Bountiful Complexities....

Alrighty, I've heard from you and have discovered I need to do a much better job of keeping up with this...so here goes. My friend Jerri K (whose blog I've heard many of you have been keeping up with...can't say that I blame you since she posts more than once a month)...anyways, she has been posting pictures of some of our daily activities. I'm not quite that organized, so I'm just going to post a picture a day or so, and then tell you the story behind it and/or activities that might accompany it--I'm shooting for a bit of randomness, I guess. Hopefully this method will bring a smile to your face (or outright laughter would be swell!), a bit of insight into life here, and perhaps be a small bright spot in your day. Here goes....

This lovely picture represents one of the many cultural lessons Jerri K and I have learned from experience! This is a picture of the door of a little (or perhaps, considering it's location, a rather large) shop in a "neighborhood" of Dubai called Satwa*. The store name is called City Man (you see that in the red and yellow boxes on the door there), but do not let the name fool you...I've been told that it a good place to get rather inexpensive churidars (traditional blouses worn by Indian women).  Jerri K and I ventured out in hopes of discovering the merits of this establishment for ourselves. I will not, in this space, attempt to fully disclose all the details of our adventure in its entirety, suffice to say it was one of our earlier outings when all the roads and routes were even more confusing than they are now (after 2 months of driving them!), and the traffic in Satwa is an excellent reminder that we do, in fact, share the roads here with people from countries who have less stringent driving laws than we do. After circling the block, or rather the strip of blocks, where this store is located, we finally determined this was our destination and located an unintimidating and rather uncongested looking parking lot nearby. We slinked into our choice of spots (conveniently located near the parking meter--they have those for entire parking lots here...that may occur in other large cities, but it is a new concept to me...shoot, paying for any street-side parking is a relatively new concept to me!!!), gathered our wits about us, and stepped out to conquer a new adventure...the parking meter. After squinting against the 2:30 sunlight, we determined that the little screen was informing us that parking was free until 4 o'clock! Such luck!!! After walking a couple of short blocks back to where we had seen the shop, we were feeling rather confident that we had managed well....

I now direct your attention back to the picture. You will notice beneath the store name a section labeled "Timing". Since I have the advantage of making the original picture larger on my computer, I will read it for you...ahem...

"Timing 

9 am to 2 pm

4 pm to 12 pm"

You will recall I mentioned the time a bit earlier...shortly after 2:30 pm. We have probably not looked that much out of place before or since as we just stared at the door for a good minute or two. We did decide that a two-hour lunch/nap break (while very unfortunate for us) is really a very brilliant idea before we started our defeated trek back to our lonely car in the free (until 4) parking lot. We have not yet attempted this excursion again, but now, at least, we have a better understanding of the street layout in Satwa and have learned a little more about the enigma that is the parking meter!

*Dubai is broken up into MANY different "neighborhoods" or "regions". I really don't have a good guess as to how many blocks it might encompass (look it up on Google Earth if you must know!), but some of them are primarily residential areas, some are primarily retail areas, etc. Satwa is like a large market--at least the portion we went to.

Bountiful Adventures!

Well, one of these days perhaps I will do a better job of publishing my life online, but for now it seems very difficult to find the time...perhaps because life has been so full of adventures these past three weeks! Packing for the trip to Dubai was quite an experience and got smushed into the 4-day period between Christmas and departure (with a sister's birthday on one of those days, as well); but I'm happy to report that the flights and all of the travel in general was very good--no real complications--woohoo!

The day after I landed (New Year's Eve), the team and I (all 11 of us) drove up to Jebel Hafeet, the highest point in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), so we could look out over the country as we kicked off our new year! On New Year's day, we all had a picnic in the desert and spent the afternoon dune-bashing (driving up and down through the dunes with plenty of slipping and sliding included...basically, the Arab redneck version of mudding). ;)

My first week here was spent trying to catch up on sleep, and getting unpacked and familiarized with the new surroundings. Here are a few interesting discoveries that I have made in my two weeks here: most of the stores are found in malls (including the grocery stores), light switches must be flipped down to turn electricity on and up to turn it off, most of the restaurants have delivery service (only a few have drive-thrus), the main currency is the AED or dirham (about 3.5 dirhams to a dollar), a can of Pringles is about $2 (not too bad), Fridays in UAE are the same as Sundays in USA (go to church, labor workers have the day off), Sundays in UAE are the same as Mondays in USA (start back to school and work), and all the gas stations are full service (I'm going to be VERY spoiled when I get back home!). Also, I've found two favorite foods already. The first is chicken biryani (pronounced bree-YAWN-ee), an Indian dish of rice and chicken (still on the bone, so plenty messy to eat) that is incredibly flavorful! The second is called a shawarma (pronounced SHWAR-ma), and is the Arab version of a McDonald's hamburger--it consists of thinly sliced meat, lettuce, tomatoes, sauce, pickles, and probably some other stuff wrapped up in Arab bread (think pita bread).

The traffic here is not nearly as bad as I expected it to be--it is actually somewhat like Houston with a touch of India (I guess) mixed in. The traffic can get pretty thick at times and people treat the lines between lanes as a suggestion, but there are very few wrecks (I haven't seen one yet). I've heard that some of the taxi drivers can be deported if they have a wreck, so the stakes for not driving safely are pretty high! The weather has been absolutely beautiful--today was the first rather hot day we've had. I've been able to wear long-sleeved or 3/4-sleeved shirts most days and not gotten too toasty at all!

Now for the most important part--the people! There are so many cultures represented here that people-watching is more fascinating than anywhere else I've ever lived! I've had the opportunity to talk with women from the Philippines, India (several regions), Russia, South Africa, the UAE (see story later on), Australia, and (of course), USA. I found myself very surprised at how similar people here are to people back home--obviously there are differences in culture, but once I looked past the differences in dress and (some) behavior, I was amazed! I love it!!! My favorite story so far (and I'll likely be telling it a lot when I get back home, so just prepare yourselves to smile through it again later) was about these two Arab ladies (presumably Emirati's) that Jerri K (my roomie) and I met in the park. They were both grandmothers (based on the depth of their laugh-lines and the face coverings they were wearing), and reminded me of two awesome ladies from back home (Debbie V. and Susan M., I met your Arab counterparts!). The essence of the story is this: neither of them could speak more than two words in English (apparently-- "hello" and "bye" were all we got), but we all had a great time jabbering back and forth in our own languages--them pointing and laughing and telling us all about it in Arabic, us pointing at what we thought they were talking about and laughing back and trying to clear things up in English, them chattering and laughing some more while shaking their heads like they didn't really understand but continuing to talk about it like they did (always in Arabic), and us smiling and laughing back with a little less zeal and just shrugging our shoulders. It was a great time and never in my life have I had such a great laugh with complete strangers--I loved it!!! =D I hope to have many other fun stories like that before I come home!

As for the girls I'm working with--they are sooo wonderful!!! Evan is 12, Bella is 8, and Alex is 7 (pictures will be coming soon), and they each have such different personalities. I can't wait to see what adventures with them lie in store for the remainder of my stay! Jerri K has been a great help in getting me used to the city and being an adventure buddy--I'm quite certain we both help to embolden each other enough to try lots of new things we'd never think of attempting on our own!

Guess that's it for now! Hopefully the next entry won't be quite the marathon this one was! :)

Bountiful Blessings

Whew! It has been a busy semester...as evidenced by my lack of updates! I am happy to report that my thesis is now completed, my oral defense is finished and I’m working on getting my research ready for publication! For those of you who don’t know, this is a HUGE blessing because the deadline to have all the thesis stuff turned in (and the date that I expected to be busy until) is this coming Wednesday...I was finished with everything a good two and a half weeks early!!! I got to take the whole week of Thanksgiving off and celebrate with my family, including our newly extended family--my brother married an amazing young lady the day after Thanksgiving! We had relatives from all over the place, it seems, come down for the wedding and it was just a wonderful time! I got to spend good quality time with family and friends that I don’t usually get to see this time of year--all a month before I leave! God is so good in the way He orchestrates the timing of events!!! 

In other news, I will have all of my support money for Dubai raised by the end of this month! This means that when I fly out on December 29th, I will not have to worry about raising any additional funds or keep track of monthly pledge donations still needing to be fulfilled! Until that time, I’ll be busy with packing (and trying not to be nervous about the 21 hour international flight...by myself!), spending as much time as possible with friends and family, and eagerly preparing (mentally, physically, and spiritually) for the next six months and the many adventures to come! Thanks for all your prayers!