At the beginning of August (the 9th or so) Benjamin wrote these poem drafts:
Mirage. An illusion caused by heat.
The humid air condenses on the windows
forming an illusion of rain,
but there is no stead pitter patter of rain on the roof
the steady hum of air through the vents provides a
masquerade of wind in the trees out my window
it's an illusion of home
and it is my home.
Draft two:
Phoebe has been dreaming of riding on a ferris wheel (and in general to visit an amusement park) for quite some time and today that dream came true!
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This morning we headed to GUQ for part one of a service project (part two is next weekend). It was the kind of service project that felt almost like cheating because there were so many people there that (from our perspective) we hardly had to do anything (I'm sure the organizers feel differently). We showed up, sorted a few things, and then before we'd even gotten into a rhythm victory was declared!
The very embodiment of "many hands make light work."
After a light lunch (and some time spent playing in the student lounge), we headed home (technically some of the kids went to our friends' house to play, with plans to meet up later at IKEA). We did some laundry and some homework. I took a little nap. So did Miriam (that poor girl work up at 4:45 am to attend a lecture...and ended up only catching the tail end of it because it actually started at four in the morning, not five. It was recorded so she was able to watch the rest of it this evening, but she was rather frustrated about her miscalculation). And...then we headed out to Festival City (where IKEA is).
We picked out duvet covers and sifted through whatever was still available to cobble together some furnishings (there is quite a lot out of stock—we would love to see shipping passages open). I was excited to find an Arabic majlis sofa online (not from IKEA, which is going to be delivered next Monday). I love its versatility—it can be a couch or a bed!
I really wanted to get a play couch for the kids (like a Nugget or whatever) to put in our shipment, but wasn't able to get one in time. The kids love building cushion forts—I figure that these majlis sofas will do just the trick!
Anyway, we wandered all through IKEA with our friends, looking at all kinds of things (most of which was out of stock) and selecting many other things to purchase, and then had a little dinner in the cafe (not the restaurant) before heading home for the sad little cake I baked.
Rachel was pretty eager to get to talk to us on her first P-Day (preparation day: when missionaries get some time off of missionary duties to do laundry, grocery shop, catch up on correspondence, and relax a little). Phone calls home will typically be limited to P-Days, but Rachel's been calling a little more frequently since she's doing home MTC, has no companion, and is feeling a little lonely.
Miriam has been doing companion study time with Rachel (on the phone). And my mom is trying to see if any ladies in her ward would be willing to take Rachel out for a walk in the middle of the day (like she's a crate-bound puppy—Rachel has been walking laps in the backyard during her class breaks). It will get better for her, I'm sure.
And look! I don't know if you can see, but her name tags made it to her and she's now officially Chị Heiss! I mean, I suppose she was officially Chị Heiss when she was set apart earlier this week...but now she looks it!
A lot of the walking around we end up doing happens to be indoors (so much so that one day Benjamin looked up symptoms of vitamin D deficiency and whether or not you can get vitamin D through a window when he realized he hadn't been outside the entire day...not that a single day without the sun will give you a vitamin D deficiency...but many days without it might). A lot of this indoor walking happens in malls.
Mall life is alive and well here.
We like to be on the lookout for clever typography and/or names of things when we're out and about...and here are two we've spotted recently.
First up, "eyewa" or "أيوا":
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Phoebe spent the day as an only child, a position she took to quite well.
She is rather emotional and tends to be rather strongly affected by nostalgia—which is odd because she's only four. How nostalgic can she really be, right?
Remember how just hearing the song 'There's Always Tomorrow' from Rudolph would set her off crying all the time? Like, we could just start singing it and she would start crying?
It was hilarious, but very indicative of her personality.
The song just made her so sad that she couldn't even handle it.
Similarly, she had to laugh boisterously through the entire (loud) call to prayer because it was so loud that once she was startled she was going to either laugh or cry and she settled on laughing and...that was that. Like, those giggle weren't going anywhere until the emotions had fully run their course.
Well, last night we were getting ready to play Nerts together, which Phoebe had uninvited herself from because it's too fast-paced for her. Instead she sat down with a phone and asked it to play some memories for her. She loves the little video montages Apple puts together. So she was just sitting down and watching one of those movies when she started sobbing.
"Oh, Phoebe! What's wrong?" we asked.
"Do you...do you miss me?" she blubbered. "Being this little?"
"Oh, of course I miss that sweet little Phoebe! She was so cute and cuddly and funny! But we also love this Phoebe," I said, giving her a hug.
"But I was sooooo cuuuuuuute!" she wailed. "And I was so little! Just look at me!"
"You were so cute and little! You were my favourite little Phoebe in the whole entire world! And it is so hard to watch you grow up because I always miss little Phoebe. But it is so fun to watch you grow up because you become more incredible every single day!"
We watched a few movies of her being little and cute and fun and we laughed and hugged and blew our noses (or at least her nose)...and...she's not quite over wishing she could reclaim her babyhood, so today (Saturday) was a good day for her to be an "only child" for the day.
Benjamin slept over at G's house last night.
Miriam left for the library to hang out with her knitting group friends early this morning.
And then Andrew took Zoë and Alexander over to G's house to hang out with G's younger siblings.
So it was just Phoebe and me and Daddy for most of the day, which was perfect for Phoebe.
We did some window shopping at the mall at some home goods stores, just to see what's available furniture-wise (since we have none), and she quite enjoyed walking around, trying out furniture, and imagining putting a room together.
Oh, and convincing Andrew and me to carry her.
I don't know what sweet nothings she was whispering in his ear when it was his turn to carry her, but I had an ongoing rendition of "Oh, how I love my beautiful mommy! She is so nice and sweet! And her cheek is soft and she's wearing black pants! Oh, how I love my beautiful mommy!" going the whole time I was carrying her. It involved lots of nuzzling into my neck and hair. She was very clingy.
But here she is down for a moment in the rug section (she claimed this area as her fort):
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It has been one month since we left the United States, so today I'll confess that I didn't pack lotion. I packed a lot of things, but I didn't pack any lotion. In fact, I gave away a few perfectly good brand new bottles of lotion that had been sitting in our storage room because I didn't want to pack them all the way here.
Why?
Because they have lotion here.
Obviously.
I packed an extra bottle of hair detangling spray because I wasn't sure that they would have that here (I don't know why), but we found some right there beside the children's shampoo (which is in the baby aisle), and it was a good thing, too, because that extra bottle of detangling spray I packed broke on the way over here.
Which is precisely what I envisioned a bottle of lotion doing.
So I didn't pack any because for sure, for sure they have lotion here, right?
Apparently wrong.
Andrew got his residency card and that mean's we're apartment shopping.
Today we looked at some apartments at The Pearl.
Really I wanted to look at this great apartment right off the Msheireb metro station...but alas it was snapped up before we even got to look at it. But our real estate agent suggested some other apartments at The Pearl.
We looked at one and were not very impressed. I just don't see how it could possibly be as big as they were telling me it was (or perhaps it was simply that a lot of the square metreage was a terrible use of space) and it was rather...run down...though we were still considering it.
And then he took us to another place that was incredible. It was a little over our housing allowance (meaning we'll have to pay some of our rent out-of-pocket), but for its size and location it feels worth it. Plus, most utilities are included (whereas at the other place no utilities were included). Plus, we get a percentage off because of our corporate connections...so...it all...seemed to even out in the end.
Eventually we won't need a place quite this big, but with five kids (all homeschooling), it feels necessary.
We wish the pool were bigger, but it also comes with access to the beach and a long, air-conditioned pedestrian promenade called The Crystal Walkway, which looks beautiful enough in the daytime...but our real estate agent said we had to return in the evening to see it all lit up:
"I won't say that the call to prayer is ever disappointing to hear, but we've mostly heard it played quietly over the speakers in the mall or the library, almost like soft background music. We had high hopes that the muezzin at the suq would really belt it out...the way they did in Cairo when we lived there...but it ended up being much quieter than we expected (which was a little disappointing)..."
—me, like two days ago
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Having been here for three weeks and not yet having visited the suq, I suggested we head out for the evening on Thursday and see what the suq had to offer for dinner (Andrew was also in the middle of having an argument with Phoebe about whether or not dinner at McDonald's was a good idea—I'll let you guess whose argument was which).
Our hotel apartment has a kitchen, but the stove is highly inefficient and the oven is (as a friend put it) EasyBake oven-sized. Our washing machine (which we are very grateful to have, but which is running nearly constantly) also seems to have been made for elves.
Hotel life is great but...perhaps not suited for a family of seven.
It's hard to make a full meal with the limited space and dishes that we have and we have laundry hanging to dry everywhere all the time.
It's fairly glamorous.
I mean, we love the view. We love that we have beds for everyone. We even enjoy having housekeeping come by three times a week (though I also like they days they don't come by). But we still feel a little bit like we're just camping out...still.
It's been a long time of feeling displaced, first living in our own house for six weeks with little to no furniture, and then living here in our temporary—wonderful but less-than-ideal—apartment.
Anyway, all that is to say that we've gone to McDonald's three times since moving here and Phoebe thinks it's the absolute best (we used to only get McDonald's on our way home from the beach and whenever the power went out and we couldn't cook any food). She's always trying to convince Daddy it's a good day for a trip to McDonald's.
But I was like, "Why don't we go to the suq, see what kind of places they have down there..."
Andrew thought that was a great idea, so that's what we did. Even though it was hot.
Every metro train here has a "gold club" car, followed by a "family" car, followed by however many "standard" cars. We have mostly travelled in the family car, although I don't know why because this isn't Moscow or London or DC or Cairo or Rome—Doha has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. The likelihood of getting harassed or assaulted or pickpocketed on the train in Doha is virtually nil.
But the first time we rode the metro here everyone directed us down to the family car, so...that's where we sat and then, as creatures of habit, that's where we continued to sit.
The children—particularly Phoebe—have been staring at the "gold club" car with quite a lot of longing (perhaps even with a tinge of coveting). You see, there are two chairs at the front of the "gold club" car, through which you can see out the window and down the metro tunnel and that is very exciting.
Sure, there are windows on the side of the train, but it's really so dark that you can't see much of anything through them (so they're a little disappointing—our friends went to a Harry Potter themed restaurant and were telling us that the windows of the train cars were screens that showed scenery passing by...perhaps the metro also needs these windows).
Here are the kids staring into the gold car, wishing they could use those seats. But a ride in the gold club car costs a whopping 10 QAR (while standard fare is 2 QAR...which is only like $2.75 compared to 55 cents...which is still honestly a good price for a metro ride...but you also have to buy a gold club membership and...anyway...we just keep telling Phoebe no):
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This morning Phoebe didn't wake up until 9:00 (which is incredible, considering Alexander and Zoë, who were away at a sleepover, have been claiming it's been she waking them up early in the morning) and Miriam left for the library around 9:15, so it was just Phoebe and me at home for about an hour before the bigger kids came home.
She stared out of the window for a long time (we are all still charmed by the view) before sighing and saying, "It's always a good day for lemonade in the desert!"
So those are her window-staring thoughts, apparently.
*****
Last night at 10 PM it was 34°C (93°F), with a dew point of 31°C (88°F), and a humidity level of 84%. This meant that at the 40th floor we saw a lot of dew forming—so much that we could almost imagine it was raining!
Milk is rather expensive here (or at least it feels rather expensive here). It is 100% Qatari produced (at Baladna Farm, which is probably worth a visit someday) from a herd of cows flown in from various countries throughout the world (including 6000 cows from Canada) during the 2017 blockade (with more added since then to bolster the herd)—but even though I grew up brainwashed to support the Canadian cattle industry (I ♥ Alberta Beef!) we have been encouraging the kids to expand their breakfast repertoire away from cold cereal + milk.
They've been enjoying yogurt and eggs and leftover rice (we've been eating a lot of rice-based meals because we bought a rice cooker for our little hotel kitchen) and these prepackaged croissants from Saudi Arabia. They're pretty good, as far as taste goes.
As far as typography goes—most excellent!
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I signed Phoebe up to attend Arabic story time at the library yesterday and we met up with friends beforehand so they could finish a game they'd been playing.
Phoebe was very excited to ride the metro again. She loves the idea of being on a train, but is perpetually annoyed that we haven't purchased her a "gold club" membership and instead make her ride standard fare. The "gold club" car is much fancier than the ordinary car and there are two seats right at the front of the train so you can see where you're headed (which is very exciting) rather than looking at the windows at the blackness of the passing tunnel.
When we got on the metro, we found the door between the gold club car and the family car had been left open (and the car was empty). The children enjoyed looking through the car out the front of the train...until Benjamin decided that the door was probably supposed to be closed and shut it.
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