Author: Robin Chartier

shadow

It’s a good thing that our house is big because there have been a lot of people in it this week. If I didn’t have spaces to escape to I might start feeling claustrophobic. Starting with an endless stream of maintenance workers, trailing up and down the stairs to the roof and back. They are finally installing the new compressor today so my AC will work downstairs. The crew has been here all morning and will be back again after lunch. Please be done already and go away.

The dog has become glued to my side once again. He has overcome his fear of the unknown new house and parks himself at my feet, at the foot of my bed, on the bed, and nose to knee as I walk up the stairs. Where I go, he goes. I should have named him Ruth. I had a few days of freedom as he was scared to come upstairs and slept with the kids instead of in my room, but now he’s back to opening all the doors in the house and tracking me down like he’s Prince Charming and I’m the maiden in distress. I’ve tried locking him out, but the wifi in my bedroom doesn’t work through the closed door and my desire to fall asleep to the sweet sounds of Judge Judy in my ear trumps my distaste of the dog in my bed. At least he has learned to wait until I fall asleep to gently climb up on the bed and get as close to me as possible without waking me up. 
The kids are here 24/7. I’m happy they aren’t in school and I’m happy to have them around, but it drives me crazy to see them on electronics all day and all night long. But what else do I have to offer them? 2 of them have bikes (cheapies that we bought at a Walmart-esque store), but a few laps around the compound and they are beet red and dripping with sweat. I tell them to take the dog for a walk, but he’s been walked so many times that he keeps trying to make a break for home (and back to his first love). I suggested the pool today, but they pointed out that it’s brown outside — a sandy, dusty haze has settled on us. It’s probably not great to be breathing all that in when 3 of the 4 have nasty colds already. They have some books, but heaven forbid they actually read for fun. Normally, I’d assign them cleaning jobs around the house, but because we have hired live-in house help, there’s nothing left to do. And when I tell them to do things, she sweeps in and does as much of it as possible herself (which I understand, because it’s her job, but . . . ) 
taking their bikes to the grocery store
Just because you started riding a bike two days ago, does not mean I’m going to buy you Tour jerseys
It’s been a week since Nanny (not her name) moved in and she is quiet, unobtrusive and a great cleaner/help, but it does feel a bit like I’m becoming irrelevant in my own house. We are in a special situation because she’s new to the country and new to the housemaid thing and she has a sister who lives in the neighborhood and is overseeing her work. She wants her to do everything so that she has the proper training for the future when she may work for someone who will expect her to do everything. But it makes me feel a bit ridiculous to have someone hovering and wanting to help with whatever I’m cooking every time I’m in the kitchen or washing my knife after I cut an apple. 
We went to the grocery store together and Nanny’s sister made her push the cart for me and when we finished and had bagged all the groceries I started handing some of the bags to the boys to help carry as we walked home. The sister took all the bags and said, “No madame, we will carry.” No matter how much I protested that I could carry at least one bag, it wasn’t happening. So to anyone walking or driving by, I looked like the typical expat — white woman strolling along, unencumbered, with two black women following behind, loaded down like pack mules. I don’t even know what to do with that image. I was dying inside. 
So yeah, that’s my life these days. Sit around my too cold house supervising maintenance workers and reading FB and world news while the dog watches over me and my staff of servants does all the work around the house. Then Josh comes home and we go to the gym and work out together for an hour which is terrible (the working out part, not the together part) and then go home, eat dinner and then yell at the kids to go to bed for the next 2 hours because they aren’t tired because all they did was sit around all day with their faces in screens. 

The Lebanese restaurant near our house — Carter thinks we need to make this a weekly trip. 

The fresh bread and all the mezze were the best!

Where we are when we aren’t at home — our compound is only a few hundred yards away. Restaurants, grocery store, Starbucks and Cold Stone, a little bit of everything. It’s how I’m surviving. 

The last supper

It was a week of lasts: last time at church, last swim at the British Club, last time on base, last breakfast in the hotel. . . everywhere we turned we were faced with another ending. 
Except the heat — the heat is never ending.

Last visit to the British Club to swim and have dinner. Yes, there’s a British Club in AD, but we can’t afford to be members. It’s crazy expensive. (The cost for one person is more than 3xs what we pay for our family membership here.)

One last time hanging out with Josie. They’ve been missing each other all week and sending messages to each other. 

Carter, giving me duckface with his post surgery puffy lip. 

Yes, she’s sad about leaving Bahrain

Friends stopped by our hotel for one last goodbye. They’ve been here a year longer than we have and Caleb and Kobe have been friends since we arrived and they were in the same class at school. This past year Camille and Talia have been kindergarten besties too. We will miss them. 

And then it was time for our final dinner. Josh and I have a favorite Japanese restaurant that we started going to about 6 months ago. On Saturday nights they have all you can eat sushi, sashimi, and other amazing Japanese dishes. The kids have been begging to go with us, but it’s not cheap. We decided that we would take them for Caleb’s birthday and to celebrate the end of a great 4 years.
They all love sushi. Sashimi is my favorite (and Josh’s), but the kids preferred their raw fish with rice and seaweed. Other favorites were the ginger beef, tempura prawns, kimchi beef, fried chicken with ginger sauce . . . I could list the entire menu. No bad choices. 
She ordered a coke on the sly and was so pleased when the waiter brought it to her. 
She also had to use the restroom at one point and I asked if she had to go right then because I didn’t want to try to get out from where I was sitting at the table. The hostess overheard and offered to take her for me. That is typical of staff here — they carry kids around the restaurant, give them special attention, and spoil them any chance they get. 

We laughed all night. 

They asked us if we were coming for a special occasion when we made our reservation (since we were bringing the kids this time) and when they found out it was Caleb’s birthday, they offered to bring him a cake — amazing chocolate mousse on top of dark chocolate cake. Everything else they make is top notch, so I shouldn’t have been surprised by how good it was. 
Caleb said his terrible birth day earlier in the week was fully redeemed by our dinner out. 

We are ready to start our next adventure together! 

Bye, bye Bahrain . . .

good times

I could write a novel about maintenance requests, but no one wants to read about hot water heater drama and my efforts to pantomime my problems to the non-English speaking maintenance workers and my frustration that they tell me everything is “fine.” For example, one of my AC units stopped working and 2 different people came, got up up on ladders, and because they can feel the gentlest whisper of air passing through the vents, they claim “it works.” No matter that it’s been set at 20 for two days and the room hasn’t gotten below 25, while the rest of the house is like a walk-in freezer . . . finally some people went on the roof and saw that the lines are blocked so they are going to come flush them out tomorrow. I’d love to say, “I told you so,” but they wouldn’t understand me.

Sadly, that’s my favorite room in the house right now because I can sit on the couch without a sweatshirt on. Josh did improve my life quite a bit after I had a dramatic fit and complained that the AC was “assaulting me.” His response was to get on a chair and manually adjust all of the interior vents in my bedroom so they don’t blow down directly on me. Now I’m just chilly, but I’ll take that over frozen.

After 4 days of waiting on multiple repair teams we finally took off and had some fun on Saturday evening. Five minutes from our house is the coastline and a large national preserve of mangroves perfect for kayaking and paddle boarding. We threw on swimsuits, headed to the launch site, and rented 3 double kayaks.

Once Josh and Carter stopped treating it like an Olympic event, we had a very nice time. (Yes, that’s them waaay out in front of us.)

I think we were there at high tide — high tide gives better access to the mangroves, but less wildlife to be seen. 

But the kids found plenty of crabs

We paddled around and found a beach where we could come ashore and swim. 

The water was warm, like a bathtub, and super salty. 

I think it’s the first thing we’ve done since arriving that wasn’t moving related (other than eating out). We needed it!

Paddling back — thankfully with the current and with the wind this time. 

Camille was halfway decent with her oar/paddle. 

The kids want to buy their own kayaks and go every weekend. It was the highlight of our first week —  I can’t believe 7 days have already passed. The days were long, but the week was short. 

church

Since we’re in a new country, it’s time to find a new church. I hate that part of moving. It’s like walking into a family reunion where you don’t know anyone and trying to fit in: “Yeah, I’m part of the family too. No really, I am.”

Thanks to the internet and a few personal recommendations we tried our first church today. It was fine. Big congregation, very multicultural. They had newcomers stand and introduce themselves (which we avoided because we try and keep a low profile until we decide to commit somewhere) and just the few people who stood up were from Syria, Pakistan, and 2 other places that I couldn’t understand because of their accents. That’s the thing, I love the idea of a multicultural church, but I’m lost half the time because I can’t filter the English fast enough. Thankfully the pastor was American and I could understand every word he said, but I only caught about 20% of the announcements and the prayer. (South African and Filipino accents) And I guess the person who announced the offering either didn’t or he said it and I didn’t understand because that wooden handled velvet bag came out of nowhere.  

So the church service was fine, but I wasn’t feeling much of anything. I’d rather just have someone tell me where to go and make the best of it. I don’t like being critical of congregations who are doing their best to worship and follow God, but I also want to find a good fit for our family. When we lived in 29 Palms I refused to go church hunting (and I had just had a baby the week before) so I told Josh to visit as many as he wanted and to let me know when he had found a place and I would go. That worked out pretty well for us. Maybe I’ll try one more week and then let Josh explore the rest with the kids.

Anyway, I was sitting in church, half listening to the sermon and half in my head when I looked down the aisle and saw all 3 boys had brought their bibles to church and all 3 were following along with the passage as it was being read. This is why we do this. Why we drag ourselves out to church the moment we land somewhere, even when it’s hard and the last thing I want to do is find a new church family to belong to. Because I want them to know that this is important and no matter where they go in life they need to find a community of other believers to make friends and worship with.

At least that part of my morning felt like a success. I have no idea what we’ll do next week and I was too tired after service to talk about how everyone else felt about it. I went home and crawled in bed (to get warm) and fell asleep for 3 hours. By accident.

This evening we had a party to go to with all the guys that Josh is working with and the few families that are here. It was nice to meet everyone and the kids had a great time. 

She’s pouting that it’s time to go home. 
One of the Marines is a balloon artist and he brought all of his balloons and his pump and spent all evening making the kids balloon animals and teaching them how to make them. 
They loved it and now I have more balloon creations in my house than I ever thought imaginable (and spares so they can make more of their own). Aside from the random balloon popping that set everyone’s PTSD on edge, it was a fun time for everyone. 

mistress of the manor

Today my job was managing maintenance calls to the house. Super exciting. One AC unit was out making Carter’s room an oven (he had to sleep in the hallway last night) so the repair people came to work on it today. Meanwhile someone blocked up a toilet requiring another repair call and I have no hot water in my shower so someone else came to look at that problem. Technically I have some hot water, but it’s only the cold water that gets hot from the tank being on the roof and and since my faucet has the hot and cold switched the guy and I went round and round about whether I actually had a problem or not. 
Another quirky thing about our house: the doorbell rings in an odd location so it’s easy to miss. I would blame it on my poor hearing except the kids and the dog can’t hear it either. That makes waiting for house calls an adventure. Ironically in Bahrain service people who came to the door would lean on our very loud bell and ring it non-stop until someone came to the gate, behavior that made me want to strangle them. Here it seems that the cultural norm is one short push on the bell and then nothing else. I hope they learn to ring twice or come and knock or they’ll be waiting a long time for someone to come to the door. 
The kids have been doing a lot of this. 

Lying around, looking at books, watching TV or playing games on their phones/ipads. Today was more laundry, more Gilmore Girls (I’m almost done with the good seasons and haven’t decided if I’m going to torture myself with the later ones or not), and our new nanny/housemaid/personal assistant/organizer/sanity saver came over to meet us. She’s very young and quiet, but was sweet with both Camille and Micah. She’s going to move in with us this weekend which stretches me way out of my comfort zone. but I think it will be a good thing for everyone. 
Camille has been busy taking selfies to send to Josie. She misses her a lot. 

When Josh came home from work tonight we went to the mall for dinner and to pick up a few more things for the house. 

No alcohol here — only juice dressed up to look like cocktails. 

We ended up at Chili’s so we could have bottomless tortilla chips and salsa. And because it was the only warmish spot in the mall. I’m going to need a parka to go shopping here. It’s like they’re trying to recreate Ski Dubai here in Abu Dhabi. 

Kind of fancy: the glass elevator travels up and down the side of an aquarium. 

Shopping for more house stuff. 

I need to remind myself that this part of moving is always hard. There’s not much to do, I feel out of place, we spend more money than I want to, and even if I’m making the best of it, I can’t help that it doesn’t feel like home. I have to wait it out. I didn’t love Oman upon arrival and I certainly didn’t adore Bahrain. The only place I fell in love with right away was Egypt and that’s because it was first and was our long awaited adventure. I gave it a lot of slack because it was only “temporary.”

After we came home from the store the kids took the pets outside and ran around our yard before bed. This is what we wanted.

A hot summer night — the kids playing soccer in our yard. It will feel like home soon enough.