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.

between worlds: remembering and forgetting

At the beginning of the summer, not long after I arrived in VT, I wrote this:

I’d forgotten what it’s like to be cold, how green the plants are, how soft grass can be on my bare feet, the beauty of sun streaming across the green hills and fields and lighting up a dark thunderhead. So much color.

I’m remembering what it feels like to walk on the street in shorts and tank top, skin exposed to sun and breeze. Seeing my arms from shoulder to fingertip, my legs from mid-thigh down to my toes reminds me how strong they are, how much they can lift and how far they can carry me.

I’m feeling between worlds: the joy of being in the US when they make marriage legal for everyone, the horror that someone would go blow people up while they are praying in Kuwait, shoot people while they’re on vacation in Tunisia, while here I am taking advantage of a few hours of childcare to organize shelves of food and get stuff done. In Doha I can stop, read the news, have time to think about it and I have a very international community- Tunisian neighbors, friends who have lived in Kuwait. Here I am in my happiest place surrounded by green and hills but I miss my people of Doha. I just admitted for the first time that I would be sad if I heard that we weren’t returning after the summer, no matter how much I hate the traffic and the construction and the social system there, no matter that the sadness would come with relief.

And at the same time I wrote this, which I now realize applies to both Vermont home and Doha home,  especially these first days after returning:

It is so strange every time to be somewhere utterly familiar and totally foreign at the same time. These first days back in a previous home are so hard and so illuminating.

And then today, a week after arriving back in Doha to start our third and final year here, I wrote this:

I’m remembering again how it feels to be shut up inside on our life support of AC because outside the sun is trying to kill us. I’m remembering how covering up isn’t simply out of respect for my hosts, it’s also just good sense in this climate. I’m remembering that there are other colors for the sky than blue- dimmer, dustier colors.  Soon enough I’ll forget that clouds and hills can be normal too and how you have to think ahead about dew if you don’t want your shoes and cuffs all soggy for the rest of the morning. I’m already forgetting about what it feels like to have a constant stream of company in my kitchen, people who thank me for my work and offer to wash dishes. I’m remembering the peace and quiet of my house, cooking for five instead of forty, with the view out the window of my daughter in capris and a t-shirt sitting on the curb with girls in abaya and hijab.

I've realized that there is more about Doha that I liked than I realized.  I worked so hard at Doha this year. The summer before this one I went to Vermont with such relief to be away for a couple of months- I needed a full-on Doha-detox and I got it, so much so that I had a very difficult time returning. This past summer I missed it. The places that are the most challenging become important to us in their own way. Two years ago, after I’d only been there a month or so I posted this on Facebook: 

I still hate malls, traffic,  and indoor life in Qatar but there are also, surprisingly, plenty of things that I like, projects I’ve started and to which I looked forward to returning.

They’re impossible to compare, my Doha life and my Vermont life, but each one makes me appreciate aspects of the other, especially at these points when I haven't quite shed the one I was just in or fully rejoined the one to which I've returned.