beyond belonging

This bird in the cafeteria at the kids’ school made me start thinking about belonging:

My first thought was oh no she must be miserable inside a man-made space without any other birds, she is so out of her element! Then... maybe she likes it- she’s out of the heat, has access to food and safe places to perch, maybe there are more birds living in there than I thought- who are we to say she doesn’t belong?   

The next day I went for a walk (early before the streets got too hot) and saw this: 

It was about a week after I’d returned to Doha after the summer break and it made a lot of sense. Of course I don’t belong there, obviously I belong in a place with green and hills and rain. Humans only survive in Doha thanks to air conditioning, desalinization plants, imported workers and imported food, though I’m pretty sure that’s not what they meant.

I never expected to belong in Qatar, and ultimately Qatar decides whether you belong or not anyway. There was an article this summer in the Doha News about a man who put together a film of Doha, where he was born and raised, and it described him as an expat (Qatar expat produces 'mega' time-lapse marking nations development), which was shocking to my American self. Several days later there was another article about the performance of a Qatari athlete, who will almost surely be stripped of his Qatari citizenship and sent back home to Sudan when his contract is over (Qatari athlete becomes first national to reach IAAF World Athletics Finals).

The news is full of people deciding for others whether or not they belong, for example this story about a boy with Down Syndrome who was asked to leave his school, and this story about a boy in Texas whose teacher decided he was a threat because of a science project he brought in. 

And clearly any concern I have about belonging is completely insignificant alongside the apparently never-ending crisis of refugees fleeing impossible situations around the world to seek haven in places they cannot be sure of welcome (here's an article about mixed receptions in a town in Germany). They are trading belonging for safety.  It’s completely different to be my kind of expat, because we chose this, have the resources to work with it, and know we’re welcome.

It would be such a relief to stop thinking about belonging, which implies requirements and approval by a group, and replace that with working on welcoming and including. I’d like to think we’ve moved beyond the primary and secondary school social scenes, where the popular kids decide who’s in or out, but replace "popular kids" with "rich countries" and it just keeps continuing (read Who Qualifies for Asylum, from the New York Times)  On a personal level, it’s taken longer to stop caring whether people will accept me or not than I thought it would, especially with this moving every few years and having to start new in a neighborhood, at school, and in jobs over and over again.  Here especially the heat and traffic can be so isolating. We “non-working” expat spouses in Doha have to be deliberate about connecting with other people and so it feels like there’s much more at stake in making a positive first impression.  I don’t want to worry about how people are going to react to me as long as I'm interested and respectful, and I don’t want my kids to worry either.  I want them to care about making connections with people but not if they feel that would require presenting a fake version of themselves.  I want us all to think about how to work to make everyone feel welcome.