Neverland Found

My Neighbors the Taliban

2012-01-15T20:52:00.001+03:00

My kids were told a few times over the last weeks that their singing of Christmas songs was evil. Not ugly sounding and off key. Nope, "evil."

And you would think after emphasizing cross-cultural interactions in a language classroom for a graduate degree, I would not be phased by it. I should know better, I should consider the fact that "evil" probably is just "bad" and we're working in two different mother tongues. I should be able to sit down and have a chat with this neighbor and explain how we have a different faith, but I never have thought that their practices are evil, never once, so maybe he could try to see us as just different while worshiping the same God.

But this satanic choral humming comment was not the first friction. A few weeks ago I was told that Allah did not approve of me educating my children at home and that it was "evil" as well. Awesome.

Now here's the twist. It's all coming out of a 5-year-old's mouth. And so it is just funny really, a kid putting his foot in his mouth. Nah, he said it in front of his mom and she just laughed and didn't correct him! And that lead to me supposing that his parents are saying all of this in front of him and he is regurgitating it out on the playground. And so I decided that these Pakistanis were covert operatives and joining up with the capital "B" Bad Guys, the Taliban. Yeah, it all makes sense right?

Again, why was it that I spent all that time studying cultural confusion? Why is this my knee-jerk response? Why did I start looking for this little kid to commit infractions on little girls or say to me that I should cover up a little more? And he did, he's a punk. He totally stepped on Pixie's toe and pushed her down and I was ready to request a new domicile, "get me away from this embryonic woman oppressor."

And then one night last week this crazy cute Taliban kid was dragged over to our house with his Mom and Dad and their three sisters and he was made to give Pixie a public apology in front of both of our families (his dad had heard about the toe and push down). The Papa told little Pixie that she was to come to him if anything ever happened again. He was so gentle and kind and you can see goodness in this man's face and I realized anew that I'm a complete overreacting idiot, even in a region of the world where I have created curricula to teach Westerners of patience, perspectives, and practices.

And I have to remember that this little guy was the one that told me he was tired of "all that noise that Father Christmas is making." He was referring to the sound of the call to prayer, and I have no idea how he connected it to Christmas, but I should give him a break. He's trying his best surrounded by every culture in the world, just like I should be.

It's amazing how offended we can get about little things coming out of the mouths of little people once the pump has been primed and we are anticipating our cultures colliding. There's a real chance that the reason that they moved here years and years ago is to escape the strife caused by the Bad Guys in their own country. There's a good chance that they have known suffering from the Taliban that I surely have not. But I seriously connected it all up in my head and let it out of my mouth, like an awkward middle school-er repeating a racist joke, having no idea the amount of injury those words could cause.

But just since I'm on the topic...Did you hear that Qatar is negotiating with the Taliban to get them to establish a political office here in order to promote peace talks? It's here in the NY Times. So maybe in the near future I actually will have Taliban for neighbors.

What's weirder than celebrating Christmas in Qatar?

2012-01-12T21:23:00.001+03:00

Hannukah. Celebrating Hannukah is weirder than celebrating Christmas in Qatar. We were told by the

exaggeratory moving company that we should under no circumstances bring any "religious paraphernalia." I love that phrase. It's like I gotta Bible and a bong all in one phrase. They said that if we brought one of our icons or a "candle thingy" (hannukiah) that we might never see our shipment. They said that Qatar confiscates all that contraband and puts it in some vault along with all of the laughing Buddhas that tourists unwittingly bring in--they're seen as idols. I think they (the moving company) were being dramatic and attempting to make Qatar sound more exotic and less pluralistic than it really is, but whatever--if you get excited to make a country out as a bunch of backwoods haters of infidels, it is your stereotyping prerogative I guess. It's true that I only found one nativity set in the country, and that it was in the back of a store still in the box, but it was here. I guess that Jewish "paraphernalia" (the TaNaK, yarmulkes and ecstasy laced bagels?) is really not supposed to come in or the Buddha vault starts to glow.

We were attempting Hogwarts, but only got to a quarter of what we planned with the gingerbread--ate too much of the ooey-gooey rice krispy treats.

But I think even weirder than celebrating Hannukah in Qatar is celebrating Hannukah...wait for it, by the light of a Christmas tree. Making potato latkes to the tune of Joy to the World.

Even weirder? Maybe celebrating pagan Yule? Sideline the two monotheist faiths of the house and throw in a little pantheism. We've been studying herbology and learning of the sacred traditions of trees. So, we gathered cinnamon bark (should have been birch!) and burned us a yule log to usher in the Divine Child of the new year on the 23rd of December. We also covered the house in mistletoe--did you know that the white berries of the mistletoe were thought of as symbolic of the sperm of God? It grew on the Mother Oak trees and the gathering of the mistletoe ushered in a holiday celebrating the newness of life and the eternality of husband and wife. It's totally romantic. The ceremony for taking it down is quite beautiful with golden sickles and white linen surrounding the tree's trunk--druid stuff from casa school (and no I didn't tell the kids about the sperm part, I'm still pre that chat, at least with that much detail).

We had aloe mistletoe-icus (for hot kissing, whatever that it...) and Qatar desert wild flower mistletoe-icus (for dry, no liking your lips kissing), and Middle Eastern mistletoe-icus (for don't you dare kiss in public kissing). Maybe the Harry Potter-thon was part of our paganism as well. We read 3 HP books over the break and watched the first 4 movies. We've been waiting for years for the kiddles to be old enough to enjoy it.

Our attempt at a wreath, snow was a big craving this year

This was actually a fantastic magical month. We had to make all of our ornaments (gingerbread stars with bird seed icing-ed on). We play-doughed the holy family so we could fill the "EMPTY MANGER SCENE" that was for sell at the Carrefore (couldn't get over the irony of that gigantic sign). Everything just seemed simpler and lacking any materialism touches.

--and it keeps giving because all of the gifts have not made it through customs yet. We might be celebrating in July still. I sure hope that no one sent us paraphernalia!

The best ideas I've not had...but now I do

2012-01-11T15:35:00.000+03:00

I know, I know. Everyone wants to see some holiday pictures. BUT UPLOADING TAKES SO LONG and Smee and Peter are adventuring in Athens and so as all of those folks in San Diego loved to say with smirks of "you must have fallen asleep during the discussion of birth control in middle school"...MY HANDS ARE FULL. But, I just saw this, and it spoke to me. And since I would like to speak to all of you, I thought I would share. I'm joining this secret society.

You can find the article beneath as well as a lot more ideas at creative microphilanthropy at www.good.is

And I quote...

Though Darwin is most widely known for popularizing the “survival of the fittest,” that was actually only half of his view on human nature. Twelve years after publishing On the Origins of Species, he wrote Descent of Man, in which he argued that “our regard for the approbation and disapprobation of our fellows depends on sympathy, which, as we shall see, forms an essential part of the social instinct, and is indeed its foundation-stone.”

How about that? Even Darwin believed that human beings are instinctually social and sympathetic. Perhaps it’s society’s hardening effects that condition us to stop obeying our most basic instincts to empathize, share, and act on behalf of others.

Believe it or not, philanthropy’s etymological roots are not actually focused on finances. The word, which literally means “the love of humanity,” was coined 2,500 years ago by Greek playwright Aeschylus. In one of his plays, the character Prometheus gives two gifts to a group of people living in dank caves: fire and optimism.

We’re not advocating you go out and build a fire in Union Square, although, on second thought, urban s'more-making sounds delicious. That’s exactly the point. Creative microphilanthropy is all about thinking about things that you love, things that give you a sense of optimism about the state of the world, and bestowing them on others.

For examples of how to give away $30 this month as part of our GOOD Challenge, this week we look to the “secret agents” of The Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy. Here are three inspiring ideas:

1. Comfort food for all. Ellen really likes lasagna. Who doesn’t, right? Which is why she took her money, bought ingredients, made massive, steaming vats of gooey lasagna, and then passed slices out on the chilly city streets. Exhibit A:

2. Music lessons. John loves jamming on his blues harp after a long day at the architectural office. He decided to take his money, buy a few beginner harmonicas, and offer them to homeless folks along with a mini-lesson. Not only did he give the gift of music, but he started a few people down the path of having a new skill. And what’s better, he was able to have an exchange with some people who were struggling economically that had nothing to do with money.

3. Bookmark it. Hsing is super into books. She even has her own personal lending library, so it’s no wonder that she decided to take her cash and tuck it into her favorite books in bookstores, along with little notes imploring people to follow up with her. Exhibit B:

A full six months later, Hsing got this note back:

My name is Eli. A few months ago, my girlfriend bought the book, 1000 Places To See Before You Die, as a gift for me. Imagine her surprise when she got home and found your note and gift hidden in the pages!

We were so thrilled by the kind gesture and good fortune, and are making plans to see the world together. Your gift came at just the right time for me and us. It's something we'll always remember as we tear through the pages of the book and corners of the globe.

So what’s something that lights you up, makes you genuinely giddy, or just plain amuses the hell out of you? And can you give that gift to someone else this month? You never know--it might come at just the right time.

Peter's Journal Entry today

2012-01-04T12:58:00.000+03:00

January 4, 2012

Wednesday. It's a new year and Ewa (Banshee Bug) is inconsolable. I don't know which is worst, how sad Ewa is or how sad mom is because of Ewa. They are like the two evil twins of global warming and ocean asidificashun.

Wendy's entry.

Today for breakfast we had smoothies and I had to bring Myriam and Ewa to the park and then I came back and did casa school with Daddy and then we did a little of Harry Potter and then Ewa woke up and so Mommy and Daddy had to try and take care of the baby so me and Gaebriel are doing our personal work and me and Mommy are about to do Hogwart's in gingerbread...

What I have learned. Science has been successful and spelling is great with fun added twists, but the run on sentences are out of control. Hogwart's pictures to follow. Yes, Peter actually came up with that stuff on his own.

Learning a new kind of patriotism

2011-12-18T12:53:00.002+03:00

I have so long tied the concept of patriotism with conversations of the military, "homeland security," and "border control" that this 40th Anniversary of the State of Qatar has really been surprising. When the pride in your country is coupled with the knowledge and heaviness of families torn apart through military duties and the images of suffering innocents that accompanies war, it is hard to get really celebratory. My first awakening to this kind of stark survivalist patriotism, was as a child at a hockey game the day that war was declared on Iraq (part I) after the Kuwait takeover. Lee Greenwood was in my hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina singing "Because I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free. And I won't forget the men who died who gave that right to me, and I'll gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today. 'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land, God Bless the USA." We were all streaming tears with the hope and terror that a new war brings. I was 12 and I remember boys in my middle school, who were best known for popping our training bras, casting off their playfulness and asking teachers if this war would last long enough for them to be conscripted. I remember dreaming of my sexy nurse uniform I would wear while performing WWII-esque service out in tents perched on dunes. The world was changing. And it hasn't really changed back. We have known war since that point.

Jassim Zaini's Our Epic Tale depicting Qatar's move from traditional to global economy

Yes, I am proud to be an American, and at the same time I am excited to see a patriotism without the nuance of war to remind me of love of country for the love of the land and people, and that is what Qatar has taught me this week. Qatar has side-stepped Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities descriptions of nationalism where the holiest ground of a country is it's military cemetery. It has placed back patriotism in the land of the living for me.

Their holy grounds are their beloved desserts to fly falcons or their edge of the Persian Gulf floating in an ancient dow and gathering the riches of the water. Their translucent domed mosques, and even the oil fields, but not images of a heroic military in harm's way. They really have no military to speak of other than the king's guard. They have the benefit of wealth and being allies with the world's largest military might. My own country's offerings to the battlefield have allowed them to ignore this aspect of a nation, they are covered by our might as we need their resources.

They still have that newness and innocence that only 40 years brings--it might seem ignorant and childish to some, but it is refreshing to me. Maybe this is why Europeans have always acted annoyed at American perkiness and optimistic outlook, they saw us as too immature to know the weight of the world. Nevertheless, I think we have been performing Herculean feats for a long time now--our years and our wars have made our national celebrations something quite different, full of tears for the fallen and missing in action.

So, today I am going to be a student of that cheerful patriotic feeling. I'm going to giggle as I stroll down aisles of hundreds of hair clips all maroon and white and choose one of the flags. We're going to openly laugh and say "huzzah" to the millions of cars all bedecked in the same palate in the parade along with camels craning their necks up to see the air show.

When you look in the cars doused in the colors of Qatar you see the drivers are Nepali, Sri Lankan, Indian, Bangladeshi, and from an assortment of Western countries (that's what I'm calling the pasty white drivers). And I don't think any of them are flying the national colors out of fear, merely for an appearance of allegiance (like the Mexican restaurants have to in Arizona or the Afghani restaurants in DC--trying to prove that they are supportive of the US for fear of graffiti vandalism or worse). I think they actually feel a connection to this tiny nation producing great things.

In all of this week of celebration I'm going to try and remember what it felt like to be free of England's colonial hand only 40 years removed. Maybe I would have even dressed my children in red, white, and blue costumes as the wee ones are dressed here today.

Here's to a patriotism we all once knew, devoid of 24-hour news networks piping loudly on the cut off fingers of Afghanistan rather than the deep purple fingers of Iraqi voters. Here's to a patriotism celebrating the freedoms our country has lead the way in disseminating, for a freedom that has allowed an Arab Spring and an Occupied Wall Street--the voice of the citizens shouting and singing. Here's to a celebration of my country when it had recently escaped the hand of tyranny and not been internationally accused for reaching out with an identical hand in the direction of others. Here's to an America where the leaders had experience with hand to hand combat and knew war was something you avoided at all costs. Happy young Qatar, may you keep your relative ignorance. If you do, I know it will be at least in part because of the actions of my own country, protecting the rights of those in the Middle East and elsewhere. Oh that the lonely spouses and children of my nation's soldiers could feel the same festive spirit, they have laid down their lives for many more than just the citizens of America.

Open source

2011-12-15T12:22:00.001+03:00

Google Earth's Home Page

My disclaimer: You can plagiarize, steal, borrow, or tinker with anything you want from my site. I don’t possess any of it. Let’s call it a product of the muses mixed with opinions that were cultivated by the world around me. It’s open source, and ready for your added improvement.

I've just spent about 80 hours writing far too many pages of academic writing. It was fun actually, but exhausting. While Smee was editing it to death I hopped online to try and send up some blog love to all of you. I was also searching for Christmas Gluten Free recipes (you can look to the page entitled Grubs and Beetles for Dinner for the collection of these and all of my lists of yummy things we eat). Looking at blogging people posting recipes (which come on folks, it ain’t like you really create a recipe, you adjust a previous one that you have been exposed to) and I got a bit overwhelmed with all of the notes I was finding that said something like "all of the work on these pages are copyrighted and intellectual property" or "no copying of the things herein without written consent and approval" and it just started irking me.

I read once a concise quote (which I can now not find), let us say that it was Mother Theresa (Smee thinks it was her). It is (paraphrased) “There is no end to the amount of good that could happen in this world if we were not focused on getting credit for it.” And although I can't say that it is a mantra (because I can't ever say it two times the same way), I can say that it rings in my head all of the time--this idea that the unique contributions that we make for this world are for this world and not for our own cashing in on it.

You all know that when you write an academic paper you have to site everyone for each and every idea. Tedious does not even begin to describe it. Now, I understand this craft, and understand how it can demand a level of rigor that produces a very exact product. (Smee bribed me with passionate kissing to include that citations also further the scholarly dialogue by helping readers find the stuff you've researched.) But I learned this summer from talking a to a dear family friend who writes fiction professionally that there is a totally different practice in his craft. Plagiarism is constant, anticipated, even hoped for (goes back to Anne of Green Gables, "Impersonation is the highest form of complimentation.") And look what this group pulls out of their minds. The level of creativity and transcendence that we see in the world of fiction writing, well we don't even compare this to academic writing, because they are performing such a far different experiment and producing such a strikingly bold and shocking and constantly trans-formative reality with their words. They aren’t muddled or muggled down in the trenches trying to make sure they fit in all of their footnotes, they busy themselves with the actual magic writing instead. (And, we might also note that by not footnoting citations, the literary "allusions" and "nods" to others' works are considered part of the charm, style, and magic itself.)

The ability to join in the human dialogue through brilliant imagination... I mean, who does not prefer to read their favorite novel over an academic text? We get different goods and different stimulation from these two forms of work, I'm not saying that they are one in the same, but which do we prefer to be a part of? I think a large part of this is the freedom to create that their discipline gives to them. They live in a tradition of open creative license, I don't feel "open" or "creative" or even "licensed" when I write academically. I feel constrained and focused on minutia.

Imagine what we could produce as humanity if we didn’t want credit for everything, if we wanted our really good ideas to spread instead of sell them in our own little corner market. Imagine how differently we would feel about ourselves if our creative works did not come with a price tag or a brand or a name with some kind of credential tagging after it (PhD, CEO, or Esquire [I totally want that last one although I have no idea what it means.]) If we were producing to please our own intuition and not an editor or a blog crowd, would our creative productions take a totally different form? Would our relationships to lovers, friends, and the humanity at large change too? Imagine if we were really open source.

I am far from a computer nerd, but it was my understanding that a huge part of the Internet was to spread ideas free of charge. Maybe that is why all of these disclaimers on public web browsers make me crazy. Look at Wikipedia, Google Earth, and the free online learning venues including Wikiversity and ItunesU--these things are going places by thinking outside of the old capitalism box (not that they're idealistically shunning capitalism; hence I have to put up with very annoying, bright, flashy advertisements and click on "skip this add" numerous times each day; but it's still incredibly innovative and open source(-ish)).

The idea that you could develop a computer code and instead of trying to sell it you would allow it to spread to benefit others and to see where human creativity went with it, adjusting the code as different designers joined it--it's just brilliant. This is what I want to be a part of.

So, take what you want, leave what you don’t, you never have to use my name. Especially since I’m thinking of changing my online persona to a romantic pseudonym, it would really only pat my imaginative virtual counter-intelligence on the back.

What do you think?

Londyn Sinphonie (I’m musical, but not that musical)

Fairlight Wildwood (too 80’s soap opera)

Merleauxa Quintine (anything with an ‘x’ seems brazenly sensual)

Emanuella Muirstin (too many vowels)

We heard these people speak this summer with the last name Goodnightly I think. That’s a good name. Or maybe just Knight or Queen or Kingston (nah, too Crusader-ish)

I’ll work on the pseudonym, but don't quote me on it.

Venetian Resident

2011-12-14T18:13:00.009+03:00

For 5 days at least...

I am so fantastically frustrated with uploading speed. So click here to see the best 5 days of adventure I've ever had. What an amazing surprise dream come true Smee.

Drama Class

2011-12-13T13:49:00.001+03:00

Today during drama games I asked the kids to introduce themselves to us as though they were my age. So, here is what they predict through their imaginative intros:

Temperamental Pixie says that when she turns 33 she will have 10 kids. Her husband's name will be Derick Micah and they will live in George Washington and them move to where the fairies and mermaids are. That is in where the hearts are in Paris. And then she will later move to a place with lots of snow.

She will not have a full-time job, but she will be a professional painter of suns. Red suns, yellow suns, orange suns, but only occasionally pink suns--it's done that way too often she says. She will tell all of her children to please be nice and not hit anyone (ironic since she just pounded Peter's head into the floor during this casa school moment).

Derick Flyn Rider Micah will be a London worker. It doesn't really matter what he does, he just does it in London. It includes writing papers. She will have a maid named Soomicka who will help with all of those children, also from London.

Derick and Tink met when they were babies (I can't think of who that could be other than EJ, our previous next door neighbor).

At 33 Wendy Bird is planning to be a professor at BYU to live near her sister Pixie who demands a snowy homeland. She will be teaching Spanish (no surprise there, not that she speaks more than 10 words of it yet) and be married to a David. Their 6 children will be: Hermione, Jessica, Eric, Ossolo, Julia, and Joshua. As Hermione is 14 this puts Wendy getting married at 18 which I questioned her on and she stated, "well, I knew someone who got married at 16, and I thought that was far too young, but I was totally ready and didn't even have to go to jail for it."

Lovely.

They met on a flight from Abu Dhabi to London. She was in the United Arab Emirates to attend a conference on maps, a favorite subject of hers. Then on to London on a vacation to see her best friend when she met him on the airplane. He works as a philosopher...(oh, boy!). In her spare time she paints food.

Peter at 33 is tired. He is busy reading books. He will be on a quest to read the most books possible in a day and break a record and then become a millionaire. Or maybe he will be a veterinarian, specifically a dragon raiser. In fact, he already has that job today because he and his friend Spencer just got bites from baby invisible dragons.

At 33 he will not be married, because he will be flying all over the world on the backs of dragons. "I'm not an astronomican so I can't really predict the future, but the most I know is that my life will be all twisted up with dragons." If he ever gets married he will have 1, 2, 3, or 5, but not 4. He will not have 4 kids.

"All I know is that I will have to find an adventurous wife."

Well isn't this typical. The girls know the names of their grooms and the boy is more interested in dragons. How did I breed this one? It's all charming, but I can't help but feel too many Barbie movies have made my girls way to interested in a dream of a dude. We've gotta read more Harry Potter (we already do an hour a night though...)

Pixie's Post

2011-12-10T15:22:00.000+03:00

We celebrated Pixie's Birthday back in October, but just got the pictures a few days ago. For your viewing pleasure of childhood charm...

Building many mini-turrets out of ice-cream cones

Lanterns for the silly theme

What are you looking at? Homemaking website inspiration at its worse plus some improv. That's my lamp shade holding up a rapunzel tower plus some bougainvillea and some orange gondolas floating with star fruit. Behind Peter's head is a Tangled painting Pixie and I did together the first weeks in Doha.


This was the winner for the week. Her ribbon long hair wig. I have made a few replacement wigs since. If she could stop taking her scissors on her own hair for hobby she might actually get long hair.

Boo/Tink never eats cake, just the frosting.

Boys in princess crowns, the mark of a stellar party.

Her dolly from Italy. Thank you Afton and family.

We should be painting on the walls. That is the 3rd reason I want to "settle down" sometime. #1 is to build a treehouse, #2 is making an amazing victory garden and fairy land outdoors #3 painting on the walls. These things might make us buy a place at some point.

Oh my at the make-up job, sitting in the fire-escape tree-house

our beautiful birthday lady. It's 4 years!

Here Me Tum!

2011-12-09T14:35:00.001+03:00

It was Ewa Nuhr Esther's birthday and so I thought she deserved a page of ode-ing. We have a 2-year old banshee-bug now.

For her party we ate ice-peem for all three meals out of the bucket, busted some balloons, got a "new dess" (dress) as was the request, and went to the carousel and Ferris wheel at the Villagio Mall. She also got a healthy dose of being read to and going to the park, a million times. Her newest favorite phrase is the title of this here post said as she reaches the top of the slide and plops down.

In her lemonade dress (well, Tink's lemonade dress). I'm practically risque showing all that leg in the mall in Doha.

She loves her "pib" (crib) all of the sudden and sits in it reading her books and watching "Ittle Bear" (Little Bear). Yes, it is nice to have our bed back. No, we will not ever be able to sleep in anything other than a king size bed. How did we ever in the first place. I remember when we were first married sharing that lump hand-me-down double from James' older brother. We said that we would never get a bigger bed because we wanted to be close...I can't complain about snoring, he doesn't, but I can throw in a grump or two about pits of Hades weather. We will blame the weather for wanting a king size.

Her favorite meal, pictured here in new birthday dress the "vanilla dress". Ice cream here includes the ingredient methane. They use that natural gas anywhere they can. I feel like I need to give my children liver cleanses after eating it, but the Breyers costs $20. So I think that maybe methane has healthy properties that I will learn in years to come.

"Met too tired to open me pesents for me bir-day"

She also loves to say "me tyoo" (me too) and wants you to say it back to her, so she we say, "me tyoo Mommy, are you tired?" "Yes Ewa, I'm tired" "Me tyoo, now mommy you say it, Ewa is tired." "Me tyoo little one." It seems like a boring thing to type out, but I hope I can remember the silly sleepy crinkles around her eyes as she says it.

Banshee can count to 20 and say all of her ABC's. We've never taught her a thing, her siblings are preparing her for the future. She also can count in Arabic, I need to record that one. In her less civilized activities, she loves to take off her diaper right before she pees. Makes for lots of laundry and mopping. Cheerio shot-put throwing is also becoming a present-time. (hoping it will be a past-time in the past soon makes for lots of apologies when she rips open the box at the Lulu's grocery store).

Considering the delight of cotton candy

She also is a little adventurer, running out the back gate that is guarded with 4 large lawn chairs, she wriggles out. Usually it is the park she has fled to, still scares me to death.

"Where my Mimi"? Is another constant comment, searching for her temperamental Tink sister that is often at the neighbors. Loves marshmallows, chips, carrots, dashios (pistachios) and dumping all of these things out of their bags. "No more tooking!" (cooking), another demand.

they woke us up at 5:30 wanting to give their presents

If there is a stack of cards, they are hers. Same with markers, they are "dolors." I think Smee has almost filed an annulment over me letting her have markers. They wipe up off of the floor and wall and they make her happy. I don't see the problem. But she is a mess with them and has no interest in childish wax dolors.

The glorious wrapping job of the little ladies. Happy Birthday wee one

Gotta go, she just woke up and the park is calling us to go whinging (swinging, but her way is the right way don't you think?)

James got in a car crash

2011-12-08T14:17:00.001+03:00

I knew that would get a good deal of you to click on my link. Nothing like a disturbing title to promote interest.

In Doha all of the intersections (well, there are probably 20 stop lights, so not all) are roundabouts. Romantic in carriages and crazy with auto-carriages in the plethorization. Usually there are three lanes, and all have to look to the left to see when they will risk their necks and pop out into that foray.

Well, he was doing just that and when he found his spot to leap and stepped on the gas of our super-cool-landcruiser-esque-by-Nissan-mobile he crashed... Into the back of a moped with a steel case for carrying pizza delivery. Fear not, all were fine. And Smee was found innocent--it's rather easy to see how it happened, the moped snuck in between James and another car on the right, pulling in front of James while he was looking left, waiting to jump into the roundabout, and Smee accelerated faster than the motor on metal toothpicks. Although we know that in reality it was James that ran into the back of the guy, and his white skin and comparative status to the immigrant worker running pizza around is what made the decision. At any rate, the steel case of pizza goodness wasn't harmed and protected the moped, while we have a nasty gash in our super-cool-dune-bashing-cruisin-for-a-bruisin-mobile.

Smee tried to get the guy's name or anything so he could talk to him and pay costs. Knowing that this kid makes way beneath the poverty line, there's no way he can pay to fix our car, and it is all done through government-contracted auto workers, so we can't control who pays them--the government run insurance company does that. Really a mess. The police refused to give Smee any names and the pizza kid wouldn't talk to him.

When we were in Egypt years back there was a man who was working for BEK-Tel making an inordinate wad of money as an expat. He accidentally hit a man driving a donkey carriage on the side of the road, taking his farm goods to market. Killed him. The police found rich dude innocent (of course) and here was an entire family without a provider, having to bury him and his donkey, without any compensation for his manslaughter. Maybe the donkey cart swerved in front of him at the last second; I don't know. But I know that this old guy had been bringing his donkey cart to market daily for 20 years without getting killed until a rich American guy who didn't understand driving in Egypt came along. I don't know if he tried to get them funds as they were so incomparably established financially there was no question in our minds that he should give them a sum of money as a monthly salary to cover what their father would have been bringing home were he not caught under this man's company car.

Inequality has just been pouncing all over me lately, meaning the last 5 years. So so so wrong, how we live next door to one another, share the roads, and the pizza places, and live such different lives. Not to say that money makes you happy, but it does make you on different sides of the law quite often, meaning the law protects you depending on what spot in society you fill. And denies protection or causes the victimization when you are on their "wrong" or "unimportant" side.

Coming back from Venice we were on an airplane, economy class. Could hardly breathe it was so hot, and every time the business class curtain moved from the flight attendant a blast of cold came through. Isn't that the way it is, the wealthy are so wealthy that they (we) are frozen, practically numb. They (we) have no idea it is stifling hot to the vast numbers of "others." But it's not like they (we) aren't allowed to peak on the other side of that veil o' business class. They (we) are completely empowered to come and glance and even use the rear wing toilets although the same privilege is not reciprocated to those in the back. Yeah, I know, they pay for it. But we all know that the comparative salaries are not correlated to merit, and we all pay a much bigger price when we decide that massive side-by-side inequality is OK.

Coming back from the dream trip of my life I was surrounded by Asians who were flying through Venice (strange flight schedule) to begin their service worker jobs. These little girls (maybe they were 18, but I am not nearly convinced) were greeted before the exit gates of the airport and lead by their sponsor, as their employers are above the law, or outside of it, or some prepositional relationship that doesn't make sense to those of is within it. These little girls being lead by old important cell-phone chatting, fancy dressed men--leading them to maid work (we can hope). Leading them to a life that is not their own, in a place where their employer must grant them an exit visa--many are living as prisoners as their visa is not granted. Their employer has all the power as to whether they will be allowed to leave the country.

And I wonder, having been on both sides of that business class veil, and I can see what it is like being an immigrant worker: What should I do to make their lives a little better? For starters, I should keep Smee from crashing into the back of them. We should all stop running them over.

Cracker Barrell Cheese and Meemaw

2011-11-24T11:19:00.000+03:00

Smee has searched high and low for Cracker-Barell Extra Sharp cheese, and he has found it! So I am making my traditional Meemaw macaroni and cheese pie. Doha had the only cheese that works. My Wendy did the grating and my Pixie did the nibbling (no proper Thanksgiving without cheese all over the floor at my house). I have felt so close to my great-grandma Owings these past few hours, picturing her sitting at Grandma Chapman's table making her biscuits with the deep blue veins in her hands to echo the deep blue of her fancy dress. I don't even bother with biscuits for this holiday. They never taste right and somehow them missing is just the right menu.

Snapping the ends off of the green beans makes me remember the gardens of my grandmas and grandpas. None of their okra or squash to join the meal, although I think I have all of the other veggies. The little happy pop that the beans makes convinces me I'm still a kid again sitting in a grandma's lap.

As I mushed the egg yolks and tried to get the right ratio of mayonnaise and mustard I missed my Dad intensely. I could see that look in his eyes where he tastes his devilled concoction and knows that it is delicious, yet he wants me to try it too. His brows are a little furrowed but his eyes are smiling with the taste. I even miss the Honey Baked Ham that I never eat, but I miss everyone so vocally enjoying it and talking about the sandwiches that they will have with it tomorrow.

The fancy table settings of Mom's house, complete with a million (sounds like) cousins forgetting to put on their warm clothes as they run out to the play house (and back in and back out), Grandma and Grandpa Olsen smiling deeply and loving everyone around immeasurably.

I guess it is better that we are in Qatar, I wouldn't be able to choose which home to be in just right now. And although there is no turkey on our very feast-ivous menu, the only thing that is missing is you.

The rest of the story

2011-11-07T14:33:00.001+03:00

This is the very short sequel that will make little sense if you don't read the previous post. So, scroll down to Pieta and They're Killing a Goat in My Backyard if you please...

As we should have known would be the case, our dear neighbor Assad came over a few hours later with a large plate of raw goat. We were the first neighbor that he took the sacrifice to for sharing. I have to say that is really an honor. We have been in the Middle East during Eid al-adha 3 times and have never had the chance to partake in the holy sacrifice.

But Smee and I, ever seeking for moments to fill out adoption papers, had sent the kids outside to play and locked the door. It was less than 10 minutes and we have a fully enclosed backyard with a 20 foot plus fence. Peter and Wendy were told to take extra care and that we would be done as soon as possible.

Here comes Assad, with a plate of kindness in his hand. Peter hears him coming over out the side gate and tells him with cruel eyes and a mean tone. "Mom and Dad locked us outside so they could have some private time! I will take the dead thing."

I wonder what Assad thought we were doing? Yeah, I really wonder.

So here he is trying to share the equivalent of Passover's Afikomen or the host wafer and we are swinging from the rafters having a thrill whilst outside the clouds and trees care for our children? Lovely. Thank you Peter for your outspoken-ness.

And let's just be clear. It ain't no sin if that is what we were doing!

The Pieta and They're Killing a Goat in our Backyard

2011-11-06T09:51:00.001+03:00

Wendy Bird and I are in a hotel. She is the third child to come and stay with me in this little Ramada room with a squishy red couch and a hot-water kettle perfect for making hot chocolate with lots of complimentary creamer (have you ever read the ingredients of that stuff? I think it is lower than styrofoam) and ramen noodles for Peter. We are weaning Banshee bird once and for all and so it is easier if I am not around for her to think about the snuggles she is not getting. I think that I am really the failure element of this weaning process. Smee would agree. We have started the process 4-5 times and then she gets the sniffles and that is evidence enough that her immune system needs me! Add the sentimentality of not knowing if I will ever have another baby to comfort and nourish in this way (the children from the Congo that we will add to our family will probably be 3 or older and will have been years away form nursing). I lament that this element of my bodily connection with the most precious things in my life may be gone. To know that you are giving them heath and assurance of your constant vigilance is a priceless gift, that comes with a high price for the moms of the world I will concede. The back aches, the loss of bodily shape that is ultimately desirable (we keep some fat deposits to be a contributor of organic food production). And then there is the sleep and the freedom loss, knowing that you must be around to feed that little soul every few hours. It is hard. It is wonderful. I am sad that it is gone.

Last night we went to Zikreet, a little village on the northeast edge of Qater, to go swimming and picnicking with friends Michael and Silvia. It involved about a half an hour each way of off-roading through some dunes and rock beds. We piled them into our super cool 1998 Indian Jones-esque Nissan Patrol (a landcruiser made by Nissan) and went bouncing. I was holding Banshee for the ride back and let her nurse one last time so the screaming would cease--there were 10 of us in the car as they have 2 babes and so Banshee's banshee-ing was not so lovely. So, that is my last memory of snuggling with my wee one. Bouncing bouncing bouncing thud goes the head, wheeeeeeee.

Back in the hotel Wendy and I were playing an art game and the question was "name an artist who sculpted the Pieta" and looking at the image I could find for her online of Mary cradling Jesus it seemed I knew what she felt a little more. Even saying goodbye to a child that is ending that connection we feel of child to mother for nourishment gives me a few days of off-kiltered-lets-stay-distracted-so-I-don't-go-hyper-emotional-sadness. What would it feel to cradle your child to your breast who had been offered as a human sacrifice?

And on that note...

For Muslims Abraham was in the midst of sacrificing Ishmael when God said he had done enough and had shown his commitment by being willing to slaughter his own son. Horrific. How is this the base narrative of all monotheism? At least one answer is that death, and particularly murder, is about as mortal and bodily as we can get. It is the human experience, seeing life, facing death, causing death even, and questioning what kind of faith we will have at that instant. Well, today is Eid al-adha, or "holiday of the sacrifice" where Abraham's sacrifice is remembered by slaughtering an animal, sheep goats, cows, camels. In three days more than 100 million animals will be slaughtered. A third of the animal will be eaten by the families as a holy offering to God, and a third will be given to neighbors and friends to show that unity with others and a community is a manifestation of God's love, and a third will go to the impoverished who cannot afford to sacrifice their own.

Now before you start picturing blood running in the streets, I just want to remind you all that in less than 3 weeks there will be about a 100 million turkeys slaughtered for an absolutely non-holy communion with food. I have a hard time listening to Americans complaining about animal sacrifice as we/they (I think "they" is better as I claim vegetarian exempt status) consume 30% of all of the meat in the world when we have way less than a third of the population of the world.

That said, Peter is having a break down. He heard the bleating of a goat in our back yard this morning and was thrilled at the prospect of making friends with the neighbors new "pet." Smee told him the fate of said livestock, and he has been an emotional wreck ever since. Peter eats meat. He loved chicken nuggets until a PETA volunteer gave him some reading materials about a year ago at the national mall. He likes sliced turkey for a quick protein snack and he eats hamburgers anytime he is at a grandparents' house with joy. But it is just a different thing when the animal is in your back yard and you can see the life and imagine the throat slit. What will we do if they bring a third of it over to us as their neighbors? (Answer, we'll hide Peter in the closet and start baking some bread as a gift of thanks in return).

I hope Peter doesn't let the blasted goat out (he's been scheming about how to "rescue" the goat for several ours now) or our multicultural relationship of mutual respect may be in a wee bit of jeopardy. More than that I hope he understands that we are supposed to hurt when anything living is killed for our benefit. We really loose sight of that when our meat is delivered in pretty plastic resealable poppy-tops with Sarah Lee written in cursive. It is so hygienic, so removed from the slaughter. I have often said that if we could have a proper relationship with animals--raising them, feeding them, caring for their coats and pens--then it would be a different thing for us emotionally to eat them. A different level of thanks, a higher quality of taste, a safer product devoid of the chemicals that keep me from being able to eat them with my screwy intestines.

So, this really isn't a post about pro-vegetarianism. It's about sacrifice and loving the living. Whether that is the love I feel for my little ex-nursling, the love we see in the face of Mother Mary cradling her killed son, or the love that we should feel for the animals that lay their lives down for us.

Just FYI, after Abraham is willing to offer the love of his life, his son Ishmael, the Qur'an states at that moment he is given word that he will have another son, Isaac, and he laughed.

Searching for Solomon

2011-10-30T23:01:00.000+03:00

The following is rated Restricted for sensitive material--not for the faint of heart.

I have often said, and now I will type time and time again my feelings on the "system" of adoption. If the same amount of time were spent on reforming the process of adoption as is spent on objecting to or supporting abortions, the lives of many many many children would improve. When was the last time someone felt violent passion toward the legal nightmare of protecting a child in the same way that both pro-life and pro-choice activists demonstrate? I just want to throw in the fact that I am pro both of those things and also pro-dissolution of lawyers, agencies, and even orphanages making money off of the most vulnerable humans in the world. I would say that they are even more vulnerable than fetuses in that in addition to having the risk of losing their lives they run a risk of spending many years in tortured lives as childhood soldiers and sexual toys for the lowest of creatures in the world. In Bunia, where we will adopt from in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, even infants are raped and left to die from their wounds. Malnourished mothers are giving birth to a generation of children whose brains are not fully developed. Homes in every village in the Kivu provinces have children as the "head of household," with the average age of the head of household for the entire country at 15-17 (depending on region). It's hard to find sympathy for the current issues that dominate our country's political discourse.

Increasing adoption possibilities ought to be at the top of our political & moral agenda.

I was once eating dinner at a friend's house. Her nephew was there as well, and he launched into telling me how simple it would be to make abortion illegal. He had already come up with a plan, which would put all of the candidate cases of abortion (i.e., those stemming from situations of incest or rape) into the family courts. I will never forget the confidence that he showed, as if revealing that cold fusion could be achieved by plugging a worldwide furnace in a socket--no one will ever be chilled again! "The agency and safety of millions of women is solved as I have found this open court circuit who is just waiting no negotiate birthing rights!" The courts will ascertain if the woman was a victim of sexual violence and eligible for the termination of a child (as though the percentage of rape perpetrators being convicted is a high one, inspiring confidence in our judicial system's ability to adequately make these sorts of judgments)? I was startled that anyone could be so clueless about the state of the family court system. To imagine a 12-year-old, who was in the situation of considering requesting an abortion, going and standing in line for the family court system. To imagine the same child having an abortion performed on her and later dealing with it both physically and emotionally. It is horror after horror. Adoption could possibly be the best solution for her emotionally and the baby physically (but most likely not as how would such a young body endure something it is not fully developed for yet), but what kind of mother wants to put her child in the orphanages that this world boasts or in the foster care hell that happens in many situations.

It is plain that improvements to adoption law influencing organizations and lawyers (both of whom are, let us be clear, making money off of the weakest of children in our society) to change policies and feigned expenses plus a homogenizing of state laws allowing for a clear path to adoption (instead of a tax-code-esque discombobulated mess territory by territory) would be all of the encouragement that many families need. When I say "improvements" I most certainly mean a reduction in the amount that is required to adopt/purchase a child! One of the things we loved about the prospect of adopting in Uganda is that they had a cap on the amount that adoption agencies could charge while in Uganda. It can only top $2,000. But if you look at adoption companies adopting from the region they charge around $30,000 citing the need to de-worm and de-lice the children before they present them to you with a bow on top. Right, I'm sure that the orphanages are seeing a large chunk of that thirty grand.

Let me be clear that I do not intend to bash every organization, lawyer, or social network aiding orphans. Obviously there are many that are in the trenches of this battle while I am sitting in the tower looking down.

We are fortunate in that we will not have to go through an agency as Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia (the two countries we are focusing on) are not Hague Conference countries. We are also fortunate in that we are doing this from Doha and do not have to comply with California or Virginia laws of adoption. One of which demands tax records going back 7 years. We just don't have them! And what is on a tax form from 7 years ago that would suggest I am an unfit parent? Our large obstacle is that many countries in Africa have tense relationships with Qatar as there are service-force workers who have been "detained" or who have had their passports confiscated and have not received full wages from companies within Qatar. It is seen as a country making victims and they do not want to send their children there.

Let the adventure of adoption begin! In preparing for our homestudy we are in search of a set of bunk beds and covering the walls with brightly colored paintings. We have spoken with the person who will perform our homestudy and think that we can qualify to adopt 2 children, but reading the example of homestudies posted by the government concerning qualifying your house is daunting...and just sick. I copied and pasted the following ridiculous account of shmancy pants richo-suburbanites.

Sample Wording: “Bradley, Susan, Ngoye, and Emma have recently moved into a newly developed residential area that was built within a top-rated school district. The development has a diverse population of ethnicity, including a family from Country X. The home consists of 3,500 square feet of living space. The first level of the home contains an open foyer, living room, formal dining room, office, 1⁄2 bath, eat-in kitchen, and a family room with a fireplace. The second level of the home contains the laundry room, master bedroom and bath, three bedrooms, and one shared bathroom. One of the bedrooms belongs to Ngoye and Emma, and one has been decorated as the nursery for their new sister from Country X. The third bedroom is the guest bedroom. The basement contains a bathroom, movie/ game room, an additional bedroom, and a craft/ playroom. The home also has an attached three-car garage and a large fenced-in backyard. Each level of the home is fully equipped with smoke alarms, carbon monoxide detectors, and fire extinguishers. This home also has access to public utilities, shopping, local fire and police departments, medical services, major roadways, and recreational and cultural activities. This home exceeds the State requirements for safe and suitable accommodations for a child.”

So, does this social worker do some part time work in real estate? I hope we can pass without a "movie room" and "craft room/playroom." I don't know how anyone could ever desire to place an orphan from a war torn country in a home without a three-car garage though.

I actually have a lot more exciting news about progress in our adoption quest, but this post is getting lengthy and I need to go and check my carbon monoxide alarms before I go to bed. So, more tomorrow.

Wedgits

2011-10-26T01:15:00.003+03:00

I love living here. I mean, I realllllllly love living here. I will explain the social/anthropological reasons for this in posts to come. But now for the personal ones...

No rent, no car payment, no utilities--the first time in our married life that we have not been concerned about money. I think I can literally feel the stress hanging over me saying, "are you sure you aren't worried about me, because I am right here. You can put me on anytime that you want and wear my heavy burden, o' my pretty..." Can I tell you how many times I have awoken in the morning to find a light left on through the night and think "so how much did that just cost us"--I don't have to think about that here. There's also the fact that gas is like 25 cents a litre. Crazy stuff. This all leads me to the next reason I love the place. Environmentalism!

Environmentalism is birthing in Qatar. This means that gas will soon cost more as they need to reduce the huge amount of SUV's humming around here without any check on their pollution levels. It also means that future generations will likely not have free utilities because this desalinated water stuff puts out ALOT of energy--it turns out that salt likes to stay in water. So, this one kinda nullifies my top reasons for loving the place.

But it is so enjoyable to see the realizations take place in the minds of natives. Smee asks his native students all of the time about environmentalism and they say, "yes, it is important, but not as important as women's rights and so it will come later." I see them as rather intertwined. Caring for your mother my friends - but then they say, "I would like to see some organizations come here and teach us; we don't know where to start, but we know that we need to."

Enter the ECOQ conference that just took place (picture above). Enter MASDAR CITY in United Arab Emirates (Smee and me are going to a conference here in a few weeks if we can get the Banshee bug weened). Enter Al-Baydha Project in Saudi Arabia lead by dear family friend Neal Spackman. It's happening - very nascent right now - and we are here to watch it and cheer along. What a perfect place in the world for permaculture.

OK, back to mundanities. Heavy doors. These doors are so thick! The entire home is built sturdy and of high quality materials like I have never experienced in construction before. The banshee sleeps so well for her naps as she cannot hear her siblings wrestling around. The doors also have fancy little keys dangling from them, and I for one (and Smee for two) like having a door we can lock, we must say.

Bougainvillea out my window. This bright fuchsia towering vine is so beloved by us all. It's hard to remember that we are in a desert thanks to her.

I also love the way that we do homeschool on the stairs where we can stare at the back garden and our voices echo up and down the two levels.

I love studying Arabic again and remembering that skill. I love our tutor's kindness and wisdom. The children wanting to learn is just the icing on the cake. I love our neighbors and kids all around and feeling safe to have them be outside. I love how people smile and hug our children instead of count them and say "you sure have your hands full." I love how Arab kids are so much louder than mine and so I can let mine have fun at restaurants. [Smee edit: living in San Diego was like being one of Pavlov's dogs - just as the dogs were behaviorally trained to drool whenever they heard a bell, we were behaviorally trained to go "Shhhhh!" constantly when in public, whether or not it was needed.]

I feel like I matter here. Not a self-esteem boost, just a shear numbers reality. There are less than 2 million people here, and most of them are not educated and work in the service sector. The number of people actively producing research here is tiny. Connections are made so much more easily. Opportunities just seem to open up in our laps (maybe that is doors open and opportunities fall in our laps, yeah). It makes me wonder if this is what early America felt like, before we were a gigantic country. Did it feel like our thoughts and opinions could change society? I think so. I have never been active in local politics, but after this experience (when I return to the US) I think I could actually care enough to try. Feeling like your vote really counts--novel, thrilling. (Alright, I don't vote here, but I'm getting to know quite well the certain members of the government and their families; which kinda feels like the same thing, particularly when we talk politics. And of course, Smee teaches international politics to members of the royal family.)

So I need to head to bed because although I love the way we get to sleep in until 9 since we homeschool, well I know that it will feel early even so after staying up until 2. Let me explain the title. There is only one thing that I HATE about living here. It is the wedgits that we were given by our cousins as a Christmas present before we left. The kids got into the wrapping paper early and have been playing with them since September. My feet ache from stepping on them, but what really aches is my heart because each time the kids stack them up in diverse balancing acts they say, "I really miss Kayla" or "So you think Spence is playing soccer this year?" or "Madison sure will be surprised how big Ewa is" or my Pixie poking out her lip, "Hammy is still my best friend." (no, we don't have a cousin named after a pork product, it's just the cute way we say her name). We miss family. The wedgits remind us, the birthday cards pasted on the wall remind us, all of the stories that we tell of home-folk remind us. Words can't tell how much you are a part of our lives here, you are in the wedgits (and everything else that we step on).

Which reminds me of one last thing I love, no cockroaches (yet!). I'm told it is only a matter of time here and the two dead ones I saw were 2 inches long. AHHHHHHHH. Now that is enough to make you want to buy a one-way ticket to cousin land.

The Trees of Life

2011-10-14T16:32:00.001+03:00

This is not about the Brad Pitt movie directed by Terrance Malick. Saw it, liked it, not writing about it.

Angel Oak in Charleston South Carolina MarkReqs photography Getty Images

Today is the first day since arrival that there are clouds in the sky. More on that in a few paragraphs...

I wanted to give you all some of the pieces of amazing we get while studying together. Every day we learn something that I think "we should write a post about that." It is wonderful to be learning so actively. Thank you kids for inviting me into this. So, onto morsels of magic that we have studied. One morning Wendy-bird requested us to find the oldest tree in the world. It is a controversial topic actually, as many people want to claim the oldest in their national park/country and proving a tree is the oldest sometimes involves techniques leading to the demise of the ancient. The tree that would be the oldest tree in the world, Prometheus, was cut down in 1964 in Wheeler Peak, Nevada, by a researcher trying to establish her age.

Well, this search led us all over the internet and we met some amazing tree ancestors. Among them the 80,000 year old colony of aspen in Utah and the huon pines in Tasmania estimated to be around 10,000 years old, as determined by DNA samples taken from pollen collected from the sediment of a nearby lake. Isn't that amazing, pollen DNA giving us a birthdate! Individual trees in this group date to no more than 4,000 years old, as determined by tree ring samples.

Sequoia in Mariposa grove

This was particularly enjoyable as we had gone to Sequoia National Park at the last moment as we were headed out of California. We actually camped in what they call Redwood Grove (really weird name for the largest grove of Sequoias in the world) and were surprised by a late snow that caught us. The trees were immense and filled with whimsical enormosity. Ha, what a phrase.

Well, we just learned that most redwoods grow from sprouts from cut down or naturally fallen stumps. The stumps keep living and grow what is called a cathedral ring of new growth

Redwood cathedral ring

Cathedral trees are a group of redwoods which grow in a circle around a host stump or tree, from which they sprouted. Redwood stumps have "suckers" which emerge from all sides, creating a circle of trees sometimes known as a "fairy ring" or "sprouting ring." There are a number of these plant groupings along the trail here.

I think if Smee and I can't get remarried in Chartes Cathedral or Mt. Saint Michel then we will find a Redwood Cathedral Ring.

Onto more trees of life. Did you know that there is an ancient bonsai tree that survived the bombing of Hiroshima? Bizarrely it was gifted to the United States and resides in the National Arboretum's bonsai house that we used to visit when back in Virginia. The story of how it ended up in the states is here. I really love that it is a white pine. We have learned in herbology that the white pine is perfect for adding to the bathtub to aid aching muscles, tense nerves, and congested lungs. It is our magic bath tonic.

Hiroshima survivor tree

Back to the clouds that we saw today that turned into a few drops of rain, our fist in this land!!! Did you know that trees actually petition the sky for rain? The more trees, the more clouds, the more rain. Read about it here to see the scientific explanation.

The basic effects of trees on water vapour and windstreams are:

Compressions of streamlines, and induced turbulence in air flows.

Condensation phenomena, especially at night.

Rehumidification by the cycling of water to air.

Snow and meltwater effects.

provision of nucleii for rain.

the short of it is that trees bring the clouds and the rain. They are life givers.

So, the last tree I want to tell you about is actually shocking. It is as wild as a dinosaur being found. This is Jurassic Park Herbology peoples. It is the Wollemi Pine. Bushmen in Tazmania found it about a decade ago. The grove of Wollemi's is an international secret, though we know that it is about an hour from Sydney, protected to keep them alive in the wild. Watch this video to learn about this oh so ancient tree of life that lived with Tyranosauri. We're trying to find a way to grow our own, but will probably have to have a different locale for that one to happen.

Wollemi Pine. Isn't that crazy?

In closing to this homeschool lecture of sorts, I want to include one of my favorite ever presenters on the import of trees, William McDonough, a revolutionary architect and inventor spoke about our interconnectedness with nature and responsibility to her here. One of his many great quotables is speaking of the majesty of trees and our willingness to ignore that in rampant materialism:

Design something that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon,fixes nitrogen, distills water
,
accrues solar energy as fuel, makes complex sugars and food, creates

microclimates, changes colors with the seasons and self-replicates. Well, why don't we

knock that down and write on it?

Ketchup...and I am Home

2011-10-12T17:05:00.001+03:00

I have always said that french fries are just a vehicle for ketchup (actually I think my old roommate Marianne said this and I stole it). I love the stuff. This is actually just a "catch-up" on how we are doing. I know that I write about other things I am thinking about all of the time and so this falls by the wayside. I forget that you are not part of the flies on the walls watching our every move. So, dear non-flies:

Smee and I are having a blast having friends--we have not really lived around friends that we spend time with for a long time. Hermits? Antisocial? Maybe...but it has been wonderful getting out again. My best friend from college lives here. What a fortune! We get together every week, sometimes 2 or 3 times if life is perfect. Our kids play together and we go out on group dates! This past week it was spicy Indian food that the kids did not approve of. They have really helped us fit in, if you can ever do that in Qatar as an expat. They have shared their food and friends and time to show us the spots to get specific food items. When we realized that Wendy-Bird should go gluten free Afton was over at my house with bags full of everything she could find with GF imprinted on its spine. Even organic Newton's Own oreo's. What a friend. We have a wonderful time sitting around and talking while the kids destroy whomever's house we are in.

There is also a family from Notre Dame here, he is doing post-doctoral research, Michael and Sylvia. She is from Italy and teaches Italian at several schools and they have two small kiddles. They are Catholic and come over for dinner after mass at Georgetown on Sundays. We love them and find so many random similarities that we share. They will be in Rome next year and we hope to meet up again (I swear I will get to Italy before death. And if not before I will demand angelic posting in the Vatican...that would be glorious...and weird).

Our weekly repeated fun activities are riding Arabian horses (at the Feisal al-thani Museum above), ice skating (at the Villagio mall), and yacht lessons (really little funboats for now) on the Persian Gulf. Isn't that exotic? We also have an Arabic tutor from the Sudan who comes. I teach the kids a dialogue and writing and they basically perform for her and she chats with them. Then I kick them out and I work on my academic Arabic. I'm trying to kick it up a notch to a skill for research in texts and literature. Fatima is wonderful, an old grandma that escaped from the violence of the Sudan with her family in the 80's. She has several degrees, one in philosophy, and is the perfect tutor for our family.

Most days Smee is doing research from 5:30 am until 3:30 pm. He also teaches International Relations Theory a couple times a week. I do homeschool and kiva kleaning with the family and sneak in some research of my own. We have sponsored 4 more groups since I last posted on kiva.org. One from Senegal, Zimbabwe, Uganda (no picture), and Nicaragua.

Such a great site. And why did I never demand to be paid for cleaning the house before? Sweeping the floor and making beds is so much easier when you can consider it humanitarian assistance. Scrubbing toilets still stinks, so I give the kids "hardship labor points" and they fight over who gets the chance to double their kiva earnings. This is a much better arrangement my friends.

Wendy-Bird has had wonderful appointments with a cranio-sacral therapist working on her still present stomach and back pain. The day after her first appointment the pain went away. It was the first time in more than 2 months that she was without any ache. Then, 5 days later it had returned. We returned to the naturapath. Her name is May-Britt, she is from Denmark. After the second session Wendy was again pain free. We are now at day 5 since that appointment and she is aching again, but much less than originally (she says it is a 2-3, when before it was a 5-6). Additionally she is dancing and playing in her scary fairy way that she does when she is tired at night. For the past 2 months she has been crashing to bed at 8. Now she is getting that spunk again and bouncing around more, so we are decidedly on the road to healing. I think that I might take a trip to India with May-Britt to visit with some healers that she has trained with. I can't think of a more exotic trip and it could give me some tools to aid little Wendy in a blue gown (the blue gown is mine, from my grandma Chapman. I always used to put them on when I was at her house and then she gifted them to me. We brought the lovely flowing blue gowns to Qatar and Wendy is bedecked with grandma gowns most nights just as Wendy in the movie).

Temperamental Pixie is bedecked in the neighbor's ballet attire and joyful with her new best friend Brook. I think that they play together about 10 hours a day. She says every day, "mommy, I do want to play with you, let's just do it tomorrow though" as she runs out the door to knock on Brook's door. Her family is from Washington state and her dad is a principal of a school out here. She has 5 siblings, one of them Peter's best friend. Pixie asks to make lemon semifreddos every day and eats up the entire recipe. Daily tea parties with lemonade were in order until she drank too much and had a stomach ache for a few days. Now they do water, carrot sticks, and chocolate chips. It was her birthday this past week and we decorated the house like we were in the midst of the lanterns being releases in the movie Tangled.

We even had blue jello with orange quarters floating as miniature dories. It was ridiculous--who ever came up with eating that gelatinous mess? Although I have no camera my dear friend brought hers and I will post them as soon as she sends them my way. (We copied that picture above to make them, an idea off of the internet.) We can't get the glitter out of her hair. She has twinkling dandruff and will for months--the glitter was a gift from Dad after a date (everyone wants to go to the cheap China store called al-Rawnaq and get artsy things. I feel like we need to contribute to an anti-sweatshop organization each time we go and get 20-packs of paint brushes for a buck). Tink was happy with her Middle East Barbies, called Fulla and Gamila. They come in full higaab and have clothing painted on underneath so they are never really naked. They also have henna on their hands and feet. They're really lovely.

Peter has just found the joys of Age of Empires, a computer game that I thought would be educational--those things never really pan out. He has really jumped into his archeology studies and has decided that he wants to get scuba certified so he can search for ancient buried cities in Mesoamerica and off of Oman (we think we are going to drive there and go camping for second Eid in the beginning of November). He has also started something he calls the Safari Club that seeks to rescue animals and provide support to feral cats. I think I have mentioned that before. We met some friends who bought a hawk from the suq (an ancient-type market) so they could nurse it back to health and let it go. I think we will be doing that as well. He just looks too thrilled at the prospects to say no, but don't tell him! All of this is done with his trusty friend Spencer (big brother to Brook). He is older than Peter and so good to him. They are dear friends after just about a month of playing together.

And the Banshee-bug is climbing up and down and all around when not demanding to have The Spider and the Fly read to her. She loves the movie Ponyo (picture at the top of post, beautiful show), ice-meem, tips (chips) and says "I want to dance with you" so deliberately that there is no one who would deny her. "I want a book" and "dashios" (pistachios) are her next most often comments. But my absolute favorite is the way that she says "I am home" when I pick her up after her nap. She grabs my cheeks and smiles with her curls going every-which-a-way and just says "Mommy, I am home." I feel the exact same sentiment along with what Ponyo's earth mother says "life is mysterious and amazing."

Watching the world tilt

2011-10-11T15:49:00.000+03:00

Over a week ago my Smee and I were watching the prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints speak to the world in General Conference. We were watching a live feed which put as at midnight over here in Doha. It was a little holy date. Every 12-13 minutes the screen would blur and become pixilated. The dots would grow to tiny squares of image and then big squares of image. Finally there would be a two second halt in transfer of information and then it would pop on perfectly clear. I think we were watching the world tilt and the satellite transfer from one to another.

It was magic to see an application of what we have been studying in astronomy, but it was even more magic to be virtually connected to all of those people packed into the conference center back in Salt Lake Center--singing and praying with them (complete strangers really, yet not in some way).

As we were snuggling on the couch and listening on the mac we heard some world tilting news for our family. We have been planning on adopting for many years, and now that we are so close to the part of the world where we will adopt from we thought that we would begin the real work of it (look to the right, the page called "Solomon" has the back story). Well, we thought Uganda because beloved Aunt Morgan is there, but we had just received word from the embassy that this would be an impossibility due to a technicality of Uganda not rewarding finalized adoption, but rather guardianship. Qatar would not be able to let the child in its borders when they were not cemented to us legally.

Then we thought Ethiopia because it is supposed to be an easier place to adopt from, and we know others who have gone to Ethiopia and know contacts for adoption. We had started moving forward on that plan, but didn't feel finalized. Then during conference we knew where we would adopt from. The Congo. A temple was announced for the Congo during conference and we just looked at eachother like, "why in the world have we not thought of that?" Smee sent an email to the embassy while we watched the rest of the session to know if there are ever exceptions granted to the rule of an adopting family not having more than 2 children already. They are. In fact, they even encouraged us to move forward although we have 4.

The Congo is considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a woman, at the bottom of the list. After years and years as rape being used as a weapon this is an obvious placing, but that is just the beginning of the struggles for women. Young marriage, little health care, constant emergency migration. All of this adds up to horrid conditions for women and children (and men and farm animals, mountain gorillas and mangoes - of course nothing escapes the horrid scenario that the Congo has seen). Smee and I have worked for several different organizations in aiding those in the Congo--it was the region of the world that we wanted to work for when he received his graduate degree in international relations years ago. Through Women for Women International we adopted a "sister," SOS Children's Villages has benefited from fundraising that we have been a part of for Congolese orphans, The International Rescue Committee (IRC.org) and Catholic Relief Services are also organizations that have received our support - they're all doing fabulous work in the region. When the temple was announced for this spot in the world it felt as though it was an announcement for our own home. I think that Morgan in Uganda felt the same way.

So, it is to the Democratic Republic of the Congo the we will go to help some of the millions of babies carrying babies. I'm so excited to get to know the survivors of this place. You all might get sand boxed, sand bagged, soap boxed. One of those things--blasted idioms. We like to talk about Congo and the aid that we can all give by making conscious decisions like the type of phone that we buy. Anyway, I think this blog will probably involve us standing on one of those things--I think it is a soap box--and talking about positive acts we can take for the region to aid the Congolese.

In totally unrelated news. Our world has been tilting in other ways. Namely that I was denied residency from the state of California (I know, no big surprise, I'm a resident of Qatar. But I am here on a research assignment, this was all a big surprise). This means that I get to do pro bono research--yes, that was perhaps our travel fund that just evaporated!!! So, we will be home bodies for Christmas if anyone wants to come and sing carols with us out in the sand dunes. When in Egypt we had a lovely palm tree with popcorn that may get resurrected as our desert Christmas tree. The menorah for Chanukah will have to be made out of potatoes drilled into to hold oil as we were instructed not to bring Jewish paraphernalia...as though it is an illicit drug. We thought about going to Damascus for the winter break. Flights are only $70. I wonder why they are so low??? This from the couple who honeymooned in Palestine during the second Intifada. We know, we know, everything is different when you have children. If some of you would come and visit it would keep us here and safe, ya know. Marshmallows are abundant. There will be fudge.

Roses for Dinner

2011-09-29T00:53:00.000+03:00

Years ago when I still had roommates, one of mine decided to go vegetarian because the boy she was oggling over was an herbivore. This particular roommate was a dear friend, and we bought groceries together, so all of the sudden I too was a vegetarian. The boy she dreamed of became a husband, but they ended their vegetarian experiment a few years later when she was pregnant and struggling to get the protein. I, on the other hand, have a digestive disease, so that winter break when I went home and enjoyed a gigantic steak with the family...I ended up in the ER. It turns out that when you stop eating meat you stop producing the enzymes needed to digest it. For most people it is a bellyache. For me it sounded like a dragon was being born in my intestines they were growling so loudly. You could actually see the food moving through my insides tracing a path over the equator of my torso. Belly buttons are not supposed to be ventriloquists.

When I met Smee our first date was in a little town in southern Utah. There was one restaurant available and it was a burger joint, of course. I ordered a barbecue avocado melt with the meat on the side and he ordered a bacon cheeseburger with the veggies on the side (pickles are one of my favorite foods, and he can't stand them). I thought he would be put off by my vegetarianism. Instead he got excited at the size of his carnivore slabs and we had a good laugh. Do I miss meat? Only one thing do I crave. It is the lowest form of all meat products (well, maybe spam and vienna sausages are equally low. And then there are pork rinds.) The only thing I miss are hot dogs and the smell of them when I used to go to baseball games.

Some of you are thinking, "you have eaten at my house and I never knew that you were a vegetarian" and that is because I eat whatever is served in general and take some digestive enzymes afterwards. I don't miss meat at all, when I do get a bite it never tastes as good as it smells, but yesterday when we went to a Turkish restaurant here in town it smelled so good. And in an effort to experience food of the locals we ordered a shlew of kabobs and rewarded are teeth with the food that they are destined to tear into. It was good. It wasn't great. What was great were the just off the curved iron pitas that let out a pop of steam when you took a bite. The kids went crazy over them and our basket was refilled several times. If this place were not a super surveillance world I would have condoned sneaking some in Peter's baggy pockets. They were amazing.

The decorations were also extravagant. Ambiance was imaginative and dark and covered in those Turkish lanterns that I will have cover my home some day! The delicious delicious part was the roses. Kashta (clotted cream) be-waraa (with roses) was amazing. It looked a little frightening, like "woops looks like we left the yogurt out on the counter for a few days" kind of scary, and so we had to tell the kiddlets that this was the closest to faerie food that us clumsies ever get. We were quickly reprimanded. Had we forgotten that they were faeries and Peter a rare form of elf? They were sold. Forget the meat. Give me roses for dinner (unless we're going to a Braves game).

Veiled

2011-09-26T00:31:00.000+03:00

This is one of my favorite pictures of all time. Reuters ran it a few years ago during Ramadan. When I see it I can imagine being surrounded by millions in prayer and all alike in dress irrespective of economic or racial or state borders. And then to be that little one, clad in the red tunic of throbbing life, learning to kneel here, through her multitude of models.

Last year I was speaking to a friend about her wedding day. Toe curling and girlish giggling usually accompanies such romantic conversation, but this time I was schooled in a perspective that I have never heard. She spoke of her refusal to wear a veil, as it is a symbol of subservience and suppression. Maybe it is my naivety that I am revealing when I admit that the veil has never represented that to me. Having lived in the Middle East many times, I cannot pretend that there are not women issues in these countries that make me angry to the point that I question changing my course of study (that I have been working on for 15 years) just so I can avoid the wretched feelings I become consumed with at times. I think, why could I not choose Switzerland or Norway to study the peoples and societies? When I watch western news outlets I often feel overwhelmed with the situation of women in the ME. Saudi Arabian women celebrated a few months ago their achievement of gathering in a sports arena to raise awareness for breast cancer, a much untreated disease for women in that country as women do not receive proper medical care, in part due to husbands refusing them to lead public lives. It leads us to say snarky remarks like, "What will they think of next, the right to drive a car?" To gather such a crowd of women in a stadium was a feat, representing the fact that men too have been schooled in the need to raise awareness of breast cancer, for they had to "allow" their wives and daughters to go and then drive them there.

My point in this vignette is that I know there are major paths to build and then tread on the road to women's rights, but the veil is not a symbol to me of that need. It is a mark of royalty and even divinity. When I see women veiled I can trace their hands in my mind as earlier that morning they carefully wrapped their silk or pashmina artistically and considered a commitment that they personally made with God. I'm not saying that there are no cultural pressures to wear it, but just like I have cultural pressures to wear a shirt, it is not an oppressive norm to do so. And my shirts are rarely a mark of eloquent beauty in the way that a veil accomplishes. I can honestly say that I wish I could wear the veil without being offensive and looking as if I am feigning a faith that is not mine. I would love to be able to walk in public and NEVER have to consider if a teenager is staring at my rear or breasts. I would cherish having interactions with others in public that never included innuendo or comments about my appearance. In short, I would prefer to not feel like a slab of meat up for the auction. I would like my appearance to be my own and not a possession up for sale. I would like the intimacy of being with my mind to be enough for almost everyone in my life, and those few who I want to grant the private right of viewing me would know that I trust them and consider them part of a holy siren sanctum circle.

When I see women in veils in the wind I see seraphs. When I see a woman walking in public veiled I am reminded of robes of the temple. I hear the sounds of trumpets at an enthronement ceremony, not the thuds of stones at a public execution in Afghanistan.

To members of western civilization speaking of the veiling of women as an insult to my gender or an act of domination, I ask what is more powerful in the suppression of women, layers of chiffon or a normative unwritten requirement of offering sexual favors (however large or small) in order to climb the ladder at a law firm or business? Why are dress suits even made that only cover 3 inches of the rear, is there any professional female who claims that it is a comfortable uniform? What of the comparatively few women employed at the university level (particularly in the sciences) who put in triple the number of hours mentoring students (as they see their male conterparts falling short in this responsibility) at the cost of research hours and the related higher placements, and at the cost of their own private relationships? What of the women who fill the pews and synagogues, and have for generations upon generation, but never find themselves in leadership positions or in scriptural interpretation positions? Their prayers all going to a male God and/or a Son. As my Wendy bird asked a few weeks ago, "When can I meet the beloved daughter, Mommy?" The veiling of women is not a tale of telescopic violence or of distant religious sects, we locally veil women in ways so subtle when women complain about their hidden/supportive role/bodily focus status they are labeled as radicalized. A title that interestingly enough feminists share with the Taliban.

I would personally prefer the chiffon.

Chain Smoking...And Za'atar

2011-09-25T00:19:00.000+03:00

I really like the phrase "When in Rome do as the Romans do," and so we thought that we would aculturate with a little coffee and a lot of smoke. Well, actually we were smudging our house and the fire got a little carried away. And the 3 complete sets of tea/coffee service are being used to float flowers and herbs and will all be broken in another week - so much for that habit. I have enjoyed cardamom, cloves, Cinnamon sticks, and star anise with some honey for the last 2 days--thank you Spice Road whether or not you are a fictional tale of historians, I like to pretend like I am caravan-ing on you every once in a while.

You all probably know what it is to smudge a home, an ancient Native American practice to purify a space and prepare it for spi-ritual (does that work or do I need to write out spiritual ritual?). I have mentioned that we are studying herbology for homeschool, a strange experiment in scavenger hunting in a desert land to find white pine and partridgeberry. In all honesty, I have the greenest house that I have ever had because we found a nursery that sells at wonderful prices and good sun exposure (year round--I don't think we will ever have a dark month). But, I need a few more herbs. Sage (now dead and burned), basil, mint, thyme, and cilantro are all I've managed to find. Sage is a natural anti-bacterial (a Lysol for the anti-aerosol clan) and usually leaves a clean smell. Unfortunately, I did something wrong; we should open the doors up for billiards, card games, and a little wild dancing on the tables. This shack is smokin'.

Back to that Roman phrase. My ideal experience in living abroad is to learn like a sponge, immerse in the language, food, gatherings, school, and street conversation. I want to dress in an abaya. (Peter is dressing like the Gulf boys and looks so charming. I would include a picture if that camera that I found in my unmentionables weren't busted by same Peter the day after the grand discovery. Anyone know where to buy a fantastic camera in Doha?) The me wearing an abaya is a touchy situation here. It is a statement of ethnicity and inclusion to wear such a uniform, not to mention a statement of faith. This place is so segregated, not explicitly or legally, but with all of the expats it is almost assumed that I would want to associate with other expats. What if I don't? What if I moved here because I want a paradigm shifting, perspective exploding experience? What if I don't need my Western brands of every condiment and noodle sauce? What if I prefer the awkwardness of meshing cultures and languages and nuances over the homogeneity that I have found in many other times and places.

I think there is something very natural about wanting to be surrounded by the familiar, I just don't carry that in my medicine bag--it's not in my taste. So, this is the ultimate scavenger hunt, much more difficult than finding the herbs for herbology. It is finding other people in Qatar that are willing to jump the boundaries of expat/Arab segregation. There is an herb that is appropriate. Za'atar*, "wild" thyme. It is abundant in the suq and supermarket, I hope it is abundant in people too. If neighbors are any gauge of the greater population I think I am in luck.

We live flanked by Pakistanis and Indians with Scotts and Norwegians across the street. It is a fantastic international swarm, and the children make us become friends so they can play together. Today there were 10 children playing in our house most of the day. Peter has devised a flying contraption from the ladder that runs up three stories on the side of our building. Wendy-Bird and Pixie usually play school and then princess and then movie star sing-a-thon and then back to school with their pile of little girls and tag-a-long little brothers. They added in doctor and veterinarian today for good measure. It is easily the most ideal neighborhood we have ever lived in for children playing. There is almost no traffic and miles of paths for bikes and playgrounds, all of the comforts of a planned community, plus we get the world of variety. But no Qataris.

The only Qatari that we have developed a relationship with is the man that Smee bought our car from. I will let him type a post on that experience, but let me just say that the stereotype of radical hospitality was validated through this. Abdul Hamid just called today, actually, to check on us and be sure that all was working well on the car--we've had it a few weeks, and there is no reason for him to continue a relationship with us other than reaffirming a kindness. When Smee bought the car from him Abdul insisted on taking it to a mechanic and paying for everything that the mechanic could find wrong with the vehicle. He then took him and Peter out to dinner and walked them around the city and took them to one of his two homes while the car was getting all of the minor repairs.

I have only been greeted by warm smiles each time I have shared the momentary exchange of eye-contact with native women, I'm so excited to get to know them and how they see the world and this country. It is finding the appropriate setting that is the tricky part. Wish me luck.

*It is also the name for an herby spice concoction made from the dried herb, mixed together with sesame seeds, sumac, and salt. Known as yummy green stuff you dip your giant Jerusalem donut/bread into.

May the Force Be With You

2011-09-24T00:11:00.001+03:00

When Nana and Pop took Peter, Wendy-Bird, and Temperamental Pixie to Build-a-Bear as part of the last-hurrah-with-grandparents fest this summer, all of the children chose the Star-Wars theme song to be implanted into their new lovies. Peter's camouflaged bear and the girls' ballet/princess dog and teddy each have this charming music playing whenever they squeeze the hand (or drop it, or toss a book on it, or roll over upon it in the middle of the night!!!!) And don't get me wrong, I am sick of the first 10 stanzas of the song, but love the movies and that it is a part of our collective family culture.

We live about 5 blocks from the closest minaret (tower where the call to prayer is broadcast 5 times a day). I love the adhan. If you have never heard it before listen here. It is soul stirring. The first time I ever heard it live I was riding on a bus into Jerusalem in the early morning. Through the thick windows and over the buzz of exhausted conversation of my fellow wanderers I could hear someone singing something between a hymn of mourning and a cantilation, I knew that this city would feel like home when I would be greeted with this sound daily. I had already memorized the adhan for my Arabic 101 class earlier that year. I remember going into the computer labs and studying with a friend and beginning my hours of study each day with the adhan. It was like our pledge of allegiance, I'm not saying this in jest, it was so holy, so mesmerizing. A mixture of Indiana Jones and visiting the Vatican for the Christmas Eve speech. So foreign, and yet warm and familiar. Listening to the adhan was so distracting, this mysterious song of petition, testimony, and remembrance. I felt as though I was one of the Muslims that it called to. I would always pray upon hearing it. Usually the prayer was not the typical praise of God that Muslims undertake, but more of a diligent plea that God could help me get through all of the Arabic homework that was before me.

Wendy-Bird often says that she would prefer to pray through dance. I cannot help but picture the whirling dervishes of Turkey in my mind's eye when I hear the call to prayer. I also can't help but have holy envy for such a practice. How I wish it were not a bizarre idea in my own faith tradition to pray through spinning.

In Doha you hear the call to prayer in all of the stores and malls broadcast at top volume. If you are in a taxi/limo you will watch your driver turn off the radio and roll down the windows out of respect for the call. I like to imagine what it would be like to have been there when Bilal climbed up the ladder and stood, filling his lungs to sing, and began a tradition that has been going for a millennium and a half. He had been a slave, the doctrine of Islam liberating him body and spirit. A child version of his story is here.

From our home the adhan is not clear. Our home is so well insulated to sound as it is concrete, and I guess the speakers are facing another direction, but I only get distant notes during the day and never enough to awaken in the early morning. We used to have the call on our computers sounding throughout the day, but it took up a lot of memory and we thought we would have the live version, I guess we need to reinstall. I can only hear it about as well as that crazy Star-Wars tune coming from the bellies of bears upstairs. And I have to laugh how both songs, both John Williams' masterpiece of cinema and Islam's reminder to fall upon your knees, remind us that the "force" will be with us.

The Places We Live Dot Com

2011-09-20T00:25:00.000+03:00

There is a group of men that I see every day. They tend to my every need whether light-bulb changes, window cleaning, drilling holes in the wall to hang pictures, setting up the satellite television, or watering my garden. If I pull up with groceries they will quietly come to the rear of my car and bring them into my house. I do not even know their names. Not being able to strike up conversation, knowing that they stare at my children because theirs are thousands of miles away and they yearn for them, I want to reach out to them.

They are the first, well the only, men I see every day until Smee comes home from work (he leaves before I rise) and I greet them as I cook breakfast and they water the herbs out the kitchen window. I have tried to tip them and they laugh and turn their backs, and so I cannot even have a relationship of thanks toward them supported with evidence of that emotion in pathetic monetary form. I slipped them some cups of water during Ramadan though, and that was awkward not knowing if they were Muslim and wanted to fast or if they were just following the public ban on food during the holy month.

I think that this service sector is probably the most unique aspect of Qatar for me. I literally could walk into a grocery store and point at a cart and get a bagger to push it for me while I point out the items that I wish for him to grab. I don't, but they are never farther away than an aisle. If a child grabs something they will help me stop them and then give my wee one a hi-five and tousle their hair. When we return to our car it has been washed and polished. And there is no tipping (I mean we still do because we know their wages, but culturally it is not required or even acceptable). I think living like some kind of fraudulent aristocracy (is there such thing as a non-fraudulent aristocracy? To be at the "top" of a society necessitates your own acceptance and constant molding of a "bottom" part of society - it's fraudulent at least in the sense of being morally unacceptable to everyone involved, no matter how much we bury our head in the sand about it) could have been novel and fun if I had not just spent a year studying about immigration and the great divide in the world between the filthy wealth and filthy impoverished (the first in the soul and the second in lack of sanitation options). This divide is growing so rapidly, it almost seems like it is "just the way that it is." As if having people surviving off of $7 a week is acceptable when there are others spending $70 for a swallow of wine.

Let me get to the Qatar point. This morning as we started school the service sector was washing our windows. Peter was afraid that they would disturb our fledgling doves sitting in the ledge of his window and wanted to play super spy on them. While washing the windows some drops of water fell on the heads of the birdies and Peter wanted to go and tell our workers all about wildlife rejuvenation organizations that he was the future president of and their 500 Qatari riyal fine. I realized that Peter saw himself as in a social position to do such a thing. He had already learned in the month that we have been here that they serve him. I wanted to vomit and then I wanted to yell. Then I pulled out one of my favorite websites of all time, and wanted to share it with all you virtual friends and family.

theplaceswelive.com

takes you to a few of the poorest slums in the world. To Kibera in Kenya and Jakarta in the Phillipines. This morning we went to Mumbai, India and saw some of the places that people live there. Here in Qatar there are many Nepalese, Philippinos, Bangledeshis, and Indians (there are a lot of a lot of other ethnicities/nationalities too, remember that there are only ~255,000 Qataris in a country of almost 2 million, I'm sure Smee will edit these numbers in the morning, he likes to edit my numbers, I hear it's a man thing. [Editor's note: he does, and he did.]) And so I took the kids to these homes and listened to the stories of people who are living in abject poverty. It helps you to understand why someone would be willing to be a migrant, with no legal rights or retaliation of bodily harm or sexual abuse, with no guarantee of wage before beginning grueling work in 130 Fahrenheit+, with no ticket home (and most have beloveds back home, that is why they are doing this task in the first place, to send remittances back).

Qatar has an added tricksy element - you have to be "awarded" an exit visa, and if your sponsor does not want you to go, then you cannot. This extends to me as well. If Smee, for example, did not want me to go out of the country (or if he forgot to fill out the required documentation) I could not get on an airplane to leave. It is not a chauvinist thing, last week the head nurse of Georgetown was already en route to an exotic destination when her husband tried to leave in order to join her. But she is his official sponsor (as she is the one gainfully employed) and had not completed his exit permit document. Consequently, he could not climb on board.

The workers always wear these blue and yellow jump suits while all Gulf Arab men dress in beautifully tailored and freshly pressed white tunics. There is no question who "belongs" and who does not.

In the states there is so much debate over "illegal" immigrants that it is easy to loose sight of why they would be willing to do such a dangerous and lonely task as working hundreds or thousands of miles from the place they call homeland and from the people who make a plot of impoverished dirt a home. As my children watched the stories from theplaceswelive.com I saw them understand something. They turned to the windows where the service workers were wiping away dove droppings and saw heroes, men willing to live in an area of the world where there is an explicit caste, and the haves and have-nots could not be more dramatic, all so they could get their children and wives out of horrific living conditions. They are lonely, hot, and certainly bored! What tedious jobs they do.

In all of the Disney-esque stories our protagonist goes out on a quest, crosses bridges, barriers, norms, and surely kingdom borders. Can't we bring some of that romance in with the plight of immigrants? Why we accept that a person from a different "kingdom" is inferior and can be paid significantly less is baffling to me. Why we think it morally acceptable to protest their free movement without at least expending an equal effort to improve conditions back "home" for them, is baffling to me. This is one of those things that the future generations will look back and scoff at, just as we cannot imagine degrading someone on a slavery auction block and checking their teeth as a horse. The acceptance of our current practices in regard to the impoverished is a brain damage much more pervasive than that horrid Chiari malformation. Accepting human beings as on the "bottom" of society or as the "service sector" or as "illegal" - accepting their plight while indulging in what we ourselves know to be luxuries (and this surely includes me) - what are we thinking?

When did the word "human" and "capital" first get coined as a phrase, and when did we start using it comfortably and not in a satirical fashion?

And it came and passed

2011-09-14T23:23:00.001+03:00

When those miserable aching things happen in life, do all of you react as I do, waking up in the middle of the night and groggily recalling that something bad has occurred? In that halfway realm of sleep and wakefulness I remind myself that there is something that I have to brace myself for, it will impact me as I come out of the dream world and I need to calibrate all of my emotional responses for that moment of "aha."

But for a millisecond I think, "oh, oh, maybe it was just a bad dream" and my muscles relax and I blame the dream walking world for the fear and prepare to awake and flee the cumbersome thoughts.

Then, in all of this negotiating of reality, I have awoken enough to know that I must be somber when I am sober, that it was not really imaginary, but a real image to reckon with. A wakeful truth.

That millisecond of hope, and ease in tension, and exuberance of realizing the terrible dream would fall away as I raised up from my pillow...just happened while I had eyes wide open. My Wendy-Bird is healthy! She does not have a brain malformation. We do not have to become experts in Chiari or spinal flows. She does not face year upon year of migraines, partial paralysis, uncontrollable bowel function, and spinal surgery. And so I wax liturgical.

* * *

And it came to pass that all of the great sorcerers (neurologists) of the land did gather round about with a great gathering (I think that there are a whole 3 neurologists in all of Doha - well, 4 if you count neurosurgeons; at least, that's all I could find). And with them did gather many searching after a miracle and a sign. They did gather with children of the palsy and with parents not of little sadness (tonight we were sitting side-by-side with many a parent who hold the hands of sweet children who cannot feel their touch. They smile into the eyes of their children, but the little ones' cannot meet their gaze--I love these dear parents and children more than I could have before this experience. Their sounds that ring strange in my ears, and the muscles jerking their limbs in a way that catches our attention although we know not to stare, and the years of empathy and concern worn on the eyes of a mother that I can see when she only removes her niqab for a few seconds to make eye contact with the nurse--that deep groaning for her child veils those eyes more than the fabric). They did gather unto the doors of the tabernacle (pediatrician wing) and did make an offering (but just a minor offering, as medicine is socialized and all things cost a miniscule amount).

And it came to pass that a great scourge had come upon the heads of a few of the children (there are 3 other children who have recently been diagnosed with this malformation here in Doha. I am sure that their parents wish that they were given our news). Insomuch that a fear settled upon the hearts of the people (my heart, your heart, everyone who cares enough to read this's heart). For one, the scourge--it came; And then it passed.

* * *

It was a great miracle that we witnessed. It was Jonah preaching to Ninevah and watching them turn to light, bread and fish feeding the hungry crowd, manna, a Jewish queen finding favor in the eyes of a great Persian emperor, a wall a tumblin' down, the mouth of children speaking with the voice of angels. It was biblical. And so I say with great joy in quasi-biblical style, and it came and passed.

Thank you for supporting us during this time. I cannot tell you how blessed I feel to stay awake in this knowledge that the sad days are gone. The short end of the story is that we had an overly exuberant radiologist that jumped to a diagnosis and exaggerated some very significant millimeters of Wendy's cerebellum. We had hoped that the neurologist would say that she had a non-severe version of this malformation, we had not even dared to hope for him to say that she does not have it whatsoever. But that is what he said by looking at the films of her MRI and then through a complete physical exam. She can ride horses, and roller coasters, and ice skate, and tae kwan do, and wrestle with her siblings. I think we will buy a trampoline tomorrow just for celebrating shaking the brain in her skull.

We can fly we can fly we can fly.

Pixie dust cannot compare with this feeling.

I am going to get a much needed sleep.

This Splendid Inconvenience

2011-09-13T20:31:00.002+03:00

This painting is one of about 10 that I have been working on to decorate our brilliant bright boring bi-chromatic white-on-white walls. It is by Brian Kershisnik, a favorite painter of mine. The great beauty in Kershisnik's work is that he writes about his work with as much color, movement, and ferocity of passion as he paints. This particular painting is going to hang in between the kiddles bedroom, so in the morning when I am exhausted from yet another partial night of sleep I will smile at the title. Truly, these children of mine are a splendid inconvenience.

So, I found my camera! It was not left on the airplane, but hiding in my unmentionables. When I ran out due to a lack of launderessing, ahoy I spied the yonder camera. I thought you might all want some happy shots of these children since we have been in Doha - particularly after yesterday's crummy announcement.

I am not the only one who has been busy with paints. Temperamental Pixie has had acrylics in her hair almost every day since arrival. And the sweet Banshee bug loves finishing what Tink doesn't.

Of course, she had to wear her favorite outfit, the one that she yells BALLET! in all day long while wearing. It was pink and white with a frilly skirt. Now it is green and blue and yellow (and pink and white) with a spattered frilly skirt. I love it!

Peter Pan will not let his sisters show him up in the art department. When he is not designing environmentally sound buildings (which he plans to submit to the Emir of Qatar) and when he is not designing posters to take to the local grocery store, named Lulu's, so that he can get sponsored to build these really nifty buildings with plants on the roof...well, when he is not doing that he is chasing the feral cats and dogs of the neighborhood, trying to play pet whisperer and tell them they can thrive in permanent residence in our back yard (in which he has crafted a multi-leveled pet condo made of collected bamboo sticks from the dump...Well, when he gets hot from dumphopping, he paints the Mona Lisa.

Sorry it is crooked, the internet connection is rough tonight so I'm not gonna go through the 20 minutes of uploading this picture right side up. You can see our fun carpets and ottoman in the background, too. Wendy Bird has helped me in the underpainting of most of the works I am doing right now. Tink and Peter just run out of attention span, and Banshee, well she helps in splendidly inconvenient ways, I assure you. So, I don't have a picture of her doing her own painting, but I will put up our finished products when they arrive. The whiteboard happiness will have to do for her.

Again, delightfully crooked. That is a portrait of Banshee-bug and me whilst snuggling.

Today has been a day of butterfly cookies, a new pool for our backyard, hours and hours of playing with the neighbors, learning of female composers and the Renaissance, and an early wake-up (like always). Just splendid. Who needs convenience?

The Chiari Roller Coaster

2011-09-12T09:20:00.001+03:00

When Smee was trying to convince me to date him (remember I was his Hebrew teacher and attempting to be ethical during this chase) we were chatting one day in class about how much I love roller coasters and miss them. [Smee edit: either she's remembering wrong or intentionally toning this down; this actually happened on what I would consider a "date," but which she would call an exploiting-James-for-his-car trip] He says, "the closest roller coaster open this time of year is in Las Vegas." And we went. Blame it on the overly-prudish bubble of Provo and needing to explode out of it, blame it on excitement of visiting a new place that won the name of "sin city," blame it on the mystical abilities of his car "Benvolio" (an Accord built in the late 80's or early 90's that should have never made it to Vegas and back). I'm gonna keep blaming it on the roller coaster. [Smee edit: the "it" here refers to when our mermaid protagonist - Erin - fell head-over-heels in love with me and very shortly thereafter, out of the blue, started talking marriage.]

Our Wendy Bird loves roller coasters. In fact, here in Doha we have a fancy mall built for the Asian games called the Villagio. And in this mall there is an adventureland called Gondolania (there are also gondolas that float through on an internal canal--very romantic; whole thing looks like the Vegas casino called The Venetian). And Wendy Bird demanded to ride all of them while the other kids were terrified (even the older brother, much to his frustration and her delight).

She has been talking about her birthday party (in several months) and how all she wants is to ride every ride in the country. I love that she is our wild one since she is also the snuggle-at-home and shy one. It is a fun combination.

Wendy-Bird has had a back ache for the last month and a half. At first we figured it was from wrestling brother and sisters, but it was too consistent. Then it was a tummy ache. Not enough to stop her from interpretive dance or jumping on her bed and the neighbor's trampoline, but enough to say "I don't feel so good" kinda often. So, when we got here we went to a pediatrician in a hospital that looks like a resort hotel. Perfect blood, perfect everything else that can be tested that comes out of the body. But the MRI a day ago revealed something. It is called a Chiari Malformation Type I with the formation of a syrinx (a spinal cyst caused by the irregular flow of spinal fluid). Basically her cerebellum is not all of the way in her skull (could that sound more terrifying?) and it is pressing on her spinal cord causing a herniation of the brain and spinal cord.

You will find that searching for these terms on the internet is not for the faint of heart. But, after that initial wikipedia, et al fest you find things like this (I'm putting it in large font because it makes me feel so much better):

"The Chiari malformation is a relatively common occurrence. It is not necessarily a disease, nor is it truly a malformation. It perhaps should be considered, in the adult form (Chiari I malformation), to be a variant of normal. Its diagnosis is established by observing the cerebellar tonsils to be below the foramen magnum on MRI studies. Depending on the examiner's definition of the Chiari I malformation (as assessed by the amount of descent below the foramen magnum in mm), the incidence of the diagnosis may vary considerably. The extent of descent of cerebellar tonsils, however, does not necessarily correlate with symptoms, physical findings, or neurological findings. The co-existence of a Chiari I malformation with syringomyelia indicates that the Chiari I malformation has physiological significance. However, this does not necessarily imply that surgery is indicated."

Syrinx=syringomyelia. So, what it comes down to is that this is probably a common thing that happens to brains, but MRI technology is so advanced and widespread that it is being discovered all of the time now. Is the technology a blessing or a curse? It is a blessing that it was her first test, and that we did not have to go through every other body scan and toxic flow to find it. Wendy is relatively asymptomatic. She is klutzy (but certainly inherited that from me) and she has a tummy and back ache, but all of the other crummy symptoms she is free of. She is filled with all of the joy and energy that she has always had. It is an odd colliding experience to know that someone so healthy has the possibility of so many complications--but all of us are in that spot at every moment of human-ness I guess.

None-the-less...I would ask you to include her in your prayers, meditations, transcendent-moments-in-nature. We will need to make some big decisions in this next week as to how to move forward and keep her comfortable. As it is a newer diagnosis the alternative options are not chronicled for me and so discovering life-style changes to support her body will be an adventure. Any suggestions? I have read from other chiari patients "no roller coasters" - and that is just not an option!

Ballistic

2011-09-08T18:47:00.015+03:00

If you are in a black hole, (well, I know that you are not because we have been studying about such things for science and Peter Pan can tell you that the nearest event horizon of such things is approximately 7 million light years away, and doesn't even affect the stars that are 1 light-month away) - but, if you are, and have not heard of Kiva, I just want to share how the worstest (I know all of you who just decided I was not allowed to teach English to the kids) day of homeschool could turn into the bestest.

I awoke to a mess. Kitchen in shambles, we had 3 friends over the day before while I went adventuring for houseplants with a friend. Smee watched all of the wee ones, and he did not do the clean-up! With a home full of green I was giddy and did not notice all of the messes that would greet me with the sun. Seven friends all under 8 are entropy. So, there was a whirlwind and homeschool and a baby banshee-bug was grumpy and on little sleep. Smee called and said that I had to start homeschool with a video that he had just found.

It was a video showing the loans that people around the world had made to others around the world through the brilliant non-profit, Kiva. We started using Kiva as undergraduates when we committed to not wait to give back. Cup running over, where much is given much is required, and in all things give thanks--choose your line of humanitarian encouragement. We were and are blessed and comfortable and craving some connection to those in strife. So, we took our meager $50 and sent it off to help some women in Liberia with an orphanage that she was running. The awesome thing with Kiva is that you get paid back. It is simply a loan without interest that you are giving. And when you get the return you can choose to pocket it or re-invest it with another loan. So, each time someone has fulfilled on the loan we have added a few bucks. Today we have several thousand dollars that we have loaned. Not because we have given several thousand dollars, but because the same money has been loaned-returned-loaned again.

I'm looking over our account. Azerbaijanis, Afghan-is, Lebanese, Cambodians, Bolivians, Peruvians, Ugandans, Sierra-Lyon-ians, I could go on and on. We have pictures and descriptions of what each person will use the loan for, and when they will repay it. We also get vignettes on family life and why the financial situation is hard at the moment.

I'm sure that there is a snazzy way to put it here on the blog, but this is me the I-can't-even-text-message queen. [Editor's note: But nothing is beyond Smee!]

Intercontinental Ballistic Microfinance from Kiva on Vimeo.

We watched it, and the kids got ecstatic. Peter and Wendy asked if they could do work around the house and earn money to send to someone on Kiva. Music to my ears as the house was in need, but the fact that they know I won't pay them for doing chores, it was a moment of heroic childhood innocence and generosity.

Well, clean house came after about 3 hours, and with the rate that we agreed on, the same as the labor force of Qatar makes, around $6 (25qar) per hour, they had turned out right under $30 dollars, the perfect amount to make a loan and contribute a few bucks to Kiva to keep up the good work. Wendy (who worked the hardest, even Peter didn't challenge that one, and she pulled the hardship post of the toilets) chose a Mongolian, Munkhtuya Sharavnyambuu, requesting a loan to purchase some construction materials for renovation work on her little home where she is raising her 2 wee ones.

So often I have no idea how to make a difference in the world. But magic happened today. We learned of working together in compassion. The children taught me of excitement and strength in creating a better world. So often I contribute to the speech of caring for others, the bodily work of it feels much better.

Shards

2011-09-03T18:15:00.002+03:00

Crooked yoga position on the stairs as I crank my ankle around to try and get a view, 4 children join in to try and find the tiny shard that I am certain is in my foot. It felt like a 4 inch shaft, surely we could find it if everyone were not blocking the brief drips of sunlight I get in between all of the gazer's shadows. We have broken 15 glasses, 1 large plate, 3 medium plate, and an entire tea set in 4 weeks. Those are the ones that I know about. Abominable marble floors. I am constantly thinking about shards.

But inklings, peas under 100 mattresses, nudges, and curiosities would all be appropriate titles for this post as well. Sharply-speared-foot-distractions is the less positive version. Like everyone, I have so many ideas bouncing around (colliding) in my nucleus mind. It is tricky trying to figure out which ones are fabulous and life-altaring and altering, and which ones are time-sucking parasites. I have long seen my curiosities as self-indulgent and even detracting from my motherhood focus. No longer.

Amazon shareholders have increases in prosperity due to my momentary thrills on topics and attempts to become literate. Some of these are gathering dust, some turned into topics I have taught on professionally, some I am pulled to again and again and can't see a reason why:
"Permaculture"
"Diaspora literature"
"Homesteading"
"Sign Languages"
"Wilderness Survival"
"Pilates"
"Re-enchantment of the world"
"Citezenship Debates"
"Immigration"
"Aboriginal peoples"
"Ancient Medicine"
"Homeopathy"
"Revolutions"
"Raw food revolution"
"Humanitarianism"
"Politics of Artistic Representation"
"Astronomy"
"Ethnobotony" (this is the most recent one, well other than...)
"Exploring Italy while staying in monasteries and convents" (so fun)

These are things that pop into my mind when I have that rare moment. They are my pea under 100 mattresses in the middle of the night. You might notice a tremendous similarity with our homeschool topics, what a great excuse to learn things you are pulled to on a regular basis. There is a deeper point here than "I like buying books while we are a double graduate student family and lack a real job."

As I have mentioned under "Solomon" on the right, we are seeking to adopt. I think of the many random interests/hobbies/professions that will appear as central needed knowledge through this experience. Understanding the import of identity as related to citizenship and immigration, the power of storytelling and deep respect for oral culture, experience working with the Deaf community and coming to see the depth and beauty of a minority (and in many cases unrecognized) culture, vaccination debates and the import of a personal body situation and health history, creating art of remembrance through folk art forms, sewing (in that we will want to dress as a family in ways familiar to them but will have a hard time buying those at Target and Gymboree), chef-ing (we are already trying Ugandan-fare), and the power of nature in healing children (see Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder).

I never studied these things because I would adopt, but many have informed my interest in bringing children of other cultures to our family. These knowledges have brought me to this spot in life, and now they will make me what I need to be to create a family culture that supports all of those under its umbrella. When I started storytelling in high school at a local library for multi-cultural awareness of the Hmong immigrants, I never thought it would lead to this. And when I take time to sew or chef it is more about escapism, I would have said that it was self-indulgent. Now I realize all of these things are the shards of my psyche and psoul, coming together in some crazy obscure and glaring/glimmering stained window.

In DiVinci's notebooks are many dreamed ideas and sketched possibilities, but few did he actualize into a built object. I want to be an inventor satisfied with notebooks full of beautiful ideas, even if I can never point to the actual need for that knowledge. Even if I can't hand you a device that I have made, I hope that the knowledge itself can be titled trans-formative, can be seen as holding valor. Imaginations in crisis and in short number--this is the cure. Martha Nussbaum speaks on this topic in her new book, Not for Profit:Why Democracy Needs the Humanities. "Anxiously focused on national economic growth, we increasingly treat education as though its primary goal were to teach students to be economically productive rather than to think critically and become knowledgeable and empathetic citizens. This shortsighted focus on profitable skills has eroded our ability to criticize authority, reduced our sympathy with the marginalized and different, and damaged our competence to deal with complex global problems. And the loss of these basic capacities jeopardizes the health of democracies and the hope of a decent world."

I learned a fabulous lesson from one of my students a couple years ago. Lark showed me how to create art with a bunch of broken colored bottles epoxied onto a rummaged farmhouse window. Cliche trash to treasure, changed my life in looking at the little pieces of color that are in my mind. Just wait until the sun shines through.

I'm not saying that there are not shards in the masterpiece that might be un-needed, but who knows what they are? Learning, searching, dreaming, curiosity-ing--never a waste of time.

Cistern Singing

2011-09-03T15:02:00.001+03:00

The acoustics are amazing. When in the Holy Land there is an endless supply of singing spots, and the randomest of groups forming extemporaneous choirs. The worst, off-key, multiple language blurry lyrics, trying to sing like the Westminster Boy's Choir when you are a pubescent youth coming to your faith's roots--sound descanted by the angels. When I lived there I thought it was because of the power of the place--the shear human history and the pulse of a land in strife and in worship and in cultural collision.

It was the stone walls. Angels come when there are cement or stone walls.

This past Friday as we gathered to usher in Shabbat we sang at the top of the stairs and the same holy phenomenon (of us sounding a lot better than we do in real life) happened all over again. I remembered the cisterns and the grotto's and the shepherd's caves complete with authentic dung that we gathered in making echoes of grandeur. So, here is to all of those dear friends who sang with me in those years. And I need your help (all of you, not just Jerusalem singers).

If I am going to live in this new lovely home-cistern, I need a family sing-list. We already do a lot of sea shanties (which I think were really sailor drinking songs, but Smee insists that they are songs to help them row or tow in time). Smee's also got a fabulous repertoire of celtic songs (most of them, once again, drinking songs I think, with the occasional splash of romance). We also sing a bit of Peter Paul and Mary. Gonna make this garden grow, here in the dessert. I also have a few Lorena McKennit songs, like her version of Tennyson's Lady of Shallot. But I need more more more fabulous songs to sing in my new stony recording studio. Please no names of a band without specific titles, I can't spend too much time on Spotify folks! I guess the simple question is "what are your favorite songs to sing in the shower?"

And just for the blogosphere record. I totally believe in a higher concentration of angels in Jerusalem (the navel of the world) and anywhere with a group of singing souls.

A Camera! A Camera!

2011-08-30T22:33:00.002+03:00

We do not have a camera.

How is it possible that we left our camera on the plane? Just as we were embarking on this grand etvinchr (thank you Wendy Bird for the spelling, complements of your first novel--all of you can follow along and read if you look to the right)! I know that most of you are more interested in pictures than my words, and so I had to explain why I have left you all unsatiated.

I can report that we are happily celebrating the Eid, the last day of Ramadan, complete with a feast. Not of lamb, we are gathering with our dear friends here (how random to reunite with a best friend by moving to Qatar) and I think it will look more like a turkey/cranberry sauce/mashed potato feast than that of the Middle East, but feasting we are just the same.

My most exciting news of the week was getting a working vacuum cleaner. Hurray hurrah--yet another improvement on the Egypt experience. I am not a perpetual cleaner, but I like bare feet and clean floors so I can tip-toe without food crumbs tickling. We also borrowed a car this week and so we are able to run around and get some more items for the home. We can't buy one until we have our permanent resident visas. Those cannot come until we have chest x-rays, and the chest x-rays can't happen until the office of official chest x-rays opens back up post Ramadan. These are the annoyances that keep most people from going abroad, so we are just going to laugh with them knowing that we made our own pot of soup. Smee says that the idiom is actually we made our bed and now we are going to sleep in it. [Editor Smee correction: "lie in it" - she can't get idioms right even when I dictate them] You will find that me and idioms are a train wreck.

With the car we went to what will be one of our favorite spots for the first time. It is called Mathaf (which just means museum in Arabic) and it is a dream. The announcement of this Museum to the West in the New York Times is right here and includes some great shots. My understanding is that it's the first modern art museum of the Middle East. But other ME countries are right on Qatar's heels. United Arab Emirates is currently constructing a Dubai arm of the Guggenheim and the Louvre. Crazy wonderful. Particularly since many Muslims feel it inappropriate to draw representations of the human body, the Mathaf is a rather shocking gigantic building filled with amazing art and endorsed and funded by their highnesses. This is them attending the opening ceremonies.

I have just finished reproducing one of the works of art that you see when you go to the website, in order to cover our white walls. I'm starting on a second immediately, some really moving pieces. I want to insert here a well written treatise on the power of art to change the world. Know that I believe it, although I am lacking in writing prowess at the moment.

Just today in homeschool we were reading about the Gutenberg printing press of 1453 and the beginnings of the Renaissance. I was thrilled that our text cited peripatetic (wander-lusting) Dutch composers as major catalysts for the Renaissance. They had mastered 4-part harmony and every cathedral community demanded their presence to create a new requiem for their community. The sound was moving and enchanting, and so they brought their artistic ability from town to town writing new music. Upon arriving in Florence they saw this majestic cathedral with a dome larger than they had ever dreamed. With it's octagonal crown of a dome, ribboned with contrasting decoration, artists of one medium admired the art of another. The Dutch then took their story of this incredible architecture to the rest of the towns and villages that were commissioning them. They likewise had stories of new ways of building fountains, sculpture, techniques in oil painting, etc etc. Their narrative of amazing art changed the world. So, here it is, a view of the Duomo.

I think it could change my world too. I guess that the only other thing that I have to report is our planned trip for Italy in December. So let us know where we should go (in addition to the obvious above spot). We're open to any and all suggestions and offers of villas to live in. We have the whole month off! Gonna have to get a camera before that for sure.

Toilets and Temples

2011-08-24T20:58:00.001+03:00

Temple of Jerusalem

Many of you have heard of our Egyptian adventure back in, was it 2004? I was expecting Wendy Bird and sick sick sick. Our home was on the Meditarranean, less than a mile from the ancient library of Alexandria (rebuilt as a cultural events center bringing us some awesome Egyptian rock concerts but not allowing you to borrow any books--still called a library) and covered in mosaics on the 15 foot high ceilings. As long as you did not look down at the unfinished cement block floors you would think you were in a home of royalty. Then, there was the bathroom. Oh my. And for a lady pregnant and sick, well the bathroom was my primary domicile. To make matters worst, there was a bidet water exploder sticking out of the center of that abominable toilet. What a thing to stare at when nauseous...


Kinda like this one, but the water exploder in the center of the commode was metal and rusty and appeared to be growing things. Well, they weren't growing things, there were just permanently encrusted "things" that not clorox nor turpentine could remove. And the floor and walls weren't that nice. Just thinking of it gives me "morning" sickness.

Skip ahead to Qatar. I was fearing the center bidets again. Aha! They are replaced by the separate french double toilet thingy that kids think is a special short sink (improvement?). The point of all of this bathroom talk is the fact that we have been here for 3 weeks TONIGHT. That is my official mark of owning a place. All of the gross stuff in the toilets are ours and no one elses! When I broke my foot years ago and was crawling around the home for a couple months I came to find all of those yucky spots under your table and chairs, the bottom 2 feet of the wall that adults never see due to their gigantor status. There, crawling around I realized that my cleaning efforts only covered a small percentage of the grime. Did I start cleaning it? No, that's a lot of work for no one but a toddler to notice, and what weird toddler would notice it? It is just our splatters and our dust and dander and shoe gook.

But when you move into a new place, it is not your own. It is the previous dwellers dander and lost change. In my mind the point of transfer of ownership is about now. I recognize the splattered cranberry juice dot at the base of the kitchen bar from Peter Pan's Popsicle experiement. The sea shell that Banshee bug tore off of the embroidered fabric ottoman is in the crack of the chair, as are all kinds of potato chip crumblies. Temperamental Pixie has broken 3 of the 10 pieces of her tea set and shards fill our vacuum cleaner sucked-up compartment, but surely some other shards remain. The walls have been smudged by Smee's burning of popcorn and kitchen utensils (never takes him long), and I have donated a head full of my hair into the carpet and on the stairs. Our DNA and food habits and klutziness have landed. Our mark is on the place.

Photo by Trey Ratcliff

Enter temples. Smee and I have always gathered with our children to establish our home as one pointed in the direction of the divine and seeking guidance of a higher knowledge than we possess. We usually call this dedicating our home or chanukat beyt. We want our children to understand holy space and holy time, and that their home is such a space, our time together such time.

We have moved 17 times in 10 years of marriage, so this practice is more than a yearly ritual. The kids look forward to it. We gather on a prayer rug from Mecca (another temple) given to us by dear neighbors when in Egypt, and we talk to one another about our dreams for this home, and then any fears. Temples are a place where heaven and earth meet, to connect our ground with the super stratosphere we pray together that this house will be blessed and safe and joyful and magic--filled with that kind of magic that only faith can lend--our eyes are expecting miracles.

Qatar is an especially fun place to do such a thing. First of all, we are gathering here during the holy month of Ramadan (holy time) and secondly we are far from temples that have been special to our family in the past and so there is an even more intense desire to create our home as a temple house.

From Richardwebbtemples.com

This paragraph is going to be esoterica for those unfamiliar with ancient Jewish tradition of the temple, jump to next stanza if the details are cumbersome. We have created a temple spot in our home. Complete with a candlestick (like the menorah), a table and plate (table of shewbread and challah to usher in shabbat), a box with things sacred for our family (the ark and mercy seat) a pillow (a place for the divine presence to "rest his head") and a cup (for hospitality, a door always open for messengers or the needy) after reading about the Shunamite widow in 2 Kings 4:8-11. She had created a temple in her home, prepared for messengers from God to visit her home. Her actions are reminiscent of Adam and Eve after Eden, the Israelites at Solomon's temple and all the other stories of divine dedication--thought we could do the same.

Now that our seashells and shards, popcorn and hair are adorning these walls and floors, we thought the rest of what comprises us should too. Our presence was not complete until the presence of God came too. Both the profane and hallowed have now been literally and figuratively "covered." Now the mark of God is on the place.

Castle-esque Arrival

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When we arrived in dear Doha we stepped into the sauna (it does not cool off at night) we were greeted by now dear friends, and members of Georgetown. We were craving water. I remember fanar (the islamic cultural center) spiraling up and glowing, and a hundred round-a-bouts winding us to our home. Myri (Tink) calls this place, dare I say villa! our "castle house" because of the large staircase and the romantic headboard on her bed. She even has dramatic windows that lean out and are cloaked with beautiful satins. She is thrilled. But what I most remember about that first night in this new locale is the hilarious food items laid out for us in preparation for our arrival. We had peanut butter and jelly and onion English toast. Tabasco sauce, mayonnaise, a gigantic vat of chicken masala powder, 7 onions (the noble and lone vegetable), and a fridge filled with Coke and diet Pepsi. Whewhoo, let's eat! But truly, how special to have had our home prepared for us, cleaned, linens spread, and food purchased--it was a much different experience than when we moved to Egypt and went pavement pounding searching for a home while we were coping with digestive dysfunction. Qatar has been good to us in the few weeks we have been here.

That said, I struggle with virtuality. I struggle with representing myself publicly. So, let me start a blog? This is what happens when you live far away from loved ones and those passively curious in your life...it is part of the luggage, but I am somewhat scared and only minor-ly thrilled to attempt this. It is not as though I am skilled at cloaking my opinions when I speak, I can't imagine I will be any better typing...and you don't get my charm and body language telling you I am not as obnoxious as my words might suggest.

Now that I have wrestled with the blog template and wrangled with the gadgets and wrinkled my nose up at all of the options... I present for your viewing pleasure an account of all things our family on this adventure in the Middle East. But shhhhh, don't tell my computer that it is in Qatar. It has been fooled by a tricksy IP address so as to think that it is still in Great Falls, Virginia (talk about a dreamy place to live). This allows us to have the freedom we have come to think as a divine right on the internet whilst living in a country that would beg to differ and would prefer Netflix and Amazon to go somewhere else.

Qatar is architecturally hilarious and stunning, and it is the backdrop for a people in full fast. Yes, they drive fast (especially those Land Cruisers) but I am talking about abstaining from food, drink, or sexuality. Thus why we were so incredibly thirsty when coming from the airport. No public consumption, that includes in your car. It includes children (although children do not fast, they should not do it in front of others). Try and tell that to a 1 and 3 year old. We arrived here the third day of Ramadan and have tried our best to stock our pantry and find the missing items for our homes with minimal shopping hours as workers are only allowed to work 6 hours a day during the holy month--what a wonderful and difficult time to arrive. It is magic, it is holy, it is not the ideal moment to move here.

I have heard many say "well I wish we didn't have to work during the month of December" and I agree that such a set up would be lovely, but I must say that I have absolutely no idea how a person would survive in this heat (around 125 degrees Fahrenheit) and not consume liquid from 4:30 am (hello dear sun) until 6:30pm (blessed mercy of heaven sunset comes early). This is not an easy task, particularly for the labor immigrant force bedecked in those bright blue, long-sleeve jump suits who build those crazy spirally sky scrapers. I can hardly do it for 2 hours when required to be in the sun, how do they make it to 6?

So, let me close by saying we are safe and sound and thrilled to be here. Thrilled that you care enough to read these rambling as well. Much love to you all.