Gathering Happinesses

It happened when I dived into the pool in Hopefield one morning; I used to go swim with Ilze in the mornings.  I’m not much of a morning person, but that morning, as billions of tiny bubbles slid past my face in the somewhat green water – a smile burst out onto my face.  No one was there to see it, Ilze was swimming, and nobody else was there.  And I realized I smiled for no one, but me.  That’s when it hit me:  it’s because I’m happy.  And from then on, I’ve been gathering happinesses – registering when exactly I smile, for no one but me, involuntarily, for that I think, is my happiness indicator.

And so I tried to become consciously aware of that involuntary smile:  My first cup of morning-coffee; Louis and Skye arriving home from school; their faces when they’re sleeping; when they’re happy; when I take photos (even just thinking about it, because I just smiled;) brushing my teeth, the smell of wildflowers and rain and sunlight on my face and the chirping birdies … and many many more.  Over the months I have been gathering happinesses, and I really needed these, a few months back, when we went through the cancer ordeal with Tinus.  I could use my happiness triggers to give me moments where I smiled.

Marie-Louise and I were sitting on the stoep at the River Cottage talking about this when we saw two white-tipped Basset tails wag through the reeds next to the river – Brigid and Brandon, our two dogs!  And I smiled.  I ran down to call them.  Brigid looked up at me across the clumps of brilliant green grass, and I am quite prepared to swear that she was smiling as well.  She had this look of utter adoration, happiness and joy and everything in her said:  “I found you!”

The puppies (as we call them – they will be two years old at the end of December) were taken care of by Eugenie and later by Marie-Louise, John and Cous cous while we were trying to organize our lives.  Finally with visas and import permits organized, vet papers signed and delivered the long wait was over – they flew into Dubai and we could fetch them from the air port.  We were overjoyed and the puppies settled in quickly.  They became house dogs – with boundaries - but they still prefer to spend most of their time outside.   

One Saturday morning, about two weeks after we fetched them, Tinus and I were sitting outside with the puppies having a slow morning, each with a book and a cup of coffee.  It was a perfect morning, not too hot yet, birdies chirping happily in the trees when Brigid got up, took a few unsteady steps toward me and started convulsing.  My heart!!  It was dreadful, I held her until the attack was over and then we franticly called every vet and pet shop we found listed to find someone open on a Saturday.  Eventually we located a vet in Jumeira.  By the time Brigid arrived at the vet she was back to her old loveable self, charming and licking her way into every heart around.

The vet said it was quite possibly an epileptic seizure, I never knew dogs get these – it seems that there are a number of breeds who do. He said it could just be an isolated case but if it continues it can be controlled effectively with medication.   I have such sympathy for parents whose children suffer from epilepsy, it was terrible to see her so helpless, and feeling so completely helpless myself.  It hasn’t happened again, I hope this is an isolated case.  

My happinesses are happy to be with us and we are so happy to have them here, we just need the last member of our little family to join us.  We miss you Tanzanite and hope you’ll be joining us soon.

Canine Epilepsy

Beauty has an address

I’ve been to Oman quite a few times – never had my passport stamped for it.  Al Ain, a village in the UAE, shares its borders with Oman – in a very strange way; in the days before black gold, Al Ain was very important:  In Al Ain, hidden deep under the desert sands, are huge caverns filled all year round with cool clear spring water. Al Ain (Arabic: العين‎, al-ʿayn) literally means the spring,and for years and years ownership of the small village was ferociously warred over by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi –later part of the UAE - and Oman.  It was finally decided to share the village between the two countries.  Somewhere in Al Ain there is a road with three speed bumps.  Once you’re over the last hump you find yourself in Oman in a village, which after the speed bumps is called Buraimi.  We used to live in Al Ain (BC - before children) and those three bumps were at the beginning of many of our scariest, most wonderful and most memorable desert adventures.

Bubble on a road-trip to Oman

This time however, we went into Oman very very officially.  In order for me and the children to change over from our tourist visas to our residency visas we had to leave the country, have our passports stamped out and stamped in again.  Since Oman is only about 100km from Dubai it was the most sensible destination.  Our road trip got off after the second try - we forgot that our rental car doesn’t have international insurance, fortunately for us Richard and Marianne’s Bubble does. Around 20km outside of Dubai the last buildings disappear in the heat-born haze and the white desert sand stretch around you as far as the eye can see.  The openness of the desert speaks to my soul – always has.  Why it is that the desert landscape intrigues me so I cannot say – perhaps because the Little Prince said:  “every desert hides a well,” perhaps because of the open skies and complete horizon, perhaps because here, life is precarious but uncomplicated, minimalistic and large at the same time, serene and scary, yes, perhaps that is it – the contrasts.

After a while the white sand dunes turns into red, shaded in deep brown, black and sometimes even purple.  There is a sand dune known as Big Red, where there is always human activity.  The monstrous dune is an eternal challenge for those who think their particular brand of 4x4 vehicle will be the one to make it to the top or their driving skills will prove superior to the rest.  From the road the SUVs on the slope resemble toy cars and the odd incident where a vehicle come rolling down the side of the dune rarely cause panic – it just seems too unreal.

Shortly after Big Red one starts to see Mountains in the distance.  Mountains  with a BIG M.  Resembling silk paintings they disappear into the distance in hues of blues and purple.  I always thought Tolkien must’ve modeled his Mordor after these giants.  High up in these rough mountains are little villages where roses are grown - some of the best rosewater in the world come from here.  All along the road we find wadis,*some filled with cool clear water and some dry, treacherously waiting for the uninformed tourist to wander down.  The wadis can become flooded in seconds with rainwater from the mountains - flashing down with tragic results for anyone trapped in its way.  

Every now and again one glimpses green oasis hidden in the folds of the mountains.  Proud villas perched on higher ground dots the area, their high walls undulating ownership across the rolling landscape.

We had our passports stamped out at the UAE border to bring us to the end of our stay on our tourist visas.  At the Omani border we parked our car in the parking area, purchased Omani tourism visas and had our passports stamped as entering the country.  The handsome fellow with his traditional Omani headdress (I like these much more than the UAE ones) meticulously filled in one line for each of us (Tinus included) in a very large book, more or less starting at the one end of the table, writing …. writing …. writing …. writing all the way to the other end of the table.  He then took our passports again, stamped them out, and did a new line for each of us writing …. writing …. writing …. writing …. We got back into the car and returned to the UAE border post where we had our passports stamped back into the UAE, now on residential visas.  On the way back to Dubai we stopped the green bubble somewhere in the red part of the desert and four happy UAE residents watched the sunset pour molten gold over the endless dunes.

Pots at a roadside shop from the days
when missionaries were still on the menu

Wadi (Arabic: وادي‎ wādī; also: Vadi) is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some cases, it may refer to a dry (ephemeral) riverbed that contains water only during times of heavy rain or simply an intermittent stream. 

Buyer's market - if you're willing to haggle

The man took my Broom!

As mentioned before, things in the UAE do not quite work on the same timescale as in other parts of the world - bar perhaps Africa-proper.  Our rental contract said we can move in on Saturday, and even though we had no furniture, we decided to move in.  Our stuff will be leaving Cape Town Harbour on the good ship HMS Zambia - or something to that effect - on the 5^th of October and we’re expecting it somewhere to the middle of November.  I found a darling looking little table and chairs on Dubizzle for only AED 500 in Sharjah and we eventually also bought a lovely 12 piece dinner set from Amal.  We had to stop ourselves from buying more things from her.  Things we have space for – lots of space - but really don’t need right now.  (E.g. four silk paintings in midnight blue – which she’s keeping for me)

  We expected to arrive finding a clean villa, with all the little snags sorted out – the agency had two weeks in which to do it – silly us.  Huge piles of dust had collected in each corner – possibly a desert soul dust collector lurking somewhere.  We counted to five (we can’t count any further in Arabic) and went to Ace hardware, where we bought  four camp beds, a tent (‘cos it was really nicely priced) and lots and lots of cleaning materials, amongst others a brilliant red broom with black bristles and an Ace hardware label on the handle. 

Back home (did you hear: home!) we started cleaning.  Skye and I started on the kitchen while the boys went upstairs to start on the bedrooms.   Now I first have to give you an idea of scale:  On the lower level of the villa, as you enter, you have the foyer; from here you have two sets of double doors on either side and a single door directly ahead, leading to the kitchen.  The kitchen is disappointingly small, but nicely done in fake wood and marble.  We were looking for a villa that has – firstly – a kitchen inside the house, and secondly, a kitchen door leading outside – which this one has.

On the left of the foyer you have what is known around here as the majlis, which is traditionally the visiting area for males, a washroom leading out of it with two basins and out of that a full bathroom.  (Black and white marble) Between the majlis and kitchen is another room connecting to the kitchen.  Dining room – once the table is here.  Both these rooms are roughly 6m x 6m.  On the left of the entrance hall you have another set of double doors leading to another lounge connected to the lower bedroom, with a full en-suite bathroom and separate dressing room – no BICs. 

Upstairs you have the lovely area overlooking the (very dry at present) garden and mosque, and four bedrooms, each approximately 6mx5m with en-suite bathroom and dressing room with BIC.  There is also an outside maid’s room – which was another requirement – for our puppies!  We wanted a five bedroom villa, three bedrooms for us, one for visitors and another one to be used as a study.  Hence the many many rooms.

And so we cleaned – and cleaned – and cleaned, and when the evening prayer call came (from across the street) we have finished two bedrooms and the kitchen.  And it was night and it was morning - the first day of the week (here on a Sunday)  –  we carried on cleaning, and went on extensive shopping trips to buy appliances and somewhere in the afternoon of Monday (after numerous phone calls from  Tinus to the agency) the cleaning crew arrived:  Two scrawny sub-continentals  with big smiles, a very old (as in flat-bristled-bleached-bone-white-with-age old) plastic broom and a bottle of disinfectant.  They left around an hour later.  Initially I though nothing much had changed; Closer inspection revealed that the dust piles were now spread in sticky streaks, all over the floors.  The owner of the agency said it costs him AED 3000 to have the villa cleaned – these must be the two highest paid individuals in the UAE, at around AED 1500 per hour – and they left with my red broom!

Tuesday went by and eventually on Wednesday the agent called to tell us that the maintenance crew will arrive in half an hour.  Two hours later:  The same two smiling faces arrived – now bearing tools – maintenance crew!  They ran up and down the outside staircase, but with very little command of the English language (three words used interchangeably; hah, uh, and water) not much was done.  The lower bedroom’s bathroom had water running out of the roof – like a torrential rainstorm!  They eventually disconnected the right tap and left, promising to be back later, leaving me to clean the soggy bathroom.  And it was night and it was morning - Thursday;

Around ten o’clock Thursday morning one of the two cleaner/maintenance men arrived carrying a huge bag of grout.   “Fix” he says, and proceeds to re-grout (not remove old grout, clean and put new ones in.  No no, that would be way too effective – grout over existing grout) in upper bathroom floor - the one above the lower, leaky one.  “This fix the leak?”  I ask.  “No.” he said with a wide smile, and placidly carried on applying grout to the bathroom floor with his fingers.

It is Thursday evening and I have the worst headache I’ve had in my life.  Tinus figures it’s because I have not had enough water to drink (4.5litre so far.)  I need to sweep the floors, but I have no broom.