School’s Out!

It’s all over! That’s it: no more school, for a very long time. I woke up this morning feeling like we’d gone into free fall: LB’s 5.30am wake-up call is more bearable when you know you can sneak back under the bed covers once the kids are at school. Take that luxury away – remove the routine that gives me space to work, shop, think – and I’m left wondering why the parachute didn’t open!

I’m sure I remember the summer holiday being six weeks or so back in my day. Here, it’s nearly double that. But most people don’t stay in Dubai. They escape the furnace for cooler climes, often for the whole summer.

There are a lot of good-byes flying around at the moment as people leave for their home countries – and a few to friends who are leaving permanently, too. So it’s a funny ole time of year. A mass exodus, families getting split up (while mums and kids head home, our menfolk have to stay here to work, of course), the stifling heat. Yesterday in school, it all got a bit emotional. DH did the last school pick-up and found himself in a classroom of teary-eyed mums. “Whoa,” he remarked later. “So much oestrogen.” And he was stuck until he got the report card!

I think the thing that has left everyone stunned is how fast the school year went – didn’t it just start a few months ago? BB learnt a lot, and so did I. Here are just some of the things I found out about schools here in Dubai:

● The school year is littered with holidays, including the Prophet’s birthday, National Day and Eid. Even the last day of this term was declared a public holiday, making the lengthy summer holiday even longer. Because Muslim festivals are timed according to sightings of the moon, dates are approximate and only confirmed nearer the time (so just when you thought the kids would be at school….!) BB has Christian holidays off, too.

● Kids love to give each other nicknames, like Apple Sauce (Abel) and Corner (Connor), because he liked sitting in the corner, in BB’s class this year. But when BB was given a nickname (Maxi-taxi), my goodness, he was upset!

● Some kids start school here with no English at all. They’re literally thrown in at the deep end and immersed in an English-speaking classroom. There may be some initial frustration, but it’s amazing how after three months, and some extra tuition, they’re talking English fluently.

● For his part, BB has had French and Arabic lessons at his international school this year – subjects that I may have to swot up on myself soon. My friend at sandboxmoxie.com was in a bit of a pickle earlier this year as her seven-year-old daughter needed help with her French homework and it was already beyond her. You gotta love Google Translate at this point.

● Next year, I’ll remember that when the school holds an International Day, to take it seriously – very seriously! The kids went to school in their national dress or colours (for the Brits, this meant football shirts!) and the mums created amazing concoctions from their home countries. Cup cakes in their national colours, elaborate dishes decorated with flags. My offering, some Pop Tarts (my excuse, I’d just started work!) clearly did not make the grade. Next International Day, I’ll be hard at work making Eton Mess, a Victoria Sponge, and cheese & pickle sandwiches.

● In fact, it’s amazing how patriotic you become when you’re living outside your home country. My prize for the best effort made for International Day celebrations goes to the school that had a bouncy English castle, a town crier, a beefeater and a soccer penalty shoot-out. How many schools in England would go to such lengths?!

● I now understand why my friends who are teachers are so wonderfully creative when it comes to entertaining their kids. It’s because they have to come up with so many bright ideas at school. A very popular school here (for which we’ve been on the waiting list for 2 years already and haven’t even had a sniff at!) put on a mock wedding this year. At BB’s school, they held a day where the kids dressed up as their mum or dad. The parents came in that day for a little presentation and when the teacher asked one boy who his daddy worked for, he replied – as though it was the most obvious answer in the world – “For money” Of course. Clever boy, he’s already learnt that it’s money that makes Dubai schools go round.

Camel rides at the Winter Festival

Tell me why, I don’t like Fridays!

It’s no secret that Friday in the UAE is not my favourite day. The first day of the weekend here – and the Islamic holy day of rest – Friday can be a difficult day for several reasons (one of which is rather embarrassing and I’m not even sure if I can divulge!).

Fridays usually start at a very early hour, with a wake-up call from my kids, who seem to rise earlier on a Friday than any other day. They leap out of bed full of glee and immediately need things. Milk, play-dough, the train simulator game on the computer … None of it can wait and the two-year-old literally pulls the duvet off and prizes my eye lids open.

I know this will change as they become more independent – my friend with three slightly older kids told me they let her and her husband lie in for ages at the weekend, once even taking a photo of something they were building so their parents could see it without having to get out of bed. But for now, in our household, there’s no mercy on a Friday morning (so you’d better not be nursing a hangover as well).

Aside from missing family back home and the lack of structure/school/husband (if he’s flying) that Friday brings – meaning there’s another 14 hours or so between the human alarm clock and a break (ie, bedtime) – another gripe about Friday is everywhere is packed. With temperatures in the 40s and 70 per cent humidity at the moment, the malls are crazy busy. I know lots of people who, not liking crowds, stay home on Friday afternoons.

This Friday, I had a plan and I was rather pleased with myself. I’d booked tickets for the kids and myself to see the play of one of our favourite books, Room on the Broom. What a great alternative to the play area, I thought. But, while very good, it was, of course, all over in an hour and then we needed another activity so ended up at the jam-packed play area anyway.

Putting the kids to beds that night and hoping we could talk about the play while looking at the book (what was I thinking!), BB told me: “I don’t want to read Room on the Broom. I’m bored of it.” Then he continued, “I wish Miss Romana (his class’s teaching assistant) was my mum.”

“Oh, why’s that?” I asked.

“Because she’s taller than you. And younger.”

And, it turns out, that wasn’t my only misdemeanour this weekend! DH got really sick, with strep throat, which I’d had earlier in the week. It gave me an awful sore throat, but DH somehow managed to mutate it into a man-version that went down his legs, gave him terrible chills and sent him to bed. My brother-in-law caught man-strep too, prompting DH to ask me:

“Have you heard of Typhoid Mary?”

Apparently she was the first person in the US to be identified as a carrier of typhoid – causing several typhoid outbreaks during her career as a cook – and spent three decades in quarantine.

“We could call you strep throat Marianne.”

As for my confession about Friday, it stems from the fact that we’re so very spoilt the rest of the week, you see. Here in Dubai, it’s very easy to become dependent on having help at home. In our defence, it can be a challenging environment – the climate is hostile in summer so we’re stuck indoors, sandstorms dump sand everywhere, and no one has any family support. Help at home is a perk most expats enjoy.

Then on Fridays it’s withdrawn, abruptly. Even the two-year-old feels it, especially if DH is away, and sits outside Catherine the Great’s room hoping she’ll come back!

Friday Facts
● The weekend here used to be Thursday and Friday, changing in 2006 to Friday and Saturday to bring the UAE more in line with the rest of the world. In several other parts of the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Oman and Yemen), the weekend is still Thurs-Fri. It still feels a little strange going back to work and school on Sunday.

● The Friday brunch is something of an institution among expats in Dubai. It’s basically Sunday lunch transferred to a Friday, but with a lot more excess. The city’s hotels and restaurants throw their doors open for lavish brunches, with free-flowing booze and buffet tables straining under the weight of so much delicious food.

● Every Friday at noon, Muslims go to the mosque for Friday prayers and the city erupts with noise as the mosques broadcast their sermons on loud speakers. If you’re parked anywhere near a mosque at this time, you will get blocked in as people flock to Friday prayers, leaving their cars on the pavement, on the sand, and in every available space.

Playing snowballs in the desert

I’m so over being boiling hot. 42 degrees is way out of my comfort zone (and it’s only June). If only I could be cold for a few hours, even freezing. With a steaming cup of chocolate to warm me up.

And, wouldn’t you know, yesterday my wishes came true – at Ski Dubai, an indoor ski resort at the Mall of the Emirates.

Despite having spent several sub-zero winters in the midwest of America, I’m not mad keen on winter sports. But show me a ski slope covered in real snow inside a mall? I’m all excited. Naturally.

No one has ski gear in Dubai so the ticket for the snow park includes ski pants, a jacket and boots. Getting dressed up in all this garb seemed a little over-the-top, given the outside temperature, and the fact gloves weren’t included didn’t phase me one bit – surely it’s going to be positively balmy in there, compared to Minneapolis in February?

 

 

 

 

 

It’s minus two degrees. It feels wonderful. It’s chilly, refreshing….we’re actually cold!

Really cold. DH goes back out to track down some gloves.

 

 

Skiers can choose from five runs of varying difficulty – we could even sign the boys up for ski school. For now, we stayed in the snow park and enjoyed the tobogganing, bobsled ride, tubing and snow cavern.

 

 

 

I read somewhere that it takes 3,500 barrels of oil a day to keep Ski Dubai cold. What’s more, because they’ve thought of everything, you can sip a cup of hot chocolate beneath a heat lamp on the deck of the mountainside Avalanche Café. Energy efficiency in action, clearly! (although the website points out that with state-of-the-art insulation and an efficient cooling plant, Ski Dubai is essentially a giant cooling box and actually very energy efficient. Who would have thought?).

Plus, they recycle the snow! You could almost forget you were in the Middle East – until you see locals in their traditional long gowns wrapped up in extra-long winter parkas, or whizzing down the slope with their white tunics billowing like sails behind them.

After lots of fun, we quit while we were ahead (BB feels the cold in the freezer section of the supermarket these days). It was time to take off our snow garb, grab a bite to eat in the TGI Friday’s overlooking the slopes and go back out into the sweltering heat. I’ve a feeling we’ll be back to Ski Dubai before the summer’s out.

Ski school: You can start on the nursery slope and work your way up to the black run

Flying carpets and oil-boom optimism

BB and I have been on a trip, just the two of us, to Azerbaijan – a corner of the former Soviet Union and a refreshing change from the hot and dusty desert. My mother mistook it for Afghanistan, I, admittedly, had to google-map it, and then the week of our trip it made news headlines by being crowned the winner of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest! Here are six things I found out …

● BB is a little too used to flying with Emirates. We travelled on a low-cost carrier to the capital Baku – a perfectly good airline, but, on finding our seats, he was not impressed. “Where’s the TV?” he huffed, looking everywhere, including under the seat, to see if it was hidden. “Where’s the blanket?” he asked later, genuinely confused that all the trimmings were missing and I was having to pay for everything.

I was just happy to be on a flight that was only three hours long – plus it was loads better than when I flew solo to Berlin on a budget airline a few years ago. That flight, with its free-for-all-boarding, was all about the element of the unknown, including mysterious delays and the strangest noise on arrival, like someone was sawing off a wing. Dubai to Baku was on time, we had assigned seats, and there were no unnerving noises.

● There was one slightly unnerving passenger, however. He thought I was Russian (which I was secretly quite pleased about as being Russian sounds so much more exotic than being a Brit) and wanted to take us on a boat ride on the Caspian Sea. Seated nearby, he persisted in talking to me and, being British not Russian, I politely tried to engage. He looked like he’d had a productive trip to Dubai – the route is a well-trodden one by Azeri people, who come to the UAE to buy electronics, which is why you see so many passengers on the flight with huge plastic bags stuffed full of gadgets, even wide-screen TVs.

● Tourism is a concept only just beginning to take shape in Azerbaijan, as I found out when applying for our visit visas beforehand. We were only going for two days, but I was asked by the visa man if I had a letter of invitation from the Ministry of Affairs and from my friend’s husband’s company. “Erm, no,” I replied, thinking that was it, game over. Luckily, visa man, who was actually really friendly, was persuaded we had no ulterior motive for visiting, other than to see my dear friend and her family, living in Baku as her husband works for a gold mine. On arriving, we still had to get past passport man, though. Not so friendly, he went through my passport with a fine toothcomb, reading every stamp and peering over the counter at me, probably wondering why my hair was a totally different colour in my photo.

● Sightseeing with limited time and four children under the age of seven is never easy, but we did really well considering. Baku is a cosmopolitan boomtown, with glass-clad modern buildings mushrooming at an astounding rate – being built on a petroleum-funded surge of optimism and in stark contrast to the stone mansions and old, shabby Soviet apartment blocks. We visited the city’s walled ancient core, where carpet sellers ply their trade from Ali Baba-esque shops; climbed the 29m-high Maiden’s Tower; and did some people-watching at Fountain Square. I managed to capture BB’s attention momentarily by telling him we were looking at flying carpets, but his favourite thing was the fun fair on the seafront boulevard.
● I discovered the joys of having a driver, who can nip here, there and everywhere – to pick up a birthday cake, do the school run, bring you home after a boozy night. While it may sound like a luxury, having a driver in Azerbaijan is essential if you don’t want to go grey overnight. On the roads, battered Ladas and shiny Mercedes race for pole position, paying no attention to lanes or each other. It made Dubai driving look orderly, and that’s saying something.

● Expats in Azerbaijan are a hardier bunch than us. They’ve lived in all sorts of interesting places, including Vietnam and Uganda (and that’s just my friend). One British mum I met had just moved from Zambia. A much smaller expat community than in Dubai, they face challenges on a daily basis – power outages, the driving, the language barrier. Healthcare is a concern as the doctor may have simply bought his licence – so, in an emergency, patients are medevaced to London or Dubai. As with all expat societies, there’s a feeling of transience, so if a child is off school with a cold, his classmates think ‘that’s it, he’s gone, moved on!”

BB, straight out of the desert these days, insisted on wearing his fleece for the first day, despite the warm 30-degree temperature, and I’m sure has no idea yet how spoilt we are here in Dubai with its shopping malls and facilities.

But Azerbaijan is a fascinating place – a unique meeting point of ancient historical empires. And outside Baku, there are timeless, orchard-clad villages surrounded by the soaring Caucasus mountains. Expat life there has wonderful perks too – a great sense of community, spacious villas, drivers and maids. And if the materials proffered for junk-modelling at school are anything to go by (champagne boxes as opposed to the Weetabix boxes you’d find at British schools), expats in Baku know how to enjoy themselves!