Living in a Random Land

A New Creation

2010-10-09T10:14:00.001+04:00

My old self made a cameo appearance a few days ago. And not just anywhere—at my pastor’s house while sitting next to him, talking to his wife, and with a room full of people! My old obnoxious, take the joking too far, nature came out of nowhere. This is interesting because all this week I’ve had a sweet time with the Lord—his Spirit filling me and guiding my attitude and behavior. But Friday, my old sinful nature made a bid to destroy me…

I was gently confronted the next day by the pastor’s wife. She said the banter is fun but that maybe I went too far. She was right but the enemy took that and ran with it. For the rest of the day I had accusations dropped in my ears and in my thoughts, reminders of my past. You see, I have been stepping out of my comfort zone since returning to Al Ain a few weeks ago. We have been reaching out to new people, building a new network of friends, and preparing to lead a small group—all activities I steered away from in the past out of fear. The Lord has been convicting me about my fear and encouraging me to use the gifts He has given me. But I digress… my behavior in front of both the pastor (toward his wife) and a room full of people (who all went silent at my behavior) was used by the enemy of our souls. Thoughts like There you go again! and You can’t do anything right! You always screw up and go too far. You’re such an idiot! And you think God can use YOU?!? All day such thoughts played out in my head. But praise God that He used His Word to bring my thoughts away from those lies back to the Truth. I was reminded of “the accuser of the brethern” so I searched the Bible for that verse. Revelation 12:10 says “the accusor of the brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God” (emphasis mine). That spoke to me right where I was! I was being accused. But the very next verse says the accuser has been conquered by the blood of the Lamb and by our testimony. And what is my testimony? I found it in 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

Fear not, for I am with you;

Be not dismayed, for I am your God;

I will strengthen you, I will help you,

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Isaiah 41:10

It Was A Great Summer!

2010-09-09T21:48:00.002+04:00

Summer is over and we're back in the UAE. We had an outstanding summer; I couldn't begin to write down all the fun things we did. Nothing big--just a whole bunch of little things with the boys that turned out to be great memories. Here are a few highlights:

We were home!!! It was so good to be back among friends and family!
The boys were taught by their Grandma Cheryl how to shoot a bow and arrow.
Kelly wakeboarded for the first time and the boys all had a chance to drive a boat.
We drove in the clouds.
The boys met one of their Great-Grandmothers and one of their Great-Grandfathers.
Caleb split a piece of wood with an ax all by himself.
Zachary and Micah went fishing for the first time AND both caught fish--bluegills.
Zachary, Micah, and Kelly all roasted hot dogs over a campfire for the first time.
The boys all got to drive a Bobcat with the help of their Great-Grandpa.
We returned to Indiana for the first time in 6 years.
We went to the zoo.
We spent 3 days at my Aunt & Uncle's lake house and had root beer floats every night!
Toured Cerreta's Candy Factory and made chocolate pizzas.
We ate at almost all our favorite restaurants.
Did I mention we got to spend time with our friends and family??

There was so much more but sometimes you just have to be there to fully appreciate it. Surprisingly, it was kind of nice to get back to our Al Ain home--we've been away from our "home" for 2 months. Everything was in good shape when we arrived and we're mostly unpacked. Kelly returns to teaching next week and I'll begin school for the boys--second grade for Caleb and kindergarten for Zach & Micah.

I know we didn't get to do all or see everyone we wanted this summer but we're thankful for all we did and for all of you we shared our summer with!

Can Your Refrigerator Do This?

2009-11-24T00:42:00.003+04:00

When we were staying at the Intercontinental Hotel, we asked the staff to empty the refrigerator in our room so we could keep our food in it. The fridge was very old--more like a cooler with a fan. Most of the time when we opened the door we couldn't feel any cold air in it. In fact, I'm pretty sure some cheese that we'd bought only a day or two earlier made Caleb sick. That prompted me to head over to the local Carrefour to buy a new refrigerator. I bought a small one--about the same size as the old one that was in our room. It was a big improvement! Now our bottles of water were actually cold and food didn't go bad in a day or two.

So where am I going with this? Well, when we moved into our flat we decided not to buy a big fridge right away since we had one that worked--even though it was really too small. But a few days ago, I drove to Dubai to pick up our full-sized refrigerator. It's used but that is ok with us. It's been about 3 months since we've had enough space for milk, water, veggies, meat, leftovers, etc. We just didn't have the space, so we were usually going without something. Suddenly having space again kind of brought a sense of gratitude and reflection over me...

I started thinking that the last 3 months is the only time in my life when there has not been a big refrigerator in my house. I didn't realize how much I appreciate having one until I did not have one. So I started thinking about other things that I have been taking for granted. I was probably about 8 or so when my parents bought their first microwave. We have one now, but we went a couple months without the convenience of warming our sandwiches, leftovers, and making popcorn. One convenience I've really missed, and I think Kelly would agree, is having a desk to work on. We had been using little hotel tables or our dining room table as workstations. Since we eat at the table, before every meal our computers and books had to be moved. It was a real pain; now we each have tables from Ikea that work great as computer desks. Try to make due without a desk for your computer and you'll be shocked at how much you'll miss it! We also went almost 3 months without a sofa. Here at home we could sit on the dining room chairs, a bed, or the floor. So when we finally bought a sofa during a furniture store sale, well, I'll just say it was really nice to be able to take a load off...

But possibly what I missed most of all was something I never would have imagined. Kelly is teaching, so I've been doing the cooking. For almost 2 months, at the hotel, my prep area was an overcrowded bathroom sink and my cooking area was a little glass table (that was also my "desk") and the floor. I had to wash the dishes in the bathtub while leaning over a bidet to reach the water! What did I miss? Space--having a counter top to prepare and cook food on and a sink to wash dishes in. I'll tell you what, if you think you hate washing the dishes just spend 2 months kneeling over a bathtub to wash them and you will be singing praises to God when you are able to stand over a kitchen sink again!!!

Our new refrigerator is good for keeping food cold but its great for increasing my appreciation for some of life's conveniences. Can your refrigerator do this??

We Finally Have a Home

2009-11-06T09:30:00.016+04:00

Most of you probably know that we are finally out of the hotel after only 50 days there. The time flew by the way 10 years at a job you hate flies by. But the good that came out of such an extended hotel stay is that we thoroughly appreciate having our own place to call home.

Getting the keys to our flat transpired in typical UAE fashion. Kelly heard through the primary form of communication, the rumor mill, that there was a housing meeting. She went to the 4:00 meeting and sat there with the other teachers from our group for an hour. No one from Kelly’s employer was showing up… finally, an hour late, Ali graced them with his presence and a list with names. If your name is on the list, then congratulations, you get an apartment. Anyone not on the list, he said, would get their home soon, In’shallah. And the list seemed to be randomly generated. Some families were on the list, some were not. Some singles were on the list, some were not. None of the married couples without kids made the list. There were even people on the list that had not been in the UAE as long as our group—that didn’t go over very well. A few people not on the list followed us over to the compound and managed to get an apartment anyway.

The method for handing out keys was a real stroke of UAE genius. By the time we drove across town to the Greenland Compound (the ironic name of our compound—the only thing green here are teeth of some of the construction workers) it was dark. Our group consisted of single adults and families with children, most of the children very young. Here was their brilliant plan: they handed keys out to the single adults and made the families with children stand there in dark for about an hour while Ali sorted through all the keys. It was great!

We did finally get our keys, too. The apartment was huge but on the bottom floor. All the apartments on the bottom floor have metal wire mesh over them for security and do not have a patio. The second floor apartments lacked the wire mesh and had decent sized balconies. We chose to take an unassigned second floor flat in the same building and we are glad we did! Now that the weather is cooling down, it’s nice to have a balcony.

A few things about our apartment that you might find interesting: it has 4 bathrooms. Each bathroom (and the kitchen also) has its own water heater with an on/off switch on the wall. It’s great when we want to take a shower and forget to turn on the water heater! We have a maid’s quarters, though we’re using it as an office for Kelly and me. Also, there are no closets. None. The only storage we have is none. So we’ve decided to use the maid’s quarters bathroom as a storage room—it still leaves us with 3 bathrooms to use (and clean!).

We continue to clean—the floors need to be cleaned every day. It’s so dusty here that dust bunnies breed even faster than real bunnies! But we’ll take it. After living in a hotel for so long, it’s nice that we finally have a home.

My second first day of school!

2009-10-12T15:24:00.005+04:00

Sunday morning, time to start the week! I wondered as I headed to school if I would see students. This time as I entered the school parking lot there were a lot of students gathering and plenty of moms bring their sweet little first grade girls to school, some for the first time. This time I am very nervous as I head to my room knowing that I will be meeting my students and their moms very soon. After I make sure I am ready, I head to my first grade colleague's room to see how she is doing. We get to talking and completely missed the bell! Someone came and found us and told us we were supposed to be at assembly. Every morning the girls line up for announcements, a little movement led by the P.E. teachers, and the singing of their national anthem. I basically missed it! What a great way to make a good first impression!

I fearlessly lead my class on to our classroom, complete with the moms. The students file into the classroom and take their seats, but the moms stay looking as if they have no intention of leaving. As I'm standing there thinking to myself about how I'm going to handle this and get the names of the girls in my class an Arabic teacher shows up! Big relief! She starts directing students and moms and helping me get names sorted. As she is taking care of this I start walking around saying hi to the moms. After shaking hands and saying hi to about three of them I started getting confused! Had I said hi to this one? Did I miss that one? You see all the moms were wearing a black abaya (a long black dress that covers their clothes) and complete head covering--all I could see were their eyes! I felt anxious as I walked around wanting to acknowledge everyone, but not knowing if I had ignored someone unintentionally or had said hi two, maybe three times to the same mom! I hope I didn't offend anyone! After several hours the moms were finally shooed out of my room and I got my first taste of little Emirati girls!

First day of school

2009-10-12T15:02:00.004+04:00

The day had finally arrived and I had only just seen my classroom, I couldn't believe how unprepared I felt. I went to sleep on Tuesday night feeling excited, nervous, anxious and could barely sleep. These are all normal feelings the night before school starts, except I had not been able to do anything in my classroom. As I stepped out of the car I noticed that the school was rather empty, there were only a few students milling around. I meet up with the other English teachers and we all have the same nervous feelings as we head to our rooms as ready as we can be to meet our students. Only 8 O'clock came and went, no students, by 9 we were told the few students that showed up had been sent home! I was thrilled! Now I could set up my room, but no, we went into the teacher lounge and sat with the local teachers as they discussed what they did to celebrate the end of Ramadan. I couldn't believe it! All this work to do and they wanted to discuss meals and parties! At 12 we were sent home.

Thursday morning I show up wondering if I will see students, but no they weren't coming until Sunday. Well, I could finally work in my room, after the meeting about the dreaded Swine Flu! I sat there for about an hour while the nurse spoke to the teachers in Arabic of course about the precautions needed to keep us safe. Finally they left and she then gave us the abbreviated Cliff notes about the necessary precautions. The only work I was able to do in my classroom was to put my desks in rows and was then told to go home and have a great weekend! I shook my head as I left wondering how I was going to get organized and prepared for students.

Sayid the Camel Trader

2009-09-29T01:42:00.009+04:00

When we told the boys we were moving far away we thought it might help if we told them about the cool things we would be doing and seeing. We promised a ride on a big plane. Done. Then there was the promise of going to the beach. Done. The Arabian Gulf is about 94 degrees Fahrenheit in August... delightful! But there was one more big promise we made to the boys: we'll get to see camels. Since Ramadan was finally over the Al Ain Camel Market was open again. Kelly and I had a surprise for the boys. Sayid the Camel Trader had a surprise for us...

The camel market is only about 10 minutes from the hotel. It's actually right behind the newest, nicest mall in Al Ain. It's one stop shopping at it's best--a new pair of sandals, maybe a new outfit or two, oh, and don't forget the pickup truck load of camels! When we pulled in I was feeling special, so I parked like an Emirati. This just means you park anywhere you want. The boys spotted camels and they were off. We caught up with them and walked around the corner to see 6 adult camels packed like sardines in the back of a small pickup truck! Kelly joked that PETA would love to see that! About this time a panel truck came to a hasty stop right by us and a man jumped out asking, "Do you like my camels?" It was Sayid the Camel Trader. What happened next caught me a bit off guard. Men here walk around holding hands; it's a sign of trust and friendship. Sayid shook my hand but when the handshake was over he didn't let go of my hand--he slid his hand into mine as we walked over to the truck-o-camels. Sayid was holding my hand! I'm talking fingers interlocked together like I was holding Kelly's hand!!! I tried to appear calm but this had to end. My out was when Sayid offered to use my camera to take a picture of us with his camels. I thought that sounded great! I happily handed him my camera and he also offered to take pictures with Kelly's camera. I thought "No problem... I wonder when is the last time Sayid washed his hands???"

After pictures with the sardine camels Sayid led us to a camel tied to a post. He let me hold the rope and took my picture and did the same with Kelly. Then he showed us a baby camel he said was 5 days old--it seemed kind of big for 5 days. I'm not sure the mama camel can walk anymore... Then we were joined by another guy who opened a pen full of camels; Sayid said it was safe for us to go in. There were about 4 camels in the pen that really didn't seem very thrilled to have us there but the biggest camel in the group was pretty laid back. He was laying down and didn't bother getting up. The boys were able to walk right up to him and pet his head, face, and ears. Sayid took a few more pictures. Then he joined us in the pictures while his buddy snapped away with Kelly's camera. This whole time Sayid had my camera hanging around his neck...

We finished petting the big, friendly camel and Sayid was walking with us along the camel pens. He said that I now owed him 100 Dirhams. I didn't buy any camels so I asked why I owed him money. He said for showing us his camels. I remembered that bartering is common here so I told him I would give him 50 Dirhams. He said, "No. 50 for me and 50 for my friend." It kind of hit me that he was still wearing my camera around his neck and was also carrying Kelly's camera and didn't have any intention of giving them back to me until I gave in to his hostage demands. I was thinking "You've changed, Sayid. What happened to the guy who used to hold my hand?" So I gave Sayid the Camel Trader 100 Dirhams. 50 for him and 50 for his "friend." I took our cameras out of his hands and thanked him for a great time.

So you're asking, "How much is 100 Dirhams?" About $27 USD. So for $27 we received a personal tour of the Al Ain Camel Market, I held a camel trader's hand, and I was extorted while our cameras were held hostage.

But we kept our promise to the boys... they got to see camels.

First Impressions of School

2009-09-23T16:13:00.008+04:00

I was excited when my training was over and I thought I would meet the principal and staff. Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) has hired provider companies to help with school improvement. Michelle and Morag from my provider, Nord Anglia, said it would be better to wait until Tuesday to meet the principal. When I asked why we had to wait for two days they responded, "We're not sure the principal knows you are here!" I thought WHAT! You've got to be kidding!

So two days later we showed up on Tuesday to meet the principal , but in true UAE fashion she had been called away to a last minute meeting in Abu Dhabi. I was ushered into a resource room along with the other three English speaking teachers so that the native teachers would not know we were on campus. We sat there for about three hours in secret and then I called Michael to come and take me away.

Finally we were able to meet the principal on Wednesday. She walked into the room without smiling, sat down and rattled something off in Arabic to the assistant principal. Then she asked for introductions from the four of us. We nervously gave our names and a little about our teaching background while she nodded without smiling. I was getting more concerned with each nod of her head! She finally did smile when we left her office to take a tour of the school. When the tour ended we were taken to the teacher's lounge and left alone with the Emirati teachers for about two hours.

The following day I thought we would be working in our classrooms and planning. I was mistaken! We were told to wait in the teacher's lounge for a 9 o'clock meeting about the Swine flu, or H1N1, as it is known here--since Muslims consider pigs detestable. 9 o'clock came and went while we sat there trying to make small talk. Finally an hour later the meeting began. I found myself in a roomful of women dressed in black and the nurse telling everyone about this most horrible epidemic! Finally the meeting ended for the Arabic speaking teachers and now it was our turn. We got to listen to it all over again, but when speaking English to us the nurse called it the "Swine flu" rather than H1N1 which I found rather interesting.

Finally our day was over and we were told to enjoy Eid, or the celebration, that occurs at the end of Ramadan. To my surprise that meant not returning until Wednesday--the first day of school for my students. Even though I enjoyed the five day holiday I couldn't help but worry about the lack of planning and classroom set up that hadn't occurred.

I thought to myself the first day of school with students should be very interesting...

Oh, So You Want To Return That???

2009-09-10T01:40:00.006+04:00

I didn't realize people did this until I met Kelly--people in the U.S. actually buy things intending to return them. I don't mean buying a big screen TV for the Super Bowl and returning it on Monday. More like Kelly would buy 3 or 4 outfits that she really didn't know if she liked. She would leave the tags on the clothes and wear them at home in an effort to decide if she liked them or not. Then she would return the clothes she didn't like. Over the last few years, Kelly has kind of gotten out of that habit, which is a good thing because otherwise she would be quitting cold turkey because returning things here is not like at home!

Since we don't know our way around Al Ain and plan to visit cities like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Muscat (Oman), we thought it might be a good idea to buy a GPS device for the car. Carrefour is the store for everything here, so off we went. I've never owned GPS--I'm kind of old school and think maps are pretty cool; this means I really don't know much about the various devices. The two brands carried by Carrefour are Garmin (heard of them) and Mio (some goofy French company). The Mios cost a LOT less than the Garmins and came preloaded with GCC maps. The sales people insisted that Mio was really good and the picture of the map display on the box looked just like the Garmin's, so we bought a Mio GPS.

We went home (which is still a hotel) and I had a new "toy" so, of course, I started playing with it to figure out every little feature. I set up all the features, like language (or so I thought). Once I had everything configured the way I wanted, I touched on the Navigation icon. Maps were loading... and up comes a black screen with little green lines for roads--and the roads were all labeled in ARABIC! Not to mention there was zero detail on the map. Like I said, black with green lines. I double checked the language setting and it was set for English.

Here is where I get back to the returning stuff part of the story... I took the Mio GPS back to Carrefore to exchange it for a Garmin. You don't take returns to the Customer Service Counter--you take them to the After Sales Service Office (which is not even in the store--it has it's own window several stores away from Carrefour) and hope that someone notices you're there. Someone finally did but it wasn't his job, though he did promise to send someone over to help (Inshallah!). The store manager happened to come by and took an interest in the guy standing there while his three boys were running laps in the mall. He called someone on his radio and this finally got someone over to help. It took him, the manager, and some other mystery guy to decide if I had a worthy reason to return (actually, exchange) this item. After writing a store credit receipt, the third mystery guy took us over to the GPS devices. This is where it got really good--I'm not sure they had ever had anyone return an item, much less try to exchange one. At one point, I counted 8 people involved in this transaction... at one time!!! I thought I was watching the Middle East version of the Keystone Cops! They were scanning, they were printing, they were scanning the paper they had just printed... it was absurd! Meanwhile, Micah was inventing new ways to hurt himself and Zachary was either wondering away or looking at the DVD shelf--actually, he was climbing it--probably couldn't see the movies on the top shelf, being so short and all... Fortunately, Caleb's only issue was being thirsty--that, and he kept forgetting he had already told me that he was thirsty, so he reminded me several times.

About an hour and a half later we were finally leaving Carrefour...

The point to all this, I guess, is that you shouldn't take for granted how easy it is to return stuff back home. "No receipt? No problem." And I just wanted to get this off my chest because all could do during this melee was patiently stand there and watch the "action." Thanks for listening--I feel so much better! And Kelly, please don't buy any clothes you plan on returning :-)

If It Happens It Happens...

2009-09-03T12:12:00.001+04:00

We have had our stay here at the Intercontinental extended until at least September 14th. Generally, we are not given reasons for changes (we were initially booked to stay here only 1 week), so we are left with drawing our own conclusions. Fortunately, by God's grace, we have chosen to search for positive, logical reasons for last minute changes rather than believe in conspiracy theories. Up to this point, we have been fairly accurate in our assessments. Basically, this comes down to the fact that we, at a minimum, were supposed to see our new place, have the funds to begin furnishing it, and be moving into our own place within this week of arriving here. We haven't seen where we will be living, but we have a theory on why...

As you know, it is Ramadan here and while people still go to work, the productivity level does drop considerably. We have caught rumors that there are brand new houses, or villas, being built for us but they are not completed yet. Since this is Ramadan the completion schedule has probably been pushed back to who knows when? If this is the case, it would be nice if ADEC would just tell us, but then, they are only 40% staffed--so we are trying to cut them some slack. We know they are working like crazy to make all this happen! And, again, all this is par for the course in this culture--as they say here, "In'shallah" which literally means "if God wills it" or loosely means "if it happens it happens."

Tonight all the teachers in our group are meeting with hotel management--the hotel wants to know what they can do help our stay here be as comfortable as possible. I really can't speak too highly about the Intercontinental's staff--they have all been very kind, personable, and seem to genuinely care about us. I know that any request brought forth tonight will be met if it is within the hotel's ability to do so. While we are not where we would like to be, we do find ourselves in a good place...

In the meantime, we will continue to wait and pray. We will be in our home soon enough... In'shallah...

More Coffee Pot Noodles Anyone??

2009-09-01T22:59:00.009+04:00

We have been at the Intercontinental Al Ain Resort Since last Thursday night. It's beautiful here, but like any 5-Star resort, the food in the restaurants is quite expensive. Fortunately, the Abu Dhabi Education Counsel (ADEC) has included breakfast with our rooms--something we are extremely thankful for! But for our lunch and dinner, it's another story...

For the first couple days we survived on peanut butter and honey sandwiches, Pringles, a few apples we brought from Abu Dhabi, and bottled water. All this mainly because our room does not have a kitchen, or even a microwave. We've asked for a microwave but apparently only rooms equipped with a kitchenette are allowed to have them. But we do have a refrigerator that was full of cigarettes, liquor, and beer--just what you would expect to find in an Islamic country. One of the teachers in our group said that we could have the hotel empty the fridge so that we could use it for our own food. We thought that sounded like a swell idea and sure enough the girl at the front desk didn't bat an eye at the request.

Now with a refrigerator to use, we could expand our culinary choices... to a point. I went to the local Carrefour on Friday, which is the Muslim holy day, to find a shopping experience like none I've ever had. Now this is saying something because before we moved here, I did almost all the shopping for our family. But this was different; there were a LOT of people, especially in the produce section where two men stood at scales weighing and tagging everyone's produce. I know this now because the first time I bought produce here the lady ringing me up picked up my bag of apples and walked away. I just assumed without really giving it any thought that they weighed the produce at the checkout--like at home. But they don't and it creates quite a backup in the stores. The cool thing about it was the flow of people--no one was pushing or getting upset. No one was having an attitude for having to wait--it's just the way it is and getting upset doesn't change it. In fact, it's a kind of passive-aggressive form of shopping. No one is pushing but if you don't make room for yourself in line, no one will do it for you. Back to having a refrigerator... we were able to get a 2 liter of milk (all cow milk is pasteurized here. Camel milk may or may no be), some Gouda cheese, and sliced roast beef. It was almost like manna from heaven!

After a couple of days eating roast beef and Gouda sandwiches we were starting to be tired again of our lack of variety. On Monday night we went back to the mall to buy more groceries (yes, I said the mall to buy groceries!) at Megamart. We have an electric coffee pot for heating water in our room--someone said they used it to make Cup-of-Soup. I had the bright idea to make Ramen noodles in it. So for lunch today I heated the water, broke up the prawn flavored noodles in the package and dumped them into the coffee pot. They cooked pretty quickly and scooping them into the cups was fairly straight-forward. It was a very welcome treat to have warm noodles for lunch instead of another dry, cold sandwich. The not-so-welcome part of the meal was the clean up... ramen noodles get very sticky when not in water. Cleaning the electric coffee pot, with it's little opening on top, was a real pain. I found that water loosened the noodle remnants pretty well, but I didn't want to pour noodle water down the sink drain. I figured it would clog the drain and cause a big backup, so I was pouring the noodle water into the toilet. Pour water into coffee pot. Stir. Pour into toilet. Repeat. The good news is that since we have two rooms we have two coffee pots This means one can be dedicated as the "noodle coffee pot" and the other Kelly can use to make coffee without it tasting like shrimp flavored noodles!

There's no doubt this has whet your appetite... more coffee pot noodles anyone??

Savage Chicken

2009-08-30T08:35:00.003+04:00

So there is a little more to Ramadan than just fasting during the day. When you go to the mall almost all the stores, and definitely the restaurants, are closed from 2:00pm until about 8:00pm when they reopen until about midnight. This means even big stores like Ikea, where we had planned to eat some Swedish meatballs in their restaurant after doing some price shopping, was closed. Ask me this now and I know the store hours during Ramadan, but on Wednesday we had no idea.

We arrived at the Marina Mall in the afternoon only to find nearly every store closed and we had no idea when they would reopen. For about 2 hours we walked around the largest mall we've ever seen--it makes Fashion Square in Scottsdale (which is the largest mall in AZ) look kind of small and silly. But the boys were not impressed with this big, closed mall. Caleb was crying. Micah was crying. Zach looked like a miniature zombie. They were hungry and tired of walking around and, frankly, so was I. This is when I prayed a little prayer for wisdom and decided to go to Carrefour for some rotisserie chicken (most food stores remain open all day during Ramadan). I bought 2 whole chickens, some Pringles, juice boxes for the boys and we took a taxi back to our room.

We got back to the room and we were just starving... and just realizing that we had no plates, utensils, or napkins, but we had 2 chickens to eat! So I had everyone sit on the floor and in the middle I presented the roasted chickens in all their glory. We thanked the Lord for providing us with this food. Then I grabbed a chicken with my hands and started ripping legs off and passing them out to our young savages. I tore into a breast and a thigh. Kelly was pretty hungry and she was also tearing one of the birds apart with her bare hands. She really went at it!!! We were using the shopping bags as plates and one of the hotel towels as a group napkin. We had packed some Season All and I actually knew which of our 15 bags it was in--that helped the flavor, or lack-thereof, enormously.

As we continued to eat like 5-star savages, everybody began to feel better. When it hit us what we had been doing we couldn't help but laugh our heads off!!! It was a much needed laugh--it released a lot of stress.

We won't soon forget eating savage chicken...

We're in Al Ain... finally

2009-08-28T18:06:00.000+04:00

We came here knowing that at times things would not go smoothly or as planned. With that being said, our bus pulled out of the Abu Dhabi Hilton at about the time we should have been arriving in Al Ain. Checkout was at 2:00 and the bus was scheduled to leave at 3:00... but it didn't come and didn't come and still didn't seem to come. I'm probably being over dramatic, but the boys have had almost a week of sitting in airports, sitting in planes, sitting on buses, sitting in sardine-like hotel rooms. They weren't in the mood to sit for another two and a half hours in the lobby of a nice hotel in one of the nicest areas of Abu Dhabi. They were chasing each other, hitting each other, not listening to Kelly or me at all. If you know our boys, they are really good and I'm very proud to call them my sons, but I was about to kill them!!!

Finally, the bus arrived but there was just one little problem... there were more people than there was bus! Of course, we were sitting on the bus when this little revelation came to light. The solution, it turns out, was for us to sit on the bus and wait for another bus to arrive. This meant waiting for another hour. By the time another bus showed up and we left for Al Ain, it was 5:45 which was about time we expected to arrive at our new hotel...

Ok, so we're finally on our way. We are in the back row of the bus because that is the only row with 5 seats. The boys had settled down a bit and Caleb was happily snapping pictures of everything we drove past. About 15 minutes after leaving the hotel the bus makes a turn off the highway. In the back we couldn't see much out the front, so we didn't know at first that we were pulling into a filling station to fill up the gas tank!!! The bus shows up late and the driver didn't even fill the gas tank???

So the bus has a full tank of gas and we are on our way... again. The drive to Al Ain is pretty easy--just take Highway 22 from Abu Dhabi for about 2 hours. We were supposed to be making two stops in Al Ain. The first was supposed to be at the Rotana Hotel where the single teachers and married teachers without children would be staying. As we entered the city I noticed a sign that said the Rotana was to the right, but the driver didn't turn; I thought that seemed strange, but figured he must know some ultra-secret back-way to the hotel. We drove on through the heart of the city, which I'm the only one who saw it as Micah was asleep on my lap, Caleb was sleeping on my right, Kelly on my left and Zachary was sleeping on Kelly. It was now dark out and I could see just how much they must love neon signs here. It wasn't neon like in Las Vegas--more like a carnival midway. Almost every shop, store, and restaurant had a flashing neon sign--and I liked it! But I digress... we drove through the city and the whole time that sign for the Rotana was kind of on my mind--especially when we pulled into the Intercontinental Hotel. That's when a whole lot of murmuring began on that bus. I was thinking, "Great! We waited forever for one bus and then another, stopped for gas, and now the driver has taken us to the wrong hotel! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?" It turns out that our original reservations had been canceled and we were being moved to the Intercontinental. A few people were about to come unglued. I was just relieved to be in the right place. The hotel manager saw us carry in 3 sleeping boys and right away took us under his wing. He directed us to a sitting area where Kelly could lay the boys down while I sorted out our luggage and checked us in. The manager was so kind that he also gave us a second adjoining room since we had the boys with us. It has a door connecting the room, so the boys have their own room and we have ours--a huge improvement from the Hilton. The rest of the hotel is great--there are 2 playgrounds for the boys, a large grassy area for them to run, and a beautiful pool to swim in.

So with that being said, we're in Al Ain... finally.

A 5-Hour Tour

2009-08-27T10:12:00.000+04:00

After breakfast Monday, we joined the other new teachers for a bus tour of Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the UAE. There are about 1.7 million people in this city, most of whom are from somewhere else. So as you can imagine, the variety of people here is incredible! We have not felt as though we stand out at all; in fact, when everybody looks so different, no one tends to stand out from the crowd. Anyway, back to the bus tour. First stop was the third largest mosque in the Middle East, only smaller than the mosques in Mecca and Medina. To be allowed to enter the mosque men are required to wear long pants and women a body covering called an abaya and a head scarf. Kelly looked quite beautiful in it--the scarf created a stunning frame around her face. There are security guards everywhere--I thought we were going to get jumped just trying to enter, but since we were with a prearranged group, they reluctantly let us pass. I don't think it a good idea to stop by unannounced...

This mosque is huge! The guide told us that about 80,000 people can fit inside it. They don't know how much it cost to build--estimates are maybe $10 billion dollars, but the actual price is never revealed. Mosques are considered gifts to "God" so no price is too great. Out of respect (and being told it's the only way they'll let you in...) everyone takes their shoes off before they may enter. I noticed later while driving around the city that the mosques all have piles of shoes in front of the door. Another thing I noticed was that when your kids go someplace they are not supposed to go, the security guards are very quick to let you know. I was trying to photograph Kelly and realized Caleb and Micah had walked under a barricade and were chasing each other on this beautiful tile mosaic being assembled on the floor. Fortunately, that did not earn me a beating! But as you can imagine, it was difficult keeping the boys calm--the room we were allowed to see had the world's largest carpet, large enough for about 8,000 people to stand on it. So it was big, open, with a bit of an echo--a great place for 3 boys to chase each other (or so they thought).

Next stop was Heritage Village, a small set of shops, a small museum, and some replicas of how life was in Abu Dhabi back in the day. The highlight of this stop were the water vending machines, not that Kelly or I could drink any water until we were back on the bus. During Ramadan there is no eating or drinking in public; but children are not restricted. So we let them drink away, but Kelly and I had to wait until we were back on the bus to even drink water.

Possibly the smelliest stop was the Abu Dhabi fish market. Waiting at the door was the strongest fish smell I've ever been attacked by. You can imagine with temperatures everyday around 105-110 degree F and humidity in the 80-90% range that the smell was more than ready to attack! But once inside, we got used to it. Having a huge variety of whole fish to look at helped. The boys loved the fish market. It had everything from milkfish to sharks to the biggest shrimp we've ever seen. We would have loved to take some fish home for the grill!!!

In the UAE there are "stores" called souks. Some are traditional shops where bargaining takes place. Other souks are more topical. For instance, we visited a gold souk. It was like a small mall with nothing but gold and jewelry stores. We noticed in the city that there seem to be "districts." There were about 10 optical stores in a row. Another area was all furniture. Then there was a medical office district. Kelly did say that it is easier to get by here than Brazil because ALL the signs are in Arabic and English. In fact, it might be difficult to learn Arabic due to all the signs already being in English.

The last stop (finally!!!) was our hotel. It was nice to see the city, but a 5 Hour Tour seemed to go on and on and on... much like this blog entry :-)

Arrival

2009-08-26T22:20:00.002+04:00

We arrived in Abu Dhabi Sunday night after a 13-hour flight from New York's JFK airport, where we survived a 9 hour layover. Looking back it really went pretty smooth. When we finally landed at Abu Dhabi Int'l we expected customs to be, well, a nightmare... however, it was quite the opposite. Someone was calling for "Miss Kelly" as soon as we stepped off the plane. She took us to a special customs line that was just for the teachers who arrived on our flight (there was probably 20 or so) where an Arab gentleman looked at our passports, asked us how to pronounce our names, and then stamped the visa into them. From there we put our luggage onto the conveyor belt for the x-ray machine where two Arab ladies were supposed to be watching it. Instead, they were laughing at our boys who were holding their stuffed animals up at the ladies and making the animals wave "hi" at them. So there were no problems at the x-ray machine. At the luggage carousel our bags were already pulled off and we had three guys with carts practically begging us to let them help. With someone else carrying our 600+ pounds of luggage, we were escorted to our bus, where we were greeted with roses, rose scented wipes, and a room key at the Hilton. So you know, in the Middle East floral or rose scent is used to make you feel welcome. Once in our room, we were able to sleep for a few hours--it was really nice to lay down flat on a bed rather than bent on a plane seat!

Monday morning we found that breakfast was included with our room--very nice! And not some lousy continental breakfast, either. There was a waffle bar, omelet bar, fruit and cheese bar, and pastry bar. We let the boys pick out their food--they all wanted waffles with chocolate, strawberries, and what they called whipped cream. As we ate I realized that Kelly looked much more relaxed than I had seen her look in weeks. She said she was so relieved to finally be here; the wait for our tickets had been dragging on for a few weeks and while she really did handle it well, it was starting to get to us.