LIFE goes on

New Years Eve 2011, minutes before 2012 and the moon hangs over the city as if she's smiling at us. 

It’s a new year and we’ve lived through the annus horribilis. Tinus’ chemo therapy has been completed and is strong and healthy - for which I’m so grateful.  The children has completed a whole term in their new school and new subjects;  Arabic – which they’re excelling in, and French in which they are both doing exceedingly badly.  Louis has connected socially, while Skye still hasn’t made any new close friends.  Perhaps it’s because we girls need friends on a different level from what boys do.  She’s also got glasses – not reading glasses, but to see far – like her dad – and surprisingly, she loves it –and looks really cool in it.  (Perhaps kids today don’t look cool anymore but rad or sick or something similar.)   

Over Christmas we were in Egypt, no tree, no gifts.  The evening of the 25^th we four sat in the exquisite dining room of the Mena House Hotel at the foot of the giant Pyramid of Cheops and discussed our feelings on this over dinner.  We all love the big family get togethers, the days and days of baking and cooking and decorating, planning and selecting gifts, the secretive wrapping and hiding and the sharing but above all, the being together.  But how ok is it to celebrate a holiday of a religion you’re not part of?

Tinus suggested that we celebrate all religious holidays and we see Christmas as a day on which we celebrate God.  We spoke about what we see as our family traditions and decided to focus on creating a few more.  On New Year’s as we watched the mind-blowing fire-works display over Dubai two Chinese lanterns floated by our house and I thought I'd love to add that to our family traditions next New Year. 

 

Our house begins to truly feel like home, more so since we’re back after the holidays.  The pups and cat has settled; Tanzanite is slowly venturing out into the garden and Brigid has started to ‘sing’ with the prayer call, which is amusing, endearing and excruciatingly nerve wrecking. 

I am ok, at times, and at other times, when I think I’d like to live my life being more than just ok, I’m not ok.  But I learn.  There are times these days when I’m not even snarling when I have to tell people I’m a housewife – you won’t believe how often you have to state or fill in “occupation.”  It is one of those ‘quiet desperation’ things - being a housewife.  Much as I know it is a noble thing, the thing which keeps families together and that millions of very wonderful women all around this beautiful planet of ours do it with great pride and dignity, I still have to learn.

I miss my amazing bevy of creative, free thinking, open minded, enthusiastic, inspiring, energetic friends.  I miss the way they challenged and moved me, each in their own way, to be more, to discover more, to live more, to learn more.  I miss teaching.  I miss being close to my mom and dad.  I miss being able to walk up to the Merry Widow for a coffee and a chat, I miss popping in at Ilze’s for a lovely glass of red wine as the sun set, sharing thoughts and ideas, I miss learning stuff from Mathe while supposedly teaching her Afrikaans and so many many more.  I shall stop before the tears start.  

   

So, I miss a lot and have left a lot behind, but as Ghada said to me the other day: “you must find something for yourself here.”  And just now, as I thought of her I remember how I cried about leaving her and Ghaneema and Mizna when I left Dubai the last time.  That’s the thing about life, you always leave things behind, beautiful things, but you get more along more the way don’t you? 

I have learnt that I CAN cook;  I have a beautiful garden - well, soon to be, as soon as the grass seeds starts to grow and the little plants I planted start to flower… oo and I’ve planted two Jasmines!  I live in a beautiful house with my loving husband and two super kids;  I live in Dubai, a city among cities where everything is possible and I have more time on my hands than what is good for me, so I can read all the books I’ve always wanted to read, and I can sew and cook and perhaps even take up painting again.  The other day I played a CD we bought in Egypt (Nubian rhythms) and I donned my jingly belt and belly danced all over the house, here, all by myself, ‘cause I can! 

Yes, life goes on, and I plan to live it, not always quietly, and hopefully less often desperately.  This year (warning – New Year’s resolution coming up) I intend to be kind to myself, and blog regularly.  I hope to be able to post a blog once a week.  Next week I think I’ll tell you about our trip to Egypt.  Till then, be kind to yourself too.

Happy New Year!!!!

… yes you’re right, you didn’t see anything about giving up smoking  :

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. 

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