Robert and I looked at each other last night at dinner and said..Hey today is our 5 year anniversary for arriving in Abu Dhabi. We were having dinner with the Pages and some good friends of Russell's from Kabul who were staying with us before heading back to their teaching jobs. It was fun to think back on how the Pages were the first people we met from AD. They tried to prepare us for what was ahead of us, while we sat in the Hone's dining room that hot June day. None of us really knew....
And now, in two days, Mike will be here from Doha. He will finish the exiting process. As hard as it was to enter the country, it is harder to exit. The mountain of red tape is exhausting, but finally we are close. Mike will deregister the cars for exporting them to Qatar. Then he will cancel the visas. I have spent some of my time this summer completing the various other steps to leave. As Mike is my sponsor I had to have all these permission letters from him to do anything. I had a no objection letter to receive permission for the movers to enter our apt. and pack up our furniture. I had a no objection letter to request the utilities to be cut off from the apt. as we cannot exit the country without a clearance letter from the power/water company. I had a no objection letter to cancel our internet service. Allowing for more than one day on each of these processes..well, let's just say I played a lot of Angry Birds while waiting for my turn to get the right paperwork, fill it out, return it, check this off, check that off, talk to this person, go to the next person, and basically... eventually.... got it done. (Funny but playing Angry Birds helped release the tension..all those things blowing up!) But, not to be all negative here. During this process I met several nice people who worked hard to help me get what I needed. One man at the utility company, in particular, would not give up. NO, madam has been here 4 hours, you must disconnect her. And the next day..no madam has been here 2 more hours. What is the problem?? We became friends and when he finally handed me the clearance letter that we had been disconnected we were both smiling. And he kept saying how sorry he was. The security guard at the desk was also happy for me. Over the two+ days we had smiled and waved several times on my way back and forth to the parking meter.
Next stop was the property company, our landlord. This did not go as well initially as I was told we owed another 4000 dirhams because we were late checking out. Really?? I waited 5 days for this clearance letter in order to come over here. 5 days!!! And you are going to charge us??? Call this man. He will tell you how I sat there trying to get it. I am alone. My husband is in Doha. Do you know how hard it is to leave this country?? and you are going to take MORE money from us?? Shame on you! I have been without an oven for 3 months. No one came to fix it. You are stealiing from us. Ok, and then after a bit more of that I nearly started to cry. Yes, the thief card, the shame card, the wife alone card.. They all came out. But believe me, the tears were real. In the end, after an hour or so, he did not charge us more. And we got our deposit back..which is not easily accomplished. I am thankful for the many friends I have had praying for me over the last month for all of these details. I know that is what got me through.. So in these areas we are cleared to leave. I think I left mostly a good impression.well, mostly. Maybe the landlord.....
With Sallie in Chicago and Ryan back in Lubbock and Mike in Doha, it has been pretty quiet. We were glad to have Brad and Kayla and her sister Bree with us for a couple of nights. We shared Russell stories and it made all of us miss him. They told me how they will really miss him back in Kabul. They even named their cat Russell the Cat as they found it right after he had to leave last January. Brad is also from Carrollton so we had several ties. It was a short visit but fun. I told them to come see us in Doha.
But Mike will be here on Sunday. Then we will hit it again.I pray the end is in sight.
Oh boy.
Do I.
And then we do the reverse on the other end. But that is for another day.
