Riding, Writing, Maids, Living Far From Home

Life goes on, most things unchanged. A friend in Abu Dhabi just found out her father (in England) is very ill and another friend had similar news about her mother (in the Netherlands). At times like these it's hard to be so far from home.

Lately, the riding is going better than the writing. Seems I can write a blog or I can write fiction, but I cannot write both. After a long dry spell, the muse has returned, so I am back at my attempt at a novel. We'll see.

Certainly some of the people I've come to know here, Emiratis and Arabs in particular, are inspiring me in a positive way. Can't say any more than that at the moment...

My dear maid, whom I had great affection for, is not working for us anymore. She used to come once a week - for a while her husband came too - and my villa sparkled under their care. I was sad to say goodbye to them, but happy for the reason: they are buying a house in their home country of Sri Lanka. It costs about 50,000 dirhams, equal to $13,500 US.

Would I visit, they asked. I said I would love to, and I meant it. They said their home would always be ready for me, and I know they meant it, too.


Although I had a good experience with my maid, a number of friends have gone through 3 or 4 maids before they found someone whom they trusted and who cleaned well. Since my children are asking for cash at every turn lately, well, you can imagine what we've decided to do.

From Ireland to Abu Dhabi to New Hampshire

On June 6th I returned to Abu Dhabi after a week in Ireland.
M was incredibly kind to let me go, bearing all the responsibilities of his work and the kids' last week of school, too. (When I booked the trip last winter, I didn't know it would be the last week of school - SAT exams, finals, a sixth-grader's portfolio exhibition, an eighth-grader's graduation, end-of-year parties for the third- and first-graders... I didn't. Really.)

I went to Ireland alone, to attend a writing workshop in Listowel and to visit my grandmother in Dublin. It was a restorative seven days, where I could call my time my own, eat or not eat, socialize and withdraw when I liked. Fantastic.

Tonight the children and I fly to the US after a year in Abu Dhabi. (M joins us soon.)

It seems fitting that my last day of our first year here will be spent thus: I'll apply for my first job in over 17 years (at a school), and then, what's more exciting, I will for the first time visit the home of an Emirati lady.

My children tease me (constantly) about my eagerness to meet the "locals." So far they've been far more successful than I.

However, the other day I was watering my garden and a woman dressed in the full black abaya approached me.

"Are you Joe's mother?" she asked.
"Are you Sultan's mother?" I asked.

We are both looking forward to meeting today.
(This photo M took last summer when we were all in Ireland together; it shows three of our boys on Innishbofin, an island off the coast of Clifden, Galway.)