Gazette September 19

19 September, 2006

Hi Everybody!! We have finished unpacking!! Temperatures are falling, a little—108 down to 100---and now there’s a refreshing breeze in the evening--what an improvement!! We were able to get tickets for Christmas and our granddaughter’s baptism, Waldo (well, Ford) had the best month in the history of the region in August, Cay has successfully put the house together, enrolled for her last class (at Weber State University, no less), and is all set to take the MTTC (teacher’s certification test) in October. Things are progressing.
We experienced our first sandstorm the other day…we’re about 2 blocks from the “sail hotel” and it disappeared!
Cay was asked to lead the Young Women’s group at church, and is busy deciding who will be asked to help her. Waldo is still waiting for a calling, so we’re hoping that after Stake Conference Sept. 29 they’ll know what to do with him! The stake leaders go to the different countries and hold individual meetings, instead of the usual large gathering. For Youth Conference all the youth from the whole Arabian Peninsula Stake (Bahrain, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, and the UAE) are flown to Bahrain. They have High Council meeting there too. Crazy, huh? We meet in a large house every Friday (the Sabbath here), with no sign outside identifying us as a church. It’s illegal to proselyte to Muslims, but we have investigators from all over at church frequently. The members are mostly from the US, Australia, the UK, and the Philippines, with others from Germany, Switzerland, New Zealand, South Africa and Peru. And services are in English!
Its very interesting, as I walk my dogs about 6:30 pm everyday, and at that hour all the mosques start broadcasting their call to prayer. There is a mosque on every block, and they all start singing at about the same time. It occurred to me that my own faith would be strengthened if I dropped everything and prayed 5 times a day! The atmosphere here encourages the people to live their religion, by making it easy to follow the tenets of the faith. Liquor is not sold in stores, but there are many choices available for juices, and pork is only available in certain areas. These are clearly marked, “not for Muslims”.
All the stores and businesses are getting ready for Ramadan, which starts next week. This looks like it will be festive, and outside the mosque by our house they have set up a tent, and some of the bigger houses are all decked out with lights (a la Christmas) and it looks like the mosque is going to be decorated too. At this time Muslims will fast from sunrise to sunset. Most restaurants close during the day, and stay open all night. At sunset we have been told things get a little crazy on the roads because everyone is trying to get home and eat, and people actually do gain weight because they spend all night eating. It is illegal to be seen eating or drinking water in the car or in public. Next month we’ll let you know more of what we see. We’ve included some pictures

(I still have to figure out how to put pictures in the post...sorry about that)


This is the scene from our bedroom window. It is really beautiful; it gets sparkly lights on it and changes color. The hotel to the right is supposed to resemble a wave, and all down the road in front there is metal fencing that continues the wave motif. One thing about Dubai…they don’t do things half-way. One thing that I can’t really explain is the fact that you can be sitting in a restaurant and watch people skiing!! This is a huge shopping mall, with a sort of amusement park inside, and ski runs! Waldo took this picture about a year ago


Well, more next month! We love and miss you all! - Cay & Waldo

Galloping Galan Gazette August 10,2006

Galloping Galan Ga
August 10, 2006
Hello from Dubai, United Arab Emirates! We got here July 19, after spending a hectic and wonderful month with our children, grandchildren and family, driving, camping, driving, talking, flying, visiting, and more driving! We left Plymouth, Michigan, and drove our motorhome to Provo, Utah, to visit Marci and Mike, Sibhana and Daemien, and Rick, April and Tyce,, then drove on to Washington where we collected Nena, Ryan, Jordan, Alaina, Colton and Livvy, and went on our journey to British Columbia to camp. There we learned that passports are needed, at least over July 4th, so we went to “Plan B” and spent several days in Glacier National Park in Montana. It was great fun, and even though many family members were severely disappointed that the original plans had to be amended, we did learn one thing: We love our family more than Canada!


We got back to Washington, took showers and flew to California to say goodbye to Waldo’s family, and reassure his mother that we were not moving into a war zone.
Schatzie and Heidi went with us throughout our travels, and were cared for by Nena and family during the times we were in California, and when we moved to Dubai. They arrived Saturday morning, after 4 days of traveling—they couldn’t fly when the temperature was over 85 degrees, so they could only fly at night.
Cay’s first impressions of Dubai are HOT, HOT, HOT!! Extremely efficient air conditioning! People from all parts of the world, in many different styles of clothing, and Arab women in beautiful abayas (the overgarments) with sweats and tennis shoes on underneath, and young men in dishdashas (the white “shirtdress”)with baseball hats on instead of the traditional gutra (the head-scarf). Cracked me up!
Some of the sights we have seen around here are the hotel that looks like a sail, and the ski slope inside the mall. No kidding! There are no mail carriers—there are no addresses as we know them, so we have to make a map, or agree on a place to meet, to guide delivery people to the house. The custom here is that you get a post office box, so we’re using Ford’s. The weekend here is Thursday and Friday, so we go to church on Friday, which makes it very interesting when you’re trying to coordinate phone calls.
We have been impressed with the levels of efficiency and expertise we’ve encountered, as well as the friendliness of people we meet. One problem is that, since just about everyone speaks English, you would think we could understand each other…..but no! Indian English is very different from Australian or South African, which is very different from our California/Michigan twang, and so it requires lots of patience and humor (or, as they say here—humour).
We were informed today that the sea shipment of our furniture will be arriving in our home on August 15th, and it will be wonderful to sleep in our own bed again. If we have a complaint about the apartment we’re in now it’s that the bed is so hard we might as well be sleeping on the floor!
Well, that’s all for this first installment…More in a few weeks!
zette

October 2, 2006

This is more complicated than I had been led to believe! I am trying to get previous issues of the Galan Gazettes on here, and not having much luck! stay tuned.....