Life in Abu Dhabi Update

We are nearing the end of our second year in Abu Dhabi and I have to say that this year has been much better than our first year.  We are settled, have a good group of friends, have relaxing weekends, are each involved in various sports that we enjoy.  We are definitely looking forward to our trip home this summer, but we aren’t nearly as desperate to get home as we were last year (granted last year we went after suffering through the summer, so it may not be a completely fair comparison).

Also, our expectations for how things are done are much more realistic.  I have really learned to be more of a “go with the flow” kind of person and we are both much better at realizing when things go wrong that they’re not the end of the world and it would be best if we just shrug it off and move on.

That being said, we have had a couple of interesting “Abu Dhabi" experiences in the past month or so….

 

Run-in with the Municipality

One evening when I got home from work, there was a government car parked in our “driveway” blocking my way into the complex.  I knew exactly what they were there for as soon as I saw them.  On April 1, the government began cracking down on “illegally subdivided villas.”   One of our good friends had just been kicked out of their apartment less than a month earlier possibly for this reason (although they never really could figure out if it was because of the Municipality or the villa’s owner).

When I pulled up, they backed out to let me pull in and park.  As soon as I got out of my Car, the two younger (mid-late 20s?) Emirati men called me over.  They explained that my villa was not legal.  But with their English not being great and my arabic being almost nonexistent, I’m not sure I would have understood them had I not already anticipated the topic of discussion.  I tried joking around with them a little bit telling them that this was a “mushkala kabira” (big problem) for me because we couldn’t afford to rent the whole 7 bedroom villa ourselves.  They were fairly friendly and then asked to see a copy of my tenancy contract and ID.

Of all days, I had forgotten my cell at work, so as soon as I got inside I called our rental agency and told them that they were there.  They told me it was ok to give my tenancy contract but NOT to give my ID as that could cause problems for me.  I asked them to send someone to talk to them and then went back out to bring the guys my contract.

While they were reviewing my contract, they called one of our neighbors over.  They also kept trying to get me to sign a paper that was written entirely in arabic.  I found excuses to go back inside 2 more times over the next half hour to call the rental agency which is less than 5 minutes away because there still wasn’t anyone there and my stalling tactics were getting a little shaky.

The next time I went out they asked for my ID again and when I wouldn’t give it to them they called the Police.  Well I can’t say for sure that they called the police because the phone call was all in arabic, but that’s what they threatened and I could tell that he was giving someone directions to our villa.  I got nervous because the police typically speak even less English than these guys were and the Emiratis could have told them anything and I wouldn’t have been able to defend myself.  I couldn’t call any of my arabic speaking friends because their numbers were in my cell back at work.  Paul was out playing golf, so he never heard his phone ring.

In trying to appease them and  call off the Police, I agreed to sign the sheet of paper that was all in arabic.  Still don’t really know what it said, but the guy told me it was just allowing him to come inside the villa and take photos (probably to prove that it was illegally subdivided).

I went back inside again and called the rental agency and they told me just to not go back outside.  So I came inside with my neighbor and we talked a while until the rental agent showed up.  My neighbor told  me how he had a friend who had this happen to him just a few days prior.  He gave him his ID and they took it to their main HQ in Mussafah, gave him a fine, and told him that he had 30 days to come back with a valid tenancy agreement or they would deport him!

Eventually the municipality guys left and we haven’t seen them since.  Paul and I did run into our neighbor last night who told us that his lease was up and they only allowed him to renew for a maximum of 3 months…  at least that’s right when our lease is up anyways!  I guess only time will tell :)

This is one of our rental agency's signs....  gotta love the spelling :)

Cleaning Service

Last December before Paul’s family came out to visit, I bought a groupon for someone to come and clean our apartment.  I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect but it was 3 hours of cleaning for only $20 so we figured we couldn’t go wrong.  And we were right.  It was amazing!  The company was Queen’s Beez and the lady that came to our place did a spectacular job.  She cleaned every nook and cranny including behind our refrigerator!  She was very pleasant and we gave her a nice tip.  For the next week, Paul and I would walk around just amazed out how shiny our floors were—our apartment had never been that clean before.

After that amazing experience, we decided to include in our budget for a quarterly cleaning by the same lady.  When it came to be close to the time, I saw another groupon for another company that was the same price and we decided to give that a try since it was half of what it would cost to bring the first lady back without the groupon discount.  Again, for $20 how bad could it be?  We also used the option to purchase and extra hour (for a total of 4) because the first lady seemed like she was a little rushed by the time she got to our living room and for an extra $3 that seemed totally worth it.  Oh how wrong we were!

I made the appointment a few weeks in advance because I wanted to have them come the weekend before it was our turn to host small group.  I made the appointment for 9:00am so that they could come and we would still have some of the day left to leave the house and go do other things.  We had stayed up really late the night before since Paul had some guys over for cards, so I set the alarm for 8:00 and when it went off I started scrambling around to try to clean up the stuff so that our place could actually be cleaned.

9:00 rolled around and the guy called to ask for directions saying he was in Mussafah.  Ok, that’s like 15 – 20 mins away—typical Abu Dhabi timing.  No problem.  10:00 rolls around and the guy calls back saying that he won’t be able to make it until 11!  I tried to explain that my appointment was for 9:00, but knowing that this was futile, I just asked that he come sooner if he could.  Meanwhile I could hear some guy laughing like crazy in the background?!?!

He did show up around 10:30 and I went outside to meet him and bring him in.  He was dressed pretty nice, but WOW—there was a strong smell of BO.  He grabbed a bucket of cleaning supplies from the trunk and asked if we had a mop.  I said we did although it' wasn’t great and he pointed to this nasty, moldy, nest of a thing in the trunk asking if I wanted him to bring that.  I answered with a no thank you!

He came in and I showed him our broom, mop, and vacuum cleaner as he didn’t have any of those with him.  He asked where to start and I  mentioned the living room since that was what I wanted cleaned the most but he said no.  Ok, well Paul was still sleeping in the bedroom so that left the kitchen and bathroom.  He started on the windows in the kitchen and I left to go work on some other things.  I came back to check on him and our entire kitchen wreaked of BO.  Then he moved to the bathroom where he did some sort of cleaning in there.  Later he had me go into the kitchen with him so he could show me that it was “done.”  And in this “clean” kitchen he had the dirty mop laying on the counter.  I could see crumbs on the counter.  But I really couldn’t handle it and not being one for confrontation I said “fine.” I had to get out of there.  So I went to get groceries and left Paul to oversee the work :)

As I’m leaving the grocery store, Paul calls to say that the guy is done.  He’s only been there for 2 hours and I paid extra to get 4!  So we called his boss and they talked and the guy eventually agreed to stay for the full 4 hours.  Paul walked with him into the kitchen to see what he could still work on.  He bend down and wiped our floor next to the window with a paper towel.  It was super dirty.  The guy’s response? “The mop doesn’t reach good there.”  Really?!?!  I’m paying you to clean our apartment for 4 hours, and you say you’re done after 2 and want to leave, but you haven’t even really cleaned our floors except where it was easy to do so?

While the guys was re-mopping the kitchen we walked by the bathroom which STUNK!  It was horrible!  Paul asked the guy to come over and asked him what it smelled like.  The guy said “Feet.”  I cannot make this up.  Honestly, why would you clean someone’s house with a product that smells like feet?  At this point we couldn’t handle any more and just asked him to leave.

After he left we went and sopped up the “smelly feet” liquid that was all over the floor of our bathroom.  Then I wrote a complaint to groupon (to which they said they’d respond in 3 days but I still haven’t heard from them a week later).  Then I took clorox wipes and disinfected every surface of our house.  For the rest of the day we felt like our place was dirtier than it had been the day before.

If you live in Abu Dhabi, never ever use Shinex Care.

Paul put it best when talking to his parents later that day.  Back home, this whole fiasco probably would have thrown us into a bad mood for a quite a while.  But here, we just shook our heads, vowed to only use Queen’s Beez again, and moved on.

Summertime Sadness

With temperatures hovering around 100 and often climbing much higher, we enter the official summer months, which makes this song that Paul recently downloaded particularly fitting—Summertime Sadness by Lana Del Ray.