19. Chapter 14: The Beginning

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Transcript

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Chapter 14, The Beginning. I love you so much, my mom said as she hugged me hard. Don't forget to text me when you get there. At age 23, I flew by myself from Toronto to Frankfurt, wearing my grandfather's special knitted white sweater. He'd worn that sweater to the hospital where cancer slowly killed him within two months. As he took his last breaths, I remember nervously asking my Nana, is it okay with you if I have that white sweater? I was afraid she'd be offended, but she was actually delighted, and it became something special that I always wore when I flew. Maybe it gave my Nana comfort to imagine my granddad's arms around me, protecting me as I traveled towards foreign lands. When I landed in Frankfurt, I went straight to the gate for my flight to Kuwait, even though I had a six-hour layover and had plenty of time to spare. I was not an experienced independent flyer. Every time I'd been in an airport, I'd been with my family or a group facilitator. This was the first time I was leading myself through an international airport and traveling through dramatic time zone changes. I was scared I'd miss the flight. The first thing I noticed was that the flight's destination was not Kuwait. It was Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. I began to panic. Was I actually moving to Saudi by mistake? There were no flight attendants in sight to ask, so I found a plug and set up watching the Fosters on my MacBook. I knew that I wouldn't have internet access when I first moved to Kuwait, so I had downloaded all five seasons of The Fosters to watch on my MacBook throughout the flight and once I'd moved into my apartment. The Fosters was a popular American television drama at the time that featured a blended family and touched on LGBT issues. When I started to watch the show in the Frankfurt Airport, I also started to worry. What if my colleagues looked at my computer and saw that there were two women kissing on the screen? I assumed that these people were conservative individuals because they had chosen to move to Kuwait. The irony in this was that I had also chosen Kuwait, and I was not conservative. It turned out that many of the colleagues I later met were some of the most open-minded individuals I knew. Their international exposure made them much more open-minded rather than closed. Gradually, the crew of school teachers started assembling to board the flight. They didn't know me and no one said hello, but I recognized many faces from email exchanges we'd shared. I saw my team leader, principal, and vice principals. Seeing them, even if we didn't converse, reassured me that yes, I was in the right place. I learned that the destination of the flight was Jeddah because they merged the flights that were traveling to Jeddah and Kuwait. They did that often, since neither of these locations were tourist destinations, they had to consolidate the flights. On the plane, for the first time in my life, I saw some men wearing traditional Kuwaiti dress, which I later learned was called a distacha. A distacha was a white robe with a long white headscarf, a gutra, and a black rope around the crown of their heads called a negal. Many of the men wore leather sandals and brand name sunglasses. They had sound canceling headphones attached to their iPhone 8s, the newest model at the time. There were Kuwaiti families on board too, with some of the women wearing a baya, a black dress, and a hijab, a head covering. The call to prayer echoed through the airplane television as we took off, which was the first time I'd ever heard it. Flights going to the Middle East from International Airlines allowed alcohol on board, thankfully, so I was able to order my final beers. Eight hours later, the flight landed in Kuwait International Airport, and everyone rushed to get off the plane. I got onto the shuttle bus and then moved out into the airport. The airport swarmed with people moving in every direction. At the luggage carousel, both my suitcases came through on schedule. Helpers picked up the bags for us, and men from India hoisted them onto the carts and pushed them beside us. I'd never had a person push my luggage through an airport before. I was 23 years old and was definitely capable of doing it myself. In fact, all my life I'd done it myself. But one of the principals who had been on the flight with us came around and told us, don't worry about it, we'll pay for the luggage carts. The other teachers and I joined a long line, which led towards a group of men who would inspect our bags. Alcohol, pork, drugs, porn, and sex toys were all haram, strictly forbidden when entering Kuwait. I had a small feeling of panic, though I knew I didn't have any of these things in my bag. Would my mood stabilizers count as drugs? I didn't have to worry. It didn't seem to be any problem. We walked through the gates. The arrivals at the Kuwait airport were unlike anything I'd seen before. So many arrivals seemed to involve a fanfare of the entire extended family holding massive confetti machines, bouquets of flowers, and signs to greet their loved ones. I was amazed at how some families went above and beyond to celebrate their loved ones. My family never greeted me like this. Waiting for us just beyond the gates were all the people I'd seen on the school website. The principals of the high school, middle school, and elementary school, and even William, the man who'd hired me on Skype, were there to greet us. In exchange for our passports to complete the visa process, the administration gave us an envelope with a very small amount of cash, which was meant to sustain us for a month until our first paycheck. We walked outside, and that's when the heat and humidity hit me. It was like I was walking through a hairdryer. The luggage helpers put our bags on the back of a pickup truck. The other new teachers and I sat ourselves in a small gray minivan with broken seat belts, faded curtains, and multicolor stripes across the seats. The front windows had beads, dusty curtains, and small figurines. We waited for the remaining new teachers to get their luggage, to load onto the bus before driving off to our new homes. The aisle filled up with jump seats pulled down to fit everyone. Everything was foreign to me but exciting. The language, the smell, the heat, and even the humidity. The way the roads all had a boulevard down the middle, and U-turns were the norm. Traffic was bursting over the boulevards. It was an army of honks and beeps and horns. We traveled for about an hour before pulling up to what seemed like a beautiful hedged archway, lined with twinkly Christmas lights. Before arriving in Kuwait, we had been given our apartment assignments via email. And so I knew I was living in the addition, a small building adjacent to the gated community where most teachers would be living. William announced, addition people, come with me. Everyone assigned to the gated community, most of the group, and seemingly all the women except me, went through the hedge archway. They went into an enclosed compound called the Oasis. The rest of us turned right and walked along the busy hectic dirt road. We came to a building with a gate. William reached through the gate, opening the latch without a key, and we followed him through the ground floor to a metal elevator and rode it up to the fourth floor. I was in apartment A19. I couldn't figure out how to turn on any of the lights or power, not knowing that all the power outlets in this part of the world had a little switch that needed to be turned on. When I finally figured out how to turn on the lights, I saw the place. The apartment had a long hallway, which led to a small room with a washer. There was a tiny room that was the kitchen, which was smaller than the walk-in closets in the apartment I'd lived in in university. It had a small amount of counter space, but large enough to fit a microwave, but not enough to actually prepare meals. I had two bedrooms and some furniture that was falling apart. At that point in the journey, I don't even think I noticed these details. I was just beyond proud to have my own apartment for the first time in my life, which I'd gotten with my first job. I didn't care that the drawers broke when I tried to pull them open or the bed collapsed under my weight when I sat on it. I was so excited. The school had said they'd provide bedding, so no need to pack it. But really, what they'd provided was cheap, colorful pieces of fabric that had been left folded on the mattress. Because it didn't have the elastic band of a fitted sheet, it couldn't be tucked around the mattress properly. Nevertheless, determined to be optimistic, I rolled the fabric out over the mattress and I went to sleep. The bright orange sun was rising over the Persian Gulf and screaming through the cracks in the window curtain when I woke up around six in the morning. I pulled open the curtains fully and I saw the sea, the dust, the workers in their gray and brown jumpsuits sprawling all over the roads. I heard the honks and beeps and saw the water trucks backing up. I could feel the desert heat radiating through the window. I remember thinking, so this is the Middle East. I pulled the curtains shut again. It was too hot to leave them open. I opened my suitcase and unpacked the few things I'd brought. One of the cupboards in the spare bedroom became the pharmacy of the apartment. Before moving to Kuwait, I'd heard that some shampoos, deodorants, and tampons were hard to find. So I'd stocked up on them before I left. I'd excessively brought 10 boxes of tampons with me. The irony of this investment was that I went on to not have a period for the entire time I lived in Kuwait, for the first time in my life since I was 13 years old. So I didn't even need this massive tampon supply whatsoever. I think that my period stopping was due to two reasons. First, chronic stress, and second, my intrauterine device, IUD, being inserted, which provided hormones that reduced the likelihood of getting a period. When I accepted the job in Kuwait, something I was massively panicked about was starting a relationship with someone, having premarital sex, becoming pregnant, and getting arrested. In some countries all around the world, including Kuwait and Indonesia where I presently live, premarital sex is illegal, as are abortions. There were stories of women going to jail over this. When I planned to move to Kuwait due to this, a Canadian physician encouraged me to get an IUD. The device was 99.9% effective at birth control, and it was the best method of preventing pregnancy on the market. Moreover, once the IUD was inserted, you never had to think about it again. At the time, the benefits of the IUD sounded good to me. On reflection, I find it interesting that so little education was given to me about the IUD's side effects. That's because little research is done. One side effect I've learned now after joining a Facebook support group so many years after having it inserted and removed is that the IUD can lead women to have suicidal thoughts. In a review that summarizes the results of 22 studies conducted on IUD usage, Taylor and Francis Online concluded that many studies report the association between psychiatric symptoms and IUDs. The review recommended that all doctors be aware of these risks, especially depressive symptoms and suicidality, and that counseling patients about these risks should be mandatory. Like my relationship with alcohol, there are many factors that cause my mental health downward spiral, and it would be both difficult and naive to identify and blame just one. But the IUD was certainly a contributing factor. I don't think it's any doctor's fault that I ended up suicidal. I just think that there was little research and awareness out there of how much hormonal IUDs can impact women's mental health. As a member of an IUD Facebook support group, years later, I frequently send messages of hope and support to other women experiencing depressive episodes and suicidal thoughts like I did when I was using an IUD. That once they get the device removed, it will get better. But I'm jumping ahead. We're still in the beginning before all of that. The first few months in Kuwait. I was in the hyper stress culture shock mode of go, go, go. Accomplish this, make a good impression, be the best teacher I could be. It was the honeymoon phase of culture shock. I was the young, bright eyed 23 year old, determined to have a positive impact and make a difference, and determined to prove that, despite how young I was, I deserve to be there.