Wild thing...

Well, there's no need for me to blog too much about the Maroon 5 concert I went to with Cathy, nor the Zoo trip we took with the kids: Cathy's already done all that, bless her. http://theogurs.blogspot.com/

Don't miss the rockin' Santa hat photo...

However, some more shots from the zoo. I love zoo photos, and I really love watching the kids watching the animals!

Golden Eagle

Tortoise Taxi

The Zoo here is loud, colorful, and smelly. Cost all of 2 Dhs each to enter, $0.54.

Thomas was free.

Good times.

I am so, so happy to have been found by a friend like Cathy and her great family. We are having a wonderful time together during the school holiday break.

And for those of you in the know, don't worry. I will be posting about the Horse Races and The Hat. I wouldn't hold out on you.

Return to sender....address unknown....

I hear it's almost Christmas.

I have to take the calendar's word for it. At this point in the season many of you are wishing you could escape the holiday pressures. Be careful what you wish for, my friend. The warm weather and lack of carols in most of Dubai makes for a serious lack of ho ho ho.

Considering we're in the middle of Islam and away from our families, I'm tickled to death to have any sort of holidays at all.

Now, about that whole gift giving card-sending element of the holiday...loving, thoughtful people are asking us where to send cards and gifts for our family. I have some bad news for you. Brace yourself.

First things first. We have neither a mailbox nor a mailing address. There are no mail delivery persons in Dubai. No, really.

You're shaking your head in disbelief, I know. You are sputtering: how can a huge metropolitan area not have addresses? Believe me, I ask the same question often enough when I'm driving around trying to find places. Most days I consider it part of the charm of the area, but not so much when I ask for directions and am told "It's off Sheik Zayed Road."

That's like saying "It's on 4-05."

There are areas, Umm Sequim, Jumeirah, Emirates Hills, and that helps to narrow it down. Then there are landmarks, and particular buildings, but you have to know where those are.
The signs are about 50-50 as to what to trust and follow. With all the construction, it can get a little hairy as to whether the way to get to a place is available this particular moment. Car navigation systems cringe and smoke comes out the back (perhaps I exaggerate slightly) if you turn them on here, an unkind thing to do in my opinion.

OK, you say, I get it. Still, surely we could send something to Mike's work.

It's true. They do have a PO Box. If you want to get mail, you get a PO Box. We could get one for ourselves if we really wanted to. But we don't want to, and this is why:

We're in a country that censors and such. We've had exactly one package sent to us so far. It had some paperwork (from Mike's Mom---the title to our car back in the US) and was flagged as "suspicious". Mike had to drive down to Abu Dhabi to claim and open the package in front of customs agents. As much as I love mail, I am really trying to dissuade people from sending it to us manually.

OK, you say. Fine. No boxes, no "real" Christmas card for you. Electronic era, I get it, maybe an online gift certificate! That would work, right?

Oh, no, my friend, sadly, it would not. Not even the little Starbucks gift cards work here. If they're not purchased in Dirhams they won't spend in Dirhams. This has caused expats, and the relatives of expats, much grief. The Brits tend to hold onto their gift certificates, take them back home on visits, spend them then, and bring back the loot. We aren't planning on going back to the US for a visit until next August, 8 months away, so it could sort of work, but not all that well.

All over Dubai this conversation is being repeated between expats and their loved ones back home. Bethy and Thomas and Mike and I know you love us. We'd love to get a nice long email from you. Email us some photos! We'd be completely tickled if you made a donation in our names to the charitable organisation of your choice. Even better, sponsor a child. Give money so some family in a third world country can have a goat, or a chicken, or safe drinking water. That would be an amazing gift for our kids, teaching them the true spirit of Christmas thorough your actions.

If there's a gift you HAVE to give the kids, tell me! I'll go pick it up for you, no problem. I'll even wrap it and take a photo of the kids opening it for you.

Lastly, we are not attempting anything from our family to yours beyond an ecard this year, so relieve yourself of any pressure! Not only would it be difficult to send all the people we love cards, (and expensive, of course!), you may recall that our computer crashed and died not too long after we got here and we lost all our snail mail addresses (with everything else on the hard drive.)

So please, we love you, we know you love us. Feel free to tell us as often as you like. If you have a special handmade card or family newsletter, if your kids want to draw our kids a picture, scan it and send the jpeg! That would be just wonderful.

Please allow me to introduce myself...

THIS is Snorkel Car:

A few of you have wondered what we have done since the Patrol is in the shop. (It is to remain in the shop as we have to wait for the Eid al Adha holidays to be over and a new fuel pump to come in.) Well, Mike had this little beauty up his sleeve. It's a Land Rover Defender 90. When we got the Patrol (christened "Bird Car" by Thomas for the falcon on the wheel cover), we got in good with the locals. Several times notes have been left on the windshield in parking lots:"If you want to sell this I will give you cash RIGHT NOW."

Now that we have our second vehicle, Arabs in their checkered headdresses are coming over to ask "Is this your car?" and shake Mike's hand, looking it over, telling him what a great car it is. It has turbo, a suspension like Jell-o, (it's bouncy and squishy) and is supremely engineered to deal with driving off-road.

And yes, it has a snorkel. A real snorkel.

No, I'm serious, this is not a joke; that thing on the passenger side of the windshield is designed to take in air for the engine in case we should, say, mostly submerge our car in water. Like in a wadi, for instance. As you can see, the passengers would be submarining underwater before the engine would cut out.

Tell me that's not cool.

Snorkel Car runs on diesel, and in Abu Dhabi Mike had to acquire a special card to allow him to purchase fuel. (It is so cheap here, people were stockpiling, so they had to find a way to regulate it.) On empty, and late at night after a long day of work, he went to the petrol station. First he had to convince the clerks that he couldn't wait until tomorrow to get diesel, even though they were busy and didn't want to take the time from the other customers to fill out the paperwork. (There is always paperwork.) Then he had to go get in line with all the trucks waiting to fuel up.

Upon seeing him, one local told Mike that he should go over to the regular pump station to fill up. No, Mike told him, I was sent here. The local marched Mike over to the first set of pumps, realised that yes indeed, Mike would have to wait in line with the trucks, then, as the line moved, he and his buddy cut Mike in. "Hurry hurry!" urging him into the empty spot in line.

This is not the usual way of things. This car ROCKS.

The expat who sold Snorkel Car to us was nearly choking up over selling "his baby". He not only has gear for practically every eventuality, he even had a box of Land Rover magazines for the connoisseur. Mike was very pleased with himself, and rightly so.

Please understand that this car is utterly unsuitable for what we need. It is not fast. It is loud, and not exactly a luxury sedan.

When we were driving through the flooded streets the other day (on the way to a 3 year old's birthday party) we unwittingly drove through sewer water, which came up through the vents in the front. You can imagine. The stench and ew factor were quite high. Fortunately only the parents in the front got it, and we made liberal and immediate use of perfumed baby wipes.

It doesn't matter. I encouraged Mike to buy Snorkel Car Defender because we're here, among other reasons, to have fun. Plus he's 40, what the heck.

One of Mike's co-workers is ex-Special Forces for the US military. When Mike showed up at work with the Defender this soldier said "Well, you've done it. I am jealous." Practically wiping a nostalgic tear from his eye, he reminisced "The last time I was in one of these I was with British forces coming out of Baghdad. There was a machine gun mounted right here."

Even I have gotten a little taste of the macho glory. After the Predictor Run, Adel Kfoory, a fellow runner from Egypt, was walking with Cathy and me back to the car. He asked if I was driving "the Beast."

Oh, yes, I answered, and he began to tell Cathy about me showing up in the big Patrol. Oh, no, I said, now we have a new car. There were four cars in the general direction of where we were going. He looked. He threw up his hands.

"NOT the Land Rover?" he exclaimed in delighted disbelief.

Oh yes, I told him.

Oh yes.

But yes, I'm still running...

(Thanks to Marek for these photos)

Rainbow at the beginning of the Dubai Creek Striders Half Marathon

First, apologies for the lapse between posts. I really do try to post every other day except our weekends, but we've been running around alot (literally and figuratively) and 3 out of 4 members of the family came down with a rotten fever that's been making the rounds here in Dubai. I didn't get it. As we all know, Mommies are not allowed to get sick if they can posssibly help it.

Now, back to that running around...

I have been though a major amount of frustration due to a foot injury. I broke the other foot previously, (at the UW during ballet class, no, I am not a dancer,) but walked around on that oblivious for quite a while before seeing a doctor who was almost as surprised as I was by the X-rays. He said it would never heal without surgery, and as it didn't bother me all that much, I walk around with a broken foot and couldn't care less.

This time, however, I had run with the Striders (and gotten lost with another runner, so we have no idea what our final milage was, probably 27 km or so---maybe 17 miles) and felt fine. Then I ran the Predictor the next night. I didn't realise anything was awry until the finish, then hobbled painfully back to the car. Something was very wrong. I whined, I medicated, I elevated and alternated soaked in near-scalding water and ice water. Nothing worked. Walking more than 1/4 mile made me limp with the pain. I was gimping around and watching my dream of the marathon in January slip away. A trip to a Sports Medicine/Orthopaedic surgeon confirmed this, and I was off running for 20 days.

20 days is too many days of training lost if you're 6 weeks out from attempting your first marathon.

The doctor took X-rays and said that though there weren't any bone splinters (which is very good) that it was a case of acute tendonitis, and gave me the oddest prescripton of my life: tumeric powder, crushed onion seeds, arnica, cod liver oil, glucosamine sulfate (this I was taking back in the states but hadn't taken here) and 2 sticks of celery. He said that anti-inflammatories inhibit collegen regeneration. I trusted this guy despite the odd script; not only had he been highly recommented to me, but he examined my feet and didn't so much as raise an eyebrow over the fact that I've run off most of my toenails So I went with his regime, and after the 20 days started running again. It was awful. It was like starting out all over again. The foot was healed, and for that I was grateful, but ugh. I ran a few miles with Graham and was ready to throw the towel in.

This of course made me a really fun person to be around, I am sure. I decided to be stubborn, but also to be smart. Regretfully, I gave up my dream of running the Dubai Marathon in January, and have set my sights on January 2010.

In the meantime, I had signed up for a half marathon before this all happened. I was truly worried about completing. Mike couldn't believe I was even going to go out and try, not that he tried to dissuade me. He merely asked me not to cripple myself.

Good plan.

The night before the Half I couldn't sleep. Thomas kept waking every 30 minutes or so with bad dreams (usually he sleeps like a rock, go figure) so I was in and out of bed anyway. I ended up getting maybe 4 hours of sleep, if that. 5 AM I walked out to meet Graham for a ride to the starting point, and we picked up Cai (short for Cainwen---she's a Greenwich, London UK girl, and the way she rolls her Rs is one of the prime joys in my life. She's also an incredible runner, completely gorgeous, and a lovely person all around) and drove down to the Dubai Creek Golf Club for the start. It was still dark, lightning rippling across the sky north of us, and the air was damp and cool. For me, it was perfect. Just like home.

We were all suffering from fits of nerves and I was very glad to have good company before the race. As the sky brightened, and the runners milled around restlessly, I kept telling myself, this one it to enjoy, run smart, nothing else. Nothing else.

Finally we were off. Despite many fearing that it would rain (I would have loved it, but not if it was accompanied by the usual high winds) the weather remained perfect and cool, (about 65F).

One of the best things about living in Dubai is that I can say something is brilliant. The course we ran was just that, brilliant. It might even have been camelicious. It was clearly marked, had course marshalls well placed, plentiful water stops, supplimented with fruit and electrolyte replacement fluids and even damp sponges for the runners.

The course went out around the golf course and up over Dubai Creek on Al Garhoud Bridge, (anything that adds vertical distance to a run makes me very happy in pancake flat Dubai. I love hills. Pacific NW girl! ) then over Al Maktoum Bridge and out along the Creek. I wasn't laboring, I wasn't hurting, I was a happy camper. Past groups of coppery-skinned construction workers who smiled and clapped for us, their colorful scarves beneath the yellow hard hats, then the waterfront workers, the yachts and Dhows, the swirling industry of the creek front, to the 10K checkpoint, one hour and 4 minutes into the race.

At each checkpoint you run over an electronic pad which registers the time chip worn on your shoe. I had dutifully attached mine with the ziptie provided, and in fact had joked with a fellow runner just minutes before how sad it was to see a jettisoned chip lost by some unlucky runner along the course. I looked down at my shoe as we approached, and the ziptie was there all right, but the chip was gone.

Oh, heck and then some. I ran up to the course officials there. "I've lost my chip, guys, what do I do?"

"You've had it then," one said, "no help for you, I'm afraid."

Running for me then. Not for a time.

I still had my race number pinned to my chest, and plenty of go in those legs and feet in which I'd despaired not terribly long ago. I didn't care all that much about getting an official time. As it was, I was nearly laughing out loud, greeting spectators, waving to little kids, thanking each and every racecourse marshal for coming out. Probably annoying the hell out of the runners around me for being so chipper.

As we ran out towards Port Rachid I got my first glimpse of that wonderful piece of history, unmistakably the soaring white ship topped with that distinctive red funnel; the QE2. How fantastic. I knew that she'd come to Dubai to stay, on a flotilla parade led by Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum in his yacht, people waving UAE and the Union Jack flags, fireworks and a jet flyover. How brilliant to get to see her during what was becoming the best race of my life.

The course then took an interesting turn: under the Creek. Down, down, down into a wide pleasant tunnel that must be very hot during the summer months. Now it was merely warm, air slightly stagnant. I loved floating down the ramps, zipping around the corners, hand squealing on the handrail like a little kid, zipping along the flat beneath the wide waters, then on my toes flying back up on the other side past and with verbal admiration from other runners who, sanely, aren't as fond of hills as I am.

The sun was fully up now, people milling about. Past Heritage Village, back along the long stretch of the Creek, the down into the Souks, where merchants were setting up for their day. We shared the passageway with Hindu men sporting newly placed orange dots on their foreheads, old old Arabic men with few teeth, milky eyes, and deeply ceased dark skin, young men carrying large loads across their shoulders. Ducking past a goat. How wonderful to be running thorough this. I couldn't imagine a racecourse through Pike Place in Seattle; here it was fitting.

After that it was just a matter of milage, and they went by easily enough. Back out into the streets, fewer than 5K, then 4, back over a bridge, past the wonderful guy playing his guitar for us as we sucked down some more fluids at a station, the smells of the Creek and the sound of our footfalls on the pavement and breathing...

The last bit, and suddenly I was running alone though the palm trees. I could hear the announcer up ahead somewhere among the twists and turns of the Golf Course road, calling out names and numbers as others passed beneath the finish banner. I joked with spectators even now, asking what was for breakfast, putting on a show of "sprinting" for the coffee.

Around the corner, final true sprint, and done.

Even though I had no time chip the announcer was really on the ball and called out my name, and I was handed my finisher's medal by one of the enthusiastic kids passing them out.

Now Graham and Cae (faster runners than I, as you might imagine) and I met up again, showered and changed in the club, and then went to breakfast. Not only was there coffee, but a gorgeous spread overlooking Dubai Creek. Real pork bacon. Real pork sausages with mustard. Fruits and breads and pastries and eggs and the ubiquitous tomatoes and beans. The good food and good company and sense of accomplishment were truly heaven. I wore my medal.

The trophies were beautifully detailed Arabic coffee pots, shining in the sun. Graham couldn't help himself and stole the Men's Overall Winner trophy, though just for a moment, until he was busted and put it back. "Just wanted to get close to it," he said in that unmistakably British voice of his.

We all squinted into the sun, cheered the winners, and had a rollicking good time.

Best of all, I could walk the next day. Albeit groaning like an old dog, but happy nevertheless.

Come on let it rain

Today Mike had our Patrol towed out from Abu Dhabi to Dubai; we await the diagnosis, which we may get tomorrow. Fortunately we've found a place we trust to do a good job. When we'll get the SUV back, however, is anybody's guess. Another sort of adventure.

Like all good Seattleites, we look to the rains as a part of "home". In Dubai, with winter comes cooler temperatures (85 instead of 115 F), clouds in the sky which is now blue instead of white, and yes, once in a while, rain.

When it rains, as the saying goes, it pours. The clouds tend to open up in individual areas, lightning and thunder rippling and cracking across the sky. It's rained several times for us so far, and we're loving it each time.

Winds come whipping through and the trees, recently planted in the sands, topple over. No worries, they get replanted within a day.


On the roads, however, it's a different proposition. The windshield wipers are...inadequate. The roads flood quickly. Drivers slow way, way down, which is good:



I think we are fitting into desert life well, since we, like any desert travellers, long for the rain.



Come on let it rain
Let it rain down on me
Let the rain touch my hands
Let the rain set me free
Let it rain down on me

-Melissa Etheridge

Through the wide open country that I love, don't fence me in...

I've been stuck in the somewhat uncomfortable situation of brushing up against lawlessness for a while now. When you are given your residency in the UAE your international driver's license immediately becomes invalid, and you need to apply for a UAE one. In my case, I need to apply for one from the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, since my residency comes from there, since Mike's residency comes from there, since his work is there. (Got that?)

It gets a little bit confusing as we live in the city of Dubai in the Emirate of Dubai. Like New York (city), New York (state), see? The city of Abu Dhabi is the capital of the UAE, incidentally. (Each emirate is named after the largest city within its borders. ) Now, I needed to get to Abu Dhai, 90 minutes or so away, to apply for my license, but no one could tell me where in Abu Dhabi I needed to go! The prospect of driving around a crowded city, without a driver's license, not knowing where I was going, held little appeal for me. I decided to take my chances and keep driving to a minimum until I could at least find out where to go.

You would think finding something out like that would be easy; alas, it was not. I looked online, asked around, checked various guide books. All sources were careful to enumerate the long list of paperwork that was needed to get the license, but where was not to be found. Here is a photo that sums it up perfectly:

Guidance and Directions: No information available.

Mike's company had driven him when we'd become eligible, so we decided to arrange a driver for me as well, bypassing the whole getting lost/can't find parking/having no license and getting in an accident that will be-my-fault-no-matter-what deal. We arranged this for Monday.

On Sunday I heard the following on the radio's top news, and then, in a panic, found the article on Gulf News:

***********************************************
No driver's licence for 100 categories of UAE workers

By Bassma Al Jandaly, Staff ReporterPublished: November 29, 2008, 23:31

Dubai: Authorities have decided to stop issuing driving licences to certain categories of residents to curb the sharp rise in the number of vehicles, Gulf News has learnt.

Residents belonging to up to 100 categories will not be given licences. These include nurses, cooks, carpenters, housemaids, watchmen, tailors, cafeteria waiters, unskilled labourers, gardeners and bakers.

People belonging to other categories, which do not require a university degree, will not be able to open a driving licence file at traffic police departments all over UAE.

A Sharjah Police official told Gulf News that the interior ministry has instructed traffic departments last week to stop opening driving licence files for people belonging to about 100 categories as mentioned in their residence visa.

***********************************************

My residency paperwork describes my official profession as "housewife" and makes no mention of my college and university degrees.

I decided the best course of action was to have a heart attack, freak out, run around like a chicken with its head cut off, stomp, swear, and call Mike.

I didn't look up the flight schedules for the soonest one out of here, but I can't deny it was in the back of my mind.

Both Mike and my friend Cathy chided me to calm down. Cathy told me something along the lines of "You've been here longer than I have. You know the rules aren't really the rules".

Still, after my last experience at the police station, I was pretty worried. I called the department of licensing in Abu Dhabi as soon as they opened, and after waiting a paltry 40 minutes on hold asked the nice English-speaking lady about the new law. (press 2 for English, almost always, very helpful for us.) She had no idea what I was talking about, saying that if I have a USA passport and driver's license and bring the paperwork, I should have no problem whatsoever.

The next morning I headed out to Abu Dhabi to meet Mike and the driver, and after 24 hours of worrying and wondering, I heard on the radio that the new law was only for residents of the emirate of Sharjah.

I told Cathy that we needed to hunt down the reporter named above and smack him silly for all the stress he caused. She agreed. I also gave her permission to tell me "I told you so" as many times as she deemed necessary.

It was kind of fun to point the car down the coast and just drive.

The Abu Dhabi DOL has a branch not far from Mike's work, in Al Taweehah. Another husband followed us with his wife so she could get a license there too. They parked closer to the building and got to go first. Getting the license was a matter of waiting my turn, forking over lots of documentation, taking an eye exam, and getting a photo taken, and then the machine that prints the licenses...broke. The other wife got the last one.

Maaaaaan.

So they wrote me a sort of permission slip note on my receipt for the process (in Arabic) allowing me to drive, and asked us to come back in 5 hours to see if it was ready yet. Mike drove me around his company's jobsite, to show me the fruits of his labors. It is out in the desert, on the Gulf, and there they are endlessly working to build the power plant on a huge scale. Very neat.

Then, as we were driving away... Mike said "something's wrong with the car," and we chugged to a stop along the side of the road, in the desert. Sigh again.

Here is a photo of a sign I took next to where we inadvertently parked:

Road Closed. Yup.

His co-worker, our 4x4 buddy, drove out to pick us up. We left the poor Patrol there, and Mike picked up a fuel filter last night, instead of my license, hoping that the fuel filter is the problem. He plans to drive out with a co-worker to install it today and see what happens. In the meantime, government offices are closed for the next ten days...it's a national holiday.


Nothing is ever easy, is it?

And now my life has changed in oh so many ways...

Our Sri Lankan house helper, Rani, has become a major presence in our home in just the few hours she is here. There is no question as to how much in charge she thinks she is. That would be, pretty much completely in charge. I have to be quite sneaky and savvy to get my way.



First Rani told me that a kitchen without wooden spoons is no good. (I purchased these spoons.)



Then she patiently explained to me that the knives we have are no good for cutting up chicken. (This I knew. They were a super cheap stopgap measure until we get some nice ones.)



Repeatedly she has chided me for not resealing the coffee bag carefully. If the aroma goes quick, no good. (I make the coffee at 4 am, I protest!)



I have learned as a survival measure to clean out the refrigerator and pantry when she's not around so as to not get scolded for waste: this is no good, too much waste madam why you do this?



However, I know to save all bread and non-spicy meats for the birds and cats by her home. If she should find such items in our garbage (dust bin or rubbish bin, here) I quake to think of what her judgement might be. I think she would have no compunction about going through our garbage since she also sniffs the clothing hanging in the closets to make sure we don't re-wear anything without laundering.



Rani has told me with scorn of other "fired" mistresses who did just this, or worse, tried to direct her cleaning powers. Rani does what Rani wants to do, and the way she wants to do it. This works just fine for me, most of the time. A few times I have expressed a preference, gently and subserviently, and we have remained a happy home.



I was very pleased one day when Rani started to lecture me on how people from other countries might be good or bad, and that it does no good to assume that someone from Pakistan is bad, since that's just a silly way to think.

I managed not to look anything but entirely serious when she told me this, though I might have indulged in a private smile and patted myself on the back later.



The other day Rani noticed that Thomas is left handed and began to correct him to use his right hand.



"Oh, no Rani," I told her, "it's OK with me if he's left handed."



Then I threw in the kicker: "I know that's not the Arab way, but it is just fine."



Rani is a Christian, and a Sri Lankan, no worries that she would try to make Thomas do something "Arab".



I also have my ace in the hole: Sir. (Mike to the rest of us).



I have made sure to strongly imply that Sir is He Who Must Be Pleased. I supposedly make absolutely no decisions without consulting Sir. Sir's supposed word is law. However, I also go out of my way to establish that Sir neither beats nor screams at Madam. Rani asked several times during her first weeks with us as to the character of Sir on these points, and I have assured her that he is both fair and kind, and that he works too hard.



As a mistress I think I'm not too tough to take. I make sure she doesn't have to spend her time tidying up when she gets here; rather I get everything out of her way, and make her tea and some sort of sweet. She keeps telling me that we're such good friends to her, that it's nice not to be yelled at, and though that may be manipulation on her part, I have certainly seen women treating their maids in a deplorable manner in the stores.

Rani, for all her strong personality, is genuinely grateful to us. She gives us gifts of plants that she's grown herself from clippings lifted from the neighbors and parks, and is great with the kids, though they don't listen to her one iota and Thomas has her completely wrapped around his little finger.

Her situation here is one of powerlessness on many levels. She has few rights, depends on others for housing and transportation, and works very, very hard. She works six days a week, and ends her day by reading the bible for hours and prays in the early hours of the morning. She loves to sing with her choir, to gossip (though she fancies herself above it, another source of amusement for me), and to tell stories of Sri Lanka.

I was amazed to discover she'd never heard the Kipling story of the mongoose Rikki Tikki Tavi and we pulled up the Chuck Jones animated version on YouTube for her. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qhBxv7r5gg ) She had lots of stories to tell about cobras after that one!

I try to help her out by taking her and her friend Mali on short errands that they need to do, and the other night she asked if I would mind taking her to the grocery store on the way home to mail a birthday card to her adult son.

No problem at all, I said.



When we got there she said "Madam, my hand, you help me. My hand has only 10 dirhams and the stamps may be more than 10 dirhams, my hand has only 10, you pay?"



I gave her another 10 Dhs bill, and she went off with Mali to buy stamps. Soon she came back, looking distressed. "They have no stamps, maybe Monday." she said.

I was buying milk and eggs anyway, so I asked my cashier if he had any stamps, and gleefully bought ten 5 Dhs stamps, not knowing how much it might cost and figuring I could use the others.

Coming out into the dark where Rani and Mali were waiting, I waved the stamps to their delight. Rani had mistakenly asked for Sri Lankan stamps instead of UAE stamps "Madam, I am too much crazy!" she said, shaking her head. Mali took the stamps and began to separate the margins from the sides. Rani was hugging me and laughing at herself, and then we both turned back to Mali, just as she put the card into the postbox. (The first one I've seen here, incidently!)



Where are the rest of the stamps? I asked Mali.

"On the card Madam, I have mailed this card Madam," she said proudly.



In her zealous desire to be helpful she'd put all 50 dirham worth of stamps on the envelope.

I haven't the faintest clue as to how much it costs to mail a card to Sri Lanka, but I bet it doesn't cost $13. 61.



"Mali!" I blurted, "That was 50 dirhams worth of stamps!"


Poor Mali. She and Rani both looked horrified at the waste. We looked at the postbox, as inpenetratable as it should be, and I burst out laughing. Mali and Rani looked at each other and tentatively tried on small smiles for size. Never mind, I told them, never mind.

Then both women clapped their hands to their cheeks, eyes huge in the darkness.


Don't tell Sir! They exclaimed.