Decision Time: Phnom Penh or....?

It's that time of contract where we are having to decide: Do we stay in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, or do we move on? There are several things to consider:

Eating at an outside restaurant covered with arbors.

If we stay we have more stability for the kids, less moving expenses, and continuity of friendships we have taken the time to build this year.

If we go, there are more options for Ben's doctoral thesis topic, healthier places to raise the children, and "easier" places to live culturally.

Phnom Penh fountain from a tuktuk at night.

Since educators have to turn in a decision towards the beginning of their last school year  our time has come around. This divides things mentally: we either have about 8 and a half more months left, or, an indeterminate amount based on the contract that would be signed. This is the part of the cycle of international teaching that's a bit bittersweet, but also exciting. Do we stay in this place, or move on?

Outside of Phnom Penh city.

Of course, as a mom, I think about how Phnom Penh has impacted my children.

 

This will always be where Zoe was born.

Where Talia learned to fish in a muddy river

And experience Mondulkiri.

It is where Elias graduated from Kindergarten.

And Ezra frequented the hospital (thank God for $10 appointments) with bronchial trouble due to pollution.

And fell in love with his teacher "Mena".

It's where we've discovered tons of new-to-us fruit.

And Ben has had a wonderful opportunity to be a principal in a great school.

But is it a place we would want to stay in for longer?



That is the decision.

 

Jet Lag and Waffles

Jet lag is serious business when you're flying 10 hours into the future with a baby deeply rooted into a routine sleeping schedule. What this means for us is that Elias wakes up at 2 in the morning yelling "Bite! Bite!" and wanting to run around and play.

So what do you do when it's 2 AM and you can't sleep and everyone's hungry?

Make waffles!

Talia seems to be the one least affected by jet lag at the moment... perhaps it comes from tapping into her night owl tendencies and going to bed at supper rather than earlier:

If nothing else, I've learned how spoiled I was with a baby on a routine. Supposedly it takes a day for every hour you are off schedule to adjust back to routine, so we've got a good week left to try out this theory. I've also learned how much I love this recipe for waffles:

1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
2 eggs
1 3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup oil
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup wheat germ OR wheat bran OR quick oats OR fruit OR whatever (I used quick oats.)

Mix up and can be used for pancakes or waffles.  Double recipe for more than 4 people.

*Disclaimer* Waffles, though delicious, do not aid in remedying jet lag. They do produce symptoms of slight "swelling" of the midsection if consumed often enough. Especially slathered in real butter and local honey. You should try them anyway.

Winter Break 2013: Distance Heightens Appreciation of Family

Ben's teaching position get's three breaks: summer, spring and winter. For the summer break, since we hadn't been in Abu Dhabi very long, we just took a short trip up to Spain and Portugal. We planned to spend winter in Abu Dhabi, enjoying the 70 degree temperatures and then visit the States in the summer.

If you know anything about plans, then you know that it is best to hold them loosely and be willing to adapt to new circumstances. A phone call from home about a serious family illness changed our plans and had us on a 29 hour traveling spree to the U.S. When it comes to priorities and plans, family is more important. It's nice to be able to make that decision at the last minute and manage to visit so far away. I recognize how much of a blessing that is this time- if it had happened at another time we might not have been able to come. Really, though the sickess is not the best reason to come, it provided an opportunity to show our family how much we love and value them. They are worth a trip home at the last minute if needed.

 While we are here we are soaking up the cold, rainy temperatures to bring back and remember in the desert. Otherwise annoying, drizzly drives are appreciated and filed away for searing, humid days and family is cherished. Homecooking and REAL hugs are savored. Would we appreciate family and drizzly days as much if we didn't live so far away? I wish I could say we would be as grateful, but it's invariable that human nature would have us taking things for granted in the way our tendency for survival drums down the high emotions with mundane normalcy... So perhaps living so far away is helping us to appreciate them more. Right now, we are thankful.

Istanbul, Turkey; Vacation 2012 part 1

Abu Dhabi Airport Security

For us it has always been cheaper to go back to the States for vacation, but since we've only been in Abu Dhabi for a little over 2 months (except Ben) and it's very expensive to get everyone back we decided to go to Spain and Portugal. It sounds weird to us when we say it's cheaper to go to Spain than back to the States; we've never been able to say that before.

Apart from price, we also wanted to reinforce Talia's Spanish since she's been away from a Spanish-speaking country for a year.


The trip started with a 4-5 hour flight from Abu Dhabi to Istanbul... where we had a seven hour layover. Ben chuckled at the Abu Dhabi security driving BMW's.

Pide with Turkish Sausage

During the layover we got to try "Pide" which is like the Turkish version of pizza, and strong Turkish tea. 


A guy in a chef's hat with a huge metal crushing tool was smashing pistachios to make a special kind of Turkish ice cream. I didn't try it, but it looked interesting. The store also had a lot of pistachios and hazelnuts for sale.

Strong Turkish Tea

We saw lots of beautiful tapestries, glass work and things for sale in the "bazaar." I wondered if the peacock had some sort of significance because many things in the bazaar were decorated with peacock feather designs and colors. These are some of the pretty colored glass lanterns:
I was a little confused when I saw a group of older men all dressed in what looked to me like white bath towels until I figured out it was some sort of of cultural or religious group... But when I saw the first one out of context it was really confusing.

Colored Glass Lanterns in the Bazaar

Getting to experience a small part of Turkey was a nice, unexpected start to this trip.

Mental Snapshots: Flight DFW to Germany

Do you ever experience something and later have a part of the memory stuck looping through your head? I have a few memories like this from our flight from Dallas, Texas to Frankfort, Germany. (13 hours stuck on a plane might have something to do with this. ;))

When we were waiting to board the flight in Dallas, there were several mothers with small children. I noticed a blond, curly-headed toddler with his mom- I'll call him Matt- and another darker headed toddler with his obviously expectant and tired mother. Matt was very curious about Elias, like most young children are, and kept inching closer and closer to look at the baby. Finally, he came over and investigated for real. He was very sweet and gave Talia a spontaneous hug. Suddenly, the other toddler had had enough of sitting in his stroller and started wailing in anguish. His mom looked embarrassed and tried to console him, but she was too pregnant and he too big to pick up comfortably and he really wanted to run around but couldn't because we were boarding soon. Matt heard his crying and his face wrinkled up like he was trying to figure out the problem. Then, he went over to the crying toddler and hugged him. The crying toddler stopped crying and his face brightened at his new friend. The whole area watching him chuckled.

When we boarded the plane we had a middle row of three seats sandwiched between aisles dividing a set on either side of us with two seats. I was across from a middle-aged couple who were oblivious to the world. I never stared at them, but being in an enclosed space makes it hard not to notice some things. The man gave the woman a foot massage and then rubbed her back before they went to sleep. Their conversation seemed to fluidly move between German, English, Spanish and French... who knows what other languages I didn't notice. They had a bag full of fruit and ordered a vegetarian meal. They appeared to be very close, like people who were good friends as well as a couple. The woman seemed very sad, and broke into deep sobs twice and maybe that's why she's still in my mind. I prayed for her there on the plane and now, when I remember her.

On the other aisle across from Talia and my sister was another lady who seemed distant and tired. As the flight wore on, Talia was overstimulated and uncomfortable and having a hard time going to sleep. My sister, to give her something to do before trying to settle down again, got up to take her to the restroom. Talia tripped on something and hurt her toe. She tried to be big and hold the tears in, but couldn't help the tears that still came out, but she didn't vocalize it. We had told her to be as quiet as she could since many people were sleeping, and she did a really good job at it. The lady across from them saw the whole thing and when Talia came back she gave her a TootsieRoll Pop and Talia told her "Thank you." At that moment, it was exactly what Talia needed.

I know in my head that people are not always what their appearance portrays to me, but as a human, as a survival instinct, I still can't help but notice and perceive things about them through the filter of my experience. I think most of the reason why these snapshots are stuck in my head, is that they each were examples of humans acting out love in daily life. That's the kind of snapshot I don't mind remembering.

Air to Abu Dhabi

Traveling is not my thing. Isn't that laughable, since I'm writing a blog about our family as it travels? Truthfully, I'm satisfied at home learning to make my own things and messing around in the garden, homeschooling and raising our kids. I'm pretty boring. Being married to Ben makes my life much more exciting, internationally speaking. I like being different places, it's just the traveling part that I don't look forward to.... So, when faced with a good 20 hours of traveling with an infant and a 4 year old, I wasn't exactly jumping up and down in excitement. I prayed. A lot. And packed. And was thankful that my sister decided to go with us!

Riding the camel in the Abu Dhabi airport

Our travels started at 10 AM when we started driving to DFW. A gentleman from the airport helped us with all of the luggage and we ended up not having to lift the 50 pound duffle bags, thankfully. We also didn't have to pay for any extra baggage, with my sister flying and graciously letting us use her luggage for our stuff, we ended up with 2 bags for each ticket and one for the baby. We ended up taking 7 carry on bags and checking 7 bags. 3 of the suitcases we checked were homeschooling stuff. We boarded our first plane, bound for Germany, at 3:30 and spent the next 13 (!) hours flying up over Canada, the Atlantic and then England surrounded by very nice, loud, German-speaking older ladies. About the 4th hour I was missing the short 3 hour flight it took to get to Guatemala. :) We chased the sun down the first time on this flight. Talia had issues falling asleep on the plane and then trying to wake up again, but both kids did very well. Elias slept almost the whole time. As we were landing we saw big yellow patches on the ground that turned out to be planted yellow flowers.

In Germany, we had a little time to let the baby kick on his play mat and Talia walk off some extra energy and then we were boarding another plane to Bahrain. This time Talia and my sister slept through the whole flight and Elias and I amused ourselves trying not to think about how long this 6 hour flight was. Several names on the flight screen to Bahrain were Damascus, Tel Aviv, Kuwait, but the screen kept showing different angles of the flight and I was too tired to figure out the order. (Care to join me for a Geography lesson of this part of the world in another blog post soon?) We landed in Bahrain and had a little wait before boarding the little plane to Abu Dhabi.

A view of Abu Dhabi from a balcony.

The plane to Abu Dhabi was little and went quicker than it anticipated, about an hour and a half instead of 2. I wasn't complaining about a shorter flight! When we landed, I had to go get our paperwork and a retina scan before we could enter the country. There were what looked to me like a million Indian people in line, but everyone was kind and we finally got through. Ben met us with a friend so that we would have two cars to transport all of the suitcases and people.

So we were in the air a good 20 hours, and traveling more than 24. It wasn't possible for me to sleep during the traveling, so I went to bed when we got home and slept a good 4 hours... and then my body thought it was time to get up again. So now we're figuring out the new schedules and getting adjusted, but so, so glad the trip went well and mainly, that it's over! Hopefully I'll get my land legs back soon!

Thank you very much to the people who prayed for us to have a smooth trip. We were very blessed!

How to fit your life in a suitcase

Oh wait, I actually wish I could find a nice, concise list showing how to do this. Especially for moving overseas.

When we moved to Guatemala, Ben drove through Texas and down through Mexico in a Toyota 4Runner- providing quite a bit more packing space! This especially impacted the heavier home/kitchen items I was able to bring. This time that's not an option.

Flying to Abu Dhabi with everything you own in a suitcase presents several challenges. Since Etihad, the Abu Dhabi-owned airlines, weighs even carry on luggage- (15 pounds or less,) we have to be more discriminating about our carry ons. However, Etihad gives you two checked bags of 50 pounds or less (unless you want to pay more for 60 pounds or much more for 70 pounds.) We are using duffel bags to eliminate as much of the luggage weight as possible.

So that's two checked bags and a carry on per person. Or not. Since we have to connect with Etihad via American Airlines we have to pay for the second checked bag with them just to get it to Etihad because American only allows for one checked bag.

Most of the household items can be purchased from teacher's who are completing their contract in Abu Dhabi, and for us, are not worth bringing/shipping. To ship a 50 pound suitcase to Abu Dhabi is almost $300, while it's closer to $150-$200 for an extra suitcase on the plane... so we're just packing necessary clothes, baby stuff and homeschooling items in our luggage.

Then there's the fun of actually packing for an opposite climate in an opposite culture. Since we dress modestly, the culture part isn't as much of a challenge as the 100+ weather. It's nice to be packing for hot weather while it is cooler here, though; we don't have to pack bulky coats or boots.

It's also important to figure in how fast the kids are growing, since anything that's almost too small will just waste precious space. Wearing something a little big is better than 'barely fits.'

I can't say that I don't like this process, because I find minimizing our life to the bare minimum very cathartic. It's way too easy to gather possessions. Life easily gets choked up with stuff. Packing what we really need helps me focus on my family and each person's individual needs. I get to re-evaluate who we are as a family apart from our stuff. And that is freeing.