Jumping through Hoops

In my short space of time here, I've realised that anything that has to do with the local government usually involves jumping through multiple hoops. After completing the obstacle course of getting my CPR, I could finally embark on the journey to freedom, ie, learning how to drive.

Last week, I spent a whole morning moving from counter to counter in the Ministry of Transport, which although tedious, was rather seamless as I was accompanied by a bloody efficient fixer from RJ's office. I was well-chuffed when I walked away at lunchtime with my learner's permit and a theory lecture date.

This morning, I turned up for my lecture in the theory of driving a few minutes past 8am flustered, cos I hated to be late for anything. I walked into a roomful of roving-eyed Indians, and was a wee bit cheesed off that the uniformed lecturer didn't arrive till a quarter past 8. So much for setting an example for punctuality. I was even more pissed off with his holier-than-thou attitude. I found his flippant and demeaning gestures and tone of voice to many of the Indian males in the class very off-putting. They are a submissive race and their English may not be fluent enough to understand his instructions, and our lecturer here banked on that and reserved a dissmisive tone when addressing them and waved them about like flies. I was on the defensive and was all geared up to retort in my best put-on BBC English if the bugger tried that on me. He didn't.

I don't understand why the Indians allow themselves to be treated like that. Yes, they may be earning peanuts in this country, but it doesn't necessary means that their dignity has to match the size of their income.

So anyway, after the admin was settled, the lecturer seemed to be in a better mood, although he still maintained the teacher-student/ master-servant relationship with the class. Something that I'm not used to as since uni, although the lecturer stands in front of the class and imparts his knowledge, they tend to treat the class as equals and nor ignorant fools who would pander to his ego.

I'm not sure how many of the indians in the room understand English, but the lecturer picked out this poor bugger in the front row whose grasp of the langauge is very minimal and kept picking on him. Consequently, Mr Lecturer is from Pakistan, and he was sporodically speaking and joking in Hindi with the class, all the while maintaining an air of superiority. Although I couldn't understand what they were laughing about, the body language spoke volumes.

I do admit that the session has been informative, and I've learnt a few things that would certainly benefit me in pratical lessons. By 10am, Mr Lecturer was wrapping up the session when one stupid question (In heavily indian-accented English: "when turning right at the roundabout, do we need to indicate right?") by a gormless Indian lady triggered off a whole barrage of silly questions added at least another 30 needless minutes to the session.

So, my theory part of it is signed and sealed, which hoop of fire do I need to jump through next?

Tis' the Season

Blimey, time sure has flown these past few weeks! It has been a flurry of activities, and work, of course.

The Dubai Sevens have been and gone, and can I just say what an amazing event it was! I suppose we were lucky enough to be able to attend it, but to sit in a sponsored stand with buckets of beers that miraculously never seem to run out - now that is sheer luxury! It was a totally boys-on-tour weekend, with loads of druken behaviour and lewd song-singing in the chartered bus.

The event would be heaven for single red-blooded females. Thousands of half-naked straight testosterone-charged males (cos let's face it, rugby isn't the game for gay men, is it?) all congregated in a single stadium, and we can even ogle at them through binos on the pretext of 'getting a closer look on the action in the field'.

RJ was totally gutted he couldn't play cos of his still-dodgy ankle, but make use of the free beers he did.

On the first night after the games, RJ and I were ushered to join a queue signboarded 'taxi', only to find out at the end of the queue 30 minutes later that the queue led straight to the motorway. Hundreds before us were roaming the motorway hoping to flag down a cab or hitch a ride. It seemed there was no way in hell we would catch a ride when about 2 miles down the road a kindly indian driving a truck pulled up next to us. Much as I wanted to sit at the back of the truck like a real indian worker, I didn't have the energy to argue when he motioned us to jump into the front of the vehicle. Of cos, like most indians, he said, yes, he knew where our hotel was but about 10 minutes into the ride we knew he hadn't a clue. Well, neither had we! We had to phone the hotel and get a fellow indian to provide directions. I wasn't complaining though - it was tonnes better to be sitting in Muthy's truck than to be wandering in the wrong direction down the motorway!

That night saw us going to the Irish Village, which was jam-packed with the rugby crowd. Great atmosphere, great crowd, great band, but the toilet queues for the ladies was just too long! Right, one knows that alcohol induces the need to pee, and considering the amount of alcohol we've consumed (and was still consuming) throughout the day, I was spending more time queuing for the loo than I was mingling with the crowd!!

When we decided we had enough (or rather, when I decided we had enough when RJ was falling over himself), we went in search of a taxi outside the Irish Village. There is absolutely no sense of decorum where taxi-waiting is concerned. Unlike the well-manner British who would form a queue wherever, everyone just walked in front of everyone else in a bid to hail a lit taxi - and these were expats we're talking about! Apparently Courtesy goes on a holiday when people do too.

We were lucky enough to talk a couple into sharing a taxi with us since we were going the same way. She was a lovely Scottish lass, who hasn't lost the soft highland lilt, and him...I couldn't really remember. Soon, RJ and the wee Scottish lass were comparing notes on the new Tesco megastore in Dingwall. The lovely couple refused to take any of our money for our leg of the journey.

After the finals on the last day of the rugby sevens, we went to the cricket club for beers along with the rest of the troop. I got talking to some of the, erm, older crowd, who are seasoned expats about what they do etc. It sort of confirmed the niggling feelings I got from my 3 months here that a lot of expats really get paid waay too much for what they're worth. Just cos they're white, I reckon. My my, when will we see the end of colonialism?

Don't get me wrong - I'm sure these well-paid expats are all very capable in their own rights, but say, an Indian or a Pakistani in the same position won't be getting half as much. I mean, this guy I was chatting to (who incidentally was talking to my breasts rather than to me) was employed to be a big-shot consultant in Asia had only a mediocre engineering background and a fresh piece of MBA certificate!

No, you'd never have guessed I'm jealous, would you?

Anyhow, back to Dubai.

I can't believe that I spent a whole long weekend there without stepping into a single mall. Nope, no shopping at all!

We did go to Wild Wadi on our last day in Duabi, this waterpark right next to the posh Burg Al Arab, and while queuing to go down the super-high flumes, we saw a couple of choppers landing on the helipad. It certainly looked good on the outside, although the decadent gold furnishings is a wee bit too much for my taste. Having said that, I'm sure I won't complain if I got to stay in it for free!

Certain parts of Wild Wadi were under construction, but we had oodles of fun going up and down slides and flumes. I was initially apprehensive about strutting around in my bikini in a Muslim country, but I needn't have worried. Everyone was in teeny tiny bikinis, some even in g-string bottoms! Oo-er.

It was a stark contrast seeing bikini-clad girls standing next to Muslim women in long-sleeved shirts, trousers and hijubs queuing for the same ride though.

We went to the airport stright from Wild Wadi, thus ending our adventures in Dubai for now. We will be back to shop, and experience the desert safari tours.

The past week has seen both RJ's and my Christmas work dos. They were on two consecutive days, which we know from experience (ie, last years', when I could hardly twirl to the celidh music without fighting the need to throw up) spells disaster.

Can I just say, the international arm of RJ's company holds a much more disappointing Christmas do than the UK arm. For the past couple of years, his company Christmas do's were black tie events, which meant shopping for posh frocks! Sadly, not this time. A venue was only decided days in advance (in comparison, 3 months before the Christmas do in the UK, we had emails with the menus attached asking for our preferences!) and it was a very low-key affair that didn't involved dressing up nor dancing till the wee hours.

That said, I did have fun though, chatting to and merry-making with the various 'other halves' of the employees and downing copious amount of quadruple-strength pina coladas. Sadly, by midnight, the crowd was fast dispersing; some claimed to be too old to be doing sambucca toothbrushes, others to relieve babysitters of their duties. Bit disappointing considering in the UK do's we only left when they start packing the banquet tables away.

The next day, nursing a hangover from hell, I had to face yet another Christmas do, my own this time. We went to the Blue Elephant, a lovely Thai restaurant with an amazing interior and scrumptious menu and cocktail hour started at lunchtime, eventually winding down just past dinner time at Trader Vic's. RJ and I had a barbecue to attend to after that, but I somehow managed to get through that (and enjoy it in the process) and only when we were about 5 minutes from home that night did I stop the car to regurtitate everything that I had since about 4pm that day.

This is good, though. Life here is starting to bear a resemblance to life in Edinburgh.

And it's five days before we leave for Thailand!!