The Freedom Post: Part 1

In case you don't know me or haven't read my blog before, a brief summary before I begin. I am 37 (eek) years old, and a Canadian. I love travelling, though I am not yet well-travelled. I lived in the United States for five years, and a few different places in Canada, including Montreal, but most of my adult life I have lived in Calgary, Alberta, where I taught high school for nearly a decade. Lately I have travelled to some dream destinations in the USA, like New York City and Hawaii. I have also been to Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Bahrain, London (UK), and most recently, Dubai (UAE). For the past ten months I lived and worked in Doha, Qatar as an art and drama teacher. I moved there alone last August, and shortly after I got married (2nd husband) this past December, my new hubby Paul joined me, followed shortly by his eight-year-old son, Brody.

I left behind a career with the Calgary Board of Education to accept a position at Qatar Canadian School for several reasons. Primarily, I wanted to travel and not just as a tourist, but live abroad to truly experience another culture. I was offered a few different positions, but the job at QCS seemed like the best decision for me. The benefits were good, the weather sounded great for a sun worshipper, and there were lots of school holidays that would potentially allow for even more travelling, to places nearer to that half of the globe.

Before I start to tell the sad part of my story in Qatar, I would like to explore what I gained from the experience, and why, in spite of everything, I would do it again. I believe that moving abroad is exciting but also incredibly challenging, even when you are moving somewhere like Qatar, where everyone speaks English to some degree. I identified stages that I went through, and that I saw others go through.

Stage 1: Excitement/Vacation Stage
When I first arrived in Doha, everything was strange, new, exciting, and cool. The light switches went the other way, the doors opened the wrong way, people were dressed strangely, and acted differently. I went around the area, exploring cool spots to eat, shop, and play. I went to the beach after work and congratulated myself for being daring enough to move to this strange land all alone and enjoy the exciting things I was experiencing. I took a bajillion pictures and splashed them all over this blog and all over facebook.

Stage 2: Oh my God, what have I done, I really live here!
Around the 45 day mark, I started to go through Stage 2. I was going to work every day, just like you would anywhere, and having less time for cool adventures. I was starting to find the same things that I had once enjoyed, really annoying, like the insane way people drive, or the rude way that Qatari's treat all other people like we somehow exist to serve them. Rather than eating out constantly, I was struggling to grocery shop in a foreign land where grocery stores are something of a mystery, and much of what I wanted was astronomically expensive, such as $60 for a small container of wild rice. I was starting to really miss my friends and family. While I had made lots of new acquaintances at work, I wasn't close enough to them yet to feel really bonded, and I was living in a hotel due to a housing problem. While it had a very beautiful view, I hadn't had the opportunity to settle and establish a home, and this did not help at this stage at all. I tearfully called my boss once, my fiancé once, and my mom more than once, to declare that I was coming home to Canada, only to change my mind the next day. This stage does not last more than a week or two IF you handle it the right way. I called up some of those new friends and went out to the beach and dinner, had real trusting heart-to-heart talks with new friends, and tried to have fun. This was an excellent solution and carried me to Stage 3. If you do not handle Stage 2 well, you will likely bail out and go home.

Stage 3: Acceptance
At this stage, I mellowed nicely. I began to enjoy my job, developed closer relationships to new friends, sent some notes to old friends, and started to think of Qatar as my home. I got a car and learned the city much better. I joined clubs and bought pictures for the walls. I had parties in my home that made it feel happier and found a nice balance between going out and staying in. I started to make decisions about the next school year, and plan and take vacations.

Stage 4: Love It or Hate It
This stage seems to go one of two ways. You either start to foster a deep and abiding loathing for your new home and vow to get what you can from the experience, but bail as soon as your contract is up, OR you decide that, despite its inconveniences and quirks, you are falling in love with your new home and can see yourself spending more than one year. I fell into the "love it" category at this point. By this point my husband and stepson had joined me in Qatar (he was going through Stage 2) and we had been given a villa in a compound where other families live. I realized one day as I walked around, saying hi to neighbours and friends, that this really felt like home and that, despite the annoying and dangerous drivers, the pollution of all kinds, the class system, the frightening nature of living in a kingdom state where your employer holds the key to your freedom, and the discomfort of wild sandstorms, I wanted to try to stay for at least another year, maybe longer. Due to my enthusiasm, and the support and love of our friends and colleagues, Brody also hit the Love It Stage really fast and Paul followed quickly as well. We decorated the villa and made more plans for trips and parties. We made plans to stay for as long as we could. Unfortunately, not long after, things went spectacularly to pieces.

One of the challenging aspects that you must understand is that in order to live in Qatar for longer than 30 days, outsiders must have a sponsor, usually their employer. This entity allows you to have a Resident's Permit. Without a Resident's Permit, you can not have a bank account, get a driver's licence, or even a SIM card for your phone. Basically, you do not exist. So when you move to Qatar, you immediately begin the terrible process of getting this "RP" completed. Besides having a sponsor who owns your life and decides whether, if ever, you get to leave the country, you also need fingerprinting, blood tests for AIDS and syphilis, blood typing (which they do wrong) and a chest x-ray. When Paul and Brody arrived, we began the RP process for them, which was doubly complicated because I am a woman. This is where the story begins to get juicy and ugly, so I will end this already long post for now. Part II will come on July 3rd, once Paul and Brody are safely on their way to Canada.