Angie's First Week, by Angie Brady (Christina's mom)

Marhaba! (Hello)Note Two:It's now been a week in the U.A.E. Besides adjusting to jet-lag, Brady, Liam, & I have experienced many new things.
First the food...Most of you who know me, know that I am pretty adventurous so this is a great culinary taste adventure. Dates...off the tree are awesome! Camel milk...well, a little to grainy in flavor for me. Yogurt is not only delicious but sold in the typical sizes that we are familiar with and also sold in 1/2 to 1 gallon containers. I saw many ladies putting the large buckets into their carts. The yogurt selections in the grocery stores are huge. Desalinated water is also something new...maybe not too far off in the U.S. future. It has a slightly different taste. Christina tells me that the water has more calcium from the salt removing process. Thus, she is using bottled water. I read an article that the U.A.E. uses 150% more water per capita than the people in the U.S.
On our first full day here, Tuesday, we slept until noon and just vegged out the rest of the day until Christina came home from work. We took a ride and went to the coast to see the Gulf and eat dinner. We saw our first camel resting comfortably on a rug at the beach. A gentleman was waiting for some folks like us who were looking for photo-ops. We had no money with us so there were no photos. However, Brady managed to get on the resting camel before we could tell him we were not taking photos this time. The camel wasn't the most friendly guy, making noises and raising his lips to show his teeth....I think this is just normal camel behavior. I'm just glad he did not decide to spit. We were able to enjoy our first dip with our toes into the Arabian Gulf in Sharjah, not called the Pursian Gulf in this part of the world. No swimming as we did not see any women in the water...only a couple dipping their toes. There are rules about beaches that determine what days are permitted for Women & Men. We haven't seen the costume for women for public beaches. Christina is going to check that out. I did see some Muslim women in the Chicago Triathlon last year and an Arab woman in a magazine report in an outfit they referred to as a berkini. I'm not sure of the seriousness of that term. We ate at a little restaurant across from the beach and had our first Arabian food: One bread type pizza covered in spices and another more typical to us with shrimp, tomatoes, & cheese. We shared an Arabian type salad. Many men were out walking and a few women with men. On our drive home and every day since, there have been men congregated in front of stores at tables or on the ground or just standing around talking. Imagine that....no bars! Getting together in the evenings when the sun sets appears to be a favored activity here. The world comes alive after dark. Men socialize, women shop, and life is abuzz.
On Wednesday and Thursday we rested during the days and went out on exploring missions with Christina after work. Getting around here is very time consuming and exhausting. We went out on one mission to find a store called "Lucky" and and never found it...Lucky, huh? We went home. We toured the Australian International School where the kids may go to school....easy to find. We visited supermarkets for shopping. It's better than going to Trader Joe's. I could spend hours just looking at the merchandise.
On Friday we went to a huge beautiful mall. The U.A.E. weekend is Friday & Saturday. I believe that shopping is a national pass time, maybe because it is a cool activity. Most women are accompanied by men. I am continually interested in the women. They are dressed in a variety of gowns. Most are dressed in black and have veils on their heads, some have their whole face covered, and some have the lower half of their faces covered or only a small slit for their eyes. I also saw some women totally veiled with a see through veil. Some veils/dresses were jeweled and others had beautiful embroidery. Colorful veils were worn by some women. Since the population is made up of people from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and a variety of other Asian and Arab countries, there is a large variety of dress customs. The Indian women look so pretty in their beautiful gowns with beautiful patterns. There were people who look like me but only a small fraction.
At the mall we spent 2 hours at a Lego building exibit where the boys participated in a building project. This event celebrated 50 years of Legos. We ate at a food court: Brady had sushi, I had a Beirut combination plate, Liam had Burger King (the toy), and Christina had a baked potato. Something for everyone. There was a host of other new foods. I'll never get to try them all before I leave here. Weight Watchers is on the back burner for now. I guess I'll have to make several trips. Before we left the mall we went to see Space Chimps in a theater with assigned seats.
Holy men called Muezzin give the call to prayer every few hours on a p.a. system to the whole neighborhood. There are mosques everywhere in every neighborhood, one less than a block from home. When I hear the Imam's chant, I sometimes feel kind of prayerful and other times I burst into my own rendition of the Imam's sung prayer...I can't control myself! We can't quite tell if they are taped prayers coming over the loud speakers or a real person singing them. Then there are the roosters down the street. I think there are three of them. They cocadoodle doo day and night. There are also wild cats who lay in the shade during the day and can be heard meowing and possibly fighting every night. With the air conditioning on all of the time these noises are not bothersome at all. Oh, and the dust....it never ends. Sand is everywhere..yeah right, it's a desert, which leads us to camels. We've seen camels out in the desert. I believe most of them domesticated. I haven't yet enjoyed the scenic view of a camel train traveling over the tops of sand dunes. I'll keep looking. Have I watched too many movies?
I'll continue in my next note.
Ma is-salaama (Good Bye)