whirlwind

Compound life is interesting. Wherever we have lived we have had a great amount of privacy. Well, with the exception of our flat in New York. That wasn't very private. We had one grouchy neighbor living under us who would play her TV blaring all night long.....ALL NIGHT LONG. But if we even had our TV on during daytime hours we would get the broomstick pounding. Sigh...we moved into a house as soon as we could. I'm from Texas...lots of land...privacy. It's a part of life. One of the things I always wanted for my children, mostly because I didn't have it, was for them to be able to grow up in a neighborhood where all the kids could ride bikes together and visit one anothers homes and just hang out. Even with this strong desire - I wasn't prepared for compound life.

What is compound living? Many of you might think it is this fenced in, barbed wire, guard circling with automatics kind of living. It's not. It is a less than fancy way of saying "gated community." I personally think that gated community sounds so much better than compound...nonetheless, that is what they call it here. Our compound is basically a block with about 40 houses all lined up. Your door opens and you are steps away from the street. A street that has so many speed bumps on it that you know you have to leave 10 minutes sooner just to get to the gate - the gate that is essentially only 1 block away. In the center of all of these houses is a club house. It has a sizeable swimming pool, a little restaurant, lounge area, pool table, air hockey, computer room, nice gym, laundry services, tennis court on the roof and can be used for special events and functions. Everyone lives really close together. The conveniences of the pool and club house, along with the security gates and big walls is supposed to be one of the biggest reasons for choosing compound living.

I was not prepared for the side effects. Every day, at least 10 times a day, someone is ringing my doorbell. Cleaner guys wanting me to move my car so they can clean my garage floor, maintenance men, bug sprayers, neighbor kids, neighbors, neighbor kids, water men dropping off water, clubhouse men dropping off letters, neighbor kids, housemaids needing work and being told that I need one (which I still do!), furniture movers, shelf installers. It gets irritating after awhile. The most irritating thing is that there is no set time with these rings come. Sometimes I am getting in the shower, sometimes I am changing Parker's diaper, sometimes I am not ready for the day (usually the case!), sometimes the house isn't as clean as it should be, sometimes the floors are wet because I just mopped...I think you get the point - lots of times it just isn't convenient. I was really really getting frustrated and hating it...I mean, I really like my privacy. I like to be able to hang around in lounge wear, no makeup and just do whatever I want and not be disturbed. Then I realized that the truth was - so many people LOVE this kind of life....why didn't I? There must be something wrong with me. What was it? I'm not very neighborly. There is a lesson to learn here. I've never really had to be neighborly before. In Beaumont, my neighbors were older and kept to themselves or were out of town most of the time, in Oman, we didn't even have neighbors at one point...oh, and we had a housemaid who could answer the door for me. I need two things - to learn to be a better neighbor and to get a housemaid. I can just hide when the door is answered if I'm not made up. Since I've come to this realization, I have started observing my neighbors. We are wedged between two LDS families. What are the odds, right? I mean really! In a city of millions and very few LDS (although we have a huge ward here!) what are the chances we would take up a complete corner of one of 100's of compounds? Anyway, I have this fabulous neighbor who is in her 9th month of pregnancy. I've started taking "how to be a good neighbor" lessons from her. She is always dressed and ready for the day, she always keeps her front room clean and free of mess. So -- those are my two new goals, to always be presentable, and to keep the front room clear of computers, backpacks, books, shoes, etc. I think if I can do those two things I will be less likely to run away from being neighborly.

At one point, I mentioned to my neighbor that I was just not used to compound life yet and the rings have been a lot less. I feel bad about that now as I recognize that people were just trying to be "neighborly" - I just wasn't prepared for it.

The second big thing that I am learning here is how to not have a calling. It is kind of weird. There are so many people in this ward, a lot of new people as well, that all of the callings are pretty much full. I kind of feel useless...and I am also worried that maybe people don't recognize that I can help. Wait - stop - rewind. That isn't entirely true. I had to give a talk AND teach the relief society lesson all on the same Sabbath. The talk was really difficult. For some reason here they give all 3 speakers the same topic. I assumed that the first speaker would be a youth and that they would give a very basic and simple talk on reverence, then I would expound some more on how to gain reverence in 3 steps and David could finish up with a side/reverence talk. The first speaker was NOT a youth and basically gave the first half of my talk using many of the same quotes and ideas. AND they spoke for quite awhile. David and I had 10 minutes to split. It was - less than good. Then I had to teach the lesson in RS. So - we were used, but those things don't count as callings and I looked more like an idiot during my talk than anything. But, I'm struggling not having a calling of any kind. It is odd...

The third big thing going on is that internet access has been somewhat sketchy. Ok - less than sketchy, I haven't had it really for the last 3 days. Which is really not good.

The fourth big thing is that I am organizing a co-op preschool. Parker needs something, but I don't feel like he is prepared for full fledged preschool. Ok - I'm not ready for that either. This week I had 9 moms from the ward at my house (and all of their kids) to try and set it up. They all want to do it! We just have to split it into groups now. Groups that make sense...that is going to be the difficult part. Do we go by location or age? What days of the week, etc etc. Curriculum? Yikes! So much to decide...and rather quickly as we need to get this started while there is momentum. Any advice anyone?

And just an observation - one of my favorite things around Christmas is watching all of the cheesy Christmas special movies...in Oman I missed that sooooo much! Well, since we have been here in Doha they are on ALL THE TIME! The problem is it isn't really 'that time of year', but I am so cheesy happy about it. It's great! If I can just get my doorbell to stop ringing so I can watch them....