Emma’s 8th Birthday

Hello all! I’m so sorry I haven’t been writing lately. We all know how life takes over and we get so busy! Emma celebrated her 8th birthday on September 13! It’s hard to believe she is 8! For her birthday we gave her a choice to have her birthday party at our house and she could invite all the girls from her class or she could choose to go somewhere to celebrate and then she could only choose a few of the girls to come. She chose to have it at our apartment and invite all the girls and even 2 girls from one of the other 2nd grade classrooms. Her birthday fell during the month of Ramadan so we decided to have her party from 6pm-9pm Friday night. Two of the girls in her class are Muslim and she didn’t want them not to be able to come or come and not eat if we had it during the day so we decided an evening party would be best.

So a few days before her party we went to Spinney’s (grocery store) to the bakery department to order her cake. She’s big into mermaids, from the show H2O..if anyone’s seen it? Anyway we are flipping through a book with all sorts of cake designs and we come across a mermaid cake. As soon as she saw it, it was a done deal we were having a mermaid cake. So we had the guy take our order and she asked him if he could make the mermaids hair red, he said yes, then she asked if the mermaid could have a purple bathing suit top, he said yes, a green tail, he said yes, and just to write her name on the tail, she didn’t want the Happy Birthday part…so we place the order and he tells us to pick it up around 1pm the day of her party. So the day of the party arrives and it just so happens that she only has a ½ day of school that day. I pick her up and then we head over to Spinney’s to get the cake. When we arrive in the bakery department and they figure out that we are the ones to pick up the mermaid cake, the bakers all get very excited to show Emma her cake. She takes one look at it and I can see it in her eyes as she’s looking at me and then again at the cake, she’s wondering, just as I am, why the whole mermaid’s body is purple! But I can also see that she notices that everyone is so excited that it is her birthday and what a wonderful huge cake she gets to have for her party, so she just keeps nodding and ½ smiling when they are all asking her if she likes it!

As soon as we head to the checkout counter she ask me exactly what I thought she was going to ask me, why is the mermaid purple? I said I know pumpkin, I think they just misunderstood that we only wanted her bathing suit purple. She seems mostly satisfied with that answer as we are leaving. Unfortunately looking at the pictures from the birthday the poor mermaid looks more like a harpooned whale/mermaid than the pretty mermaid I’m sure she was envisioning!

Emma decided for dinner we would have a “breakfast buffet”. We had pancakes, bacon, scrambled eggs, strawberries, grapes, and krispy kreme donuts. It was a huge success, they all loved it and everyone ate tons. After, we had the purple mermaid and presents and then they all watched the Hannah Montana DVD Concert while I painted their fingernails and toes! Not too bad for the 1st birthday party in the UAE.

Ten Pounds For Tampons

Assalaam Alaikum…Rich here, ghost writing for Jennifer…I guess it’s not really ghost writing if I am telling you I am ghost writing. Anyways, let me begin by saying how impressed I am with Jennifer as this is the first time since I met her sharing a taxi on that fateful St. Patrick’s day in 1995 that she has actually adopted a technology before me…this is the first blog I have ever written.

We have had many crazy stories/frustrations/laughs getting adjust to living in Dubai, but one that I thought was pretty funny actually happened on our first “looksee” visit to Dubai and summed up the cultural differences while at the same time also underscored for me that people are the same all over.
So Jennifer and I are getting ready to go out. As usual I started about 40 minutes after her, finished getting ready in 15 minutes and made the mistake of asking her when she was going to be ready. Unbeknownst to me, Jennifer had a surprised visit from what I think women sometimes refer to as “her little friend”…more like enemy to men and woman alike - for different reasons of course…and to think in the not to distance future I will be managing through this four times a month. Of course since I was pushing her to get ready she seized the opportunity to ask me to go downstairs to the shop in the hotel and get her some tampons.

Now keep in mind, as westernized as Dubai is, this was my first visit to Dubai and I am thinking you want me to buy what, where??? I wouldn’t do this in the good ol’ U.S. of A. let alone in Muslim country. Thankfully my male intuition took the back seat, and I realized my wife is visiting a foreign country I am asking her to move to and I should tell her I would be happy to go down and get her some tampons.

As such, 5 minutes later I find myself in a small gift shop in the hotel that is unfortunately staffed by a male (very tight quarters). My eyes avert his as I can sense he knows what I am there to buy, and I head right over the bathroom products section and find what I think looks similar to a tampon box, but all the brand names are written in Arabic, so I am not really sure.
My heart sinks as I now know, I am going to have to ask the guy behind the counter, who happens to be about 5 feet from me about what I am going to buy…picture a high school kid going to buy his first box of condoms from a woman working the pharmacy counter, and you will get a sense of the tension building in the shop. So I muster up the courage to turn to him and judging a book by its cover like we are all taught to do, I assume he doesn’t speak very good English and I ask him very slowly with in exaggerated facial/mouth expressions “Are these tampons???” With a look that says did you ride the short bus to school he replies back to me in broken English, “Ten pounds???? No no no…much less.”

So now I take my facial expressions to a new level using all 98 muscles in my face and speaking more slowly with an even greater level of embarrassment, I say, “No tttaaaammmmmpppooonnnnssszzz.” Again with a bewildered look he says, “You pay pounds??? I convert!”

So now my embarrassment starts to dissipate as I am no longer focused on what I am buying, but on how to convey a question any male would be embarrassed to ask another male who speaks the same language, let alone a male of another language, culture and religion that likely (per my new expat thinking) has less understanding of the female hygiene product category than I do, and I decide to ask the question again at the same speed and tone with the same level of facial expressions, but decide to add slow motion hand gestures as well (Trying to guess how these things work). This time he looks at me puzzled again, but then I see a sense of understanding come over his face along with a smile and he says – “Yes…dose tampons.”

Feeling a little better, I remember Jennifer mentioning something about type…light, medium, tall grande…who knows how they measure these things and to my horror, I look back down and see a wide variety. I think about how I am going to get this guy to help me pick out the right kind, ponder what I just went through, say forgetta bout it, close my eyes and grab a box from the middle.

Of course when I went upstairs after this emotional rollercoaster, the first things Jennifer says, when I give her the box is…you guessed it…”You got the wrong kind.” Needless to say, I think she could tell from the look on my face, she was going down this time or would get by on these for a couple of hours.

So no matter where you live, we are all just working/trying to get by to provide for and spend a little more time with our family and friends...and no matter where you are from or where you are, if you are male…you don’t like purchase or discussing female hygiene products.

Love to all - hope to see you soon - Maasalaamah,

H.H. Sheikh Richard Bin Richard Al Berner

Blessings!

Hi all,

Yesterday as I was sitting at a stop light waiting for it to turn green, a man rode by on a very old bicycle and on the back of the bicycle he had strapped a lawn mower. I'm not sure how you can even accomplish such a thing but he had. I could only imagine he was off to his next job of taking care of someones lawn for mere penny's. He had on flip flops, long pants, long sleeve shirt, and some cloth wrapped around his head and was just sweating profusely. Remember it is still well over a 100* here and the humidity is still getting up around 70% on some days. You still can't go outside without immediately starting to sweat and that's just standing, now imagine riding a bicycle with a lawn mower strapped to the back of your bike.

I thought to myself how blessed and lucky we all are and I do mean everyone reading this blog. Sure we might have a bad day now and then or a bad year. Money might be tight or you might have complaints about a little man in a little office but when it comes right down to it one of our biggest gifts we ever got in life and no one really ever thinks about it because it was given to us before we were ever born is to be born in the United States. A country where girls/women are valued and educated. A place where if you work hard you can accomplish so much, no matter your background or station in life. Seeing this man on the bike, working so hard, really made me appreciate everything that I have as an individual, as a family and as a country.

Another thing we have learned is that people are really all the same. We might have different religious views, speak different languages but at the end of the day most of us just want a good life for our children, food on the table and a roof over our heads. (And all our children like the crust cut off their sandwiches, even over here to!)

Just like the man riding the bike, I'm sure he was just trying to provide for his family. And that's the other crazy part imagine your husband, wife, mother having to leave the US to earn a living. Not being able to see him or her more than once a year. I can't even imagine not being able to see my husband or girls for one week. There are so many people here that have done just that and come to a country with very little laws in place to protect them from being taken advantage of...like the woman we met who came to Dubai from the Philippines to work for a cleaning company. They provided her a way to get here but once she was here paid her much less than what was promised, worked her 6 days a week, 15 hours a day and then let her go after about 3 months with no way to get back to her home country.

So lets give a moment of thanks for all of our blessings in our lives and I will say a prayer for the man with the lawn mower on the back of his bike that God give him the strength to get through another day.

Love,

Jennifer

The Gas Man

Hi all,

Well here I am again writing about this crazy place called Dubai. I told Rich that I was going to write something positive next post but this story just has to be told.

So we have been living for about 3 weeks with no gas in our apartment. Our stove/oven has one electric burner on it and the oven is electric as well, so that is how I've been cooking since we got here. I finally decided that now that I've got the kids settled in school, I am going to take on the job of getting the gas turned on. Now in Kansas City, and I'm sure most places around the US you would pretty much just make a phone call to your local gas company, maybe put down a credit card or even a credit card deposit and your gas would be switched on and you'd be in business..simple. Well here, not so much...

The securtiy guard downstairs gave me a "how to sheet" with the steps listed to get the gas turned on. 1st step, make a deposit of 1250 AED (dirhams), about $350 to M/s Nekheels bank account located at HSBC bank. Nekheel is the big developer in Dubai, they built the Palm Jumeirah we are living on. So I head to the closest HSBC bank and after waiting in line I am told that this bank was only a service center and to make this deposit I would have to go to an actual branch. He tells me where that is and I head to Jebel Ali, about 20 minutes down the freeway. I get to the Jebel Ali branch and it is crazy busy, which I can understand since the "service" centers don't really service anyone and everyone has to go to one of the very few branches located around Dubai to be serviced!

I get in the info line and the nice woman behind the desk tells me which form to fill out and which line to get in. I then ask if I can use a credit card to pay the deposit, now remember I'm at a bank, and she says no. Cash or check only to be deposited into "Mr" Nekheels bank account. I only have 1025 AED and have just withdrawn earlier in the day from our ATM account. So now I'm worried that my account won't let me withdraw anymore cash..the whole cash withdrawal limit thing (the nice woman behind the counter says that at HSBC they let there customers withdraw $4000 a day so I should be able to withdraw more from my bank if I've only taken out $300, she thought that seemed very low, I said I think they might do things a little differently in the U.S.!)...luckily it lets me take out 300AED more and we're back in business. I fill out my form, get in line and pay the cash deposit. At this point all of this seems very shady! And I am only left with 75 AED (about $20) until the next day. Which again in the States you would think no worries, who uses cash in the States anyway, everything is debit or credit card..well not here everybody wants cash and some places only take cash.

So I have my little pink deposit slip that is my receipt and head back to our building where I am now supposed to take it to an office in building #3. We are in building #6. I stop and park at building #3 (the 1st time) and go in and of course the little man in the little office is no where to be found. Rich says to me, I don't think he would like it if he knew you were calling him the little man, and I say I am so annoyed with this whole process that the gas man is now called the little man in the little office! I take my receipt back to the "little office" three times and each time the "little man" is not to be found. Finally I decide to camp out at the office this past Thursday right after I drop off Emma at school, which proved to be a good plan because after about a 10 minute wait, the "little man" shows up. (He's actually really normal looking but at this point after having been there so many times and him not there, he would not classify as one of my favorite people) I walk in and say I'm trying to connect my gas in our apartment and then I show him my pink slip and he says call this number and ask for Ibraham. I could not believe it, I have wasted over 2 days trying to track this guy down and all he gives me is a number! Do you think maybe it would be a good idea to put that as #3 on the "how to sheet", what do I need to be traipsing over to building 3 for in 110* heat if all I needed was a number to call! Aarrgghh I was so mad!

So I go home and make a call to Ibraham and he tells me to scan my receipt and email it to this email address and then someone will be contacting me. I of course do not have a scanner at the apartment, so I have to drive over to Rich's office and drop the little pink slip off. It gets scanned and emailed. Rich ask when are they coming, I say I have no clue, I was told to wait for a call! Ibraham says maybe Saturday, maybe Sunday we call you, we come turn your gas on..

Now it is Saturday morning and we are getting ready to leave the house in 15 minutes to go watch Emma's first tennis lesson and guess who calls...yep..Ibraham. He says they are in the building and can they come in 20 minutes. I tell him we were just about to leave for my daughter's tennis lesson and could they come later around lunch. He of course says no not good, so Rich decides to stay behind and I will take Emma. The guy arrives before I leave and starts telling me that I have the wrong stove for gas. As soon as he says that I am about ready to explode, I start yelling upstairs for Rich and tell him that he has to deal with this. The "little man" says that we have the wrong stove and that it will cost another 175 AED (cash) for them to hook up some converter so the gas will work. Now Rich is upset, saying what a racket this whole process is, just another way to squeeze a nickel out of us..and why didn't the lady at the store say anything about not being able to hook the gas up to this type of stove..the "little man" was just looking at Rich, like I know you're upset but I don't have a clue as to what you are saying! Rich finishes by saying whatever you have to do just do it...the guy says 175 dirhams cash..we agreed and when I got home from tennis lessons,

I finally had GAS!!

Just think, you make 1 phone call in the States and it only took me 1 week to have that switch turned on!

Love to all,

Jennifer

A380

The A380!

Rich took some video of the inside during his flight from Dubai to JFK. He said it was pretty amazing. The upper deck stretches the whole length of the plane. The downstairs section is all coach, the upstairs is business and first class. It's hard to believe that something that size can actually take off!

HOT!!

Hi all,

Have I told you all how hot it is here yet? I don't think I've ever experienced such heat. It is on a daily basis right now averaging around 110*, give or take a few degrees. Now you might say, oh but it's a dry heat. Well that would be correct most of the year but during the summer months, which also include September and sometimes October, the humidity runs over 60-70%. Today it was about 107* with 75% humidity. Which I've heard from some people that these temperatures haven't been to bad this year. Someone was telling me either last year or 2 years ago they had a stretch of days that were around 135*, I can't even imagine. He said no one was outside, you just couldn't be outside in those temperatures. Right now, you literally walk out and feel like you are in a sauna. All of our windows have that fogged over look from the condensation. When you walk out of a building or even get out of your car, your glasses immediately fog over! And talk about sweating, you could be standing outside in the shade and you are sweating. Right now it is hard to get cold water to come out of the taps in your house. I've gotten used to brushing my teeth with very warm water and hot showers (which in my opinion are a good thing). Most of the pools including ours at our apartment are chilled. Emma was at a friends house today and the friends mom was telling me their pool chiller had broke and their pool water temperature was at 100*, so they haven't been able to use it. Everyone tells us if we can just make it to or through October the weather gets absolutely perfect. Chilly in the morning and evening where you need sweaters and light coats and then by mid morning it's usually in the 80's! So until then you'll find us inside or inside the pool!

Love,

Jennifer

Drugs!

Hello all!

Well I have had my first trip to the pharmacy! Both Emma and Ava had terrible colds last week, hence the blog about our first Dr's visit, and I have been the lucky recipient of that cold! Today I felt like my head was going to explode and I could not stop sneezing and blowing my nose. So after a long day we arrive home around 5pm. We take the groceries upstairs and I tell the kids keep your shoes on we are going down to the pharmacy. (They have just opened a pharmacy in the bottom of our building.) So we head down on the elevator and we stop on one of the floors and a couple walks on, Emma proceeds to tell them that they have gotten me sick and we are going to get something to help my mom's head from hurting...they look at me with all 3 children and say "you poor thing", I tell them if I can't crawl in bed and go to sleep someone needs to give me drugs, so we are going to the pharmacy! They both laughed!

We walk into the pharmacy and the woman behind the counter immediately ask me what she can help me with and of course Emma pipes up, that they (the 3 girls) have all gotten me sick and can she give me anything to make me feel better. She starts asking me my symptoms, I say I have lots of sinus pressure, headache, runny nose, sneezing..she ask if I have a sore throat..no I tell her, she ask if I have had a fever, again I tell her no. So she pulls out one packet of something and tells me to take once in the morning and once at night, should help with the congestion she says. And then she ask about antibiotics, I say, well I don't know if I need those..she says, maybe small dose, so she pulls out a packet of antibiotics and says take twice a day as well, once in the morning and once at night, and then gives me some sort of tea and says to only drink this at night because it will make you sleepy. Again she ask if I've had a sore throat, again I say no and she says OK then these 3 things should do the trick! She rings me up and off we go! She also gives me a card and tells me if I should need anything else in the future to just call and they will deliver to our apartment until 2 am! How about that, I have a pharmacy and a "clinic" all in the bottom of my building. I love it!!

And by the way, whatever she gave me I took when we got back up to the apartment, and I will have to say I feel less congested...not 100% better but I don't feel like my head is going to explode anymore! I think next time I will have to find out her name because I will definitely be going back to her and the pharmacy!!

Love,

Jennifer