Natural Disasters and Other Summer Pastimes

Stop talking about it, Mom.  Stop saying "we were so lucky to get out".  When you say that, it makes me think about what could have happened.  But it didn't.  We did get out.  That's all that matters.

* * *

This is our second year returning home to Canada for the summer.  Having learned a little bit from our experience last year, we decided to change some things around.  Just like last year, the kids and I came back to Calgary for a bit to visit with friends.  But this year, instead of spending our whole time in the city, we decided to follow our friends and hop one province over into British Columbia, renting a cabin in the beautiful little mountain town of Windermere.

Our vacation within a vacation proved to be a wise choice.  We went to the beach everyday, taking advantage of the 30C temperatures and sunny skies.  A friend took us out on his boat, and the kids knee-boarded, wake-boarded, and went tubing. We sat with friends on the grass beside the lake and grazed on all-afternoon lunches.  We'd meet again for potluck dinners, and drink wine by the campfire until midnight.

The amazingly good weather stayed with us until two days before we left.  On our last day in Windermere, with the rain pouring down and no chance of going to the beach, we decided to go to the natural hot springs in Fairmont.  My friends, Lisa and Randy, and their two boys, plus another friend of the boys', led the way in their van, with my kids and I following.  Randy and I parked our vans next to a creek at the resort, but were told we were parked illegally, so made our way up to the parking lot and found spots.

* * *

The serene hot springs, as seen from the opposite side of the creek.
The creek is in the lower part of the picture.

After the boys had spent about 40 minutes in the hot springs, they started a game of Marco Polo.  Thinking that they may be there for awhile, Lisa decided that it would probably be best if she came to tell me and Jacob not to wait, and that she and Randy would bring all the boys home.  She crossed the small footbridge—really, a couple of pieces of wood across the creek.  As she headed up the path on the way back to the parking lot, she noticed that the water level in the creek was rising, and returned to the crossing to warn Randy.

* * *

Randy stayed to watch the boys while Lisa returned to the parking lot to talk to me.  He saw her return, and she told him that the footbridge had been washed away, and that he should try to find something to use as a crossing.  Above the din of the waterfall behind him, Randy heard Lisa say that she was going for help, and saw her head back toward the path.

* * *

Lisa looked up the mountain and saw creek water pouring over the access road.  As she watched, she saw not just water, but mud and trees making their way down the waterway that had once been a small creek, and was now a 20-foot wide torrent.  Panicked, she tried to return to the hot springs to warn Randy, but the path had washed out, and she was now ankle-deep in muddy water.  Without a path, she was forced to scale the steep embankment by grasping tree roots and finding footing on rocks, while calling out to anyone who could hear her in the RV park.  Several people came over to help her, and they ran to a spot directly across the creek from the hot springs, where Randy and the five boys still were.

* * *

Suddenly, Randy and the boys heard a rumbling from up the mountain, sounding like thunder.  A wave of mud, trees, and rocks rushed down what used to be the creek.  A chain-link fence on the opposite side was peeled away like a sardine can.  A garbage can that had been cemented down was caught in the strong current and churned past.  Randy saw Lisa and others on the embankment opposite to where he was, gesturing wildly and telling him that he needed to get everyone out of there.  Ben and Nick saw a what looked like a path up the steep embankment from the hot springs.  From their vantage point, the campers on the RV side could see the same path up the embankment on the hot springs side, and yelled for them to climb up.

* * *

Jacob and I sat inside our warm, dry van while the rain poured outside.  We read, and occasionally turned on the engine to listen to the radio.  After about 40 minutes, we noticed people running up to the parking lot from the public pools, most in their bathing suits, some with bare feet.  When they reached the lot, everyone seemed to be looking in the direction of the road crossing the creek.  I wondered out loud if perhaps there was a bear there, and told Jacob I was going to go and have a look.

With my raincoat on and the hood pulled down to nearly my nose, jeans rolled up to as not to get the bottoms wet, and flip-flops on my feet, I got out of the car and walked in the direction of the access road.  I stared at the spot where Randy and I had parked our vans less than 45 minutes earlier:

Our cars had been parked on the near side of the creek,
where this torrent of water is now shown

* * *

Ben was the first one to scale the embankment, and was met by lifeguards from the public pools and emergency officials at the top.  Nick climbed half way, and then helped the other kids make their way before making his way up. In the pouring rain, after he had ensured that all five boys had reached safety, Randy scaled the cliff himself, grasping at tree roots and using rocks as footholds.

* * *

Frantic, I ran down to the public pools, scanning the crowd for our group.  They were nowhere to be found.  The pools had been evacuated, and as I made my way in the opposite direction of those leaving the pool, I was told that it was a restricted area and that I had to leave.  I explained that I was looking for my family and friends, and a supervisor at the pools had me write down the names and ages of everyone I was looking for, as well as my cell number, with strict instructions to call her when and if  I did locate them.  I returned to the parking lot again, looking for them.  In vain, I went to the pools again, which were totally empty of bathers by this point.  On my second climb up the hill, with the rain still falling hard, I spotted, with a wave of relief, Randy and all five boys standing on the walkway.  After a flurry of comparing notes and piecing together what had happened, I looked around the group and said to Randy, "Where's Lisa?"

***

Lisa had been stranded on the RV Park side of the creek after the road and the footbridge had both washed out.  She was able to borrow a phone (and eventually, dry clothes) from one of the campers, and after a couple of anxious phone calls to Randy and I, we all finally knew that everyone was accounted for and safe.  

The aftermath of the slide

The five boys were cold, wet, and muddy when I returned them home.  Lisa was later able to get a ride by helicopter, and was home by about 9:00 pm.

My kids told me at first that they felt they were never in any danger, and for that I credit Randy with remaining calm during the whole ordeal.  It wasn't until later, when we had pieced together stories from all seven people, and the media had descended on our neighbourhood in Windermere, that I realized just how close a call this was.  Lucky, for sure, and grateful that I am able to report this as a near-miss.

Time Zoned-Out

A serial expat friend of mine once declared that jet lag didn't affect her.  "What's the big deal?  You're really tired on the first night, so you sleep well, and by the next day you're turned around."  I remember gaping at her, incredulous.  I also remember secretly wanting to sneak out to her driveway and let all the air out of her tires.

Dan's parents have come from Canada to visit us in Doha twice.  (The fact that they made that trip more than once affirms my opinion that those 26-hour journeys are a lot like childbirth:  long, painful and unpleasant, but the horror is instantly forgotten, leaving the optimistic feeling of wanting to try it again in a year or two.)  On both trips, my father-in-law behaved like any normal person for the first week:  he was up at the ungodly hour of 3:00 am for a few days, kept trying to catch a nap during the afternoon, looked vacant and pale just shortly after dinner, and begged off to bed well before the rest of us.  My mother-in-law, however, acted like she had been living with us for the whole year, or at the very least taking a well-scheduled combination of melatonin supplements and Red Bull.  She'd get a solid 10 hours on the first night, up at 8:00, and then proceed to do all the dishes, play three two-hour games of Settlers of Catan, dead-head my petunias, and clean out my Tupperware cupboard.  She'd turn in only after completing the border of a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle, long after the rest of us had given up and gone to bed.  This was her pattern for the remainder of her stay.  Sleep-of-the-dead, up, frenetic pace, repeat.

Is it possible that the two women described above are superhuman?  I ask this because last week, after a 13-hour overseas flight, followed by a 4-1/2-hour flight across four provinces, I felt quite a bit less than human.  In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, but I felt downright short-tempered and bitchy.  Kind of like my normal self, only kicked up a few notches.

For those of you who have experienced jet lag, you know the drill.  Night One, after being awake for 30 hours in transit, you are delirious with exhaustion and sleep a good eight hours.  "Ahh, 6:00 a.m.!" you might exclaim upon waking.  You will think, mistakenly, that you are "turned around".  But Night One is all a big set-up for your pending and most certain disappointment.

The best advice I can give for the day after Night One is this:  don't sign any legal documents and don't drive heavy machinery.  It is also a good idea to avoid attempting any transactions that are complicated and confusing.  (Note:  all transactions on this day will be complicated and confusing.)  On Day One, I made the mistake of visiting my local mobile phone service provider to get my phone working here in Calgary.  My recollection of the conversation is something like this:

"We have a plan that allows for free messaging, with 25 cents a minute for local calls for the first five minutes, or calculated at a rate of the integral of the speed of the call, whichever is greater, unless they are calls made to numbers consisting of only prime numbers, in which case unicorns will fly over rainbows, and...ma'am?  Ma'am?  Could you get your head off the counter?  We try to discourage the customers from drooling on the pamphlets."

Nights Two through Four are cruel, cruel times, indeed.  During dinner, the whole family will be unable to stay conversational, all of you holding your forks above your plates, silently chewing, your gaze just slightly to the left of your placemats to an intriguing spot on the table.  You'll order the kids to bed at 7:30 (there won't be a big fight), and force yourself to stay up until 9:00 in the hopes that you'll get another solid eight hours.  This will not happen.  Here's a tip:  no matter what time you go to bed, you will wake up, for good, at 4:00 a.m.  Go about your day.  Look cheerful—remember, you're on vacation!

The next few nights following these will be short, and the days will drag on.  You'll find yourself high-fiving the kids for sleeping in until 5:45.  You'll stubbornly refuse naps and watch a load of crappy TV just to stay awake until 10:00.  Your brow will be furrowed, and people who are a) related to you, and b) shorter than you, might get on your nerves.  This may or may not pass.

The rule of thumb for figuring out how long it will take someone to overcome jet lag is one day for every hour of time difference.  Tomorrow marks Day Nine in our struggle with the nine-hour time difference between Doha and Calgary, so by this estimation, we should be turned around.  I think the kids are already there.  As for myself, it's a little hard to tell.  I'll know I've reached complete turn-around when there is only one 6 o'clock in my day, and when I don't have the urge to take my still-non-functioning cell phone outside and beat it to smithereens with a tire-iron.  I think you'll need to give me another day or two.

I Thought We Were Still Friends, Canada

Chances are if you're an expat in Qatar, you've got access to your some of your home country's government services by way of an embassy here.  I know this because of the highly scientific research I've done, which consisted of looking at my "Marhaba Map of Doha, 2011 Edition" and counting up all the little flags.  Based on my rigorous analysis, I was able to compile a list of embassies here in Doha:

Japan, Korea, Iran, Pakistan, France, Somalia, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Kuwait, Philippines, Syria, Turkey, Mauritania, Cyprus, Thailand, Macedonia, Algeria, Sri Lanka, Yemen, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Algeria, United Kingdom, Swaziland, Venezuela, Bahrain, Greece, Hungary, Libya, Kazakhstan, Brazil, The Netherlands, India, Vietnam, South Africa, Cuba, El Salvador, Afghanistan, Singapore, Eritrea—

Eritrea?

—Palestine, Indonesia, Bangladesh, United States of America, Germany, Belgium, Romania, Senegal, Iraq, Russia, Poland, Italy, Malaysia, Spain, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Dominican Republic, and my personal favourite, Djibouti (no, I did not just make that one up).

Notice anybody missing?  Maybe a sweet young thing that's overly-polite and smells a little like maple syrup?  Talks incessantly about hockey?  Puts bacon on everything?  That's right.  At the time of printing, my map did not include a Canadian Embassy here in Qatar.

Ever since we left Canada two years ago, there's been talk about a Canadian Embassy opening here.  So, we've been waiting, along with our compatriots, but after awhile it didn't really seem to matter.  We haven't had to have a passport renewed, or need anything notarized.  Our point of contact, should we need anything, was the Canadian Embassy in Kuwait.  We'd get the occasional email from the Consulate, telling us about upcoming visits to Doha and inviting us to come to their make-shift office if we required their services.  We never went.

But it was still nice to know they were thinking about us.  And I day-dreamed about what an embassy here would be like.  It would open to great fanfare, all expat Canadians gathering on our newly-minted patch of Canadian soil, waving flags of the maple leaf, unitedly finding respite from some of the more frustrating aspects of Qatar.  There'd be a cardboard cut-out of Prime Minister Stephen Harper that many of us would mistake for the real thing and try to shake his hand.   We'd lament the time difference and the lack of a decent pub in which to watch the Stanley Cup play-offs. We'd share Tim Horton's coffee and donuts, and complain about the weather.  Jian Ghomeshi would MC.

And then a couple of weeks ago, we received another email from the Canadian Consulate, this time asking for volunteers for their Warden system, a communication network designed for responding to an emergency in Qatar.  I gave it a cursory scan and then did a double-take at the signature:

Consul

Embassy of Canada

Doha, State of Qatar

More extensive scientific research (Google) led to me to discover that the Canadian Embassy in Qatar was officially opened in March.  They have an ambassador and everything.  Apparently our Governor General and Minister of Foreign Affairs were here for the opening.  Frankly, I was a little offended that they never called.

Opening an embassy in a foreign country without inviting or informing the expatriate citizens in that country is a little like David Cronenberg premiering a movie on a 20-inch TV in his basement to his two next door neighbours who don't even have an interest in movies.  Talk about not knowing your target audience.

Let me present this metaphor:  Say I'm me, and Canada is my ex-boyfriend.  If you had an ex-boyfriend that you were still on pretty good terms with, and you still maintained written correspondence, and in turn he always let you know when he was going to be flying in for a couple of days, and even if you NEVER took him up on a single one of his dinner invitations, wouldn't you expect him to, at the very least, let you know that he's moving to town?

I would have come, Canada.  I would have made a big deal about it.  Maybe I even would have made Nanaimo bars.  But now, guess what?  When I go to Canada next week, I'm not calling you, either. The only difference will be that you will definitely know I'm there.

* * *

Embassy of Canada

Tornado Tower, 30^th Floor

Corner of Majlis Al Taawon Street and Al Funduq Steet,

P.O. Box 24876
Doha, State of Qatar

Postal Address:
P.O. Box 24876
Doha, State of Qatar

Telephone: (974) 4419 9000
Fax: (974) 4419 9035
E-mail: dohag@international.gc.ca

Hours of operation

By appointment only

Not Forgotten

Over the weekend we noticed that we were almost out of beer.  This is an unacceptable state to be in at our house.  Clearly, action needed to be taken.

I mentioned my planned trip to QDC to a friend yesterday morning.  She had been there the day before, and told me that she heard that they were getting a wider variety of pork products in the night before.  And by "wider variety", she meant something other than the Italian luncheon meats and overly salty bacon currently on offer.  Pork chops were going to be available.  Also, they had now started opening an hour and a half earlier, which wasn't yet common knowledge.

So when I arrived at QDC, well ahead of the most of the general public, I was over the moon to see pork chops, baby back ribs, and tenderloin.  I filled my cart (read:  cleaned out their freezer), and really had to put my shoulder into it to wheel it to the till.  While I stood in the store waiting for a friend to return my call with her 'order', I went on FB and checked-in, and wrote a mildly humorous line about finding happiness in a cooler full of pork chops.

The light-hearted banter on that FB check-in continued throughout the day.  And then last evening, a good friend posted a comment on my post about finding happiness in being with her children, and the fact that she still had them.  I knew what she meant.  I knew she wasn't chastising me for being so flippant, for posting something so inconsequential.  For her, it wasn't time yet.  It was too early to be happy about anything.

The last seven days have been difficult.  The profound sadness I felt after the unthinkable in our city last Monday brought me to tears for the better part of the week.  And while this loss was not personal, it managed to become so.  I didn't know any of the families that lost children, but I know people who knew them.  Two degrees of separation.  Too close.

Grief continues to blind-side me.  A dad pushing his baby in a stroller on the compound.  A thought about stopping in to Villaggio to pick up a new shirt for B, impossible now, but the reality being so incongruous that in my subconscious, possible.  The first drive past the mall since the tragedy.  All of these things bring me to tears, unexpectedly.

And still, the question of why lingers, always.  Why that day?  Why not the middle of the night?  Why that specific, small location in what is, by all measures, a very large mall?

On Thursday, the kids' school held a memorial.  That day I signed fifteen books of condolence.  Fifteen.  Can that number be right?  Did I really stand and write something in each book?  It seems impossible that I did.  Two of those books were for families that had lost three children each.  Cue the rage.

On my way home from QDC, in my contented state, trunk full of The Forbidden Meat, I ended up driving behind a small white car that was going too slow for the speed limit and weaving back and forth across the middle lane.  No way I'm following this, I thought, and moved over to the left lane.  As I passed, I saw that there were three small children in the back seat, not one older than four-years-old, all climbing and jumping on the seats, not a seatbelt in sight.  Their mother, who was completely covered, save for the glasses poking out through her face covering, drove on, all the while reading a map that she held up on the steering wheel.  Two weeks ago, this would have been an anecdote to share with Dan later that evening with a smirk and a shake of the head.  Now, I wanted to pull her out of the car, grab her by the shoulders and scream at her.  Do you not know??  DO YOU STILL NOT KNOW ANYTHING??

I think of grief like a deep pit, with a rough, scratchy rope ladder to help you climb out.  For every rung on the ladder that you climb, there is always a little slip back.  Maybe you don't always pull yourself all the way out.

You can find me now, yelling at my kids for not putting their dishes away, posting something funny, and complaining about how long it takes to get N's phone fixed here.  But that doesn't mean that there's not an hour that goes by that I don't think about those 19 people who died here last week, and that sometimes, it still moves me to tears.  It will go on:  the yelling, the jokes, the complaining, and the grief.  All of this, all together.  To be continued.

Shiny on the Outside

Doha looks like any modern city, even by Western standards.  There are museums, stadiums, and high-rises.  The skyline, up against the cool blue of the Gulf, is spectacular.  Our compound is made up of villas that look really quite lovely.  The shopping malls, where we spend much of our leisure time escaping the heat, have everything we need to entertain us: groceries, movie theatres, bowling alleys, restaurants, amusement parks and hockey rinks.

But it's just a facade.  Shiny and new on the outside, only.  We often talk about things that fall apart in our villa, or the questionable support-post smack-dab in the middle of Dan's office at work. Things are constructed quickly, and often, poorly.  It's not a big leap from this conversation to one about how this city is thirty years behind in other aspects.  The smoking in public places, often comically beneath a "No Smoking" sign.  The story about the family who noticed that the fire alarms had been switched off in their daughter's hospital room.  The small children bouncing around the back of SUVs, or on their parents'  laps, unbuckled, while their vehicle speeds past us.  When I'm with friends, we laugh nervously about how backwards things can be here.  After all, this isn't our city.  We're just guests here.  None of this will ever impact us.  Until it did.

Today, the city is reeling with unimaginable tragedy.  Yesterday morning, we heard the news that there had been a fire at Villaggio Mall.  As reports trickled in during the evening hours, we learned with horror and grief that 19 people lost their lives, including 13 small children.  All were expats.  First reports indicate that the fire may have been electrical, and started in or near a drop-in childcare centre.  Two fire-fighters and four teachers died.  Heart-breakingly, one family from New Zealand lost their two-year-old triplets.  The stories of loss become too unbearable to re-tell.

Information is available in bits and pieces—some of it online, some of it first-hand from people who were there.  A fire alarm did go off, but was described as "benign", sounding like a doorbell.  People continued to shop while the mall filled with smoke.  Members of the public urgently told others to get out, while no direction was given by mall staff.  To their credit, when a 999 call was finally made, fire-fighters arrived on scene within two minutes.

When you grow up on the other side of the world, you make certain assumptions about society that linger with you when you move to one that, on the outside, doesn't look that much different from your own.  You assume that society is inherently safe, and that you will be looked after in your time of need. Without giving much thought to it, you assume that there is an emergency action-plan in place at stadiums, schools, and shopping malls.  You assume that there are working fire alarms, smoke detectors, and sprinkler systems.  You assume someone will call 999 if there is an emergency.

As one friend so eloquently put it, this mall was like a village to our community.  Between Dan and the kids, we were there four days a week for hockey.  During practices or between games, we'd have coffee, shop for groceries, and chat friends and teachers from the kids' school.  I have given my kids more freedom as they get older, in the hopes that it breeds a new level of responsibility.  I have let N, last year at age 12, hang out at this very mall with a group of friends, unchaperoned, on a Thursday night.  It was only two days before this tragedy that I sat beside the ice-rink at Villaggio and told J, aged 10, that yes, he could walk down to Virgin (at the complete opposite end of the mall) to check the price of an iPod, while his dad coached and I watched his two brothers play hockey.  What if fire had broken out between us?  Would he have known to leave the building, or would he have tried to come back to where I was?  More importantly, would another adult, a member of the society I have so much faith in, have guided him to safety?  What if, what if, what if.

As Doha comes together to grieve and to try to understand such a senseless tragedy, I hope there is a way to move forward and make this city a safer place to live.  My deepest, heart-felt condolences to those who suffered such incomprehensible loss.

Where Art Thou, Cheerios?

They sit atop my grocery list

Have you seen this box?

Like something that I must have missed
For months in Doha I cannot find
This staple of the breakfast kind
Someone out there surely knows:
Where are all the Cheerios?

They used to grace the grocer's shelves
But now, it seems, that they, themselves,
Have vanished, vamoosed, disappeared
This cereal, once so endeared
Into our milk-filled bowls fall tear-ios
Where the heck are all the Cheerios?

I snapped and bought the Honey version
A box of fructose—sweet perversion
To say those O's were not the same
Gives understatement a new name
The kids, they found them quite a treat
But Dan, he called them much too sweet
To pass across his breakfast table
"Tell me, dear, are you not able
To fulfill your wifely duty
And provide (besides your beauty)
Love and comfort—all those things
And especially, those oatie rings?"

I sit him down; this needs explaining
It's not just him I've heard complaining
A mother, a baby, a family
My own dear sons, my young friend E
We've gone across this dusty city
(Trust me, hun, it wasn't pretty)
In search of something held so dear-io
A solitary, crispy, Cheerio

But that's not all, across this nation,
That causes pangs of deprivation
Arborio I oft bemoan
Pepper salsa (Newman's Own)
Ketjap Manis - Indo saucy
(Don't ask me—it's loved by Aussies)
Graham crackers, sour cream
Wake me from this hungry dream!
And also in my manifesto:
Jamie Oliver's basil pesto

So if, dear reader, you spot some Cheerios
And change them back from Disappearios
Post it here, but please don't hoard!
Sharing is its own reward
And be prepared:  there is no telling
Which favourite item they'll stop selling