Author: Robin Chartier

We made it to Jordan! It was last minute, but the approval to travel finally came through and Josh quickly purchased plane tickets/rental car and hotel rooms. After a 4:30 am wake up and 5 am trip to the airport, we were on our way.

The last time we were at this same spot in the Jordan airport the kids were 6 1/2 years younger, Calvin was with us, and they sat around playing cards while Josh picked up the rental car.

Jordan is always an experience. The rental car, from Avis, has certainly seen better days. As long as I’m not getting charged for it I don’t care that it has dings, scratches, and a little front end damage, but it’s funny that we are renting a car that would not even be able to be registered in Abu Dhabi. (Pretty looking car bodies are important and almost every car is 5 years old or newer. I’m actually a bit worried that my car will get flagged for repainting the next time we try to register it).

Beside the banged up body, it was missing a seatbelt in the back seat and the guy spent almost 10 minutes removing the seat to find it for us. And then the gas tank was on empty with a flashing warning signal and we were sent off with a “gas station is 5k up the road” instruction. Thankfully we found it as we passed a guy driving at half speed, probably because he had a silver sunshade blocking his entire driver side window.

The drive through the desert toward the Dead Sea. Even though the driving in Jordan is a bit of a free for all, I don’t mind it because the unexpected is expected. Someone might drive on the shoulder the wrong way down your side of the divided highway because it’s the most efficient way to get somewhere. No big deal. We’re always looking out for non-traditional driving maneuvers. It’s more irritating at home when there are specific and strict rules in place and a few special people break them — I’m looking at you, driver with Dubai plates, tailgating and flashing your brights at everyone.

We made it to our hotel at the Dead Sea, met up with Josh’s parents and caught up over dinner.

Happy to be here again and looking forward to a few days of relaxing and knitting by the pool.

A month from now I’m hoping to be sitting in my Mom’s backyard in Santa Cruz, watching the chickens scratch and peck while I read a book and feast on nectarines and raspberries. Calvin will be at camp (working), Josh will still be in Abu Dhabi, and my parents will be out of town, but that sunny, green yard is my paradise.

We don’t have a contract or numbers yet, but after my revelation that I can’t do anything to get settled until August anyway, I’m in no rush. I’m assuming that the money hemorrhage that is about to begin (it happens every time we move) will be stanched come October and until then, I’ll have to hang on and just get through it.

Josh got through the hiring process, but then has had to go back and fill in some blanks with HR that were skipped over, like filling out an application, submitting references, and other basic paperwork that usually comes before a company decides that it wants you. I’m not sure if they are actually doing anything with that information or just creating a personnel file, but we’re happy that things are happening. The biggest news is that he has actually has a start date: the 3rd week of July (with the proviso that nothing goes sideways during the hiring/negotiation process).

That means that he’ll have a week with me in paradise before he heads off to his new job. Mid-July: Santa Cruz, late-July: Texas, mid-August: Abu Dhabi.

As I’ve been planning our move/transition, I’ve been waiting to find out our budget for housing, thinking that we’d be able to locate something now, put a hold on it and then upon landing in August, move in and get settled. I just had a reality check today as I realized we won’t be able to do anything until we return and have residence visas.

As we leave here our diplomatic IDs and passports will be cancelled and when we come back we’ll have to arrive on tourist visas. We won’t be able to rent a house until we have those converted to residence visas, which has been known to take a couple of weeks or longer. That means I won’t come back and go into a house, but rather into a hotel, without a car, since we can’t register a car until we have residence visas and IDs, and wait, I won’t have any of my stuff? What do I do with all of the things that I don’t need this summer (school uniforms, work clothes, sports gear), but will need when we return? I guess it’s time to find a few friends who don’t mind several bags of things taking up space in their houses this summer.

Our property will stay in storage, the pets will have to stay in the kennel for a third month (at least — $$$) and we will once again be living out of suitcases for the foreseeable future. sigh. That’s not how I was imagining it at all . . .

Yes, I watched the royal wedding. I said I didn’t care, but it turns out that the American actress turned princess is a compelling story, especially when we’ve watched her on Suits and the whole divorcee/non royal/Rachel Zane marrying a prince! felt like another episode of a tv show, rather than real life.

It also helps that we live in the Middle East so the wedding aired at 3 in the afternoon. I definitely wouldn’t have woken up in the middle of the night in the US to watch it or anything. That’s what E News is for.

We were in the lounge at Atlantis having afternoon tea (and yes, I had my scones with clotted cream while Josh deconstructed all of the finger sandwiches, eating the middles and leaving the bread [brain poison] behind) and of course they had the pre-wedding festivities playing on the tv. But since I couldn’t hear what was going on and was starting to get a crick in my neck from craning to see if the bride had arrived yet, I gave up any pretense of being uninterested and pulled out my phone to watch the live stream. And then the rest of the family got into it and we had 3 different phones going as we ate our British tea with American manners and laughed at how very non-British the wedding was.

It was the perfect entertainment to end our Atlantis weekend. (and yes, I loved her dress!)

 

The month of Ramadan began yesterday. This is our 8th Ramadan in the Middle East and after being here this long I assumed that I had talked about it so many times in the past that I would bore people by talking about it again. But someone who has been reading all along asked why the kids had shorter school days, and I realized that it is still a foreign idea/experience for most people. There are even some people who have lived in the Middle East for 10 years that have never experienced Ramadan because it has always fallen during the summer months when they are back at home. But from now on it will affect everyone living here — at least for the next 30 years or so until it works its way back around to the summer months again (it moves 10 days earlier each year).

So, Ramadan and fasting: in Islam, during the month of Ramadan, Muslims are expected to abstain from food, water, and smoking (and sex) during daylight hours. Certain countries deal with this by making it illegal for anyone to participate in those activities in public, Muslim or not. So for the next 29 or 30 days (based on the moon sighting) restaurants shut down during the day, school hours are shortened to 8:30-1:30 and there’s no lunchtime, only a snack break where kids who are fasting can go to a resting room and those who are not go to designated classrooms to get a drink of water or eat a snack they brought from home. Some kids practice fasting in elementary school so even the youngest grades are limited in their eating and drinking times and don’t have a normal lunch period.

In Camille’s class of 22, she said 6 kids are fasting. To accommodate them the teacher turned a classroom closet into a drinking room. If the non-fasting kids need a drink of water, they can go in the closet where their water bottles are and take a sip. Instead of lunch they have a mid-morning “snack break” and the fasting kids go to a different room for 20 minutes while the rest of the kids are eating.

Yes, I know it sounds a bit crazy/difficult. It’s the no water thing that I can’t get behind. Some people, in an attempt to fast as completely as possible, won’t even swallow their own saliva or take medicine by mouth during the day. There are exceptions made for sick people, the elderly, etc, but there is a lot of self-imposed pressure to perform as best as possible so some may decide it’s more holy to adhere to the fast and not take their medicine as that is an even bigger sacrifice. As I heard one person put it, “May Allah accept all our deeds and forgive our sins.”

What we’ve noticed over time is as the holiday moves closer to the school year and has a greater impact on expats and tourism, certain standards have been relaxed. More restaurants are opening during the day (but the windows have to be covered so no one can see people eating from outside), Starbucks is open, but you can only buy coffee to take away and you have to carry it out hidden in a bag. It’s a step up from when Starbucks didn’t open until 6:30 pm, but I don’t love the coffee to go option because the only way to enjoy it is to slip into the bathroom and drink it in a stall or go out to the car and lean over to drink below the level of the windows. That is a feat of acrobatics that usually involves coffee spilling along with consumption.

So we started this Ramadan by escaping — we are currently spending 2 days at Atlantis as part of our annual pilgrimage to meet up with our friends from Oman. Since it’s a resort it’s not quite a public space so there is food and drink flowing freely in the water park and hotel restaurants are open all day.

I’m estimating that 2 Ramadans from now I’ll be able to drink coffee inside Starbucks. Josh thinks that barrier will be broken next year. 2 days down, 27 or 28 more to go.