Keep moving

I returned to Dubai in April facing the not fun task of finding a new apartment and moving, all to be done before our lease expired in early May. We did not want to move--we had settled into our place at Tiara on the Palm, installed window treatments, hung pictures, bought three bedrooms worth of furniture and gotten all the kinks out of the plumbing. But our landlord, a Russian investor, would not renew our lease so we had no choice. Meeting with other Americans living on the Palm, I discovered that quite a few were in the same predicament. Being tenants, many of us have found that the owner/landlords do not want to renew the leases. So moving seems to be a built-in part of the Dubai expat experience.

It did not take long to find a new place. But this time we made sure not to rent from an individual owner who might not renew. We couldn't have asked for a better landlord or location--the sister of Sheikh Mohammed, who owns a set of beautiful low rise apartments right on the beach off Jumeirah Beach Road. Moving was also easily arranged, after getting bids from several companies who were all anxious to undercut the others. The hassle of moving and connecting utilities, along with the expense of having to sacrifice the furniture and curtains we couldn't use from the old place while needing to buy curtains for the new place, were the primary aggravations. The Dubizzle website is a great way to buy and sell things but the buyers are looking for extreme bargains so it's hard to do well as a seller. When moving day came, I was happy to find someone who would take the stuff off my hands so I didn't have to move it.

That should be it for us, we hope, unless we get ambitious and decide to try villa life. Since we are away so much, it didn't make sense for now, and we could scarcely fathom all the work needed to make a villa and garden look presentable. And we love the amenities of our new apartment--walkway to the beach, gym, pool, and sauna. There's even a shopping mall next door with cafes and stores, which we can walk to from the parking garage without going outside, especially nice during the summer.

Y'all come now, y'here!

Winging It

Dubai can get boring at times so we sprang for some quick thrills by going on a seaplane ride. We spent 40 minutes in the air, plenty of time to see the main sights of the city from Jebel Ali, sight of another undeveloped palm-shaped island, all the way to the airport and back. Seeing the Palm Jumeirah where we live and the crazy-quilt patterns of the other developments in between, as well as the spooky deserted islands of the World, was worth the trip. The sandy man-made islands must make great soft landing spots for the crews of parachutists that are often seen floating to earth.

The takeoff and landing were remarkably smooth. Paying the bill was the only tough part--no cheap thrill!

Rolling out the red carpet

Besides shopping, folks in Dubai go crazy for films and celebrities, so the 8th Dubai International Film Festival is a big deal here. It opened with Tom Cruise and the Dubai premiere of Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol. Dubai features prominently, including harrowing stunts around the Burj Khalifa, but we won't be seeing the film here anytime soon as the showing was by invitation only.

I just got around to watching what was billed at the festival two years ago as the first UAE/Emirati movie, called City of Life. It features an ensemble cast and intermeshed stories of a privileged young Emirati who lives it up too much, an Indian taxi driver who dreams of being a Bollywood star, a pair of Romanian flight attendants, and a wealthy western expat playboy. All very stereotypical, with lots of cliched dialogue, but even so I really enjoyed it because it features Dubai with all of its flaws, including a horrific car crash. It's not a flattering portrayal, which surprised me since you don't see that very often around here, the local media being always upbeat. (Not to mention the occasional story of someone getting arrested for disparaging the country.) But then again it's fiction, so I guess there's more leeway. Or maybe the movie is just dying a quiet death. I couldn't find it for sale anywhere--I had to rent my copy.

I hope with celebrities like Tom Cruise and Bollywood legend Shah Rukh Kahn as a draw for the festival, the region continues to support filmmaking with projects exploring the real issues. I'd love to see the next film by the director/writer of City of Life, Ali F. Mostafa. He is said to be working on a comedy featuring a road trip with four Arab friends in a sober version of "The Hangover."

Better Watch Who's Driving

My husband got eight electronic speeding tickets in one month before he realized what was happening. It starts with a sudden flash while you are driving. He either didn't notice it or couldn't tell where it came from. Then he got a notice by email, stating that he was speeding at such and such location and the amount of the fine. Each time it happened, he thought it couldn't be right. So I went online to check, and sure enough, there was a little picture of our license plate for each one.

The flash is from a camera at roadside taking a picture of your license plate while radar clocks you over the speed limit. The cameras are placed at strategic points along the major roads, and the tricky spots are where the speed limit suddenly decreases without much warning. Now that Neal has been flashed at various spots, he knows where to slow down. There is some margin, believed to be 10 km/hour.

The good news for Neal is that there are no ramifications to getting all these tickets--no points, no problems with insurance, no interest or late fees. He can clear them all by paying them when he goes to renew his license.

Given this system, it's no surprise that there are chronic abusers and plenty of unpaid fines. As of last month, unpaid fines added up to 369 million dirhams (over $100 million, with 3.67 dirhams per US$). One UAE woman accumulated 152,000 dirhams worth, while another woman collected 146,000. A teenager racked up 70,000 before getting stopped. One man seemed to be trying to set a record, scoring 42,000 dirhams in fines in 5 minutes of speeding at 180 km/hour past 12 checkpoints. Even an 88-year old Saudi with no car got hit with some hefty fines.

So what's a country to do? More good news for Neal: the UAE decided to celebrate National Day by granting a 40% discount if the fines are paid prior to January 10. Of course, many people believe that providing such a discount sends the wrong message to speeders. At the same time, authorities vow to crack down on the worst cases, such as the 3,600 drivers who exceeded 200 km/hour. If they can find these people, they will confiscate the car. Some people think they should try jailing the drivers, but how do they know for sure who was driving? In any event, if it's your car, you'll be paying.

More Like It

I'm back in Dubai again for a couple of weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The weather is very pleasant now, with temperatures in the 70's and 80's. There are lots of activities and events going on as the 40th UAE National Day comes up on December 2. Each year the celebrations get more elaborate; the "day" has now morphed into a five-day period from November 29-December 3. The events have reached the Palm this year with a temporary park full of fun things for kids to do: horse and camel rides; petting zoo with baby camels, goats, Saluki dogs, and falcons; henna painting for hands and feet; desert tents and campfires; and desert food.

The Palm also has more visitors from the air. I am seeing flocks of birds for the first time. Also, many men flying fast to the ground by parachute, alarming until you realize how accurate they are. The world parachute championships are underway.

A brave pedestrian can get extremely close to such events, as I did by walking over to the parachute landing site near Frond O. The apparent lack of concern for security and safety is troubling, so I don't venture very close.

Also in the news: several deaths of children falling out of windows from high-rise buildings, four just this week. With the mild weather, people must be opening their windows and neglecting to watch the small ones. One distraught mother jumped out of the same window her son fell through.

Downgrade on the world's largest airlines

I am finally back in Dubai after being away for more than six months, which is nice, except that it took three tries for me to make it on the daily United flight from Dulles Airport to Dubai as a space available passenger. While my husband pays the list price for business class, I try to fly on a buddy pass as much as I can, which gives me flexibility and the chance to go back and forth from the USA more often than I could afford otherwise. My sister works for United, and she usually has more passes than she can use. It's a great deal when I can get a seat that way, but the key word is "when".

Now that United has merged with Continental to become the world's largest airlines, many things have changed in the United flying experience, including the buddy pass program. Flying on a pass from Dulles to Dubai is much more difficult, possibly due to increased demand since there's still just one flight per day and Continental passholders are part of the picture. Getting a seat in business class--one of the best features of the program--may never happen again since all upgrades go ahead of space available passengers. Getting a seat in coach is also a challenge, even when there appear to be seats available, due to mysterious weight and other factors that come up often at the last minute. Of course, if there is ever a problem with a flight, that will have ripple effects into the next day.

I make sure I have plenty of leeway when I try to travel space available so I will not go crazy when it doesn't work out, which is often the case. I wanted to fly with my sister to Dubai when she had a trip there in mid-September, but the flight was unexpectedly full and then some seats had to be given up at the last minute due to missing fire extinguishers in the crew cabin, so I didn't make it. Probably a good thing I did not fly that night as they encountered another problem with the smoke protection system in the passenger cabin and had to return to Dulles four hours after take off.

The flights between Pittsburgh and Dulles can be just as challenging. The schedule is very limited, and the planes are small. When you add in flight delays, it suddenly seems much easier to just rent a car and drive the five hours to Dulles airport from Pittsburgh.

None of this tends to bother me very much, since you get what you pay for and I am not paying very much. The one thing that riles me most at the moment is the increasingly lousy food offered in coach. I remember the days when an international flight of any kind brought with it a printed menu and tablecloth service. Now you are lucky if you get served anything edible. There might be two options, vegetarian and non-vegetarian, and they are both bad. The flight attendants are not to blame. They are very busy and do what they can. I imagine that they even feel a bit ashamed at the unappetizing offerings. But a tasteless tricolored mush with bits of corn the only identifiable ingredient and a frozen roll was more than I could bear the last time I flew. The only edible food over 13 hours was yogurt and a cookie. I hear the coffee has even been downgraded since the big merger. I had my own Snickers bar and cookies that I brought along in case of emergency but never touched them having lost all appetite.

I feel bad for my husband as a Global Services-level elite passenger, who suffers from the stress of unhappy travel experiences a lot more than I do, having to reschedule meetings and deal with staff from afar. While the food he gets in business class is much more acceptable, the "elite" service leaves much to be desired. He was not notified, as he should have been, when his connecting flight from Pittsburgh to Dulles was delayed, causing him to miss the flight to Dubai later that day. A simple phone call or email would have made it possible to get on an earlier flight in time for the Dubai flight. He is paying top dollar and deserves better.

I hope these are temporary problems, perhaps due to the big merger. Emirates is one airlines that will not hesitate to eat the US airlines for lunch if they find an opening, and it will cost us all a lot more in the long run.

A newly minted American

I wrote an article for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about my friend Hanna Besterman, a native of Poland who recently became a U.S. citizen. I was honored that they chose to run it today alongside the many 9/11 commemorative pieces.

I wrote a longer version, which I am including below. The picture shows Tom, Hanna, and me with our friends Linda, Patty and Nancy. While the article has nothing to do with Dubai, I am sure everyone can identify with being a stranger in a strange land.

A Newly Minted American

When I was invited to attend the U.S. naturalization ceremony on July 15, I didn’t know what to expect. My friend Hanna Besterman was becoming a U.S. citizen. I was meeting her and her husband and other friends at the Pittsburgh Field Office of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, located on the South Side. Hanna had passed the citizenship test there a few weeks earlier.

The giant logo of American Eagle Outfitters seemed to show me the way as I drove across the Hot Metal Bridge. Hanna and her husband were wearing red, white and blue and carrying little American flags, and we took pictures waiting for the doors to open. But Hanna forgot her identification, having changed purses to go with her outfit. It looked like we might have to come back another time, but then they said Hanna could participate and bring her ID later. We all breathed a sigh of relief, thanking the wise person upstairs who thoughtfully made an exception.

The ceremony room was full, with standing room only for the last arriving guests. Field Office Director Michael Klinger conducted the ceremony, welcoming Hanna and 24 others from 17 different countries, calling out each country by name. I watched Hanna and the others as they took the oath of allegiance and were pronounced citizens, many with tears filling their eyes. Mr. Klinger then offered the podium to any persons who wanted to share their story.

The first person to speak was a woman who had been a missionary in Haiti. A little Haitian girl needed new parents, and she and her husband were hesitant at first, having just lost a granddaughter about the same age, but then they decided to adopt her. Of course, the little girl won their hearts as she became a part of their family. They had to leave Haiti after the earthquake struck in January 2010. Her daughter Valerie was adjusting well to life in West Virginia and became the youngest new U.S. citizen that morning.

Hanna was the second to speak. I was curious to hear what she had to say because she has a remarkable story, but I knew it would be hard for her to keep it short since she loves to talk. She spoke of her excitement when she first came to Pittsburgh from her native Poland in 1992 with her husband and two small sons, 3 and 9 years old. Westinghouse invited her husband to work as guest engineer for a three-year contract. It was a big deal for them to get this chance to come to America, because at this time it was very hard to get a visa from Poland. Hanna said it was like a dream come true. She looked forward to the adventure of living in the U.S. and the opportunity for her kids to learn English and explore new things. She also hoped it would help her marriage.

Despite not knowing a word of English, Hanna made friends, found an apartment and enrolled her sons in school. Her kids did great, learning English easily, making friends and playing soccer and baseball. Hanna also learned English and finally found a job in her field, working with people with disabilities, after being underemployed in various temporary jobs to help support the family.

Hanna and her husband were not getting along. The three years in America convinced her that she needed to get out of the marriage. When the contract with Westinghouse ended, her husband went back to Poland ahead of her. But Hanna didn’t go back. She got a new work visa and moved to an apartment in Aspinwall to be closer to her job. Her husband showed up one day and wouldn’t leave until he convinced her to go back to Poland. She quickly realized her mistake, as life under the same roof was a living hell.

With lots of help, Hanna managed to escape to Pittsburgh with her children. Fortunately, she still had a year left on her work visa. She got her job back and found another apartment in Aspinwall. She felt like she and the boys were coming home. She also found a new green card sponsor, having been turned down the first time she applied.

Hanna’s story, of a wife stuck in a bad marriage and a mother fighting for her kids to have a normal life, struggling to get legal work status and make a new home in the U.S., had a happy ending. She got a divorce and green cards for herself and her sons. She married her new husband Tom in a red, white and blue ceremony in PNC Park. Her two young sons grew up in America into well-educated, compassionate young men.

The older son, Jakub, has a love of sports that he embraced growing up in Pittsburgh, graduating from Slippery Rock with a degree in sports management. He married an American girl and works for the Phoenix Coyotes. Marcin is a senior at Juniata, majoring in peacemaking and environmental studies, having won a scholarship for his work with a Presbyterian youth group raising money for Invisible Children in Uganda and doing mission work in Rwanda, Haiti and Costa Rica.

Hanna was fortunate to be able to solve her immigration problems, spending thousands of dollars to obtain legal status, which took her several years to pay off. As Hanna put it, “only the ones who are desperate end up here.” Things aren’t perfect, but she is forever grateful for her second chance at life. America has been her home for a long time now, so becoming a U.S. citizen for Hanna was the culmination of many years of effort, like a hard-earned prize. She declared it one of the happiest and most profound moments of her life.

Several others told their stories that morning, and it was obvious that they shared the same emotions and gratitude for their new home country. A research scientist from Morocco said coming to America was the best thing she’s done in her life, because everything has been good for her in America, and it has been wonderful to have kids here and see them bloom with all the opportunities they have. A young mother from Mexico with a newborn infant told her story about falling in love with her husband, an American Marine, and being so happy to be able to live with him here, start a family, and find a job. Hanna sat next to a young woman who was a Bosnian refugee granted asylum in the U.S. She worked at BNY Mellon and was joined by her sister who became a citizen before her. Each one had a story, different in the details but similar in parts, most having traveled a long, hard road to U.S. citizenship. They all shared the common theme of love for America and feeling like America was their home long before they received the right to call themselves Americans.

Most natural born Americans take their citizenship for granted and have no idea how hard the process is for immigrants to obtain work visas, green cards, and citizenship. Many Americans can’t even pass the citizenship test that Hanna took—in fact, 38% failed when Newsweek gave 1,000 people the test earlier this year. If more Americans could hear Hanna’s story and those of other immigrants granted citizenship, maybe they would be more sympathetic to immigrants and appreciate the hardships they endure as they navigate the complicated maze of U.S. immigration law.

I was surprised to find out that the Pittsburgh Field Office conducts naturalization ceremonies every two weeks, swearing in 200 new citizens each month. As Mr. Klinger said, it’s the stories that make these days special, but we don’t often hear about them unless we have a personal connection like I have with my friend Hanna.

Diane O’Toole, the Immigration Services Officer who handled Hanna’s application for citizenship, was one of many who came up to Hanna afterwards to thank her for sharing her story. It was also a special day for Director Klinger, whose grandparents were immigrants, because it was his last oath ceremony in Pittsburgh before moving back to his Detroit hometown.

Seeing the faces of these newly minted Americans, I find it hard to understand the anti-immigrant sentiment voiced by some in this country. After all, this country was started and built by immigrants. In the words of Michael Klinger, “we all have an immigrant story, whether we were born here or somewhere else.”

P.S. Here's a link to the version that appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11253/1173399-109-0.stm. Hanna and I are working on a book version of her story, so stay tuned!