Qatar without the details

Once upon a time...way back in August...Andrew saw a posting for a job in Qatar. 

It was perfect for him, almost as if they had written the job description with his CV sitting in front of them. He asked if he should apply, and I said that he definitely should. So he did. 

And life went on...and on...and on...

We began to assume we simply wouldn't be hearing back about his application, but they reached out on November 10 for a zoom interview. Andrew responded in a great hurry, saying:

(Hi! I just submitted form. All possible dates/times work great for me so I arbitrarily chose three, but if needed, the other times are also fine too. Thanks!)

He came upstairs and faceplanted onto the bed. 

"I just submitted form!" he mumble-screamed into the mattress.

"What?" I asked. 

"I. Just. Submitted. Form," he repeated and then showed me the email he had sent (which left out the "the" that a native speaker would have used). 

"I'm sure it will be fine..." I said (gracefully not pointing out that he used both also and too in the same sentence, which is completely redundant—he didn't need to worry about that, too!).

His zoom interview went great as far as he could tell. 

No one said anything about his typo. 

We were optimistic, but still heard nothing.

Life went on...and on...and on...and on...and we kept joking about that typo.

Finally, the Sunday after Christmas (December 28) we got word that they would like to fly him out for an in-person interview—in early January, no less!

We hadn't yet told the kids that he had even applied, but this was the point we agreed that we would tell the kids about the possibility of a move. We didn't want to tell them too early and have them get their hopes up for nothing but didn't want to tell them too late in the process and have them feel like their opinion on the matter meant nothing. 

It's kind of a big move and it can take some time to wrap one's head around something like this. 

We told Rachel and Miriam late at night on the evening of the 28th, sitting on a blow-up mattress in the room that was to become Dean's nursery (because we had driven up to visit Rosie and Austin in Tennessee that afternoon). They were quite excited by the idea so we told the rest of the kids when we were all piled into the van for our drive home. 

I was expecting someone to protest or cry or at least announce that they didn't want to move. 

To my surprise all of the kids were immediately on board with moving halfway around the world.

"Even though we have to say goodbye to all our friends and leave behind the cat and..." 

It was like I was trying to make them feel emotional about it, but while they agreed that those things might be difficult it would be well worth it for the experience, the change, the opportunity. 

Huh. And I had been so ready to manage emotions.

Andrew was rather frantically trying to coordinate plans to head out to Qatar while we were hiking Sweetwater Creek in January (on January 1, to celebrate the new year).



There ended up being a problem with whatever date he was initially assigned, so his interview was moved to February, which was nice because it gave him more time to prepare his presentations and things.

Andrew left for Qatar on February 9, had an amazing time, loved the city, loved the campus, loved everyone he met, felt the interview went swimmingly, and returned home late on February 13. He didn't bring back any souvenirs, but he did bring back the little toiletries kit he got on the airplane and Phoebe immediately adopted the tiny tube of toothpaste he got. She carried it around for weeks and insisted on using her "Doha toothpaste" every time she brushed her teeth until it finally was empty (and sometimes even then). 

We were all very excited about the prospect of moving to Qatar, but Andrew insisted that we should imagine it was all just a dream. There was no reason to get our hopes up only to have them be dashed. We were perfectly fine where we were. Life was good. This was just a weird...dream. 

So that's the premise we operated under, knowing full well that we were all hoping it would actually happen.

Life went on...and on...and on...and then...

On February 28 Israel and the US began bombed Iran...and Iran retaliated by bombing its gulf neighbours (including Qatar)...and it started to feel a little scary. 

Just days before we had been talking with Andrew's dad and he asked us what—if anything—would persuade us to refuse the position, should we be offered it. 

"Nothing," we said. 

The job was literally perfect for Andrew. 

Ballistic warfare, however, had not been on our radar, so I admit that March was a bit of a frenzy. 

We were following the news like it was our full time job and were rather grateful things seemed to be cooling down when Andrew was offered the job. It's been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster since then...with some days feeling better than others. And the fact that the Straight of Hormuz remains "closed" has been an issue for us as well. 

But we've begun purging our belongings with gusto and trying to prepare physically and emotionally for an international move (into a peripheral conflict zone). 

This semester was certainly a busy one so I am unsure how much more blogging I could have managed (and part of the reason it was so busy was because I was trying to finish my coursework prior to moving overseas, for ease of finishing this degree), but this was a big secret to keep for so long. It was very much on my mind, so thinking of other things to write about (and writing about them in a normal way) felt difficult to do. So much of our thinking and doing has revolved around this impending move. 

Andrew just signed our final contract earlier this week (on...Thursday night for me...while just sitting down to eat the bandari Hadis made for dinner, which we quickly dubbed our celebratory meal) so now it's 100% official and we're telling people about it (we still have a little bit of trauma from that one time we were offered a position only to have them painfully rescind the offer).

I'm glad the cat is out of the bag now, though, so I can start sharing some stories from our preparations...

***April 6***

For family night we went over our QATAR plan, talking to the kids about how over the next few months we would need to be:

Quest-seeking
Attentive
Thoughtful
Adaptable
Relinquishing/Relishing

Dad mentioned that we may end up living in multiple separate locations once we say goodbye to our current house. Sitting on Andrew's lap, Phoebe's listened with uneasy attention.

"We'll probably spend some time in a hotel, and then we'll move to temporary housing while we look for a place to rent."

All of this information went over Phoebe's head. She was still stuck parsing out "separate locations."

"But not me!" she said, tearing up. 

"What do you mean not you?" Dad asked, giving her a squeeze. "Of course you!"

"But...I can't live in my own house!" she whimpered, clearly flustered. "I'm only four!"

"What?!" I said. "Phoebe, no! It's okay. We won't each get our own house! We will move to separate locations together! First to a hotel, then to a temporary home, and then to our more-permanent home...but always together."

"Oh, together," she said, wiping tears out of her eyes and taking a deep, shaky breath. "Together is okay."

***April 18***

We devoted Saturday afternoon to an intense relish/relinquish session. We talked about how to make these decisions and set the kids to work but they kept bringing us items to tell us about whether and why they'd decided to relinquish or relish it. This made things pretty slow going. So the kids each got two bins and sorted things into the bins after deciding whether they'd rather relish the item (bin #1) or relinquish the item (bin #2). 

We set a timer to check in with the kids at certain intervals. 

During one such meeting, Andrew said, "How is the relinquishing going?"

"Pretty good!" Benjamin, Zoë, and Alexander reported.

"Well," Phoebe gushed, "I am doing a lot of relishing."

It is easier for some than others to give up material goods.

***April 19***

I was talking with my mom and told her the relishing/relinquishing story. Phoebe came in with an armful of plastic horses and announced that Zoë had put them in her relinquish bin so Phoebe picked them out to put in her relish bin, once again noting that she would like to relish everything.

"I'm relishing everything!" she said.

And, honestly, I probably would have rescued those horses myself! They're ones we got in a bin of toys when we first moved to Egypt and we've been carrying them all around the world for years. I see no reason we should stop now...

***April 22***

Andrew had to get his fingerprinted for a criminal background check, so he left in the middle of the day to do that. Phoebe wanted to know where he had been and what he was doing, so he explained that he had gone to get his fingerprints taken. And then he decided to also explain that the rest of the family would have their fingerprints taken upon our arrival in Qatar. 

Phoebe was not pleased to hear this. She curled up on my lap and looked at her fingers, slowly stroking her fingertips with her thumbs.

"Will it hurt?" she whispered. 

"Will what hurt?" I asked. 

"When they..." she gulped, then bravely continued. "When they take my fingerprints?" 

"Oh, sweetie, no!" I said, giving her a squeeze. "It won't hurt a bit!"

Andrew explained how in these modern times they simply scan your fingertips on, like, a glass screen, but we broke out the ink pads to show Phoebe how they used to "take" fingerprints in the old days. 

Dip. Press. Done. 

She...got really excited about taking fingerprints after she understood that it was literally no big deal (and involved no surgical procedures). 

She will be far less excited about the extra immunizations she'll have to get (we haven't told her about those yet).

Here's Phoebe and Alexander exploring their fingerprints (shortly before I had to run Zoë to gymnastics—Alexander went first because Phoebe was still a little too scared):

Here they are looking at their fingerprints with a magnifying glass:

Taking fingerprints was a lot more fun than Phoebe anticipated:

One fingerprint turned into many fingerprints, which turned into whole handprints...

It's not scary at all!

(Side note: I had to have my fingerprints taken when I entered Austria as well!)

***April 28***

Another FHE lesson about resilience. We read "Moving" from The Friend and talked about how we're about to start reading Exodus in the Bible (we are...rather behind in our "official" reading, but are totally rocking our memorized scriptures). 

We talked about (but didn't quite yet) make a top-ten, bottom-ten list, as kind of prompted by the State Department's curriculum on adjusting to international moves. 

Phoebe immediately knew what she wouldn't miss about living in Georgia: 

"All the tornadoes!" she exclaimed. "I hate them! Because sometimes we have to go sleep in the basement and the tornadoes are just like...vacuum, vacuum, vacuum..."

Apparently "vacuum, vacuum. vacuum" is the noise a tornado makes (and this sound effect must be accompanied by your hand making a twirling motion in the air).

For the record, she is afraid of tornadoes, yes, but also vacuums (still) so it doubly makes sense for her to pair vacuums with tornadoes.

For favourites, Alexander said we wouldn't have a favourite restaurant because we hardly ever go out to dinner. That's true. 

Phoebe said picking her favourite restaurant was easy.

"It's the McDonald's we stopped at in Tennessee on the way to see Oaklyn and Ireland! The food was so good and—guess what!—they even gave me a toy!"

"That is so cool," Rachel said facetiously. "And definitely unique to that specific McDonald's location. I don't know of any other restaurant that gives out toys with their meals."

"I know, right?!" Phoebe said, preserving her enthusiasm. 

So...restaurants aren't making our top-ten list. 

But there are other places that are!

The pool, probably. A few parks. We'll see what we come up with...

***And that's all for now, folks***

But I have permission to blog freely, so expect much more in the future!