Helena Frith Powell

It seems like a different world to the one we arrived in. When I first had to have documents translated from French to Arabic by an official translator it felt like an insurmountable task. Find the translator (there is only one in Abu Dhabi which translates from French), locate it, get there (relying on ‘coming right now Madam’ Suda as we didn’t have a car) and so on.

This morning I took the news from the school that I needed yet another useless bit of paper translating calmly. I had all the info stored. I knew how to get there, which illegal parking spot I could park in and they will have the documents by tomorrow. In fact it ouccurred to me as I was driving there how much can go wrong on a small errand (red lights, traffic jam, getting lost, no parking etc) and what a nice feeling it is when it all goes right.

Soon after we got here someone told me that it takes four months to settle into life in Abu Dhabi. My mother pointed out that it may not be worth battling to stay somewhere that takes so long to settle in to. She has a point. But now that I think we are over the worst I am very happy to be here. The sun is warm, not ferocious), our house is lovely and my job is great. This morning Leo ran into school and immediately started playing with a friend. Long gone are the days when he used to weep and hang on to me.

And to top it all I am going to see Alicia Keys and George Michael on Monday. Last time I saw George Michael Wham! had only just begun and he was at the Camden Palace along with Andrew Ridgley.

“My friend Andrew fancies you,” said George. I didn’t fancy him so politely made my excuses.

Now that really does feel like a different world….

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

So Wasta (pictured) is a girl, and she is now called Chloe, which suits her well. She seems to be settling in well, and has helped the children to settle down too. They are a lot happier I am pleased to report and have not mentioned moving back again. We probably will have to go back at Christmas to sort out the house and Max and I can guarantee that while we are they will be grumbling about not being in Abu Dhabi.

If they’re not, I will be. This weekend was amazing. We spent Friday on the beach at the Shangri-la hotel then Friday night at a jazz concert underneath the stars and last night watching Cecilia Bartoli perfor acrobatics with her voice.

She was incredible. A true diva; all bejewelled and fabulous in a pink ballgown. Her voice is incredible; powerful, sensual, seductive, just unforgettable. And she had a sense of humour. I loved her and I love the fact that here it is possible to see superstars like Cecilia whereas back home tickets would have sold out months ago.

I am going to take the girls to the ballet in December and Leo has his stage debut on the 12th. Shortly after that we head back to France, leaving Chloe with Betty who looks after us and the house. In lots of ways I am looking forward to it; I can’t wait to see our friends, my dog, Max, my shoes but I don’t think I’ll be sad to come back here.

Bea has asked me to post her blog about our day at Shangri-la, so here it is:

my blog about the shanbri-la
so i fink that the shanbri-la is very nice but when we went in the lift i said this place rocks and it does really .and after we went to the pools and we went to see the pools they had one like if it was little but it was very dyp you no .then i said im going to the big pool! and mummy said im going to the little pool !and after the pools olivia and me went to see the boats i ask someone .can we go on a boot please ?and they said yes .you will stay here for the man. so i fink  that the poeple that do the boot must stay there all day and it is very hot outside but it they job.so thats what they must do all day .

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

Wasta is what you need to get ahead in the Middle East. It can best be translated as connections or influence.

Yesterday as Rupert and I were walking to lunch a tiny black and white kitten literally threw itself in my path and started miaowing at me.  I picked it up and it started purring loudly. It was tiny enough to hold in one hand. I looked at Rupert but he already knew what was coming.

“Fine,” he said, handing me the car keys. “You take it home, I am going to lunch.”

I took the little thing back home and installed it on the top floor of the house. Now instead of living under a truck it has four rooms, a lovely red carpet it uses as a loo and a terrace as well as three children who love it to bits. Picking on me was the cat equivalent of getting some wasta. Hence the name we have given it until the vet tells me what sex it is.

I am thinking of adopting a similar approach when I next see a passing Sheikh; hurling myself in his path and miaowing. I may end up in a palace somewhere, who knows? Anyway, we need something as our tenant in France has decided to leave after just one month.

So any ideas on potential tenants and/or names for lucky kittens would be appreciated. I am thinking Wilfred (after the explorer and travel writer Wilfred Thesiger) if it is a boy.

Or maybe we will just stick to wasta, at least then we will have some…..

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

This was the conversation on the way to school today.

Olivia: “Mummy, I don’t want to tell you this but I have to tell you something.”

I assumed Bea had eaten my lip gloss or Leo had been wearing my bras. But it was worse.
“We want to go home to France.”

“Why?” I asked.

“We miss everything.”

“Yes,” Bea chipped in. “This was supposed to be an adventure, but it’s just been terrible.”

I was at a loss for words. And depressed. Fact is there i no going back, not in this economic climate. I listed all the things that are good about life here; the beach, the yoga (they started yoga yesterday), school finishing at 1.30, all the help at home, the malls.

“Won’t you miss all that if we go back?” I asked.

“Wherever we go, we will miss things from the place we have just left,” said Olivia in her most grown-up and patient manner.

She is right of course. So we will be miserable wherever we go….there’s a cheery thought.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

After almost four months of constant sunshine the children and I were amazed this morning when we walked out of the house and got soaked. At first I assumed someone was washing the terrace, which would be an odd thing to do at 7.30 in the morning, but not as odd as rain in Abu Dhabi.

The whole city took on a new look, the drivers a new attitude; suddenly people were driving with care, in fact they were driving so carefully and slowly that we were late for school. Which by the way didn’t matter because so was everyone else and the courtyard was flooded.

The roads looked like oil slicks, we saw one yellow corvette (such a bad colour for a corvette) snake-slide its way up 19th street. In our sturdy Landcrusier we were fine. People might buy four-wheel drives here to take to the desert, but they are jolly useful too on the one rainy day of the year.

Actually it stopped after about an hour. The whole place smelt fresh and clean. It was lovely, like a spring day in England.

The other news is that Bea has written a blog she would like me to share with you. So here it is.  It seems I can happily retire.

mummy
i love our
message you
sent me i love it
so much it is so nice
i hant to send you a blog
about my future that you cod
put on youse but if its not god delete
it i don’t fink it was not very god but please
iven if you don’t like it please do the carection’s

my blog .
one day olivia ask me if i can lend her my laptop
i sayd  her yes .
but the ader day i ask her to lend me her book and
she told me only if you lend me our laptop and i told her
NO because all the time i ned her to lend me her staf
she told NO only if you lend me our laptop thats the end of my blog.
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

It was reminiscent of the moment my handbag was stolen at Geneva airport. While we were staying at Atlantis I logged on to my blog. In the manner of Oscar Wilde I often read my own words when I am looking for something entertaining. In fact no one laughs at my jokes quite as much as I do.

I expected to see the familiar page; something I have grown to love and look forward to clicking on to over the past couple of years. What did I get? A picture of a young blonde woman carrying a rucksack with a message saying ‘welcome to www.helenafrithpowell.com.’

Immediately I feared the worst; a cyber stalker who had wiped out my entire on-line life. All the pictures of the children, the anecdotes, the silly things they have said, the silly things others have said, my crusade against “honour” killings and the Burmese junta, fashion tips, fashion faux pas and, most crucially, all my jokes.

I ran downstairs to where the children and Rupert were eating.

“How dreadful,” he said. “Do you feel violated?”

“Now you mention it, yes I do,” I replied. “It’s rather like someone going through your handbag and replacing it with things you don’t want. But much worse.”

“Phone him and say ‘look you doughnut, give me back my blog’” suggested Bea.

I started weeping.

“At least she’s pretty,” Olivia tried to console me. “They could have put an ugly one up there.”

“Look on the bright side,” said Rupert. “At least it will make a good blog.”

I emailed my lovely web-masters, they started panicking too, which made me even more nervous. Then a few hours later they discovered it was because the hosting of the domain had run out.

So simple but what a stressful few hours. But it did make me realise how much it means to me and how devastated I was when I thought it had gone. Rather fittingly I am giving a speech about blogs on Sunday, the title of my speech is: From print to blog or is it the other way around. Any ideas (and jokes) gratefully received.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

We have just got back from the weekend at Atlantis; the new Dubai hotel on the Palm. I am writing a piece for the Mail on it so won’t go into too much detail here but thought these snaps of us at Dolphin Bay would be a good opportunity to test your picture caption skills. It can be either the dolphin or the person talking. First prize to be announced shortly…

PHOTO 1:

PHOTO 2:

PHOTO 3:

PHOTO 4:

PHOTO 5:

Please click ‘comments’ below to submit your captions…

Friends –

I know this election of ours has almost felt like an election of
yours but I suspect you believed more in your minds what we have felt
in our hearts, that a rejection of change would have hastened
America’s demise. But that hasn’t happened and I wanted to give you a
taste of what it feels like and sounds like to be in New York
tonight. It’s half past one and the streets are crowded with people,
three deep on the sidewalk. New Yorkers have climbed on their roofs
and on to their fire escapes, there’s dancing on the streets, dancing
in front of cars. There’s the ceaseless noise of cheering, even -
suddenly – bagpipes playing. Tonight, we even forgive the bagpipes.
Every few seconds comes the blare of another car horn and more
screams of Obama, of Yes We Can, more whoops of utter joy.

I’ve been here, on and off, for more than 19 years through two
Clinton victories, big wins for the Yankees and Knicks, a dozen or
more New Year’s Eves and nothing has been like this, nothing has come
even close. This is the sound of a city set free for the first time
since September 11, 2001. This is us exhaling at last. For eight
years, New York has felt like another country. What counted for
America has been owned by others and governed for others. Everything
the Bush Administration did with its exclusionary policies, its
bigotry and intolerance, its religious fascism, its economic
arrogance was done to us, not for us. Obama can’t solve everything
but he has already made the greatest city in the nation feel like it
belongs to America again and he has made someone who has only been an
American for 5 years feel like he belongs for the first time. Up to
now, my belief in citizenship had been shaken by a question about
what kind of country I had joined. By showing us the best of all our
selves, Barack Obama has silenced that doubt not just for me or for
us in New York, but for millions of Americans who can have faith in
America again.

And now I’m going to bed.

Tim.

A couple of nights ago I sat next to a young man at a drinks party who had escaped from Iran aged 14 in the back of a van. This was in 1987. So while I was going to dinner parties at university and making vital decisions like what to wear, he was risking his life for a better future.

“Iran is nothing to me now,” he told me. “I am an American.” Interestingly he also told me that if he ever wanted to go back, he would have to adopt Iranian nationality. Iranians are not allowed to visit unless they are nationals. The reason for this? “So they can throw you in jail with impunity,” he said.

As I write a young student from the University of California is languishing in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran. Her alleged crime? A totally fabricated minor traffic offence. Her real crime? Investigating women’s rights in Iran for her university thesis. She is also a member of the Iranian women’s rights group Change for Equality (www.forequality.info/english/). Esha called her family the day after her arrest on October 15th but no one has heard anything since then.

Esha Momeni is Iranian/American. Her family, who live in Iran, were told that if there was no publicity surrounding her arrest she would be freed. This has not happened, so her desperate family have told the press about it. They must remember the case of the Canadian journalist raped and murdered there a few years ago and countless others who have never been seen again.

Evin is not a place you would want to end up. I have just finished reading an excellent book about it called Prisoner of Tehran which tells the story of a young student who escapes the firing squad by marrying her interrogator. But not before she is tortured to within an inch of her life. And all because she wanted to learn something at school and not just listen to rants about how marvellous Khomeni was.

If you do nothing else today then please spare a thought for Esha and sign this petition (www.PetitionOnline.com/EshaM/) or join Amnesty International and find out how you can help Esha and others like her.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

What do you thing your average Abu Dhabian does of a weekend? A spot of swimming in the warm sea? A trip to the desert? Some camel racing perhaps? No, we go to Carrefour.

For reasons too tedious to explain, I have been to two Carrefours today and you would have thought they had announced that you got a year’s free groceries judging by the queues. Or that every litre of milk came with a kiss from Carla Bruni for the blokes and one from Olivier Martinez for the girls.

Sadly none of the above was true. We just all happened to be there at the same time. Luckily the children and I had begun the day with a little more culture. We went to perhaps the only other building here that is bigger than Carrefour; the Grand Mosque. 

I was asked to put on an abya and a scarf before I went in and found it a rather interesting experience. It wasn’t hot or uncomfortable as I imagined it would be. I felt rather elegant sweeping through the vast rooms with my children in tow. Olivia and Bea, never one to miss an opportunity to dress up, donned scarves as well. If I could only get the photo from my phone to the computer I could show you. Leo acted as photographer and did a great job.

The Grand Mosque opened earlier this year and is the final resting place of Sheikh Zayed, the Father of the Nation, to whom it is dedicated. A friend told me today that there are several people employed to read The Koran out loud to his remains at four-hour stretches each. The building covers an area of 22,000 square metres (who does the hoovering is what I want to know) and the building is entirely clad in marble.

It is big enough for 30,000 worshippers, assuming they can tear themselves away from Carrefour that is.

 Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008