Post #1!

The following recounts the first few days of our lives in the emirate of Dubai. We arrived after 3 long flights. We flew on Luftansa. I have never flown anything other than Air Canada, the now dead Zoom airlines or Ryan Air for international flights, so you can imagine my surprise when I was given food that wasn’t bits or bites or cookies for free. Booze was also free. This is one of the reasons it is a shame that we give all of our money to 2 airlines in Canada.

Anyway, upon our arrival, our Superintendent, our principle, and one of our counselors greeted us. We rode in a school bus (all school buses resemble Scoobydoo vans) and arrived at our apartment at around 12:30 am local time. As we drove to our apartment along the massive Sheik Zayed road, we saw a few of the big landmarks including the Burj Khalifa, the current tallest building in the world, as well as the Burj Al Arab. When we walked into our apartment, we were pleasantly surprised with our 2 and a half bathrooms and bum hoses.

Having arrived during Ramadan, we had some adjusting to do. In the U.A.E. you can be fined for eating or drinking in public during daylight. This can be tough to deal with, as it is very hot and humid during the day. We would try and deal with this by drinking a lot of water and always snacking before heading out. One day was especially rough when we went Ikea shopping. (Boohoo.. we couldn’t eat or drink when we shopped at Ikea… What a rough life…) Anyway, as we took turns, eating our sandwiches in the bathroom stall, mine turkey, spinach, and tomatoes and Megan’s turkey, spinach, tomatoes, and salty salty tears, we realized we had some adapting ahead of us. Megan is now forcing me to tell about how I did not want to spend any money at Ikea, since we already had two forks and two knives, why buy anymore?

Upon our return home, I immediately felt that now was the time that I needed to walk a couple of blocks and pick up a TV from Megan’s buddy mentor down the road. I told Megan my plan to steal a shopping cart from Lulu Hypermarket, load the TV, and we’d be on our merry way to watching the dwarf version of me sing songs of epic heroes to inspire my party right before my war hound and I slay the Shapeshifter, Flemeth. Also we could watch Big Love. Megan refused to assist me with my plan, saying that it was noon and too hot. She was also apparently still hungry for the wet salt of her tear ducts.

Thus, I set out on my own, across the sidewalkless neighborhood of Al Barsha to acquire the cure for my boredom caused by an excess of 8-bit stimuli at a young age. The TV that was being given to us was one of those 32 inch tube TV’s that is deeper than it is tall and wide. It fit in the shopping cart if I tilted the screen up against one of the sides the way a couch can fit into a yogurt container. Outside, as soon as I passed over the slightest incline, the cart fell over and the TV was going with it. I attempted to block the screen from smashing against the pavement by quickly kicking my leg out in front of it as it tipped. Success! The TV was still intact. As I sweated and fought back tears in the middle of the street, a nice Indian man helped put the TV back into the cart. I then pushed the load 2 more steps and the cart toppled over again. This time, the screen did not smash but it had definitely caved in a bit. Some workers at an Indian restaurant then came over to make way too many tsking sounds at me for a while. Seriously. The guy was just shaking his head and tsking like 4 tsks a second for a while before telling me that JVC was a good brand but he didn’t think it was going to work anymore.

Luckily, a cab driver drove passed as was willing to help me load the TV into his car. When I entered the cab, the cab driver asked me why I was trying to move the TV all by myself. After I told him that Megan would not help me, the man launched into a story about how couples are supposed to stick together, no matter what. I agreed with him. When I asked him if he had any kids, he said: “Of course! I have three boys.” He then told me about when he was first married in his village in India, his wife could not conceive. Some of the people of his village had told him that he should leave her. He knew that at that time, God did not want him to have a child, and that it was ok. He stayed with his wife even though many thought he should not. After 3 years, his wife became pregnant, so it was then clear that God wanted him to have a child.

After he dropped me off and helped me unload the TV, I attempted to tip the man the equivalent to $10 cdn for all of his help with the heavy lifting. He would not take it.

After this experience, I learned about how wrong Megan was for not helping me. I also learned about the strong faith in God of many Muslims as well as to what extent it could affect their daily lives. “In Shallah” is a phrase that is often spoken here, which means “God willing.” Often it is spoken after trying to confirm when a task will be completed. For a place that is often described as being “cultureless,” it’s nice to see some interesting differences between here and home.