Another Ramble – 9 month Update

The summer is coming way too quickly.  The day before yesterday we reached 97.  Today the high will be 73 if the weather guessers are right.  Hopefully we have more of the latter than the former for the next few weeks.  I am not yet ready for the heat.

It rained last night.  The rainy season is over (you may recall me speaking of those two days in a previous post) but we came through it short of our 2.75 inch annual average.  I have been told that we may get a little more through the end of this month.  After that, it’s pretty much over.  What we have by the end of March is what we will have for the year.

The sound of rain blowing against the windows woke me up.  It is such a foreign sound here!  It reminds me of the sound of a pinball paddle, and is also about as random.  Sometimes there are many in a row, and other times there will be one or two per minute.  I remember the first time I woke up to that sound last month.  It was befuddling, and I took a while trying to figure out what it was.  It’s definitely different from the relaxing tin roof rains I recall from childhood.

I feel as though we have adjusted to life here pretty well.  On the surface at least, it is not a difficult lifestyle by any stretch.  This time of year there is a lot to do, and you don’t need to go far to do it.  There are multiple classes, workshops and presentations.  Next week I am going to a wine and cheese pairing class.  I have enjoyed a couple of art ‘classes,’ one more instructional and the other simply fun.  I recently finished a six week creative writing course and have been invited to attend an advanced course, which I will.  These are in addition to the yoga and Pilates classes that are offered on an ongoing basis.  I have also been playing around with my baking here.  Baking at sea level in high humidity is as you would guess, the polar opposite of baking at dry altitude.  Dependable old recipes are, lets use the descriptor ‘interesting’ here.  Still, being in the kitchen relaxes me.

Festivals and other events are frequent, and each one showcases something different.  The primary activity location is the Corniche – or main beach downtown.  They will shut down parts of the beach in order to build whatever is needed for each festival.  For National Day, they built huge stages and giant sound systems for multiple live performances, parking areas for food trucks, and a small sort of carnival type stretch of games, etc.  Starting next week, there is the 10-day Mother of the Nation Festival.  To date, this is the largest one I have observed.  They have shut down almost 2 miles of the beach to prepare for it.  The website advertises multiple zones including beach dining, “happy zones” for both adults and children that includes climbing walls, zip lines, and a bag drop.  They plan build a pavilion that they claim will host interactive conversations on popular topics like sustainable living and female entrepreneurship.  (I think I will attend that one!)  I also want to sign up for challenge the chef.  I don’t know what it is yet but I am picturing a sort of ‘Chopped’ type environment and it sounds fun.  Here is a link if you’d like to read about it:

http://motn.ae/en/

So clearly, staying busy this time of year is not an issue at all.  The difficult thing here has been making friends.  It isn’t hard to meet people at all, but because of the transient nature of the city developing real friendships is problematic.  Lengths of job contracts (and therefore stays) vary, as well as individual day to day schedules.  Work weeks are different with the exception of Friday Holy Day, when all besides service industry employees are off work.  I find that people are slow to put any energy into friendships until they have seen your face around enough to realize that you are not a short timer.  While you’d think that would not matter in this time of easy electronic communication, apparently for many it does.  It gets worse during the summer when many people leave for an extended period of time in order to escape the heat.  Due to the serious (albeit temporary) drop in population, the number of available activities also decreases.  So we are also planning for summer travel, and I will take another extended trip to India.  Still, I will be here for at least some of the summertime gloom.  I am grateful to the friends who have (and continue to) take the time to reach out and say hello.  I like being able to sit in the air conditioned comfort and keep up with the happenings at home.  So thank you for the emails, chats and even the occasional and random phone calls from you.  I can’t adequately express how much you are appreciated.