the fast and the furious

as you will see, we have a racer-in-training The first thing Kaydin did when Gideon gave him the car, was to walk straight to the front gate .... Gideon says he thinks Kaydin wanted to take it out to the street to play with it there .... seeing as that's what dad and Gideon2 does when they're testing their cars!! We told him no, not now, so he walked to the "workshop" instead, to put it away, seeing as all the other toy cars live there!! After supper, they off course had to go get it, and this was the scene in the kitchen:

 

 

Ouma Hettie did come for a visit, so fun to have her here. I must admit, I enjoyed giving her some good quality baby-sitting time, I managed to book a whole week's worth of dental appointments! (don't ask!) Anyhoot, took her to see the Picasso exhibition, which was, shall we say interesting. It made me ponder the whole "but is it art?" question. I do think one should at the very least consider it, even if one doesn't quite "get" it or understand it.

Also took mum to the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, she was appropriately awed and kept on saying how pleasantly surprised she was with the tasteful interior decorating

 

Speaking of dentist appointments, I found me a really nice,  totally professional Lebanese dentist, called Dr. Grace. She's so cool, she gives me drugs before the appointment, now being on the drugs (it's half a dormicum, but i'm so weaned from "normal" pills like myprodol, it knocks me for a six) I'm not allowed to drive. So it was an interesting scenario, rounding up the friends to drop me and pick me up. Now, one of those days, Marinda kindly helped, it was cool though, 'cause I helped her as well, she needed a car I needed a lift, it all worked out just fine. Jeez, I digress, the funny thing was, when I stopped at the dentist to give the car to Rinda so she can be on her merry shopping way, as she got out, she quipped "Thank God it's not warm" <- yeah, good thing that, with the temps right up at 48C, it just cracked me up

 

And today I was yet again reminded of the sometimes unpleasant aspect of being a woman here. Went grocery shopping and as I was waiting in line for the veggie-weigh-in lady, here comes a man with about 10 packs of bananas, he moves my one packet of onions out the way and puts his packets on the counter, I looked at him a little bit surprised (though only for about a second) you live here long enough, you learn that this will happen. I say to him, but I was here first? He had the audacity to smile at me. The veggie-lady was too busy with the other customers to see that he pushed in front of me, so she weighed his stuff first (normally, they're quite good with the arabs and will help "first come first serve") anyhow, so she proceeded to help him, I felt like giving a pack to Kaydin to munch away at, but thought better of it .... In the end, I just gave the guy a piece of my mind ... in Afrikaans, so he didn't understand, but there was no mistaken my tone of voice. The thing is though, that to him, I'm really just a woman and as such can be treated without any respect or dignity. He's goat and/or camel probably gets treated better than his wive(s). I also understand, yet it doesn't make the frustration any less, that in his world, in his culture, where he comes from, he did nothing wrong and I really don't fault him for it. Ok, I feel better now

 

all sorts of adorable:

Right now Kaydin's being totally cute (I know I've said it before, but it's TRUE!) Both the pups are "Lala", though he knows that one is Lara and the other on Jackie, he just can't say Jackie yet! On the video, I ask him to call Lara, that's when he does the cute little high-pitched "LALA". He does the same high-pitch when Gideon tells him to call me, "MAMMAAA" it's totally funny! He has this TOTAL fascination with Gideon's car keys, ok any keys really, but Gideon's is first prize, now, we've figured out that if he sees the keys hanging on the holder and we tell him that they're "sleeping", he's cool with that, waves "bye-bye" and we can move on   This does not however apply when Gids gets home from work with said keys in hand .... then Kaydin WANTS it ... yes, Gideon usually gives in Oh and balls, he loves balls, here's another video where he's playing with Gids and kicking it, too cute I tell you!

 

 

That's us for now, to those that we'll be seeing soon - YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! To those that we won't, hope to catch you in December!

We send much love

strange encounters of the Arab kind ...

Went grocery shopping ... had a difficult time with the K-man who really does not want to sit in the little chair in the front of the trolley, no, it's much more fun standing up, pointing at everything and going "BA! BA! BAAAA!!!!" at the top of your voice and then promptly throw a tantrum when mommy doesn't want to give you even one of the "BA's", whichever one it was that took your fancy that particular nano-second. Seriously, it could be anything, from hairspray to toilet paper to dog food (actually the dog food is quite the treat at the moment, lol!).

So, after this, I was rather tired and I dug deep for some sense and patience when, as we were leaving, on our way down the escalator (It's a funky angled one, not one with steps. So cool, it works with magnets, where you can park the trolley on it, and it's at such and angle that the trolley doesn't tip and the magnets keep it in place!) I digress, on our way down, at the top of the escalator I find an Arab lady, I always wait for them to go before me, the majority will push in front of you anyway, but this particular lady says "No, no, you have baby, you go first!" <- um, ok WOW I think, that was very nice of her, I say "shukran", standing behind the trolley, trying to keep the boy occupied, well, the next moment, out the corner of my eye, I just see flaring fabrics as nice Arab lady lunges towards Kaydin, grabs his face in both her hands and proceeds to give him big smooches and with exclamations of " HABIBI!!!!, SUCH a beautiful boy, ah hamdullah! may he grow to be big and strong, mashallah!!" Kaydin, being his charming self (quite forgetting at this point to "BA!") just gives her a million dollar smile and a belly-giggle and she starts all over again! By the time we get to the bottom, I say Shukran Habibti for the kind comments and what does mashallah mean? she's very impressed that I ask, and firstly ask me, where we're from, I reply South Africa, she says, oh, ok it's like when you would say "touch wood". Next thing you know, I know that she has three children, the youngest is 11 and I must take her cell number, "cause I must see this beautiful boy again" :) Her name is Feda and please I must call her :)

I've not called her, mainly because I've not been back to that part of town, I did however send her a sms to thank her for the kind words, and so that she can have my number as well :) She hasn't replied, I think she may not be able to read English, though she speaks it really well. Even more interesting, Feda was completely covered, abaya, sheila and a little string that connected the sheila to the cover for her mouth, I could only see her eyes.

okie ... dokie .....

Good news!!! I have my laptop back!! YEAH!!! Have had it back for a while already actually, just been otherwise occupied {read: too lazy and just uninspired} to actually blog

Thanks to an enormous guilt-trip brought along by quite a not so subtle email from a certain grandpa, here I am

 

So, straight to the Kaydin update, the boy is being really, really, really cute! Starting to imitate what we do and making some new sounds. Recently, whenever he puts something in his mouth that we don't want, we say to him to spit it out, it's "gaga" (the guttural-g sound as in "loch", as in Loch Ness Monster, ok I could go places with that too, but I digress)  he then started to say "ghagha" with the g pronounced as in gross. Too cute! He can now also point to his eyes, nose, mouth and ears!

Right, now to the new toys ... the Gideons bought remote control cars because, well, one's toy collection is obviously incomplete without a remote car. It's a whole undertaking, they have tools and spares and special petrol, I seem to  remember the word nitrogen (!)being used and special batteries, I obviously don't get just how serious this is ... nope, I'm constantly slightly amused by the whole venture, especially when they get up at stupid 'o clock to go play ... Here then are some pictures of the cars in action:

The one thing that's really amazing though, is how the K-man is picking up on things. Daddy's play-car must be started in a special way, where he puts a stick in a hole, pushes a button and the car starts, ok, I'll get him to explain it properly   The totally adorable thing though is, that when Kaydin got his own remote car to play with, what is the first thing he did with the remote aerial? Yip, tried to find a whole to stick the wire into, lol!!! Like so:

and here are some more Kaydin pics for all you fan club members

and a rare quite moment:

The weather is wholly crappy with temps right up into 47C degrees!! Oh, it was called a heat wave, lol!!!!! Yes, that amused me no-end. I get that they called it that because the temps rose so rapidly, it's just funny though that when normal day temps for summer is round 47 - 50C with about 60% humidity, we were somehow in the midst of a heat wave ... at least we have a pool!! YEAH!! which, last night at 30C was too cold for me! seriously, I need it to be about 33C, that's just comfy

No much other news, except that Ouma Hettie may be coming for a visit near the end of July (she said she's brave, we have aircon, so ja, she can definitely come for a visit), we're coming to SA in September for a wedding!! Terribly exciting as my slightly-demented friend (the bride) asked me to be their wedding photographer ... Ja, I'm quite nervous, yet very excited! We're then going to SA again, in December! YEAH!!!! haul out the champers people, christmas at home!!!!! It's gonna be cool

 

We send much love!

Customer Service ... Shmervice

First, a note to: This post may upset sensitive readers, in other words: Beatrix -> go grab a drink, have some drugs, get comfy and remember to breath my friend .... And don't say that I didn't warn you :)

I still don't have my laptop ... it's been three weeks .... I thought I'd document this for posterity, 'cause I know that I WILL find this funny one day ... ok, maybe one day in my next life!

Right, so last we heard was that they will let me know about the "care pack" and send me the info ... hmmm, ok well, we've established that this is in fact an impossible task to accomplish, trust me, not even Tom Cruise could free-fall in there looking all sexy in his black ski mask and hack into their pc to get me the info. After receiving a totally incomprehensible email (um, yes it turned out to be somewhat possible to send an email), with none of the info I asked for, I called them back, so that they can please fix and re-send ... while on the phone, I remembered to ask about payment for this, hoping that i can off course just pay when I collect my fixed laptop .... hmmm, not so much. Nope, should I choose the "care pack", I have to load the child, get in the car and drive the 40 minutes in to town, to go pay cash for this "care pack" option. And NO, they will not accept EFT's or any other form of modern payment, such as credit cards or debit cards, as is totally acceptable anywhere else in the world. Again, I remind you that here in the UAE, different rules apply, to most anything.

I asked the girlie if I could please speak to the manager, to explain to him that I seriously do not wanna drive all the way there to pay, all the way back and then still wait for my laptop, while we could eliminate the whole driving thing, with a sophisticated little invention called "Electronic Funds Transfer", done safely and securely through your bank, online and oh yes, it's INSTANT. NOPE, it's against company policy, I have to come and pay the money in cash. When I tried to reason with him, explaining the above with as much tact, patience and stupid English as I possessed at the time, he promptly put the phone down in my ear. I felt so cared for.

I also obviously decided (after three more days of not receiving clarifying email re what the hell they want me to pay for should I choose a care pack) that I'm in fact not going to part with the money and asked them to just send me a quote for the faulty motherboard and I'll pay for that when I collect my laptop. That email they managed to send the same day, in pdf format nogal!! .... the mind boggles

So, two weeks after that, yip, you guessed it, I'm still waiting for my laptop, 'cause the repair company is still waiting for the part from hp. I know this, 'cause I had to call them, nope they can't call me, I guess, as a person without a "care pack", I'm just not special enough ;)

On to some good news though, we now have a swimming pool!!! it's a kind of blow-up one, and it's awesome!! We have toys and a bar and everything!!! :) I see lots of most pleasant evenings ahead :)

and here's some eye candy:

the pool:



the bar (HOW organised are we??) oh, and that blue and yellow bottle is Kaydin's water bottle, though he really does prefer daddy's beer :)


and when you stay in the pool too long you get "old feet":

and this was last week, before we even got into the pool :)




if you can't see the video, here's a direct link:
http://s77.photobucket.com/albums/j46/maz_08/?action=view&current=MOV04954.flv

we send much love ... and no, I don't have my laptop back yet ....

Generally speaking

First the bad news:
Well, bad news for me anyway. My laptop died. She's at the hp hospital and I'm waiting for the techie to fix her. Apparently the motherboard is gone ... It saddens me greatly. The ordeal of getting her to the hospital nearly had me in tears as well, tears of frustration that is. I called to get directions, now we've been there before, so really it was just to jog my memory. HA! I asked the receptionist for directions, and this is more or less what she said: "youtakeairportroad,right?towardscornicheturnrighatthestreetbetweenthesecondandthirdrobots
beforecorniche,right?behindtheiranianschool" - R-I-G-H-T, I asked to please speak to her manager as I couldn't understand a word she was saying. Speaking with an Indian accent and all. I understood the manager a bit better at least, but his directions sucked just as much. The only bit that was correct was to turn right at the street with the sign for the Iranian School ... 40 minutes later I found their office, I was not amused. Anyways, booked the laptop in after being in the queue for about 10 minutes and after 3 Arabs pushed in front of me. They think nothing of it, trust me. Always remember, I'm the infidel and a woman at that, slight higher than shark shit on the totem pole. The techie called me after two days and informed me that it's the motherboard that died and it will cost me Dhs2,250 to fix, that's including labour. Then she, yes, the techie is a lady! proceeded to try and sell me "Care Pack", I said fine, but you're gonna have to send me that on an email, as I can't commit to paying you whatever amount it is you want, without seeing the docs? Surely this makes sense? I used to be on her side of the phone, I did those quotes, I know what I'm talking about. Wait, I know what I'm talking about in a WESTERN country, here, everything has its own set of rules. Anyhoo, 3 days later, not counting Friday, I'm STILL waiting for that email ... yes, I'm about to call the manager.

A Real quick visit:
So Linda came for a BLITZvisit. In and out of Abu Dhabi in 4 days! We were BUSY. Took her to Marina Mall, Ibn Batutta mall in Dubai, she saw the desert, took her to two exhibitions at the Emirates Palace hotel and to the Grand Mosque! She had a total blast and just could not get over the place :) It is something to see to believe. She then met her hubby at the airport and they went to Oman together, he was on a business trip and she got to tag along. Ja, it's a terrible life, but someone's got to do it hey? I don't have pics for you ... they're on the dead pc .... will post as soon as I can.

Work an other such boring things :)
Or, the reason for us being here :) Gids is working in Dubai at the moment (YUK), the one site is in beeeg trouble and some of the guys have been asked to help out there, temporarily. To give you an idea of where he is at the moment:

http://www.ameinfo.com/122350.html

http://www.alec.ae/projectsdetail.asp?uri=14&s=5&ss=1&iType=1

So, as soon as that site is finished, he gets to go to Al Raha Beach development, here in Abu Dhabi ... to give you an idea:



now this video is of the whole development. Alec is building housing for Etihad staff. Their tiny little portion of this development is worth Dhs2.5 billion. Money, is so not a problem. It is rather impressive hey?

Toys for boys and goodies for girls
In other news, the boy went shopping. We got toys :) In time for summer, he now has a rather large tv to play his Playstation 3 on and I have a Wii :) The reason for the Wii? Well, it's got Mario Brothers, off course :) heheee, can't wait to be 7 years old again. We're going to have the most fun.

The Kaydin Kronikles:
Well the boy is still walking strong, exploring the garden every opportunity he gets and we moved the doggy gate from the top landing to the bottom, so now he can't get onto the stairs, and he can play in his room too :) Totally perfect for summer approaching, another place for him to play as the garden just won't be an option at 47C and 70% humidity. We're not there yet, but that's what it will be like in summer. woopikadoo, yes i'm totally excited about that :(

and here are some recent pics of the K-man:

sitting on the step with me, he's too cute, climbs off the step and then reverses until his calves touches the step, and then he sits down :)


Peek-a-boo


can also be played with anything that will cover his face :)





Giving Lara a hug, he hugs everything though, he'll hug the floor too, if you ask him to :)


I'm the coolest mum, check the toys!! And both the red and green quads are total favourite toys :)


We send much love to all

Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nayan Mosque

Shortly after we arrived back in the UAE, my darling friend Marinda asked if I wanted to visit the Grand Mosque with her ... um DUH!!!!!!! So it was that Marinda, Anel, Lynnie, and I found ourselves visiting the Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nayan Mosque. They've been building it for 7 years so the interest in the building, as you can imagine is rather immense. The late Sheikh Zayed, in the spirit of religious tolerance declared that this mosque be open to the public. This is rather a big deal as non-muslims are usually not allowed inside a mosque. The very best part though, you're not only allowed to go inside, they welcome (camera)trigger happy people. Yes .... it's a bit like heaven to me.

The facts:

The mosque is named after Sheikh Zayed, the founder and first president of the UAE, it's known as the Grand Mosque though.

The Mosque is large enough to accommodate more than 30,000 worshippers.

There are four minarets on the four corners of the mosque which rise about 107 meters in height. There are 57 domes covering the outside yard and the main building as well. The domes are decorated with white marble and the interior decoration is made of marble. The courtyard is paved with floral marble designs and measures about 17,000 square meters.

above info from wikipedia

So, we meet up at the mosque, Marinda, Anel, Lynnie and I and proceed to the entrance, where we get dressed by the ladies at reception in abaya's and sheila's. That would be the long black dress and head scarf. Talk about weird! Though I must say, a sheila would come in most handy on those bad-hair days! We went inside, in search of our tour guide, who were supposed to take us on the 10:00 tour. Looking around we saw no-one that looked like a tour guide or even a group of lost tourists like us ... Marinda went and asked at the reception where we would be able to find our elusive guide .... "No madam, she didn't come to work today", lovely. So we moseyed around on our own, took plenty photo's and made out way out, over the enormous courtyard and caught up with another tour that was in progress. We decided to follow them, went back into the main prayer hall and heard the beginning of the tour as we would have, if our guide decided to actually show up for work.  Must admit though, we didn't listen too much to what the guide was saying, me with one eye on Kaydin who was having a total blast on the Dhs2 million carpet and Lynnie watching Layla and Anel shooting pics of us like she's an aspiring paparazzi! It was good fun though.

Here then, are the pictorial of our very memorable visit:

detail on one of the pillars:

A pretty glass door:

detail inside on of the smaller domes:

The carpet inside is the "World's Largest Carpet" made by Iran's Carpet Company and designed by Iranian artist Ali Khaliqi. This carpet measures 5,627 square meters, and was made by around 1,200 weavers, 20 technicians, and 30 workers. The weight of this carpet is 47 tons - 35 tons of wool, and 12 tons of cotton. There are 2,268,000 knots within the carpet. As I mentioned previously, Kaydin thought it was pretty cool too, lol!

This mosque also holds, the largest chandelier. There are seven imported chandeliers from Germany and are copper and gold-plated. The largest chandelier has a 10 meter diameter and a 15 meter height. It is rather impressive, I'll give them that! (this photo is just the bottom half!)

Now, we all know that when the muslims pray, they face towards Mecca, this picture below, is the wall inside the mosque towards which they face whilst praying, on it is the 99 names of Allah, and this one in gold, is his name in Arabic. It's 24 carat gold plated, yes, really.

Beautiful scene, walking out, to the courtyard:

Looking back towards the main prayer hall:

Lynnie and I:

How funny are we? Thanks Anel for the cool pics!

And finally, here we are Umm Kaydin, Umm Luca, Umm Luke and Umm Layla :) In the muslim culture a mother is known as "the mother of" followed by the name of her first born son, if, like Lynnie there isn't a son (yet), you're known by the name of your oldest daughter. That's why Anel is Umm (mother of) Luke, even though her daughter, Lara, is older than Luke. Just and interesting custom, we've off course adopted it, and many a time refer to each other as Umm :)

I'll tell you this though, it was a totally interesting experience, wearing an abaya. There are days where I think it could come in most handy. It does feel a bit as if you disappear and I can just imagine how much more with the sheila covering your face.

Shortly after this I got news that my sister Linda is coming to visit me! Only 4 days, but hey, I'll take what I can get. She's the only of my sisters that haven't been here, to it was very exciting news!

More of her visit in the next post.

And now for the Kaydin Kronikles:

The boy is walking like a champ, as if he's been doing it for years! He's also cool with going down steps now, understands very well about "bum first" and gets up from crawling in a flash!

The other day, he took his sippy cup with water from the kitchen table, took a sip and summarily dropped it on the floor :) we'll teach him to put it back, I was just so chuffed that he's figured out that, that blue bottle is the water bottle and he can help himself!

And this morning, he brought me his bottle with milk :) Too cute! He's also starting to say small words. Most things are "ba", the ball, a book and boxes.  "Me", as in how a sheep would make, is milky and mamma :) It is nice to understand a little better what he wants.

And tonight, while rocking him to sleep, I sang an old zulu lullaby, "tula-tula", the line goes something like: "tula, tula baba, tula tula" but before I could get to the second "tula-tula" bit, little bebe pipes up in a sleepy voice "baba" :D It was really difficult not to laugh, too sweet! I'm searching the web for a sample of the song, so that my international friends can hear what it sounds like .... just give me a moment, ok?

Oh and for those that don't know: Zulu is an indigenous language of South Africa and one of the biggest black tribes in the country.

much love to all