Newsflash: Our Ship(ment) Has Come In!

All 45 boxes present and accounted for. Customs opened 3 of them without loss. Nothing broken, stolen, or smunched except a book or two. Dang, I know how to pack!

Plus, our dining room table was delivered tonight (Sunday). They showed up at 10:34 pm. I was reuniting with my iMac, and everyone else was asleep. Delivered, assembled (impact drills and all) and left by 11:30, and no one woke up. What a strange and wondrous magic this place has! (Maybe we'll sleep through the hotel construction after all . . . .)

Salaam alakum,

Moi

Ramadan (orama)

First things first: Al Ain Branch was organized today. The SP came to our home last night and called Lance Ylanan as BP, yours truly as his counsellor, and Justin Shewell as the EQP. Today, in Abu Dhabi, the branch was organized and all the necessaries taken care of. Over the coming weeks we will build the branch under Lance's direction and hopefully lay the groundwork for something great and enduring. Here's the man (sideways: sometimes Mac is on crack):



Second things second: I promised some commentary on shopping, and as it has to do with the subject of Ramadan, I'll spare a minute for it. They love them some shopping here. We have two major malls in Al Ain (a comparably small city): one of them is actually right next door to our complex. There are western shops--Spring, Aldo, Gap, even Radio Shack!--and some more European shops--Carrefour (French Walmart), for instance. The true pleasures are the Arabian shops that sell abayas (the womens' cloak and head scarf) and dishdashas (the mens' traditional long tunic and headress), incense, gaudy furniture, hefty knicknackery, mobile phones, and dates of all kinds. There are literally shops everywhere here, in malls, shopping centres, and on side streets. There are tailors for "gents" and "ladies," hair "saloons" (again segregated), banks for every occasion, "souks" (outdoor markets for everything under the sun), and probably some deep, dark places we have yet to discover.

Speaking of abayas: these are increasingly decorated. The objective is of course modesty, but the abaya is a flimsy black covering that often accentuates physiognomy (thought sensually, not provocatively), and underneath the women apparently wear the latest in designer clothes according to their tastes. We wondered at first why all these high-fashion chains had shops here, but they are always busy. It isn't out of the ordinary to see a group of women in full veil (only the eyes exposed) picking out jeans, dresses, blouses, etc. They have Victoria's Secret here, for instance, though it isn't pornographic in its display. Not that I, you know, pay any attention. Ahem.

Incense burns everywhere in the malls. Each mall has a prayer room for men and another for women, if not an all-out mosque. There are places for kids to play ("Action Zone" and "Foton World"), food courts (KFC, McDonalds, Herfy's--a Saudi KFC, Subway, and lots of Lebanese and Italian places, too). There's even a Ponderosa Steakhouse in the mall near us: our new favourite place for a pre-fast buffet: international, delicious, and all for about 30 cdn.

I'd love to post pictures, but you must understand that it's hard to take shots when one is driving for one's life on the streets. Not really wise to pull over and step out for an ideal shot.

Ramadan: the Holy Month has a couple of purposes. First is to celebrate the blessings given by Allah, and second is to engender sympathy and generosity for and toward the less fortunate.

Here's the skinny: Ramadan begins with the first sighting of the crescent moon. This year that was Sept. 13, though apparently each of the GCC countries has its own chief astrologer and bottle washer. Anyway, it lasts for 30 or 31 days and consists of a daily fast and a nightly feast. Muslims fast from sunup to sundown--4:30-18:30ish--closing their fast with the Iftar prayer and feast. Most things close between 1 and 7 if they open at all before 7, and then stay open until after midnight. The objective is to allow muslims to rest during the heat of the day and return to work only once they have broken their fast. Many will feast on and off all night, some making the rounds of friends and family for various meals--like speed-dating, I'm told--and so the incidence of accidents rises sharply during the holy month. Tired drivers in a hurry.

Sayings: "Ramadan Kareem" (as in Abdul-Jabar) one sees everywhere, and my students tell me it means "generosity for Ramadan" (by the way: Rah-mah-dahn, with the emphasis on the final syllable). In stores it means "special offer" or discount--the stores' way of spreading the wealth by spreading the savings. One student told me it is customary for teachers to forgive late assignments or absences during this period: uh-huh. "Ramadan Mubarak" (Moo-bah-rahk, with the emphasis on the second syllable) is the general greeting, kind of like "Happy Christmas." There are others, but I've yet to learn their meanings.

At the end of Ramadan we have the "Eid" holidays: there's little Eid and big Eid, and the kids, for instance, get a week off school, as will I. This will come in just over two weeks, and we can't wait. Need a breather.

More later in the week. Sorry. Had some funny stuff, but we're all peaked and need to rest our heads. Kids' turn will have to wait. And no brilliant poems in the offing.

Next time: homosociality, Arabian nights, and the great carpet caper (in three languages!). All of this, of course, insh'Allah.

Suspiri ispirati 1

Painting--Jean Leon Gerome, 1879

Lente, lente currite noctis equii (Allahu ackbar)

Given its head, the night runs faster than a man can breathe
Its nostrils pant, its dusky edges heave,
And I am pulled from sleep too soon:
The yellow tones of morning and the morning song
Too early crowed, but not in the cock’s throat.

The call to prayer comes early:
“Our alarm clock,” quipped a friend,
Indicating the humble mosque at his front door.
We have one, too. We all do in this garden city,
This oasis overrun but not yet ruined,

And the mosque with its staggered chorus
Of muezzin fairly owns us, night and day:
There’s hardly time to leave off praying my litany of regrets
From a day spent seeking more help than I had given
Before I’m called back to my knees.

I do not join the sweated worship of the immigrants,
But I think of prayer far more here than ever before,
For God is great indeed, and it is better to pray than sleep,
Even if all one does is pray to sleep a little more
Before the panting night is stabled, brushed, and fed,
And the mu'adhdhin clears his rooster throat.

Kids' turn: School's a real pain in the AAESS

Q. How's school? What's your favourite subject? Meet any cute girls? Made any great new friends?

Christopher: Great besides the Arabic teacher. 2. No, I haven't met any girls. 3. Yes. I met three new friends named Jesse, Sam and Ashley who's a boy not a girl. Played ruggers last week. Believe it or not, this Canadian kid was accused of unnecessary roughness. I din't know two things: a) if you get tackled and then accidentally step on the kid's crotch, people get upset; b) grabbing heads is not allowed. Panzies.

Parents' note: Ashley is a sweet kid. From India. Very polite. We hope some of that rubs off . . . .

Jonah: (While we wait for Riley.) I do school with my mom while the brothers are at their school. We draw, print, play, and swim. We are working on numbers and letters, including letter-sounds. My letters are getting pretty good, and I can recognize most of them no problem. I can also tell the difference between English and Arabic street signs, and sometimes I read things. Here is the alphabet:

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

Also, today I ripped half of my toenail off throwing one of my patented tantrums. It happened right before church. Ouch.

Riley: School's great. Our mean history teacher quit after a week. I could do without art. Other than that, it's all good. All of my teachers are Brits (except the Arabic teacher), and they say some funny things, like "one, two, free" and "rubbish" and "bee-ography." Favourite subject is lunch break. Kidding. It's science. We've done some cool things, like playing with fire, melting metals at high temps, and putting potassium in water. Girls: plead the fifth. Friends: Talbot Turner from Sihth Ihfricuh, Marvin from Germany (das ist gut!), Jack from Britain, Micah from parts unknown, and Jacob from Holland. Met a few Canucks, too.

Mom's two bits: School's great. I've enjoyed meeting Christopher's friend and hearing stories about their experiences. I think the international flavour of the school is really great for our kids. Jonah and I watch Little Einstein. We've learned about "adagio" and "allegro" and some of the famous composers. Jonah has shown an interest in the piano lately. Riley is signed up for guitar lessons, and Christopher for piano lessons at the school. I'm very happy that they can continue with their musical training. We're still hoping they pick up British accents.

In other news, after hearing about snow in Alberta, I'm REAL glad we're here.

Post the Second: Eh-coal

"The time has come" the walrus said, "to talk of many things.
Of schools, and fools, and parking lots, of SUVs and springs."

Guess that means "I am the walrus."

Well, when I was in contact with some folk here early on, they advocated enrolling our children in Al Ain English Speaking School. Said it was the best bang for the dirham, loved the activities and things, lobbied for the "gifted and talented program," and in short had nothing negative to say. So we trusted them, and registered the kids in May. I was asked to provide a "family bond" in the amount of 8,000 dhs, roughly 3,000 cdn. Did so, by wire, and sent as much info as I could by fax and scan. Kids were enrolled in years 5 and 7, and away we went.

When we arrived, we found the landscape had changed significantly. Several crises had hit the school over the last year or two, and I discovered that the "family bond" was not, in fact, an advance on the very steep tuition, but a separate account, like a damage deposit, that would be returned to us when we withdrew our kids. What its purpose is I still do not know. Also, turns out the school is on the British system, which meant that the kids were supposed to be in years 6 and 8, not 5 and 7. And they had run out of room in year 8. So in effect, I was asked to pay 46,000 dhs in tuition for the kids to repeat a year.

Frustration 2: the university currently covers only 15% of my gross salary in tuition for up to three kids. In effect, the amount covers Riley's tuition. We can handle it until Jonah starts school, but after that--oy veh! But instructors in the Undergraduate Requirements unit--people largely with MAs--have a much hugher benefit because they negotiated it a long time ago. Also, other state schools have better benefits for this sort of thing. In short, I was disappointed.

Oh, and it turns out that I had to pay more money because their special programs were not included in the regular tuition. SO bang, another 3,000 up front if you please.

So I took the kids over the Chouiefat academy for testing. Slightly less money, very rigorous academic focus, especially in maths and science, very stressful environment, but nice people, well organized. They had already started their year, but they accommodated us anyway. Kids would have been placed in years 5 and 7, however, because of their math issues: they begin algebra in year 5 in that system. Also, they were very tense after my three-day crash course in fractions and basic algebra. So I went back to AAESS and said look, I'm considering a move. You didn't tell me about the years issue, even though you clearly knew, and if you had I would have enrolled them accordingly, so what are you going to do about it?

To their credit, they saw reason, and allowed us to enroll the kids in the proper years. Still had to pay a whack of cash, but they agreed to bill the university for their portion off the bat, so that's helpful.

And the kids are happy. More on that in their turn, as you have seen.

We'll see what happens with tuition benefits in the next couple of years: I bought Chouiefat's math curriculm lock and stock (not barrel) to work on at home, and if I have reservations next Spring, we'll try that again.

Parking lots:

This city is very well designed for traffic flow. In fact, I'm grooving on driving here. Reminds me of Rome. The only boneheaded move they made was putting all the schools--and there are many of them--along the same stretch of what is a very busy road. It amounts to a six-lane highway, with drivers doing between 80 and 140 kph, with service roads branching off that feed into a handful of these schools.

Last year there was a pile-up on the main road, and as I understand it several injuries and a death or two. I haven't fared badly: we leave for school at 7:10 or so, so I get them there before things really heat up. Picking them up is wild, though: parents are, in the immortal words of the Police, packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes/contestants in a suicidal race." What's funniest are the SUVs: they end up parked off road, or crossing medians, just to avoid the thickest traffic. And those are the responsible ones. Others stop right in front of the school to get their kids and block all egress and ingress (never mind egrets and regrets and ingrates). Anyway, I remain calm, try to park strategically to avoid the crush, and keep my middle finger to myself (as of course I've always done, mom).

Speaking of SUVs:

we are now the proud and car-poor owners of a Honda MRV (Pilot). Sweet ride. Haven't taken it off any sweet jumps yet, though. Up around 250 kms after 5 days. Might take a jaunt to Abu Dhabi tomorrow. Actually, we did alright. Vascillated b/t that and a much cheaper Honda Accord, but decided that not having the three-year-old sit between and systematically abuse his harried older brothers was more important than saving a few hundre bucks every month. So we paid more than a third in cash, and have a moderate car payment for three years. Trying to get the paperwork together so we can import this if we go the US or Canada in the next few years. It's very, very nice: leather, sunroof, personal masseuse nice. Okay, maybe not the masseuse.

Next time: "We're s-h-o-p-p-i-n-g! Adventures in Materialism" and "The Great Curtain Caper" in three languages!

Kids' Turn

Posed two questions to each of the kids: 1) What has been the most difficult adjustment? 2) What's the coolest thing about being here?

Riley
1) "Missing home." Riley has some pretty great friends in Raymond. But he's making more now that school has started.
2) "The accents." (See Jonah 2 below)



Christopher
1) Ditto. "The hardest thing was leaving my friends and family in Canada."
2) "We have the church piano at our house, and I've learned how to play some cool hymns."

Jonah
1) "The floor." We had to sleep on thin mattresses while we waited for our beds to arrive.
2) "Roundabouts" (traffic circles). Pronounced by the Indian cabbies "rownd-uh-bote." They're everywhere. Hence the name of our blog.

Post the First

Goodbye Alberta!



Hello UAE!


Well, here we are. Wendy has decreed that every Friday (our Sabbath), we will spend a part of the afternoon updating all of you on our activities, telling funny stories, and posting pictures.

We have been here for 1 month. It has been a wild, wild ride thus far. Our flight left Calgary at around 13:00 on Sunday, Aug. 12. We changed flights in Minneapolis (dodging plump Yanks on every side) and Amsterdam (nearly choked to death, and are quite certain that at least one of us will get cancer from secondhand smoke), and arrived in Dubai at 20:30 on Aug. 13th. I must say that the reception was, well, more of a welcome than we've ever had anywhere else. The "Marhaba" delegation had "Dr. Jonathon" and family on their list. We were assigned a guide, placed on a transport, and driven to customs and immigration, passing by all the lowly, bleating, bewildered passengers who weren't fortunate enough to be expected. There we were escorted to the short line. Our guide stayed with us through the whole process, waited while we rounded up our luggage, and took us to meet Mr. Saber Roman, an HR rep from the university.

There we gathered with several other new employees: Drs. Ann Scholes, Imad (from Palestine), and a few others. Left the airport, entered the furnace (44 degrees C), loaded up on the bus (23:45), and headed to Al Ain. Wendy and I tried to stay awake, but the kids were out very quickly. Highways were incredibly clean and smooth, lined with beautiful date palms. Hit the Hilton at 1:10, and were re-directed to the Intercontinental (the better hotel, we were told). There were two rooms in our names, and a very genteel porter waiting to take all of our luggage (3 pieces each plus an extra rubbermaid tub). Tipped him. Settled into bed (2:00).

I started orientation that morning (9:30). Wendy and the kids didn't get oriented until, oh, 14:00. Story of my life.

Heartwarming welcome from Don Lacey, HR Director and fellow southern Albertan. Resembled a job fair: go here for your bank account, here for your utilities, here for your healthcare, here for your enema. Name was called first for the housing appointments--an efficient but somewhat secretive process during which one was driven to one's housing assignment, shown the place, and instructed by personnel to sign a housing agreement. Hmmm. Here's where things went sideways. I approached the housing director--a lovely Emirati named Mohammed Sayed--and he asked me to wait. And wait. And wait. Finally, at about 13:00, I was called to go and see the place: a rundown, sickly-looking 3-bedroom in a creaky 6-apartment compound who-knew-where. I hemmed. They (the other Mohammed--a prince of a man, legally blind but with a memory like a steel trap--and his driver, whose English was limited and whose name I never discovered) hawed. So we went to see the place assigned to the other faculty member with me--a better (we thought) 3-bedroom apartment in a dusty little community who-knew-elsewhere. This one had a garage, and consisted of two 4-apartment buildings. Thought it could work, and they didn't want it, so I agreed. Harmony restored.

Don Lacey and his wife Linda took Wendy and me to see it a day or two later. Not happy. I kept raising that we had been promised a 4-bedroom villa at minimum given our family size and my rank. Everyone just kept trying to convince us that we were in a good place and should shut up and like it. We tried. Ordered appliances, figured out how to have an office space, stiffened our upper lips. Not happy. Kept bugging housing. Tried several trades--all of them worse than what we had. Was promised a place in a new complex next year. Took it at its word. Discovered termites. Lost it. Told assistant director of HR Sheila McDonald (charming, lovely, helpful, Canadian, and one of the early reasons we didn't hop back on the plane) that I couldn't see staying under these circumstances, and neither could Wendy, and when Mama ain't happy . . . . So someone finally listened. Turns out they had miscategorized me as an instructor and thought we had only 2 kids. Ay caramba.

So Don and Sheila went into action at that point, and rallied the housing folk. We were offered three good places (one good, 1 great, and one off the hook, actually). The former was strange but community-oriented. The third was palatial (meant for a dean who had cancelled his arrival) and isolated (though near other members) and the second was a last-minute trade into the most sought-after complex the university uses: Al Andalus. Pool, gym, near a mall, 4 bedrooms and a large salon/dining room. Walk out balcony. Nice. I liked the third better, but the amenities won the day.

Filthy, but we weren't complaining. We moved the next day and set to. We've been here two weeks now. Hosted church twice (with primary today). Riley passes the sacrament, Wendy teaches Valiants, and I'm the assistant to the group leader. We'll be made a branch at Stake Conference in two weeks. Furniture arrived yesterday. Still no rugs or curtains. Like a freaking canyon, only smaller, and with a three-year-old let loose in it and nowhere to run. Ibuprofen.

Next time: schooling fiascoes and students in full veil. Also: call to prayer--better than any alarm clock I've ever used! Look forward to bits on designer clothes, abayas a' la mode, expat snobbery, Indian cabbies, speed "humps," "road surprises" (Beware!), tribal bureaucracy, the Potomac two-step (belly-dancing edition), men holding hands, nose-touching, and lingerie. This is quite a place. That's alright by us.