leaving messes

It's the little things that really demonstrate cultural differences to me. There's a tray in the central hall of the municipal building where you visit the kiosk to take a number for any one of several pesky government functions that involve waiting in line- I was there for my driving license- and on the tray there is a carafe of coffee and about 2 dozen china cups. Sure, there's a chance you'd find coffee on offer in a government building in the States. In some smaller towns it might even be free coffee. But it's pretty unlikely that there's going to be coffee with cute little china cups that need washing. We all seem to have enormous carbon footprints here in the UAE where recycling is infrequent and re-use isn't the norm and so you know that those china cups have nothing to do with the wastefulness of styrofoam or paper. Nope, they're there because coffee is an important part of transactions and should be enjoyed in a real cup and because there's someone to clean the cups. There's always someone to clean whatever messes we make.

My urge to pick up after or take care of myself runs pretty deep. I flounder at lunch on campus daily in the act of walking away and leaving a tray or plate of garbage behind. It feels normal and natural to me to just roll a task chair from one office to the next if it needs to be moved or to lock up the library at the end of the day if I'm the last one there. I'm still holding out and doing my own laundry for now (of course that doesn't include towels and sheets because I'm still in the hotel/ apartment.) but I'm

part of the internatl. section of my grocery store

learning that by being a bit of a lazy slob, I am contributing to the employment of countless individuals (from an equally countless number of countries- this is part of why the UAE is such melting pot and has such interesting sections in the grocery stores- sri lankan food!?) We have an entire team of uniformed men and women who are constantly about the library dusting, washing windows, straightening books, climbing ladders to wipe down shelves, cleaning parts of the building every day that I suspect have never been cleaned in many US libraries. I am supposed to leave the moving of office furniture, even roll-y chairs, to them. If I do it, what do they do? I threaten their employment. Ditto the lunch area employees- subcontracted to the University. There are no trash cans or places to stack trays or dishes anywhere in the large eating complex (which, I should note, features a Subway, a Circle K convenience store, a Baskin Robbins and several other lesser known options much like a mall food court- which is another place you leave your mess.)

The University also subcontracts a large "security" staff. They play a pretty interesting roll. One of the things they do is to clear the common areas like the library of women before the men's hours as male and female students use campus at different times of the day in Dubai. They also sometimes escort visitors around- my check book (spelled cheque book) and ATM card were couriered over after the automated text message that let me choose the day and time window of their arrival and used the location feature on my phone to fill in the place for delivery. The

the grape

courier was escorted to me by a member of security. And security locks and unlocks things. Nearly all things. I have one key to my office and because I'm an associate director, I get a second key to the office/ conference room area. Otherwise, security comes at the drop of a hat. They also seem to be there all the time at all of the many entrances and exits to the building. I did a trial run on my route to work this past weekend to get used to driving "the grape" (my weird green suzuki swift) and to learn the way and in my drive by of a random side entrance, I spotted the usual complement of security staff in the entry area. on a winter break weekend day.

my future apt building

I got a sneak peak at the apartment Butternut and I are slated to move into

the windows in one of the bedrooms

in Feb. I look out through giant floor to ceiling windows pretty directly at the Burj Khalifa (world's tallest building.) Andrea arrives in less than 12 hours and we'll be off on lots of great adventures including a New Year's eve trip to the observation deck of the Khalifa on the 124th floor. yikes.