What you look for is never what you expect.

On Friday (the only day off I have here), I decided that I would search out the Dubai Museum.  Even though I knew that Dubai's history only extends 50 years (before that there were a lot of camels and even more sand), I wanted to see the roots of this place.  One of the problems with the US is that there is no real sense of history...it's only 200+ years old, right?  So if you spend any time in Europe (thanks, Oxford!), you can start to appreciate the shortness of breath which is the history of the US. Perhaps I should refer those of you who are unfamiliar with me to my adventure with the spice souks...as in, I never found them, just as I didn't find this museum.

This is what I found instead.   A road, stuffed with cars, half of them buried in sand.  The Suzuki pickup is stuck.  I kept walking (as I am prone to do)...and found this.  A monument, to what I'm not sure, in the middle of the same apartment complex.

There were pilgrims (?) kneeling at the far sides, removing their shoes, washing their feet, and bowing in the general direction of this.  Still in the hunt for the Museum, I moved on...

This is the Mosque tower by Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum's palace, right on the Dubai creek.  The walkway was packed with people fresh from the water taxis, headed home or out to shop.  I kept on getting jostled, poked, prodded, and all around disturbed me as I tried to enjoy the sun setting behind the green and lavish area.  So I kept on walking.

This is the sunset from near Mankool road, but further towards the Gulf.  By this point, I was exhausted, having spent several hours on foot, searching for this museum (which I later found out is literally minutes away from Community 317)...but I couldn't resist getting closer, even though this area is completely fenced and cordoned off, to keep prospective tourists from trampling on the virgin sand.

One of the things I've had to adjust to here is the daylight hours.  The sun rises around 5 am, and sets around 6pm.  And this hasn't varied since I've been here.  It's always sort of weird to walk into my building(s), and walk out around 7pm, still expecting it to be light outside but be completely wrong.

I'm currently teaching Math to the senior girls at Dubai First School.  They are all locals, cover themselves totally when not in class, and have loved me ever since I brought in a bag of candy for them.  Yesterday, they finally told me why they keep saying my name so often:  "tim" (with a slightly different inflection) means "stay" in Arabic.  So everytime they say it, they giggle, because I always stop what I'm saying/doing.  I'm going to try and take some pictures of them.

I have seen the future, and the future is RAID; also some Diwali reflections courtesy of my taxi driver

The common wisdom is that the average cockroach could survive a nuclear war, enduring the resultant fall-out and nuclear winter with the panache and grace of a nobleman who has been slightly inconvenienced by the loss of his manservant.  However, though the cockroach's radiation tolerance is higher than ours, they are not completely resistant to radiation.  Sufficiently armed with such knowledge, but after a larger and deeper analysis of all repercussions, I decided I would not detonate a nuclear bomb here in Casa Tim.  I opted, first,to try a local boric acid powder called "Piff Paff."  Let me tell you how that worked.  It was like anabolic steroids for my little friends.  I'm pretty sure I saw several of them rolling around in the powder, then scurrying along the floor to kick some sand in the faces of smaller roaches.  Pish-Posh to Piff Paff.  That's my new motto.  So along comes RAID.  Having had varying degrees of success with the product in Brooklyn, I

wasn't getting my hopes up for the made-in-Dubai version.  But, contrary to my expectations, success!  So long, friend. 

Diwali:
Diwali is a Hindu festival, known as the Festival of Lights.  The holiday is movable, and falls during a different time every year.  However, it is celebrated during the new moon, when there is only darkness at night.  The lights (candles, or even dangling electric lights) are light, to ward off the darkness.  Generally, the Hindus worship (or...specifically worship) the Goddess Lakshimi (who is the goddess of wealth, prosperity, light, wisdom, and generosity), Lord Ganesha (the lord of beginings and the remover of obstacles),  Kali Ma (the goddess of change and time) , and Lord Chitragupta (the god who keeps a complete record of every person on earth).

Where I live, in Bur Dubai, there are a lot of Diwali lights:  hanging over balconies, festooning apartments, wrapped around bicycles...everyone is doing his/her part to fight the darkness.

Tonight, my taxi driver, who was silent for the entire ride from Lamsey Plaza, muttered "Diwali blessings" under his breath as we turned into Community 317 (which is where I actually live), which is on the backside of Bur Juman plaza.  I said "Thanks.  Same to you."  Mainly because I had only recently learned of Diwali, and thought that it would be the nice thing to say back.  "You know Diwali?" he asked, incredulously, and almost drove us into a concrete stanchion in his amazement.  "Sure.  Lots of lights.  Some happy tidings and blessings and all that."  He just started laughing as he pulled up to my Al Habtoor building, block A.  "Lot of Diwali here."  "There are," I said.  "I'm still waiting on my presents from my neighbors."  (Diwali is also a time to show appreciation via generosity.  It's pretty standard to give people gold...actual gold.)  He started laughing again, and slapped my back.  "Here is generosity," he said.  He pointed to the lights, to the children playing in the streets, the cars driving recklessly past us.  "That we can live here.  That we can celebrate each other."  I reached for my wallet to pay the taxi fare, but he waved me off.  "Happy Diwali.  Celebrate."  If I were more of a "pay-it-forward" person, I'm sure that I would be nice to someone later on.  Who knows, maybe I will.
Regardless, Happy Diwali my friends.

My midnight girls

have fluorescent white teeth when they smile,
which is not often.
they wear black, because they have been told they are sinful.
they have beautiful eyes which can't see anything beyond this sand;
they are awful at math, but prodigies at giggling.
when i ask them, they don't know what they want from this life.
i know what i want...what i've always wanted.
to be held, to be whispered to during a thunderstorm,
to no longer say "i wanted to, but didn't."
what hand has decided i need to stand in front of them?
what author has decided
there is no better time than now?
the same writer that has decreed
i am as i am written, and so can be nothing more?
i want to be more,
more, more
and ever more.
but my midnight girls giggle when i touch their books,
stare in awe as i explain nouns, and refuse to answer
me unless i call them by name...names i haven't learned to pronounce,
and their companion hearts i will never be able to know.

So Long, Ras Al Khaimah, hello CAT Scan Results

Today was my last day teaching the Crown Prince of RAK's kids (not all of them, just FYI, but Shaikha Ahmnah [GMAT]and Shaikh Ahmed [SAT/Math II]).  Both of them have been wonderful, if somewhat slightly disconnected from a world wherein one doesn't have a father who is a world leader.  Sort of.  Specifically, these are the 2 richest kids I've ever taught, and the only negative thing I can say about them (and normally I have a bunch of negative things to say) is that they are unrealistic.  They are both smart, humble, wonderful, wonderful people.  Shaikha Ahmnah has a wonderful sense of humor, as well as a ravenous desire to be something other than the sister of her brothers; Shaikh Ahmed is very worried that he will never "experience" anything because of his title and his name.  Because of this, he let me drive his "Lambo" back to Dubai today, apparently so I would think that he was "good people."  This is kind of what it looked like (I chose the yellow one--and yes, there was more than one--, because yellow is my Mom's favorite color):

Luckily, I'm very familiar with manual transmissions, so it only took me a couple of minutes to figure out the ratio between the gas/clutch/holy mother of god we're all going to die.  I felt badly for Shaikh Ahmed's driver (Metro), because he was cramped in the back seat...waiting until I either crashed or I got home.  He rode with us because...he's the driver, and someone had to take the Shaikh back.

After an exhilarating drive back to Dubai (approximately 120km/60 miles), I had to relinquish the wheel to Metro.  I had missed most of the beautiful scenery between RAK and Dubai because Metro kept on shouting "RADAR" (there are RADAR cameras on Emirates Road...which is the road between RAK and Dubai) and "Flash lights, Sir...make them move over."

Best, fastest, and least comfortable car I've ever driven.

This is a CAT scan:

What does a CAT scan do, you may ask.
It doesn't do this:

mainly because if you have to get a CAT scan, you aren't shooting fireworks off in celebration.  Anyway, CAT is an acronym for Computerized Axial Tomography.  What that means is:  holy cow, this is really scary and I'd rather not do it.. How does is a CAT work?  It's basically an X-RAY camera (read...weird sci-fi technology) which rotates around a prone patient, and the images are compiled, indexed and sorted by a computer (thus the "C") so doctors can visualize what is happening inside the body.

 

I'm waiting for the results of my mother's CAT scan, which will reveal if her cancer is spreading or not.  I guess I shouldn't say that I'm "waiting" for these results, because I already know what they will say.  I'm waiting for confirmation of what I have known, but what my family can't believe.

But today, while driving--did I mention that I was driving a sweet car?-- I remembered a sign/photo/something I had seen at some point in my life:  Don't Cry Because It's Over; Smile Because It Happened.  So, while I'm still waiting for the bad news, I'm smiling because of all the good things my mom has done.