Helena Frith Powell

“What is the hardest thing in Abu Dhabi?” Olivia asked the other day as she stood by the pool at The Club, tucking into an ice cream.

“My stomach?” suggested Rupert.

“Not having anywhere to live?” I ventured.

“Eating an ice-cream,” said Olivia. “It melts before you can eat it.”

I look forward to her misery memoir.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

During the rugby world cup last year I had an idea for a book called ‘How to seduce Jonny Wilkinson and other routes to happiness’. It was a book looking at what makes women happy, how we can be happier and so on.

Obviously I have no idea how to seduce Jonny Wilkinson (short of dressing up as a rugby ball and hurling myself over some posts) but that was to be what publishers call the “narrative arc”. On my quest to eternal happiness I would set out to achieve what most of the females (and some males) in England wanted to do at the time.

My agent didn’t like it. I mean she liked the idea, but she doesn’t fancy Jonny Wilkinson. So we opted for something that perhaps more women can relate to; pink nail varnish. And this morning I realised how right she was (although the book never did get written, the publisher didn’t like the idea, or pink nail varnish).

I sat on my bed after two weeks of interrupted nights due to the mosque outside my window, around me the children wailed, and fought, and argued and yelled. I reflected on the previous day when I had spent all my time trying to secure a flat that fell through at the last minute. I thought about the day ahead when I would have to find some way of keeping the children from murdering each other and all the horrible admin chores I need to get to grips with but just can’t muster up the energy to begin.

In my hand I had a bottle of pink nail varnish. ‘Violet’ it is called, from M&S since you ask. Slowly I opened the lid and began to paint my nails. The glossy, fuscia pink (more than violet) colour slid onto my toe-nails effortlessly, like a lump of melting butter on a piece of warm toast. I finished one nail and was pleased with the result. The children came and yelled at me.

“Go away please,” I said, Zen-like, without even looking up from my shiny toes. “I am painting my nails.”

Miraculously they did go away. I painted the remaining nails. At the end of it, I felt so much better. And my nails looked so much chirpier than before. Which I guess might be part of the reason why I felt better.

Whatever, I am happy, and I have not even met Jonny Wilkinson.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

My friend Amanda sent me an email with an attachment describing three guinea pigs looking for a home. “Very cute four week old guinea pigs looking for a home,” it reads. “We like to stroll around, squeak all the time for food and we love to cuddle. All we need is a cage, hay, water and pellets.”

I thought I might solve our housing crisis by sending out a similar one for the children. This is how it might read if written by Olivia:

Three very cute and lovely children looking for a home in central Abu Dhabi. Must be a large house, have sea view and be close to the French school so we can come home for snacks should we need to. Would also prefer walking distance to Marina Mall or possibly driver on hand to take us there.

We like to shop. Leo doesn’t much, but that doesn’t matter. We also like to play Nintendo DS games; someone with a library of said games (especially Super Mario) would be preferential. Or in any case enough money to buy them. If you have a spare room for our parents that would be good too, but we’re not really fussed.

We eat almost anything; Bea will try to eat nothing but chocolate cereal, but don’t let her. We must have pasta at least once a week please. We also need a TV with programmes we like such as Hannah Montana. If we have to share a room, then Bea and I could, but could you put Leo in his own room please because he snores. You will like him a lot, everyone does, he is blond and charming. It gets a bit irritating actually.

That’s it. We’re very nice, not that much trouble. Well, Bea is a bit. But you’ll get used to her. Leo is fine as long as he has a ball to play with. And I’m very useful if you ever lose anything as I remember everything. Thanks. Oh can I have a mobile phone please? A pink one. Don’t give one to Bea, she’ll only break it. She just broke mummy’s. Leo wouldn’t know what to do with one because he’s a boy. Please write soon. Mummy is going mad with us all in the hotel and it’s getting boring.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

Today I made a most remarkable discovery. To understand just how remarkable we need to go back in time more than thirty years to when I was a little girl and playing with my some conically-shaped weights that belonged to my grandfather. I can’t remember how old I was, possibly seven. I was swinging said weights around in large circles above my head and back down again as fast as I possibly could.

“Don’t do that,” said my mother.

The next minute I had managed to get my thumb caught between them and totally squashed it. It really hurt. I still remember the pain. My mother put my thumb in cold water then hot water. But nothing helped.

As a result of my own stupidity, I have lived with a flat thumb since that day. When I was a teenager I was ashamed of it and would curl it up in my palm, hiding it like a deformity. In later years I have grown used to it. It is actually quite useful. For example I can never remember which is left or which is right, especially in moments of severe stress, like when I am map-reading. “Flat thumb or thin thumb?” shouts Rupert just as we’re about to miss the turning. Flat thumb is right, thin thumb is left.

This morning on our way to the club I noticed to my total and utter amazement that Olivia has a flat thumb – and she has never been stupid enough to squash it. Somehow my flat thumb must have become part of my genetic make-up and as she is identical to me in every aspect, she has inherited it. Incredible. There is just as much difference between her thumbs as mine. And it is her right thumb that is flat, just like mine.

The other two don’t have this genetic quirk. Bea has two flat thumbs, one rather more chewed than the other on account of her constantly sucking it. Leo has very elegant thumbs, like his father.

Was Olivia upset by this discovery? Not a bit of it. “I’m just like you mummy,” she said, giving me an uneven thumbs up.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

As I stood at the reception desk at the British Club Kitty’s words went round in my head. Kitty was Rupert’s formidable grandmother. “If you don’t ask, you don’t get,” she used to say before she became a victim of the NHS superbug.

So I asked the stranger next to me how long he’d been here. About 10 years he told me. “Oh,” I replied. “You don’t happen to know anyone who is moving and would like to let us have their apartment do you?”

“Why are you talking to strangers mummy?” asked Olivia. “You always tell us not to.”

“I do actually,” said the stranger, and explained that a colleague of his might be leaving and looking to sub-let his three bedroom flat in the middle of town.

“Well, goodbye then stranger,” said Olivia. “Here’s my card,” I said giving him my best ‘I’m not really desperate but please take pity on me and my three children’ smile.

We got into the taxi. Suda had gone off to Dubai so sent his room-mate to collect us. He is a young, good-looking man, also from Sri Lanka. He told us he was born in 1980. Isn’t that when I took my driving test? I feigned heat exhaustion and collapsed in the back seat. That was one thing I wish I hadn’t asked.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

Today I substituted flat-hunting for the Marina Mall. The children chose their school bags; Olivia went for Pucca, Bea for High School Musical and Leo, you guessed it, Spiderman. We also invested in a portable DVD player which we should have done at the beginning of this trip. Anyway, I feel so much better. Maybe we could just live at the Marina Mall?

I also had a good day in the office. I have my own office email address (very grown up) and I am going to write an article about shopping in Abu Dhabi. It is a tough subject, but I am a determined hackette and have researched it extensively.

On the way to the club this morning Rupert tried to distract the children by asking them to remember the names of my new friend Amanda’s cats.

“Nelson,” shrieked Bea. “One of them is called Nelson.”

“Correct,” said Rupert. “And why is he called Nelson?”

“Because he only has one eye,” said Olivia, who never forgets a fact.

“And who was Nelson?” asked Rupert.

“I know! I know!” yelled Leo. “He was a famous cat.”

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

So we have settled into some kind of a routine here. This is our average day.

4.30am get woken up by the muezzin (call to prayer). Spend next two hours lying awake worrying about not getting back to sleep, when to get my nails done, what is happening to Max and Wolfie, if the children are settling in or if their constant bickering is a manifestation of insecurity, where we will live, how hot it will be today and just about anything else that comes into my head.

7am the children wake up. Leo covers me with kisses and tells me I am his “darling gal”. This is the highlight of my day. Actually the highlight of my day yesterday was lunch with my new friend and buying two pairs of designer sun-glasses for the price of one. It’s amazing how a bit of shopping can lift your spirits – and there is plenty of that here.

7.10am children start arguing

9am Breakfast at the club – Olivia and Bea very happy as they have a full English greasy breakfast. I am very happy as I have muesli and fruit and can see the beach. Rupert is happy as India playing Sri Lanka on the flat-screen TV. Leo just happy, as he always is.

10am Children go to the Turtle’s Club where they swim, ice-skate (I am not joking), climb walls, make friends (mainly called Hannah as far as I can make out) and play games until 4pm. Rupert and I go to the gym. I lose will to live after three minutes on the stair-master.

12 back to hotel, shower, change and go to office. Rupert works until 8.30-9, I have to leave at 3.30 to collect the children. Until we have somewhere to live I can’t arrange childcare. Housing is the key, once we have that, everything else will fall into place. Without it, we are all in limbo.

4pm collect children and go flat-hunting. This is the low-light of the day. Yesterday I saw somewhere I thought was fine, having seen a lot of really awful places. Rupert saw it and immediately declared it a “dump”. And there are two mosques outside the window. So we would be doubly sure to be woken at 4.30am. I must be getting desperate.

6pm back to hotel; children by now exhausted. Try to muster the energy to go out to eat (much cheaper) but opt for room service. Have food, bath, read Winne the Witch’s Birthday for the 400th time (I did bring Alice in Wonderland, but do they want that? They do not).

9pm Tuck children into bed. Children stop arguing. Rupes kisses them good night.

9.30 Collapse into bed with Wife in the North (the book that is) while Rupes watches Brazilian women playing volleyball at the Olympics on Arabic TV. Fall asleep.

2am wake up wondering when I will be woken up by the muezzin….

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

This morning as my two girls were fighting over a Nintendo DS game, I was reading a heart-breaking story about Rabab, a little girl aged four and her twin brother who spend their summers working at a brick-making factory in Narwan, southern Iraq. You can see the story here. http://www.thenational.ae/article/20080816/FOREIGN/854404655/1001

These children are younger than Leonardo, but as the journalist points out, Rabab has difficulty “holding a smile”. She has practically lost the will to live. She is destitute, hungry, desperate and will probably spend the rest of her life making bricks. The difference between the lives of my children and Rabab’s is just too distressing to imagine. This girl has no hope that her future will be any better than her present, she has never been to school, her life is unbearably tough and her main battle each day is to find enough water to drink in the searing heat and dust.

So while my children worry about who is playing with the Magic Mario game on a toy that is most certainly worth more than Rabab earns in two years in horrendous conditions, she focuses on not dying of thirst.

Maybe this should make me feel proud, make me happy that I am able to give my children such a nice life. But it doesn’t. It makes me feel like a failure. And like adopting Rabab, along with her entire family.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

I have not yet described the heat to you. It is quite remarkable. Here instead of sheltering inside shopping malls against the snow, sleet and rain you shelter from the sun.

I remember once in St Petersburg in December Rupert and I decided to walk from the Grand Hotel to the Hermitage (like you do). “You’ll never make it,” said the concierge. He was right. Despite regular sips of blueberry vodka from a hip flask, we had to take shelter.

Here it is the same but it’s the heat that will hinder your progress. I couldn’t imagine walking from here, for example, to the Corniche, which would probably only take fifteen minutes. I would melt en route. Even with an umbrella which I have noticed lots of people carry as a sun-shelter. There is no relief from the sea either. We went swimming yesterday. I kid you not, the water was as hot as a bath.

It’s strange though, I don’t dislike it too much. I find it quite comforting. It really is like walking into a steam room every time you go outside, the shock of it hits you and doesn’t lessen. But rather that than the Russian winter. The paper we’re going to work on here seems to be staffed mainly by Canadians, no surprise that.

Meanwhile our housing crisis lurches on. All being well (or Inshallah as we say down this way) we will be transferred to another, nicer, bigger hotel apartment today. Our dream flat is still not ours on account of our inability to come up with two annual salaries in one day.

But we are settling in. Suda our Sri Lankan cricket-playing taxi driver is a gem. The kind of man who is always calm, kind and charming. The children love him. He has his own family, but they are in Sri Lanka. He only sleeps three and a half hours a night so he can support them by working practically around the clock. I guess there are thousands of people like him here. We are all so spoilt in comparison.

Talking of spoiling, my new friend Amanda and I are going to have our hair done today and get manicures which I think will make all the difference. Not only to my hair but to my state of mind. And I will never complain about lack of sleep again now that I know what Suda does every day, day in and day out.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

Things are better.

I have a friend who is lovely and knows all the best bars, beauticians and shops. I have been to M&S (not bad, bit pricey) and in the same mall there is a play-area where you can leave your children in a sort of child’s heaven all day for about £2. Olivia has made about seven friends from all over the world.  I have also seen that you can get a manicure in the same mall for less than £9. Not bad.

We have found an apartment, only problem is they want a year’s rent up front before we can move in or secure it. So we are still in the dump in the wrong part of town with the three children camping on the floor.

We have also met a lovely Sri Lankan taxi driver who says he will now stay here as long as we do. And he plays cricket. Now we are going out for an Indian meal to a restaurant he suggested.And I have a local mobile phone.

Not bad for 24 hours. I hope in another 24 we’ll be in our apartment. Rupert has pointed out that we could rent a place in Chelsea for less. But the manicures are more expensive.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008