Author: Robin Chartier

Bit by bit, it’s all coming together — yesterday we finally got reimbursed for part of our claim to cover evacuation expenses. Yeah, we’ve been waiting that long. We submitted the paperwork over two months ago and it kept getting kicked around from department to department until someone agreed to pay it. I was like, “Look. I wanted to stay in Egypt, but it was a mandatory evacuation. You have all our clothes, toiletries, toys, and other stuff and you have our money. Pay up!” Except I didn’t actually have anyone to say it to, so poor Josh had to listen to my frequent rantings.

And then, the headache with the packout of our apartment in Egypt. We went round and round with the shipping people there because they said we were 223 pounds over our allowed weight limit for an air shipment . . . with our size family we actually rate 1600 lbs, but something about the only available flights from Cairo were commercial, so there was a cap of 1000 lbs . . . blah, blah, blah. So they wanted to open our crate that contained the things we moved back in early November that has been sitting in customs for the past four months just to add the excess 223 lbs. But once you break the seal on a shipment, things have a way of “disappearing” so we didn’t think that was an acceptable solution. The other option they gave us was to have us pay the excess baggage fee, but that wasn’t an acceptable solution either.

In a phone call with Josh the other night I was ranting about how everyone was acting like it was a normal move. Like we chose to ship all those things and that’s why we were over the weight limit. I told him I didn’t care how it got to us, I just wanted to get it moving. I said, “Put it on a boat — heck, put it on a camel and walk it here! I don’t care how they want to ship it, I just want it moving in this direction!” He said, “I’m totally going to tell them that.”

I thought it was too rude, but he didn’t so he sent them an email saying exactly that and next thing you know he got a reply saying that the overage had been approved and to not worry about it any longer. We suspect that the people in the Egypt travel office didn’t inform the higher ups that this was a case with special circumstances and as soon as they heard that we had been evacuated and weren’t even able to be present for the pack-out, then they became much more accommodating.

The thing is, it’s all just stuff. Meaning we don’t need any of it in the grand scheme of life. So I’ve been trying to stay relaxed about all the delays both once we arrived in Egypt and now here in Oman. But it gets frustrating when we have to spend $50 for each pair of new cleats for Calvin and Carter so they can play soccer/rugby when I know we already have perfectly fitting, expensive cleats sitting in a box in a warehouse. Or buying a new mattress when we already own one, but we have to wait for someone to approve the funding to have it delivered here. (I’m not complaining about the mattress though — I came out the winner in that deal. And when it arrives it will become our guest bed. Win.Win.Win.)

In one of my favorite books, Same Kind of Different As Me, there’s a quote that reminds me to be careful of how I think about our stuff. The book is about a friendship between a homeless man and a wealthy art dealer and their faith (If you haven’t read it, I *highly* recommend it. I can’t give a short description that does it justice).

One of the things that becomes clear is that the homeless man, Denver, is content with his life and has no desire to trade places with his rich friend. From page 112-113 Denver asks:

“I know it ain’t none of my business, but does you own somethin that each of of them keys fits?”

 I glanced at the keys; there were about ten of them. “I suppose,” I replied, not really ever having thought about it.

“Are you sure you own them, or does they own you?”

So I’m trying to remember that life is simpler with less stuff. Less to organize, less to clean, less to worry about. Of course if you asked the people at Amazon, they’d tell you that I’ve already got plenty of stuff, with more on the way. Who needs a shipment when you have the internet?

Actually that title is a little misleading, because I haven’t figured out how to wear one without looking like I’m welcoming people onto a ride at Disneyland. If you know the trick, let me in on it cause I don’t want to walk around looking like I’m going to break into a version of “Yo ho! Yo ho! A pirate’s life for me!” at any second.

So why the headscarf? Well, it’s hot here and my hair is annoying me. It’s too short for a ponytail but I don’t like hair in my face so I keep looking for ways to keep it out of my eyes and off my neck. A normal person would talk about how it cuts down the amount of time they spend on their hair each morning, but since running my fingers through wet hair takes exactly 13 seconds, I’m not exactly looking for a time saving solution.

See, pirate scullery maid. All I need is a mop, a bucket, and some doubloons in my pocket. Unless you’re Josh and think I look like white Aunt Jemimah. :sigh: Either way, it’s a loser look for me.

But since I have always been a comfort before style kind of person, I may just have to keep this “Ahoy matey!” look while I continue to search YouTube for for “white girls with headscarves” videos. (yes, I did.)

Today was an artery-clogging first — with Josh out of town, the little people finagled a trip to McDonald’s for lunch and KFC for dinner (AKA “Chicken Kentucky”). I can’t even imagine what sort of sodium and fat totals we racked up today. I can say that except for maybe a few times during a cross country move, I’ve never eaten at two fast food places in one day. Two Starbucks in one day? Of course. But two junk food meals? The healthy eater in me is wondering how much sooner I’ll be rolling over in my grave if this keeps up.

We have eaten more fast food during our month in Oman than in the past 3 years in Monterey. I’m pretty sure we went to McDonald’s once and Burger King once and the last time I went to a KFC was probably when we lived in Oklahoma and I was pregnant with Calvin and they had the KFC/Taco Bell combo restaurant with the all you can eat KFC buffet. Mmm. I don’t know why anyone would order a taco when you could have unlimited mashed potatoes and biscuits with gravy, but whatever. (I also gained 55 lbs with that pregnancy, but I’m sure those two things aren’t related . . .)

So as a general rule I don’t eat fast food (Not counting Chipotle and In N Out), but here the American fast food chains are the only affordable restaurants. For example, at the mall food court they have an Indian option, a middle eastern option, and a sandwich option, but the combo meals of meat and rice are at least $10. Even a sandwich without any sides or drink is $6. Meanwhile, over at McDonald’s you can get a Big Mac or a chicken sandwich for a dollar or two and a complete meal with fries and drink for under $5.

Over at KFC they have complete meals with 3 pieces of chicken, fries, coleslaw, a bun and a drink for under $5 or you can get a family meal with 9 pieces of chicken and large sizes of all of the above (including a 2 liter of soda) for 13.50. Which is why we’ve had KFC 3 times and McDonald’s at least 5 times. When you can do lunch for $15 instead of $50 it’s hard to pass up the junky option. Especially when you’re at the food court and you figure all the food is junky on some level.

Unfortunately the prices for real restaurants are even higher. But that’s for a different post. At least with KFC the boys have been trained not to eat the skin. Except for Caleb, who at dinner tonight proudly stated, “I love the skin” and proceeded to munch away at his drumstick.

I slept on a cloud last night. A really firm, sweet-smelling, wide cloud. Josh called from Bahrain on Tuesday night to tell me that our mattress was finished early and they would be able to deliver it on Wednesday morning. Happy day!

When the mattress people pulled up, I was about to remove the baby gates from the stairs to make it easier for the men to carry the pieces to the second floor when Lucy said, “Oh no madame, they will just lift them up. Leave them there.” Then I really saw her in action when the movers were getting ready to set up the bed. Speaking to them in Hindi she told them to take apart my old bed, to put the mattress and boxspring against the wall and directed them to wait until she could get the vacuum to clean the area under the bed before she allowed them to set up the new bed.

After all the pieces were in place she decided it wasn’t safe to have the old metal bed frame in the bedroom where the baby crawls around on the floor so she told one of the mover guys to take it upstairs to the third floor to store it out of the way. And they did exactly as she directed them without a peep of protest. I guess they knew that she was higher than them in the hired help pecking order.

As soon as they left she was pulling out sheets to make the bed. I don’t have king size sheets (I ordered them, but because the bed came early they hadn’t arrived yet) so she remade the bed using a flat sheet on the bottom. I went out to buy a set of sheets, but when I got to the store all the measurements were in centimeters and I had no idea if my bed was 180 cm x 205 cm or 155 cm x 200 or even 200 cm x 210 . . . ack! I couldn’t even picture how big those dimensions were. It was the first time I was really wishing I had an iphone cause I would have been able to google the answer in 5 seconds.

Instead I took the low-tech route and went to the furniture department to see if I could eyeball the display beds and figure it out that way, but even mattresses that were the same size looked different depending on which bed frame they were in. I knew whichever size sheets I bought would end up being the wrong ones so I left without purchasing anything. Last night I got out my tape measure and it turns out I need the 180 cm size (the bigger one must be a California King) so I plan to go back today and get the right ones.

Of course, they still could be the wrong size if they are like the sheets in Egypt. We bought a set of queen sheets for our queen size mattress and the fitted sheet didn’t even come close to fitting over the 4 corners of the mattress. I should have known the price was too good to be true. I think they cost less than $10 — and no, I didn’t return them because I actually liked the pillowcases (they were really soft) and because I never return anything. Ever. It always feels like too much work and it makes me nervous and I never save receipts . . . but I never buy something unless I’m absolutely positive I want it. So these new sheets? They better work out or I’m going to have a lot of new fort-making material around my house.

One thing we were warned about before coming to Oman was that food is really expensive here. A lot of times people living overseas insist on buying American branded products that they are used to from home so they are a lot more expensive, but we figured that buying local brands and produce would help us keep our food costs down. Not so much. Food really is that expensive here.

These apples are from the US, so that’s why they’re expensive: about $3.30/lb. And see the price for avocados? $5.30/lb. No guacamole for me in the near future.

this is a normal size bag of spinach — not one of those Costco size ones. The price? $9.50

This is one place where we come out ahead — the bakery cranks out fresh bread all day long. You pick out your loaf (often it’s still warm from the oven) and they will slice it for you. A large loaf of whole wheat bread is about $2. I bought fresh pretzels for .50/each, a loaf of sesame bread for about $1.50, and I think the most expensive loaf I saw was around $3. The Omanis must not believe in low-carb diets.

But I hope you like peanut butter and jelly on your bread, because lunch meat is crazy expensive. This sliced chicken is $20/lb. Yes. TWENTY DOLLARS. Cheese is expensive too, unless you’re willing to eat the Arabic version of Kraft singles (I’m not — no fake cheese for me). A normal block of cheddar cheese cost over $10/lb. I bought a 1/2 lb and it was gone by lunchtime.  

Even this very scary chicken bologna is about $5/lb. It could be free and I still wouldn’t eat it. In the win column, we can get small rotisserie chickens for $3 each. Ironically, buying the rotisserie chicken is cheaper than buying the raw chickens of the same size. I’ll take my chicken cheaper and cooked please.  

We’ve found some bargains when buying local tomatoes, cucumbers, and eggplant so we’ve eaten a lot of those lately. I prefer to eat locally grown things when we can and we try and select produce grown as close to our country as possible — usually it is less expensive too. Like the Fuji apples from China end up being $1/lb and milk from UAE is cheaper than the milk from Saudi Arabia (and they taste the same — we tried them both). The cheap milk is $5/gallon, the more expensive milk was $5/half gallon.

Now my brain hurts from doing all the metric conversions combined with the dollars/rials conversions so I’ll leave you with one thing to be jealous of . . . gas only costs $1.17/gallon. Too bad we can’t eat it.