for about two hours waiting for the police to decide if he could leave or wait for a tow truck (which had been called hours ago and still not left Doha). Finally I said I was leaving to take V home and that he could deal with it. I was more than a little fed up.

And then I was told I couldn't leave. I had told him I didn't have passports with me and to check with police that we would be able to turn around and return. They wanted me to go through the border towards Saudi and come back through immigration on the Qatar side. With no papers or ID for my daughter. A Filipino family next to us was in the same boat and being threatened with imprisonment. It is common for dependents to be on a parents' ID without having any of their own.

Long story short, we were finally allowed to leave and with a strange sense of déjà vu, I once again drove into Qatar from Saudi, causing no small amount of confusion for the border guards, especially since I didn't have a man in the car with me.

What makes this funny is that while waiting for a tow to show up my husband and the police who he was calling by their first names at that point, were all trying to fix his car. They were joined by other police and guards, and even travellers making their way into Qatar from Saudi until there were 15 men in, under, and around this car. Finally a small Nepali man who said he was a mechanic wriggled under the car and voilá, a disconnected wire was plugged back in.

Sometimes all you can do is laugh!

Scam 1

2011-08-30T14:45:00.003+03:00

Shortly after moving to Qatar from Saudi I went to a local home store and bought a set of table linens. I was trying to make my new house feel more like a home with the assorted bits and pieces left over from dividing up my household and leaving half of it behind.

After checking out and swiping my credit card the cashier looked at the receipt he had just printed and said he had only charged me for one serviette and one place-mat instead a set of each. My three year old's patience had long since run out which meant mine was borderline so I handed over the balance in cash and left.

I got home and as I was unpacking I realised that I was trying to match things I already had, and they were my husband's taste not mine. Heavy, dark furniture. Brightly coloured cushions and throws. Busy. I couldn't settle, it didn't feel like my home so I decided to bite the bullet and start over, to create a space for my daughter and I here in Doha that would give me peace. As much as possible anyway.

So back I went to return the table linen set and imagine what I found when I checked the receipt? I had in fact been charged properly on my credit card, the first time. The receipt I received for the cash was a cancelled one charging me for the same items again.

I went to the customer service desk with the first receipt and returned all the items for in-store credit. Then I asked to speak to the salesman I had dealt with. The customer service guy must have been in on it because he called the other guy's cell phone and had him come over to me on the side. I explained that I knew exactly what they had done and that I wanted cash back for the amount on the second receipt or I would talk to their manager. He pulled the cash out of his pocket and I went on my way.

Moral of the story? Well it just reinforces a healthy motto to live by:

Never. Ever. Never. Trust. Anyone.

Scam 2

2011-08-30T14:40:00.002+03:00

In Qatar, and the rest of the Gulf for that matter, one does not pump one's own petrol. (Sorry, just can't say gas there). You pull up and a man in coveralls appears at your window to ask grade and quantity. The pumps display the cost on top and the litres underneath.

Last time I filled up I noticed that when the guy came back for payment after filling up my little SUV, he was quoting the litre amount which was higher than the actual cost. Whadya know! I demanded the exact change, and drove off without leaving a tip - something I never do. I would have tipped him more than that anyway.

Today I went back and rather than boycott his lane I gave him such a big tip that he looked like he was going to cry. I feel sorry for him. They live and work in such awful conditions, standing out in the heat, engines radiating against them. There but for the grace of God go I!

(BTW $9 for a full tank in a little 4x4)

The List of Three

2011-08-29T16:00:00.003+03:00

My first steps into the social scene of Doha were quite a wake up call. A weekend of parties and meeting new people left me reeling because I realised that the simplest things like introductions and small talk weren't simple anymore. Now I'm a little more used to it. There are three questions guaranteed to come up in conversation upon meeting people for the first time.

"So do you work part time or are you a full time mum?"

Well actually, I work full time and I'm a full time 'mum'.

One's marital status is key to one's identity and social circles apparently and if it wasn't so annoying it might be funny how people react when I don't fit into a nice little expat wife box. A variation on this theme is "what does your husband do?" I still don't know how to respond and find myself saying "well actually, I'm divorced and I'm here on my own with my daughter". It feels like I'm airing dirty laundry. But if I was engaged, married, or just plain single my marital status wouldn't be 'dirty laundry' so I'm not sure why it feels that way. This leads into "where is your nanny from?"

Well actually, I don't have a full time nanny, or even part time one. That is a luxury I can no longer afford having left the position I was in, and income that went with it, in Saudi. I explain that one of the reasons I came to Qatar from Saudi is because my parents are here and help considerably with my daughter. So the second question is "what does your father do?"

I am very proud of what my father does. But it's complicated and if I explained this would no longer be an 'anonymous' blog. Suffice to say he is very active in religious developments across the Gulf region, participates in interfaith dialogues with religious leaders from around the world, and is involved in a number of other activities I find fascinating. But the religious angle waves a red flag for people. At best, they immediately jump to conclusions and a) demand to know what, if anything, I believe and/or b) defend what, if anything, they believe, including how often they do or don't go to church. They also ask stupid questions about growing up in a 'religious' family like what kind of clothes I was allowed to wear, etc. At worst they turn and walk away as if religion is something contagious. The ignorance, stupidity and offensiveness never ceases to amaze me.

The third question guaranteed to rear its ugly head is always terrorism in Saudi. "You were there for TEN years? Were you there when...?" Yes people I was. And do you really think it makes for pleasant dinner conversation? Or that I particularly want to relive those sickeningly tense and terrifying times? To recall the faces of the victims who survived or the families left behind of those who didn't? Or the conversations of my students trying to understand had happened to their classmates who had left overnight, who they thought must also be dead? I've written about it before so I'm sure you get the drift without me going on.

Having said that, I am enjoying getting out and about, meeting new people, and having a life again.

And Fourth On The List

2011-08-29T14:00:00.000+03:00

In the post above I talked about three things guaranteed to come up in conversation when meeting new people in Qatar. I just finished a training course at work that involved colleagues from around the region and was reminded of a fourth question that often comes up but that most people aren't rude enough to ask. In discussions about who works where and where we all worked before (it can be a very small world, bordering on incestuous when the conversation moves onto who's left who and who's with who) someone asked:

"10 years in Saudi! You must be rich!?"

Really people?

Rudeness aside, comparatively, and in theory, yes, or more realistically, at least comfortable. The reasons why I'm not make me too angry to blog about without crossing over to the dark side. But here's something people should know about Saudi.

As I've explained before women are sponsored by their husbands. The man is the official resident, the woman is a dependent with the same status as a child. Unlike most women, I got a job on a UK contract that provided everything short of a visa since I already had that through my husband's employer. My employer arranged a new bank account in my name for my salary to be transferred directly into. (Most women have casual jobs and are paid in cash.)

A few years ago I noticed that large amounts of money were disappearing from my account every month as soon as I was paid, and being transferred to credit card accounts I did not recognise without my authorisation. When I called the bank to investigate (they practically got to know me by name over the last few years of my marriage) it was explained to me that those were my husband's credit cards and my salary was being used to cover his debts.

That's only the tip of the iceberg, there was much more and much worse but the moral of the story is that apparently, in Saudi, your bank account is not your own. It was opened in my name, under my passport number, by my employer, an international British organisation. But by looking up his ID number they found my passport number and my accounts and in Saudi what was his was his, mine was his, ours was his... the bank was totally within its rights to withdraw funds from my account no matter how much I protested that the transfers were not authorised by me. And this was HSBC in Saudi, aka SABB (Saudi Arabian British Bank), not some rinky-dink local bank.

It was like holding your breath to see how you were going to get hit next. Financially and figuratively of course.

Let The Fun Begin!

2011-08-20T13:00:00.004+03:00

I went on a 'date'. And I confess, it wasn't the first since returning to Qatar from the US and signing the divorce papers.

Before the divorce I was dreading the single scene. It had been 10 years! I'd been there and done that and had no desire to jump into the groping bump'n'grind games involved that seemed to be accepted as normal, at least in my first few experiences here in Qatar.

So I haven't gone down that road and I've discovered that being single can be civilised, even fun. I'm actually enjoying myself, at my own pace, on my own terms.

The only time there are ever issues is when I'm out with girlfriends. The ratio of men to women here is ridiculously disproportionate. When 'no' doesn't go down too well and a leech won't take a hike I've found that a role reversal helps. Turning the sweetness on, asking them to take my number and making them promise to call me is usually sufficient ego boosting to have them strutting back to their buddies to preen. I do feel slightly guilty about whoever's number I've actually given out, but not much. It's a dog eat dog world.

Full Moon

2011-08-14T12:38:00.012+03:00

The first day of Ramadan was two weeks ago. Full moon means we're halfway through the lunar month. Which means there are still two weeks to go before the end of Ramadan. Grrr....

Ramadan in Qatar is not that different to Ramadan in Saudi. No eating or drinking in public from sunrise to sunset. Pregnant women, women having their periods, and people with illnesses don't have to but are expected to 'make up' the days later. The reality is that they fast anyway, for extra 'heaven points'. In Saudi the operation I managed was segregated and at the women's centre we always had a couch ready for collapsing students and staff to faint on. Of course there were others that became ill with mysterious illnesses or had their periods for almost the duration of the month so they could continue as usual.

One Ramadan while still working in Saudi, letters of complaint started circulating to anybody who would listen, that I was drinking coffee in my office and showing a lack of cultural awareness and sensitivity. (The hypocrites). Of course every little thing had to be investigated for liability purposes and in the interests of transparency, but finally one director had the sense to tell them to stop being ridiculous. It was completely normal for western staff and Muslims who were not fasting to eat in the 'back office'. This was a secure area out of sight and totally separated from the customer area and front office by reinforced steel walls and bomb proof doors. Lovely work environment! The instigator was well known. Shortly after joining that particular organisation I was promoted to manage and build up the operation that was falling apart under a local manager's leadership. She was moved over and her line managees handed over to me for training and proper performance management. The results were almost immediate and I was quickly promoted again. She never got over it, and let me know many times over the years. Her specialty was stirring up the local staff who needed little encouragement to complain about their younger, American, female, manager. Ah, memories!

Here in Qatar the security issues are not nearly the concern they were in Saudi. Offices, kitchens, restrooms, everything is spread around the public areas. That means scurrying between the kitchen and the office guiltily trying to hide a plate of food out of the microwave or cup of coffee. Of course there are those that take their time sauntering down the hallways, letting the aroma waft through the building to remind everyone that not all of us are Muslim and that fasting is supposed to be about withstanding temptation, not forcing the temptation out of sight and behind closed doors.

The Dust Settles

2011-07-26T23:50:00.005+03:00

It has been two weeks since the divorce papers were signed and now that the dust is settling I'm starting to feel like I can see my way forward again. In some areas. A major one is education. I have wanted to finish my MA for a very very long time.

Originally it was to be in Conflict Resolution which I thought would fit nicely with my BA in Intercultural Relations and I was given the opportunity to research in Saudi Arabia. One relapse of fibromyalgia (or whatever) later, knocked that on the head. Once I was well enough to work again, still in Saudi Arabia, I was offered a part time job in education, then full time, doing both teaching and admin, promoted into management, and then further into management and now I find myself with four years of various post graduate diplomas in management and education with no MA. Technically I'm a third of the way into an MA in TESOL but I feel like my brain cells are leaving the building. I have absolutely no interest in a career in teaching or in reading another word about TESOL and it would be torture to continue. So in addition to starting my life over in Qatar with my daughter, I've decided to start over with my Masters.

Not being one to sit still for longer than 5 seconds I've been looking into distance MAs back in the International Relations field and found The One that I actually want to invest time and money in. An MA in Human Rights and Global Ethics.

What a relief to find a degree that I actually want to learn from rather than complete for the sake of jumping through hoops.

Not Alone

2011-07-18T12:51:00.011+03:00

Do you ever have the feeling that you're not alone? Not in the warm fuzzy way but the creepy, chilling way? That feeling that you're being watched, eyes following your every move? That you can almost hear deep breathing in the darkness?

I'm not talking about the maintenance men who leave their cigarette butts on the ground outside my window, inside my locked garden. I'm talking about in the house, when I'm downstairs, on the couch alone, TV on in the background for company.

I realise that given my history I may be prone to slight paranoia. And that paranoia just might be exasperated by adjusting to being on my own now. For example, I hate locking up at night. I have this ridiculous fear that as I reach towards the door to turn the key someone will burst in from outside. So I keep myself locked in all the time.

Last night I found out that it wasn't in my head, that I wasn't crazy, and I wasn't alone.

First I saw him dart behind a bookshelf. Then he ran close to the wall to hide behind a large trunk. I went for a broomstick with the crazy idea of chasing him out the door, but he was too fast. He made a run for it as I went at him, skidding on the tiles as he went towards the kitchen. I lost him for a while but I knew he had to be there somewhere. I didn't know how I would sleep.

I looked around for a while and waited but he must have been holding his breath because nothing moved. I returned to the couch, sat with my back against the wall and my legs curled underneath me. Sure enough, before long I saw a shadow flicker in a reflection.

This time the little guy made it under the door into my storeroom under my stairs. I still wanted him out of my house but decided it would be better to block the door and let the experts handle it in the morning than stay up all night worrying about him coming into our bedrooms or roaming around the house.

Early the next morning, as soon as I was out of the shower, I called compound maintenance. I wanted the perp out of my house and everything taken care of before my daughter woke up. I didn't want her upset or scared, or worse, thinking the little guy was cute and would make a good pet.

The maintenance man came right over to check out the situation and then disappeared again. I expected him to call pest control or return with some traps but he came back with a stick. A long splintered stick that was flat at one end.

He used the stick to pull away the towel that was blocking the gap under the door and slowly pulled it open. Using one hand while he held the stick in the other, he started to empty my storeroom of all my carefully packed electronic equipment, suitcases, and unused exercise paraphernalia. He hit boxes and prodded bags as he went.

Finally the little guy appeared and *thwack*. And more thwacks. All around the downstairs of my house. He finally bit the dust on my bathroom floor. Blood gushing out of its mouth. The maintenance man was very proud of himself. He carried it out, swaggering as he went, probably expecting a bottle of whiskey for his troubles. I was gagging and feeling guilty, left to scrub mouse matter up off the floor so I could finish getting ready for work before my daughter woke up.

Another Step

2011-07-18T00:13:00.009+03:00

Well I survived. In fact, it couldn't have gone any smoother.

If you read the last post you'll know that I was in knots about the weekend; my husband visiting Qatar from Saudi, staying in my guest room instead of at my parents' house, getting the divorce papers signed and notarised, especially with him pulling last minute changes as usual. But it was ok. I am ok.

The evening he arrived he talked about where he's at with things and seems to have made progress in dealing with the problems he has had. He seems to have recognised what a slippery slope he was on before he lost his footing completely. Unfortunately it's a few years too late to make a difference to our marriage but I hope he can get his life back on track.

Meeting with the lawyer and signing the papers was over in minutes, so quick that I couldn't help comparing and contrasting starting a marriage with ending one. Funny how both felt like an anticlimax and left me feeling flat. He suggested marking the occasion with champagne (except on our wedding day he and his friends downed the bottle set aside for the two of us before the ceremony even began) so after taking our daughter to the mall for an Early Learning Centre run and ice-cream, and Ferris Wheel ride, and spin on the Carousel, we had a quiet evening at my place.

The relief is hard to put into words. As is the anxiety I have about the future I was so excited about up to this point. More than ever I find myself wondering where it all went wrong, what I did that was so awful, what about me that is so awful, that I drove him to do the things he did. He said I made him do it, that I wasn't a good enough wife. I know that addicts will always say "you made me..." but no matter how I try to shrug it off, I wonder. And I worry about making the same mistakes again.

Untitled

2011-07-13T00:28:00.010+03:00

I just sat down to finally blog about how surprisingly good it felt to be back in Doha. How this last trip to the US has made me realise that this is home more than anywhere I've been, (possibly since I left Cyprus as a teenager to go to university in the US while my parents continued working abroad). How I was starting to feel like I'd found a place for myself and that I've decided to really make my house a home. I've been trying for the last six months but I haven't been able to settle. At some point recently I realised that almost everything I have, from furniture to cushions and throws, is my husband's taste and it isn't me. So I've decided to start over, as much as is practical as this point.

I was also going to congratulate myself with finally gaining some confidence back, with myself, with people, and the future, and talk about my wonderful plans. Even give optimism a trial run. And then he started messaging me. Instant regression. Muscle spasms, splitting headache, waves of anger that leave me shaking, I actually wanted to get out of bed to check the locks again to make sure I was shut as far away from the world as I could get. And block it all out.

The situation is that this weekend he is coming to visit. To sign the divorce papers. I had found a lawyer who would deal with it and notarise them on a weekend and felt like I had things under control, was ready psychologically and emotionally albeit a 'little' tense. Adding to the stress is that my parents, who he usually stays with, are in the US for the summer which means he will stay with me.

He messaged me to say he is driving in from Saudi tomorrow, two days early, to visit our daughter, and is planning to leave two days early, ie. before the papers can be dealt with. His message also contained the usual 'comments' and digs about me and my daughter's welfare. Which is ironic. So I have work to wake up for in just a few hours, (have I mentioned my headache?), and some scrambling to do to get things arranged and rescheduled to make sure those papers get signed, no more delays.

So much for tonight's post. Pathetic.

Bucket List Checks!

2011-06-22T22:15:00.017+03:00

I haven't blogged for a while because there is so much going through my head that I haven't known where to start. So I'll start with the easy stuff. I made the decision not to sit around Vegas in a hotel room feeling sorry for myself because I was there to get a divorce. I decided to go for #47, 48, 49, and 50 on my Bucket List.

#50 - Fountains at the Bellagio
I could have sat for hours and listened and watched the fountains and music. It was beautiful, mesmerizing, graceful, like watching a dance. The photo doesn't begin to capture it. And after spending years covered up from head to toe living in the Gulf, I loved the feeling of the spray landing on my skin and the breeze from the night air. I've decided to add the fountains at the Burj Khalifa to the list so I have an excuse to see more.

#49 - The Grand Canyon
I almost didn't do this because it was a four hour drive in one direction, the solution - helicopter! It started with getting picked up from the hotel and taken to the airport. I've been in helicopters before and was looking forward to it. The company ran about five out at a time in convoy, each with a pilot and six passengers. The problem was that I was so busy taking pictures of The Strip and the scenery through my zooms lens that I wasn't watching the horizon. Then the turbulence of flying over the desert and canyons hit and that was it. I was useless. I handed my camera over to another passenger and closed my eyes. Yes, I admit it, and I am ashamed of it. This was the Grand Canyon! Here's a picture taken of the Hoover Dam from the air:

We finally landed on a rim where I put my head down for a bit before I could get up and take pictures. But I skipped the champagne and nibbles and stuck to water and ice packs. Thankfully I made it back without losing the contents of my stomach but I'm sure I wasn't a pretty sight. The Canyon on the other hand was AMAZING. Majestic, dramatic, beautiful, rugged and raw. If I'd been feeling well I would have loved to hike down to the river from the rim but we were warned about rattlesnakes and I don't think I could have handled that in the state I was in.

#48 - Cirque du Soleil
Wow. For someone who once upon a lifetime studied and worked in musical theatre this was perhaps the ultimate experience. I went to two shows, Ka and Viva Elvis. Very different shows but both were magical, a clever mix of more forms of entertainment and artistic expression than I could name. I would have loved to be there long enough to see all of their shows in Vegas.

#47 - Solo Roadtrip
Well this is where things get serious again. I left my daughter in San Diego with my parents who were in the US by this time. The drive was long, at times quite desolate, it reminded me of the trip between Dhahran and Riyadh in Saudi. Except that I loved it. I was driving, I went as fast as I wanted, stopped when I wanted, listened to the music I wanted, and had the space to think about things. A lot. To me, that's Freedom. It was a much needed time out.

I also drove out to Hoover Dam, had dinner at the top of the Stratosphere, and went to an Ice-Bar (brrr). Who knew how much fun you could have in Vegas without drinking and gambling! I wonder what else I can check off the list while I'm in the US?

Sitting in the house today back in San Diego I'm restless and wish I had somewhere to go, I can't wait to drive across the US one day, further north and take in the scenery around the national parks. But I imagine the soundtrack for that trip will include Disney so this one was nothing to sneeze at.

Countdown

2011-06-11T08:38:00.005+03:00

Next week I'll be driving to Las Vegas where I plan to finally file for divorce. Four years after it all came crashing down.

I'm looking forward to the road trip, having the time and space to think, on my own. I've been sorting out my playlists, stocking up on snacks and drinks for the drive, focusing on irrelevant little things to avoid thinking about the purpose of the trip and the long-term implications for my life.

Today I spent hours filling out paperwork for the lawyer. Some of the forms ask for more details than I've ever put on this blog, which meant reliving different events in my mind as I wrote down the facts. This has all coincided with my husband going through a very difficult time which he is once again taking out on me. Not pleasant.

At first I imagined spending the week in bed with a book in a hotel feeling sorry for myself. Now I'm determined to see Vegas, check some things off my bucket list, and some extras. I'm hoping that once this is behind me things will be clearer, and I'll be able to think straighter. Right now everything is so grey and complicated that I, the great planner, can hardly think beyond the next week.

Hurdles

2011-06-06T08:41:00.007+03:00

A while ago I decided that in the interest of fixing myself, reinventing myself, and becoming who I'm meant to be and the best that I can be, I needed to identify and face the things I avoid and hide from. I believe there is a direct correlation between the extent to which I avoid something and how much I actually want it or need it. I've become an expert at distraction, procrastination and denial of things that are now the hurdles I am setting for myself to face and get over. Who knew there would be so many?

Today one hit me right between the eyes. Babies. It seemed like I was surrounded (in reality there were only two). For a long time since my miscarriage I've avoided being around babies. I don't take my daughter to moms 'n' tots groups, I don't take her to the creche at church, I even avoid profiles on facebook of friends who have recently had babies. I can smile, hold them when asked, sometimes I even want to and offer despite knowing how it will make me feel. As long as no one else knows how I feel - mission accomplished.

I believe things happen for a reason. There is no doubt in my mind, given the current situation, that my miscarriage happened for a reason. I may never have left Saudi or my husband if I'd had a baby and a toddler depending on me to care for them alone. But that's logical, not emotional. Emotionally it still wrenches. My arms still ache.

The Time Warp

2011-06-06T02:29:00.006+03:00

My daughter and I flew from Qatar to San Diego via Houston on Thursday morning. Jet lag is almost over, now the tiredness is just a general catching up on a prolonged lack of sleep. The night before our 0600 departure she fell out of bed around 0200 and landed on her face nixing any chance of sleep.

She was the best little traveler, I couldn't have been prouder. The first flight was 15 hours. We had an allowance of 4 carry-on pieces of luggage (handbag/laptop/briefcase +1 each) that I carried, worth every kilo:

1 back pack of books to read, coloring books, 20+ sheets of stickers, crayons and pencils
1 back pack of toys, stuffed animals, change of clothes
1 case of her snacks and nibbles
1 carry-on of laptop, camera and other non-checkinable items.

I can't sleep sitting up so while she slept I flicked through the music selection and listened to James Blunt. That set off a wave of "what am I about to do?" that was like the kind of punch in the gut that makes you lose your breath. The flight felt like it was never going to end, that time was standing still. Too much time without distractions to think.

We only had a 3 hour transit to get through customs and immigration in Houston, pick up luggage, recheck it, change terminals, and board the connecting flight to San Diego. I did get a little stressed at that point, just as we got to where we were next for immigration she had to use the restroom which was miles away so there went our turn in line and a set back of 20 minutes.

She thought it was all a grand adventure and decided that hopping through the airport was the way to go rather than walking, and while I impatiently tapped my foot waiting for the connection to the domestic terminal she jumped for joy that she could go on a train. I should have been more patient, she had after all been sitting forever and good as gold. I hope she didn't pick up on my exasperation.

By the time we landed in San Diego it was 0500 Friday our time, night #2 of no sleep. Nothing like reaching the end of the line. But we still stopped at In'n'Out for a burger and fries.

Pigs flying in Saudi

2011-05-26T23:11:00.010+03:00

Well, not really, but women are driving and that's almost as unheard of. Here is a clip of a woman who has been in the news recently after she was arrested for driving in Khobar, the city in Saudi where I lived for 10 years.

She talks about waiting in the streets to get home because she couldn't find a taxi and crying like a baby. I remember that feeling. Crying from the frustration, anxiety, and total helplessness, of not being able to drive myself where I needed to go when I needed to go. Home to my baby. Because I was a woman. Stranded at the office late at night, or at a mall, subjected to lewd suggestions and offers of a ride from all the men who could drive, because of their anatomy, not skills or braincells.

While I applaud the Saudi women for taking this brave step, because they will be arrested, harrassed, ostracised, and maybe worse, (in the 1st Gulf War many drove to the King's Palace in protest that female American soldiers could drive but not them, there were honor killings etc.) driving is as Manal says the first drop of rain in the storm that needs to come.

But first there needs to be some infrastructure, like female traffic police, female sections at police departments, traffic jails, etc. This is a country where you can't even go to MacDonald's without going into segregated men's sections or a women's sections remember.

Hello Blog

2011-05-24T15:21:00.008+03:00

Adios evening shifts! Tonight is my last evening shift before vacation so (warning) I'll hopefully start blogging a little more regularly again.

Working long evening shifts four nights a week has been great in many ways. Lots of lazy unrushed mornings with my daughter involving extended cuddle time, swimming, shopping, and before it got too hot, feeding ducks and playing in parks. Three day weekends are also nothing to sneeze at. I could actually stop thinking about work before going back into the office at the start of the week.

The downside is that by the time I usually wind down and go to sleep it's between 0100-0200 and my little sweetheart has been going through a phase where she wakes me up at 0500, pulling either my eyelids or the curtains back saying "look mommy, the sun is shining, come and play with me".

Coffee makes my world go around.

The ABC Comes to Town

2011-05-18T00:51:00.003+03:00

The Archbishop of Canterbury is in Qatar hosting the annual Interfaith Dialogue seminars known as Building Bridges.

Nothing like a shot of mental stimulation! I've been privileged to be included in a number of the events and discussions between some of the best Christian and Islamic scholars in the world. I'll edit this post with more later. It's been interesting!

And a Sick Note

2011-05-16T04:22:00.007+03:00

I called in sick today, something I very rarely do. After years of being on the management side of it, having to step in and cover or frantically try to find others to do it it, I hate being the one to cause the fuss. And I would hate for people to think I'm a slacker.

But since I had the miscarriage, which was due to a number of different factors that probably included being run into the ground at work, I am much less willing to put my health on the line for my job. Especially when I have a three year old depending on me to be well enough to get off the couch and make sure she eats and is taken care of. As it was, bath time was skipped.

I had a meeting with a lawyer in the morning about what power my husband would have here under Shariah law, which I'll discuss in another post, and then I went home to crash. Just that took enough out of me that I knew six hours of teaching until 10:30pm wasn't going to work. So I called in.

I'm griping because I had a 1.5 hour window where my mother was free to watch my daughter, to go to bed and rest. And in that 1.5 hour window I received message after message from work with questions about what to do. Like I can remember random page numbers for them to refer to, or even care when I'm in agony and exhausted. I would not have bothered a sick colleague at home if it were me and I would have expected my colleagues to be qualified and experienced enough to wing it if need be. Obviously my expectations were too high.

So it was a long day. Staying home when sick with a three year old is not a pajama day. It's a desperate balance of entertaining with the least output of energy ie. laying on the floor building lego zoos, being a human climbing frame/trampoline, baking, colouring, playing with dolls... even putting a DVD on means staying awake to smile and nod and express enthusiasm at the correct times.

And now I should be sleeping. It is 04:35am. But I can't swallow without feeling like knives are being inserted into my ears and are slicing open my throat. And I'm probably going to go to work today.

Female Drivers

2011-05-09T14:40:00.008+03:00

Cars here do not have running lights. So after being run off the road twice, first by someone trying to overtake me in oncoming traffic, then by someone pulling out from a side road without slowing down or stopping, and having a bus drive into me, all in the first 2 months of arriving in Qatar, I drive with my lights on. Judging from other drivers' frantic gesturing it annoys the hell out of them. But that means they see me. Mission accomplished.

I wonder if they assume I don't know my lights are on because I'm a female driver. Plenty of men seem to do it. But I have to admit, the female drivers here are a real menace, makes me grateful that they couldn't drive in Saudi. It might have something to do with the lack of peripheral vision due to being draped in black veils or their sense of entitlement that carries over onto the road.

I also love the cars with the 'baby on board' signs, as their children climb around the dashboard, stand between the front seats, sit on the driver's lap, lay on the rear shelf, or hang out the windows or sunroof. Maybe they think putting the sign up absolves them of their responsibility? While the flatscreen TV they just purchased is lovingly wrapped and safely packaged to avoid even the slightest tilting on the drive home.

Talk about Natural Selection!

Moving Beyond the Comfort Zone

2011-05-05T23:26:00.024+03:00

At the risk of rambling for the sake of it, I'll try to get a post out tonight.

I've been making a conscious effort to step outside my comfort zone, ie. into situations I can't control 100%, with people I don't always know in places I don't always know. Seriously, I actually went out on a boat, for a day, with people I don't know, away from my car aka escape option. Repeat: No Escape Route. Those of you who know me will understand how difficult it was for me to relinquish control. In hindsight, it was too soon, I was miserable. And slightly seasick from skipping breakfast and lunch. I don't have a problem socialising with strangers, it was just easier when it was on my turf, and when it was simple to introduce myself, my marital status, my job. (I'm still trying to work out how much to tell people).

The boat trip was preceded by an evening party. I had been looking forward to going out for some adult time but the weekend started with being woken up at 0530. After that I spent the morning driving around in a car that stank of KFC, listening to Bambi songs on repeat, on my iPod that had been stickered, following by getting drooled and snotted on from above while playing 'airplane'. I wasn't feeling it but I tried finding some white clothes to fit the theme and got dressed and went out anyway. Other than a 3 year old's teeth marks in my bicep I could have been just another 32 year old female. I can't remember when I last dressed up and went out, in Saudi it was always for work related functions. I actually felt my age instead of a decade or two older.

It wasn't as bad as this experience, but it wasn't always comfortable. I couldn't quite switch off, relax, and forget about everything. With some people it was easy, no questions were asked. But single parents are a novelty here. With other people the questions went beyond personal to invasive. So do I pretend I'm single? Or lie outright or by omission to avoid The Conversation? Or tell the truth? (I don't think I've even gone there on this blog!)

I'm sure this process isn't really all that interesting so I'm waiting for something a little more profound or interesting to blog about.

And Exhale...

2011-04-22T19:28:00.007+03:00

Another weekend visit is over. My husband is probably in the middle of the desert driving back to Saudi from Qatar after spending 2 days here to see our daughter.

I can't quite exhale yet. The mother of all tension headaches is trying to take over. My muscles are knotted like they haven't been since I left Saudi three months ago. I feel too empty to cry.

He is so angry. I know that his anger is normal, to be expected. I know that lashing out is probably a natural way for him to express that anger. I know that when he makes irrational accusations he is probably projecting what he would do or does. I know that he probably knows better but he's hurting too much to care. That he's hurting me.

Our marriage has been over for years as far as I'm concerned. Something about finding out you're living a lie, or are married to a stranger, will do that. Without trust, respect, love has no integrity, let alone honour, cherishing, and all the rest of it. I want the papers to be signed, they feel like a loose end in a dead relationship. But for him the end is just beginning and it is hitting hard.

I wonder if he had responded when I told him he was making choices that excluded my daughter and I from his future, if we would still be together. Or if it was inevitable. Have I mentioned how much time I spend these days over-analysing myself, past, present, potential relationships?

Anonymity

2011-04-19T00:50:00.004+03:00

I love it. Some people get a kick out of how googable they are, I get a kick out of the fact that I can't find myself anywhere, not google, intelius, nowhere. I don't exist to the regular layperson. The only entry I've ever found is a very outdated one relating to a former job in Saudi.

I started 'researching' people when I worked in HR and did recruitment. I now look up everyone I meet or deal with, whether it's a one off or on a daily basis. I think it's shocking how careless people are. For example, I recently googled, facebooked, and myspaced the entire guest list of a party I might attend to decide if I wanted to go or not.

I'm not sure when I became obsessed with 'researching' people, or being anonymous, or why it gives me such a false sense of security and safety (or one-upmanship). One of the things I've recently realised about myself is how much I like to keep a distance between myself and everyone and everything. And life is certainly not any less painful so what am I really protecting myself from?

Note to self: Start Living.

One of Those Weeks

2011-04-14T18:34:00.006+03:00

My apologies to those of you who have dropped by and not seen anything new to read recently. It's been one of those weeks.

No disrespect to any of the teachers I know, but I hate teaching. Growing up as a TCK and watching all the women who wanted to work but couldn't for whatever reasons, who had no financial independence, and in some cases, who were left high and dry by their husbands, I decided in high school that whatever my degree was in I would get a teaching certificate to guarantee that I would always be able to work, no matter where I was. So I did, three times over. English, Music, and Special Needs. After a degree in Intercultural Relations and a couple of management diplomas. I've always had jobs in one or more of those fields, and not as the 'tag-along' spouse.

But I hate teaching. English at least, which is what I'm doing now. Someone at work told me what a positive and encouraging colleague I was yesterday, which if you read this blog you'll know is ironic although I am so much better now that I'm out of Saudi. So I'm trying to remember that this job was my window of opportunity to get out of Saudi, that it is only temporary, serving a purpose and actually providing me with some stability and security at a time that I really need it.

But ARGH!!!

This week a couple of preteen students asked me why I wasn't Muslim, in the middle of class. We try to stay away from religious discussions in the classroom (Qatar is an improvement on Saudi but we're still in the Muslim world where freedom of religion is a one way street that only applies to people who want to become Muslim or speak glowingly of Islam). So instead of saying something along the lines of "because I can choose my religion", I ignored them. Which grates. They continued, getting other kids to join in, saying I was going to hell, to burn forever, etc. Finally one of them called me a kaffir so I sent him out and that shut the rest of them up.

I've only been here three months and I already want a time out. I guess it is never too soon to start counting down to vacation in sunny California!

Neurotic? Paranoid? Controlling? Moi?

2011-04-06T21:17:00.020+03:00

This week I had a tour of my daughter's new school in Doha. It was great, ticked all my boxes and then some. It brought back good memories of going to similar schools myself as a child, and of being a teacher in British schools in the Middle East as well as in the UK. I've been corporate for a while now but walking through the halls made me realise how much I miss it. I even got to watch part of a talent show, as an ex-music teacher it was hard to walk away before it was done. I was impressed with the director's no-nonsense approach and the school's investment in students' personal growth and development in addition to the usual academic areas.

Unfortunately I am sure they are convinced that I am a neurotic, paranoid, controlling mother. I've been living with a 'little' tension for a long time, but they wouldn't know that. First I followed up with an email asking how early there would be supervision for me to drop my daughter off, and how late I could pick her up, and then I went and asked if they ran background checks on their staff, I couldn't help myself. So now they probably think I'm wondering how much I can dump my daughter on them and that I don't trust their recruitment procedures.

They don't realise that my daughter is my whole world, and that every day I live in terror that something will happen to her, or worse, to me. Because then what would happen to her? Just thinking about it makes it hard to breathe and my chest hurt. I want to get to the school early enough that I'm not battling against the rush in the mornings, I want as little traffic and chaos around me as possible. I'm terrified of something happening to her and not being able to get to her. Or being held up at work. I could cry just picturing her crumpled little face if I'm late to pick her up and she thinks she has been abandoned.

I've been in education and academic management in the Gulf for a number of years which included recruitment, background checks, etc. Many people who apply for teaching positions overseas are genuine but there are plenty of 'teachers' who either can't get jobs anywhere else or aren't allowed to work in their home countries for whatever legal reasons (drug abusers, child molesters, sex offenders, etc.)

Your child starting 'big' school is bad enough. Most days I feel like I'm going to crack under the pressure of being a new single parent. That it's just me now. Every night when I leave work I wonder if I'll make it home and run a zillion scenarios through my mind of what would happen to her if I didn't. Since I don't know what my work schedule will be I can't make it all work in my mind yet. These days I hate being a teacher instead of the boss. I don't miss the hours and responsibility but I do miss the flexibility and freedom. What if I can't get time off to watch her first concert or assembly?

Thank goodness my parents live close by. I need to keep reminding myself that I'm not as alone as I feel.

Peculiarer and Peculiarer...

2011-04-04T23:34:00.007+03:00

In this post, I mentioned phone calls I was getting from a student/customer of the company I work for. The more I find out the 'peculiarer' (as Alice would say) it is. He is not someone I have taught, or ever even met. He has not in fact even shown up to his classes this session, so no one can think of what he looks like. No one really knows how he knows who I am. The fact that he deliberately accessed my personal contact information at the government agency he works for, via my company information which we assume is the connection, and that he fabricated reasons to call me multiple times at home on my land-line and wanted to confirm my address (which he had) is disturbing. He hasn't called since being warned away. But I'm still disturbed, which is an improvement on last week's 'upset'.

I've been here before and really don't feel like looking over my shoulder now when I'm trying to move forward. I may be jumping ahead of myself but I'm not sure law enforcement in Qatar or the courts would be as helpful as the last time I went through this. I feel like my personal space has been invaded. Even worse, the safe haven I provide for my daughter, doesn't feel so safe. Logically, I know that it is. I chose a compound because I am now on my own with a young daughter and I want as much space and as many walls between us and the outside world as I can get.

But I've stopped parking in the staff lot behind our office. Finishing late at night after everyone including security is long gone is creepy. I now park in front on a main street where there's plenty of hustle and bustle. And so it starts, and I here I thought the tension was fading!

The Absence of Tension

2011-03-31T21:48:00.007+03:00

There have been so many occasions recently when I have thought about how lax security is here. Whether it is the absence of armed guards, walls low enough they can be scaled, lack of adequate blast perimeters (distance and height - 7th floor minimum for car bombs), accessibility to unauthorised personnel, external access to landline and electric cables, no bomb film on windows and other glass surfaces etc. But today I sat in a mall, eating lunch with my mom and daughter, and realised that those thoughts were not normal. We had been talking about my angel starting school in September and it took me back to when I was a school teacher in Saudi Arabia.

It was during a particularly difficult time for westerners. You can read here and here to get an idea. At school we had drills for fire, evacuation, car bombs, each with different routes, meeting points, etc. I remember sitting in my classroom one day after the students had gone and wondering how we could protect them against men gaining access with machine guns, or suicide bombers. I remember looking around and thinking; 'how many children could hide behind the upright piano?' And 'what about those that wouldn't fit?'

The layers of tension that were simply a part of daily life, the amount of security just going in and out of our own homes and to and from work, the constant visits from various government ministries and agencies reminding us to be vigilant and vary our travel times and routes to work... just. not. normal. Add to that the situation at home, no wonder I was in constant muscle spasm.

So despite the teething problems and setbacks that don't seem to quit, (it has only been three months since I left Saudi and moved to Qatar) I have a much better perspective on life and things are getting better all the time. The muscles are relaxing! For someone diagnosed with fibromyalgia that is no small thing.

What Progress?

2011-03-30T20:29:00.009+03:00

Today has been just that little bit ridiculous enough to blog about.

I finished my shift last night at 22:30 but didn't go to sleep until about 2am. I had an 0600 wake up for an 0800 appointment at the Ministry of the Interior to finalise getting my daughter's residency premit. Somewhere in the back of mind was probably the worry that I wouldn't wake up in time so my brain decided to stick to some light Alpha wave sleep.

As usual, much ado about nothing. When I finally got to the interview stage there were just two questions, it was over in less that 60 seconds. How old is she? And, where is your husband? All that stress for nothing, unless they don't issue it which doesn't rate thinking about. But I'm glad I didn't have to get into the whole situation.

I also had an appointment in the afternoon at the US Embassy to discuss options for divorce abroad, Qatar in particular. Their advice was to do it in the US so I would have the full recourse of the law in the event that there are ever any problems. So, to dot the 'i's and cross the 't's I've also been advised to put a block on replacement passports. My daughter has both American and British citizenship. Hypothetically, my husband being the British citizen could request a replacement UK passport. I'm not sure if they require both parents to be present or not but I'd rather he wasn't able to get one. Especially since he's been showing up to spend time with our daughter on days when I have to be away at work. Just as I was feeling that things were safely under control now that we're out of Saudi and I finally hold our passports.

I would like to say that the man I married would never consider doing anything extreme but obviously I thought that about everything else that has happened.

Two traumatic and stressful appointments were already two too many, and then this. In between things I got on the phone to try to sort out a utility bill. My name must have logged on the company's system, because shortly after hanging up my phone rang. The landline which I never use. It was a guy getting English Language Training from us, that worked for the utility company. He had accessed my personal contact details and used them to track me down. I don't even know him or have contact with him. He's taught by a male colleague. First he wanted to confirm my mobile number and where I lived. Then he called again. And then again. It might have simply been annoying but I instantly felt suffocated and sick to my stomach. It was like a flashback to a particularly nasty experience with an ex-boyfriend that resulted in a restraining order, etc. I hate feeling cornered.

Thank goodness my three day weekend starts tomorrow, I'm feeling a little brittle right now but instead of sleep I'm blogging and then meeting colleagues for drinks since my daughter is sleeping over at my mom's. Now that's therapy.

The Absence of Anger

2011-03-23T00:54:00.009+03:00

This week someone did something amazing for me. Something that gave me great relief, hope, encouragement and the kind of gratitude that makes you wonder what you did to deserve it, and if they made a mistake.

It made me cry, and I never cry. Despite how deeply unhappy and difficult the situation was in Saudi, I never cried. I was so angry there was no room for any other emotion.

Anger was the basis for everything I felt and thought, it defined me. Whether I was at work being a professional or at home being a mother, those were just roles I was playing, masks I was wearing. I wasn't being real, just burying the anger under some damn fine acting.

It's taking time but that anger is fading away. I'm discovering new 'me's' - happy me, sad me, hopeful me, excited me... I got married quite young so in many ways I feel like I'm just becoming my own person, and getting to know my adult self. And I like it! It isn't all roses, sometimes the loneliness feels like physical pain and the fear of being alone is something I'm working on. But I felt that way even when I wasn't alone, married.

The best part is that I finally feel real and present with my daughter and my life, not removed from everything and everyone by a red haze and fake smiles. I used to look at pictures and only remember everything the smiles masked. When I see a picture like this one, taken yesterday, I remember the laughter and it makes me smile.

So, nothing much to report. Lots of self-discovery, oh and research into filing for divorce from Qatar, which isn't the most exciting thing to blog about.

A Sideways Step

2011-03-20T12:50:00.012+03:00

I went out on St. Patrick's. As in Out - dance floor and all. I haven't gone Out for about ten years, since I was dating my husband. I don't need to describe the scene to you, I'm sure you're far more familiar with it than I am.

At first it was exciting, the attention was flattering. I wanted to take it slow, check the scene out and just watch for a while. But what was flattering quickly became insulting and suffocating to the point of claustrophobia setting in. It got to be a little much and on more than one occasion I felt backed into a corner, literally.

I was unpleasantly surprised at how persistent the men were. How "no, I don't want to dance and I don't want a drink from you" meant nothing. They bought me drinks anyway, put them in my hands anyway, and did the bump and grind anyway. I was more annoyed than anything else but it was enough to make me a little nervous on occasion. I kept reminding myself that they didn't know where I was coming from to stop from grabbing their ears and bringing their faces smashing down into my knee. Or bolting out of there.

About halfway through the evening I caught the eye of another guy, who must have been about 6'5", who came over and got rid of a particular pest, and planted himself next to me for the rest of the night. He asked me if I was ok and I replied that I was, but I just wanted to watch the dancing, and he actually left it at that. Exhale. Until he was there as my self-appointed bodyguard I hadn't realised how tense I had become.

The evening took a strange turn when he told me to look up Poets of the Falls and listen to their song Sleep. I figured it was another corny line but when I YouTubed it later I was disturbed. It isn't the kind of song you use as a pick up line. I didn't think I was that transparent or vulnerable, or was I? Is this what guys do now? The sensitive, psychic, empathetic thing?

And that's where I cut off any further thoughts on the matter. Nice song, but I'm obviously not ready for that scene, the games, the moves. And if I was, a conversation over a glass of wine is much more my style.

Time to return to baby steps.

The Shrug-Off

2011-03-14T23:26:00.009+03:00

For the first time in my life I am experiencing the shrug-off; eyes glazing over and disinterested turning away, as people assume I am a tag-along spouse.

(The normal situation in the Gulf, which I am not in, is for one spouse to have The Job, which provides visa sponsorship and The Package, while the other spouse stays at home or gets a local job, usually underpaid with few benefits.)

Perhaps there just aren't many professional single mothers working in Qatar.

It's a new experience after being quite well known in Saudi and respected as someone with 10+ years of high profile professional experience in the Middle East and Gulf.

And slightly irritating. On the upside, I'm trying to enjoy being left alone and not expected to solve the everyone's problems. From this to that, it's nice to shut down and focus on myself and my own situation for a while.

Who am I trying to kid, this is so insulting. Many of the tag-along/stay-at-home spouses I know are women who are engineers, lawyers, professors, and other very highly qualified professionals who can't get jobs because of their gender or choose not to since they don't have to.

Now that I am the provider for my daughter, the assumption that I shop and sit in salons all day getting my nails painted is more than slightly irritating.

Where To Start?

2011-03-12T22:01:00.011+03:00

If you read the passport post and thought that was convoluted, imagine the next step. Filing for divorce.

An American.
Resident in Qatar.
A Brit.
Resident in Saudi.
Married in Cyprus.
Haven't technically lived in the US for 10 years.
Haven't technically been a resident of the UK for 5 years.

Where do I start? Where do I even file? I haven't started the process and I'm already overwhelmed. But that's nothing.

My husband is losing the light of his life. His beautiful amazing precious daughter. This is ripping his heart out. Part of me still wants to stop everything, to stop hurting him.

But I've been there and done that already. I need to remind myself it was enabling him, not helping.

It would be so much easier to bask in the limbo of this separation but it isn't fair to any of us.

For Lent, I Give Up

2011-03-10T20:34:00.003+03:00

That may look like a funny facebook status, (in fact it was, I stole it) but I think it fits. For Lent, I'm not going to try to control everything, fight for everything, or analyse everything. I'm going to let things happen for a while, and see what happens.

This is not me at all, so we'll see how it goes.

For Tonight's Entertainment...

2011-03-02T20:52:00.006+03:00

Is how my facebook status starts out tonight. You must be sick of my posts about the driving in Qatar but here's the rest of the post:

"... I was run off the road by a bunch of Qatari guys in a Land Cruiser trying to overtake me on the inside of a turn, straight into oncoming traffic. Beats being hit by a bus but still no fun. My daughter must have been able to tell, when I got home she asked me if I wanted to sleep with her in her bed. Made my night."

Seriously. When the bus hit me a couple of weeks ago I was angry. I might even have opened my smashed door and smacked my fist on the driver's window. This time I'm deflated and blubbery. I don't want to deal with this. It's enough already.

I can only take so many heart pounding life flashing before my eyes moments in a good week and this has not been a good one. And like the night I was hit by the bus, there's no shoulder to cry on and that sure drives this all home.

It's All About The Passport!

2011-03-01T22:27:00.006+03:00

On a less personal note, I'm still waiting for my daughter's residence visa. Not as simple as it sounds.

My parents were working abroad when I was born. I'm automatically a US citizen and was given the usual embassy certification of birth abroad, in addition to my local birth certificate which is in Greek, Turkish, and English.

However, because I was born abroad that citizenship wouldn't automatically transfer to a child of mine if the father was not a US citizen. In my case, I married a Brit. When our daughter was born in Saudi she received her British passport within two weeks of her birth from the British embassy in Riyadh. That was the passport we had to use for her Saudi residency, and hence the one that she has travelled on ever since. Her visas and tickets in and out of Saudi had to be purchased with it which meant she had to use it to go in and out of the US.

For her to get an American passport I had to prove that I had spent a minimum of 5 years in the US. Other than university I've never lived there and we didn't go 'home' every summer like most expats. US passports are rarely stamped in and out of the US so I added the days up by checking the stamps in and out of Heathrow, Schipol, and other airports we transited through. Luckily I just met the requirement and after a number of months she got an American passport.

Not the end of the story. Knowing the trouble I'd had trying to record and prove my time in the US I asked for her American passport to be stamped on the way into LAX. The 'friendly' TSA agent warned me that they should confiscate her US passport because Americans supposedly aren't allowed to hold dual citizenship. Having some ignorant TSA idiot on a desk with that kind of power is scary.

So, the trip to Abu Dhabi last week to take her out of Qatar on her UK passport and bring her back in on her American passport was a milestone. Now I won't have to explain why my child has a different nationality from me, that was another thing the TSA always queried over concerns about child abductions and trafficking. That and having a passport full of Arabic stamps from all over the Middle East always guaranteed I would be 'randomly selected' for that extra special security line and questioning, not a pleasant addition to 48 hour trips around the world alone with a toddler.

Anyway, back to the residence permit or RP as they're called here. My company sponsors me but I have to sponsor her. That means my papers and certificates have to be verified.

In my case that means:

My undergrad degree being sent to the US for attestation
My postgrad degrees being sent to the UK for attestation
My marriage certificate being sent to Cyprus for attestation
My daughter's birth certificate getting stamped by the Saudi embassy
All of the above getting stamped by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here in Qatar

Another step forward but I'm tired of complications. I need simplicity.

Six

2011-02-28T22:09:00.003+03:00

That's how many posts I've written and saved in draft form. Not fit for human consumption.

I'm reeling. I wonder how long this phase is supposed to last. I don't make much sense to myself. My silence is saving you from the headaches the wanderings of my mind would inflict.

Trust me.

Catching Up

2011-02-25T22:15:00.014+03:00

Apologies for the lapse. It's been a strange week. A lot has happened but at the same time I've been more than slightly detached as I think and worry too much about what it all means.

Here's what has been happening (in addition to the world as we know it changing around us):

Daughter enrolled in school for September. This is an incredible blessing as there are 1000s of children in Doha on waiting lists for the handful of reputable international schools. Also a scary step into the financial spiral of private international schooling... uniforms, books, etc.
I went to pick up the car I was driving when the bus crashed into me only to find that it had been hit on the other side in the workshop. It has been repaired, again, and picked up so my mother has her own wheels again.
I bought a 4WD. Big enough to give me back some confidence which I have to admit I lost after the bus accident. A much bigger financial commitment.
Yesterday I flew to Abu Dhabi for lunch with a friend and then back. The purpose of the visit was to sort out my daughter's residency permit for Qatar (commonly known as a visa-run) and to get her on to her American passport. Since her British one came through immediately after she was born in Saudi that's the one her residency papers were put in and that she has travelled on for the last three years. Big relief for many reasons that I'll go into in another post.

I am making progress on the checklist but yesterday there were tears which is not normal for me. I was talking to my dad and I lost it a little.

Here's what I've been thinking:

My head has been getting around the fact that this is it. And it's lonely.

And I see a pattern emerging. The more vulnerable or lonely I feel, the angrier I am with myself. But loneliness is not synonymous with neediness or weakness.

What did I say about not thinking or worrying too much? I'm trying not to think about how much this week depleted my savings and focus on waking up tomorrow. As a friend said, I need to live in the present.

I'm not in the situation in Saudi anymore. I'm in Qatar where I actually have my parents living down the street. My mom also happens to be the world's most loving and patient grandmother. What woman in my position (new country, new job, newly separated +3 year old) could ask for more? I have an amazing support network online, in contact from almost every corner of the world. I'm in a place where I have a wonderful community of people at my fingertips, who have already more than welcomed me and helped me start over in ways they'll never even know.

So What Is My Problem!?!?!?

History In The Making

2011-02-15T13:05:00.007+03:00

This has been a difficult week. I've never faced anything I can't handle, you just do what you have to do. What are the alternatives? While I feel that my life is being turned upside down and inside out, it pales in comparison to what is happening around me in this region.

The reasons for the protests are unique to each country. Contributing factors such as educational levels are different in each country. Poverty, lack of jobs, religious persecution, lack of individual freedoms, they cannot be painted with the same brush.

Bahrain in particular is hitting pretty close to home. It's eerie to see tanks in familiar streets. What is most disturbing, that the western media doesn't seem to be getting, is that unlike Egypt, Bahrain doesn't care about world opinion, human rights, etc. A very small number of dead can be confirmed and are being reported as they are the few that have ended up in city hospitals and morgues, but the reality is that many injured, and many bodies, have disappeared, hauled away by the military. These were not violent protesters although the images being shown are of desperate and angry people grieving and searching for their loved ones and give the opposite impression.

These changes are long overdue and exciting but scary. I have friends in Bahrain, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and although I know from experience that these events are usually focused in certain areas, lives are disrupted and the tension is difficult to live with.

I'm not worried about Qatar. No one is completely happy all the time but in general people here are very proud of this country and its leaders. I am however glad I'm not in Saudi. Unemployment, poverty (contrary to popular belief) and religious persecution (Sunni vs Shiite) have caused disturbances in recent years and although they are not in the news yet, I have no doubt that they could be. But Saudis are in general 'less active' or 'more complacent'. Unlike their counterparts in Egypt few have experienced anything different, few travel abroad, and relatively few are educated abroad or at a higher level (other than degrees in Islamic studies). That combined with what a closed society it is, make it easier to keep under control by the various forces that be.

So my problems? What problems? This is history in the making.

And Crash

2011-02-11T09:29:00.008+03:00

Yesterday I spent most of the day moving stuff from one house to my new house across town. As it got later the driving got crazier and I was thinking that every time I go out on the roads I'm lucky to make it home again without having an accident. As I was in the left lane ready to turn left a guy came up behind me at about 100mph over the speed limit flashing his lights for me to move over. When I didn't get out of his way fast enough he actually swerved over into my lane in front of me, forcing me to slam on my brakes so I wouldn't get pushed into the guy on my right. I cannot put into words my disgust and hatred for asshole (pardon my English) drivers like that. I have Baby on Board signs on my car and at the time, two baby seats that were clearly visible. Good thing I can't have a gun here because those people flip my homicidal switch.

At the end of the day I was just leaving my parents house to go back to mine where a friend who was visiting was watching my daughter. We're talking about a 3 minute drive. As I drove down their street a bus drove out of a side street on my left, across traffic, and straight into my door. He didn't even slow down, or look, just came zooming out and then crash, bang, and scrape down the driver side of the car.

The bus was exiting a workcamp full of labourers who of course crowded around and filled the street. A mosque was just letting out so those men all headed over too. It was clearly the other driver's fault and he admitted it. Although I did overhear him saying my lights weren't on, I distinctly remember leaning in to switch them off so that the battery didn't get worn down. Too bad the police report is in Arabic, who knows what he put on it.

Other than some heavy duty shaking I was more angry than hurt at that point. Adrenaline. A really nice young Egyptian guy who spoke excellent English, with an American accent, obviously educated, kept them away and helped me settle down, stop shaking and explained what the procedure was. I also called my boss who sent the company fixer.

My car was full of electronics I had planned to spend the evening setting up, including a flatscreen TV. I haven't been able to look at it to see if it's in one piece, I'm not sure I could handle that right now because it'll be a while before I can afford to replace it.

The driver's side of the car is destroyed, the doors don't close at all. I called the police who said they weren't coming, I would have to drive the car to the station. Say what??? To cut a long story short, I went to the police station. After dealing with them for a couple of hours and filling out the paperwork they wanted to send me to the hospital in an ambulance but I needed to get a rental arranged for the next day so I could drive my friend to the airport in the afternoon. So I declined the ambulance and said I'd go later.

Dad's connections paid off and I was able to get a rental at a very discounted price, at 2100, long after the offices normally close on a weekend. Then I went to the hospital. What a nightmare. By now it was 10pm, I hadn't eaten since noon and was ready to faint. When I asked a nurse for water she said to sit down and wait my turn. I wanted to cry but I think I was too tired. My neck was alternating burning heat and icy cold, and the old rib problems (moving out of joint) were giving me grief. Eventually I got home at 0130.

X-rays showed nothing spinal, as expected, some bruises, 'just' muscular sprain, whiplash. With fibromyalgia take that to the power of 10 or 100. Sore is an understatement. This was the second time I've had the exact same injury for the exact same reason. Idiot driver pulling into traffic from a side street without looking, ramming into the driver door. First Cyprus, now Qatar. Please can I go drive somewhere civilised!?!?!?

So again, one step forward, two steps back. And Pain. But thank goodness for my friend who took care of my daughter, my dad's friend who arranged the rental, the office fixer who stayed with me through the entire ordeal, and family friends who have offered me the use of their car while mine is repaired later in the week.

Internet Anyone?

2011-02-06T12:03:00.002+03:00

Well I've moved into my new place. There are no words for the chaos and confusion. But we're making progress, if you don't count the shower that randomly started spraying water in the middle of the night and the drain that started overflowing and flooding when I ran water in the sink, and the broken flush, all in different bathrooms.

And that's why I chose to live on a compound with 24 hour maintenance!

Internet will be hooked up in the next 10 days (!) so blogging will take a backseat to email and facebook in the limited time I have to access it elsewhere.

Angels In Our Midst

2011-02-02T22:05:00.005+03:00

I promised my sister I would write a positive post. I'm working on being a glass-is-half-full person (which doesn't come naturally) but the truth is, I should be a glass-is-overflowing person.

There have been some amazing people who have helped this process go better than I could have expected.

One spent his time driving me around to government offices, accompanied me to take a driving test at 0500 (women's hours), showed up to move furniture, and wouldn't accept a thing in return.

Another couple invited me over to see if they had anything I would want before they left. I went expecting wastebaskets and ended up having my name put on furniture, electronics, dishes and more than I could have hoped for.

But none of this would be possible without my parents. They're not just any Mom and Dad. They have helped clean, load, unload, carry, and move boxes and furniture, kept me fed, given head rubs, handed over their car keys, and been Grandma and Grandpa. And not just any Grandma and Grandpa. They don't just babysit. They make playdough, give piggybacks, play chase, build train tracks, paint, have pretend snowball fights, do bathtimes, and cuddle. Just to skim the surface.

Qatar 2022?

2011-01-29T23:58:00.004+03:00

I went to the Asian Cup Final tonight to see Australia play Japan. This is what happened and this is what I saw.

I arrived an hour early, at 5pm for a 6pm kick off, with some friends from work. We stood in line for a long time but upon reaching the front us women were pulled aside and told to go stand in a separate line to go through female security. I shrugged, annoyed but it's so typical that it wasn't going to ruin my mood. But they also separated families, pulled boys away from their mothers, husbands away from their wives.

By the time I got to the front of the second line of women with small girls it was 5:30pm. Just as I got to the front the fence gates right in front of me were closed. As were all the other entrances. I asked the policeman why and he said the stadium was full. I thought he must be kidding or that there was a misunderstanding, that his supervisor would come along and sort it out. There were still thousands of ticket holders like myself lined up outside. But he was serious.

To get rid of us they told us another gate was open further along but it was clear from the people rushing towards us that they had been told the same thing at the other entrances. In the line next to us some men had managed to force their gate open but the police shoved back and used chains to latch it securely.

The woman next to me started to lose it quickly. Her 10 year old son had been forced to go through the men's line and was alone in the stadium waiting for her. They wouldn't budge. They wouldn't let her in with her daughter or let him out, at least in the 20 minutes that I hung around. As a mother I was outraged for her.

Another woman next to me had a 4 year old daughter with her and her husband was inside, with the car keys. She was stranded, they wouldn't even let him approach the fence to talk to her or hand the keys over so she could go home.

An older woman was stuck at the front of the surging crowd and hit by riot police with a baton when she didn't move away fast enough. Her daughter eventually got her out through the crowd, shaking and in shock.

The crowd was getting pretty angry. Some people had travelled from as far as Australia and Japan, almost all of us had bought our tickets well in advance. But what made me really angry was the desperation of the separated families and the utter rudeness and apathy of the security guards. Some said we should have arrived at 1pm (for a 6pm kick off?) someone else was told that if they didn't like it they could leave.

No one was going anywhere. Luckily it wasn't an England game and there wasn't any alcohol on the premises. It would have been a lot worse. Cameras were rolling, BBs were recording, I'm sure it will show up on YouTube. News helicopters were circling overhead but I doubt their footage will be seen.

As it escalated I made my way out of the crowds and headed home to watch the footage on TV. I couldn't believe the glowing reports and smug FIFA, Qatari, and other football officials' faces as they congratulated themselves and each other on a 'successful' Asian games.

Musings

2011-01-25T23:24:00.004+03:00

Nothing major is happening, no new developments, so here are some little observations and reflections from the last week.

The driving here is out of control. Last night I didn't think I was going to make it home to my daughter. I was boxed in, front and both sides on the freeway, when a Toyota Land Cruiser (the national car/vehicle of Qatar) came up behind me so fast, (boxed in remember, no where to go, as if I would somehow levitate out of his way) and so close that I could only see the reflection of his lights on his windscreen because it was dark and they were too close to see in my review mirror. I would guess that half the Qatari population do not have driving licenses. This seemed to be reinforced when one of my 15 year old students complained that he had spent the day at the police station waiting for his dad to pick him up after he crashed while driving himself to school. This sparked a conversation where one of the female students, in all seriousness tried to tell me that women don't need licenses, her mother drives without one, as do her friends, so she wouldn't need to get one. No wonder.

With another group, while debating whether or not health education was necessary in schools (students said no because they have the best healthcare in the world), I remembered a Saudi woman telling me how she caught HIV. It's taboo to talk about sex related topics with unmarried women in this part of the world. Qatar less so than Saudi. That includes any information about safe sex, conception, childbirth, STDs, etc. With the facade of purity (it was the holy land after all) that everyone pretends to buy into, there's a certain amount of denial that health education is necessary. (Most schools for girls do not include any sort of physical education and music is mamnoor - forbidden. You can't imagine it and it's a waste of time for people to try to understand it by trying to relate their own experience or understanding of school and education.) So what drugs abuse? What AIDS? What prostitution? Everyone turns a blind eye. In her case she was married to a Saudi man in his 30s when she was 17 and finished school. Apparently before he was married he spent his weekend boozing it up with his buddies and prostitutes in Bahrain. It's becoming quite the cesspool of the Gulf. Unless you get a room in quite an expensive hotel, you can expect women (victims of trafficking from Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southern Asia) to come knocking on your door at all hours.

So it's been interesting. It's kind of nice to realise that I can write a little more freely now that I'm out of Saudi, but I am wondering what the boundaries are here. For example, writing about the surprisingly high percent of students with deformities and other health problems related to marriages between 1st cousins. An old tribal custom but still common practice, seen as the best way of keeping the wealth in the family. It might tick off the wrong person.

Many blogs written in and about middle eastern countries are blocked in those countries. In Qatar people are deported with very little rhyme or reason, eg. going 2 m/hour over the speed limit, giving a Qatari driver the bird, etc. It's nice to drive (understatement - I feel like an adult again) but I'm going to have problems with that.

A Non Update

2011-01-22T20:14:00.005+03:00

Nothing has changed. No, that's a lie. I now have a residency permit. Which means I can buy alcohol. That should be a big whoop-dee-doo after living in Saudi for 10 years but while I enjoy the occasional drink, it isn't a big part of my life. I don't even have time to drink a coffee in the morning without warming it up three times in the microwave (gross, I know) and by the end of the day I've got a half a can here, a cold tea with a sip out of it there, and a long-flat soda left somewhere else.

The rest is the same. I've been delayed in moving into my new house for another week. The story has finally come out that apparently the landlord has some Tunisian friends staying in it indefinitely. After growing up in this part of the world, conflict is nothing new to me. It was not unusual to have refugees, people fleeing invading armies in war zones, seeking political asylum, or escaping religious persecution sitting at our kitchen table when we came out for breakfast in the morning. I am completely aware and sympathetic to their situation, how difficult, tense, and much worse their limbo is than mine.

But I still hate limbo. I hate living out of boxes and suitcases, been there and done that and I've never been impressed. Next time I move I swear it will be into my own home. I'm being charged while my shipment is in storage since it can't be delivered, and although I was told I could move in last week, it looks like the contract wasn't signed by my company to start until the 1st of Feb so the landlord isn't in a hurry or sympathetic to my expenses.

This week I was frustrated to tears of anger, just when I thought I was doing really well. I guess 'things' are taking their toll more than I realised.