Expat Stopovers - Sri Lanka

It has been a long time since my last post, the summer is not conducive to blogging!  We have had a busy few months from the children’s school break up mid June to their going back in a week’s time.  Part of that time included a two week holiday in Sri Lanka. 

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

At just over 4 hours flight from us it makes for an ideal expat stop over.  Mr EE and I have long wanted to visit the island and the children were won over with the many photos of elephants.  Other than a few short breaks and trips back to the UK we have not had a family holiday for some years and so we thought we deserved a good break.

Viharamahadevi Park, Colombo

Sri Lanka certainly delivered that, from enjoying time just walking around the beautiful Viharamahadevi Park in Colombo to the many friendly people we met on our journeys round the island it was a relaxing and enjoyable break.

Elephants at Ude Walawe

Colombo is not the most enticing of capital cities but we had to spend a few days there to sort out car hire and driving licence validation.  The rest of our holiday was spent driving around the island.  We stayed mostly in Air BNBs as we find these suit our large family and holiday style more than a hotel.  We had only one negative experience, a villa in Kandy that we had rented as a whole house and turned out to be a private room stay that was owned and managed by a different person to the one who managed it on Air BNB.  The website refunded our monies almost immediately and we found a different place to stay via a web search.

Buduruwagala

After Colombo we went to Ude Walawe for an elephant safari.  This was, hands down, our favourite day of the trip, we came close enough to these wild giants to almost touch them.  It was a pleasure and a privilege to see them in the wild, living their normal natural lives.  Another highlight of our stay there was the opportunity to see the Buduruwagala Buddhas, a frieze of 7 Buddhas the tallest at 16m carved into a rock face in the middle of nowhere.  These spectacular carvings are at least 1,000 years old and are still a site of worship today.   From there we drove to the mountains near Ella, staying in Bandarawela in the mountains stopping at the spectacular Ravanna falls for a cooling paddle and a bite to eat from a stall along the way.  This is a highlight for many people but while we enjoyed visiting the tea plantations (including a wonderful tour at Halpewatte that  allowed us to go onto the factory floor) and the botanic gardens at Hakgala (originally a cinchona plantation) we were happy to move on. 

Ravanna Falls

Other than Ude Walawe our favourite destination was Habarana, here we stayed at a lodge near a water tank, set in a plantation we were able to sleep out in the open, the children loved it.  We used this as a base for our visits to the 5^th century citadel at Sigiriya and the abandoned monastery at Ritigala.  Sigiriya sits on top of a huge rock projecting from the plains, my telephone told me that we climbed the equivalent of 74 flights of stairs to get there.  It was worth the climb!  We took it in turns, Master EE climbed with me while Mini EE, being too old for a carrier and too young for the precipitous stairs, remained below with Mr and Miss EE.  We swapped after our return to the ground where Master EE and I were more than happy to enjoy a drink of water and wander round the water and rock gardens at the base of the hill.

Sigiriya - the citadel is on top of the rock.

The final climb up the lion paw staircase

Rock gardens at the base of the citadel

Ritigala monastery, built in the 1^st century BC and abandoned to the forest was another fascinating day.  A walk of approximately 2km into the forest took us past a huge water tank, along a paved walkway and through courtyards and raised meditation platforms.  We got the impression that the accessible areas form only a minute percentage of the actual site.

Ritigala monastery ruins are in the middle of the forest

Resting mid walk

The walk is long (2km in each direction) in the heat
but relatively easy, even for little feet.

While in the region we also visited the Dambulla cave temples, another vertiginous and lengthy climb.  The temples with their many many paintings and statues of Buddha were beautiful but not a patch on the many spectacular temples we had seen (and lived close to) in Ipoh, Malaysia. 

Our final destination on this tour was the ancient capital of Kandy, home to the Temple of the Tooth.  The temple is the most important religious site on the island and as such is the premier tourist destination.  Other than Sigiriya we had had most of the sites we had visited to ourselves (a perk of going in low season) but the Temple was very busy.  We nevertheless enjoyed our time there, the temple itself is beautiful (and has been restored seamlessly following the terrorist attacks in years past).  Kandy itself is a bustling city and while there we enjoyed a local dance show (at Miss EEs request), visited a local factory to see how local wooden masks and other items are made and visited some of the many gem shops.  Sri Lanka is famous for its gems, sapphires in particular and the many shops selling beautiful jewellery are well worth a look round. 

Entrance way, Temple of the Tooth

Temple of the Tooth, all bomb damage repaired

Traditional Kandyan dancer

Sri Lanka was a very friendly destination, the children, Mini EE in particular, were welcome everywhere.  In fact Mini EE was taken off our hands for cuddles, fuss and treats pretty much as soon as we arrived anywhere.

Good to know

Remember to get visas before you travel.  These are available online and generally come through within a few hours although they can take up to two days.

Most visitors prefer to hire drivers.  Despite a bad reputation the driving on the island is easy and relatively safe, in fact the only really bad drivers are those in the tourist mini busses.  If you want to drive yourself make sure you have an IDP, if you don’t (ours had expired a few weeks before we arrived) you will need to get a Sri Lankan driving permit, easy enough but time consuming.

Don’t use Waze, no matter the settings it will always try to send you down a narrow field roads and tell you to take the least direct route possible.  Google maps proved more reliable.

More suited to a TukTuk than a car....

If you want to buy gems make sure you have the time to have them checked by the Assay office in Colombo before you buy. 

Sri Lanka is good value but it is not cheap compared to a lot of south Asia.  Foreigners pay significantly over the local price to enter sites of interest. 

Sri Lanka is, despite the monsoon, a year round destination.  European summer is monsoon season on the west coast but dry season over on the east, this means you can plan your trip accordingly.

While famous the Elephant Orphanage at Pindawala seems to be running itself more for the benefit of the tourists who flock there than the Elephants who live there.  We wish we had not gone.

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How To Be An Expat In Saudi Arabia: Compounds.

There are two options when it comes to  choosing accommodation in Jeddah, you can opt to live on a walled compound or chose to live ‘In Arabia’.  

The former is, naturally, more expensive than the latter, not least because the houses typically come unfurnished and when they say that they mean it.  Friends living outside have to provide their own kitchen units and white goods and even AC units as well as meet the more typical furniture expectations.  Houses in a compound cost more to rent but come furnished.  As well as meaning that new arrivals do not need to find a budget for kitchen units the costs cover provision of security, corner shops and exercise/relaxation facilities as well as all utility charges.  When we arrived we moved straight into Mr EE’s predecessor’s house to make things simple.  It gives us a base for the first 6 months which will allow us to look at the different housing options available to us.  We have since moved in to our own, larger, home complete with a bedroom for each child and a garden for the pets.

While I would normally prefer to live away from other expats in a private home in a more local district that choice is not really practical for our life here in KSA.  As I cannot drive I would have to take a taxi to and from school every afternoon to collect the children, I would need to wear an abaya just to step out of the house, could not send the children to collect last minute essentials from the corner shop and not be able to swim to my heart's content in a public swimming pool.  The latter issues are, of course, minor but the driving and transport was the deciding factor for us.  Most of our friends who live off compounds have no or older children and so are not limited in the same way.

Our compound is attached to Mr EE and the children’s school.  This makes for an easy 2 minute commute for Mr EE in the morning and means he can pop home for supper and to see the children before going back to work again in the evening.  Given the proximity of the school and home we also allow Master and Miss EE to go to and from school by themselves and one can do after school clubs while the other comes home and vice versa, they are not stuck waiting for eachother.  This independence is fantastic for them and it means that they are learning to be responsible for their own timekeeping.  Mr EE drops Mini EE off at her crèche every morning and I pick her up just before the older children get home.  The school run in our last posting took up a significant portion of my day, at one stage Master and Miss EE had different pick up times so I would spend 3 hours on collection duty just in the afternoon.  If Mr EE was away and unable to do the morning drop off I had another hour.  I find that I am so much more productive here because of this.

Our compound has a small shop, some exercise facilities, a library, recreation room and 2 pool complexes.  It also provides a shopping bus twice a day so that it is easy to go and get groceries or run errands while private lift share cars such as Uber and Careem are allowed onto the compound to drop me at my door.  Some of the other compounds have larger shops, restaurants, travel agents, beauty salons and hairdressers etc  (some even have a bowling alley and one a vets).  They are, to all intents and purposes, small villages in their own right.  Each has their own character but while it might be nice to be able to pick and choose the reality is that almost all the good compounds have long waiting lists particularly for family sized homes so most people go where their employers put them.  

Because there are heavy restrictions on mixed social activities in KSA the compounds, alongside the consulates, become the hub of expat activity.  A quick google will make Jeddah seem like an activities and cultural desert simply because no one posts anything online.  Once you arrive, however, and start to get to know where to look, there are things to do everywhere.

The greatest upside and the saddest downside of life on the compound is that we are massively insulated from real life in KSA.  We live a life of luxury cocooned from the outside.  I think it would be possible for someone to come to live in Jeddah (or any other Saudi city for that matter) and never really realise what life is like in the city.  Of course many of our friends and contacts are other western expats and most of the organised social events are arranged with these interest groups in mind so we have had to make a particular effort to connect and become friends with locals and long term expats, to read the local news and try to stay in touch with what is going on outside the expat community.  This means we catch glimpses and hear snippets of what life is really like at both ends of the spectrum, the grinding poverty of the sub continent expat labourers and the nonchalant opulence of life for the super rich.  There are times we regret that circumstances force us into our bubble.   Then pragmatic reality reasserts itself and I am thankful for the short commute and the swimming pool.

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Expat Stopovers: Bishkek

There are so many places that you get to go to as an Expat that you might not otherwise decide to visit.  I would hazard a guess that not many people based outside of Central Asia would choose to go to Kyrgyzstan on holiday.  That is a real shame as it is a beautiful country with amazing alpine scenery and an interesting history.  It is also visa free for many nationalities.

Bishkek, Capital of Kyrgyzstan on a rather overcast day.

The capital, Bishkek, is only a short flight from Astana so a few years ago we decided it would be the perfect spot for a short break for Nauruz (Persian New Year) at the end of March.  I was 15 weeks pregnant at the time so  a short hop was ideal.  At that time Astana is usually still on the cold side although winter is loosening its grip.  Bishkek is quite a bit further south and very close to Almaty (the former capital and largest city of Kazakhstan) and has a much more temperate climate. The downside of this is that unlike Astana which is typically dry with wide blue skies, Bishkek can be overcast and wet.

Traces of the Soviet past are still in evidence.

Bishkek, unlike Astana, is a low rise city, all the better to enjoy the spectacular views of the surrounding mountains. It  is very typically Soviet in its design looking very like Karaganda and other similar cities (broad boulevards lined with apartment blocks).  The city is very green and there are ample small parks for children to play in or people to stroll through.

Parks and open spaces can be found all over the city.

Our rental apartment was about 45 minutes walk from the centre of town we decided to orient ourselves to the city with the short walk to Chuy Prospect, the central artery of the city.  After lunch (Bishkek has excellent restaurants at very good prices) we took in the main sites.  These are mostly clustered around Ala-Too Park and include the Krgyz White House (Parliament), the National Flag (much smaller than its equivalent in Astana) and many statues in typical Soviet style including a very large one of Lenin.  After that we went on  to the market.  This bazaar was refreshingly unpretentious, there were, of course, a few stalls selling national costumes, magnets and the like but many more selling pieces of tack for horses, plumbing equipment, babygrows and so on.  There were even doctors’ offices operating out of the market.

The Burana Minaret is a short drive out of the city

Now restored the tower was in a very poor state
when the Soviets took over the country.

Not all aspects of the restoration have been well done...

The inside climb is steep and narrow

The following day we hired a driver to take us out to the Burana Minaret about 80km from Bishkek.  This tower is all that is left of an old Krgyz city on the silk road.  The site is fairly open and, along with the tower it is possible to look around some old mausoleums and grave markers.  There is a small museum on site which gives details of renovations that have been undertaken since the 70s and information on the artefacts excavated in the area.  The babushka in charge was extremely friendly and more than happy to talk about the place and her experiences during her time there and the restoration work that has been carried out.  The tower has been repaired and can be climbed.  Miss EE was keen to get to the top and took Mr EE with her.  Master EE and I stayed at the viewing platform half way up and watched a Krgyz bridal couple on their photo tour come to have shots taken at this iconic site.  Unfortunately the bridal party started the climb in the narrow upper section of the Minaret before Master EE and I could take our turn.

Markers cover the ground surrounding the minaret

The complex is large and covers a lot of ground

It is a favourite spot on bridal photo tours

The city must have been impressive in its time.

The following day our friendly driver took us out along the old silk road (now a rather unromantic and poorly maintained highway)  towards lake Issyk-Kul.  One of the largest (10^th)and deepest lakes in the world it is slightly saline and never freezes despite being exposed to some very cold temperatures.

The modern silk road...

In training to be a security guard

The lake was used a naval test site in Soviet years and a portion is still leased to Russia (and I think, India although I am not sure) for these purposes.  It was also a very popular Soviet tourist destination and the shores are dotted with old sanitoria.  There is excellent hiking and trekking in the area and had we not had the children with us we might have stayed the night in order to indulge in some mountain walks to view the famous petroglyps that abound in the local area.  Instead we went to the town of Cholpon Ata where we spent some time in the small museum which documents what life was like in the area from prehistoric to pre soviet times.  We bought some fruit, grown in the orchards that pepper the local area to keep us going on the way home and as a gift for the wife of our driver.

Spring is still low season so the sanitoria are left for the animals to enjoy,
a few months later and the beaches will be teeming with holiday makers

Just saline enough to prevent the lake from freezing in the winter
local livestock still find it potable.

On  the way home we stopped off to see the monument to Pyotr Semyonov Tian Shansky, a chair of the Russian Geological Society  and the man responsible for much of the initial exploration of the Tian Shan mountains, the surprisingly lovely monument is surrounded by a small park and shows the gentleman as a young man and explorer.

Pyotr Semyonov Tian Shansky

Miss EE came down with a horrible bout of tonsillitis running a very high temperature, she was so bad that the insurers said that had we been in Astana they would have wanted her in the clinic, as we were in Bishkek where they were not comfortable with the facilities on offer they gave us the option of driving to Almaty in KZ (just the other side of the mountains) or taking care of her ourselves and bringing her in for a check up on our return to Astana.  I have found that insurers tend to err on the side of caution by a massive degree and while she was clearly ill and in need of antibiotics we thought she would be able to wait 24 hours.  I always, always, travel with children’s medicine and this was the one and only time I could not find it.  Mr EE went out to find a 24 hour pharmacy.  There were plenty available but the one he went to operated on an intercom system  and as any expat or traveller knows a lack of face to face contact makes communication very difficult when you are not 100% fluent in a language.  Whether they did not have it or whether the intercom scrambled his accent too badly they did not give him ‘children’s paracetamol’ but ordinary tablets.  A quick call to the insurers told us how much to give per KG though and we were able to grind them up in some juice to give her some pain and fever relief

We enjoyed a tour of some of the other city centre sites while cafe
hopping for Miss EE.

We stayed in the apartment for as long as possible the next morning before dropping the bags and getting a taxi (for Miss EEs benefit) into town.  Once there we went straight to a pharmacy to get some children’s paracetamol  and ibuprofen syrups. We then spent some time in the rather fascinating museum devoted to the history of the Kyrgyz people, Mr EE and I taking turns to walk around  with Master EE while the other sat with Miss EE asleep in our laps.  Unsurprisingly a large portion of the museum was taken up with the history of Soviet rule.  I always find it interesting to look at things from a different perspective, to see how the people who lived (and prospered and suffered) under Soviet rule view it with the benefit of hindsight and compare it to the view we have from the west.  Museums such as this one are a wonderful resource.  Once we had exhausted all the museum had to offer we were at a loose end.  While there was much we would have wished to see in the City we could not really make poor Miss EE walk around any more than she needed to.  We therefore decided to engage in a sort of café crawl, looking for places with comfortable sofas where she could sleep in between being dosed with medicine.  The crawl took us slowly but surely back to our bags and onwards by taxi to the airport, home and antibiotics.

Good To Know

The currency is the Som and the cost of goods is very cheap.  Be aware that most ATMs only take Visa, our Kazakh bank cards (Mastercard) were next to useless to get money out although we could use them to pay for goods by PIN.  Luckily our English bank cards are Visa supported and we were able to use those to take out money.  English is not widely spoken away from the main hotels so be prepared to communicate in Russian.

We hired a driver because it worked out cheaper than a car hire over a short period.  I understand self drive rentals are easily available.  Petrol was more expensive in Kyrgyzstan than Kazakhstan at the time of our visit, we were surprised at how expensive it was compared with goods like fresh food which was much cheaper than KZ.

We went in the early spring for two reasons, firstly we wanted to visit in a quiet season and secondly it was the time we had available to devote to a trip there.  The weather in spring is warm (15 degrees) but can be wet and overcast.  Winter will not be too cold (ie more alpine as opposed to Astana style cold) and summer is warm and sunny but busy.

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Revisiting Past (Expat) Lives: A Wrenching Echo or a Beautiful Swansong

Some postings are ones that you get to return to again and again, even after you leave.  Others you expect, for one reason or another never to see again.  Warri (Nigeria) and Maracaibo (Venezuela) are hardly tourist destinations to bring the family to for example.

Nigeria was beautiful but not the easiest posting to return to.

My many postings fall into a variety of those two categories.  I go back to the town we lived in when we were last in the UK an awful lot because, by a complete co-incidence, we ended up living 5 minutes from where my parents had bought a house many years before and where they chose to retire.  These days, going back to visit my father and step-mother is strange, I was a local councillor there for 6 years so relatively well known to a number of people through my party and through campaigning.  I often run into old colleagues of my husbands or old pupils of his.  It is home (the children and I stayed there for a significant part of the 4 months we were waiting for Saudi visas), and yet it is not.  My mother loved the town, she was not English but it was where she chose to settle and live out her days.  This town was the place she returned to every year from around 1992 when my parents bought the house and we spent most of our short half term holidays there from around that time to leaving school.  It is more home to me than any other place on earth ... and yet....  I see her ghost everywhere I walk and it is incredibly painful; harder now to go back than it was to live there after her death.  I love seeing my father and my step-mother and the children adore their visits there but I find it very, very sad.  I wonder if people who have lived in the same place all their life have a similar response post bereavement, do they suddenly want to move away or is it just my complete and utter lack of true ties to any place? 

Our beautiful old home town in England

I had a similar feeling when, following a visit to my Uncle and Aunt in their home town in the Netherlands, I drove to show Mr EE and the older children the place where Oma & Opa had lived.  I spent a lot of time with them as a child, living with them for long periods and often visiting them for short holidays when I was first in boarding school.  I was ok in the town, it was rather fun to walk in my old steps, but when we went to the building their flat had been in I broke down, racked with sobs.  I still don’t really know why (I don’t have the same reaction when I see my other grandparents’ house in Dublin or when I wander around Den Haag, the town where I was born and where I lived 4 times in my life), perhaps it was a realisation that a place that had been so pivotal, so important to me, now has no connection to me at all other than an ageing uncle and aunt. The ripples my life had made on the surface of the Assen pond have almost disappeared for ever.

Revisiting past pleasures in Ipoh

Other than that, by and large when I leave a posting I leave, I put it to bed in my mind and look forward to the next one.  I rarely hanker after the life that has been. I have been back to some of the other countries I have lived but never to my old homes (except on Google Maps) or even cities until last month.  When I had to rush back to Malaysia to see our very sick dog I ended up in our old town.  It was a strange visit because it has not been long since we were there, Ipoh was our home until December last year.  In between seeing to the dogs I revisited old hunting grounds, traces of our life there were everywhere.  My hair needed colouring so I went to my old hairdresser, I was still on record.  On the two evenings I was there I ate at two of our favourite restaurants.  I was welcomed back to both by name and asked if I wanted ‘my usual’, when I parked at the mall (I treated myself to a cinema trip, something we can’t do in Saudi) the mark made when our power steering fluid suffered a catastrophic leak in August last year could still be seen in our favoured spot.

Our old home had the most amazing view.

On a whim I went back to our old home.  We lived in a gated development with some beautiful park land and the guard, remembering me, waved me through with a big smile.  Our old house was occupied by a new family but I parked nearby and walked around the running track where we had walked the dogs every day (the plan had been to scatter Bessie’s ashes there if she had had to be put down).  The fish, the monkeys, the monitor lizards were all still there.  Sadly there is a lot of development going on at the theme park across the lake and I can see that we were lucky in our time there.  Unlike the feelings of sadness I have when visiting my old home in the Netherlands or the UK I felt a feeling of closure that I have never sought and had not expected to want or need. Our ripples are still there, though fading fast, they will be gone before long but, unlike Assen, I feel no sense of sadness about that.

We were happy to leave Ipoh, it had only ever been a temporary posting and had we remained in Malaysia we would have been in KL by now but we left with a short turn round, with Mr EE being asked to start his new job very quickly (6 months notice is more normal in education).  Whenever we relocate we try to spend as much time as possible fixing memories of our posting, memories that will last us a life time.  We do our favourite things and make the most of our remaining time there.  In Ipoh the time we had to do this was very short.  The little swansong visit was, in many ways, the perfect way to put that posting to bed.  

Have you ever returned to a previous posting?  How did it make you feel?

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To Hell in a Handcart or Better All The Time?

In recent months the world, as we know it, seems to be going to hell in a handcart.  This year has seen planes fall out of the sky, people attacked while at prayer, relaxation or dance and innocent civilians in Syria still caught in the middle of a morass of warring forces.  Of course there has been good news, the Brexit vote, so hotly contested, went the way I wanted it to and Britain can now look forward to a truly prosperous global future as opposed to being shackled to an outmoded anti-democratic, overly bureaucratic and economy stifling club of merely European nations. (I hope our future will continue to allow a rich trade with our European neighbours while opening the door to the rest of the world).  Even this high point has come at a cost.  Doom mongers are talking down the post Brexit economy so vehemently that they risk causing the very problems they talk about,  disgruntled remainers have spoken, quite openly, about their desire to set aside the democratic process and repeal the vote.  People who supported the vote to leave have been cast as racist, stupid and bullies.  Some people I know have been marginalised by their ‘friends’ simply because of how they voted.  Suddenly the understated yet powerful democracy of my adopted country of Britain, which I hold so dear seems to be very fragile.  Hopefully the process will be started soon and we can start to negotiate our new place in the world.

I have been thinking about these things quite a lot in recent days for a number of reasons.  Firstly because the older children are now starting to read and watch a lot more news and asking questions about what is going on (if any one can point me to a neutral analysis of the American elections aimed at under 10s I would be most grateful).  This lends an extra depth to the discussions Mr EE and I have.  Secondly it is around the time of our wedding anniversary and, while we don’t celebrate it as such it is a time of the year when, much like New Year, I reflect on what has gone and what is yet to come.  While we met 20 years ago we have only been married for 15 as we wanted to both finish our education and on the job training before getting married.  Our wedding was just one month before the September 11 attacks.  Watching a drama set in 1914 with an older relative he told me that he often remembers the celebration of our wedding the way the WW1 generation remembered the gilded summer of 1914, the last gasp of a vanishing era.

The last gasp of a glittering era?

I dismissed that at first but the more I think about it the more right I realise he is.  Mr EE and I remember the final years of the tangible nuclear threat (Mr EE a little more than I do, he remembers duck and cover, I know it only from stories).  More secure in my memories are the tri-partite summits, watching Reagan, Thatcher and Gorbachev find their way towards a peace our parents had worried would never exist.  I visited Russia (Leningrad and Moscow) just one year before the USSR disappeared forever (and little did we think, as children of the end of the Cold War that we would live in and be welcomed to the Kazakh Steppes).  We saw the wall come down, we saw the Good Friday Agreement set the stage for peace in Northern Ireland and the end of the Iran/Iraq war.  To be fair we also saw events unfold in Mogadishu and the First Iraq war which today seem to presage the awful state the world is in today, at the time they seemed, to us at least, distant in the case of the first and a one off in the case of the second.  We also saw, heartbreakingly, the return of concentration camps in Europe and Rwanda but awful as they were, the conflicts were small in geographic scale and were resolved, things were on the up around the world.  It seemed to us that we were starting out on our life’s adventure blessed with a world as at peace as it was ever going to be and things looked pretty golden.

That all changed on September 11.  Like everyone else we remember exactly where we were when the news broke; Mr EE was in school and spent the rest of that and subsequent days caring for a boarder who thought his mother was in the WTC at the time of the hit (thank God she was late for work that morning and we got news she was safe a few days later).   I was in my office, my second day as a qualified solicitor, I remember the staff from our Lloyds branch were evacuated to our building and, given my 1 ½ hour commute home on London’s creaky rail network, many colleagues kindly offered me accommodation for the night.  We all tried to be hard bitten City lawyers and continue with our work but minute by minute we stopped all but the most essential work and started to try to contact family and friends in the US, moving into each other’s rooms to watch the footage unfold, each scene more horrifying than the last.  As the days went by it became obvious that the attack was as pivotal as the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914, our world had lurched on its axis and nothing would ever be the same again.

Instead of the better world we all took for granted on the day of our wedding, instead of the single, definable, bogeyman of our parent’s generation we now have to bring our children up in a real life version of a Hitchcock thriller.  We can’t see or plan for the threat, it just materialises.  Nowhere is safe, not a shopping centre in Germany a restaurant in Dhaka, a street in Almaty,  a promenade in Nice, the streets of Kabul (ok they are not safe at any time but recent events were a whole magnitude of  awful more), not the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah or a church in Normandy. It is not just extremist violence we need to be concerned about either, Zika, Ebola, extremist politics on both the left and right in many stable democracies and interest rates edging towards 0 or even negative. Everywhere we look the news seems resolutely depressing.

Because of our connections to multiple countries expats are far more exposed to events than others.  I keep an eye on the news from all the countries I have lived in.  When I see footage of shootings in Almaty I know the streets, when I hear of Venezuelans reduced to such straits by the happenings in their country that they are forced to eat zoo animals, those people were my neighbours.  The families caught in the bombings in south east Turkey were my family and friends 20 years ago.  When MH17 was shot down there were people from our community, including a parent from my husband's school on board. I am not unusual, many expats feel this way and there are days when the news hurts.  Our children are more exposed as well and it is important to teach them skills to cope with the awful news stories they will see or hear.

Things are bad, there are many evil people in the world but in many ways things are so much better and getting better all the time.  Polio is almost eradicated, a second victory for humanity in its fight against disease.  True there has been an outbreak in Nigeria in recent weeks but the authorities seem to be working valiantly isolate it, the system works!  When I lived in Nigeria in the 1980s polio sufferers were a common sight, particularly in orphanages.  To know that soon people will no longer suffer that disease is cause for celebration.  We may be struggling with Zika but just recently the world helped some of the poorest countries to deal with a potentially devastating Ebola outbreak.  The lessons learned will ensure that when the disease breaks out again, it can be contained more efficiently.

Today more people have access to clean water than ever before (although that is not to say that things could not improve).  More people can read, thanks to GMOs we are looking at being in a position where more and more countries will be able to guarantee a stable food supply.  The rights of minorities (and of women) are more entrenched and more protected in more places than when I was a child. When a depraved man drove a bus into a crowd of innocent people there were others, people who woke up never thinking they could be or would be called to be heroic, who did not hesitate to try to stop him.  When an earthquake hit an Italian village late at night a young girl used her body to shield her sister, to give her sibling a chance at life a the cost of her own.  The news may not make it seem that way but there is more peace and more stability in the world than at just about any other time in human history.

So we live our lives, different lives to the ones we expected 15 years ago, but nevertheless lucky, happy, enjoyable lives.  The world may be going to hell in a handcart but it is our world and there is still more good in it than bad, more heroism than cowardice and more opportunity than not.  As the year turns we will hold on to that.

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How to hire household help.

Since arriving in Jeddah I have been searching for a housekeeper.  While everyone here seems to have one it is becoming more and more difficult to find someone to help.  In years gone by most of the household help was comprised of Umrah or Hajj overstayers.  The government has recently started to crack down on this.  In reality this is a good thing, those working here illegally were vulnerable to abuse in many forms and the truth of the matter is, as an expat, I would not want to employ someone illegal as it would put our status in the country in jeopardy.  This has, however, created a pinch point for household help meaning we need to find someone wanting a job share, someone whose work is coming to an end and  whose visa we can take over as sponsors or apply to an agency and bring someone in from abroad.  There are pitfalls to all of those, happily it looks like a solution is on the horizon and I will have help at home again.

I don’t need someone, of course, having household help is a privilege I do not have when in a European posting so I am perfectly capable (if reluctant) of doing my own cleaning.  Nevertheless I don’t like doing it.  I hate mopping floors, I loathe ironing (but can’t bring myself to wear or let anyone in the family wear un-ironed clothes), bathrooms are odious work and hanging the laundry up is disproportionately aggravating, don’t even get me started on changing bedclothes.  All the children have full size doubles and we have something so large it is called an ‘Emperor’ size bed.  All very lovely until you have to wrestle with sheets and duvet covers.  For this reason I jump at having someone to help wherever possible. 

I hate housework - who doesn't...

I do know some expats who dislike the ‘maid culture’ that exists in some postings.  I see some of it here, parents who leave their children solely in the care of the maid, friends who, when we visit, never put anything away.  Children who treat their maid and driver like dirt.  One seemingly lovely lady on our compound came round to say she was moving on and her maid was looking for new work.  The girl in question wanted a live in position during the week, her husband could not pick her up and drop her off  for work and would not allow her in a taxi.  When I pointed out that we wanted a live out (but that I would pay for a private and trusted taxi service) the previous employer told me that I had plenty of space, she could sleep in  the baby’s room or even the cupboard under the stairs.  Visions of Harry Potter flew through my mind  and I just said the position would not work for us.  This attitude is not unusual, our house in Ipoh (Malaysia) had a maid’s quarter, 1/3 the size of the children’s bedrooms it had no air-conditioning.  It did have a bathroom but no hot water.  The schedule for the previous occupant’s maid was still up on the wall.  Her duties started at 5.30 and did not finish until after 9pm.  It broke my heart.

All this aside I don’t feel guilty having help in the house because we don’t treat people like that.  In one posting where my mother was required to host gatherings for up to 60 people sometimes multiple times a week  my parents had 4 people they employed directly to help us out and we had a driver provided by the company.  My mother would not allow us to take advantage of this situation, however.  We still had to keep our rooms tidy, make our beds, put clothing away, keep our bathroom sanitary.  We had to help the cook with his work for big events and woe betide any visiting friend who spoke to people with disrespect.  In another posting with a similarly large number of people helping us out we all sat down for coffee every morning and had a ‘conversation break’.  This way we learned the local language (Spanish) quickly and effectively,  albeit with a strong local accent and patois. 

It is too easy for children to become accustomed to having everything done for them.  Like my mother, Mr EE and I insist that the children are polite and helpful.  They are expected to keep their rooms neat and tidy so they can be cleaned.  If there is any mess on the floor they have to tidy it up, and they must put clothes away neatly.  Anything that has been beautifully ironed then thrown in a crumpled heap in a cupboard earns a pocket money deduction.  They have to help whoever is doing it to change their sheets and clean their bathroom, They also have to help around the house.  Part of this is self-preservation (I am responsible for all this when we are in Europe so I don’t want to make my life harder), part to make sure that they learn valuable life skills for when they have their own households (I am teaching them to cook and when they are older will expect them to be responsible for a family meal a week each), part is a simple measure of respect for the person who is helping them.  This may seem like a normal basic minimum but you would be shocked at how many people this is not normal for.  

All this is by way of saying that expats should not feel bad about hiring help in the home, as long as they treat people the way they would hope their own children would be treated in a similar job (as an Au Pair for example).  Most people who work as household help take pride in their job and the fact that they are supporting their family.  My top tips are as follows:

• Not every person is a fit, as with all jobs think about a probationary period to make sure you work well together. 
• Check references, equally give a fair reference when you leave. 
• Discuss what duties are expected and set out any extras (ie Babysitting) that is paid extra.
• Don’t be afraid to say if you don’t like the way something is done but do explain how you would prefer it.
• Make sure that you pay a fair salary, check what the market rate is but if you think it is too low for the work done then pay more. 
• Consider a bonus for New Year or at key religious festivals, save up an end of term lump sum so that they have funds to tide them over while they find another position.
• Give time off generously, particularly for bereavement and medical issues.
• If someone is live out consider providing a transport allowance so that the people working for you are not taking dangerous routes home.    
• Think about what you are asking people to do, would you be happy to do it? 
• Help out where appropriate, ie big end of posting spring cleans.
• Ensure that people have adequate breaks during the day and make food, hot drinks and water fully and freely available.
• Make sure your children do not become entitled. 

A final note of warning, make sure that while bending over backwards to ensure that you are not an unscrupulous employer, that you are not saddled with an employee that is taking advantage.  Ask for evidence of medical treatment  (or other support) you have agreed to pay for (a kind hearted friend in Kazakhstan was stung for a lot of money this way).

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