While we may not be in the UAE anymore, I cannot help but advertise the annual Al Ain Life event for the new teachers, doctors, and other professionals (and families). It’s a great way to meet people, have your questions answered, find someone to take you dune-bashing, and get recommendations for the best hair-dresser in town (it’s Joanna Graville, by the way.) Please see the flyers below for more info!
Our wonderful friend collected the housing deposit refund check from ADCP one week ago. What was the big delay about?
“They told me I should have known your middle name in order for them to find your check,” she said. “Then I asked why they didn’t phone me when the check was ready [bearing in mind they had promised to do so], and the person told me that if I needed the money then I should track the check down and not the other way around.”
Nice, right? Anyway, I got a text message (still one of the coolest things about living in the UAE–the abundance of text messages quickly and simply confirming transactions) showing that the check was deposited in my bank account the same day. The final step remaining is to transfer that money home, which is on today’s agenda, now that the check has had time to clear, and the Abu Dhabi days are done.
We have 8 days left in the UAE.
The last week has gone by in a blur as I zipped from place to place after invigilation (which ought instead to be called supervised cheating) at school. But it’s Friday, the weekend is upon us, and I’m ensconced in the Hili Rayhaan hotel, comfortably in a king-sized bed, having spent the morning at a leisurely breakfast and then in the pool. There was even a nap this afternoon. Things are looking up.
Here is what happens at the end of working for ADEC. Unsurprisingly, the resignation procedure is much the same as the arrival procedure, only reversed.
The steps are: wait wait wait wait wait for your resignation (which you submitted in the online system well within the official window of time) to be approved, then wait wait wait wait wait wait some more.
Then with about a month of work left, it’s approved and things start moving quickly.
If you’re me, you print a form that you obtained from someone not your principal (who is supposed to have received said form in his email, but may not be aware of it, or perhaps he was just not at work on the day it was sent). You fill this form out, and then you have to collect about seven signatures from various departments at ADEC headquarters (called “The Zone” around here).
You make a trip to The Zone to get the next couple of signatures, because they’re mostly a formality.
Then you wait a bit, because you’re hung up getting clearance forms (haven’t you heard of those? They’re forms which officially show that you’ve paid your bills and haven’t got any outstanding balance) from the combined power and water company (Al Ain Distribution Company). This requires a visit to one of the AADC places in town. I’d suggest the Al Ain Mall one, or perhaps the Hili Mall one (which is never busy). If you go to the big headquarters near The Zone, you’ll probably wait forever and a half day. Anyway, the process takes a couple of days. You request a final meter reading and clearance certificate, AADC sends you a text message as acknowledgement, and then, if things go correctly, you get a second message to say you’re all set. From prior experience, I can tell you if that message doesn’t come after two days, go visit an AADC office and ask for an update. This all means getting the AADC clearance takes a couple days. Then you’ll need an Etisalat (phone and internet) clearance form, too, and that company forces you to visit the large, crowded, slow office in Sanaiya to get a clearance letter, although it bears noting that you can get service cancelled at several other locations (such as Bawadi Mall). Again, the clearance from takes a couple of days or more. If you’re me, you make no less than eight trips to Etisalat to get this done, and you still have to go collect the form another time.
After you have your AADC clearance form, you can get your apartment inspected. We pay 180 AED to the apartment manager because one of our screens has a dime-sized hole in it (and it might indeed be our fault, so no problem), then he prints a letter declaring that you’re all set, but in iffier English than that. You take this letter down to The Zone and collect another signature.
By now, you’ve dropped off and then collected, a couple days later, your dependents’ passports at the Infinity Services window in ADEC so they can type up visa cancellation forms for you (saving a few bucks), and you take these passports a few buildings over to immigration and have them cancel the visas. You need to show your own original passport, Emirates ID, and work visa there. The guy in a kandora behind the counter glances at your stuff, then stamps the dependents’ pink visas with red ink which seems to read “cancelled” in Arabic. He also collects their Emirates IDs. A couple moments later a text message arrives from the Ministry of the Interior notifying you of the cancelations. This means your cleared for the next step: having your own visa cancelled. This means I turn in my Emirates ID (bye, little card!) and passport for a day.
The next day, I collect my passport, and the guys older guy sitting in his chair takes a box of passports with paperwork attached to them from a locked cabinet. He looks at my picture carefully, at me, back at the picture, and is smiling and the other guy is laughing. Then they tell me how somebody else who looked kind of like me picked it up earlier in the day. “Same name,” they said, but I’d be floored if there’s a second Shon Rand running around Al Ain. Regardless, my passport is in my hand, and I can collect another signature on my all-important form. So I do.
And I proceed to housing, where I need another signature. That’s fairly easy. He directs me to hand over another copy of my AADC clearance, and then take copies to the Abu Dhabi Commercial Properties building downtown to get my housing deposit back. I notice it’s almost 3 o’clock, and it’s Thursday, and figure I won’t find anyone there if I go now, so I decide to wait until Sunday for that.
As it turns out, I need to make another trip to ADEC anyway, because I need that Etisalat clearance form which I haven’t got yet in order to submit my super-duper important form to the last people–payroll, who will calculate up my End of Service (EOS) payment.
Thus, over the period of about 9 days, an ending has begun. There is very little left to be done, and hopefully it will all be knocked out on Sunday. There has been a bit of stress, like there was in the beginning, but it’s been tempered by knowledge that things move slowly here, especially when you hope they’ll go fast. We have only 8 days left in the UAE. Wow.
New teachers have arrived. We’ve met several of them, and some report reading our blog and finding it helpful. The whole point of chronicling this experience is to give others an accurate idea if what it’s like to teach and live in the UAE, so we are delighted that some people are finding it useful as they decide whether to come over to the desert.
One thing that’s surprised the new teachers, and which just made it’s debut this fall, is that new folks have to pay a housing deposit when they receive their quarters. The figure seems to be 5% of whatever the assigned housing rents for (usually around 65,000 AED in Al Ain, so the deposit would be approximately 3,200). While the idea is doubtless to make those who would flee the, er, challenges of this job think twice before abandoning all their stuff and leaving without paying any of their bills, etc. (and to cover the expenses left behind by those who do run), it’s been an unexpected wallet whammy for newcomers. As one told me, of the 20,000 AED you’re given as a furniture allowance upon arrival (or somewhere near), fully half is now going into the deposit and other necessities, such as the 1,000 AED deposit to have AADC turn on your power, the one for gas (1000 + in our case), whatever it is that Etisalat charges for establishing a phone and internet connection and installation (don’t remember, and don’t wanna look it up), the cost of new SIM cards or new mobile phones (we recommend just getting a new SIM for your GSM compatible smart phone), and so on. That means that the amount of money to buy new furniture is nearly half the amount you’re allotted. If you’ve shopped for furniture lately, you’ve noticed it’s not cheap, and that 10,000 AED ($2700) won’t buy you much.
Dirhams!
Another surprise of sorts is that even those newcomers who’ve been in the UAE for over a month now haven’t been paid. They got the furniture allowance, yes, but ADEC only recently got around to communicating that they wouldn’t receive their pay until the end of September. Here’s hoping these people set aside enough money to live for a couple months without pay. That is ADEC’s recommendation, after all, so at least one thing isn’t hugely surprising!
Sorry, but my subject for the day isn’t anything deep. It’s simple–summertime heat. If you know the Middle East exists, you know that it has a reputation for being hot, so the notion probably doesn’t surprise you. This year Abu Dhabi isn’t disappointing in the heat department, either. Last year in 2013 we had a rather mild spring, with a good amount of rain throughout April. That kept the temperatures comparatively low. There wasn’t much rain last month, however, and as May draws nigh to a close, the mercury is leaping higher and higher. Let me share a story or two to illustrate what it’s like.
My cousin is visiting from the USA right now, and Jenia and I have been showing her around. We spent a day in Dubai and one in Abu Dhabi over the weekend. During our Dubai time, we were mostly indoors, seeing the tremendous Dubai Mall and such. I got sick of being cooped up inside, and ventured out to walk near the base of the world’s tallest building, with Jenia and the baby accompanying me. “Man, that feels good,” I quipped as we stepped out of the air conditioning. Jenia didn’t seem to agree, but she kept her peace. It was mighty warm out and very muggy. After about ten minutes, the little one was bright red, and Jenia retreated with him to shade and then the air conditioning. We then went to the beach with the aim of swimming at Jumeriah Beach. To our disappointment, we found the nice beach with paid admission, snazzy park, and, most importantly, showers, had no parking available at all, since most everyone evidently fancied a dip to get some relief from the blazing sun. Consequently, we drove to the next public access beach, which, on the plus side, offers a great view of the Burj al Arab, but has no showers. “I’ve never seen it so crowded,” Jenia said, surprised by the mob on the sand and in the water. We paddled our feet instead of going for a proper swim. In truth, the water was so warm that it wouldn’t have seemed very refreshing in the first place–a surprise when you’ve been accustomed to the Atlantic’s constant coolness, as my cousin was. When we returned to the car, the humidity was so high that the car’s body had fogged over while parked, as if it had been driven through a thick haze.
While in Abu Dhabi, we visited the Emirates Palace, a palatial hotel owned by the UAE government and operated by the Kempinski hotel group. We kicked around the hotel, exploring the opulent (though questionably tasteful) interior. Eventually, we went outside to have a gander at the grounds. Jenia’s sunglasses fogged over when she stepped through the doors. In the space of only a few minutes (perhaps up to 15), we were all dripping sweat. My shirt was almost entirely soaked, and my linen pants were wet all down the backs of my legs. At one point, when I put the baby in his carseat, the sweat was dripping from my nose and splashing onto the upholstery. I’m a lightweight guy–not the kind who sweats easily, so it means something when I’m dripping like a faucet.
Dubai and Abu Dhabi, being coastal cities, are much more humid than Al Ain. Al Ain’s heat is easier to bear, owing to the dryness of the air. The sweat doesn’t start pouring off you as quickly. Still, triple-digit heat is intense. We’re in Al Ain now, and today’s high was, according to my iPhone’s weather app, 113F, the same as yesterday. Other thermometers are reading hotter, and it’s hard to know what to rely on. Regardless, the heat here is akin to that of an oven. My cousin wears a stunned expression every time she sets foot outdoors. I tell her, “At least you get a real experience. The heat is something to write home about.” That doesn’t seem to help her enjoy it, unfortunately.
So there you have it. The hottest part of the year is still well on the horizon, and it’s already super hot. But I expect the heat now, and I smile, because it’s all part of the experience of living in the UAE.
Well, as I write this, it’s Tuesday, October 8, 2013. There is a national holiday coming up, and the dates of this holiday were announced last week. Wait, you say, nobody knows the exact date of a holiday until two weeks beforehand? Quite right. That’s because, even with the amazing technology that we possess in this modern era, the local government insists upon waiting until the various phases of the moon are abundantly clear—remember, this is an Islamic country, and the Islamic calendar is lunar, not solar, and so things are more than a little different from the USA. Some holidays are fixed, of course, such as National Day, which always falls on the same day in December. The ones of religious significance are the ones that are in flux, such as this. It’s called Eid al Adha, and I mentioned it last year in our post about going to Muscat.
In a nutshell, the holiday is a celebration of Abraham, who you may remember from the Bible, and his willingness to sacrifice for God. Lots of goats will die during this time as people slaughter them and share the meat with their families and the needy.
This image is from http://www.familyholiday.net.
Anyway, the holiday means that we have time off from work. As you no doubt know, there is nothing like time off to put a smile on a person’s face. Since Eid is going to fall on October 15, the middle of next week, we have been expecting to have most of the week off. However it wasn’t until two days ago that it was announced that government workers would have the whole week off, which, if you count the coming weekend, amounts to 9 days off in a row. That’s pretty nice, right? Now, I can only assume that we teachers are going to be off on those days, too, because the Abu Dhabi Education Council hasn’t seen fit to notify us peons as to when we’re officially off.
This is the sort of thing that can be a bit upsetting—after all, when given the time and the opportunity, the wife and I like to travel, and 9 days is plenty of time to go somewhere interesting. Knowing when those days would fall, though, is a key piece of information a person needs to purchase an airline ticket and make plans. On the other hand, far be it from me to complain too loudly—having 9 days is great, even if we didn’t have advance notice. Sticking around the house and perhaps seeing some new quarters of the UAE instead of going farther afield is still going to be pretty neat, I guess. Come on, Eid break. Arrive quickly. We need you. I need you. My sanity requires you.
There’s this nifty group called Al Ain Weekends which organizes trips in the area. The wife and I and our friends Frank and Melissa joined one of these trips yesterday. The trip found us joining a convoy of fairly fast-moving 4x4s driving over a miserable, washboarded dirt road into the desert just outside of Al Ain. I’ve not been a particular fan of Kia quality, at least not Kia ca. 2005, but the Sorento managed to make it without losing any parts, despite the creaking and rattling that filled the interior of the vehicle with a constant din as we pounded along. Young Bennet, our friends’ 6-month old baby, seemed quite oblivious to the whole thing, strapped in what must be a very cushy car seat. The Kia, to its credit, did manage a bit of pretty soft sand without any issues when I put it into 4-wheel drive, and I’m more inclined to forgive its fairly significant quality shortcomings as a result.
After what seemed like a long ways of vehicular punishment, we arrived at the farm, nestled around a number of dunes. This was interesting for several reasons, not the least of which was the chance to see two baby camels, a week and two weeks old, in the company of their mothers. Besides the babies, with their thick, sheep-like fur, there were also dark-brown camels and nearly white ones of varying ages and sizes. Some were bred for racing.
There was a large male being kept in a separate pen from the others, in preparation to meet and mate with a female in the near future. I guess isolation guarantees he’s plenty ready for the opportunity when it arises. He seemed quite irritable, at any rate. Go figure.
Many of the beasts wore rope shackles around their front feet. I don’t know the reason for this, although I can guess.
These dromedaries appeared well-fed and well-watered. There were at least three men around who worked on the farm, which also had a sizable enclosure for goats.
The calves were, much like their bovine counterparts, pretty dang big, considering they’ve only been shuffling this mortal coil for a week, and very mobile.
A camel farm such as this contains all the treats for the senses that a farm elsewhere does. Put yourself there for a second. Your feet sometimes sink a smidgeon, but usually the sand is firm enough. Occasionally the wind whips some grit into your eyes. The air is redolent with the scent of fur and dung. There are grunts, whiffles, and growls as the large herbivores respond to an onslaught of touristy types. The mothers weren’t too pleased to have such a number people crowd around them, and eventually headed for safer territory, a good distance from us. For such large animals, they’re easily spooked and quite skittish. Our travel guide, the guy who organized the trip, had to ask repeatedly for folks to quiet down for the sake of the animals, who were often uneasy. Of course, I’d probably be uneasy if, out of the blue, two-dozen SUVs unloaded a ton of westerners and their screaming children and they mobbed me, too.
We took the chance to climb some of the orange-red dunes that surrounded us as our time at the farm drew to a close. The drive home was much more relaxing, albeit considerably more boring, as we left before the convoy did, and accordingly moved at a much more relaxed pace. It did have its moments of interest, however, as the sky, which had been threatening rain, finally delivered, and my meagre windshield wipers, victims of the summertime and, well, most all the time, UV light, soon were mostly tattered.
Man, I”ll tell you what–I want to buy a 4×4 (I mean, a real 4×4, something brawny, not the puny Kia Sorento we happen to own) and head to the desert as often as possible.
Friday afternoon I had a great time in the dunes with a bunch of off-roading newbies and a crew of very patient and helpful experienced pros.
I’ve never once done this kind of thing before. It was great. There is nothing quite like the experience of cresting a dune (and getting stuck while driving your buddy’s Jeep) in the middle of the Arabian desert. Ditto that descending a steep slope. The ascent is a curious mixture of gentle approach (depending on the angle of the wall) and then nail-it-to-the-floorboards-and-watch-the-sand-fly power. Learning the balance is a bit of a challenge. The descent is generally pretty easy: approach slowly, keep it in low gear, and let the engine to the braking as you float down the slope. However, go too fast off a steep hill, and you can find yourself in trouble, as you might damage your vehicle, or at the very least, bottom out the suspension. Yeah, the suspension bottoming thing happened to us a couple times. Vroom–swish–crash! But not when I was behind the wheel. I promise.
In all, I had a ball. I probably should have taken the Canon Rebel along for some better quality photos, but I was a bit afraid it might end up covered in sand and totally ruined. So rather than risk it, I just had ye olde iPhone in its trusty Otterbox case. I just may purloin some pictures from fellow photographers for this post, however, and in that case, I’ll give those picture-takers credit.
My buddy Jon and his son as we are preparing to head out. Here, the 4WD has just been engaged on his old Jeep for the first time since he’s owned it.
On the rough road, getting ready to head into the serious sand.
Jon’s son ended up in the nice, cool, air conditioned cabin of this Jeep Liberty (sold here as a Cherokee) which is shown here about to come down a dune.
The day’s only casualty that I’m aware of was this Cherokee and its exploded radiator.
Check this view out. I’d been longing to be out in the dunes ever since I arrived. It was as cool as I hoped. Don’t turn down the opportunity to get out there with some experienced folks.
And this would be a photo I’m borrowing from Heidi Cothron. Maybe she’ll let me borrow a high-res version later.
So, I’m discovering the joys of living in the Arabian desert. This off-roading stuff is seriously fun. It ranks up there, in an altogether different way, of course, with riding a motorcycle. LIke hopping on a bike and heading into the hills, being in the desert amidst a sea of dunes and away from the city is relaxing, and again, like riding a bike, there is definitely an element of risk involved in heading into the sand. Your machinery must be in good shape, and it must be tough. You’ve got to exercise good technique, or you’ll have serious problems on your hands. Again, this is much like motorcycling. In other words, it’s great fun and I highly recommend it.
Vantage Points 