Dhow boats cruising the creekFinally getting around to an update! I put it off while we waited to get internet installed at home, but have now had internet for 2 weeks so no excuses!
All's well here...Jim is really enjoying his new job now that he's finally getting to focus on it. Chloe's been in school for a month now, and seems to have settled right in. She's off to Wild Wadi water park today with some new friends, and she has been busy every weekend since school started so I am very pleased! She's getting used to being the only white person at times, but that's not a bad experience to get coming from little Gibsons. Though 75% of the kids at her school are American citizens, most are of Arabic or Indian/Pakistani descent. It was actually a tough job to find a school here; there seemed to be dozens of schools using the American curriculum, but many cater exclusively to Arabic or Indian children. There were only 3 that had a more mixed, international student body, and 2 of those were completely full! I think we were lucky to get her a place at all. There is a home-based school here that gets used as a backup when kids can't find a place, but I'm thinking it would be a little harder to make friends that way. Anyway, the school she's in has a good proportion of Canadian and American teachers and a good student mix. Unfortunately, it's not as great as the school she attended in Moscow, but it does seem to be a good solid choice. It offers the International Baccalaureate, an advantageous addition to a regular high-school diploma which provides a boost when applying for university. Mainly, she is really missing the Moscow cafeteria, which opened for breakfast and served espresso, a sandwich bar, and sushi. I'm attaching a picture of her in her uniform, please don't tell her. She was fond of it at first (much quicker to get dressed in the morning), but is now hankering for some individuality.
I've found some organized Expat coffee mornings where I've met some nice women to explore the city with. Sadly, the one I've connected with most is moving back to England at the end of March, but hopefully I'll be working soon and won't get too lonely. There is certainly not as much to do here as there was in Moscow...I'm sure by the time my new friend Nikki goes home, I'll be pretty satisfied that I've had a good look around at the hotspots. We've checked out the main shopping areas (seems to be the top pastime here), and have some plans to get out some more. My friend Silver is visiting next week from Moscow, I'm very excited to get the chance to tour around some more with her, and just hang out a bit in the sun. It's still around 30 degrees here, so not horrifically hot yet. I hear that in the summer, it frequently hits 50 degrees and gets too hot to step outside. I'm hoping whatever job I find allows me to go home to Gibsons for the summer! Speaking of the job search, I have NO IDEA what kind of job I'll be looking for. I have an appointment to see a recruiter this coming week. I've been checking out the classifieds, and the jobs here seem to be either too poorly-paid (retail, coffee shops, etc), or require an actual profession and a gazillion years experience in the UAE. I'm guessing I'll be looking at some kind of retail management or customer service training...but maybe the recruiter will have other, better ideas for me.
A few thoughts on life in Dubai...generally, it's an easy place to live for an expat. My only comparison is Moscow, but the grocery shopping is easier here, getting around is quite easy (but you need a car), and, in theory, everyone speaks English. The population here is roughly 8% Emirati (local), 80% other Arabs and Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi and Philipino, and the rest Western Expats (LOTS from South Africa, Australia, England & less from the rest of Europe and North America). So the whole English thing breaks down fairly regularly; yes, it's the common language, but there are so many accents and varying degrees of proficiency that communication is not always easy. There are funny things too, like I've noticed the Indians don't seem to want to disappoint you, so the taxi driver will say he knows where you want to go but may have no idea what you said. I drove around for ages one day before I realized the cab driver thought I'd said "the place for driver's lessons", when I was trying to find the place to get my license. The other funny time was when a taxi driver said he couldn't understand Jim's accent. Um, hang on, Jim's the one who's a native speaker...
The other fun part of Dubai, and we are nearly out of the woods on this one, is the insane amount of red tape, paperwork and endless discussions involved in getting anything done (like all the things needed to set up a new home!). I stayed in our apartment for close to 2 weeks when we moved in, waiting for various repair and service people to show up. The cable guy promised to come "tomorrow" for a full seven days before I finally lost it on the phone & yelled at both the dispatcher and the cable hook-up guy about their appalling service and terrible communication. Now, you know me -- I don't like losing it and yelling at people! But it turned out to be the only way to actually get the guy to come to the house, because he arrived the next morning at 9am. The final straw had come when he was supposed to be here at 4pm on a certain day, and I was to phone him if he didn't arrive at 4. When I phoned, he was in Abu Dhabi, about 2 hours away! Then the dispatcher pulled out the famous and oft-repeated "Inshallah", which means "God willing", as in "he will be there tomorrow morning, Inshallah". This is when I shouted "Don't you Inshallah me! He'd better be here!". I've since learned that every new expat is driven to shout "don't you Inshallah me" at some point. Variations of this same process have been repeated for installing the phoneline, having appliances and furniture delivered (4 separate instances), getting water and gas hooked up, and dealing with ENDLESS visits from the building repair teams. When we moved in, Jim submitted a list of 6 or so things that needed fixing. Each item seemed to require several visits from packs of small men with bare feet, first to look and assess, then to attempt to fix. I got very tired of having these groups trooping through the house several times a day while I was home alone. My favorite, though, was when FIVE men came to get my signature saying a previous repair had been completed. At least they didn't have to come inside for that one. The last paperwork-heavy task is buying our cars, and we should be finished with that this week. Halleluia!
Living Room
Dining RoomThat's all for now...check out the photos of a dinner cruise, the main rooms of our little apartment, and our terrible view from our balcony. We don't sit out there much, you'll see why. I did get a bouganvillea to cheer me up. There are nicer areas of Dubai for living, but we chose the area that would allow us to actually save money rather than get overdrawn to pay rent. I occaisionally get jealous of other people's fancy villas or Marina views, but I'll be ok. We all like our apartment, and the advantage to living in a mainly Indian neighbourhood is the fabulous, and fabulously cheap, Indian takeaway restaurants. At least once a week, we get Indian delivered...usually enough to feed an army for about $30. I'm having leftovers for lunch today.
Terrible View
No comments:
Post a Comment