I somehow managed to end last weekend with an eyeful of floaters and flashers, which I put down to dehydration and the forceful breaking of poinciana branches on an exposed root in the paddock (for the potbelly just in case you thought it was some kind of sinister ritual).
As a consequence of this violence, I have spent the whole week swatting imaginary flies away from my eyes and watching little tadpoles float across the computer screen. I’ve sworn a lot, and spent much time wondering what would happen to my menagerie if I lost my mind. I must have voiced my thoughts as two pairs of brown eyes raised to the heavens in unison as if to say “That happened a long time ago, but we’re still here”. I took deaf Harry’s closed eyes as silent disagreement. He’s old and wise and knows who feeds him.
A telehealth consult resulted in an emergency appointment with the optometrist, where it was confirmed that my retina had not detached itself. I suppose that is some consolation, but she told me I’d better “suck it up princess” as the floaters weren’t going to leave in a hurry, if at all. Okay, she didn’t actually say “Suck it up princess!”, she was far too genteel for that, and from the dirt under my fingernails from playing in the garden and scratching horses’ butts, she knew I was no princess. But to have a life long floater sentence was very depressing.
On the way home, all I could think of was “The Son of a Duck is a Floater”. This was the title of a book that was written shortly before I went to live in Abu Dhabi. It is the literal translation from the Arabic proverb, which basically means “Like father, like son”. It got me thinking about language. There were some real crackers in the UAE. One I remember was “baat chabdi”, which translated means “popped my liver”. From memory it was the kind of thing you would say to the taxi driver who backed over your shopping because there was too much tinsel and stickers on his back window to see out. Thankfully, it was only my shopping and not my three year old.
So, strangely, the floaters got me thinking about living in Abu Dhabi, and how ‘interesting’ life was there in the 1990s. We arrived there in 1990, just before the Gulf War started. My husband had been there for about six weeks, and I could see him waiting outside in the arrivals hall. I think it was one-sided glass and I had no way of telling him that a customs official was telling me that myself and my toddler were likely to be sent back from whence we had come. This was because my husband had organised for my visa to be put in my British passport, rather than my Australian passport (or maybe the other way around) and what the official saw online did not match the passport I was clutching.
I was getting a little nervous, as there was talk of marching Jess and I off to a side room. All of a sudden Jess threw her teddy at him with a demonic chuckle. That won his heart, and he ushered us through, with a fatherly suggestion that I hide the second passport, as the police at security ahead would likely incarcerate me if they knew I had two passports. It was a bit of a baptism by fire. I was so scared I would be selected to search. For a moment, I considered stuffing the passports into my daughter’s nappy. I mean, surely they wouldn’t…?
Alas poor Bobo, who was always thrown at men in uniform, maybe because his owner’s dad was a pilot, did something completely out of character one day. While I was experiencing a truly unforgettable pit stop at a hole in the floor loo at the only service station between the two cities in those days, Bobo’s glass eyes spotted two camels lying in the back of a ute. Neither of them were in uniform, but 20 minutes later, back on the road, turning round to Jess in the back of the car, I discovered a lack of Bobo. After scouring the Abu Dhabi-Dubai road from that spot back to the service station, my husband could only presume that while he was carrying Jess and I was teetering on a disgusting abyss, Bobo had made a leap for freedom into the camel’s ute. That night, it was me who cried, but the next day I was banned from putting ‘Lost’ posters on the Abu Dhabi-Dubai road.
Back to the airport. I was already half dead. For six weeks I had been packing up the house in Oz, with a toddler who only ever slept for an hour and a half at a time, night or day, and who unpacked boxes as quickly as I packed. The house was to be rented out and three cars sold, and my ancient but beloved dogs had to be put down as I could not find a home for them, something that still haunts me. The tenant reneged, the house went on the market, then Grace Bros accidentally took a cupboard containing my passport, tickets, cash and travellers’ cheques on the Friday afternoon before I was due to fly on the weekend. It was 4.45pm when I discovered this catastrophe. Grace Bros closed on the other side of Perth, at 5pm. Now that is a story in itself. Desperation is the mother of invention. Whoever said necessity was its mother has never had to pack a home up and move to another country with a toddler in tow, a house to empty and sell when the tenancy fell through, and no partner to provide wine, ice cream and verbal solace. I don’t think he would have risked a hug, to be honest, well at least not until after the above had placated me.
Driving into the city from the airport in a dingly-dangly, jinglyjangly taxi, I was so tired, I wouldn’t have cared if we had been driven to the hotel via Oman. At least I could have had a good sleep. I was struck by the deafening cacophony of car horns; it was like being in Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok. The world outside the taxi window became a mass of gold and white Cressidas and Datsuns, their seats covered with thick plastic and the dashboards and mirrors adorned with all manner of baubles and tinsel, fluffy dice and prayer beads.
There were some hilarious shop names, like the Butt Sweet Shop and Gang Massage. Then there were a myriad priceless street signs, like “Posturing and Littering is Strictly Prohibited” and “Fishing and Getting Closer are Prohibited” at the water’s edge. At the Hypermarket (the inside of which resembled a cereal box) you’d consider yourself lucky if the cardboard ceiling stayed intact while you were shopping). Outside, a sign warned, “Please to be informed that it is not allowed to enter the Hypermarket with Bare Bodies”. This was no Aldi.
There was always a laugh to be had in Abu Dhabi in the 1990s. I never did really learn the language, just a few dozen words and phrases that got me by, or were vitally necessary, such as “No!” I felt rather bad that I didn’t make more of an attempt, but most of the locals I mixed with spoke English and when you’re not practised at the guttural ‘h’, you can spread germs, of which there were plenty in the UAE. I often got spat upon as a blonde.
Invited to a grand ceremony organised by the Abu Dhabi Municipality and attended by members of the royal family and ministers, I sat through hours of speeches of which I understood absolutely nothing. Suddenly, in the midst of a long awards presentation, desperately trying to keep my eyes open, I heard my name. Someone poked the back of my shoulder and said ‘Habibti, go!” and I ventured up on to the huge stage to receive a gold watch and a certificate for my work as founder of the Abu Dhabi Environmental Group. And all I could say was “Shukran, Shukran, Shukran” and then, to my later embarrassment, I realised I added, as I backed away, “Afwan”, which basically means, “You’re welcome” but can also mean “Sorry”. I finally jettisoned the certificate the other day, as I have no idea what it says and neither did anyone else who saw it.
For all I know, it could have said “Rooh kannis al sahra”, which roughly translated means “Go sweep the desert”.
