I even appreciate (though I don’t want to dwell on) the
extreme experiences of life here, as they help me be grateful for anything even
slightly more moderate- extreme temperatures, isolation, traffic. The heat when we first arrived was so intense
that we could not survive more than about 20 minutes outside. Trapped indoors
in air conditioning, I questioned why people would choose to live where they
have to be on virtual life support half of the year. Feeling so cut off from social interaction outside
my family for weeks at a time has made me value interactions with friendly
strangers that much more. No longer
stuck in a maze of high rises and traffic-choked streets, we are thrilled to be
on foot going to parks, the supermarket, and neighborhood exploration. This
post owes its existence to the mood boost from a simple trip to the clinic. It was two whole hours that included walking
there and back and, most importantly, talking with other adults who weren’t in
my family- one guard, one receptionist, one doctor, and several medical
technicians. 
To be fair, even the beginning days were not all isolation
and heatstroke. I love how being in a new place with few familiar reference
points can feed our imagination. Our early weeks in the hotel
we talked about what the shiny skyscrapers looked like to us- like comparing
shapes in the clouds- was the one sheathed in a metallic grate a seltzer
bottle? A pickle? A narwhal pointing its snout at the sky? If
I blurred my vision a little bit, in the fancy part of the mall in the evening,
it looked like there were
dozens of weddings and funerals going on all at once with the women in their
black abayas like mourners and the men in their white robes like brides.
I have not yet met an expat who says that Qatar is an easy
place to move to, but I feel so lucky that the first community in which I found a place
was that of the home schooling families, who are remarkably positive-minded
about the challenge of living in Doha. Doha's expat
community has long since outgrown its educational offerings, so for the time
being my children are studying from home. Fortunately the home education network here is
very strong and we hooked up with it right away. The other home school parents are from all
over the world, and have a variety of reasons for making the choice to do
this. They are a very supportive and
generous community and are keen to look for learning opportunities everywhere, in
contrast to the often-insular community of big international schools. I would
not have realized this if I hadn't joined the homeschooling ranks, so I
appreciate this choice that was kind of forced on us, grateful that we're
trying this and expanding our awareness of what's possible.
I’m enjoying renewing my awareness of a wider world. This is
the third country where we’ve lived which has a majority of the population
believing in Islam, but the most traditionally observant. We spent the last five years in the USA,
where for many, the word “terrorist” is a synonym for “extremist,” which was
rarely far from the word “Muslim.” Here, surrounded by a diversity of Muslim
culture from Arabia, South and Southeast Asia, Europe, and North Africa, I’m more aware
than ever that terrorism is as little a part of Islam as it is part of any
major faith, and more firmly convinced that terrorists are violent people who
are using a faith (whichever one they choose) as an excuse for causing mayhem
and destruction.
I
love the international diversity of the people I meet every day. My neighbors
in this compound are all North African/European, I just found out that the
compound down the street is full of Danes, the taxi drivers are mostly S Asian:
Nepali, Sri Lankan, Indian, and Bangladeshi, sometimes African: so far Nigerian
and Ethiopian. Receptionists and shop clerks are often Filipino, nannies are most
of those and Indonesian as well, the guards I’ve talked to have been Kenyan and
Ugandan.
What first seemed like either a sterile desert or
artificially maintained greenery is starting to reveal tenacious life. The
feral cats here are the most beautiful I’ve ever seen- orange cats
with light blue eyes, others with spots like cheetahs. We found this amazing locust on a fence near
the beach today. As winter advances on the
Northern hemisphere, migratory birds have begun to show up. We’re looking
forward to exploring more along the coast and hopefully seeing more birds and
sea creatures.
It’s still premature to make any judgments about my latest home,
but I know I need to make an effort to appreciate it, for the exercise of it,
to prevent me feeling like I’m one of those people I have no patience for who can’t
stop complaining, and to check in with later on, in case I need to be reminded
what there is to love about this country.
This is only the beginning of that list, anyway.
