time for a love letter

I’ve spent so much time working over my apprehension about moving to Qatar and what has challenged me since I arrived. Previous moves have taught me to gravitate to people who are genuinely interested in exploring country and cultures and to limit time with people who complain- so I’m not too proud of all the whining I’ve done during this transition.  Moving from the hotel in the midst of the city center’s tall glassy towers to a house in a small compound has improved my state of mind more than I had thought possible.  I wasn’t aware of quite how much that hotel-living had eaten away at me until I realized that I couldn’t even bring myself to look at our former home as we drove by the other day.  The cooler weather and the freedom to go places on foot, under a wide-open sky, are welcome gifts.

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.

clinic with my kids after two weeks of moving and staying close to home.

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.