The Big Move

Well, we've moved out of our fabulous apartment and into a villa. It's been over a month now and it finally feels like home.

Al Jazeera 1 Compound, Villa 53 - Home Sweet Home

When people heard we'd decided to move, many assumed it was for more space, with the impending growth of our family. But it actually was not. We were very content in our 3 bedroom apartment. We would have had room for Bumpkin and a guest to live comfortably. The villa is actually too big for the two of us, with one living room, one bedroom one bathroom and one flight of stairs too many. :)

Two living rooms is one living room too many

Ok, so if not for the space, certainly we moved for the ammenities. The compound has a swimming pool, clubhouse for gatherings, small gym and parks with swings and slides. But even that - while very nice! - wasn't enough to encourage us to relocate. Our apartment building just got some gym equipment, we made the roof into a gathering place, and there's a pool we can use on campus.

Lovely pool a stone's throw from our front door

So then we must have moved for the location. Well, we actually miss our old neighbourhood. True, the compound is much closer to work - we've cut our daily commute down to 10 minutes from 30 - but it's farther from everything else. We can no longer walk to restaurants and stores or hail a cab on the street. There is a small convenience store on the compound, though, which stocks all the basics plus a bit more, and Darren has crossed the 4-lane highway on foot to get groceries at the nearby Lulu Hypermarket. But it's not the same.

The convenience store whose laundry service and constant supply of granola bars makes the lack of walkable shops bearable

Why, then, did we change accommodations? It was all about community. The college places its employees in villa or apartments based on family status. Couples with children live in the compounds, singles and couples without children live in the apartments. Darren and I decided it would be good for us to surounded ourselves with other parents and children - especially babies, and especially when I'm on maternity leave.

The decision wasn't easy, however. There was somthing about the Al Sadd (the name of our apartment building) crowd. With a few exceptions, we all arrived at the same time. We were new together - sharing information about where to find queen sized sheets that don't feel like sand paper, reporting on a fabulous restaurant we'd discovered on a walk, pitching in to make the rooftop a place worthy of hosting parties. I think the original compound people probably had that, too - but now we're new and they're not. They have a bond among themselves like the one we feel for our Al Sadd neighbours. That's not to say they're not welcoming and friendly; we just haven't become one of them yet.

Hopefully by the time Bumpkin arrives we'll have met and become friends with other people with young children. There are babies being born in Doha every day so ours shouldn't be in want for friends. But for now we are working on starting conversations with people on the work shuttle bus and are planning a small housewarming gathering during the Eid break. And continuing to settle into our new place.

Family

Editor’s Note: I found this almost-written, unposted post in my blogger account today under the date of August 1, 2009. Since I haven’t gotten around to writing about our summer travels yet, I thought I’d post this one. Since it was written, however, the fourth Dewbury baby has been born: Ethan. He’s as adorable and loved as his older siblings.

Living in different country from your family makes visits extra special. The reason we went to Zambia in the first place was to spend some time with my sister Alicia and her family this summer, since they were planning on being there during our entire visit to Canada. She and Ben have 3 incredible children (and a fourth on the way!) who enjoyed showing us all around the various parts of Zambia that they've become so familiar with.

Alex, who decided she would go by the name Alexa while in Zambia, is our oldest niece. She joined the grade three class at the base school where she was thriving. School ran from about 8:30 until 1:00, and she would spend the afternoons doing homework and playing with her friends. On week days, we wouldn't see her from the time we dropped her off at the base until the ride back to the guest house.


We got to see more of Levi, our six-year-old nephew. Although he completed kindergarten in Alberta, it wasn't recommended that he join the grade 1 class at the base. So he would attend preschool on the days that Alicia volunteered there, and the other days he would roam around, hanging out with his adult friends and entertaining himself.

Avery, whom we hadn't seen since she was 6 months old, turned two in Zambia, so it was like we were meeting her for the first time. We loved learning to decipher her words and laughing at her mannerisms. Unfortunately she was suffering from the lingering effects of a parasite, but overall she was happy and bubbly and extremely entertaining!


Some of our most memorable moments in Zambia were related to these kids:

• Having learned that geckos who lose their tails will grow new ones, Levi decided to conduct an experiment. He cut the tail off a gecko with a stick. When we asked him why he did it, he said, "I wanted to see if it would grow another gecko."



• One evening Alicia and Avery were singing. We went through a couple of songs and then the grownups couldn't think of any more songs. So Alicia asked Avery what song she wanted to sing and she suggested "Twinkle". After signing Twinkle, the question was posed again. The response was “Twinkle”. When Alicia said to choose a *different* song, Avery cocked her head to the side, put a finger to her mouth, looked at the ceiling (as if she were thinking really hard) and said, “Ummmmmmmmmm…Twinkle!”



• At least 2 of the kids’ birthdays fell during the time the family was in Zambia. On their birthdays, the people at the guest house made a special cake for them to celebrate. Uncle Darren’s 34th birthday also happened to occur while we were there. Levi found out about this and made Darren a birthday card with his grownup friend Anine – incidentally the only present Darren received this year! Levi also announced at breakfast, “Today is Uncle Darren’s birthday! He’s 43!” and then turned a bright red with embarrassment when we laughed and said, “No, no, he’s only 34!” The embarrassment didn’t last for long because Levi sensed an opportunity and replied, “Uncle Darren, if you tell them it’s your birthday they’ll make you a cake,” not realizing that was something special they only did for kids.

When we weren't enjoying our family, we got to know and tried to help out the other folks who live on the base and work for Foundations for Cross-Cultural Education (FCE). Darren spent most of his days painting with Ben and I helped out at the preschool whenever Alicia was scheduled to work there. We learned about sustainable development in Zambia thorugh our visits at "the farm" and about hospitality from the folks at the guest house. Before meeting up with our family and FCE, Darren and I enjoyed the wild, touristy aspects of Zambia, which was also interesting.

It was definitely a valuable three weeks of our lives, and included the greatest range of experiences we could think of: adventure, education, service and relationship-building.

The making of Sports Roundabout

This past weekend was Hallowe'en, and like good Canadian expatriates, we celebrated it here in Doha. There were more than enough Hallowe'en parties to choose from - there were colleagues of mine in attendance at a minimum of 4 different celebrations around the city over the weekend.

Darren and I chose to participate in a free Hallowe'en bash hosted by some of our colleagues on the rooftop of their accommodation. The event was characterized by a wide veriety of people, great conversation, lots of laughs and most importantly some fantastic costumes.

My favourite costumes were the Doha-specific ones. One couple came dressed as a camel jockey and owner - the owner was driving a cardboard Land Cruiser equipped with working headlights! Another man, my favourite person at the whole party incidentally, came as a local landmark - Sports Roundabout. He was very proud of his creativity and handiwork, and I thought I'd share it with both of my readers. So may I present "The Making of Sports Roundabout."

First of all, let us clarify what exactly a roundabout is. People who have driven in Europe are familiar with the idea, but it's a new concept for many North Americans. According to the website Driving in Ireland,

A roundabout or rotary is a type of road junction (or traffic calming device) at which traffic streams around a central island, after first yielding (giving way) to the circulating traffic. Roundabouts are statistically safer than both traffic circles and traditional intersections, though they do not cope as well with the traffic on motorways or similar fast roads.

See the diagram below:


Ok, so that's a roundabout, but what about Sports Roundabout? Well, in Doha street names are generally not known, so landmarks are used for giving directions. For example, we just moved from an apartment between Al Sadd and Al Nasr streets (2 well-known roads), close to the Red Dragon Chinese Massage place and attached to the Qatar Airways accommodation. Even with that description, our pizza often arrived only after 3 phone calls from the driver asking for more directions.

Many of the roundabouts have features that have become landmarks. Some key ones are Television roundabout (near the Al Jazeera Broadcasting Company), Immigration roundabout (near the Immigration department), Decoration roundabout (near a decorating/furniture store), Mall roundabout (near the mall named "The Mall") and Burger King roundabout (near - you guessed it - a Burger King restaurant). Sports roundabout is named for the tower erected in the middle of it, depicting athletes involved in different sports - a remnant of/tribute to the Asian Games held here 3 years ago.


Ok, enough background. On to the costume!

One day last week after work, Darren went to Toys R Us and picked up some toy cars. Then Friday morning he cut a cardboard box into an oval, measuring it to his waistline with makeshift tools, covered it with black bristol board and painted white lines on it. (There are no pictures of those steps for 2 reasons -- 1. I was not feeling well and decided to nap the sick away, and 2. Darren wasn't really dressed for that part of the project. It was Friday morning, remember!)


Anyway, after the paint had dried, Darren taped the cars in place with masking tape, since our crazy glue had dried up since its last use.



I participated, too - taping the traffic cones to the "construction site" at the back of the roundabout. I think Darren ran out of bristol board, but it's actually not surprising for a random section of the road to be missing around these parts!


And here's the Sports Roundabout, looking so proud of his creation.


At the party everyone knew right away he was a roundabout, but it took some prompting for many people to figure out which one. I thought the knee pads were a dead giveaway!


So there you have it, Hallowe'en Doha-style. Stay tuned next year for the local cultural reference we use as inspiration for Bumpkin's costume!