A travelling peanut allergy

My son was diagnosed with a peanut allergy at the age of 5. I always had my suspicions, whether it was a maternal instinct or looking back a number of minor incidents, always coincidentally explained by another factor.

We are expats and my son was born in the middle east. When I weaned him, I tried him with peanut butter, but he refused to even smell it. It made me wonder and was always something which niggled at the back of my mind, however we used to always have peanuts in the house. I would eat them, prepare his food after handling them and kiss and cuddle him. There was never seemed to be a problem, so I pushed away the niggle and continued with life. Loving and caring for him, subconsciously never actually giving him peanuts, but not really thinking too much of it.

That was until he had his first known reaction. A bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes resulted in the swelling of the eyes and later in the night, an anaphylactic shock. Further tests assumed my original suspicions. I have a child with an allergy to peanuts.

Reflecting on past events, we noted it was perhaps not his first reaction. Reactions which were not serious and not much more than swollen eyes, but on reflection were early warning signs. Pictures of him at a party on a dusty day, put down to the weather; itchy eyes at home, put down to stroking the dog and in a pub surrounded by peanuts after sitting on hay bales, put down to hay fever.

Shorty after that first known reaction, my husband was offered a job in SE Asia. My thoughts turned to the peanut nation and how we would cope living somewhere where peanuts are in pretty much everything, peanut oil is used to fry your chips and the word allergy is unheard of. Were we going to have to live in a sterile box? We considered not moving, but why should a peanut allergy stop you from travelling the world? By not going would only teach my son that his allergy was a disability and would stop him from exploring and learning. Surely we could manage this allergy.

So that's what we do. We travel and we manage his allergy, teaching him not to be afraid, but to be wary and always ask questions. We are by no means experts and each day we learn more, but we travel and we learn and we live.

A few pointers to help travelling with allergies:

Start with research
Research the local food, names, ingredients, popular dishes.
Research the language, know the world for peanut in the language of the country you are travelling to.
Know where your nearest hospital is and the best way to get there. Ambulance may to always be the quickest way in countries with high volumes of traffic.

Pack your pens
Always travel with a minimum of two epipens and antihistamine. Always make sure all members of the family know where these are kept at all times and always make sure that everything is in date.

Plane travel
Planes are tricky, some planes have a no peanut rule, a lot don’t. You can’t control what people bring onto or eat on a plane, but you can make people aware and ask them for consideration.
In the past we have found that at check in the staff are usually uninterested in any allergies and dietary requirements, although it is worth mentioning if you remember. The best people are the gate staff and the stewards who greet you on the plane. These are the people who will make an announcement tot he passengers and make the decision not to serve peanuts if they can.
Budget air is more difficult to control and people often bring their own food on board. Don't travel budget air if you suspect your allergy to be airborne, but if you do travel budget, wipe down all surfaces like table trays, arms and seats. I am not sure if this makes a difference, but for me and my son, it helps us to feel more relaxed about the journey.

Hotels
Email ahead of time to let them know you’re coming. Explain the allergy and what you will need for your stay.
Ask to meet the Executive Chef.
On check in, remind the check in staff of your allergy and ask to speak to the chef again if possible.
Speak to guest relations on your meal options. Ask them to check with the kitchen items such as the oil used, breakfast items and any complimentary bar snacks etc.
Find out the nearest hospital and the best way to get there.

Restaurants
Before you order explain to the waiting staff.
When you order explain to the waiting staff again. Ask them to inform the chef. May sure they write it down next to the order.
Explain the dangers of cross contamination .

We stayed at a lovely hotel in Bali (Nusa Dua Beach Hotel and Spa), we met the executive Chef there, who took it upon himself to visit each of the kitchens and inform them we were staying in the hotel. All the staff took extra care to accommodate us, making our stay relaxed and peanut free.

Haze, Pollution, whatever you call it, it's a pretty miserable situation

We were due to go to Malaysia for the half term break, but due to the haze we had to rearrange our plans. Cancel our luxury resort in Pangkor Laut and head to Thailand (which was also suffering from the haze) instead. We were lucky in Thailand, as the week before the airport had been closed due to poor viability as they were also suffering from the disgusting haze situation. 

We spent a few days in KL and it really was miserable. Schools were closed and where you could once see blue skies and skylines, everything was covered in a grey mist, which stinks. The hospitals are full of people with breathing problems, the kids are suffering, everyone is suffering. Why? In this age of life, how is this allowed. Indonesia is burning and nobody cares. Trees are being burnt, animals are dying and people are dying. Livelihoods are being destroyed, people are suffering, but why is nothing being done? Why is nobody talking about it? Why is it not being picked up by every news agency across the world? The reason is palm oil. And the companies who use the palm oil for their products are to blame. I need to read more about this devastation to fully understand who is responsible and what we can do, but I will be checking labels and boycotting any company who uses palm oil in their products. I will share the information I have on social media and do what I can, where I can. We are choking here is SE Asia, things need to change. 

It seems it's not all bad living in SE Asia

The other day I sat down and made a list of all the places I wanted to visit while we live in Jakarta -there's a lot of them. It made me realise we need to make the most of the opportunity we have living in this part of the world. Getting out of Jakarta did us all the world of good. A bit of sunshine, relaxation and play time. It was really lovely.

We were supposed to be going to an island in Malaysia, but due to the haze we ended up in Thailand. Not a bad change of plan really. It was my mum and dads first visit to Thailand so they were really taken with the beauty of the island. Four days felt like four weeks and we really managed to kick back and get a tan. The kids had a great time and loved swimming in the sea and building sand castles. It was all a holiday should be.

I have just booked Bali for Christmas and the rest of the world await us in 2016. Happy holidays! 

Release the frustration and burn some fat

I am a bit of a run-walker/walker-waddler. I actually hate running. I actually can't believe I am contemplating/actually running. But, I have managed a couple of my stylish run-walks and its starting to get a tiny tiny bit easier. So after my last post, I figured if I had all this time on my hands, what could I do to help myself. I need to lose weight, I know I do. I hate being wobbly. As I am not working and often stuck in the house, there is an option to run-walk. Its not been too bad, at least its not quite the same degree of temperature here as in Qatar and we live on a compound with a few hills and lots of green roads to run on. Getting out the house has made me feel better and a little bit more alive. The warmth of the sun and the sweat trickling down my face has made me realise I am lucky to live here, I just have to make the most of it.

So with the running underway, salads or soup for lunch and all chocolate banned - I just have to tackle the wine situation. Like I said before, one step at a time - life would be pretty miserable without wine! 

P.s I have no idea how long this will last! 

Expat life is not always rosey

I've been having a bit of a crap time recently. I've been on a downer and I can't snap out of it. I can't quite put my finger on exactly what is making me feel like this, but this place does not feel like home. Maybe I have too much time on my hands or maybe I'm not trying hard enough, but I think it's probably a combination of a lot of things. 

Last week our driver decided to quit. To be honest he's been a pain for a long time, but we have put up with him. It all came to a head last week and after us telling him a few home truths, he decided it was too much work to work for us and we never saw him again. While I am happy not to have to deal with him again, I am going a bit stir crazy stuck in the house and have had to cancel all of my plans, which mainly consist of playgroups and supermarket shopping. Driving here myself is just not an option and so I am having to take taxis everywhere. Problem is half of them hardly speak any english so its quite difficult to get places.

I am also not long back from our summer break in the UK, in hindsight this trip was probably not the best idea as it has completely unsettled me. The summer weather was lovely and seeing everything and everyone I consider normal was refreshing and so hard to leave behind again. It dawned on me that although I have been living abroad for almost 8 years, over 7 years of that time was spent as an expat in the same country and in reality it was just home from home. I haven't moved from place to place every two years, I haven't had to go out and make new friends and be the new kid on the block before, get to know new cities, different cultures and new ways of life. Yes I was an expat, but it was home. Life was easy, familiar and safe. Thinking I was a world traveller, I was really not. I was just someone with two home cities and now I feel homesick for both.

The other bizarre thing is I miss working! Yep, I just said that. Me, the person who moaned to my husband about not wanting to work, wanting to spend more time with the children, not having time to enjoy my life. Ha, yes thats me, and now I really want to work. I want to go to work every day and earn some of my own money. Maybe thats it. I want to earn my own money so I can spend my own money. I don't know, but I want to work and now I can't. However, that being said, I am almost positively sure that next week I will almost certainly be taking back that statement! 

Do you speak my language?

WHAT? You don't speak English? What kind of place am I living in?

When we moved here it never crossed my mind that people wouldn't speak english. Yep, so so ignorant.

Well, it was a rude awakening when I realised that I couldn't go to the supermarket and ask for toilet rolls aisle, as I would be taken to the washing machines. Or a simple question of 'do you sell baby monitors?' greeted with a big beaming smile of 'yes yes' (happy to have understood english) and led to the pyjamas, the list goes on. I quickly realised either I was going to have to at least improve my acting skills or bite the bullet and learn to speak Bahassa. Of course the best of intentions mean that I have now been here 6 month and I still can't offer much more than good morning and thank you.

However, yesterday I walked to the little supermarket at the end of my road, as I was paying and exchanging the usual blank looks and shrugs, while the shop keeper spoke to me in Bahassa waving the POS terminal around, I noticed the lady behind me smiling. I looked at her for help and she told me he was asking if I wanted to use some of my points to pay for my shopping. I didn't even know I had any points let alone could use them to pay for shopping, I felt so ashamed. I have been living in this country and I still cannot communicate with anyone. I watched the lady ask questions and pay for her shopping, all spoken in Bahassa and felt such a fraud. I decided I need to make the effort to learn. So here I am today, I am not going as far as to pay for a tutor, but I have logged online and I am planning to listen to my lessons in the car on the way to school or at home during my spare time, which to be fair at the moment I have a lot of.

Jakarta, Indonesia

I had never been to Jakarta before. But at the end of March 2015 I arrived with the two little people. It was lovely to be reunited with my husband, who had been there on his own since January and was getting pretty lonely. The kids were so excited to see him and I was ready to start the new adventure as a family in Jakarta. 

Jakarta is actually a really great place to live, but the settling in period was a lot longer and harder than I anticipated. I really started to miss Doha and my life there. The familiarity of a city that was home for almost 8 years, where we had got married and had both children. Settling into Jakarta, with a new house and no friends was all a bit daunting and resulted in a few tears. A twin tub washing machine and no oven or bath resulted in a few arguments, but all easily fixed with a glass of wine. Once school started, I got a kick up the bum by a couple of new friends and we got into a routine, things started to look up! 

We have a driver. Something which was completely alien to us. He sits and waits and takes us wherever we want to go. When I tell people they think it's amazing and it is, but sometimes I just feel the need to get in the car and drive myself. Don't get me wrong, I am loving having a driver. The Jakarta traffic isn't fun and driving is frustrating. But what I miss is just stopping when you see something on the roadside or popping out quickly. A car is a private space, I hadn't realised this until now, sharing that space is odd and I don't think I'll ever get over the need to hide my shopping bags.

Jakarta is full of megamalls, so shopping is generally what is ladies of leisure do (although I mostly window shop), that and drink coffee. Yep, totally stereotypical. But the malls are pretty impressive and often have great restaurants, coffee shops and bars, so you actually can easily spend a day there mooching around. 

One of the hardest things I have found is the supermarket shop. It can literally take me 3 days to find and buy all the things I need and that's if everything is in stock! I thought Qatar was bad, but I find expat products few and far between and those you can get mean you have to travel miles and check at least 2 supermarkets before you find them. When I first got here, I felt I spent all my days in supermarkets. Meat from Ranch, general household from food hall, vegetables from the market and fruit from Total. That 4 different supermarkets and in Jakarta traffic, that usually means 4 days shopping. 

I am still yet to have this city feeing like home, but we will get there in time I am sure.