Robin Chartier – Page 65

World traveling

My mom and dad sent me the most amazing thing — a copy of a photograph of my grandfather during World War 2 with some of the guys from his Army unit in front of the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx in Egypt. (He’s the guy second from the right — the one who looks like Carter.)

If I had known this photo existed, I would have recreated one with us in the same place, but alas, I guess we’ll have to go back someday and get a matching portrait. I wish I knew the background of this photo and how they happened to be there and what he thought about seeing the Great Pyramids, but my grandpa never talked about his experience (except for sharing a little bit with Josh) and I only know that he spent time in Egypt and Tunisia during the war and did something with parachutes. I’ll have to dig deeper into that history if I can.

It makes me treasure these photos even more — this one from our return visit in 2012 and others from our first time around.

I wonder if my grandkids or great-grandkids will someday look at these and marvel that the pyramids existed “way back when Grandma was young.”

We had just arrived in Egypt and had no idea we’d still be kicking around here 5 years later. Caleb is very excited that he’s about to turn 12 and hit the mark where he has spent 1/2 of his life in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Camille has been telling me about this magical place back in America called “Wal-Mart” and wants to know if we can go there someday. I laugh at how different our lives are from anything I expected.

It’s always a tradeoff, but it’s a trade we’re willing to make, for now.

It looks like we’re going to end up like those old missionary couples who retire to the US, but their homes are filled with everything from the country they came from so crossing the threshold brings you to Uganda or Papua New Guinea. You’ll be able to enter the Middle East at our house as we’re surrounded by Turkish lamps, Persian rugs, framed Arabic calligraphy, and photos of camels on our walls. I don’t know when that will be, but inshallah it won’t happen before 2020.

While I’m thinking of the Middle East, Carter is off in Uganda. He had the opportunity to travel with our friends to Oman to the children’s home where we sponsor two kids in memory of our friends who were killed by a drunk driver. This August it will have been 4 years since the accident and it’s amazing to think that now 60 kids have shelter, food and an education because a group of people wanted to bring good out of tragedy.

Carter messaged me that he’s been having a great time with the kids — playing, going to their school,

going to church, etc. Internet is spotty there so I haven’t seen any photos yet. I just know that he’s healthy and remembering to take his malaria medication.

We sent him on his way, confident that he could navigate passport control, security, and purchasing his entry visa on the other end in Oman. (Then a few hours later he flew on to Uganda with our friends.) He might not be familiar with the inside of a Wal-Mart, but he has plenty of airport experience.

We are thankful for any opportunities that our kids have to see the world.

ETA: This is the group that oversees the Michelle and Julia Hoffman Home: True Impact Ministries

He is Risen

It’s tricky to celebrate American holidays in the Middle East — Christmas doesn’t quite have that “over the river and through the woods” feel when we’re surrounded by honking horns, sand, and palm trees, though Southern California residents could say the same. And with British and Bahraini Mother’s Day both occurring on different days in March the greeting “Happy Mother’s Day” suddenly sends me into a panic that “it’s May already?” until I realize we’re working with a different calendar. But I think the most complicated holiday of them all is Easter.

Because our day of worship here is Friday and Sunday is a workday, we have to do a combined Good Friday/Easter Sunday service and then our resurrection celebration is over before those in the US have barely gotten through Maundy Thursday. And on Friday morning at church what do you say to greet friends? Happy Good Friday? That’s not a greeting regularly thrown around during those somber services with crosses and nails . . . but Happy Easter feels premature since it’s 2 days away.

Since we have to cover it all in one hour the service usually starts out somber, like you’d expect at a typical Good Friday service. Quiet reflection and songs about the cross and death, but midway through the tone shifts to the resurrection and ends with Christ the Lord Has Risen Today. It’s a bit of a whiplash and not the way I prefer to celebrate, but the fact that we can celebrate at all is something to sing praises about.

The difficult part is that once Friday morning is over the rest of the weekend is kind of “oh yeah, it’s Easter weekend,” but it feels like every other weekend and then Sunday comes and it’s business as usual and Josh goes to work and the kids may or may not have school (it has gone both ways. This year they made it a teacher work day so the kids could have off, but it’s not a “holiday.”) but it most definitely doesn’t feel like a holiday.

The base does a good job of keeping American traditions alive, even if a few years ago, after a run in with ACLU, they wiped all religious terminology from any base sponsored event and started calling it the “Spring Bunny” and the “Spring Egg Hunt” to keep from offending anyone. Ironic since there’s nothing religious about the bunny or candy filled eggs, but whatever.

We’ve never gone to the egg hunt before because I have a moral objection to getting up early on a Saturday morning when I don’t have to. And the egg hunt starts at 8am. I should get the ACLU to take care of that problem — where is my equal opportunity 10am hunt?

But this year girlie was old enough to know about the event and care about going so I made an exception. Caleb gave her some egg collecting strategies, but none of those could balance out my failure to provide a big enough basket.

I thought that would restrict the number of eggs she could collect, which would restrict the amount of crap that I had to bring home, but a fellow friend’s mom saw her trying to balance her eggs on top of each other and whipped out a plastic bag so she could collect all the loot she wanted.

And why is she out there solo? Because I didn’t want her to get run down by this mob:

So just like in the movie Far and Away, we inched down the sidelines and positioned ourselves across from the eggs in a strategic spot. Then when the whistle blew she popped out on the field and let the crowd race toward her and swallow her up as if she had been with them the entire time.

One race down, one more to go. After the egg hunt was the kids “Fun Run” which to all the 6th grade boys meant RACE.

After warming up on the field, she was ready for the course.

The “fun run” was for kids ages 5 to 12. And any of those older or younger who wanted to join in the fun.

Having second thoughts — scared she “won’t know where to go.” Oh, girlie. There’s no doubt you’re mine.

On your mark, get set . . .

Go!

She’s off on her 1/2 mile run.

At the finish!

Caleb finished his 2 miles in just over 15 minutes.

Carter ran, but served as the self appointed cleanup crew — picking up water bottles along the way.

My crew of runners (Calvin was home having a “rest day.” Well earned after the last 10 weeks coaching soccer every Saturday morning.)

Caleb and his friend Nathan — they trade running wins and drive each other to run faster. Caleb won this one, but Nathan is a year younger and right on his heels.

Postscript: It’s a good thing that we had our Easter celebration on Friday because when today rolled around, Josh headed to work and I went rummaging in the cupboards for vomit bowls. Instead of a relaxing day off of school we turned Bayt Chartier into an urgent care center. Just two kids are down, but sick enough to feel like 4. Now I can’t tell if I’m getting sick or just have the heebie jeebies from being surrounded by germs. Enjoy your jelly beans and peeps while I pass out popsicles and Fizzy Wizzy (local Sprite). Our crazy Middle East schedule worked out in our favor this time!

Impossible becomes hard

I wrote about starting CrossFit a while back and described it as waking up every morning knowing I was going to be asked to do something impossible. A few weeks ago I realized that a shift has occurred. I no longer dread the impossible, I dread doing difficult things.

It’s a minute, but huge distinction — the impossible has become possible.

I still can’t do a pull-up, but I’m getting closer. My original flailings at the bar with zero vertical movement have been replaced by flailing, swinging and only a few inches of airspace between my head and the bar. And when the workout includes handstand pushups I need a mat between my head and the ground, but that’s a huge improvement over those first days when I needed 2 mats under my head and I couldn’t lower myself to the ground without falling on my head — forget pushing back up!

The list of things I can do has grown while the list of “can’ts” is shrinking.

It’s still hard every day. I still have to make myself go. I still don’t love it in the way that I think people who love working out must. But I realized that doing something that I don’t love because it’s good for me isn’t fake or inauthentic, it’s discipline and maturity.

What I do love is that I’m stronger than I used to be. I love that it gives me more confidence mentally, especially when my anxiety used to tell me that my body was weak and was going to fail me. I love that my thighs aren’t as jiggly and I can actually feel muscles underneath my skin. I didn’t think that was something I could change as I got older. Now I’m wondering what would have been possible if I had tried to do this in my 20s!

Someone said, “You’re so skinny. I hate you,” but instead of getting offended, I laughed. First off, I’m starting from a place of good genes, but yes, over the last 9 months I have started to look leaner. But the bigger point is that it took a lot of hours of hard work and I wasn’t doing it to “get skinny.” If you told me back in July that I could look like I look today by doing hundreds of hours of physical labor I would have said, “forget it.” Totally not worth it. I’m not much different in size than when I sat on the couch all day and that was way less work. But the physical and mental strength training? That part is worth it and why I keep going. Plus, developing discipline is a good grownup life skill. The getting leaner and fitter looking along the way? Bonus. But certainly not why I get moving every morning.

So, skinny or not, I’ll continue to get up every morning and go do hard things and walk around with torn up hands as evidence that I’m working on those hard things. And someday even a pull-up will be possible.

not quite camping

We caught the camping bug. It’s been 4 years since our camping days in Oman and now we’re wondering why we waited so long. I’m not actually wondering — when you see the camping area in Bahrain compared to our surfside tents on the coast of Oman it’s pretty clear why we never bothered to try here.

But we were wrong, because while it might not be pretty, an evening in the oilfields is still pretty fun. Our friends had the coordinates for a sheltered spot to build a campfire on top of one of the rises (there really aren’t any mountains here). They have been a bunch of times, but sitting in the dirt and rocks around a smoky fire with the smell of natural gas in the air (from the drilling that they do) did not sound like the way I wanted to spend an evening. However, after we got a taste of it at the church service in the desert I figured we should try at least one Bahraini campout before we left the island.

And we even had the bright idea to take the dog with us. Probably the most fun he’s had in months. After seeing how happy he was running up and down the dirt dunes I was a bit regretful that we hadn’t done this before.

I had him on the leash for a while because there were several other Bahraini families tucked along the various edges of the ridge and I didn’t want Micah storming their picnic.

Always looking for a physical challenge, Caleb and some of the other kids ran down and scaled this rocky face over and over again. It was not only steep, but this photo shows less than half of the drop — I didn’t consider trying it myself. They were a dirty, sweaty mess before the sun set.

Race to the top and a debate over second or third place.

Camille and a wiser, older friend took the long and gradual climb to the top.

And ran back down to do it all over again.

The dog was perfectly behaved. There was a Bahraini family over the next ridge who was there with 3 little kids around the age of 3. The boy and 2 little girls saw us walking the dog and came running over in fascination and fear. It took them a while, but eventually each of the kids petted the dog and eventually were so comfortable they wanted to walk him around on his leash. Us having a dog is kind of the equivalent of someone in the United States having a pet tiger. You’ve seen them before, but never up close, and the idea of having one in your home is unimaginable.

The family was very sweet and the dad invited us over to his truck to sit and drink tea. I opted out because I didn’t want to bring the dog over to where the rest of his family was sitting and eating, but Josh and the kids sat and chatted and sipped chai with them.

The dog was a champ with all the food temptations and he was rewarded for his patience with the extra hot dogs at the end. People brought everything from steak to shrimp and chicken to hamburgers and hot dogs. I brought hot dogs so the kids could cook their own food, but Josh is a higher class camper than that and made hamburgers for everyone as well.

Then we sat around by the fire while it got dark and the moon began to set (yes, it got lower and lower in the sky as the evening went on).

Happy dog and Josh. It was a perfect night — not too hot for a fire, but warm enough to wear a t-shirt and be comfortable.

We broke out marshmallows and hot chocolate packets and heated water in a teakettle over the coals. I also brought coffee in a thermal carafe that I had brewed before heading out. We learned a few tips from our Oman camping friends — bring the comfort items along!

After they were full of marshmallows and chocolate, the kids climbed up the hill behind our camp and ran the ridge until we ran out of firewood and the fire died down.

We were tucked in a bowl with the rise wrapping around us on three sides and we listened to the crackling fire and chatted with friends as we watched our children in silhouette until it was time to head home.

Almost 4 years in and Bahrain still manages to surprise us.

Technical difficulties

My computer power cable died. I’d been holding it together with black electrical tape, but something inside finally gave up and it refused to respond. I ran to the store to buy another one, but since they didn’t have the cable I needed, I had to buy a new computer.

I’m not actually that impulsive, but one of the requirements of the school the kids will be going to next year is that they each have their own MacBook (starting in 7th grade) so that means we are on the hook for buying 3. Ouch! I came up with the genius idea of upgrading my laptop and giving my old one to Caleb because if he’s going to drop or misplace a piece of technology, I’d rather have it be a 4 year old one instead of something that is brand new. I get an upgrade and his computer was “free.” Win. Win.

So really, I just upgraded myself a few months earlier than planned. Now I can order a new power cord for “Caleb’s computer” and he’ll be all set. I was being practical and had nothing to do with the fact that I felt lost with that black screen staring back at me and refusing to wake up and serve me.

I have my phone but my eyeballs are crap and even with my super senior citizen sized 6+ screen I still prefer to do most things on my laptop. AND BONUS, my upgrade has a retina screen so I can actually read the screen without digging out my reading glasses.

I remember when I was in my 20s with 2 babies living in Lawton, OK and I would go to the YMCA to work out. There was a group of old ladies (60s/70s) who would be in the locker room every morning, changing after their water aerobics class, and all they would talk about was their various ailments: my knees are aching, oh my angina is acting up, Harold’s prostate is giving him fits and he’s getting up all night to pee … I used to giggle in my head, but I’m feeling them these days. Forget Botox, give me back my 35 year old eyes!

I’m exaggerating a bit, but when Josh and I were at dinner last night I did have to take a photo of the menu so I could zoom in to read it. And I might need to get a selfie stick just so I can hold my phone far enough away from my face to be able to read it.

But for now I’ll be enjoying the respite that my new MacBook provides with its gazillion pixels upgrade. Feeling a little less blind this morning. Happy day.

ETA: I should probably clarify that I have been spoiled by perfect vision and never needed glasses my entire life and even now I have perfect vision except when things are up close to my face or in low light, which feels totally ridiculous. So when I say “my eyeballs are crap” it’s a bit of hyperbole and it’s not like I’m going to be needing a Guide Dog by next week or anything.