Only in Dubai part 5

I haven't done one of these for ages and ages, so I though it was high time.


Only in Dubai……


* do people gush to each other about the lovely cool weather when it's 36 degrees and there has a lot of gushing about it recently. Just this morning I took Darbs to the park at 8am and kept thinking "This weather is so lovely and cool", when I got in the car they said it was currently 31 degrees, I'm not sure how my thin blood will acclimatise to cold weather again!

* do you sit on your balcony and literally in the space of 15 seconds see a Lamborghini, a Maclaren SLS, a hot pink Ferarri and two Bentleys drive past.

* will you overhear a group of 8-year-olds earnestly discuss whether the best ice-cream comes from Paris, Rome or Llubjana.

* do you chuckle when the weather announcer on the radio predicts there is a slight chance of rain later in the evening.

* do your friends go to places like Sri Lanka, Istanbul and Jordan for the weekend.

* do you expect every meal out to be all you can eat and drink.

* do you see clouds and wonder whether the schools will close early.

* do you call to make an appointment with a specialist and are sitting in the specialist's office 40 minutes later.

Happy Halloween

Witches Hat cookies for the school bake sale. 

Last Thursday we were celebrating Diwali, this Thursday it's Halloween. The girls went off to school this morning brimming with excitement in their book character costumes (no scary costumes allowed, book characters only) carrying plates of witches hats and monster eye cookies. As Friday is part of our weekend, we'll take the kids to a Halloween party with some other school friends instead of trick-or-treating. 

From October to December there seems to be something each week to celebrate in Dubai - Eid, Islamic New Year, Diwali, National Day and Christmas. Then there are the sporting events - Cricket, Formula 1 and the Rugby 7s. It's a non-stop busy time. But I like it.

I know Halloween can be a little controversial in Australia, but I think it's a whole lot of fun. What's so bad about dressing up and eating lollies? The kids were all so excited at school this morning. There were more than their fair share of Spidermans and Elsa's, but there were also some fantastic original costumes too – one little boy came as Max from Where the Wild Things Are, such a simple costume, a grey tracksuit with a hoodie, a cardboard gold crown and a tail and he looked fantastic. The girls went dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and The Little Witch. Lil-lil's ruby red slippers were made by covering her normal shoes with shiny red wrapping paper and attaching it with contact – you could hear her coming from a mile away but she looked great.

I always try to explain the holidays they are celebrating and their significance, so I was amused to over hear this conversation recently between the girls:

"What's Halloween for?"
"I dunno. It's not Christian, Muslim or Hindu so it must be Jewish or Buddhist I think."

I hope your Halloween is full of treats and very little tricks. Happy Halloween!

Happy Diwali!

Today is Diwali - the Hindu festival of lights. Diwali is an ancient festival that celebrates the victory of good over bad, or light over dark. To celebrate, Indians clean and renovate their homes, decorate them in all sorts of lights (to remember that light always overcomes darkness), they also decorate with beautiful colourful designs. They celebrate by wearing new clothes and eating special sweets.

How do I know all this you ask? Well, approximately 50% of Dubai's population is Indian, so Diwali is very widely celebrated here. Many homes are decorated with lights, the supermarkets are decorated and sell special Indian sweets. This morning I attended a special assembly at the girls school where the Indian teachers wore their beautiful saris is a rainbow of rich colours. They lit tea lights (diyas) and explained to the kids about the significance of Diwali. At the end of the assembly the kids got up and danced to Bollywood music. There was a real feeling of celebration. It was wonderful to see the teachers from all nationalities wearing saris and abayas and dancing together.

Later in the class the kids will share Indian sweets and do Diwali arts and crafts. I truly love how the girls (and I) are learning so much about the richness of other cultures and getting the opportunity to share the celebrations.

At work today, Skip's office will order in an Indian banquet from everyone to share. So, Darbs and I don't miss out, I think we too will have Indian for lunch and buy some sweets to share tonight with everyone.

I know there are many Diwali celebrations around the globe, including a Festival of Lights in Federation Square in Melbourne this weekend, so I hope you get to celebrate too. If nothing else crack out the Bollywood music and have a dance.

Happy Diwali!

Eight is enough

Daydreaming in Italy. 

It's Lil's birthday today. Eight years old! How can that even be possible? And yet, I look at Lil and she is indeed eight years old. She's tall and lanky. She's got all these new teeth. Her face has changed shaped. She laughs a lot. I'm so proud of her.

Seven was a tough year for her learning a lot of life lessons, but I have a good feeling about eight. She has a good group of friends, she's well liked. She was just voted as her class representative on the student council. She loves school and being part of it all.

She still loves to sing and dance and draw. She wants to be "a famous artist, just like Aunty Shell". She tells me, "I want to paint my feelings and share them". She loves to learn about great people in history and is always giving me facts about Rosa Parks, Marie Curie and Queen Victoria.

She still loves spaghetti bolognese more than anything else, except maybe sushi.

She loves to travel and try new food (although she'll never try them at home) - giant sausages and prunes wrapped in bacon in Germany. Different pastas in Italy. Fish dishes in Slovenia. Rice and meat in Oman. She really wants a suitcase all of her own to travel with and gets excited about visiting new places – even if it's only a hour stopover! She has a long list of places she wants to visit.

She misses her family and gets nostalgic about all things Australian. She misses her Australian accent. Although she loves Dubai and loves to show people her adopted home.

She still wakes at the crack of dawn and sleeps in, well, never. No matter how late she's been up the night before. She's definitely a lark.

She's very sweet, very polite. She's very kind yet very dramatic and emotional. She loves to day dream. She can walk for miles without a whinge.

She's our Lil-lil.

Only the lonely

Living in Dubai can be lonely at times. It's such a transient place, with people coming and going all the time, that you have to be 'out' and making new friends constantly. In the two years that we've lived here,  the friends who we've had BBQs with, spent weekends camping with, shared milestones with now live in places like Dublin, Vienna, Buenos Aires, Singapore and Montreal.

It can be exhausting always trying to be 'on', always trying to find like-minded people to connect with and share milestones with. I'm not naturally a person who feels comfortable striking up conversations with strangers. Being shy and, occasionally, socially awkward doesn't make it easy. Also not going to a work place each days, means that you really have to make a big effort to connect with people. Talking to strangers, turning up at groups, smiling at that person and making small talk to find that 'connection'. When you finally do reach out and make that connection, create that friendship and share those milestones, it's likely that they'll soon be packing their bags and you have to start all over again.

That's why it can be very lonely. It's very easy for me some days to only talk to the people who live inside the walls of my home. When those conversations centre around Spiderman, Zelfs and homework, it can make it lonelier. 

While it's nice to have met wonderful people and have Facebook friends all around the world who you can 'drop' in on, it's much nicer to have those friends to chat with at school drop-off, to call when you're completely confused at Mall of the Emirates and to laugh with over the weekend.

Expat life can be incredible, so rich and rewarding. The places you go, the experiences you have and the people you meet. It's unlike anything else. As with anything there has to be a downside and for me, this is it.

Endless oil

Recently, I found myself lying in a room in Karama lit only with dim, bare globe hanging from the ceiling. I was naked except for a towel, Indian muzack of Endless Love being pumped through the vents and my body was dripping with oil. I mean dripping with so much oil that I felt (and probably looked) like a rotisserie chicken. It had been massaged into every part of my body, including my hair.

A friend treated me to a very traditional ayurvedic massage in the Indian part of town. Not one to turn down an experience that I wouldn't normally get to have in Australia, of course I said yes.

We headed to Karama and went through an old shopping centre and up a dark flight of stairs and then through a set of winding corridors. Then through another small door where I was welcomed into the small massage room. After about 45 minutes of pounding and being scalded with oil and hot herb compresses and worrying where that oil and her fingers were going to end up, the lady masseuse left the room and I was left wondering what I'd gotten myself into.

Soon she came back, interrupting my humming to Endless Love, told me to wrap myself in my towel and follow her out of the room. Around through some more winding corridors she opened a door which let out billowing clouds of steam. She pointed me inside the room and shut the door behind me. I shuffled in, unable to see a darn thing until the shape of a person became clear. I hesitantly looked at them until I realised it was my friend and burst out laughing in relief. After a few minutes in the steam, I showered and attempted to wash the copious amounts of oil from my skin and hair.

Feeling strangely relaxed and once again dressed, if not a little oily. We set off for an Indian meal, a feast of prawns and crabs and chicken and lentils washed down with tropical juices.

I'm not sure if I will be heading back in a hurry, but it's just another one of those things to tick off the list.

Can she fix it?

Not so long ago, I had to make a trip to Satwa, a lively area of Dubai filled with fabric shops, electronic shops, Indian and Pakistani restaurants. When you go there you could almost be in India or somewhere other than Dubai. I love going down there, but on this particular day I was on a mission. One of the girls had chewed (?!) through the cord on a pair of headphones and I wanted to find someone to reattach the plug. After a a short walk and a bit of guidance from another shop owner I found myself walking into a shop, filled to the roof of old TVs, stereos, ghettoblasters, old computer boards and all sorts of electronics. I watched in awe as the man behind the counter soldered and snipped and put the plug back onto the headphones in a matter of minutes.

It's funny how sometimes you never really notice parts of your own personality until someone points it out to you. Skip has always chuckled at me and my need to know how things works. If we go to a hotel, I'll need to work out the lights and how the windows open and if something isn't quite as it should be I won't stop fiddling until I work it out. The same goes with new appliances or flatpack furniture. Skip will leave them and know that I won't rest until I've got it plugged in, set up and functioning. I never thought it was particularly unique, but apparently it is.

Recently, we got a new aquarium and the pump/filter started making a strange noise, before I knew it I'd pulled the pump apart and was cleaning it out and trying to work out what was making the strange noise. I fixed it. Of course I did. Then the lid to the aquarium didn't fit properly and instead of taking it back and exchanging it like a normal person, I fiddled and played and melted and shaved until I got that sucker to fit. The pump started making the strange noise again at 2am today and I got up and started to fiddle with it until I made myself just turn the bloody thing off and go back to bed.

Another time, we bought the girls these cheap tablets, after a short while the on/off button on one of them broke. Before long, and much to Skip's horror, I had pulled the thing apart and tried to fix it. I think I may have even muttered the words: "If I had a soldering iron I could fix this properly," much to Skip's mirth. I fixed it though.

I love problem solving and seeing how things work. Like other people can't rest until a mess is cleaned up or the washing put away, I can't rest until I've worked out how something works.

As I watched this electrical repair guy in Satwa, just mesmerised as he worked, I realised that he had my ideal job. In a different time or a different life, I'd be happy as Larry sitting in my own little shop, soldering away, fixing things, solving problems. Making things that people had given up on work again.

If life had taken a few different turns, do have a secret skill (or quirk) that could have set you up in new job or way of life?