Life is a trade-off. I have the Maldives and you have Miracle Whip. You have NY&Co and I’m trying to squeeze my arse into French fashion. Expats do not have Girl Scout Cookies, Andes Mints, and beef that tastes like home. Chili powder, Cheerios that taste right, and good New York bagels. Pork? Forget it! Whatever they do in the UAE twists the taste into something unrecognizable.
We traded a country that operated pretty much like a well oiled machine for a multi-ethnic experience where we only comprehend answers to questions, directions, and a restaurant menu about thirty percent of the time. And since we have no other choice, we have learned to trust people with things that would absolutely shock Americans.
Yes, we live an exotic life.
Which may sound like a dream to some, yet in reality it is a trade-off for things expats hold dear but gave away for the experience of traveling the world and seeing places and things many only see when they close their eyes.
Loved ones die and we are not there.
Families have holidays, weddings, reunions, birthdays and graduations; and we wish them our best from across the globe.
We miss the loved ones we really love, the ones we only like to see once a year and even the dysfunctional ones that cause more grief than good. We miss them all.
But we get to see place like the Maldives, Malaysia and Rome because they are as close to us as Florida, California and Mexico are to you.
Two of the top regrets for dying people are they wished they would have traveled more and they wish they would have lived their lives authentically. I believe I am doing both — but it comes with a price.
Expats trade the comforts of home for the excitement of the unknown. Instead of regular hugs from grandparents, our children see Buddhist temples, ancient history and the wonders of the planet many children will never experience.
But they miss hot dogs. Doritos with the good cheese. Chicken in the Biscuit crackers.
Life is a trade-off. You can’t have it all. We chose the Maldives and you chose Thanksgiving with family.
The best thing about this experience is that we can both live vicariously through one another. Keep sharing your pics of home cooking, family get-togethers, your dogs and your other experiences; and I promise to show you the world.
Tomorrow is the day! I signed the entire family up for the Dubai Color Run. This is supposed to be happiness in a can of paint/stain/dye — whatever it is.
“What charity does this benefit?” asks my husband.
“Not sure. $1 of the $38 we spent on the ticket goes to some charity.” I explained.
“That’s not a very high percentage of giving. And this is supposed to make me happy? Do I not look happy? I am a little concerned about my tennis shoes and the leather in my car seat. Will the can of happiness rub off on these things?” my sly clever husband inquires with a tad of sarcasm mixed with humor.
My husband asked the questions only left brain people think about. They think about all of the details that are about as much fun as a fly in a punch bowl. After three months of anticipation my husband is putting the kabosh on my enthusiasm and seriously killing my buzz.
Dang it! I paid over $100 to run unbridled down a street while strangers shower us with dye/paint/stain. And fortunately, since I am able to partake in this opportunity for the Color Run to shower me with sticky/messy happiness they will then pass on a buck to some sick/impoverished/uneducated/homeless/dog/child/adult — this makes me very freaking happy. Then, and only then, when the fun is over and I’ve received my $100 of happiness and some poor shmoe receives their donation, I will think about the consequences of my enthusiasm — but not until then. I have been waiting for my happiness in a can for three months and I want to enjoy every dollar I paid.
“Is it toxic?” Hubby inquires further.
Oh, crap! “Seriously, you did not just ask me this, did you?”
“Mom that looks like a total mess to me!” Pipes in mini left brainer.
Where in the heck have you been? I am asked by friends and strangers.
Well, it’s been a difficult summer. While many of you were tubing on the river, shaking hands with Mickey in Florida, and basking in the sun in Bangkok — I was having an absolutely crappy summer. It went south during my dream vacation in the Seychelles when my Granny died. Sniffle. Sniffle. The fact that I wasn’t able to go home for the funeral escalated the downward spiral. It then continued straight south when I found out we had to relocate to a new villa — during Ramadan! This as you may not be aware, is not good because life in the Middle East comes to a near screeching halt during Ramadan. It would be the equivalent of finding a plumber on Christmas —do-able —but not easy. Unfortunately for us, the business that is conducted during Ramadan is limited due to the emotional commitment of the holiday. The work hours are cut short which is really good for the locals because fasting during 100° temps is only suitable for the camels and other nonhuman reptiles. The commitment Muslims make during Ramadan seriously puts all other religions to shame. The Hindus are in and out of fasting before you can say tandoori chicken and the Christians haven’t formally introduced fasting. In fact, they go the other way and either feed you wafers at church, cake in the basement of a church or biscuits at lunch after church. The Muslims, on the other hand, deserve some recognition because it takes some award winning who-ha’s to stick to a month-long, 12 hour-a-day fast in 100° of miserable, humidity-filled temperatures.
You must have lost some weight, didn’t you? said one of my well-intentioned girlfriends who is no longer with us. No, I did not. Since I am a nervous eater and this relocation stuff makes me extremely nervous, I succumbed to the power of the French pastries (those damn French!) which are constantly peering at me from the glass counter of all the grocery stores. Since we are not allowed to eat or drink in public for the month of Ramadan, the holiday can breed serious eating disorders such as gorging crap in the car with the window shade up and generally eating like a malnourished Ethiopian. So during the Ramadan move when I wasn’t gorging in a sweltering hot car while looking for a new villa in the confines of the Ramadan hours, I was on the phone talking with people who are in a state of Ramadan fog because they are lacking the sufficient nutrients to carry on their daily chores. It takes far more effort to get something done during Ramadan than it does on any typical business day, and since it is an honor to be named after the Prophet Muhammad, one must speak to at least fifteen different Mohammeds before reaching one that can help. On a non-Ramadan day one must only go through four or so Mohammeds before finding one that is either in the department you need or one you can understand and they can understand you. So when I found one, I quickly became best buddies with Mohammed, my local ADDC (Abu Dhabi Distribution Council) representative who was a life saver in helping me connect my utilities.
So I rushed home to somehow tell my non-English speaking Indian cleaning crew that the water and utilities will be on soon only to find them furiously cleaning the villa with the green, algae infested water from my swimming pool. Whoa! Wait! What are you doing? This isn’t the Ganga River. This isn’t okay! This isn’t acceptable! This is isn’t the way my mother would clean the house! This isn’t allowed. I am sorry. Get out! I felt like the fish in the bowl screaming at Thing One and Thing Two in The Cat in the Hat. And of course no nobody paid any attention to me because number one, they didn’t understand me; and number two, there is always a certain amount of hand waving, commotion, and chaos that occurs regularly so it takes quite a lot to alarm anyone. It’s not okay to clean with green algae water! I hand motioned to the cleaning man who lives in a human tuna can. He responded with a smile and in his version of the English language, he said he understood me — and then he furiously kept on cleaning. What you should understand about living here is that many people speak many different versions of the English language, but most are totally un-recognisable by the native English speaker. It’s like when I speak Italian, which I pretty much lift from all the Dean Martin songs I know, and what I need to say isn’t included in the lyrics of Volare such as; Penso che un sogno cosi non ritorni mai piu. Mi dipingevo le mani e la faccia di blu, I just throw in some English to top it off expecting that all Italians will understand me. I believe that I mistakenly tell people that my heart has wings for them, but I guess there’s no harm in that. So anyway, some Indians speak what I like to call Party-English. It sounds so damn happy that it makes me want to do a Bollywood dance. What are they saying? I have no idea. But there is so much head bobbing and happiness involved that whatever they are trying to say is lost in the festivity of it all.
I frantically called my maintenance man Mohammed. Hello Mohammed, we seem to have a problem at our new villa. I do not have water. Miss Gina, Mohammed says like he is going to tell me I have cancer.I am so very sorry for this inconvenience. I will send the workers over to your home inshallah. Inshallah? You might wonder, what is inshallah? Well, according to GrapeShisha it means the following:
You must have heard it multiple times daily. Inshallah literally means ‘If Allah wills it’, or generalized to ‘God-willing’, but really it is a term of fatalism, which you can’t really express in English, and it will be used to express an event in the future. This means that you could hear it peppered throughout conversations on a daily basis, since the future could mean in few minutes as well as tomorrow as well as next year. Let me give you an example: “I will see you tomorrow, Inshallah”. Or “We will work together, Inshallah”.
However, be aware, the term is not always used in this way, and in many instances when there is not a hope in hell of something happening, it is thrown in for good measure. “We will sign the contract tomorrow, Inshallah” or “Inshallah, you will get a pay rise”, implying that Allah does not want it so you don’t get it. It can even cover uncertainty – “Inshallah, the engineer will come tomorrow between 4 and 6”. That means you do not know if he will come before 4, after 6, at the allocated time or even at all! And if there is a pause between the end of the sentence and the Inshallah, it means either that the person is not so sure any more or really can’t be bothered.
So how exactly does this effect my water situation? Well, I wasn’t quite sure. I was really hoping that Allah was in my court and seriously pulling for me to have water at my house. And in the end, I guess he was because Mohammed said, We have located the problem. As if he were sharing an ancient secret that would flabbergast Indiana Jones. Your water tank is empty. Wait a minute! I have my own water tank? Where is it? It’s located on top of your villa. Like a cistern of sort? I haven’t seen a cistern since I was a kid. Oh my gosh! That should be on the PBS Antique Roadshow. I had no idea my water was on top of my villa. Yes, Miss Gina. Your water is located up THERE. Pointing upward as if my water tank is close to God in some sort of heavenly union. Maybe I am lucky and can shower in Holy Water on a daily basis? Miss Gina, we are here for you 24 hours a day. Any time you need support, please call me and we will be here. Mohammed says slowly with the intensity of a Italian mobster and the heart of a missionary.
It sounded like a good idea. Kerstin, our little momma bear, decided to organize a desert safari for the PTA. “Steve goes dune bashing all the time by himself” she said trying to insert a little confidence into the plan. Well, I thought to myself, Steve runs 20 miles for no reason and is as thin as a Holocaust survivor even after a big meal — so that’s really not too comforting. The thought of tackling massive hills of sand in the middle of nowhere with an Emirati behind the wheel was more than a little frightening but if I didn’t do it, I looked like a ninny-boo-boo and everyone would gossip about me behind my back so I was forced into it.
Kerstin
We met in the school parking lot and began dividing people up into five car loads of five plus the drivers. Since HP is the only doctor in the group, we decided he would take the small children in case of a bloody nose or something like that, so he took the 5 elementary boys and the rest of us dispersed into the other SUVs. I was in the car with the Italians, Enrico and Laura, and Tonya, our Korean axis of evil (this is a story for another day) and her 4th grade daughter. I sat in front with our driver, Yousef, the Italians in the back seat and Tonya and her daughter in the third row.
We stopped off at a camel farm which really wasn’t a farm more like a desert feed lot in the middle of nowhere. I guess I may have downgraded it from a farm because there were no tractors. But then again, there’s really nothing to use a tractor for so why buy one? It’s not like they are planting wheat or anything so as far as implements go, they were sparse. So, yes, it was a feed lot, in the middle of nowhere. With camels. And we stood and took pictures. So far the trip was pretty mundane.
We piled back into the SUVs and headed on our way down a long sandy road which led to an even more deserted spot and as we drove the sand begin to get higher and higher. And all of a sudden the adventure began. The Emirati dropped the SUV into low gear and off we went! We started climbing a dune that had to be the height of a three story building. We drove across the very peak of a sand ridge which was barely a car width and then we would begin sliding sideways down the other side of the dune!
“How long have you been working here?” I asked the driver. “Four days!” he shouted with a smile.
OMG! OMG! I couldn’t breath. Between my allergies and the fact that I was scared I would let out an inappropriate blood curdling Stephen King scream, I couldn’t inhale air. I tried but it wasn’t happening. So I closed my eyes so I couldn’t see but this plan was subverted by Enrico’s praying in the seat behind me. As soon as we peaked and we were getting ready to fall down the other side, Enrico began to both pray and express himself in a way that only Italians can do.
Madre di Dio per favore non fateci morire dalle mani di questo pazzo degli Emirati Arabi!
Mamma mia! Stiamo andando a rotolare giù questa gigantesca collina di sabbia e morire.
WTF! I was raised Southern Baptist so when we pray we don’t really want to ALARM God. We pray politely so not to inconvenience our Savior. Such as in a Jerry Falwell sort of voice. “Lorrrd, Pleeease fiiiind the tiiiime in your verrry beeza schedule and hear our prayers our precious Lord” Where as the Italians pull the alarm, raise the roof, call the polizia! Some SH&%T is going down and we need GOD pronto, prego, allegra! And they speak fast, and loud, and close, and they have their hands going in a million different directions. When they discuss going to the supermarket, one would think the supermarket is on fire, not that they are simply having a sale.
So I am in the car with Enrico and some SH%&T IS GOING DOWN! And that SH%&T is us! We are going down a sand dune the size of the freaking Tetons in Wyoming. And my eyes are super glued shut and I would’ve been okay if it weren’t for the Italian in the back seat.
Wowzers! Madre di spaghetti ho bisogno di uscire da questa vettura o io potrei fare pipì miei pantaloni!
Odio la musica cazzo che questo ragazzo sta giocando!
I don’t understand. Enrico is excited, he’s happy, he’s crazy, he’s screaming and I don’t know if I should be concerned or enjoying myself. And then after an hour of emotional torment while listening to Arab club music (yes, didn’t know it existed either) it was over and we were delivered to a campsite, with food, henna, shisha, sand surfing, camel riding and a belly dancer.
After we ate, danced, smoked, and drank (non-alcoholic drinks) and then we headed back into the city. Yousef, our driver, watched soccer on his phone while driving 90 mph on the highway. Yes, I could’ve said something. Any GOOD mother would have said something but this skinny Emirati guy took us on the most amazingly skilled adventure of our life. My guess is at birth he drove himself right out of his mother’s womb. He was that good! If you ever have a chance this is one adventure that you will absolutely never forget. Seriously, if someone ever says do you want to go on a desert safari? Say yes.
I live in a compound. This scares many Americans because it conjures up memories of Saudi oil ambushes and other infrequent occurrences. In reality, a compound is another word for subdivision except with tall concrete walls and guards. Very nice guards I should clarify because I seriously wouldn’t trust these guys to protect me. They mainly argue with housemaids and taxi drivers because they need to feel some sort of authority. This is directly due to the Arab kids bossing them around all the time and then the British kids start bossing them around too and then the Australian kids join in. Next thing you know we have a bunch of whipped security guards afraid of being deported due to a bunch of bossy kids. A new guy showed up the other day and gave me a little lip about entering without a pass so I sicked Mini on him.
The tall walls, on the other hand, are desperately needed because I live next door to the community crack heads. No, they are not really crack heads because we live in the Middle East where even Advil is closely monitored but these people otherwise fit the profile. Their place is a mess. Deflated bouncy toys every where, the swimming pool doesn’t have any water, their windows are cracked and broken, they have five different curtains on their windows, and a never-ending menagerie of animals that quack, bleat, hiss and moo all day and night. They are crack heads without crack.
My View from the Kitchen
On the other side of my villa, resides a very nice Egyptian/Swedish family. They are both very attractive people who recently went on an exercise frenzy that lasted approximately 2 1/2 weeks. They ran, squatted, and did sit-ups in the neighborhood garden every morning. I didn’t have the heart to tell them their mat was located directly on top of my dogs favorite dumping grounds. It was a long 2 1/2 weeks for me because my dog doesn’t like to dump just anywhere so I had to wait for them to give up on the fitness frenzy and move their mats. The exercise couple has one housemaid, one nanny, and three children. One wakes up very early in the morning and rings the door bell which is not a polite door bell, but something like I imagine the electric chair sounding. This scares the beans out of both me and the dogs who bust into a full chorus of all hell-is-breaking-loose at 7:00am.
On the other side of the exercise couple would’ve been my good friend, AAA Elize from South Africa, and her well-connected American husband, Carl, but the landlord wouldn’t fix their pool so they moved to the other side of the street outside the compound (boo-hoo). If they were still here life would definitely be different because Carl is a story-teller and he would share his endless stories of Sheik I-Have-More-Money-Than-God and all the fascinating things that happen in Saudi, Jordon, Qatar and Kuwait and Elize and I would be sharing expensive champagne. AAA Elize has a love/hate relationship with food. All food is shitty unless she loves it, and then, she really, really loves it. She will then say in her South African accent which is totally different from the British South African accent, “Gina, you must try this.” So of course I must try it because AAA Elize suggested it and she and Carl are the kind of people who walk on the red carpet, stand in front in front of the overly used sponsor backdrop, and then end up in magazines.
There is a love/hate relationship that goes on with the housemaids in the UAE. I first became acquainted with housemaids while at my husband’s bosses house. Their housemaid, a 30-ish Filipina woman who has been with their family for over 3 years was sweet, polite, and an excellent hostess. Helen was everything I wanted in a woman and it was right then and there that I determined to find my own. Since I hadn’t made many friends yet I didn’t have the benefit of their housemaid experience so I was sailing in uncharted territory. I just knew I wanted my own Helen. Someone to serve food on toothpicks, clean up and smile like she loves her job and my child as if it came from her own womb. I ran an ad on the online site Expat Women. It was overly flowery making us look like the perfect American family complete with a golden retriever and a handsome boy (with a foul potty mouth, but non-the-less, handsome). It was the perfect ad that would entice any housemaid to want to move in with us. Only one small problem, depending upon a housemaid’s nationality they may not be able to read so all of my perfection was pointless until one American man happened to stumble upon my ad. As it turns out, this man needed to rehouse his housemaid because, I was told, whether it was true or not, that his wife unexpectedly became pregnant and the current housemaid did not want to deal with a new baby. So I invited the housemaid to an interview.
Joti from Calcutta
She arrived at the Westin with a lime green shirt that read “I love Abu Dhabi” red stretch pants and red lipstick. I almost put her back in the cab because the combination was painful to look at but I realized that was far too judgmental of me. We sat down in the lobby and she began telling me with an Indian accent that was difficult to understand, that she was looking for a Western family and that she was an excellent cook, an excellent cleaner, and a very responsible person. She said that she became a housemaid at the age of 13 and worked for an English family for 8 years and they sent her to cooking school, taught her how to run a proper house, and how to garden. The next night she cooked our dinner and brought it to our hotel room. We took one bite and decided to hire her. Joti obviously knew her business. She helped us move into our new villa and it was obvious from the start that Joti was a career housemaid and she did it with an enormous amount of pride. I didn’t have to tell her how, when, or where — she read my mind and got things done. The only thing Joti asked from us was to give her a month off in January to take care of her ailing father. “No problem!” we said.
In hindsight, I guess maybe it was problem but at the time my mind was thinking all Ghandi and Mother Teresa instead of thinking The Great Escape. My friend Maha, with her Lebanese accent says, “I will never hire another housemaid again!” Apparently, the last housemaid Maha hired was from Ethiopia and suddenly became possessed by some sort of strange demons and began having demonic seizures in Maha’s house and yard. Prior to the possession seizures she started loafing around the house claiming to be sick while Maha was left to nurse her back to health so she could resume the duties she was hired to do. Eventually, Maha became tired of playing nursemaid to her housemaid and cancelled her visa. As they took her to the airport to send her back to Africa, the housemaid started slapping herself while screaming “They abuse me!” Everyone stood there staring at the housemaid throwing herself on the airport carpet as she attracted a crowd and scared Maha’s children. This alerted the Abu Dhabi police to intervene as the housemaid screamed at the top of lungs, “No money, no food, they are hitting me. Allah, Mohammed help me!” Maha in her Lebanese accent says, “She used to sit, watch TV, and eat all day. Not even one hour of work a day. When we went out, she only ordered the Ribeye and the shrimps. One day she woke up and I swear she was possessed… Screaming Allah in the backyard and making cou-cou and ouah-ouah sounds…. the next day it got louder. I knew I had to send her back when she put a white towel on her head and started walking like a mummy. It was FREAKY!”
And then my South African friend Elize added to the story, “Oh, Gina! You wouldn’t believe the things the housemaids do. We found out one of our housemaids was sneaking out and turning tricks at night. My husband caught her hiding underneath his car. He had to pull her out by her feet and call the police. Another one of our housemaids ran away while we were in Italy. We had just arrived and I planned a cathedral tour for us on the next day. When we woke the next morning and walked the baby over to her room she was gone. We arrived at the hotel at 8:00pm and the hotel security camera showed her leaving the hotel and getting into a car in front at 9:00pm. Apparently, she had made plans for her escape prior to our arrival.” My Liberian friend Wlede says, “Everybody knows you don’t take a housemaid to the USA because as soon as her feet hit the soil there is a welcome committee there to whisk her away.” And another friend Brenda says, “I have to tell Mary Anne all the time to use her inside voice. Her high pitched, overly excited voice drives me bananas! She asked if her boyfriend could stay over from time to time but we said, absolutely not. She can do the wild thing somewhere else — not in my villa!”
The housemaid saga is never-ending. Stayed tuned for “Where is Joti?”
To my friends at home, living at the Westin for three months may seem like an extremely opulent life but in reality, it was three people squeezed into a junior suite with undies hanging off the furniture and cooking ramen noodles in the bathroom. Trust me — nothing is ever as it seems. Yes, Tiger plays on the Westin’s golf course and there are Rolls Royces in the parking lot but by the second week of living at the Westin I would have walked barefoot through the scorching heat to eat a burrito or anything remotely American — from America, because as I discovered the ONLY American franchise here that tastes as it should is Subway and at the time, I hadn’t discovered it yet. Eventually I weeded through all the weird and funky stuff such as KFC (they serve odd pieces of the bird that I didn’t even know existed — second thought, is it a bird? And what really ticked me off is a hamburger bun in lieu of a biscuit), Dominos is just awful, Pizza Hut serves ketchup with the pizza, Hardees has odd combinations that no true American would be caught dead putting in their mouth, and then there is Subway. Thank GOD for Subway. Jared should definitely make a visit to the Middle East. If it weren’t for Subway and croissants I would have starved to death because my other choices were whole baby lambs or camels on a platter. Yes, I know you are saying, Go out and explore the culture! Savor the experience. But honestly, when your entire life has been turned upside down and everything is new and different. It is difficult. I really needed a familiar place to retreat and I couldn’t find it anywhere.
Welcome luncheon at my Hubby’s office
Thank goodness school for Mini started without a hitch. Life for an expat kid is totally different. In the States we strive for consistency and stability, but as an expat those things do not exist. One year you may be in the UAE and the next you are in Singapore. The kids here learn to roll with the changes. So for Mini, walking into class the first day may have been a little uncomfortable but the discomfort was gone in the first 15 minutes because they are all “the new kids” in the class. Although half of his class are Americans, very few have ever lived there, several were born in the USA to foreign parents, and the remainder are either from other parts of the world or they are local Arabs. Which means the mish-mosh of parents at the school is also an interesting combination. Many stick to their own cliques due to language and cultural barriers, some are depressed and stick to themselves because moving to a foreign country isn’t the easiest thing to do, and the others, like myself, throw themselves into the school like it is a full time job. In the beginning it starts out as an information seeking mission. Some companies have very good HR departments that make the relocation a breeze, others leave the new expats to fend for themselves. So school becomes the place for water cooler discussion. Where do I find this? How do I do that? How long does this take? How much does that cost? The top topics for housewives (and househusbands) are as follows:
1. housemaids
2. Etisalat (cable TV, internet etc)
3. curtains
4. driving
5. grocery stores
All of these things can, and probably will be, separate postings because they take up an enormous amount of time for an expat. The first thing that you need to understand is the culture here in the UAE because it is a service driven country. There is someone to do almost everything for you. This is primarily due to the culture and the religion of the Middle East. Due to the religion, there are separate waiting rooms, spas, gyms, nurses etc. The sexes do not commingle. So there needs to be enough men and women to fill these roles. There also needs to be drivers because many women do not drive, prefer not to drive, are crappy drivers, or have drivers to run their errands. Many of these service people come from very poor countries such as the Philippines, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and different regions of Africa. They work for peanuts, are illiterate, and usually do not speak English very well or not at all. They are normally very friendly and willing to help with most anything. Security guards at the mall become impromptu babysitters because if they weren’t some little kid would accidentally jump off the third floor balcony and all hell would break loose (behavior of children and parental guidance is also an entire blog post — it’s not all what we are used to in the States). Grocery baggers carry your groceries to the car but along the way if you decide to stop at another store for half and hour or so they will stand and wait on you until you finish. But the weirdest thing of all is getting used to being called Madam and/or Sir by everyone you meet. This is definitely a class society. Everyone knows it. And whether you agree with it or not, it is what it is. You can either take a stand and not hire help or make someone’s life easier by giving them a job and providing food for their entire family back home — plus make your life a little easier in the process. For example, as I type this blog post this is what Nandika is doing in my yard. And, just to clarify, I did not ask her to do this she just decided to do because she is bored and likes working here. She doesn’t sweep my leaves everyday. Yesterday during her lunch break she watched Sri Lankan telenovela on her computer. 🙂
My housemaid sweeping my dirt in my unfinished landscapingMy housemaid sweeping leaves on my artificial turfWaiting outside the liquor store
More on the girls of The PTA, outrageous housemaids, pricey and ugly curtains, erratic/deadly driving and the never-ending search for an all-inclusive grocery store in the next posting.
It was a big day. It was election day for the Abu Dhabi PTA. Yes, six months prior I had spent months in political leadership courses and had recently thrown my name into the race for Arizona State House of Representatives but then the Smokers House fell apart and with it went my residency requirement and then everything went to pot super quickly. Funny how life changes sometimes with the blink of an eye because six months later I found myself in the Middle East, in the UAE, in an American school, running for the PTA’s volunteer coordinator. Weird.
Yes, I know. As Americans, when we say PTA the first thing that comes to mind is Jeannie C. Riley and the Harper Valley hypocrites. But instead, I found myself in a room packed with extraordinarily qualified people displaced from their home countries with absolutely nothing to occupy their time so they wanted to shove all of their energies into the PTA. There where lawyers, MBAs, teachers, life coaches, fungi shui specialist, doctors, nurses, architects, and yes — a few of them were wearing their dresses way too high. Some of them spoke several languages besides English, some of them spoke no English at all. There were the corporate types, the indulgent housewife types, the absolutely clueless types, the gym moms, the soccer moms, and then me, a disqualified political candidate and social change advocate — and damn it, I was going to win this freaking election!
I found out shortly before the election that I was running against an incumbent — the absolutely worst scenerio for me. Here we were, most of us in the UAE for the first time, feeling completely and utterly lost, and I was running against someone who had the answers to the questions on the minds of everyone in the room. Such as, where do I find Charmin toilet paper? A gas station? And Miracle Whip? I prepared a strategy which usually works for me. In a pinch crack a joke. Yes, absolutely, this is what I will do. And then it dawned on me. How exactly do I amuse a Korean? I’ve never gotten the punchline to a Korean joke — have you?
I looked around the room while the candidates prepared to introduce themselves. The chairwoman was speaking. She was a super thin South African lady around mid-30’s. She had a tattoo around her arm which gave me the impression that she liked to drink cocktails. She also wore clothes that look a little like a European Grateful Dead follower. Although, her accent was very no-nonsense. It was kind of something left over from the British rule infused with a German precision. She spoke distinctly, no-nonsense, but with perfect mannerism. She made me a little nervous, because as an American my manners are sometimes terrible. Next, she introduced the marketing and design executive. At first, I was surprised that the Abu Dhabi police hadn’t arrested this woman already. Her shoulders were showing. Her cleavage was showing. And she was wearing heels that almost doubled her height. She looked like a Lebanese Kardashian. Every move was a pose as though the paparazzi were following her. Her hair shined. Her make-up was flawless. And I was getting the feeling that it must be tattooed on. She moved with an air as though the PTA is a throne and she is the heir. I thought to myself, I don’t know if I like her. The jury was definitely still out on this one.
The first candidate announced was an Italian lady. She spoke 5 or 6 different languages and had a super nice demeanor. I liked her. Who else can speak that many languages? I voted for her. The next candidate was a Liberian who was raised in the USA. She was super cute and poised. Had adorable little braids in her hair and cute shoes and earrings. She had my vote too. And then there was me. What the hell do I say? Crack a joke? No. Nobody will get it. I’m thinking, tell them I went to school in Boston. I’ve heard all foreigners know Boston. Tell them I moved from the desert so they’ll know I don’t crack under the heat. Tell them I need this crazy little job because without it I will go stir crazy and drive my family nuts with my hyperactive mind. I will stress my husband out and his work will suffer and he will be fired and we will have to move back to the States and I’ll have to ship my dogs and my furniture back across the Pacific Ocean and that costs a lot of money and I will be stuck in front of a computer trying to amuse myself and I will gain an enormous amount of weight and I will need to join the Biggest Loser. No, first I will need to start the Biggest Loser Middle East series and then I can join. Okay, just say it. Just spit it out. Say something. Say anything. Half the people here have no idea what the hell you are saying anyway. Just say something!
Hello, my name is Gina. I moved here from the USA two months ago with my husband and our little boy who is in third grade. In the States, I created a non-profit that uses incentives and social media to encourage the use of strong thinking skills in the college population. I have a Masters from the University of Massachusetts Boston in Critical and Creative Thinking. I also teach social change, innovation and entrepreneurship in adult workshops. I am a social media junkie so as volunteer coordinator you cannot hide from me. I will Google you, I will Tweet you, I will Facebook you, I will Link-You-In. When the school needs volunteers, I promise you that somehow, some way, I will find you. And although I was half serious when I said this, they LAUGHED! Somehow I managed to make the Koreans and all the other people from all the other corners of the world who probably only understood half of what I just said LAUGH!
Whew! So glad that is over. But unfortunately, I lost the election to the incumbent by two votes.
Abu Dhabi is home to the buffet. There are buffets everywhere and they are a regular pass time for both expats and nationals (the word National is defined as anyone from the UAE). Expats here in the UAE live a hotel life. Most restaurants, although there are a few exceptions, do not serve alcohol so we are forced to drink our booze at hotels. The fancy and over-the-top buffets at the hotels offer three options: 1. food only 2. food and drinks 3. food, drinks, and bubbly. Many have bands, chocolate fountains, oysters, lobster, sushi, and an enormous array of calorie laden desserts (more on this later). They are as beautiful as they are tasty.
But the hotel that the company put us up at during the interview process doesn’t have a chocolate fountain or even a band; it’s quite boring really except for the steady stream of people who support my never-ending habit of people watching. It’s a buffet of people. People from all over the world. Some are smartly dressed, others are mismatched, attractive, rich looking, poor looking, and then in walks what appears to be an American couple. So of course, I ease drop on their conversation and as it turns out they are from Arizona too. And they are interviewing with the same company as my husband. What a coincidence. By the end of the brunch we are all making plans for the joint yard sale we are going to throw in Arizona when we decide to move over. The family reminds me of the Partridge Family. There are several members of the family and they all play musical instruments. As I’ve gotten to know them better they will actually bust out in song at the drop of a hat. The kids are hippy intellects who wear flea market clothes and travel the world staying with people they don’t know. I learn that they lived in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. The mother is English and was raised in the Middle East because her father, a psychiatrist, packed the family up and moved to provide counseling to abused women. And as an adult, she and her husband followed tradition and packed up the family and moved to Afghanistan where he provided medical care to Afghanis. They decided to move when taking an armed bus to the hospital seemed a little extreme. I am told she speaks really bad Urdu. Which, I must admit, is better than anything I could produce.
So what kind of people pack up and move to the Middle East? You would be surprised. So far I have met the Partridge Family, a few other well paid executives, and country hopping teachers. I feel like I have been introduced to a group of people that I did not know existed: the nomadic, countryless people. It is really difficult to classify these people. They are kind of from here but they’re really from there. Their accent is from here but they’ve lived primarily there. It’s odd to meet a Texan from Thailand or a New Yorker from Liberia. I meet a farmer from Tennessee who sold his cattle, auctioned his house and moved to Saudi Arabia in the 1970’s — that takes some serious kahunas. Seriously, who does that kind of thing? This being my first expat experience the idea at first seemed a little crazy to me but as I get to know these people it seems less crazy and more normal. Maybe the folks sitting at home in their recliners are the crazy ones?
On the last day of the trip we took a tour of rental villas with a real estate agent. The young guy showed up looking as though he was a leftover from last night’s party and he must have showed us four of the worst looking homes Abu Dhabi has to offer. Compared to our previous homes in the States, and these attractive villas above, these villas looked like squatters tents or foreclosed properties. Real estate practice in Abu Dhabi is different because the homes are not cleaned until someone leases them so the villas we looked at were disgusting. The lawns were overgrown with weeds, the pools were full of green slime, windows were completely missing and birds were flying in. Our first impression was not only no — but hell no! Why would we leave the comforts of everything we have worked so hard for in order to move into this mess? My husband, being far more diplomatic and courteous than me, tried to explain to the Realtor that this isn’t quite what we had in mind. Me, on the other hand, wanted to slap him for wasting our time. I gave him a serious what the hell is wrong with you look and we returned to our hotel with our excitement squashed and a sad feeling of uncertainty.
My first full day in the UAE (United Arab Emirates) and I am all alone in the hotel. The most important task for me during this trip is to locate a potential school for Mini Max. This means that I have to leave the safety of my hotel room (remember in my head I am still envisioning that this place is the wild, wild Middle East) and wander out into the masses of immigrants – and there are thousands of immigrants. Of the two million or so people who live in Abu Dhabi only 25% are Emiratis. It takes an enormous amount of immigrants to build and sustain this city. The city is packed with low-income, uneducated workers and these people typically roam around keeping quietly to themselves because it ‘s probably their first time out of their home country and they don’t speak the language. Most of the immigrants are from India, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and some (not many) are from different regions of Africa. At first they are a little frightening because as Americans we are not used to seeing people from areas that are so poor and so under-developed. At first, they appeared barbaric but eventually I got used to seeing them and realized that I have nothing to worry about because the crime rate here is very low and the place is extremely safe. (Bicycle pic below shows my compound in the background).
The hotel arranged a driver to take me to my appointment for a tour of the school we would consider enrolling Mini in if we moved to the UAE. All expat children attend private school because the public schools are for Muslims only. There are schools with different curriculums from different countries, and I am on my way to a new school that was recently opened, and the ribbon cut, by none other than President Clinton. The school is, by no stretch of the imagination, the most beautiful school I have ever seen. It has a 3D planetarium, indoor swimming pools/gym, astroturf soccer fields, tennis courts, a black box theater, a production studio, Apple sound/video labs, dance studios, science labs etc. I could go on and on…but I think you get the picture. I finished the tour and had one thing to say, “SOLD!” If we move here this will be Mini’s school.
Life is a trade-off. I have the Maldives and you have Miracle Whip. You have NY&Co and I’m trying to squeeze my arse into French fashion. Expats do not have Girl Scout Cookies, Andes Mints, and beef that tastes like home. Chili powder, Cheerios that taste right, and good New York bagels. Pork? Forget it! Whatever they do in the UAE twists the taste into something unrecognizable.
theabudhabipta.com 