An Abu Dhabi Day

This is phrase that we expats use a lot here in AD. It is very similar to having a raining Monday where everything that could go wrong does. Most of the time my Abu Dhabi days involve the inconveniences (or perhaps my perceptions of inconveniences) that seem to breed here. I’m not alone in feeling that nothing happens easily or in a logical way here.
I am writing about this topic because I have just finished a very lovely Abu Dhabi Day. I have the week off school so I thought I would start the week off by getting a few errands done and then maybe relax a little before I had to pick up the girls up from school. Being myself, I have pretty much booked up the rest of my week off with all kinds of things so this was going to be my one and only chance to just sit on my butt in a quiet house just because and I was looking forward to it. I made myself a short little list that I was sure that I could get done in a couple of hours:
Pilates
Bank
Buy a birthday card
Pay bills
Get milk

Sounds like a piece of cake right? Back in the US I could do all these things in one trip and have plenty of the 5 hours (between drop off and pick up from school) left over for vegetation.

The day dawned cloudy and windy which is out of the ordinary for Abu Dhabi and I should have taken this as an omen. I dropped the girls and the rest of my carpool off at school and immediately went to where I do Pilates. Normally we do the class in a park near my house outside, but by the time I got there the wind was whipping sand around into a decent little shamal. The trees started bending in half and big fat raindrops started to fall. The instructor showed up and promptly canceled the class. I was thrilled. I would have even more time to vegetate!
I got in the car and drove to a nearby mall to get started on my list. I decided to get my errand at the bank done first. I knew from past experience that the banks close early here (I got to the bank at 1202pm the day before and was too late). For an example of the inconveniences here I will explain my need to go to the bank. In order to buy a car here in the UAE, we have to pay our car payments with UAE checks which means we have to have an UAE checking account. Steve’s paycheck is direct deposited into our US checking account. We were told before moving here that a portion of his check would be able to be deposited into an account here for our use…..NOT. Also, there is no way for me to transfer funds directly from our US account into our UAE account, so I have to go to an ATM, withdraw money from it and then deposit it into our account here.
Of course there was no close parking to the bank and I had to walk what seemed like a mile from my car to the bank in the nice shamal. I actually completed the task in about 5 minutes and was back out in the whirling sand in no time at all. Our bank is just outside a mall so I went into the mall and to the grocery store. I picked up some milk and a very important diet coke. I was ticking things off my list with no problem! I would have the whole morning to lay like broccoli!
It was about 845 by this time and although the bank and the grocery store were open, virtually nothing else at the mall was and wouldn’t be until 10 so I decided I would go home and take a shower (I had to get the milk out of the 90 degree heat anyway). I only had 2 more things to get done and I had plenty of time to spare. I went home and took a leisurely shower without anyone interrupting me. Luxury!
So, I decided to tackle the bills next. Back in the states, I would get on the computer and pay all my bills online in a matter of minutes. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way here. All the utilities (electric, water, phone, internet, cell phone, and air conditioning) have to be paid in person. I had noticed on the Etisalat (phone, internet, & cell) bill when I received it that I could apply to pay my bill online with my credit card. I thought that this was an excellent idea. I got online and filled out the very long application process with the lovely slow connection that I have come to love here in the UAE. After 45 minutes, I was at the point where I would input my debit card information and pay my bill. Suddenly, a bright red message came across the screen to inform me that I could not use a credit card issued in a country other than the UAE. What???
So, back to the drawing board, I got back in the car. I drove to the office where I paid our chilled water (air conditioning) bill. This I accomplished with little fuss (probably due to the fact that it is a self-serve counter and I did not have to deal with anything other than a form and an envelope to put my money in). I then drove 20 minutes to the nearest mall (one I can see from my house, but it takes 20 minutes to get there due to no connecting roads). Here I was hoping to find a birthday card and pay my Etislat (phone, internet, cell) bill.
I went immediately to the Etisalat counter and handed them my bills. During the transaction I discovered that they were overcharging me by 1500Dhs (about $410) on our phone bill. I complained about it and asked for an explanation. The only explanation I received is that I owed it, but they couldn’t produce an invoice of the services to show why I owed it. After speaking to 3 different “customer service representatives” and a manager, I was still not getting anywhere. They insisted that they needed to speak to my husband (I guess you need to have a Y chromosome to get any answers). I had been there for about 40 minutes and decided to give up. I decided to pay just the internet and my cell bill and call it a day with Etisalat. Miraculously the credit card machine that had worked for the customer before me was not working with my debit card and they told me to go to the ATM and get cash instead. I could literally feel my blood starting to boil at this point in time and explained to them (probably not too nicely) that I could not get them cash and that they needed to try my debit card. I can only get so much cash from the ATM each day and I had used my wad at the bank and paying the chilled water bill. Lo and behold, it did not work (it worked just fine for the person behind me) and I walked away mumbling very loudly about the stupidity and lack of convenience in this country.
Because I was so mad, I completely forgot about the birthday card and got back in the car and drove away. I had to go somewhere else to pay the electric bill anyway so I decided to do that. In the 20 minute drive to the Carrefour (similar to a Super WalMart) I think I was cut off no less than 10 times. This did nothing to improve my mood. I also discovered that I was low on gas (thank goodness for that little light). I then spent 35 minutes waiting to get gas. This is pretty much the norm here. For a country sitting on top of vast oil fields, they have very few gas stations and you usually have to wait 30 to 40 minutes to fill up your tank.
At the Carrefour, I paid the electric bill and searched high and low for a birthday card. I once more got in the car and drove to yet another mall in search of the elusive birthday card (this involved dealing with even more stupid drivers…they seem to breed here). My mood seemed to be plummeting with each minute.
I spent approximately 45 minutes walking through the third mall for a card without success. If you have been paying attention and adding up the time increments, you will have discovered that I was running quickly out of time. I didn’t have enough time to go anywhere else so after a quick soggy takeout sandwich for lunch, I had to get back in the car to pick up 4 five year olds.
I had the radio tuned to a local “classic rock” station in the car and Axel Rose was belting out Welcome to the Jungle. I thought it was fitting for my day and it served to fuel my bad mood. I turned the volume way up and tried to ignore all the idiots on the roads. I was totally caught off guard when the next song (On Top of the World by the Carpenters) started up. The complete illogical sequence of songs struck me as one of the funniest things I have ever heard and I started to laugh hysterically. I actually had to pull over (I was laughing so hard I was crying and could not see where I was going).
My mood improved dramatically and I started to think about my day. Yeah, it was pretty crappy and I didn’t get to the free time I wanted, but my day was probably infinitely better than the poor gas attendant who works hard in this heat and probably makes less than $25 a day. I also started thinking about how spoiled I have become to the conveniences of the United States. Yes, things are more convenient there, but the US has been around for a long time. The UAE is younger than I am, but they have come a tremendous way in their short 38 years. Thirty years ago, most people here didn’t even have a house let alone a car, a cell phone, and internet. Thinking this way made me think about how fast things have been and continue to grow here. They are definitely experiencing growing pains and things aren’t going to go smoothly when you grow so fast so quickly. Me getting outraged about things that are out of my control is not going to help anything.
I constantly worry about being the “stupid American” here, about being very narrow minded and rigid in the way I think things should be done. It took a silly little song to make me see that that was exactly what I was doing. I think I need to call the radio station and thank them for adjusting my attitude and making me realize that in the scheme of things, today was not such a bad day after all (although I REALLY wanted to lay like broccoli).