Our Neighborhood

Since there is a lot of construction going on around us, loud pounding outside is not unusual so yesterday when I first heard lots of noise I didn’t ’t realize that it was actually the guys here to plant our neighborhood trees. Our little compound not only has no address yet, there is not one green thing inside the compound that hasn’t been added by the new tenants. Since everyone has become friends and we all talk a lot – there are some improvements in the works. The key phrase here is “improvements” which of course they are or we wouldn’t be making them.

Several people have already moved their washer/dryers into the ground floor bathroom which is large as it originally was supposed to have a toilet and a bidet but ended up with just a toilet, bidet plumbing and the hand held hose that is in every bathroom in the Middle East. The washer/dryer combination is a wonderful American style apartment set as opposed to most units here, which are washer/dryer combinations that steam dry. They are enough to make a sane housewife with no maid crazy. Nothing ever completely dries, everything is wrinkled, they do not hold an entire load and everyone I know here (outside of our little compound) has large collapsible drying racks that always seem to be full of clothes. When we first looked at this little no name villa – that was one of the big attractions after a month in the flat with one of the above-mentioned nightmares.

Apparently moving them into the bathroom is not very difficult although drilling the vent hole through a concrete wall seems rather challenging. One of the families does have it set up where they have to turn off the vent fan when they want to dry a load of clothes and push the hose through the fan so it dangles outside. They may have been worried that drilling a hole in the wall might not actually be an improvement. Ours will have a hole – if it is that easy to drill a hole – I am sure it will be like Singapore where we learned the day we were moving how easy it was to fill those holes that we were ever so hesitant to make I the walls. If not for Kat Fitzpatrick’s artwork, we may never have even bought a drill!

The next step is building shelves to hold the microwave, extra water bottles, cookbooks, etc. in the kitchen where it used to be. The search for wood is on. The carpenter was easy – he has already built several things for our neighbors. I understand that there is a souk near here – four roundabouts away - that sells wood but we need a picture of what we want to build so I have canvassing the area to see if anyone can draw a stick/line drawing to show the carpenter and the wood souk. I have actually resorted to looking through old magazines and perusing the Home Depot and Lowe’s website for ideas.

The occupant of Villa #4 found someone to come and remove the bricks in front of our townhouses in a one meter square, replace the sand with peat moss, true dried organic manure (from the animal souk), sand and plant a tree. These bricks are in offset lines so this will not only involve chipping through the concrete and lifting out the bricks, but cutting the sixteen odd bricks that stick out in half with HAND TOOLS. The entire crew was here yesterday morning at 8 o’clock and almost finished the last hole at 8:30 last night. I think they gave up because they ended up at our end and there were twelve children trying to play in the new sandboxes move and build things with the bricks and drive their trucks around the poor guys kneeling and chipping away at the bricks. They charged 200QAR to dig each hole, replace the sand, and plant our choice of tree – that is $55.00.

The neighbor directly across the road is Iranian and rarely here. I wanted us both to have Frangipani trees as opposed to the wispier tree that looks like a mimosa but isn’t so I had to agree to help with the watering next summer – we will end up with about thirty trees and in five years, this compound will be beautiful – maybe by then it will have an address and a name as “18 Villas” really doesn’t work. One of the wives who is from South Africa thinks our next project should be planting trees around the outside of the compound walls. I am already having “water hose dragging in the summertime” nightmares.

Almost every unit in the compound has flowers in the window (mine are pink petunias and are actually blooming beautifully), a tree or two and most have a few chairs and a table out front. This is a great way to meet and get to know everyone but it leads to lots of cocktail sharing. I wasn’t kidding when I said I was glad my friend Carol didn’t move into this compound!

Something else that is interesting are what different nationalities think looks great on the front door around Christmas time. Some is a little kitschy and unexpected. I am surprised at how many decorated trees have sprung up and I may have to break down and dig out the apartment-sized tree that was shipped here in error. I was afraid shipping a clearly marked Christmas tree would slow our container down in customs but it apparently isn’t an issue as they sell ten-foot trees in Carrefour. Having a child (even a grown one) here and a husband who was really distressed at my Christmas palm tree a few years ago may force me to do a little decorating.