Photo Contest

This is actually some fairly old news, but since I've been wandering the halls at Abu Dhabi Men's College for various reasons, I've noticed the photography that's been up in the front entrance. This is remnants from the schools photography contest at the end of last semester. I think it's impressive, and I like the idea of the students getting into something and taking pride in an outside activity that doesn't involve something they can buy.

A few teachers pointed out that some of the photos are too good, too well timed, such as catching a man riding a jet-ski in mid flip. I prefer to avoid cynicism and say that for the most part the students took pride in the accomplishment of having their photos selected. I was in the room when one of my students received notification that his photo (directly below) had won honorable mention. His reaction was genuine and a joy to watch.
The next two photos were just pictures that I liked for one reason or another.





Lastly, here is the winner. I think it's a nice photo and gives a real feel for traditional Arabic life.


I offer my apologies for only providing crappy photos taken with a camera on a phone. It was my intention to provide a link where people could view the photos for themselves. Unfortunately, search as I may, I just couldn't find any presence on the web. They're possibly buried in some campus news story on the inter-college portal in which you have to log in on, but what use would that be? I really think that the organizers dropped the ball on what could have been a wonderful promotion opportunity.

Parking

Since I've been back in Abu Dhabi, the office building across the street from me has a few working offices in it now. The upshot of this is that with office workers needing to park their cars, parking during the day has become scarce. While this hasn't affected me much, my wife has to park a bit further from our building, a problem made worse when carrying a load of shopping and leading two small children around.

This first photo is taken from this page and while is not near our place, is typical of certain parts of Abu Dhabi. The following photo was taken from this web page and shows some of the more typical ways that people park their cars. These photos accompany letters to the editor that complain about how Abu Dhabi's paid parking has made things worse. To avoid paying for parking, people are finding free spots in nearby neighborhoods. As paid parking moves closer to where I live, I'm afraid that I'm going to start seeing more situations like this near my apartment. Add to the fact that there are about five 20-story apartment buildings under construction within a 10-minute walk of my apartment then it's easy to see how bleak my parking situation is. As it is, people around here already park without regard to others.

You'll notice that the cars are parked in the middle of the road. That's been pretty common in any of the parking areas that I've seen. I've always figured that it was illegal but tolerated. The other day I saw parking lines painted in the middle of a through street. Parking in the middle of the road has officially been sanctioned by the city of Abu Dhabi. It looks like everyone has accepted that the only way people are going to be able to park their cars is by parking like a knob.

Birthday

We're still working on getting the jeep fixed. There will be more on that later.

Today was my daughter's fifth birthday. We were considering throwing her a small party at an amusement arcade or restaurant until we realized that nothing is open in the daytime during Ramadan. Instead, we took Tia and Lucas to see Toy Story 3. With the show being at 12:15 on a Friday, I figured the place would be swamped with tons of kids around so we got there 30 minutes early. Including the four of us, there were seven people in the movie theater.

One nice thing about it not being crowded was when Tia told one of the ushers that it was her birthday, he came back with a glossy Toy Story 3 picture with a nice birthday greeting written on the back. The cost was 47 dirhams each ($12.90) and that was with us already having the 3D glasses from Shrek. When I see it written in dollars, it doesn't seem as much, but in dirhams it was a little bit of a shock.

Afterward, I wanted to take the kids to a play center, but it wasn't open until 6:00 pm so we just went home and had cake. I still can't get over how things specifically aimed at small children here don't open until late in the evening. There's a free Sesame Street show that's playing from 9:00 pm to 1:00 am at the shopping mall near our place. It features "everyone’s favourite Sesame characters – Elmo, Bert, Ernie and Khokha ."(Khokha?) In the end, we had a pretty good, low key day with friends in our apartment building. For me, that's better than trying to cram in as much fun as possible until we burst.

Repair (Part One)

I was able to get the paperwork for the insurance policy with no problem. Driving to the vehicle registration place and parking a ways away from the building was a snap. Within ten minutes, the woman behind the counter had approved another year of registration and given me the sticker to put on the license plate. Fortunately, the Jeep passed the inspection a couple of hours before getting into an accident so I was good to go. It's too bad that getting a car repaired here isn't that smooth.

Just after leaving the vehicle registration place, I headed straight of the insurance company to have the Jeep assessed. As mentioned before, the company only does assessments from 10:00 to 11:00 am during Ramadan. I arrived at 9:40 to be safe and couldn't find any parking. Now that parking in that area is paid parking, the city has even drawn lines in the middle of the road for cars to park. Even with that, there was no parking available so I double parked along with a few other cars and buses. I ran up to hand in the paperwork and the man behind the desk warned me that the police have been fining people recently so I should move my car. After driving around for about 10 minutes, I proudly found a place about two blocks away.

When 10:00 came, the assessor led a parade of people around to various cars and took pictures of the damage. Most of the cars and buses were the ones that I had seen double parked previously. Everyone was shouting for him to "assess" their car next. When I finally got the assessor to look at my car, he walked halfway to it, yelled at me for parking so far away and told me to double-park my car with the rest of them. At least by then I could stay by my car and wait for the guy. After he "assessed" the damage (i.e. took a few pictures of it) he told me to bring my car back at about 2:00 tomorrow so someone could drive it across town to a mechanic, have it repaired, and bring it back. What a convenience! I don't see how this plan could possibly go wrong.

Vehicle Registration (Part Two)

Almost got it done today. Things were going pretty well when I pulled up to get my vehicle inspected. I needed to pay 120 dirhams (US$ 33) to get a paper to give the guy who checks things out. There was no sign saying that but I saw people in front of me giving him a paper. When I asked, he told me to leave my car in line and get it. I got in the wrong line and ended up waiting longer than needed. For anyone registering vehicles in Abu Dhabi, go all the way to the cashier and pay the money to get the receipt. After the inspection was done, it was time to register everything. I got a number and waited for an hour only to find that I needed to show my inspection report to get another paper to show the woman doing my registration get a piece of paper. Hint to those people registering cars in Abu Dhabi: go to the desk on the opposite side of the waiting area to get your stamped copy of the inspection report.

Then it came. I was missing the vital document: proof of insurance. I carried over the insurance policy from the previous owner until September, but they needed proof of insurance for the next year. Luckily, they have the offices of seven insurance providers in the next building. Unluckily, they don't have the insurance that I have my SUV under so I had to wander around Abu Dhabi to find their office.

On my way there, I was waiting at a light when a bus clipped my car. Luckily, I only had a big dent in my bumper and a smashed tail light, but the bumper came off the bus. Now, I've heard that the police will generally come pretty quickly and settle things within minutes. I'll admit that the police were there fairly quickly, but we spent at least 30 minutes by the side of the road in the heat and another 30 minutes at the station dealing with this. The driver (Pakistani?) was arguing vehemently with the police that I had somehow moved and was to blame for the accident. I feel bad for the guy because he will likely lose a month or two salary over it, but I feel a lot less bad due to his blatant lies.

In the end, got a paper with the report to show the mechanic or insurance company or whoever asks to say that the accident wasn't my fault. Apparently, it's illegal here for a mechanic to do body work on a car without an accident report due to all the hit and run cases. After I got the paper, I was told to go to Buddy's insurance company to look at my car and tell me how much they'll give me to repair it. (I'll be interested to see how that turns out.) I tried to go there today but by the time I found it, they were just closing. A worker told me that they were open from 8:00 am tomorrow and I should come back then. Luckily, someone else who works there and overheard my story told me to be there form 9:45 because the claims adjuster only looks at cars from 10:00 to 11:00 during Ramadan. Of course!

I was able to call my insurance company from home and buy a new policy from my provider. I have to go pick up the policy from their office tomorrow. Hopefully then I'll be able to register the car finally. It's a good thing I already had the inspection.

Vehicle Registration (Part One)

The other day, I noticed that the registration on my jeep expired last week. That was when I recalled how renewing my vehicle registration was on my list of things to do within a couple of days of returning from the States. Back in June it seemed so far away. Also, I wasn't considering the hassle that renewing my registration would be during Ramadan.

After living in Abu Dhabi for just over a year, I've come to expect that I'll have to make a few trips any time I want to do anything official like getting an I.D., bank account, or registering for something. Tonight, I wasn't disappointed. In the U.S. or Japan, you can count on being able to look at a website or call ahead to find things like hours of operation or documents needed. Fortunately, institutions in the U.A.E. have progressed beyond that and no longer feel the need to stick to such rigid methods of passing along information.

Anytime something needs to be done, I assume that I'll need at least one reconnaissance mission to find out the real hours of operation or times I can come back when I won't have to wait for three hours. Sometimes there will be the document that I need that wasn't listed on the website. Looking at the website can be marginally helpful and calling while expecting someone to answer is laughable. During Ramadan when working hours are completely different, count on the usual hours to be the exact opposite of normal hours.

Since most Ramadan hours involve the evening when people have eaten and had something to drink so they aren't sleepy, hungry and dehydrated. The website said they were open until 9:00 pm so I thought maybe they would be open later. I wasn't surprised to see that when I got there at 8:20, they were closed and there were very few cars there. Suddenly, within a minute of arriving, about three or four cars got in line behind me to get their cars checked out. I must've happened to arrive just as the call to prayer was finishing. Within minutes, the place was packed. People around me said that the Vehicle Registration Center would likely open after prayer around 9:30, about an hour later. I figured I would wait.

Five minutes later, the manager of the center drove up and told everyone to go home and come back tomorrow between 8:30a m and 4:00 pm. I waited around to see if anything happened anyway but everyone else started to go. Later on someone was telling me that they would be open until 6:00 pm, but I wouldn't count on it. I think that means they'll be open tomorrow until they feel like closing.

Thirst

Over the past few days I've been pushing through the jet lag and going into work. Something that I find helps is a constant infusion of caffeine that I get though sipping on tea throughout the day. Unfortunately, with this being Ramadan, I can't have any food or drink at my desk. That means that any time I want to get a snack or even get a drink of water, I have to go into the break room. This has been severely hindering my productivity. I would feel bad, but based on the constant number of people in the break room, it seems to be hindering everyone's productivity. Last year when I was just starting at the school, it was a wonderful opportunity to get to know everyone, because everyone in the school was in the break room eating their lunch. This year, it's working out to be the same.

Also with Ramadan, we have shorter work hours. We're only expected to be there from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and I've gotten funny looks from people when I'm still sitting at my desk at 3:05 because I'm in the middle of something. I have to admit that aspect of the holy month is nice, but I'm still thirsty all the time.

In addition, when trying to schedule time to run or cycle, I now have to leave early in the morning not only to avoid the heat, but to avoid sunrise as well. Wednesday and Thursday I went running and had to make sure that I was finished with my drink before the sun rose. (Here is a photo of the lights along the road I run, the Corniche in Abu Dhabi.) I suppose that I'm being overly paranoid, but I don't want to deal with the hassle of being stopped by a policeman.

This morning, I went cycling and only the hard core people were there because it's hard to drink on our ride. It turned out that I wasn't quite as hard core as I thought when I got separated from the group after about 10 kilometers into the ride. I just couldn't adjust to the heat. As it was, I was always looking around for when no cars were around so I could eat or drink something to keep from passing out.

In the end, I made it home where I can sit around in the air conditioning with a blanket on my lap eating and drinking all that I want.