Left home on April 16th, before the crack of a Monday dawn. Arrived after sundown on Tuesday. It's now - bother! I don't know what the date is. Look at the posting time. Which probabely doesn't reflect my change in time zones. Anyway - it's taken me just about this long to get my brain and circadian rhythms into this time zone. Only a few days longer than it took for our luggage to get here.
The flight over was long and uneventful. Despite the terrible weather in the north east, we didn’t have any delays. The most exciting thing was sitting in the Chicago airport for a few hours next to a lady who liked she’d been run over by a steamroller – her face was all bruised and her arm in a sling. Turns out she had fallen while on vacation in New York. Must have been quite a fall. We got a bit turned around at the Frankfurt airport and ended up getting two stamps in our passports. I like passport stamps.
It was when we arrived in Doha that we found that none – repeat – none of our luggage had made it. We had our carry-on bags and nothing else. In the U.S. this wouldn’t be too much of a problem because lost luggage is usually found in a matter of hours or days. Here, however, lost luggage may take a month to show up. I thought I’d be wearing my dad’s t-shirts and not going out in public for an indefinite period.
Worse though is that Mom bought a bunch of books in Utah to distribute to the Arabian Stake Primary leaders at the Stake Leadership Training in a couple of weeks. They were all in the luggage. The books couldn’t be shipped because mail here is difficult. For instance, we do not have mailing address, let alone a street address, and in some countries there cannot be lists of church members and their contact information. So if the luggage didn’t arrive in the impossible to expect time period of two weeks, all of the effort to get those books (and believe it was an effort – we went to every Deseret Book and Seagull Book in Provo, Orem and A.F.) would have been wasted and the prime opportunity to get them out would be lost.
But there was a minor miracle. The luggage was found in two days and arrived in Doha only four days after we did. The only inconvenience was that, drat, we had to buy me a new outfit for church. O, the woe. And my short stack of books showed up. Having at least one small shelf partially lined with books makes me feel home-like.
The Sabbath is on Friday here, which messes me up more than I thought it would. But more on that later. We went to church on Friday, and the ward is so loving. Everyone was so welcoming and friendly. I didn’t get much of a chance to introduce myself, because the members beat me to the punch. They would introduce themselves, and then introduce me to someone else. So already I have multiple friends and two church activities on my calendar, even in this foreign land. How do people get around without the Church?
So Church is in Friday, Saturday is a day off, and the work week begins on Sunday. Mom and told me before that having Church on Fridays messes up your sense of time in the week. I thought that was kind of silly. It seemed like an easy shift. But then, after Friday, I’m totally messed up. Like right now, it feels like a Thursday. And I have to really concentrate to figure out that today is Tuesday. And then I have to remind myself that’s the middle of the week and to not have the slightly-better-than-Monday feeling that normally accompanies Tuesdays.
But it’s more than just an emotional discombobulation. While trying to figure out the exact day I would start teaching, I couldn’t keep straight that that day would be Sunday, of all days. I almost made a fool of myself in front of the person interviewing me.
Yes, you heard me right. I have a job teaching 9th grad World Geography. It’s the freakiest thing, and quite the opposite of any job hunt I’ve ever embarked on in Utah. It’s happened at warp speed, and with only one resume. I sent out my resume once two days ago to my brother’s school on the off chance of a position at this late date in the school year. Not more than three hours later I get a call from the principal and set up an interview for the next day. I think the principal was almost ready to have me in the classroom, instead of interviewing. I get the offer later that day and sent in my acceptance barely. I’ll probably be teaching on Sunday, which may not be soon enough for the school.
It’s an ideal position for me, because it’s only part-time, every other day and only for the next two months. I’m working with Dad at his Center, and will continue looking for other employment. So it gives me some income, time in front of a class again to see if I really want to go back into teaching, and time to work with Dad and to look for another job. Couldn’t be better.
This is kind of a long and rambling letter. And yet, I still want to write more about what it’s like here. I’ll do that in a bit. So you can look forward to another long, hopefully illustrated and not boring epistle from your friend in Doha.
