Zed U

looking into courtyard at sub tower

Last week, after the National Day holiday, I started work at Zayed University, or Zed U. The campus is striking, It's basically a big square of buildings around the outside, making open space in the center that is split down the middle with a central building to make an open air courtyard on one side and a covered atrium on the other. I really want to take pictures of the atrium side- it's so lively with coffee shops, cafes, a perfume shop! and students, but I have to find a way to get a shot where you can't make out students faces. No random photographs of the girls allowed. I think I can get something from above where you can't see any faces. The middle building has a quirky tower that strongly resembles the smoke stack on a cruise ship or the conning tower on a submarine. This houses the grand staircase entrance to the Library.

grand stair library entrance

I've met a dizzying array of people and I'm frantically trying to keep everyone's names and faces together in my mind. My staff is made up of the following nationalities Emirati, Egyptian, Iraqi, Italian, American, Canadian and more. I have a big empty office so far (with TEAL upholstered chairs for visitors right in front of my desk which my Westminster colleagues will appreciate!) and a login with an email inbox that's rapidly filling but no desktop or laptop computer yet. Insha'allah (basically means God willing, and gets used fairly constantly with a little shrug when things aren't going according to plan) on Sunday when the work week starts again. We work Sun - Thur. Friday mornings are a bit like Sunday mornings in the states. I've been told that's a pretty good time to go out exploring by car when you're new because there's basically no traffic- maybe some other expats roaming around getting brunch.

So work this week meant abbreviated days- thank goodness because I'm not quite right on sleep yet and trying to process so much new stuff is exhausting- and lots of housekeeping tasks. Like any new job there was paperwork and a nice little welcome lunch reception, meeting staff and getting tours... Unlike other new jobs, this one also required processing steps to get my residency visa and Emirates ID. On Thursday, I was taken around to set all those processes in motion. Luckily I had someone from ZU's HR staff holding my hand, I don't envy people trying to work this out on their own when they are new to the county. Even with Shaimaa's help, we hit a snag that everyone says is pretty typical of the way things work here- extreme patience required and a trust that it will all work out in the end. So in order to get an Emirates ID, you need to have a local cell number to receive texts to learn when and where you have to pick up and/or submit materials. So we started at the the local phone service provider planning to grab a sim card with prepaid minutes that will work in the unlocked iPhone I've got (thanks again, Becky and Jim- eventually this is going to work out awesomely.) But just this week! Of course just this week! They changed the computer system so that there's no way to activate a sim card unless the purchaser can provide an Emirates ID. Catch 22 here: need a phone for the ID, can't get a phone without the ID. Everyone in the room acknowledged that this is a problem, but it's how the computers are set up now. Probably won't last, someone will realize that visitors and others without the ID card provide an important market, but right now, we had to put Shaimaa's phone number in my ID application and now she gets my texts. Oh well, I'm surviving with an apartment/hotel phone, a work phone, and mostly email for now and it's fine. After the ID application, it was on to have my lungs x-rayed, my blood drawn, all 10 fingertips and multiple palm prints digitally recorded, my picture taken and a bunch of forms completed and submitted. It costs 370 Dhs for the ID (about $100) which ZU reimburses me for. Not sure if there are also costs for the work visa that the University is paying. I only mention that because I was struck, while waiting on line for the chest x-ray in particular, how many thousands of people come here seeking work and have to figure this all out on their own and pay for it on their own. So many of the guest worker residents here are paid so little, and yet it's still worth all the trouble and cost because even from low wages, there is money to send home to India or Pakistan or the Philippines or wherever home is for so many UAE residents.