Category: being

Back when we were deciding whether or not we should move to Abu Dhabi, we came for a visit and various people showed us various things which were variously convincing or not. One evening, we sat around a table with some of the mister’s colleagues and they showed us the photos of their recent trip to Jordan.

I was utterly captivated by their photos and declared that the Dead Sea would be a wonderful place to spend my 40th birthday. There were other things that clinched the deal, but that moment was one of the defining moments in our decision-making.

We didn’t quite get to Jordan for my 40th, but have just returned from a 6 day trip, and it was bloody brilliant.

Here’s a picture of the lads running to catch up with us at Jerash. They are running, not sitting around moaning about the heat and the long walk and so on, because I have just called down to them that I’ve found us a shortcut (‘you’re good’, the mister said with awe in his voice as we watched the lads jump up and begin to run).

Here are some bagpipers in the amphitheatre of the Roman ruins at Jerash. No, I cannot explain the bagpipes. I’m good, but I’m not that good.

Here’s me and the lads at Petra. How the mister managed to get this photo without anyone between the camera and us I will never know. It is high season in Jordan at the moment, and there was possibly a gazillion of us modern day humans at Petra that day.

And here is a photo of me floating in the Dead Sea. How do you know it is the Dead Sea and not just some other random sea? Because I am in it. Have you ever heard of me being in the sea? Case, I rest it. I stayed in until I could feel my nipples stinging which was a little less time than you might imagine.

The lads, they hated being in the Dead Sea and lasted about ten seconds. It is, I think, pretty much a been there, done that kind of experience, in that the weirdness of it was rather brilliant but not something I will ever feel the urge to repeat.

I have a friend who says of things, ‘It is to be seen’ and that Jordan is. I mean Petra was absolutely one of the most stunning places I have ever been. But what I really loved was being immersed in an Arabic and Islamic culture. The difference between there and here is that in Jordan we were surrounded by Arabic speakers – in the shops and the hotels and the cafes and on the street. Here, there are of course many, many Arabic speakers but so many of the casual interactions in a day are in English. I think this is probably because in Jordan, there is much less reliance on imported labour. While a lot of people have moved to Jordan from other countries (65% of the population are Palestinian-Jordanian and there’s also a lot of refugees from Iraq), it is not like here where around 80% of the population is expat labour. Many expats are from Arabic-speaking countries such as Egypt and Lebanon and Jordan, but there’s also a substantial number of ‘western expats’ and expats from countries such as the Philippines. Our common language is English and for someone like me, English dominates our interactions.

One of the real pities about living here is that we are not learning more Arabic. I have had a few lessons, but haven’t even really got my head around the alphabet and while I’m full of good intentions, I think realistically, I’m unlikely to leave with anything more substantial than the most basic of greetings. The thing is that it would be so much easier to learn in a place like Jordan where any language skills would get much more of a workout. In my job, I would have had much more of an opportunity, because the 4 other members of my team were all native Arabic speakers, but now I’m not there I barely come into contact with the Arabic language from one day to the next. This is sort of my own fault and sort of something over which I don’t have much control.

Anyway, this isn’t supposed to be a post about what’s wrong with living here. It’s supposed to be about what an excellent time we had in Jordan. Which we did. And you know, on a clear day when you’re bobbing up and down in the Dead Sea, you can see clear across to Jerusalem. Makes you think, that does.

Here is a photo from Mt Nebo which is one of the places where Moses stood. In the distance you can’t see the Dead Sea or the Promised Land, but Moses could because it wasn’t so dusty when he was standing there and because he was looking at the real thing and not some hastily taken photo.

So, I just realised something so amazing that I have to put it on facebook and my blog.

Next year, on 4th of the 2nd, I will turn 42.

Even the mister – a greater skeptic than you can even hope to be – agrees that there has got to be some celestial significance in that.

They struggle a bit to find their own spaces, the lads do. They have to share their books, and the games are all communal. We don’t even really know who owns this T shirt, these shorts, those underpants. Given the logistical difficulties with getting around Abu Dhabi (and plus, did I mention I hate driving) I don’t do any after school stuff that they can’t both do. They do all of the same things all of the time. They always have which has always partly been because I’ve been so very tired ever since they were born really, and the fact that we get anywhere at all sometimes surprises me. They have a pretty intense relationship which makes our jobs as the adults in their lives sometimes simple, sometimes complex.

Until last night, they were even sharing a bed. When they were little, they would start off in separate beds, but we would always find them snuggled in together when we went off to bed, then, when we moved here, we inherited a double and a queen and we just never got around to getting them another bed. And anyway, we do the usual bed hopping that lots of families with young children do me here, him there, that boy here, that boy there. We don’t co-sleep, but the arrangements have always been fairly fluid, especially because I’ve spent a lot of time alone with them and often we’ve gone to bed at the same time.

But that’s changing. Last night, they slept not just in separate beds, but separate rooms. It was all planned and arranged by youngest lad. And while he, youngest lad, was busy organising his new space and his books and his lego and his pokemon cards, eldest was saying, ‘Mum, will you snuggle me before I go to sleep?’

Image: leaving Istanbul train station on their first ever overnight train journey.

On the days that the person I think I am aligns with the person I really am, I find myself more exhausted than you’d expect.

The mister was even less impressed by my decision to pay for a horoscope chart than I thought he would be.

One bad thing: in typical Abu Dhabi style, the gym of which I am a member has just implemented some enormous changes without really thinking through the impact of those changes. They seem, for example, to have given reciprocal rights to members of the Ladies’ Club which means that now all of those women come over for classes. The result is that the numbers of people at the morning classes have increased to completely unsustainable levels. I think it would have been more sensible to run more classes over at the Ladies’ Club because there just isn’t room in the studio anymore and it’s getting very rough and tumble as people jostle for position. I’m enjoying the classes less and less, and every day I find myself less inclined to return. I’m not entirely sure what to do about this, as my mental wellbeing rests absolutely on my attendance at those classes, and I am not at all sporty or athletic, so don’t know what I could do in their place.

One good thing: flickr has just been unblocked. Can anyone send me the user name of my account? It’s been so long since I used it, I can’t remember who I am!

I was surprised to find my brain asking of itself, this 2010 morning, ‘Who shot JR?’, but shocked to find it answered quite uncertainly, ‘Was it Kristin?’

For a few years when it was started, I was still young enough that I was supposed to be in bed when Dallas was on, so I had to watch it through the crack of my bedroom door being careful not to shift my weight on the creaking floorboard or, without a word, my mother would push the loungeroom door closed just to the point that I could no longer see the television. In such cases, I would go back to bed, my radio under my pillow because, for some reason I never understood, our local television station, GTS BKN could also be heard on the radio.

Now of course, I can watch Dallas any old time.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb0Se8NaYlE&fs=1&hl=en_US]

I do know how those AFL players are feeling right now. In my first ever game of netball, the score was declared as forty nil, and for the rest of that week I believed that nil meant draw. Apparently oblivious to the fact that I had not witnessed our team shoot a single goal.

We were at Lips the other day after school (Lips is the one just on the right of the fountain after you’ve walked in the entrance of Marina Mall).

We had a long discussion about the merits of milkshakes versus smoothies versus juices. I know I’m kidding myself ever so slightly, but I feel that the smoothie is packed full of goodness – on account of using the real fruit – while the milkshake undermines itself with the use of that rubbish flavouring. In addition, in this part of the world, the milkshake or iced chocolate tends to arrive smothered in that dreadful fake cream. In short, apart from the milk, the milkshake is just a glass of fake food.

The conversation ended when I agreed that we would order milkshakes this time, smoothies the next time. Eldest child ordered strawberry rather than chocolate and tried to tell me that was healthy because it was strawberry. Yeah, not so much.

Anyway, we’d just finished the discussion and put in our order when a reporter from The National came and asked whether we could give our opinions about some new regulations (or rules or guidelines or legislation, not sure exactly which) governing foods in schools and interviewed my children about their school lunches.

After she had gone, I had to endure yet another conversation about how *everybody* else gets donuts and muffins from the store.

Youngest child’s current coveted foodstuff is ‘cheese dunks’ which is a packet, and you peel the top off and then you dunk your crackers in the cheese (and I’m sure that cheese is more ‘cheese’ than cheese).

‘No chance,’ I said. And then the milkshakes arrived.

(For the record, I ordered a drink called an Arabian Night which is fruit juice and I suspect a fair lashing of the grenadine syrup you often get with your lemon mint juice, a syrup to which I am more than a little partial).

PS The mister and I diverge even more wildly on the merits of fake cream than we do about Coke. The mister has something more than a soft spot for the kitchener bun and is outraged whenever a bakery gives him one that has real cream and not that other dreadful stuff. Myself, I am happy to dip my finger into the kitchener bun, remind myself about the fake cream and move on.