Happy to Drive

The homework and pimple control, teachers notes and play dates, emotional middle school fits and all the miscellany of our children's daily schtick are under my jurisdiction now, since I am on a professional break.  Yes, the benefits of unemployment reach beyond the beach workouts on week days, for which, by the way, I received a lynching after gloating about it on Facebook.  Indeed, I am getting reacquainted with the world of my kids, while fine-tuning my choppy front crawl.

In the recent three years, with both parents (mostly) working, we said 'no' to outings that required too much parent help.  We avoided after-school activities and play dates unless they were in the neighborhood.  And we didn't commit to any bake sales, because saying 'yes' either meant overtaxing our nanny or relying on other parents to drive our kids around town.  Though we did manage without too much trouble and much to our children's delight, to send Krispy Kreme donuts on potluck days.

But without a proper job any more, I can say yes to play dates and I have ingredients stacked up on the counter for the Fall Concert Bake Sale this week.  If I could just figure out how to get my lousy Egyptian oven to cooperate.

But the trick now is determining when to 'just say no', being diplomatic with my kids' teachers and yes, trying my best to tolerate the other moms.  All are more easily said than done.  At least for me they are.

A few days ago, 9-year-old Liam arranged a play date with a lovely Pakistani kid whom I've met several times at school.  I made final transit arrangements with his mom over the phone.  The afternoon would go like this:  her driver would fetch the kids after school (only 4 in total), bring them to their residence, a place called 'Executive Towers', and I could pick Liam up a few hours later.

Considering the high fees we pay at this school, and the fact that this family has a driver, which is not  uncommon here, I wrongly assumed that the kids would be safely belted into the car for the 10 minute ride home.  The route to their towers, though short, includes the infamous Sheikh Zayed Road, a beautiful 16 lane automatic tollway through Dubai, where reckless drivers cause mayhem and daily wrecks.

All went well, Liam had an incident-free ride, followed by a few great hours at the Executive Towers, and I picked him up before dinner. However, though they do have a driver, two maids, and by Liam's description a 'really nice car',  this car does not actually have functioning seat belts.  Liam just said, 'Nope.  There weren't any.' After many discussions with my local college students about this issue, and knowing that big families actually have the seat belts removed (citing that they are a hindrance to fitting an over-sized family into the car) I know Liam was telling the truth.  But I figured wrongly, that my kids and their friends and people enrolled at our school had the same knowledge, the same sensitivity to safety, the same car-riding practice that we do.  And not for the first time on this Middle-East adventure of ours, I was wrong.  Potentially dead wrong.

So for now, as the next play date is on my turf, in my car and at my house, I can teach a safety thing or two to another kid.  The hard part is later, when I've got to tell the other mom that no, I am very sorry, for everyone's personal safety, Liam cannot ride in her car.  And since I do not have a job, I can honestly say, I will be happy to drive.

Rolls Royce in the Carpool Lane

Two weeks into my new life in Dubai without a job,  here are some things to be observed:

1. American moms talk the loudest
2. You can't have enough bling on your flipflops for this lifestyle
3. Massive marquee handbags are de rigeur among the moms here, especially Louis Vuitton 
4. Flipping the bird still gets top billing in the local newspapers
5. It is ok to drive your illegally black-tinted windowed-Bentley through the carpool lane, and stop it on the wrong side
6. Race cars on Sheikh Zayed Road are even worse in broad daylight than they are on weekend evenings.  Who are these guys and why the reckless antics on work-days?
7. Fake grass is way more expensive than wall-to-wall carpet  (OMG did I really just have fake turf installed in my yard... for shame)
8. Most kids here have their hair combed (or moussed or braided)  by 'their maid'.  We still awkwardly insist on calling our helper a nanny or a housekeeper.  I mean, isn't the word 'maid' a bit antiquated, at least by American standards?
9. The neighbor's helpers still don't like to see me washing my own car  (though perhaps I should do it without a jug of red wine nearby)
10. And yes, I do miss the collegiality of work

However, after a hard-fought but rewarding three-year contract, I have returned to the UAE, to a new post.  I gave up my faculty job at the Higher Colleges of Technology and we're switching over to my husband's work visa,  which makes me his dependent in the eyes of immigration (as soon as his visa actually gets through, that is). So I am now driving the kids to school, checking out the PTA and having leisurely morning coffee.  Just call me Jumeirah Jane..

Transcontinental Ham

Chicago roasted coffee, Illinois venison steaks, ground elk meat from Colorado and a few dozen pixies from Chicago's Fanny Mae candy. Along with butterscotch chips, real salami (the kind with pork), giant marshmallows, bacon, ham, and two cases of Girl Scout Cookies. The frozen meats, if packed properly in newspaper with giant ziplock bags swaddled in blue jeans, will survive the 24 hour door-to-door trip from Tinley Park to our freezer in Dubai, with only some mild thaw. Though I'm still trying to figure out the best way to transport a couple of dozen bagels to our freezer in Dubai. After three years of back and forth from the Middle-East, our routine is well-rehearsed, and the six giant bags and six carry-ons sit strewn across the 'packing room' in various states of dishevel as I blog away a little stress while I think over the best spot in the right bag for the 10 pound ham. Oh the ham.. So tasty in our Muslim country villa.

But the emotional toll it takes on everyone is never any different. Grandma says she always starts feeling bad at least 2 days before we leave, even when 7-year-old Rosie is raising cane. And as we wind down our time here after a 2-month summer in America, 9-year-old Liam starts asking how much time he's got left. What he really means is how many more bike rides on Grandma's suburban streets, how many more goodnight hugs from Gramps, and how many more breakfasts with his cousins and the dogs.

At the same time the kids are all looking forward to getting back home to our neighborhood in Dubai, to their international schools, to the beach that'll still be too hot to walk on when we get there on Sunday, to our Jordanian, Indian and New Zealand neighbors, to the most fabulous malls in the world, to the water parks, the schwarma stands and yes, to a doting housekeeper. But we are also going back to the reckless roads, the occasional cultural misunderstandings, the homesickness during Thanksgiving and to a place nearly a world away from our family's very solid American core. We are indeed so lucky yet so sad about leaving again that I really wonder is there something wrong with us?

And so it's at about this time when I get that low-grade headache, partly from the melancholy of leaving my parents in their giant house behind us, but also from the excitement of being re-united with Billy who's spent most of the summer without us working in the desert.

The most excellent part of this year's return is that I am not going back to my college faculty post. I am taking a break to soak in the Arabian culture from a new perspective, as our in-house homework over-seer, taxi-driver and piano page-turner. Wish me luck! And do come and visit.

Getting Political About It

I do not really like to get political in public, or on the Internet, or even in the company of some of my closest and dearest relatives and friends. Besides, there is so much else to talk about! But today I will get political.

There is no doubt that the liberties afforded in the USA are a point of pride and consolation when we get out into our world and find out how it works in other countries. And the fact that so many people read and replied on this blog and via Facebook to my latest post shows that American-style freedom is something we all hold dear.

But I have undertaken a personal mission to get around this world, and ever since my first trip to Sahuarita, Mexico at around age 14, I have been roaming the globe whenever possible, and encountering what really are the normal experiences we 'foreigners' are bound to have. Anyone who has ever been a foreigner, migrant, immigrant, guest worker, exchange student, refugee, backpacker or world traveller of any sort will know what it means to find yourself in a place where they don't talk like you do, dress like you do, drive like you do, clean their bathrooms like you do, cook the food like you do and generally behave with one another like you do back home.

For me, there were the awful French supermarket ladies who switched into local Alsacian dialect every time they saw my Purdue University sweatshirt come through the doors. I soon learned that to get by in France, it was best not to go about town in sport shoes or with American College sweatshirts (all the rage in 1980's America). In Japan I was scolded by my local tycoon boss for doing the culturally unthinkable - stopping unannounced a the home of a newfound (and hard-won) friend. 'It is NOT DONE here, Kurisuteeena-San'. And the scariest of the foreigner encounters I remember is running through the slums of Rio with my husband Billy, from the thugs who were literally coming out of the woodwork to follow us through 'the hood'. From that point onwards we did as instructed by our hotel clerk, and hired taxis.

But as I look at this 'reading my lips' incident, the first reaction I have, as many of you did, is to feel insulted at a very basic level along with a quiet unwillingness to forgive. But as I stand back, here on the very next day, I slowly pull away from the unnatural (for me) intolerance and recall the comment made by my mother here yesterday. She wrote, "people experience discrimination and abuse from those who have power in the UAE, USA, and every other country in the world. It is ugly wherever it happens". And she is right. There are extremist and intolerant types in every country. It is human nature for those with power to abuse it to their best and worst advantage, yet it is unfair to write off the entire culture for the deeds of their worst citizens. It is not unfair however, to write off an entire regime or government as a corrupt violator of human rights. And while I may continue to take up residence here, I will consider the continued invitation for Westerners like me to live and work here as indication of a small and reluctant consent to change for the better.

Liar Liar

I honked the horn today at a local (Emirati) lady in her golden Lexus after she cut me off in the parking structure of our favourite mall. And you would think, that in a country where folks get sent to jail for flipping the bird, using the F word in public and kissing in restaurants, I would have let the situation drop. I do, after all, call this place 'home' for now and have willingly taken up residency.

But it's well over a hundred degrees outside, and yes, it gets humid here in the Dubai desert, and I had already spent a good chunk of the day in line at the phone company, where everyone seemed to go off on their coffee break just as I arrived at their desk. And when I honk, she throws her car into park to block my way, and the foul frustration starts spilling out of my mouth from within my sealed and air-conditioned car, while the woman who cut me off eyes me spitefully through her rear view mirror.

At some point, my 10-year-old son from the back seat says something like, 'I think she can read your lips Mom'. And when the most senior looking Indian security guy, of the three staff who gather to try and divert traffic from our little scene, seems to be taking instructions from the lady driver and gets onto his walky talky for back up and possibly the police, I take notice and call my husband Billy. First of all, I need him to pick up our daughter at school since I can see this situation heading into a lengthy incident. But also I need him to know that I am in a potentially legally difficult situation.

In fact, as recently as last month, a big news story featured another naughty expat who was jailed for showing his middle finger. While I'm in discussion with Billy, the security comes over to me and says, as gently as he can, 'she wants apology madum'. At this point, the boys in the back seat are starting to get nervous and I am enraged and in shock that a simple 'you-cut-me-off-so-I-honk-at-you' scenario had escalated to this level. So I hang up with my husband, get out of my car, walk over to speak to the lady with three sweaty Indian security guys as witnesses and a whole line of cars backing up and watching the scene unfold. I try to say 'would you mind moving your car' and she says 'I will not move my car we need the police'.
'What for?'
'I saw you shouting at me and I saw your bad words why you say such bad words with children in the car?'
'You cut me off, I was following the rules of the road'
'But in a parking garage' she says ' you must give way, this is not a road'
'I was not shouting I was talking with my children in the back seat'
And then she says 'you are such a LIAR'
And I say 'pardon?'
And she says 'you must know this is the UAE, we accept you being here but you must be in the UAE with our rules, this is NOT America, this is not Europe, this is the UAE'.

And in so many ironic ways she was right, and therefore, I was thinking, oh dear, I have a flight out in 10 days and any altercation with the police could trap me in this country and possibly land me in jail.

'I apologize'.
'Not like that you apologize, like you mean it'.

At this point I realize I have to do what I tell my 10-year-old, and say it like I mean it. And so, I suck it up, I say 'I'm very sorry Ma'm'. 'I'm quite sorry'. 'Please forgive me'. Etc. And so on. And so forth. She finally rolls up her window, and I, oddly grateful that I had put on good makeup, and a pair of designer sunglasses (there was an audience at this point), walk back to the car, get in with the boys, put it into drive, and let the big tears roll.

Open Toe, Oh No..

Posh hotel bars, fashionably overpriced restaurants, and the biggest and best of the world's malls and buildings are what make Dubai Dubai. And though we've been here almost three years now, we still once in a while get thrown by the pretentions that come with the riduculous Gulf-Arabic bravado.

It happened again last night when we were out and about with some new friends and came across the dress code enforcement at The Address Hotel, one of the posher hotels near the Dubai Mall and overlooking the famous dancing fountain.

As you go around town, especially in the malls, which are by the way, the social pulse of Dubai, the mix of locals in traditional Arab dress, white gowns for the men (dishtashas) and black ones for the women (abayas), intermingled with the westerners in smart and strappy and sometimes appallingly skimpy mall-wear is a peculiarity worthy of comment. What's impressive is the stubbornness of the local traditions, especially with regards to dress, amidst the influx of foreign American-Eagle clad residents like us. The fact that the local women can still go around so completely covered-up, and have coffee within arm's reach of me and my skinny fully-revealed arms and (not so skinny) calves and feet, is mysterious, impressive, and downright confusing. Yes, modernization has brought Landcruisers and Starbucks, American teachers and European (censored) movies, but the local norms for modesty have resisted. But I digress.

After a long and lovely meal at Abdelwahab, a fountain-side Arabic restaurant, where we dined on small birds, lamb kebobs and Lebanese wine, and another hateful drink called Arak, we took the short walk over to The Address Hotel, which yes, is pompously named, where we would have an after-dinner drink. The slow walk between the venues had us all damp from exertion, as the high temp earlier in the day was 116 degrees farenheit (47 Celcius). Even at 11pm, it was still balmy. And as we sidled through the sleek lobby to the lounge, and aimed to walk past the beefy black-dressed earpiece-wearing security, my husband Billy was gently grabbed by the elbow, pulled aside, and told that 'next time', he needs to leave his sandals at home. As he caught up to us inside and explained why he fell behind, and after a minute or two of balking at such ridiculousness, we decided that the lounge was too loud and headed to the quieter bar at the top of the hotel. But no, the open-toe shoe police (yet more beefy handsome men in black) barred our entry to the elevator, citing again, the sandals. Our Palestinian friend Walid tried an argument that went something like this: 'my tourist friend here (Billy) is from California'. But to no avail. The security folks at least entertained us with a dialogue on the nuances of their dress code. Open-toe shoes you see, are only permitted on women, and yes, on men in local Arabic dress, the white dishtasha. And even on the arms of two beautiful women, and in the company of an Arabic man, Billy would be turned away. After a few more friendly words with security, and some further dress-code education, we ceased and desisted, headed to the loud bar where we slinked past the security with Billy in his expensive but frowned-upon sandals, and had open-toe drinks with the mortals in the noise.

Call me Habibti

The UAE locals do not exactly invite friendship from expats like me. And though we live in the same neighborhoods, shop in the same stores and eat in the same restaurants, only a very few of us Westerners have ever crossed the threshold of an Emirati house. Those of us lucky enough to teach the nation's college women, do get invited to big events such as the lavish bling-ish weddings and engagement parties so cherished among them - but these are Ladies Only events hosted at the country's famous hotel ballrooms or ladies cultural centers, and even once you've been to a few, you continue to feel like an outsider.

And so we carry on here, socializing amongst the other foreigners, Arabs and Westerners alike, being seemingly ignored by the locals. The most typical interaction many people have with Emiratis happens when we go to pay our electric bills or renew our Residence Visas, as those government posts are the jobs held by the locals who work. And when we do go about these necessary errands, the best way to describe the attitude towards us is aloof, perhaps cold, and sometimes utterly word-less. It is part of the culture we say, and in my opinion, it's to be expected in a place where we, the tank-top wearing foul-mouthed foreigners have moved in, set up our pork-eating households, and demanded CNN and Disney from their Satellite providers. Wouldn't you give us the cold shoulder?

But this week I turned a corner and was softened once again to the locals as I passed through the gate of the neighborhood park in my car. With my bike in the back seat, I unrolled the window and offered an Arabic hello 'Salamaleikum' to the veiled lady clerk. As if the veil had been lifted, I noted a change right away in her return 'Alaikum Salam'. She had recognized my car (one of the oldest to pass through their gate I am sure) or perhaps my Oakley-clad blonde head, and decided to offer me the discount advice, explaining the advantages of park membership and offering to help me with the forms. And all of this was finished with a veiled smile and the Arabic word for 'my dear'. She called me Habibti.

(For more on local weddings, check my April 11 post from last year)