Silent Sunday: Camelot
Category Archives: Dubai
V-Day: On getting vaccinated in Dubai
I’d been mulling getting vaccinated for several weeks, but didn’t really fancy the enormous queues at Dubai Parks and Resorts field hospital. When it first opened, huge numbers of people waited for hours in their cars as Dubai Police officers guided them to the hospital in batches, 40 vehicles at a time.
But then I started to hear that more vaccine centres had opened, and that getting vaccinated was easy and quick. I can vouch that it was! And as an epi-pen carrier who had good reason to be worried about a bad reaction (more on my anaphylactic tendencies here), I can honestly say I’m so glad I’ve done it!
My thought process was that Covid seems rampant just now, with outbreaks at work and my kids’ school, and so many friends of friends getting infected. But there was more to my decision: I want to be part of the solution to this dreadful pandemic so we can all live and be well. By being a teeny tiny piece in the most complex Covid jigsaw, perhaps I could help humanity in its journey towards herd immunity (or community immunity is probably the more PC term). I’ve felt pretty powerless throughout this crisis, and so getting vaccinated was the least I could do, because this microorganism we can’t see is destroying not just lives but also society.
On a personal level, I’m longing for the pandemic to be over, or at least contained. My pilot DH hasn’t worked since March 2020, and is now on a year of unpaid leave. I’m just so very, very tired of it all, and missing friends and family back home. Borders, meanwhile, are clamping shut again, closing off arteries to my homeland and any hope of my DH getting back to work anytime soon.
It was time to do something proactive.
The number of people milling around outside the vaccine centre this evening in the dark suggested anything but a quick and easy experience. I thought we didn’t stand a chance. But myself and Catherine the Great were waved through the gate. It was ladies and families only. You’ve gotta love this about Dubai.
I felt horrible for all the single men outside, though, many of whom were desperate to get the jab. The poor chaps – especially as men appear to be worse-hit when it comes to Covid. There was one group standing nearby made up of three men and a woman, clearly not a family. An attendant said to the female: “One woman can’t have three boyfriends, sorry!”
So she had to choose which male to take in with her.
I hope they have a male-only day soon.
To cut a long story short, it was all very well organised inside – more of a vaccine factory, with at least 30 vaccine stations and a seating/queuing arrangement reminiscent of a passport office. I was also reminded of musical chairs – as the rows of queues moved, you shuffled up a chair, bums on seats rotating fairly fast.
It truly was mass vaccination – at scale. It was also free (just your UAE ID card needed). Whatever doubts I’d had before about the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine had already lessened greatly – and I’m happy to say, it was painless and no side effects at all.
Nǐ hǎo!
Where to get vaccinated in the UAE
Dubai: Free Covid vaccine now at 120 centres; full list
Hurrah for the happiness centre!
The night before my parents arrived, my list of niggly, not-yet-got-round-to maintenance issues became impossible to ignore.
The hole in the garage wall wasn’t the problem – it was more the flickering lights downstairs that had turned the living room into a discotheque. It was a choice of sitting in the dark with the lights off, or under a strobe light. Which, knowing my boys, would hype them up so much we’d all end up looking like a series of crazy stills from some epic, horror movie.
My over-active imagination pictured all kinds of voltage surges, circuit overloads and faulty connections, so I got on the phone.
But who to call? Our compound’s maintenance services have changed hands several times and all the numbers I had stored on my phone were old. The portal for logging problems needed a password, which we didn’t know.
That’s when I found out we now have a Happiness Centre.
Yes, a happiness centre! Except it closes at 2.30pm, after which time it’s just an answering machine.
Undeterred, I called the happiness centre the next morning.
A quiet female voice answered. I explained and after several minutes of ‘circular’ conversation (very common in Dubai when you’re trying to be understood), I decided not to expect too much.
Low and behold (and credit where credit is due), the happiness centre worked a treat! A man turned up!
He stood in the doorway, his eyes wide and frightened. A bead of sweat dripped down the side of his face, forcing him to wipe it away with his hands.
I know what you’re thinking – our household must have looked like a horror scene after all.
The maintenance man shifted his weight from foot to foot, still refusing to come in despite the heat outside.
“Dog,” he said and pointed at our pet desert mutt – who was swiftly sent out to the garden so our lights could be fixed.
Once he’d got over his terror at the dog, our maintenance man was an absolute sweetie, promising to come back to fix five other lights upstairs – once they’d been properly notified and the jobs were on his to-do list.
Next, between the hours of 7.30-2.30pm, and not on a weekend or public holiday, I’m going to hit the call centre for help with the hole in the wall.
Hurrah for the happiness centre!
The best day of the school year
Today was my favourite day of the school year: International Day, when the parents hold a massive celebration of all the nationalities that make up Dubai’s cosmopolitan society*. The kids go to school wearing their national colours or traditional dress, and all morning there’s a huge and colourful food fair with delicious dishes from all around the world.
So much effort goes into the preparation and I always take my hat off to the mums who must spend days, if not weeks, organising the décor for their stands, and cooking and baking. (There was a rumour that Embassy help can be enlisted, with the Canadian Embassy apparently renting out a massive Mountie for such occasions – if you book it far enough in advance.)
I helped out on the US stand and a fellow mom told me she’s on the look out all year round for America-themed paraphernalia (stickers, flags, posters), and bulk buys on July 5th – the day after July 4th, when everything is discounted. To my amazement, this year the US moms were operating a proper, cinema-style popcorn machine and had even handmade a human-size voting box that you could walk into, complete with a curtain and stars-and-stripes on the walls.
What I’m trying to say is International Day is truly a very special occasion, and actually a microcosm of Dubai itself – a city that enjoys its differences and multiple religious and ethnic backgrounds. Today, our US stand was right next to Russia, and across the way Greece and Cyprus were jollying along next to each other with the most wonderful Mediterranean mezze. Think tzatziki dip, feta, olives, stuffed vine leaves. YUM.
“Really, you’re going back to Greece for the fourth time?” I laughed as my DH said he was off for more. He gets particularly excited by International Day, and was happy I even brought him takeaway later – the Thai ladies, with their lovely smiles and exotic clothes, brought deliveries to all the stands, which were very much appreciated by all.
The younger years (foundation stage and years one-two) were the first to attend the food fair. They were herded around by teachers and assistants, and were so sweet with their shyness and hesitancy, and the way they held their International Day passports out to collect stamps. Then came the older years who were more inclined to grab but also appeared to be loving the culinary adventure, or at least the fact they were missing lessons. Finally, my sons (now 10 and 13) showed up, who pretty much helped hoover up (and I don’t mean the floor).
I was, however, rumbled right at the end. You’ll know that I’m an honourary American (with a US husband and kids), and I’d dressed up in red, white and blue, brought Oreo cookies, and was patriotically handing out flags. But it’s a bit hard to hide my English accent, and I was hot footing it to the British stand for refills of tea.
A child, who I’d just given some stickers to, looked at me squarely, his eyes filled with suspicion. “But are you actually American?” he asked and waited for my answer knowing already he’d well and truly got me on that one.
*Dubai is home to 2.4 million people, of whom 83 per cent are foreign born.
Lazy children coast through the summer holiday (in pajamas, mostly)
So we’re in that murky zone of the two-month school holiday, where it’s hard to persuade the kids to actually get dressed, and they’re up all hours of the night due to jet lag and day-time laziness. To be fair, they’re not lazy kids when school is on, and they can’t actually go outdoors at the moment as we’re in the UAE and it’s 40 degrees-plus outside.
There’s also something in the air right now: thick DUST – making the air quality in the UAE little better than in China with its belching power stations and fetid smog.
So the kids have turned to electronic stimulation and are on their devices for way tooooo long when DH and I are both at work. They must surely be wiping out the benefits of enforced PE and various sports the rest of the year.
The other day – just after getting home from work – I raised the issue of screen time with them for the zillionth time. “What exactly have you done today other than play on the PlayStation?” I asked, rolling my eyes at the sight of the two boys still in their pajamas at 6pm.
They shrugged their shoulders simultaneously, stared back at me with screen-glazed eyes and said nothing.
So, I went on a little bit of rant about all the things I’d done that day, from the laundry, to dog walking to emptying the dishwasher – not to mention a full day in the office.
Son 2 cracked a smile. “But mummy,” he said, fisting his hands and putting two thumbs up. He waggled his thumbs like they’d become unhinged.
“Look!” he said, drawing his hands closer together, as though holding an imaginary PS4 controller. “Just look how much exercise my thumbs have had!”
A little later, he passed me the console. “See! Sweat,” he declared, triumphant.
Postscript: I’m consoled by the fact it’s not just my lazy kids: a study commissioned by McAfee showed that, with schools closed over the summer, children in the UAE spend up to 8 hours a day on their electronic devices, with 86 per cent of parents allowing their offspring to play online games recommended for older children.
Postscript 2: As an aside, there’s an IT chap in the office with the solution: he has a web cam on his kids’ computer den and can react with a phone call the moment he sees, via his laptop, that his boys are violating screen time rules. Needless to say, my two weren’t impressed with this idea!
Dubai gets front row seats for the lunar eclipse
Having read in the media that Dubai would be the best place in the world to catch tonight’s lunar eclipse, I’m staying up late to watch the celestial show.
And what a performance!
The moon turned an eerie shade of red as the Earth passed between it and the sun. Then the strange, football-like disc was swallowed by the shadow until the moon was completely blotted out. Erased from the inky-black sky as though it no longer existed.
What if it doesn’t come back, I wondered? And was the bright dot I could see just below the eclipse Mars? Could it even be the start of the apocalypse? I could really see why the sight of the blood moon has inspired awe and fear throughout history, blamed on this god or that by those who had no understanding of what causes eclipses.
I’m happy to report that the moon is now winning, reappearing slowly and surely – first a curved, pencil line of white light, then a dazzling crescent that grew bigger each time I glanced up. Now a half moon, It’s coming back more brilliant than before, whiter and sharper than ever, like it disappeared into the wash to be laundered with bleach.
While I’d love to stay up and watch it morph into a proud, full moon again, it really is time I went to bed. Night all! I’ll leave you with some very amateur photos – and a pic nabbed from Reuters.
Going…going…gone
Happy New Year!
… from the Burj Khalifa, in all its finery. Wishing everyone all good things in 2018…
Photos taken during a repeat of the spectacular, record-breaking New Year’s Eve light and laser show
The dos and don’ts of a Dubai summer
Don’t–
– Bother straightening your hair. Within an hour you’ll look like a lion with a proudly fizzy mane (“That scene from the Lion King, where Simba shakes his head as he gets out of the pool, singing hakuna matata,” says my friend B. “That’s me and POOF!”
– Leave your sunglasses in the car. The rim of your Ray-Bans will burn your face.
– Wear jeans. Peeling them off will feel like shedding your own skin.
– Be surprised if you find yourself in a shopping mall… again.
– Visit friends who don’t use their air conditioning.
IT’S 42 DEGREES OUTSIDE AND YOUR A/C IS OFF?! ARE YOU EVEN HUMAN?
– Feel guilty for staying indoors all day.
– Think taxi drivers are rude for rolling their window up really fast to stop the hot air coming in.
– Forget to wear flip-flops until the moment you get in the pool, or you’ll find yourself hopping around like a jackrabbit on steroids.
Do–
– Brace yourself for third-degree burns when touching the car steering wheel after leaving your vehicle in the sun.
*Ouch* … “Oven glove!! Where are you?”
– Get used to buildings sweating as humidity condensation drips down the windows.
– Wipe your phone screen on your T-shirt before sending a text.
– Save yourself the bother of ironing your clothes. The heat and humidity will make you wet and crinkled anyway.
– Apply sunscreen before you even open the curtains.
– Towel off the wet patches that appear on the back of your knees.
– Vow to get up an hour earlier to enjoy the cool of the morning. And then oversleep.
– Take care walking in the mist (when your sunglasses steam up after getting out the car).
– Skip blow-drying your hair. Winding the window of your car down is like turning on a hairdryer and directing it at your face.
– Turn off the hot-water tank. The sun-warmed water from the cold tap is hot enough for showers.
– Wonder why the odd person out running or cycling during the day hasn’t died.
– Open your car window when you get in – breathing in the fumes in an enclosed space filled with super-heated dashboard plastics is like doing glue from hot vinyl bottles.
– Look out for ‘staycation’ hotel deals that are so good they’re practically carrying you inside.
Just an everyday trip to the vet in Dubai
This morning’s activity was a trip to the vet with my beloved Bella for her annual vaccinations and check-up.
Nothing unusual in that (bear with me!). For people in other parts of Dubai, the vet we use – Nad al-Shiba Veterinary Hospital – might be considered too far to drive, but it’s a pleasant trip through some green areas with little traffic. You get the sense as you meander along a dusty road past scrubby desert that at any moment you’ll meet a herd of camels, chewing on the prickly vegetation with their large, leathery mouths. (Arabian camels aren’t known for having kissable lips.)
Waiting for his owner
I promise you it’s worth the journey. Once you get there, the staff are so friendly, and you’ll often find falcons waiting in reception. If you’re really lucky, you’ll see an Emirati dressed in a traditional white kandora and artfully-wrapped headgear with his falcon perched proudly on his arm.
The falcon is the UAE’s national bird. Images of them are everywhere, on walls, in TV ads, on bank notes. The UAE even issues passports for falcons. Gulf airlines such as Qatar Airways, Etihad and Emirates allow the bird of prey – of which hawks are close relations – in the passenger cabin.
I digress. In the treatment room, our lovely vet examined Bella the dog and began speaking Greek to her to calm her down. “Είναι εντάξει,” he said, then turned to us. “Excuse me talking Greek, but it’s the tone that soothes her.” Bella quietened nicely.
“So what other animals do you treat,” DH asked a few minutes later as Bella bounded off the table after her jabs. I had a feeling he wasn’t going to say just cats and dogs – the vet’s location is close to an area populated with locals, among whom keeping exotic pets is a status symbol.
“All sorts,” said the vet with a smile. “A cheetah. Lions … tigers.”
Never a dull day for Dubai vets!
There’s always the chance you’ll get up close and personal yourself. “Last time we went there was a cheetah cub in reception – and I got to cuddle her,” said a pet-owner in a comment on Geordie Armani’s blog.
Can’t resist a puppy photo – she just turned one!
Tooth Fairy BUSTED!
“Don’t tell Mummy!” Son2 glanced at his brother and stifled a laugh as my curiosity grew. He brought his index finger to his mouth. “Shhh.”
“Don’t tell Mummy what?” I asked, deeply suspicious.
Hopeless at keeping a secret, Son2 then proceeded to tell me anyway: he’d lost a tooth. I peered into his mouth, and there was indeed a new gap, next to a huge front tooth that still looks oversized in comparison to his milk teeth.
The end of a chapter in our lives
“Tooth fairy tonight,” I said brightly.
“But mum,” said Son1, from the other side of the lounge, where he was playing on his computer. He pulled his headsets off to actually join in the conversation. “THE TOOTH FAIRY IS FAKE!”
I stalled for time, considering whether just to come clean. To be honest, it would have been a relief. My mind was already trying to figure out whether I had any small notes in the house, and I’m over remembering, exhausted, at 2 in the morning that I need to play tooth fairy. But if I admitted she wasn’t real, wouldn’t they then immediately clock that we’ve been lying about the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus too? It was a slippery slope I didn’t feel quite ready to go down, so I replied, “Of course she’s real. Why weren’t you going to tell me about the tooth anyway?”
“Because the tooth fairy is daddy,” said Son1, pinning his gaze on DH on the other sofa. “That’s why we weren’t going to tell you – if the tooth was still under the pillow in the morning, then we’d know for sure we’re right. William’s tooth stayed under his pillow for three days before he finally told his parents and then he got money.”
“What makes you think it’s daddy?” I asked, my nose twitching with the effort of staying deadpan.
“Because,” said Son1 as though it was completely obvious, “the last time he forgot. When we came downstairs in the morning and said the tooth fairy hadn’t been, daddy quickly said ‘Here, hold this,’ and gave me his plate while he ran upstairs to put money under the pillow.”
“Ah, yes.” I gave a small cough. I remembered the incident well.
“And,” Son1 continued, rolling his eyes, “daddy left the tooth under the pillow.”
I think that’s us just about rumbled! Best-case scenario now is that the Santa myth is hanging by a single crimson thread.