Compound Criminals

2 days ago, we went out to the playground in our compound only to find that my 3 year old daughter’s brand new life sized dollie had been dismembered and buried in a sandy grave on the playground. Her clothing had been removed, her head was even chopped off, hair was pulled out, and lay strung across the playground sand.

Well, my daughter shouldn’t have taken her dollie out to the playground….but wow she really didn’t deserve this! I can understand one of the kids trying to steal her or something….but drawing and quartering her, then burying her like a corpse in the sand in a shallow grave?

Apparently a certain boy and his sister (I swear this girl exhibits many qualities of ADHD, I guess that’s another post), were seen doing the evil deed by trustworthy enough witnesses whose testimony was also corroberated by our six year old son.

So, my husband and I decided of course to tell their parents, so the kids could be disciplined. After all, this is really quite an awful transgression, right? We thought so. We were actually mortified. What kind of kids do this? It’s twisted behavior, for sure.

Well, we had a language barrier to overcome but a lot can be communicated with our broken Arabic and gestures and pointing. They got the message, but aggressively denied with much yelling and mean tones towards us that their kids could have possibly done such a thing. Then, they actually had the nerve to try and invite us into their house and sit down and drink tea and discuss this with them!

What total freaks!

So, my husband and I “battled it out” so to speak with them on their front steps. They repeatedly denied in deplorable yelling tones at us that their kids could have done this, even when we brought the boys who had witnessed the act. Then the father had the nerve to yell at this poor teenage boy that was trying to help us by translating what we were saying! It was as if the father of these ‘ebb children didn’t want to hear the truth.

Finally, I demanded an apology, which they forced the kid to mutter, which he mustered up in a very defiant tone, like he was being falsely accused or unjustafiably persecuted.

I made it clear I didn’t want those kids anywhere near my kids or my house ever again, the man yelled loudly and terribly at us some more (why is he yelling at us, his kids are the ones who were naughty!!!???), and finally, disgusted, and confused, we walked home.

Then today, I was looking out my (one-way) mirror watching my three year old daughter on our front steps, when the pack of neighborhood boys walks up, and I see the same boy involved in the dollie incident come and whack my daughter, unprompted, on her head!

Let me tell you I busted out the front door yelling “come here”, in Arabic, and the kid was bolting for home, then stopped. Then my husband came, shooting like a lightning bolt, yelling “what happened???” and I told him who did what to our daughter, that I had seen the whole thing through the oneway window.

So my husband runs and catches the kid, who tries to run away. My husband grabs him by the ear and pulls him while running all the way down the row of houses to his house, where I hear my husband getting shouted at like all kingdom come from the ‘ebb kid’s father.

Then, the pack of boys, who are still standing there in front of my house, totally shocked, yell, “Hey, maybe they are fighting!” and they all immediately book it down to the ‘ebb kid’s villa to see if there is any action.

Well, I was holding the baby, but I decided to try and run too. When I arrived my husband was already starting to walk home and the boy’s father was out in the street, once again screaming god only knows what at the teenager my husband brought to translate for him. It really looked like the man was going to hit the poor boy.

So, I approached the mother who was standing on her front step, yelling stuff 100 miles an hour at me in Arabic, which of course I had no idea what she was saying. Then her teenage daughter said “you liar”.

Well, I blew my stack. I screamed, “I am the witness! I saw ________ hit my daughter”, (hand guestures and pointing included), and the mother then proceeded to tell me again that I am a liar.

So, I was beyound pissed off. I said the gratuitous “Hessbiyallah wa amalakeel” thing, which means “God is enough for me and is an excellent refuge,” which basically means they are doing me a seriously wrong deed, and God can dole out a much better punishment for them than I or any other human ever can.

What is it with these people? Why can’t they just admit to the fault and punish the little rascal? Why can’t they make reparations? Why is saying “sorry” so impossible?

Do they want to raise their kids up to be criminals? Because that’s what these two will become if they don’t learn to behave!

Why are they denying these two could do any wrong? Why are they protecting them like this? This is such damaging behavior.

Man, even my neighbor in Florida whose boyfriend WAS A DRUG DEALER was a better parent than these people! My son had a couple of minor run-ins with hers, and every time she apologized to me, punished him in front of me, and made him make reparations.!!!!! A DRUG DEALER’S GIRLFRIEND!

The father in this scene is a PROFESSOR at the local university !!!! What does that say, man???

Any insights from y’all out in blogosphere would be most comforting, especially from my readers who are part of and understand the Arabic culture.

My husband and I feel so left hanging. There is no closure. I feel so vulnerable for my kids, knowing that these spawn-of-satan suffer absolutely no consequences when they hurt my sweet precious little darling girl; knowing that the parents of these very awful children refuse to even listen to our reports of the terrible behavior they are engaging in, let alone do anything about it.

In America, the next step would be to involve the police. The boy is aggressive, harrassive, and the boy and girl have repeatedly tresspassed and vandalized our property (this is just the beginning, there are several other stories I could tell about the girl). Would American law address the parents? Surely the law wouldn’t penalize a 7 year old and a 10 year old. I’m unsure what the law says.

But we’re not in America anymore.

What do we do, here in Qatar?

We are at a total loss.

This whole chain of events makes me want to move out of this compound. I pray that the Ministry will facilitate that for us!!!! We have disliked this villa ever since we arrived in it. It's hard enough to have used dirty furniture, a villa that we are still cleaning from the last tennants even after 2 years of being here, continual maintenance problems, a playground full of broken glass in the sand and equipment that is unsafe and broken, a clubhouse that has been looted and is now closed, a swimming pool with lights floating in it, constant vandalism and graffitti, and gross electrical problems and hazards everywhere in the compound....but this behavior of the neighbors just takes the cake!