The Rest of the Clan

Well, things seem to be stabilizing. I am doing much better, making friends and making plans. If you know me, you know I've always got a plan... I must be pretty out of sorts if I can't come up with something.

But how is the rest of the Monroe family doing? Here's the brief:

J and C are adjusting very well. We all hit a rough spot together at the beginning of the week, and we opened some friends' care packages from Pittsburgh and that helped (thanks, Maureen!). And they also have spent a lot of time with our neighbors, Dane and Lucas, which is just great. They met when Jonathan saw the dad and boys walking past our house on the way to the club house with a DVD player in his hand. It was like the Pied Piper - my boys were out the door before A and I found our shoes. The rest is history - we've seen their family every day since, and the boys have had a great time together. And you know from the Hallelujah post that the parents are the right kind too. On the belly front, C has liked the food; J has resisted but he can almost always steel himself and choke down enough to warrant dessert. Both boys declare unsolicited that they love Qatar - there's a pool and a tennis court and we live in a castle. Now that they have co-conspirators they have really found their groove.

A is coming along more slowly. And implying that she is coming along would be optimistic. She doesn't like the food, almost across the board. Her belly hurts, which I think is a combination of gas, stress, and manipulating Mom and Dad to get what she wants. We've got some medicine and that has helped but she's just out of sorts all the time, and she didn't start out as a low-maintenance child. She needs to find friends, but she really hasn't responded to the 3-year-old girls we have introduced her to so far. They're just not Tyler. I think we need to force her to socialize at first but that hardly seems fair to the other kids. I'll be looking for a preschool for her - she need to see the same kids on a regular basis. She also does better when she has Mom or Dad's full attention, which will happen much more once the boys go off to school.

Bob is happy as a clam. Really, his world hasn't changed so radically - he gets up, he goes to work in the morning, he teaches or prepares for class - his students speak English quite well and he's used to teaching ESL students in Pittsburgh, he comes home to the family at dinnertime. He's been happy to find a real feeling of openness and community in the office here. His big adjustment has been learning to recognize and talk with women in traditional dress - black head scarves and robes. It does take some practice, to remember that there's a regular personality behind the scarf or veil, you focus on the voice and eyes rather than other cues. So teaching here has been a great experience for him. And coming home for a swim with the kids before dinner is another big plus.

So that's the bunch of us. Distinctly more good than bad. And in a few weeks it's going to get better.

Ups and Downs

I spent most of the day today feeling about as low as could be. Which makes very little sense because by all metrics (other than my personal emotional well-being) it was a really nice day.

We started early with C's assessment testing at the American School of Doha (ASD), which went well. C tested at the normal level and we'll hear the formal admissions decision in a couple of days, which sounds like a formality; I have no doubt that C will get in. School starts on September 9, which is a little late because they are finishing construction of a large new complex which should be beautiful.

But by the time we got home at 9:30 I was pretty much done for the day. We had our new friends Dane and Lucas stop by and the boys played with them at the community center and then at their house for half the day, which is wonderful. Their dad, an acknowledged saint, delivered a case of my favorite adult beverage. My parents called and we all got to talk to them for a good while. And I still felt like crap. I miss my friends, I miss my dog, I miss my garden, I miss Frick Park. I'm sick of hauling three kids to a different mall every day because there's pretty much nothing else we can do. The malls are plentiful and spectacular -- they've figured out how they can draw folks in when the heat is oppressive -- but they're still malls, and I just don't like those places. I want to get outside and play.

It felt like Seasonal Affective Disorder but in reverse, like my body just can't handle this much sunshine without shutting down and seeking a dark hole. Maybe I'll get used to it? The good news is that once we got to 5 pm and the sun went down, I started to rebound. There was an actual crowd at the (usually empty) pool, all the regulars were there. The community here isn't so different from Regent Square with all the young families, friendly neighbors, and the huge proportion of people with post-graduate degrees. I just need to get my head in the right place, forcibly if necessary. Must... regain... perspective....

I hear there's a walled children's garden just a block or two away from our house, only women and children allowed, I'm hoping to try it out tomorrow morning before it gets unbearable. And I think I'll invite someone over for dinner, which as you probably know is one of my favorite ways to improve my mental health.

Hallelujah!

Guess what's in my fridge?

Beer. Five cold ones. I am almost giddy.

I met a really nice family a few doors down from us with a liquor permit (and two boys entering the American School of Doha in 3rd grade and Kindergarten which is fun but not quite as exciting right now) and they say we should be able to get a permit without too much trouble. We just need a letter from CMU affirming that we are not Muslim and stating Bob's salary - you can only buy some set percentage of your monthly income on alcohol. Then we send that in with a liquor permit application and hope like heck it comes through before Ramadan starts and the liquor stores close down for a month.

They'll even show me where the liquor store is - apparently it's on the outskirts of town and not really signed and the hours are pretty limited and it's not on any map.

So how hard could that be? Well, the point is that someone who has been through the process said it's possible and let me tell you, I'm thinking it's worth the effort.

That's all the news for today. Now we adults are going to settle down and drink the beverage of our choice. And I'm not talking about strawberry juice.

Tour Day

Today I actually got to see the city of Doha.








No, really. I kid too much.





Today CMU held its orientation session for families, at the Four Seasons hotel downtown. Downtown Doha is really a wild place, especially the city center, although not in the sense above. Here we have the bustling metropolis you might expect from a rather wealthy city of nearly a million people, but the surprising thing is that all the major buildings are less than five years old, and the existing structures are outnumbered by those currently under construction.



The pictures below are of the Corniche, a park and boulevard that runs along the beach - that's the Persian Gulf for those of you who are joining us late - from the old city to the City Center.




And below you can see the Sheraton Hotel, which J and C like because it looks like a pyramid,


and Ori the Oryx, the official mascot of the 2006 Asian Games.

Doha is big on monumental sized things, from Ori the Oryx to the giant ceremonial coffee pot sculpture/fountain to the giant shopping cart in the mall parking lot. I haven't decided whether these monuments indicate a Qatari sense of whimsy... or not.

The orientation was very helpful though, even beyond the sightseeing tour. All the new CMU-Q employees and their families came, so we had a chance to meet a bunch of our neighbors in the compound who don't spend all their time at the pool, and to introduce the kids to some of their future classmates. We heard a lecture on Qatari culture and another on culture shock. It would appear that I am in the "Fascination" phase, with occasional forays into "Frustration," which should really present itself within the next few weeks. I expect I will finally hit "Acclimation" about a week before we leave, and everything gets turned back on its head.

Our house, is a very very very fine house...

So I've been getting some questions about what the digs are like. We call it the Castle.

It's huge - five bedrooms, five and 1/2 baths (including the maid's quarters downstairs), and a one-car garage. All the floors are tiled and there are big windows in all the rooms. The ceilings are about eleven feet high. There's a dining room and family room downstairs. The kitchen is clearly not intended to be used by the people who live here - it's small and pretty basic, separated from the rest of the house in floor plan and accoutrements.

No, we don't have a maid. We're just not here long enough and face it, with the boys in school I think I'll be able to handle that job.

Upstairs we have the bedrooms. Each bedroom has its private bath of course, each with a tub or shower and "It has something extra!" --J "It has a baby sink!" --A. That would be the bidet, a source of great interest and amusement. A and C are sharing a room which leaves a room empty, which is now filled with a sprawl of LEGOs that I don't have to step on. Not bad.

There are steps to the third floor, but that's really just the roof where all the a/c units and "cold" water tank and water heater are. Really there is no cold water - it's hot enough up there that the water from the cold tap is too hot for the kids to comfortably bathe. I shower with the tap full on cold and it's just right. My meat thermometer says the water from the hot tap is upwards of 130 degrees. You can walk around on the roof - it is covered with white lava rocks and the area is walled so it's completely private. This is where I hang the laundry. I understand it's quite nice up there once the weather breaks.

We have a small walled back yard, mostly brick patio with a small garden of succulents, ornamental grasses, and some variety of desert rose.

It's a reasonably large compound, which is basically a walled (notice a theme?) neighborhood block. We have about 56 villas here, with each connected on one side to another that is the mirror image. In the middle of the compound there's a community center with a gathering space with a big TV, a multi-purpose room with ping-pong and billiards tables, and a gym with decent equipment. Behind the community center is the pool, with a small wading area and a deeper pool for playing (no laps).



Past the pool is the tennis court, lit at night, and past the tennis court is our back yard.

This is taken from the pool area across the tennis court to the back of our house. You can see the wall for the back yard below, the second floor windows, and the wall for the roof patio area above. Our house continues further to the left but I didn't know that when I snapped it...









They are just this week installing a kids' playground with a slide and stuff next to the tennis court. It think the work is being done by genies. Every day I walk by and see the progress that has been made but I've never seen a worker. They're digging irrigation, pouring concrete, and building a play set 40 feet from my house and I wouldn't ever have noticed if I didn't walk by on the way to the pool.

I didn't post any pictures of the inside because there's nothing much to see. Although it's a surprisingly nice furnished villa and CMU has taken great pains to stock it with the essentials that we will need, it still feels bare. We've been into a villa of a family that's been here for over a year and it's nicely decorated and feels quite homey. But we won't be here long enough to invest in shelves, rugs, wall hangings, all the personal touches. There is a noticeable echo. I was really looking forward to leaving behind all the STUFF that crams my life and home; I found that I miss it. Maybe I'll return home with a greater appreciation for all that I have.

Maybe I'll also ask the house sitters to quietly remove three or four bins of kids' junk...

Recipe for culture shock

Start with a healthy dose of jet lag, add a foreign language, alphabet, and culture. Brew at 106 degrees for three days in complete isolation - no TV, no phone, no car, no internet, access only to a one-block walled compound. Season with PMS.

Stand clear of the explosion.

Everything is different - here's a short list:

• Arabic letters are written from right to left but the numbers go left to right.
• Light switches - on is down.
• Electrical current is 220 v and the plugs for even locally bought items may not fit the wall sockets without an adapter.
• Dawn is at 4:00 am; sunset is at 6:00 pm. You can not get up early enough to beat the heat - the lows are in the 90s and it's humid. Your only hope to be comfortable outside is the pool.
  
• The sun is painful at midday. Even in the shade it's blinding. It feels like a hot direct sunshine at very high altitude, like on top of a mountain, except the brightness comes from everywhere because it reflects off every surface.
  
• Even basic food items taste different - the beef and chicken are grass fed, not grain. Other items that don't have an American brand are generally Arab interpretations of the product. Even familiar American brands (which don't come cheap) taste somehow, vaguely different. Pork is outlawed.
  
• A box of cereal costs $7.
• The stores and malls are bustling at 9 pm on a weeknight - life here largely operates after dark.
• Appliances don't work - so far we've had the washer, dryer, microwave, oven, and a cell phone break. The only things that have worked are the dishwasher, toaster, and coffee maker (God is merciful). They fixed the washer; losing the dryer hasn't been a problem because a clothes line on the roof patio is just as fast.
• There is virtually no flora or fauna, except in gardens and homes. There are no weeds. There are no bugs (except a few itty bitty ants), no mice, no dogs. Once or twice a day I see a bird fly by; I've counted three cats. The wind has no leaves to rattle. The only sound is the hum of air conditioners. Our house has seven. That's not window units; each of those would equal the cumulative a/c power that we use in our Pittsburgh house.

I could really really use a beer right about now. I thought it wouldn't be a big deal, but... yeah. Oh well.

London Layover

[I wrote this posting on the plane leaving London; it's taken us a couple of days in Doha to get up to speed and we're not quite there yet - the photos will follow. In the meantime, here's something to catch everyone up:] **Photos are in - scroll down!**

The kids have been great travelers – they trooped through the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia airports and were wonderful on board the planes. They were under orders to go to sleep ASAP on the flight to London and that actually worked, as well as I could possibly have expected. The hours we slept were inversely proportional to age, which is better than the opposite.

Upon arrival in London, it got a little rough. We are all (IMHO) excellent travelers, but the jet lag was harsh. A bag fell on my foot while waiting for the currency exchange, no biggie, but it injured a blood vessel and left a huge bruise on the top of my foot. We made it to the hotel before noon but the room wasn’t ready till 3:00 so we wandered around in a fog for a few hours. I think we saw Buckingham Palace but I don’t remember what it looked like. If you ask the kids I think they’ll tell you we took them on a forced march for EVER and all they remember is that when it was over they got to go to the hotel pool. In the evening I went to bed early with A, and Dad took the opportunity to adventure out with the boys, catching the first double-decker bus that came by, hopping off whenever they found someplace interesting, and then hopping on the next one that came by heading in vaguely the correct direction. They continued with that plan until they stumbled upon the hotel a couple of hours later, having seen quite a bit of the city. All of the boys thought this quite an adventure.

Tuesday was much more interesting. We went to the National Museum and saw the Elgin Marbles, Rosetta Stone and Egypt exhibit, then did some more wandering around the city. The boys enjoyed the museum but it became clear that the only museum A had any interest in would have to feature the rich world of fashion ("Where are the dresses Mommy?"). And by the end of the day even that was beyond her. We did some more wandering around and found our way to Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey. The surprise highlight of the day was Westminster – I got the boys in by promising they would see the graves of the knights. It turns out most of the tombs there (and there are a lot) are not so glamorous, but at the end of the visit the choir began their rehearsal for the Evensong service. The sound was so beautiful, even with the stops and starts, we didn't want to leave. C was enchanted. He would not move – he just wanted to sit and listen to the music. The visit was transformed from a tourist exhibit to a meaningful experience, if that makes sense.

I guess we knew this going in, but everything in London is unbelievably expensive. I look at the menus and see prices I would expect in the big city, then realize that’s in pounds – it’s over double once you do the conversion. Holy smokes. We went out for dinner at a neighborhood pub and the kids ate $9 bowls of plain pasta noodles.

We continued to gather momentum Wednesday with our most ambitious day – King’s Cross station, the London Eye, and the Tower of London – and knocked it out of the park. Awesome. You can see the pictures of King’s Cross Station; we walked right past the Cambridge Express to get to Platform 9 ¾. Here’s what it looked like.

London Eye was really cool and we all had fun...

...but my favorite part was walking past the buskers in Jubilee Park.

And we saved the best for last – the Tower of London. C’s favorite part of London was seeing the Crown Jewels; J’s favorite part was watching a pair of knights in full armor duel.

As I said, I think the layover will help us acclimate in some surprising ways. For one thing, we are now really ready for the desert. London was cold and pouring rain for the majority of our visit. We have agreed that next time we long for wet weather we will remember how disagreeable it really is.

The second adjustment was a surprise. Our hotel turned out to be located in a predominantly Middle-Eastern neighborhood – I called it “Little Lebanon.” Most signs were in Arabic, hookah bars left and right, women in veils and burkas, you get the idea. I ate two Middle Eastern dinners but failed to get a proper fish & chips. When we get to Doha I’ll be looking for another lamb tajine with prunes and almonds – delicious.

And I don’t think I’ll have any trouble with dress code in the Middle East. I packed summer clothes for London – shorts and t-shirts – and felt uncomfortably exposed. Outside our family, I didn’t see another person wearing shorts (check the Westminster photo for proof!). Long pants, wool sweaters, even a puffy winter jacket, but not another single pair of shorts. Maybe they show skin in Paris, but apparently not in London. I guess it’s better I learn that lesson in a Western culture. I don’t care so much what I wear – I’d rather just blend in.

Now we’re on the plane to Bahrain (a quick hop from there to Doha), and I gotta tell ya, British Airways Club Class is the way to fly. Yes, another glass of wine would be lovely. A chocolate? Super. The boys agree – six hours of PG-13 movies, TV, and videogames. They made sure they were sitting together and not next to a parent, to enhance their viewing pleasure. "A" wanted to sit next to her Daddy, a decision I wholeheartedly support. Not that anyone can get her to change her mind anyhow.

And now I will sign off, because these are my last remaining hours to learn a phrase or two of Arabic. Our phrase book has all sorts of useful things to learn. I already have hello, goodbye, please, thank you, yes, and no. Having mastered those pleasantries, I’m not sure if I should continue with “the scorpion bit him right there” (just for fun) or “if you don’t stop following me I’ll scream” (a useful phrase to know in any culture). Maybe I should take a poll….

Mailing Address

For all who want to send us letters and postcards, we now have the mailing address at CMU that will be forwarded to us in Qatar.

Bob Monroe
Qatar Office SMC 1070
5032 Forbes Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15289

We have a 20 pound monthly weight limit and international postage over that will be charged to us, so check with us before sending anything heavy (like books). But letters and postcards we will be delighted to receive as often as possible.