How To Be a Southern Lady
You’d think moving back to your own country would be a piece of cake, wouldn’t you? We nomads know better. Young people who travel to other countries to go to school know better. Military people know better. Missionaries know better. Diplomats know better. Anyone who has spent time living abroad know that it works both ways – you have an impact where you are living, and where you are living has an equal impact on you. You may go back, but you are never the same.
With this move, AdventureMan and I have been too busy trying to get settled and to take care of the incredible amount of bureaucratic detail it takes to relocate. Even with AdventureMan ‘retired’, the days are flying by, and we don’t know why we are so busy.
For one thing, I am doing my own housework, and I am finding I am not very good at it. Like I am good at getting laundry done, and even folded, but I haven’t ironed in a long time, and the things that need ironing are stacking up. I have bought a beautiful new ironing board, and a beautiful iron . . . and some starch, the liquid kind I like, not the spray kind. . . but I haven’t set it up, and I haven’t ironed, not a thing. I have discovered that all my packed things looked a lot better after hanging in the closets for a week, most of the wrinkles fell out, lucky me. But . . . the day of reckoning is coming.
The worst part, for me, is cleaning my floors. My floors are supposed to be beautiful; wood and tile floors. They actually ARE beautiful, maybe two days a week, the day I clean them and the next day, but five days a week, they need work. I wish I had asked my cleaning lady in Doha how she got my floors so beautifully clean. I wish I had paid more attention. I keep looking in the store for some miracle, a machine that will clean them in a heartbeat and make them all shiny. . .
The wonderful thing about moving into this culture – and it truly is a different culture from the one in which I was raised – is that we have our wonderful son and his wonderful wife to give us hints on what to do and not to do, and we have his wife’s wonderful family.
Mostly, I try to keep my eyes open. Southern women admire things extravagantly, and after living for so many years in the Middle East and Gulf, learning to admire extravagantly goes against all my instincts.
In the MIddle East, when you admire extravagantly, you can make people nervous. Some people worry about attracting “the evil eye” of jealousy, evil intentions, people who envy you and wish you harm. Some people, if you admire something, will give it to you! It’s true, those stories, it has happened to me. So now I have to un-learn my lessons in retraint and learn to appreciate, if not extravagantly, at least enough to be polite.
One of my wife’s relatives gave us a house-warming gift, an iced-tea maker, with a darling card that states Rule #1 is that every Southern Hostess knows that a pitcher of iced tea is a MUST for all occasions. I like iced tea, but I have never kept it on hand to serve, and I guess I need to start!
Her second rule was one that made me burst out laughing – “A Southern Lady, the most interesting ones anyway, know that rules are made to be broken.”
“Just be prepared for people to leave your home saying “Bless her heart, she must be getting forgetful. There was no iced tea!”
And then rule #3 – “The only correct and acceptable way to criticize anyone is to add ‘bless his/her heart!’ and then, anything goes!”
At a party at her house this weekend, I learned a couple more – the first rule being that when you are invited to a great big family dinner, bring dessert! Thank God, I did take a little guest gift, but now I know – bring dessert! And it had better be sweet!
The next rule is would make any Kuwaiti or Qattari feel right at home – spare nothing in making our guests comfortable. This Southern Hostess had seating areas inside the beautiful air conditioned home, and also seating outside for those who don’t mind a little heat. She had a big basket loaded with all kinds of insect repellents to keep her guests from being bitten. She took time with each guest, and although she was running her little bottom off getting everything organized, she made it all look easy, and as if she was having a good time. I have a sneaking suspicion the truly was enjoying having all the people around and that her great big heart loves taking care of the crowd. She was the essence of gracious hospitality. Did I mention she has also lived in Kuwait?
Dinner was “Perlow” an old Southern tradition, made in a huge old kettle from her husband’s mother, and hung from a tripod over a roaring fire to cook. The actual cooking was the men’s work as they sat outside drinking iced tea:
Home grown peas and beans mix – delicious!
Serving up the perlow:
My Middle East / Gulf friends would be comfortable eating this meal – Perlow is a variation of Pilaf, and very similar to Biryani. No alcohol served. No pork. Lots and lots of fabulous sweet desserts.
It’s funny, I used to tell people in Kuwait and Qatar that it was a lot like Alaska; when the weather got too bad, you just stay inside most of the time. When the weather gets good, you go outside as much as you can. When it’s too hot/cold, you run from your air conditioned/heated car to your air conditioned / heated store or movie theater, or restaurant, and then back to your air conditioned / heated car and back to your air conditioned/ heated house.
In the same way, I am beginning to wonder if the South and the Middle East know how much they have in common? In Pensacola, on Saturdays, we have the religious people on the corners shouting at passing cars, not a whole lot different from the volunteer morality police in Saudi Arabia. In the South, as in the Middle East, ‘family’ isn’t just blood, it’s also who you’re married into, and there is a lot of emphasis on family getting together and spending time together. In the South, as in the Middle East, men tend to gather in one area, women in another.
In the South, they drink iced tea; in the Middle East, it’s hot tea. Both have passionate patriots, fundamental believers and a tradition of gracious hospitality. Both have a passion for hunting and fishing. Nobody much likes obeying the rules in either culture. Maybe I’m still in the MIddle East?
Ketchup Entry
“It’s been five days since you blogged,” my friend wrote to me. “Isn’t that some kind of a record?”
Well, no.
Back when I went to Damascus for Christmas, it was also the Eid al Kebir, and I was gone for a week and everyone was so busy with their own celebrations that no one really noticed. 🙂 Well, maybe my Mother. 🙂
This time, it has to do with AdventureMan.
AdventureMan became semi-retired this last week. He and the Qatteri Cat flew to Pensacola, where we met up and now the three of us are staying in a hotel while our heroic contractors are battling to have us in the house by April 15th. Will we make it?
The Qatteri Cat was totally freaked out by his long long trip to the United States. First, for all my annoyances with KLM, we have to tell you that they are totally superb when you are shipping an animal with you. At every stage of the journey, they kept AdventureMan informed on QC’s progress, and he was in great shape when he arrived, except that he was really, really scared. He didn’t understand any of this, the long flight, all the noise, the vibration and then the hotel room full of strange smells of a 1,000 previous guests. (If you are a cat, you can smell things we can’t even dream).
He is OK now. He has a short memory.
Meanwhile, AdventureMan and I have been doing the business of getting ready to get settled, and at the same time, AM is jet lagging. I tell him I think he is catching up on months of sleep deprivation, and he says he thinks it is just jet lag. It makes me happy to see him sleep.
Today, we went by the house so I could pot a cherry tomato, a very special heirloom tomato that I found at the Emerald Coast Garden Show this last weekend. It is a black cherry tomato, and I have never seen one! I have sent for some other heirloom seeds; I love cherry tomatoes and grape tomatoes, tiny little tomatoes with intense flavor. I love to mix them all together with some green onion tops and just a little lemon-y vinaigrette dressing, maybe on some lettuce. YUMMM!
Anyway, AdventureMan likes gardening, too. He comes by it honestly, both his grandfathers gardened. One of them had chickens, too, and grew peanuts, and corn as well as a garden full of vegetables. I garden on a much smaller scale. Mostly I plant things that will take care of themselves – lavender, rosemary. Here, in the mild climate of Pensacola, basil becomes a perennial (I saw that in Kuwait, too, at our Kuwait gardening friend’s house) and I have planted some bougainvillea, which I am hoping will be hardy enough to weather an occasional cold winter or two like the last one.
When we got to the house – and this is Sunday, in the heart of the Bible-belt deep South – the ceiling and drywall people were there, working on a ceiling. We were surprised to see them there, but we know they are all trying really hard to get us into the house as soon as they can.
I was thinking AdventureMan was going to kick back and take it easy, but it hasn’t turned out that way – we are up and at-’em every day, and we have accomplished amazing things. More about some of that in future posts.
Just wanted to let you know I haven’t forgotten about you – just haven’t had the opportunity to sit for very long to organize my thoughts.
Places I’ll Remember . . .
I’m not very good at being sad. Today is one of the saddest days of my life. I’ve been weeping all day, and I’m not one of those women whom the camera loves when they weep. My throat gets thick, so clogged with emotion that I can’t talk clearly, and my eyes get all red and swollen. My cheeks get all blotchy. I hate it, my eyes are leaking, and my nose is running. I think I’ve got it all stopped, and it all starts up again.
Most of the house is packed, the kitchen cupboards cleared out and all the goods not going with us distributed. I weep as I pack my bags. I weep as I take out the garbage. I weep as I load one last load of wash into the washer.
“What is it in particular?” AdventureMan asks me, as I weep, yet again, as I start to write this entry.
“It’s the end of an era,” I choke out, and the tears start rolling once again in spite of all my efforts not to succumb.
“We’ve lived our lives as nomads ever since we met,” I continue.
“It isn’t like we want to live in Doha forever, Doha is changing, too, old friends are leaving.”
“It isn’t like I love packing up and starting over in a new place.”
“I shouldn’t have scheduled to leave on a Friday after church,” I philosophized, but it’s too late now. The waterworks started in church and have turned on and off with ever fresh goodbye.
I steeled myself to smile cheerily at my oldest friends, knowing we’ll meet up again – a wedding, a retirement, a gathering of old hands. But small things defeated me. The friends who switched their normal place in church and sat beside us. The communion hymn “Lord of the Dance” sung as a duet. One of our friends provided our very very favorite meal for lunch. The priest blessing my travels and sending me on with the prayers of the people. The difficult ceremony of saying goodbye to the people we love in a place which has nurtured us, spiritually and socially.
And one young woman painted a watercolor for us of our new grandson.
It is a stunning watercolor, I can hardly wait to have it framed. There is something very special in it – I have a friend who knits, but is constantly telling us how badly she knits. She knit a blanket for the grandson, and it was COLD in Pensacola, and that blanket was used over and over again. The blanket is in the lower left corner of the watercolor. 🙂
It’s going to be a long trip to our new life. We are going to a happy place – sunshine, but not so much heat. Humidity and lightning, but also four seasons and seafood. Our son, his wife, our grandson. All these are happy things. Our new house, a new life, closer to our families. All good things.
I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to my Palestinian friend, like my sister, and she shared all her children with me through these years of friendship. Saying goodbye to her was horrible. We know we may never see one another again. Her daughters assure me they will help us correspond; they will help her use modern technology to stay in touch. 🙂 I don’t know when I will ever see her again . . . and it breaks my heart. I guess I kind of thought she would come visit me. “No,” she said sadly, “no, I will never have the right papers to visit you.” Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how devastating are the restrictions on her life. And I’m just a friend. She hasn’t seen her own father, in Palestine, for years. Sometimes they can meet up in Egypt. . .
I’m not the first expat to leave here. One good friend left Doha last summer, she led the way. We all know that leaving the nomadic life is charting new territory. We’ve had a lot of fun, we’ve loved (most of) the expat experience. We know it’s time. It’s just the inner twenty-five year old is not ready.
AdventureMan’s company keeps saying “when you’ve had a break . . . ” and AdventureMan laughs and says “I’m not taking a break, I am RETIRING!” His company is savvy; they know that three months down the road the domestic life may get a bit old for these high testosterone kind of guys and they will invite him back for a special project or two. He promises me, if it is Doha or Kuwait, I can come with him. Even just a week or two, to see old friends . . . I’ll take it!
Thanks be to God, for creating us, and for giving us this wonderful life we were created to live. Thanks be to God for all these great adventures, for the exotic, the sights and smells and sounds, and for the eyes to see and the ears to hear. Thanks be to God for the generous spirited friends called to his life, who have shared the path with us. And thanks be to God for this outlet, this blog, where I can share the good, the bad and the ugly with friends from all countries who have ever lived as strangers in a strange land (even when that ‘strange’ land is the USA, LOL!) Thank YOU, friends.
Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced, Supporting Family with Book Proceeds
This tiny little 10 year old girl, who knew she didn’t want to be married, and stuck to her guns, has had a life-long effect, changing the laws in Yemen so that a woman must now be 18 to marry. On the other hand, if the legal age before was age 15, how on earth was she allowed to marry at age 10?
Divorced Before Puberty: Former Child Bride
New Book
by Amy Hatch (Subscribe to Amy Hatch’s posts) Mar 5th 2010 10:30AM
From AOL News: Parenting
Divorced at age 10. Credit: Amazon
Nujood Ali walked into a Yemeni courtroom and asked to see a judge, because she wanted a divorce. This may seem like a common tale of marital dissolution, but Nujood Ali was just 10 years old when she defied the cultural traditions and walked out on the husband who was more than 20 years her senior.
Nujood, now 12, chronicles her journey from child bride to celebrated hero in her new autobiography, “I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced.” Ghostwritten by French newspaper reporter Delphine Minoui, the book details how the young girl shocked citizens of her native Yemen after she walked out on her arranged marriage to a motorcycle delivery man. Nujood’s father married her off to the man for a dowry of $250, and for two months she begged her husband every day to return her to her family.
He refused, and so Nujood decided to take action. One afternoon, when her mother sent her on an errand, Nujood took a bus into the crowded capital city of Sanaa. She then hailed a taxi to the courthouse. Not knowing what else to do, she sat on a bench outside a courtroom all day, until a judge noticed her lingering in the empty hallway. He asked what she needed, and the girl said simply, “I came for a divorce.”
Now, two years later, the girl tells Nicholas D. Kristof of The New York Times that she is back in her home land and is supporting her family with the royalties from her book, which spent five weeks at the top of the bestseller list in France. Her brothers, who once criticized her for shaming their family, seem to have no problem with their sister now that Nujood is the family breadwinner, Kristof writes.
“They’re very nice to her now,” Khadija al-Salami, a filmmaker who mentors Nujood, tells the Times. “They treat her like a queen.”
Nujood’s story isn’t just one in which a single child takes a stand and changes her life. The preteen’s courage set off a domino effect in Yemen, where very young girls are routinely sold into marriage. Following Nujood’s successful divorce petition, two girls, ages 9 and 12, also filed to legally end their marriages. Her ordeal also prompted Yemen’s lawmakers to increase the age of consent for marriage from 15 to 18.
Nujood has been honored and feted by journalists in many countries, and, on a visit to Paris last year, even met with France’s Human Rights Minister, Rama Yada, and Urban Affairs Minister Fadela Amara, with whom she discussed the problem of child marriage.
What are Nujood’s feelings on marriage now? She tells Time magazine she “no longer thinks about marriage.”
Change of Plans
When we were planning this trip, it all sounded so simple . . . greet the grandbaby, buy a house, quick, fly to Seattle, fly back to Pensacola, kiss the grandbaby and fly to Doha to pack.
Not quite the way it turned out. When we got here, the grandbaby was 11 days overdue. We got to be here for the birth. While our son and his wife labored, we went out with the world’s most wonderful real estate lady and actually, we did find a house.
Three years ago, we found a house. When I talked with the mortgage people, I said “We just finished paying off a mortgage with you; isn’t there some kind of short-cut you could do with me?” and they did something called “fast track” with me, and it was so easy I can’t even remember the paperwork; I think I filled it out on my computer – online – and that was it. My son handled the closing. It was so easy.
Things have really changed. This will be our third mortgage with the same company, but you would think we are potential deadbeats. We have high credit scores, an impeccable payment record – I would think they would want to have us as customers! It’s like pulling teeth. Papers don’t get to us. Additional verifications are required. Appraisers actually enter the house and verify square footage.
Between chasing paper and soothing the newborn, my life has been very full. It doesn’t sound very exciting, when I tell you about it, but here is the truth – I know I am exactly where I am supposed to be right now. It’s an amazing feeling.
Today, I spent a lot of time with the baby. At some point, I realized I wasn’t going to make it to Seattle this trip, and it’s OK. I can go to Seattle later. For right now, I have enough on my plate.
I had forgotten, too, how chaotic life with a newborn can be. His needs take precedence, and sometimes we all run around trying to guess what those needs might be, simple as they are . . . clean diaper? swaddling / soothing to sleep? Mother’s milk? Today was a really good day, where he took the diaper changes with grace, dropped right off to sleep after every meal, and was keenly alert for maybe a half hour after feeding before napping. He loves patterns and fabrics. I am having SO MUCH FUN!
A part of our life is ending, the nomadic part. AdventureMan and I have had a lot of fun, once our son got through college and law school, we were on our own again, living in Europe, living in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar – we have had a great adventure. We travelled to Botswana, Namibia, Zambia (several times), South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and spent a wonderful week on Mnemba Island off the coast of Zanzibar. We have wonderful friends, mostly from churches and interest groups. I would think, knowing us, that we would be sad leaving all this, but instead, we are racing toward our new future, being more settled, being near our son and his family, and his wife’s great big family. 🙂
For one thing, the world has changed. With e-mail and VOIP phones and people who jump on a plane at the drop of a hat, we expect to stay in touch with those we love and treasure. We expect they will come see us. It’s kind of fun settling in a place with white sandy beaches that everyone wants to come visit. 🙂 Cooler than Kuwait and Qatar in the summer time, too! Nice warm winters, well, not this winter, brrrrrrrrrrrr!
Thought you might want to see a photo of my little darling grandson:
Fun Packed Thursday
Who knew?
Who knew when we got up this morning what kind of day we would have? Our sweet daughter in law has been up most of the night with our sweet grandson, who is a little confused about day and night and other things. He was also a little bit jaundiced, so we wanted to take him in to the pediatrician, and at the same time, AdventureMan and I needed to get a H1N1 shot (Swine flu vaccine) which is recommended for all people in contact with precious new little babies.
We were confronted with the worlds “easiest” car seat, and trying to get the base installed. After a couple phone calls (and a rescheduling of our appointment) we got the car seat firmly established, and discovered little Grandson LOVES sleeping in his car seat. Who knew?
Our good friend and realtor lady comes by after lunch to help us write up two contracts – one buying, one selling – and it took hours, with three people in three different phone conversations at one time getting it all glued together.
During all this, our son gets a text message: the government offices in Pensacola will all be closed tomorrow for a SNOW day. A snow day in Pensacola! Pensacola, FLORIDA. LLOOLLLL!
Now, it is late afternoon, AdventureMan is back with little grandson, son and daughter in law are trying to get a little sleep – ah! remember those days of early parenthood? The effects of sleep deprivation?
We feel so blessed to be here at this time, to be able to help our son and his wife.
I was telling my daughter in law about how it works in Qatar, and how it works in some cases still, in Kuwait. When a woman has a baby, her husband takes her to the hospital, but he is not allowed in labor and delivery. If a woman has someone with her, it might be her Mom, or her sisters, or an aunt. She is expected to be very vocal, and the L&D ward is noisy with women vocalizing their “discomfort.”
The baby is born, and all the women’s family and friends visit. A family often brings big tankards of tea and coffee to the hospital, and little cups, to serve to all the visitors. A new mother can entertain, literally, dozens or even hundreds of visitors, because a hospital visit is expected.
When it comes time to go home, the woman and baby go to her parent’s home, where they take care of her and the baby for forty days. The husband visits, and he and his wife can play with the baby but the woman stays in bed most of the time while her family takes care of her and the baby. At the end of the forty days, the wife and baby go back home with her husband.
We agreed, that is a great way of doing things. A new Mother needs a lot of help. A new baby is kind of a shock; you can’t really tell anyone ahead of time what it is like to bring your first baby home.
It’s been a long day – and it isn’t even over.
First Things First
“I have some WONDERFUL news for you!” I gushed to AdventureMan when he picked up the call, “I found a third of the last fruitcake in the refrigerator!” I knew he thought he has finished off the fruit cake and that we didn’t have any more.
Pause. Pause. Pause.
“Hello? Hello? Are you there, AdventureMan.”
AdventureMan comes on, his work-a-day brisk, official self.
“When you start a conversation with ‘I have some wonderful news for you'” he says, “the next words out of your mouth really need to be that I am a grandfather.”
LLLLLLOOOOOLLLLLL.
I can’t make that happen any faster than it is going to happen. Baby grandson is now almost a week overdue, and we are waiting, waiting, waiting for him to show up. This is an eagerly awaited arrival.
I guess he is also happy about the fruitcake, but he really wants a grandson! 🙂
Thank You
At some hour, while I was sleeping, the blog hit 1M hits. Pretty cool, even though it is just a number.
AdventureMan said “how about if I take you out for dinner tonight to celebrate.”
(Thursday night is always date night. We always go out for dinner. He was being funny.)
But he reminded me that I used to thank my readers, and I haven’t done that for a long time.
Most of us who blog, and who continue blogging (it’s the continuing part that is hard work) blog because that’s the way God made us – he created us wanting to share the written word. For me, it’s sort of like thinking out loud, and many times I throw out ideas hoping to get other points of view to help me see things more fully, from more perspectives.
You, my readers, have given me unexpected points of view many, many times, and I thank you. Months after I write an article, you will read it and comment – and I read every comment. Thank you.
Coming soon, AdventureMan and I are starting a whole new adventure. I’m not so sure I am going to continue blogging. I won’t be living in an exotic country; I will be living a more normal American life, as a Grandmama. I know it will fascinate me, but I am not so sure you will find it all that interesting, LOL.
Again, thank you for your support and input these three years of blogging, and for finding me and my ideas and my fascination with current events much more interesting than I find myself. 😉
And, for those of you who always ask, yes, the Qattari Cat will be going with us, and yes, he is till with us (crying right now because AdventureMan has left for work and his heart is broken), I just haven’t taken a lot of photos lately because mostly he sleeps, and he looks pretty much the same.
‘Glimmer of Hope’ in Doha Abduction Case
‘Glimmer of hope’ in custody battle
From the Qatar Gulf Times
British mother Rebecca Jones has described the decision by a Qatari judge to bring her son to court as a “glimmer of hope” in her ongoing battle to regain custody of Adam, saying that the judge’s decision that the boy’s attendance is necessary feels like her first victory in the case.
“I’m thrilled that Adam will be given the opportunity to tell the court how he wants to come home to his Mummy, Daddy and little sister, and that the court will have the chance to see how he is suffering,” she told Gulf Times yesterday.
Jones, who claimed that her son was kidnapped when she was “tricked” into visiting the country in October last year, is particularly worried about the mental and physical state of her son, saying that he had been ill in recent weeks because of the stress surrounding the current situation.
However, the most recent ruling in the case has given her some hope that she may be reunited with him on a permanent basis in the not too distant future.
Earlier this week a judge ruled that Jones’ appeal will be held on February 11, and that both Adam and his 77-year-old grandmother who was originally awarded custody of him, should attend the court hearing.
Jones is also fighting a court case to increase her visitation rights with her son, something that will be decided on February 3.
She is hoping to be awarded more time with Adam, as well as the ability to spend time with him outside of the house in which he is currently living.
“He seems to be ill because of stress and has been physically sick recently,” she claimed, adding “he is very upset and very nervous on each visit – the second I walk through the door he asks me when he can come home.”
Another major concern for Jones is the educational aspect of her son’s life as it will shortly be the fifth month that he has gone without attending school.
But for now, Jones is just looking forward to the court hearing in which her son will finally be given a voice. “I truly believe that the court will do the right thing,” she added.
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