It's "springtime" in UAE which means sharply rising temperatures, but it is certainly lovely to sit by the pool in such temperatures. It also means that the flowers (which have been diligently planted on all roadsides by outdoor workers and changed every few weeks) are blooming and the air often smells lovely on my drive to work in the morning (instead of just smelling like camel poo somewhere off in the distance). A few days ago we had a parent-teacher meeting and a tiny older lady came in and sat down at a table with my colleague. While a grade level presentation was going on she pulled a ziploc baggie of fresh jasmine flowers out of her purse and started handing it to us teachers by the handful. It was such a sweet, simple gesture, but I later found that it is something people often do here to show care and respect. Plus they smell lovely. No one ever gives me handfuls of flowers in Canada!
"Springtime" also brings a FEW April showers, which is pretty exciting when you have not seen rain in 8 months. I rolled down my windows and put my hand out in joy to feel the rain! Seems like an appropriate response right? Not so for the locals. Within 5 minutes of it beginning to rain there were police officers at every roundabout directing traffic, because rain makes people go insane for some reason. And it wasn't even a lot of rain. I probably didn't really even NEED the windshield wipers, but I just wanted to use them for something other than clearing sand off my windshield. Now, people already drive insane here, but it just doesn't seem to make logical sense to me to speed UP when its raining. Is it because it's fun to skid around the roundabouts? To some it is. Also I saw people hanging out their windows, driving ATVS and other 4 wheeler vehicles out to the desert, while their kandora frocked companions STOOD on the back of the ATV while it went 80 km/hr down the road. Now you understand the cops being out. When it rains apparently it makes the sand extra fun for playing on, so parents will actually pull their kids out of school and race to the desert if their is a rain forecast. So different from home where people mostly just frown and look for an umbrella.
If you don't believe me about them standing out car windows, please refer to this legit accurate description this MIA video gives of driving behaviour here in UAE:
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Context is always an important thing to remember when having a conversation here in the UAE. My colleague/friend and I were photocopying the other day and she said casually, "I think an elephant lives behind my house." So immediately I think: 1. Her neighbour must be really loud and stompy or 2. She lives beside a fat person. Considering my friend is not a bitch, I ruled out the second and said something like:
"You mean they're really loud?"
She laughed and said "No, I mean like, I think a legitimate elephant lives in the backyard of the house behind me. It smells like elephants in the morning"
At this I started laughing, realizing how this conversation could only really be happening in a place like UAE where locals bring in wild animals through a black market system and keep them as pets like this cheetah. She has yet to see the elephant, but we are still very curious about it.
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