Let me reach, let me beach, on the shores...

We're back from Oman. It was a wonderful trip, and an amazing contrast from cosmopolitan Dubai. Friendly but foreign, exotic. We made new friends, ate questionable foods, and took a lot of photos.

Just one for now. Colleen and a Sea Turtle at the nesting grounds of Ras-al-Jinz at sunrise.

These are the days...

The kids are SO happy to be with Grandma Colleen and Pa. (We are too!) Here they are in the Gold Souk:

We're off to the Sultanate of Oman tomorrow, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oman) and will be away from the computer for several days.

This is good timing. Internet service in the entire Middle East has been iffy; apparently an underwater cable in the Atlantic was damaged and won't be fixed for several more days. So don't worry if e-mails to us get bounced back. Ours aren't going out either, very annoying. The blog seems to be working right now, so I'm posting quickly...

See you when we get back next week!

A million miles away (part 2 of tale)

(continued)

Out in the desert, other folks began to show up at Camel Hump Rock. A German lady (with the world's longest, bushiest armpit hair ever...no really, she didn't even need to lift her arms to share that fact!) asked Mike to take her photograph. More 4x4s. Then the Emiratis came on the scene, to hoots and exuberant yells from the growing crowd.




Why the excitement, you ask?



Ah. You see, these guys can really drive. This was a 2-wheel drive. No seat belts.



And they go everywhere.

After they moved on, we did too. Crowds driving on the steep slopes and in the dunes where often you can't see over the dune you're ascending is not the safest of situations.



Plus, we'd already clonked into the rock.



Our group wanted to go to Fossil Rock, and hadn't made it last time. (Yes, there are fossils throughout the rock). We headed out...could see it...and one of the members of our party got stuck. The only time any of us got stuck, which was pretty amazing. He was impressively stuck. Took a long time to pull him out. No one minded.



In the meantime, the fellow who had wired his radiator back on (to the Chevy he loved so much he'd had it shipped out from the USA at considerable cost) had lost a piece or two off his vehicle, and the water for his engine kept inexplicably boiling over. The Chevy had also lost its rumble and sounded remarkably like its engine had been replaced with one of those whiny ones that power remote-control model airplanes.

Camel Enclosure

We made it, finally, to Fossil Rock. Thomas took one look and said "Look at the big mountain! That's a big mountain. Can I climb on it?"

Thomas guides Mike up Fossil Rock

ATVs and motorbikes bounced past, flying the red, white, green and black flag of the UAE. Engines cried out in anguish, sputtered and buzzed as their owners worked the throttles.

The view was wonderful, a white settlement below, the desert stretching out all around us. It felt so good to be up on a mountain.

We bumped and wound our way back out of the desert sands towards the roads. Our GPS (Mike's new toy) had a crazy pattern of lines showing where we'd gone, and tried to go. Past some camels, strolling unconcernedly back towards Fossil Rock, lastly pulling over to refill the air in the tires.

My job was to keep the kids off the desert track, where vehicles were whizzing past. Bethy was climbing a prickly, wonderfully twisted tree, in her bare feet, so my attention was mostly on her. I turned around to check on Thomas' status, and there he was.

He'd stuck his little arm, up to the elbow, into a hole in the ground.

(!!!)

All my neurons fired at once: SNAKE!!!!

I'm getting really good at this moving quickly stuff.

All is quiet on New Year's Day...

Had to interrupt the story for a news flash.

Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai has cancelled New Year's Eve. No, really. He can and he did.

As far as parties go, we are fortunate in that we were planning on attending a quiet family sort of BBQ at Cathy and Scott's and hadn't put out the big bucks for an elaborate evening...because all of those evenings are cancelled.

Now, before you say, as I did, what the....?!!! perspective is needed. The Sheik's ruling is intended to show "solidarity" and a united front with the people of Palestine. Regardless of how you feel about the conflict between Palestine and Israel, the Gaza Strip does need the world's focus on what has been happening since the end of the ceasefire.

Essentially, the message being sent is that the world's biggest party city won't be partying tonight. Bigger things are happening in the Arabic world.

We can respect that. And perhaps, just perhaps, some peace will come to the Middle East in the new year...

Hey-yey-yey, come out and play...

Desert Powerline

Desert Potty

Technology and time being two constructs that sometimes give me a good deal of trouble, the Christmas letter from us has morphed into a New Year's email from us. With any luck it will actually come to you on that day, now that I've been given some helpful hints and also been put to shame by my 96 year old Grandma figuring out by herself how to Skype with us. I gotta tell you, she impresses me.

Pat and Colleen arrived safe and sound, and were mobbed by the kids and by us as well, to a lesser extent. I can't wait for a "new" look at Dubai through their eyes, and to share our love for this land with them.

Now, about that "come out and play" business...

We went out on the weekend with another group of friends from work to drive the desert in Sharjah again. I didn't mention that we really did get a sort of white Christmas, that morning resembling the one we drove through:

The fog was so thick at some points during the drive out that Mike couldn't see more than a car length ahead. It was eerie. Fog causes a lot of problems in Dubai; traffic pile ups, very very slow commutes. That's the sun, not the moon you see above those trees.

Fortunately it did burn off, and the desert emerged.

Good thing too since we would have been heading back home had it not. Driving the dunes is very fun, but if you can't see, not such a smart idea.

Bethy engaged in sand sliding while the group deflated the tires (this helps for better 4x4 driving, then you reinflate them before going back to driving on pavement).

Then: "Moooooohm! Why do I have sand in my bum?" (Mom says: Well, duh.) "That's silly!"

After a steep climb in the Patrol and some pronounced passenger bumping around, Thomas got scared."All done! All done Bird Car! No more car!!! Waaaaaaah!!!!"

I held his hand (A good trick while you're in the front seat, him in the back seat, and the SUV slipping and bouncing around) and then with some encouragement he held his beloved stuffed animal Maisy Mouse's hand. This helped, though later he panicked and I ended up going for a little walk-cuddle with him. Then these guys arrived:
Bethy is racing towards them with Royce Stricklan, a super nice guy and the leader of the pack. We follow him...when we can, anyway. She was so excited she was going to get to try out her Arabic, and as long as the conversation had stuck strictly to greetings, body parts, and animals it probably would have gone well. Though the camel riders were friendly, they were also moving out so she didn't get to visit. At Camel Hump Rock we let the kids out so we could drive the slopes and they could rest with the group in the shade of the cars. We'd already bent back the front license plate and had to borrow some wire from a goat pen to lash back on another guy's radiator. As Mike and I drove around on the soft red sands, something went awry and suddenly we were sliding sideways. slowly but inexorably towards Camel Hump Rock at the base of the slope. I distinctly remember saying 'This is like my driving nightmares where you know you're going to crash and you can't stop it!" Both us us were envisioning how ridiculously difficult the recovery efforts were going to be if it went really wrong. Mike also claims I said "This is NOT good!" several too many times. Fine for him. The rock was on my side of the car. Whump.

Fate was kind to Bird Car, though, and we stopped relatively gently, considering the pitch of the slope. I think the sand must have been extra deep there. We crumpled up the step ledge of the Patrol on my side, no big deal.

Laughing hysterically, (no, I think we really were a bit hysterical!) we drove back to the group and none of them had seen it happen because we'd been on the far side of the rock. Dang. (more to come....)

Be our guest, be our guest...

In two days our first guests are coming to stay with us. Two VIP guests. The kids are doing a major countdown for...Grandma Colleen and Pa.

In honor of this occasion, I offer a guide for our guests to Dubai.

1. You will be completely and utterly overwhelmed. You will also be jetlagged. The jetlag will pass. Sit back and be overwhelmed. Enjoy the ride.

2. This part of the Middle East is incredibly welcoming and Western-friendly. It is still an Islamic country, so act like a guest, and you will do just fine.

3. We may have been living here for 5 months but we will get lost several times with you while you're here. You may come to believe we are idiots, at which point we will hand you the map and we'll all have a good laugh over it afterwards.

4. This is a very important one. Make sure not to leave laundry on the floor. I will be heartbroken if I end up laundering a gecko, and I hear that happens. That would be both icky and sad.

5. If you're anything like us, you will want to photograph everything, because it's all so new and exciting, beautiful and crazy, so you can share it with folks back home. You will also probably be told that photo taking is not allowed several times for no obvious reason. Refer to helpful hint #2.

6. Don't stress over packing. We can find anything you need here. Also, when people pick up our kids and walk away with them....they'll be back.


7. You're a traveler now. We can't wait share our new home and adventure with you!

Have a holly jolly Christmas...

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to all of you from us!

Christmas this year has been an emotional time. Higher highs, lower lows, overall: good.

I have put up with some ribbing for our Christmas tree. Also known as "Christmas Branch" and Christmas Stick" respectively.




Christmas trees for sale in Dubai are either expensive and fake (and often extremely ugly...lavender trees! Florescent yellow green trees! Completely wrong...) or real, super expensive, and kind of sad looking.

I decided the only thing to do for our family was was to go creative. Thus, we went out into the desert where I found a lovely (to my eyes) twisted pale branch in the sand. We took it home, spray painted it silver and the kids threw silver and gold glitter all over it. Potted it in some sand mixed with more glitter. Wise men riding gold or coppery camels and rolls of cinnamon bark were hung with the Starbucks cup ornaments I'd brought from home and a few others, and white lights to give it a glow. Camels, coffee, how could it be anything but perfect?

It is possible I am being stubborn, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The kids loved our tree too.

Bethy and camels in the desert, Sharjah, UAE

Lastly, I tied to the uppermost branches bits of the red-and-white striped construction tapes that flutter alongside every road in Dubai. It seemed appropriate. Just the other day Mike looked somewhat wearily over at me as we were attempting to negotiate our way through the city and said "Dubai's one big construction site, isn't it?"

Yes, yes it is.

We put up our stockings. No fireplace in our villa, but I assured Bethy Santa was all about coming through the air conditioning vents, no worries. Oreos and milk (we decided Santa would prefer cow, not camel milk) and cheese for Santa Mouse. (It's a tradition...I read Santa Mouse as a child, now read it to the kids, and have put out cheese every year.)

The kids were perfectly happy with the Christmas, 1 of 2 that they had. I was more excited about presents than I can remember. As I said, emotions were running high for whatever reason.

Camel Claus also came to our villa this year as well, gifting the kids with camel saddle chairs (either side of the tree). They are beautiful, leather seats over gleaming wood, delicately painted with gold leaves. Thomas drives his around making car noises, a plastic kid's plate standing in for the steering wheel.

Thomas' Camel Claus in his stocking

The big hit of the morning was the Wii that Santa brought for Mike:

Of course we rounded out the day with a party with other expat friends in one of the skyscraper residences, kids running around hopped up on sugar, looking down upon a view of camels being led around on the beach until the sun set...the Gulf blue and lovely...

The sort of Blue Christmas that's very OK.