Christmas in Dubai

We had a lovely Christmas in Dubai.  I was a little worried that it would be sad and pitiful.  Last year, we were in a hotel room in Tunis and I got a little down.  I hoped that this year would prove a little more upbeat...

Well, it did.  I did a little (okay A Lot) of baking.  I carried pounds of cookies and treats out to the port and lavished my culinary expertise on the sailors and Marines in port for the holidays.  Volunteering for the USO was extremely rewarding and humbling.  I'm going to keep doing it.

I made some candies from an old recipe.  Halfway into it, I realized why I never do this.  Such hard work.  And my candies, although they tasted great, didn't look very pretty.

On Christmas Eve, two of the neighbor kids came by with their parents and I got to show them the NORAD Santa site.  They watched the 'delivery' presents pop up and were fascinated to see where Santa would be delivering gifts next.  It's too bad the live reindeer feeding feed works on EST.  I think they would have gotten a huge kick out of seeing Santa feed his reindeer.

One of DH's coworkers invited us to share a sit down Christmas dinner with her family.  We agreed.  It saved us from cooking a turkey dinner for just the two of us.

The UK holiday traditions were a lot of fun.  The meal had several courses and was a leisurely, friendly affair.  We all had 'crackers' which you tug open with a tablemate.  They 'pop' and inside, there's a prize.  There are also tissue paper crowns which we wore for hours.

They baked a turkey which was yummy!  All the sides were interesting and delicious.  Where we usually have cornbread stuffing, we enjoyed their family's traditional 'mealies'.  It was a stuffing made of ground oatmeal that was soaked/cooked in a soup that was served as a starter.

We even had a Christmas pudding which was a fig based, dense cake that you soaked in heavy cream.  Not a bad tradition, all said.  We enjoyed all of it.

We ended up staying way late playing cards with the whole family.  Had a great time and a wonderful Christmas holiday!  I'm so glad we were able to share the joy of Christmas with such a lovely family.

--Sandee Wagner

Phone Home

My DH and I just served our first shift as USO volunteers at the port of Dubai.  A big Navy aircraft carrier pulled in, disgorging over a thousand sailors into the compound built for their recreational use.  It's a big square surrounded by trailers that house restaurants, laundry and other services.

We worked in the phone center for a four hour shift.  The USO provides free cell phones for the guys and gals to use with their AT&T calling cards.  You can imagine how many of the darlings wanted to get a hold of a phone and call home to touch base with loved ones over the holidays.

For the first hour and a half we were there, the network was down (at AT&T, some kind of satellite problem) and we had to turn all the folks away.  Then it came back up and the crush started.

The USO has over 200 handsets.  Small inexpensive, simple cell phones that will work all over the compound. So they can carry them off, find a little privacy and make their calls.  They also provide walls of chargers and electrical outlets so the sailors can get on their laptops and Skype.

I wish I could show you pictures of the setup and all the guys making use of the facilities, but if I snapped ANY pictures at the port, the USO would fire me as a volunteer... not just in Dubai, but worldwide!!  It's a big no-no.

So, imagine a bazillion (or thereabouts) trailers in a big square, all with stuff that young folks need and want.  Buses and taxis are ferrying groups into town to shop or sightsee.  The security station is intense.  We have to clear both the port security checkpoint and the USO security that is provided by the military.  Within this cocoon of concrete bunkers and look out points, sits this open square with tents and patio furniture.  While the ship is in port, there's live music provided--a quite good cover band was performing tonight.  The guys were roaming from place to place, exchanging money, hitting the tailors, grabbing Subway or Burger King, utilizing the charging stations, playing games in the rec center.  It's like a small town that gets mobbed with a wave of people.  When there are no ships in port, the vendors close up and it's just the office workers in the compound.

It's quite a set up.  And it's a lot of work.  For instance, the phone center is open from nine o'clock in the morning until two o'clock in the morning.  They have volunteers that man the desks until 2 AM!!  Apparently, there are better people than me working as volunteers, because I cannot see myself working that late a shift for free.

It felt good.  It felt nice to provide those young people with a little taste of home.  They are far away from friends and family and the holidays will be especially hard on them.  So, if you think of it, offer up a little prayer for all the US men and women who are serving their country and away from family during the holidays.  I won't be able to forget the smiles on some faces, and the tears others shed when no one picked up at the other end.

--Sandee Wagner

Maiden Voyage

Santa Claus came early this year.  The jolly old elf got DH a Fenn Swordfish surf ski for being such a good boy this year.

In Dubai, the surf skis come in a container and are sold out of a guy's front yard.  When they're gone, they're gone.  You have to wait until the next container arrives.  The container arrived the last week of November, so we made arrangements to pick one up the second week of December.  Merry Christmas, my love!

We had to get a roof rack to pick up the boat.  We actually had to get cash out of ATMs for days to get the right amount of money to pay for the thing.  It's an adventure not having a local bank.  But don't get me started on that.

Finding a personal flotation device (PFD) suited to this form of watersport in the proper size was also a challenge.  I'm guessing most of the ocean kayakers and other paddlers are small people.  XL was hard to find.  Imagine our surprise when the one we found was PURPLE!!

We took the surf ski down the beach this weekend for a maiden voyage.  DH paddled both Friday and Saturday and seems as pleased as can be by the gift.

The first day was a lot of 'getting used to' and trying to figure out the way to remount after hulying.  These light, skinny hulls are very tippy.  The Swordfish is not a stable 'starter' boat.  It's Fenn's intermediate hull.  DH paddled on the local club's started boat all summer and decided when we purchased our own to go up a step.  Each progressive hull gets a little narrower, and by extension, tippier.

The first day paddling was a familiarization.  The second day paddling was all for fun and exercise.  I'm wondering how long it will be before I get to try this one out!

--Sandee Wagner

Middle East Marketing

Living in Dubai exposes one to a variety of cultures and languages.  It truly is the "Paris of the Middle East".

I try to keep my eyes open and look at names on businesses.  I look for things that are familiar and comfortable, like Tim Horton's restaurants which are native to Canada but new to Dubai.  Then sometimes my eyes light on something I cannot believe.

We drove down the Jumeirah Beach Road yesterday and I saw a designer fashion resale shop called "Garderobe".  Now I know that there is a dual meaning to this word, and that one of them can mean 'closet'.  But the secondary meaning of the word, the Medieval meaning of the word is equivalent to 'toilet'.  So, I'm guessing that in America, if someone suggested that name for a resale shop, folks would try to talk you out of it.  "Think of another name!"  "That one has a meaning you don't want to imply."

Marketing textbooks are filled with cautionary tales of products that fell flat because the local language was not considered when naming something.  Chevrolet had the Nova in the US and tried, unsuccessfully to market it under that name in Mexico, where 'no va' means 'won't go'.

I spent a good little while trying to decide if anyone would call their upscale boutique the Outhouse with a kind of tongue in cheek nerve, but I'm not seeing it.  Maybe the folks who named that shop are not students of history and the Medieval meaning was lost on them.  Either way, it's a big leap of faith.

Before you ask, I did not stop in at the Garderobe.

--Sandee Wagner

'Tis The Season

We got invited to our first holiday party here in Dubai.  It was a Luau.  No stuffed Santas and Tra-La-Las for this crowd.  We had hula skirts and leis.

The Marines at the Embassy know how to throw a Luau, that's for sure.  We drank pina coladas and good beer.  We listened to great rock and roll and admired their physiques in abbreviated costumes.  The fit young men dressed like Tahitian flaming knife dancers.  Real eye candy for the females.

We ran into a very fun bunch.  They scooped us up at the gate and escorted us to the party, then dragged chairs up to their table and entertained us all night long.

It was a group of folks from the local USO.  Turns out that there's a regional office here for the Middle East.  Not only are the workers who run Afghanistan and Iraq from here, they also run a port operation for the Navy boats that dock here.

Several of the ladies were full time employees for the USO and a couple were volunteers.  Only one was a US citizen, the rest were from the UK.

All of them were having a great time.  We not only hung out during the party and laughed until we were breathless, but we got invited to brunch the next day.

That's right, it's not enough to party hardy with the Marines, these folks also planned to share a glamorous hotel brunch the next day.

We agreed to meet them at the Intercontinental Hotel at Festival City, a large mall that boasts both an IKEA and an Ace Hardware.

The Intercontinental was bedecked for Christmas.  Their lobby had a giant candle and floral display.  Check out the tiny girl dragging her pink luggage--isn't she cute?

This centerpiece was really stunning.  I know it wasn't just me who thought so because there were two other folks snapping pictures when I took this one.  And before you comment, I know, I should have put the light at my back, but this is the best of the shots I took.

They also had a ginormous Christmas tree at the end of the lobby.  Minimal decorations, but just the scale of the tree was tremendous.  Because Dubai is very international, it's not unusual to see Christmas decorations.  Most of the public spaces have trees, swagged garland or lights.

I'm loving the decorations.

I've even got ours up for the year.  I didn't manage any way to hang the stockings, but all the rest of my boxed cheer made its way out of the packing materials and out to be enjoyed.  We did lose a few things in the multiple container moves, but nothing that we can't live without.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas--if your Christmas includes mid seventies weather, lots of blue sky and sunshine.  We are wearing flip flops and shorts, and eating our meals outside.  Cheers!

--Sandee Wagner

November Lost

If you read this blog regularly, and I guess that's about eight folks all told, then you know it hasn't been updated for a while.  Novembers are hard on me.

For one thing, I try to do National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) each year.  This is a self challenge where you commit to writing a 50,000 book in the month of November.  I'm not sure why they chose November, perhaps because of the 30 days?  Regardless, I've done the challenge for five of the past six years and it takes a lot of commitment to crank out that many words without stopping to edit.  The same non profit organization hosts a Script Frenzy in April.  I haven't tried that one yet.

The other reason I'm so delinquent is that we traveled home to the US for the Thanksgiving holiday.  So, we were gone for a little over two full weeks.  Had a great time, got to spend lots of time with friends and family, but it's still hard on the daily writing routine.

I love getting to spend time with my kids and grandkids.  I'm so proud of how well they are doing, how big they are growing, and what fascinating things come out of their mouths.  I find it all endlessly entertaining.

Over this holiday, I got to see my daughter skate in a roller derby bout.  She's a member of the Oklahoma Victory Dolls.  It was great fun.  My suggestion to you?  Find your local roller derby and go see a bout.  It was a lot of entertainment for the bucks!

I think that deep down I thought of roller derby like professional wrestling.  Staged somehow.  But it was more sporting than I expected.  The announcer explained the tactics and strategies and we had a great time watching my daughter and her friends skate three bouts.  It was an action packed night of fun, fun FUN!

After the short weekend with my daughter in Oklahoma City, we flew to Huntersville, NC to spend the balance of the holiday with my son and his family.  Queue the darling grandkids...

I love the fact that my son cooks with his kids.  He lets them help stir things and he teaches them about what he's doing while he prepares their food.

Zack is a good teacher and ZJ is going to be a good cook one day too.  These guys don't mind mugging for the camera whenever one is pointed at them.

In this picture, they are making sweet potatoes for the Thanksgiving meal.  The secret ingredient?  Bananas.  Yeah, that's right.  Bananas.

While he and his dad were cooking, Zoey and both her grandmas took her out for a girls shopping trip.  Her mama came and met us for lunch.  Here is a picture of Zoey eating some kind of blue colored ice cream sitting next to her mama, Kim.

We had a lot of fun shopping with Zoey.  She ended up with hair clips that doubled as reindeer horns and a head band that keeps the mistletoe above her head all the time she's wearing it.  In case you can't tell by the photo, she's a little charmer.  But it's possible that Grandee is a little biased.

On our way home from NC, we stopped in Humble, TX.  We got to have a sleepover with DH's sister Linda.  We didn't get to see her husband or kids, so that was a bummer, but we were sure glad she drove down to see us.

I love spending the holidays with family and friends.  We got to see our dear friend Sandy from Tulsa and we also spent a couple of days with the Burgess' in Humble.  Catching up with friends and family is what the holidays are all about anyway.

So, November is over.  It flew by quickly.  We squeezed a lot of fun in that 30 days and I wouldn't trade that time for the world.

--Sandee Wagner