Category Archives: Expat

Naughty or nice?

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Santa's watching. Oops, splatt!

Santa’s watching. Oops, splatt!

Following on from my Christmas post yesterday, another thing I love about this time of year is the scope for some festive bribery. The best way to nip bad bahaviour in the bud, and kind of like having special powers, I’m hearing parents everywhere uttering the same two words: Santa’s watching!

With my two, you can see their little faces drop as they process this information and its unthinkable consequences. “That means no presents, no presents! Santa will give my brother presents, and not me!” It’s working a treat, and such a shame it’ll have to be given up on Christmas Eve in return for a mince pie and a carrot.

Home for the holidays

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So the kids are off school again, full of pent up energy and excited about the arrival of a man called Big Red in a few days’ time.

The great thing about this time of year is being able to throw the children outdoors to let off steam. If you live in the Northern hemisphere, I really don’t mean to rub it in, but the winter weather is perfect – clear skies, warm days, and cool enough in the evening to wear a sweater. Mostly inhabited by families, our neighbourhood is a hive of activity, with children running from house to house and riding their bikes in the sunshine.

Our eye-popping bougainvillea

Our eye-popping bougainvillea

The hot-pink bougainvillea that climbs frothily over our front wall looks stunning and, at night, the generous smattering of villas decorated with flashing Christmas lights is making the compound look delightfully festive. One street, in particular, is creatively lit with blinking bulbs on nearly every house (they could almost have had a Regent Street-style light switching-on ceremony).

Christmas wreaths hang on front-doors, and in the busier, touristy parts of Dubai, there are lines of palm trees with fairy lights coiled round the trunks.

Of course, you can’t step far without bumping into a Christmas tree either. The malls have been dressed up for the season, with trees several floors high and bedecked with dazzling ornaments. Santa has been putting appearances in too, and just across the road from my office, at the Dubai Christmas Fest, I hear they had snow falling on the hour and an outdoor skating rink.

xxxx

Fairy lights twinkling in the dark

We’ve had carollers from the Philippines going from door to door with a guitar, spreading Christmas cheer round the compound; there’s ample opportunity to gorge on mince pies; and a neighbour’s annual carol-singing evening was a huge success – washed down with mulled wine.

Even if you’re not travelling back for Christmas, I just love the way Dubai makes expats feel as though they’re home for the holidays.

Middle East airlines take glamour to new heights

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When my husband, an A380 pilot, goes to work, he’s accompanied by an entourage of cabin crew – I’ve lost count, but it’s something like 27, mostly women in their 20s – who manage to make that glam look seem effortless, even after a 16-hour flight.

I’ve often wondered how they do this, especially as for us hollow-eyed, travelling mums, with children barnacled to our ankles, the radiance at the end comes from the relief that the flight is over and knowing everyone’s arrived intact, rather than a lipstick refresh and spritz of makeup fix spray.

Behind the scenes, a lot of work goes into the ‘look’ you see on Middle East airlines, which count image and customer service as key components of their branding. The uniform is the starting point, and yesterday the UAE’s Etihad Airways revealed its much-anticipated new Italian-designed outfits at a catwalk show in Abu Dhabi. These photos, by a Vogue photographer, were taken among the majestic sand dunes of the emirate’s Liwa desert and on location at the Qasr al Sarab desert resort.

In-flight couture: The new uniforms to be worn by Etihad Airways flight attendants were created by Italy’s haute couturier Ettore Bilotta at his atelier in Milan

In-flight couture: The new uniforms to be worn by Etihad Airways flight attendants were created by Italy’s haute couturier Ettore Bilotta at his atelier in Milan

Made from 100 per cent Italian wool in warm chocolate brown, with deep purple accents, and accessorised with fitted gloves, belt, hat and scarf, you can see where Etihad is going with these stylish skirt suits: the look is reminiscent of the classic collections of airline crews in the heyday of international air travel, with some contemporary, modern runway-inspired twists. The new slim-line handbag, for example, is made to the dimensions of a tablet device.

Retro: The hats are inspired by the stars of the Hollywood Silver Screen as well as the sweeping formations of the Emirati desert sand dunes

Retro: The hats are inspired by the stars of the Hollywood Silver Screen as well as the sweeping formations of the Emirati desert sand dunes

Here in Dubai, at my DH’s airline, cabin crew are given a full day of training by Image and Uniform before they can even take to the skies. This is where hosties learn what products to use (primer and powder for oily skin, not liquid foundation), how to use them (SPF daily), and how to prevent the dry conditions on board from dehydrating their skin.

Emirates red: Recurrent image and uniform training helps create the desired look

Emirates red: Recurrent image and uniform training helps create the desired look

On the day of a flight, natural, daytime makeup and eye shadow in neutral shades is applied to provide an elegant base and healthy, fresh-faced complexion. But it’s the perfectly drawn smile in ‘Emirates red’ that’s the most important.

“The ladies need to find a shade of red that goes with their skin tone and uniform,” Sibille Juen, a cabin crew training specialist, tells Safar, Emirates’ staff newspaper. “We can help with that in training. We advise crew to pencil the outline of their lips with a lip liner and then fill it in with the liner before applying lipstick.”

On board, makeup fix sprays and eye gels are used to ensure makeup lasts longer and stays looking fresh. Female crew regularly reapply their signature red lipstick and on ultra-long flights often remove all their makeup during breaks in the crew rest area. They then apply a hydration pack or facemask, before putting their makeup back on again. As Marilee Vermaak, also a cabin crew training specialist, points out, “It takes sustained effort to look glamorous from the beginning of a flight to the end.”

Apparently, even the male crew moisturise regularly. So let’s see him then … an Etihad cabin boy, in his new rather dashing suit. Although what do you think the chances are that he’s straight?

Hello! A classic trench coat adds a sense of drama

Hello! A classic trench coat adds a sense of drama

Gardener Scissorhands

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When we moved into our villa, the garden was literally a giant sandbox. We paid landscapers to turn it green, and unwittingly agreed to having Damas trees planted, which shot up to the sky in no time at all.

“We’ll plant ten trees,” the head gardener told us (omitting to mention that they’d position the saplings less than ten inches apart). “Very fast-growing trees. Very green,” he said, making bushy shapes with his hands.

Little did we know at the time that our leafy Damas trees would head upwards at an unstoppable rate, rather like Jack’s beanstalk or a hedge fund on speed. Whilst they certainly provided a lot of green foliage, and attracted some interesting birdlife, their rapid, out-of-control growth got me worried when I spotted Day of the Triffids-style stories online, such as A Damas tree ate my house.

Say no to Damas trees!

Why, 10 of them, 10 inches apart, on steroids – what could go wrong!

The Damas root system, it turns out, is so aggressive in seeking out water and nutrients that it can strangle underground pipes, crack walls, choke drains and kill whole lawns.

We asked our gardeners, the very same people who introduced this species into our backyard in the first place. “Yes, very bad,” they nodded gravely – and it was agreed we’d pay them to topple the overgrown trees in stages.

Today, the remaining five were felled. I say felled, but really I mean pulled down. At least six gardeners arrived with no tools – not a chainsaw or ladder in sight, and proceeded to tear the huge trees down with their hands, an axe and some scissors (okay I made that last one up – they did have shears).

“We stand on the wall and cut as high as our hands can reach,” head gardener, who speaks the most English, has told me in the past, while nibbling on the biscuits I ply him with. And, somehow, this combination of rudimentary tools and manpower results in great big trees being shorn into lollipops.

This morning, when Gardener Scissorhands and his team set about scalping our backyard of its Damas trees, I perhaps shouldn’t have been surprised when, at some point, the water pipe to our house gets bludgeoned too.

After 4 hours with no water, and maintenance refusing to come (because it’s the gardeners’ fault), head honcho announces with a megawatt grin: “It’s fixed!”

Again, no tools! (Funnily, his head scarf has disappeared.)

Anyone who’s ever met a Dubai gardener-turned-tiler-turned-water pipe fixer will know exactly why I’m not expecting to be able to shower tomorrow.

Inside a 9-year-old’s imagination

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Son1 attends an International Baccalaureate (IB) World Continuum School. I have no idea what the ‘world continuum’ bit means, but I do know that there are students enrolled from more than 80 different nationalities, and the importance of diversity and acceptance is hammered home to them.

I have to say, I do enjoy seeing the sea of faces in the playground, and all the myriad shades of skin and hair colour – there are Scandinavian children with the whitest blonde hair, Asian kids with beautiful, dark, almond-shaped eyes and perfect skin, and smiley, dark-haired youngsters from countries such as Iraq and Jordan. Other nations well represented at the school include Germany, France and South Africa.

Four IB programmes are offered, and something that’s quite different from the education I experienced is the focus on presenting their work orally. Besides breeding a new generation of toastmasters, I do think all this speaking in front of the class is instilling a level of confidence in these school kids that’s sure to be valuable in their careers down the line.

A leap of the imagination and you never know what you'll find on board

A leap of the imagination and you never know what you’ll find on board

But it also comes with its fair share of angst. (Being a risk-taker is another key IB ‘principle’, and as my friend put it, if your child isn’t a risk-taker, another system might be better).

Personally, I’ve been really impressed with the IB curriculum, especially by the way it encourages ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking; however, this weekend saw me nervously chewing my lip over Son1’s homework.

The words ‘Prepare an oral presentation (two minutes – not more, not less)’ immediately got my attention – as did the instructions to rehearse the speech, paying attention to clarity of voice, expression, posture and eye contact. Remember, these children are 8, going on 9 – and only cue cards were allowed.

The prompt we used was finding a bottle on the beach with something inside it. Son1 had to continue the story. At first, it was like extracting teeth – he ummed and ahhed, dropped his pencil, half slid off his chair, then ran off to the toilet, his mind a blank. It was only when we hit on the idea of a bottle from the Titanic that his imagination started firing on all cylinders.

Suddenly, his brain synapses went into overdrive. I could almost see his electrically excitable neurons lighting up, and out of his mouth flowed a (rather inspired, I thought) story about raising the Titanic from the seabed. To paraphrase, there was a magic ball in the bottle that was dropped over the shipwreck site, creating enormous waves that caused the Titanic to come to the surface.

“That’s great,” I encouraged, as he really got into the swing of it. “And was the ship in one piece?” (Yes) “As good as new, really?” “And what about all the passengers? Were they all brought back to life and reunited with their families?” Clearly, I needed a happy ending to history’s best-known maritime tragedy.

“Oh no, mummy!” he said, his eyes shining with story-telling glee. “They had blue skin, and their faces were falling off. They were zombies! There was a message with a handprint of blood, telling me I had to shoot them. All of them.”

If I do manage to make a writer of him, I think it’s safe to say his genre will be fantasy sci-fi.

Building stair-mina in Dubai’s towering concrete gyms

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As I approach my desk in the morning, my legs feel wobbly and my heart pounds ten to the dozen. I sit down, wave to my friend – another mum who gets in early – and after I’ve caught my breath, suggest a cup of tea. You might be wondering if I’ve suddenly been afflicted with terrible nerves about work, or more likely the children. But no.

I’ve started climbing the stairs.

Not all the stairs. I work in an office tower, and we’re on the 20th floor. I’m pretty sure I’d collapse if I tried to climb that many stairs. So instead I ride the elevator to floor 16, then scale four floors on foot (which doesn’t sound much at all, but believe me, the vertical rush is a mini cardiac work-out).

Then, about 11am, I set off again – up another four storeys (actually eight flights of stairs), and down again. Funnily, it’s the going down bit that turns the old calf muscles into jelly, especially wearing heels.

Any lovely people who’ve been following this blog for a while will know about my half-hearted attempts to keep fit. There’s the gym (yawn) but it really does bore me (unless I rest my Kindle on the treadmill and read at the same time, which can be done if you go slow enough). There was my Wii-fit phase (you can watch TV if you do the Free Step option), and there was the summer where I discovered scooting and got left behind for dust by my boys.

Stair-climbing definitely worked for these two stick people

Stair-climbing definitely worked for these two stick people

I want to exercise, but it’s a time thing: How on earth do you fit it into a busy day when working full-time and coming home to children who haven’t seen you all day? I see all the mums with their busy little bottoms bouncing into school in tight Lycra, and feel a little envious that they have time to do proper exercise, with personal trainers. And I’m also well aware that it’s all too easy to live a sedentary lifestyle in the UAE – we drive everywhere, and over the hot months, no one walks outdoors.

So when I read about the benefits of stair-climbing, I decided this was it. Time to take advantage of architecture’s gift to time-crunched office workers: the stairwell – an altogether different world to the hustle and bustle of the lifts. The stairs are quiet and solitary – you get some funny looks from security guards, the odd stair loiterer and off-duty cleaners, but mostly you’re alone with your thoughts, until you emerge into the brightly lit office lobby (panting).

I thought I’d share some of the findings, in case anyone else needs inspiring … (And since looking into this, I’ve found out that plenty of people in Dubai, where the skyline reaches high into the atmosphere, are already mountaineering their buildings – including several of my work colleagues and the nutters enthusiasts who take part in organised stair-climbing races.)

– You burn about 0.1 calories for every step you climb, so that’s roughly a calorie for every 10 upward steps. You also burn calories going down. Every stair descended burns about 0.05 calories, which equates to one calorie for every 20 steps down, according to British firm StepJockey, which is encouraging Dubai to ditch the lifts.

– About seven minutes of stair climbing a day has been estimated to more than half the risk of a heart attack over 10 years.

– Meanwhile, New York University estimates that with the stairs burning almost 700 per cent more calories than standing in an elevator, two minutes of stair climbing a day burns enough to eliminate the one pound weight gain the average adult experiences each year.

Will you join me and take the stairs? Although it’s not really getting any easier, I swear I’ve discovered deep down parts of my lungs I didn’t even know existed.

Getting over the Christmas tree OCD

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Every year, as soon as December hits with a wry smile and only 24 days to go, the boys want to put the Christmas tree up.

You’d think that living in a Muslim country would mean Christmas might start a little later. Not so: the commercial side of it is alive and well in the UAE. The shops are full of Christmas-themed merchandise, and their windows decked out with glittery, wintry displays. Expat Woman, the hugely popular online forum, even held its festive family day-out – complete with a Santa’s grotto and Christmas market – on 8 November.

Not the blogger's tree! A chic variety at our local restaurant

Not the blogger’s tree! A chic variety at our local restaurant

And each year, we try a little harder to teach the boys the true meaning. There was the occasion when I was setting up the Christmas nativity, and Son2 came over to peer at the figurines: he looked quizzically at the reverent wise men bearing gifts, the proud, tired parents and the guardian angel. Then he reached out and grabbed the cow sitting lowing in the hay. “Mummy, what is it?” he asked, with a not-so-reverent shine in his eyes. “Is it a farm?”

I think we’ve made progress since then. Which is easier said than done in a country where many of the schools treat this holiday as a hush-hush operation, putting on celebrations but disguising them as winter festivals. However, while my mum can now pull off pretty Christmas trees with beads and candles, and which even rotate, there’s a department where I’ve had to learn a thing or two myself:

Letting go of the Christmas tree OCD.

The children’s excitement about hanging twinkly lights, baubles and tinsel on a fake tree takes on the momentum of a runaway train, and despite knowing this should be a fuzzy, homely experience – with Christmas jingles in the background and mince pies warming in the oven – it never quite works out like this.

The tree needs to be built; and slotting 30 branches of greenery into place bores the kids silly; the spaghetti junction of tangled lights then needs sorting out at the same time as stopping the boys from jumping on the tiny bulbs; then they don’t work; the dusty boxes of decorations are ripped open dangerously fast, and the contents practically flung at the tree in excitement. I can’t be the only mum who secretly rearranges the multi-coloured, haphazardly placed baubles when the children are sleeping.

This week, the chance arose to skip all this rigmarole and mess. The boys were off school for the 3-day National Day break and at home with our nanny while I worked 2 of the days. “Shall we do the tree?” she asked (and I swear I saw a faint hint of trepidation in her face). “YES!” I replied, a little too eagerly. “Please, that would be great!” (I wouldn’t have to sweat about colour schemes, bald spots, smashed decorations or gold, tinsel-tastic explosions).

I got home from work and Son1 practically blind-folded me in his keenness to show me their handiwork. The lights were turned off, and in the darkness I was led to the tree: “Wow, it’s beautiful! I love it,” I exclaimed. “Great job, boys!”

And while I really did mean it; and haven’t moved a single decoration (honestly!), apart from the ones the cat swats at the bottom, there was one thing I had to ask DH later. “What happened to the lights?” They were different from last year’s now broken electric bulbs. “They’re all blue, and flashing … kind of like a police car rushing to a traffic accident.”

Turns out they were the only ones left in the shop (and grabbed in a rush by my family of boys with no care for aesthetics) – and the neon-blue glow is rather growing on me. At least, it will when I take the lights upstairs and string them on the white tree instead.

National Day: My favourite day of the year

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If you go down to the beach today … you might just come across a thousand flags

If you go down to the beach today … you might just come across a thousand flags

It’s a big day for the UAE today: the country’s 43rd birthday. For the public sector, this means a 3-day holiday (5 days if you count the weekend); for us less fortunate souls in the private sector, we’re … well … considering ourselves lucky to have today off work.

Flags have popped up all over the UAE: on cars, buildings, cookies, pizzas, kids’ faces, parachutes, buses and just about any other surface still enough to paint the red, green, white and black motif on. And it does get you thinking about just how far the UAE has come in a mere 43 years.

Flag farm: The boys absolutely loved running up and down the aisles between these fluttering flags

Flag farm: I could only photograph a tiny portion of it, but the boys absolutely loved running up and down the aisles between the fluttering flags

There can only be a few countries in history that have experienced, in just over four decades, such a huge shift in income and development. Since the early 1960s, the UAE has risen, quite literally, from relative obscurity to become one of the wealthiest and most dynamic of the smaller countries of the world.

So I’m definitely feeling patriotic today. The parades, fireworks, shows, flamboyantly decorated cars, not to mention the Dubai Fountain dancing to the UAE National Anthem and the camels and falcons that visited the schools this week have all created quite a buzz. Yesterday, there was even (drumroll) a spit of rain, which provided just enough moisture to wash the dust away and spruce up the city before the celebrations.

Happy National Day everyone! I’ll leave you with this quick potted history …

Crews lived on board in incredibly cramped conditions for weeks at a time. Photo credit: National Maritime Museum, via BBC

Crews lived on board in incredibly cramped conditions for weeks at a time. Photo credit: National Maritime Museum

The little fishing village that could: In the 18th century, Dubai was a small fishing and trading village inhabited by members of the Bani Yas tribe. Until the discovery of oil changed everything, the region was poor and one of its main sources of income was pearl fishing.

Pearl divers of Arabia: At the turn of the 20th century, the region’s pearl industry was at its peak. Between May and September hundreds of wooden ships headed out to the oyster banks from Gulf towns including Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Bahrain. Pay and working conditions were terrible.

The rest, as they say, is history

The rest, as they say, is history

Striking it rich: The first traces of hydrocarbons in what was to become the UAE were discovered in Abu Dhabi’s Bab field in 1954. A BP subsidiary also began offshore explorations, and in 1958 enormous quantities of oil were discovered at the giant Umm Shaif field, containing some 3.9 billion barrels of oil in rock formations beneath the seabed.

Federation formed: Just as the energy industry began to take off in the Trucial states, the British announced their withdrawal from the area. The UAE was formed on 2 December 1971 after an agreement was reached between the six rulers of Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Ajman, Sharjah, Umm al-Quwain and Fujairah. Ras al-Khaimah joined the federation two months later. Qatar and Bahrain were also invited to join, but elected not to.

The reverse lie-in (and feeling tired all the time)

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I have deep admiration for morning people. Unfortunately, I’m not one of them. This wasn’t really a problem until I had children.

Even during the halcyon days of working in magazine publishing in London, I could get away with sleeping until about 8.15am, rolling out of bed and taking an old Routemaster bus to Regent Street in time for a 9.30am soft start.

No-one really tells you, do they, exactly how huge a mother’s sleep deficit really is. Thankfully, the days of small children jumping into the marital bed are (touch wood) over. We can get through the night without being disturbed, punched, kicked, jabbed in the ribs or poked in the eye. We can even keep the duvet on until morning time.

Gone (Hallelujah!) are the days when Son2 would hop into bed and need me to face him, with my arm over him at a certain angle – like doing yoga, without the relaxing effect. Nor am I tempted anymore to make late-night calls to DH in his hotel room, under the pretext of needing support, but really out of sleep envy.

Alarm clock, be gone. I'm ditching you for a natural-sounding, cascading dawn chorus in line with my circadian rhythm.

Alarm clock, be gone. I’m ditching you for a natural-sounding, cascading dawn chorus in line with my circadian rhythm.

Yet, despite the progress we’ve made in this department, I’m still tired all the time. I’m pretty sure this is due not only to the daily gymkhana that all mothers compete in, but also largely because of the early starts associated with school-sized children in the UAE.

DH is quite confounded by this. He regularly gets up before the lark, at 1am, 12.30am or earlier to fly through the night (requiring 7pm bedtimes). On a good night, if he’s flying a cushy European flight, the silver dream car that picks him up for work doesn’t arrive until 5.30 or 6am, allowing him a ‘lie-in’ until 5am or so.

So, as you can imagine, I didn’t get much sympathy when I was lamenting the fact that tomorrow morning I have what is, in my mind, a shockingly early 7.15am meeting with Son2’s teacher.

“It’s easy,” he said with a grin. “Just start from the time you have to get up and work backwards.”

Kind of like a reverse lie-in, I suppose. But I’m an owl, I countered with a sigh. I love my sleep, but I also love the quiet time in the late evening and tend to stay up too late.

I’ll give it a go, and if it doesn’t make early starts less painful, I’m investing in one of those apps that promises to not jar you out of a deep REM slumber, but instead taps into your natural circadian rhythm and rouses you gently. It’s either that or a teasmaid.

The Christmas present conspiracy

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My boys go to separate schools. There’s a back-story behind this, which I’ll sum up in two words: waiting list. The happy side-effect of this bi-polar situation (the schools are quite different) is that while Son1 has to travel further on a bus, he loves his school.

He enjoys it for many reasons, not least because when the children have birthday parties, they get presents. This doesn’t happen at Son2’s school.

Instead, Son2’s school has a wonderful system where the mums give money (AED50) to the keeper of the birthday card, so that before a party, you’re not running around trying to find a pressie, gift wrap, Sellotape, etc. It also means that, if you’re the party host, you get a stash of cash to pay for the party buy your child something they want.

The towering pile of presents: A benefit of Son1's school

The towering pile of presents: A benefit of Son1’s school. Or money? Which system do you prefer?

Today, we held Son1’s ninth birthday party. It was an all-boy (and one girl) affair, involving 15 children, who we treated to laser tag and go-karting at Motor City, followed by pizza. To my relief, all went well – but, as I’d predicted, the presents were an issue with Son2.

“Na-na-na-nar-nar!” Son1 called out to his brother. “At MY school, you get presents.”

Son2 immediately started sobbing.

“Tell Mummy to put you on the waiting list for MY school,” Son1 helpfully suggested, as Catherine the Great and I struggled under the weight of the two huge bags of gifts we were hauling out to the car after the party.

And that’s when DH and I had an idea. Parents are so generous here, and the pile of presents really did look enormous (and excessive – I honestly wish I’d asked the mums to donate to charity instead) – and Christmas is so close. Surely Son1 wouldn’t notice if five or six of them turned into Santa presents?

I raised an eyebrow at DH. He agreed. We’d hide one bagful until Christmas, then Santa could give them to both boys. Was this ethical? Never mind. It was a done deal. It would, at the very least, stop Son2 from sobbing in the corner during the grand opening.

Well, let’s just say we very nearly got away with it. Catherine the Great successfully hid some of the wrapped-up gifts; Son1 dived into unwrapping the rest of them, giving his beloved Girl Next Door, and even long-suffering Son2, turns at opening them (they even tidied up, I’m liking nine so far!).

I sat back, watching, with a cup of tea.

Then, as the unwrapping frenzy slowed: “Mum, there was another bag. I saw it. The Toys-R-Us bag. Where is it? You know, the white bag.”

I don’t know if it was the nagging guilt I was feeling about our scheme, or the realisation that the children often tell each other what they’re giving – plus the fact parents put thought into it (hence, the Titanic jigsaw and Lego sets) – but we buckled, causing green-eyed Son2 to go totally silent and Son1 to whoop with unbridled joy.

Lucky Son1! I know I’ll regret it when it comes time to tackle the dreaded Christmas shopping. Gah.