Month: April 2011

I need to change the name of this blog to: Moving/Packing/Traveling since it seems like that’s all I have to write about lately. We’re home and doing lots of laundry to keep from tracking the kilos of desert sand we brought back with us to our new house when we move tomorrow. (Notice how I used the metric system there? I’m so international. Either that or I’ve gotten a side job as a drug dealer.) We’re too tired to pack up the hotel like regular people and I’m sick of trying to fit everything back in our suitcases, so Josh went out and bought some plastic tubs to throw a bunch of stuff in. We figure the boys can use them as clothes hampers in the new house since we don’t have those anymore either.

The plan is to pack up and check out of the hotel tomorrow morning while Josh picks up our house keys at the embassy. Move everything over to the new house, return the rental car, then Josh has afternoon meetings at the embassy and we will figure out how to get settled in the house while he’s off doing that. Then hopefully we can go grocery shopping so we can eat real food tomorrow night (so sick of eating out/getting take-out).

Oh, and we may not have internet for a few days. It depends on when Josh has time to get it set up.

Here’s a taste of our weekend. More to come after we’re settled:

Tomorrow we’re headed off on a little desert adventure. We rented a 4×4 vehicle for the weekend (so we temporarily have 2 rental cars) and we are going to camp in Bedouin-style tents out in the desert tomorrow night.

So that means more packing tonight after some shopping today. Rebuying things like beach towels, a cooler, sunscreen, and several other items that we already own, but that are currently enjoying their vacation in Egypt without us.

Since I won’t have internet access out there, there won’t be any new blog posts until after we get home sometime on Friday night.

A funny story from the shopping expedition today as told by Josh. I was at home with a very tired baby, attempting to get her to nap, which is not a funny story, so I’ll share his instead.

As the boys were all walking back to the car after shopping, they saw about 5 Indian/Pakistani dudes getting into the car next to our rental (their nationality is important only to point out that Josh couldn’t speak Arabic to them). Instead of returning their cart to the cart return which was located right behind their car, they left the cart right behind our car. Josh caught their eyes, and waved his finger at them “No, no, no,” but they ignored him and got in their car to leave anyway.

So as Josh went to put our things in the trunk, he pushed the cart over behind their car again, leaving them no choice but to get out of the car and return the cart to the proper place before they could drive away. To get their revenge, they gave Calvin the finger as they were driving away, which is pretty nervy considering that giving someone the finger here can get you arrested and thrown in jail for 2 days. Seriously. Just google it if you don’t believe me.

Unfortunately Calvin didn’t tell Josh about the finger until they had already left, or Josh may have been tempted to see how seriously the Omani police actually take an accusation of profanity after all the dire warnings we received during the embassy welcome brief.

So to sum up: profanity? bad. Packing? a pain. The desert?  hopefully fun.

That is me, sticking out my tongue and blowing raspberries on hearing the news that our house will not be ready tomorrow. Since tomorrow is Virtual Friday (the weekend here is Thursday and Friday), it means we won’t get into our house until Saturday (Virtual Monday).

I have a hard enough time keeping track of what day it is in America, where I’ve lived my entire life with a M-F work week. Now that I have to keep track of a whole new weekend? Let’s just say every morning when I go to take my medicine I look at my days of the week pill box (yes, my grandma had one too — laugh away) and feel like playing “eenie, meanie, miney, moe” since I can’t even begin to guess which compartment to open. I end up just flipping them all open until I find one with a pill still in it and think, “huh. I guess it’s Tuesday today. Who knew?”

So back to our house/not our house yet. I don’t know why it really matters that we can’t move in for an extra 3 days, it’s not like we have anything to “move in.” Once we’re living there I’m sure I’ll just be posting about how everything is all echoey and the kids are playing soccer in the living room since we have tons of space and nothing to fill it. And while we’re at the hotel we get breakfast every morning and housekeeping comes to clean every day. In the big house we’ll be doing all our own cleaning for a few weeks until all the paperwork has been processed allowing our maid to work for us.

So I’ll just enjoy the hotel comforts like TV and wi-fi for a few more days without complaint. We’ll get moved in soon enough and then we’ll have to do all the work and have the expense of setting up those systems in our new house ourselves.

We hired a maid today. Well, we took the first steps toward hiring her. One of the unique things about Oman is all the rules regarding hiring household help. In this country, all the maids are from foreign countries: India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, etc. So every person you hire has to be sponsored by you, (insert lots of boring paperwork info here), and in our case, vetted by the American embassy.

As an employer you are also responsible for providing housing (part time employees are not allowed), food or a food allowance, medical care, a living wage and a plane ticket to their home country once every two years. Also, if they don’t work out and you have to fire them, they either have to be hired and sponsored by a new person within 30 days or you have to buy them a one-way ticket back to their home country.

All this is WAY more complicated than when we hired Madiha and sounded a little scary too, but the idea of someone cleaning the kitchen for me every day quickly conquered any fears I might have had regarding a stranger living in my house.

So our potential maid is from India (she has to pass a background check through the embassy before we can officially hire her). I can’t tell how old she is except that she is older than me because she has at least two grown kids back home in India and her daughter is giving birth to her first grandchild this fall. But she looks a lot younger than she must be. She has zero gray hair and I envy her skin cause she has almost no wrinkles. Anyway, she’s this tiny little thing, barely taller than Calvin, speaks really good English, was very happy, and seemed to love the kids from the first moment she met them.

On the plus side, she has a husband who works as a personal chef in Muscat, so she won’t be living with us. She will come to our house from 7am-3pm five days a week and any time we need her for anything else, she’ll be available. She cooks, cleans, and watches kids. If she could only exercise for me too . . .

*** a try in rugby = a touchdown in American football

The boys are playing rugby. Leave it to us to be in a country for only a week before finding a sport to enroll them in. Josh was asking around at the embassy what sports the kids play here in Oman and we found out that the soccer season ended a week ago, but 2 different people mentioned a rugby club that meets on Sunday nights.

So, we loaded the kids in the rental car and headed out to the rugby field last night.

There were 5 different age groups out there — kids as young as 4 all the way up through high school. The boys joined the groups for their ages and spent the next hour and a half running, passing, tackling and having a great time. There were probably 60 – 70 kids playing in all the groups combined. (that’s Carter running out to join his group.)

The club is run by a group of dads, most from Australia or New Zealand, of course. Carter and Caleb’s groups spent time doing drills and playing games that reinforced rugby skills. They scrimmaged at the end with flags, no tackling. 

Calvin’s group (he’s #8 in the white jersey and red shorts) did some drills and then scrimmaged. Calvin scored a try and almost had a second one, but was forced out of bounds. At his age they wear mouth guards and tackle like the grownups would. The coach warned us that they’ve already had two broken arms this season and Josh, like a seasoned rugby player, said, “of course.” :sigh: I can do bumps and bruises and banging around and even a little blood, but I don’t know that I’m up for broken bones . . .

 

Girly, Josh, and I hung out and watched practice together and enjoyed the warm evening. Aside from me getting bitten by an ant (stupid fire ants), it was a fun way to spend the evening.  Especially since Camille is happy to sit and play and isn’t trying to crawl all over the field like her brothers used to. It’s *really* nice to finally have a baby that will hang out with us and isn’t always in search of the next big adventure.

At the end of practice, all three boys said it was “awesome” and “better than football” so I’d say we have three new rugby fans/players on our hands.

Just as we were leaving, the call to prayer started. Except for the part where I almost jumped out of my skin when the call started with the loud, “Allah Akbar!” it was really beautiful and crystal clear. (the popping noises you hear are all from the breeze hitting my camera microphone).