Smokey Day 2

So I realized once I had my residency visa i was supposed to transfer my US driving license here and get a UAE license.  I have been driving illegaly for over a week!

I chose today - the thick thick fog should have been a warning that I would have yet another crazy bureaucratic day but who could tell?  This time I find out what I need ahead of time - my license from the US and my passport with visa.  No problem I scan them and print them out know i would need copies!  I was psyched because i printed them on the laser and they were in color and really clear and legible - unlike those ridiculous crap black and white copiers sitting around in the government buildings getting abused all day.

I am thinking that this is a good thing.  Somebody mentioned to me that the license has to be translated but i looked at it and there is no more information on it than my name and US address so it hardly makes sense...i go with out it.  (dumb.)

So i get to the building and climb 100 steps (not sure where the accessible entrance is) up to the piano nobile.  I am thinking to myself this is what those incredible fascist buildings of italy or communist russia would have been like.  I digress.

So i get inside i wait in a short line and tell the lady at the counter that I wish to transfer my license from the US.  She asks for my paperwork which I handover gleefully because I know i have a good looking scan of my passport.  SHe holds up my license "you need translation"  Of what I as her - there is no information on it...she looks at it and i say it just has my name and license number.  She looks at me and says "translate your name, address....translate."  I can't win this one so i retreat easily because I knew better and thought i could BS my way through it.  Then she holds up my nice color scan...."black and white...this must be black and white"  I just say OK because i already gave in.  Black and white over legibile color and translation of my arabic name and US address.  Whatever.

I go and pay $40 for the translation and make my way back to the fascist office in the sky.  I hand over all my paperwork again after wait in a slightly longer line this time.  This time she looks at my official translation and my color scan of my passport which i changed to greyscale and brought along with me.  Still bettr than the b&w copier and legible.  She tells me "black and white"  I tell her it is black and white and show her the color scan i had and stell her "this is color...that is black and white."  She gives me my number to wait for a transaction desk.

All of these government offices have the same deli counter tickets and the exact same announcement system  "nimra meya siteen we telathi, shobak wahid...number one hundred sixty three window one"  I get up to the window and i giver all my paperwork.  she looks at the translation...my license...my scan...."black and white - this must be black and white"  it is i tell her and show her my color scan...this is color.  mistake.  "sir..i know what black and white looks like and I know what color looks like and this is green or grey..it is not black and white"  "You can get black and white copy over there she motions towards the end of the building.  over there where exactly i ask her.  She motions waving like one shooing a dog and says "there..there.." 

So i get up and go wait in one of these typical mob lines to get a copy.  Yes...a shitty black and white beat to death copier copy of my nice crisp (greyscale) scan.  I go back over to my window and the woman is still holding my spot and never called anyone else to the window.  I giver her my 1983 quality copy. She looks at my picture, and then asks "where is your employer letter?"  employer letter?  I'm sorry i didn't see that on your website list of required documents (neither was the translation for that matter)  "sorry...you must have the letter."  I realize it is better to cut my losses at this point.  I am clearly frustrated but she is very sweet (but stern and bitchy all at the same time) and says..."i'm sorry but...sorry."  I tell her thank you.  she tells me i am welcome - again....sweet and sour.

I am ready to stormout of this place when i ask the info counter if there is a fax machine.  Yes there is....customer service!  Nice!  I go over there, i call May in the office and ask her to fax me the copy i had from EHAF (my sponsor) which she does lickety split.

I get a new deli number and wait....then...i get little miss sweet and sour again.  I hand all my paper work over to her again....she looks at me again and says "this must be original...on letterhead....sorry."

i just leave so i don't make a scene.  "thank you" i say.  "you are welcome."  (steam is coming out of my pores at this point)

I go to EHAF's office and ask for the original letter.  They quickly write something up and print it on letter head and then tell me the director is not inthe office to sign it.  Thinking to Margaret who can forge most of the partners signatures I ask here if there is someone who can do it..."noooo."  well....what about him!  i say as i point to my colleague.  "not unless he wants to get fired."

I look down at the desk and see a sign in sheet - the directors signature is on there.  I look to the HR director..."give me that"  i say as i take the letter, grab the signature sheet....make my way to the glass door and forge the damned thing myself.

On my way again....i am not giving up...i have wasted half a day doing this nonsense and will not go through it again.  

Ahem! You are stepping on my foot....

Here is our one of our sites, Parcel 101 where we have one of eight buildings.  In the background you cane see the "Six Towers" development ICT built and own. Our  marine consultant Halcrow International have their offices on the 14th and 15th floors. I will post a picture from there next week.

This plot is adjacent to our neighbors TDIC (Tourist Development and Investment Co.) who are developing a hotel  and a fisherman's wharf and marina. They already have their contractor, Overseas AST working away.  As you can see they have already driven sheet piling along their property's sea edge. As these photos demonstrate, they have also placed them in front of our property's sea edge!

Not good. 

The last time these guys stepped on ICT property we had some angry land owners.  Now at the end of the day the properties are owned by brothers, sons of the late Sheikh Zayed, but as far as the developers and consultants like us are concerned, it just makes things complicated.

The result of the last encroachment resulted in the creation of ongoing coordination meetings run by yours truly. I can't really explain why this happened but I will soon.

Here is a picture of our property corner. Clearly our neighbors' 
piling is cutting right across and in front.

Another view of the same corner.  In the background you can see a district cooling chilled water plant.  Tabreed is the name of the utility company who unfortunately can not service our development which of course added significant cost to our project.

Potentially cool building?

I saw this while looking for something else. It reminded me a bit of  

what our buildings looked like for Marasy pre-VE.

I am assuming this will be a rolling shutter facade which makes a lot  

of sense in this climate of course.

Smokey Abu Dhabi 1

I woke up this morning to a familiar smell that made me flash back - déjà vu style to my early informative years in Egypt.

Burning garbage.  

And a stinky thick haze kind of covered the city.  I thought about our planet in peril and wondered about what kind of toxins I was breathing into my already damaged 14 year ex -smoker lungs....can't be a good thing.  What I was about to find out was that a smoky sky in Abu Dhabi means a messed up bureaucratic laden day lies ahead!

Today I was going to do my physical for my residency visa.  For many- this would seem to be a straightforward enough a task but oh no.....not here.  It has taken me 5 months to get to this point.  I have heard stories of people who get this accomplished in days or weeks but whatever...here I am the final steps....Pass the Abu Dhabi Health Compliance test and I am home free.  What are they looking for?  Communicable diseases.  What tests?  Simply a blood test and a chest x-ray.  Diseases that will get you sent back home?  HIV, Hepatitis, tuberculosis...

So I tried to find the place to take the test - I was told by May our office manager to simply go to the Al Noor Hospital and you will be in and out in no more than 45 minutes and you will get your results the next day.  So I went to AL Noor which is by all rights a proper hospital - modern clean sterile in fact and cold.  

Wrong place - they told me "not here any more - go to Sheikh Khalifa Hospital...5 minutes from my office instead of the 25 minute drive to the end of the island...ok...so I drive back and go to Sheikh Khalifa Hospital.  Nope...."not here...you need to go to the health center up the street...but not today - it is a holiday.  Go tomorrow."

So here I am - its tomorrow and the city smells like charred Clorox bleach jugs.  I get to the health center with what I thought was all I needed (as I was told actually...) my Passport and my Visa Application I received on my way into the airport a few days ago.  I get to the place and it is 8:45am and there is a line out the door.

I wait in line about 25 minutes when I am finally close to getting into the room when this guy just cuts in front of me.  Now I know, having been a South End resident who took the Silver Line through Chinatown, that certain cultures have different concepts of queuing up in a line and what a line actually is.  Well this guy is from one of those special places on earth where it is "get as close as you can to where you need to go so you can get to where you are going before all those people in front of you."  I look at him...no....stare through him with unholy thoughts of what I would like to do to this guy when he turns to me and I tell him..."there is a line...we have all waited in it and it starts back there...” and he just looks at me with this injured suffered look on his face and tells me  " I am going to fall down....fall down" pointing to his leg as though it was shredded by shrapnel.  

I can't be bothered...I am so over dealing with this crap I just tell him "whatever man...you are more special than all of us...go ahead."  What is was thinking "well take you’re cheating self back to the end of the line and freaking fall down over there you lying sack of..."

Breeeeathe.....stay calm....cultural differences.....ohmmmmmm.

Finally I get up to the counter and the guy tells me "copies...not original” I told him "but.....there’s nothing like the real thing..."  

"Copies" he tells me again.  "Where?" I ask.  He motions out of the room...."out there” oh no.  Here we go.  "Am I going to have to wait in that line again?"  No...You go and come back and I will give you your number.

So I go to make copies...I look left...I look right....down here over there.  Nope.  I ask a guy who works there and he motions back towards the security desk where the line I just waited in wraps in front of.  Nobody there.

I go upstairs and see this is where the women go for there tests...much more quiet and less chaotic and sure enough there is a copy machine.  I wait around it only to find I need coins - of which I have none.  I go downstairs where there is a cafe and I wait around the register trying to get change when another guy who works there catches on and tells me to go back into the room I came from where there is a desk with change.  I walk back in - people in line looking at me like I looked at the line cutter and I realize it is the same guy who turned me away who has the change.  He is the one guy everyone in that line is waiting for a deli style ticket so they can get up to a processing counter.

He gives me my change and I go back up to the machine.  there are a couple guys in front of me from one of those "no line cultures" when this Emirati guys comes up behind me and almost cuts the guys (and me) off because they are beneath him of course but realizes that I know better and will say something if he cuts in front of me....or maybe I had that psycho killer gaze on my face again.  He is tortured....he gets really jittery...he can't stand waiting there...he simply must cut off these guys...but the psycho killer is there....he refrains.  Good move.  I get my copies and go back to the guy at the desk walking past all the other guys with psycho killer gazes because they now think that I am cutting them off.  But I give it right back at them..."I did my time...you wanna piece of this?" I am thinking.

I am starting to think I could probably survive just fine in prison.  I got the stare.

Anyway....the guy looks at me and says "there is a line!"  "But you told me I didn't have to wait in it again!!!"  "oh....oh....you already waited....Ok ok...here’s your number"

Wheeeeew.

I sit down....waiting comfortably.  They are calling number 150....I have 250.  Crap.  If only I had had copies....next time I will know better.

it takes almost an hour...I watch the comedy I just lived through repeated over and over again by countless people approaching the man at the desk...."number two hundred fifty....window six!"

Yaaayy....I get up there I sit down and the lady behind the veil says to me "250?"  "Yes" I reply.  She shuffles papers and looks at me again..."250"  "yup....250" I show her my ticket.   She shuffles more papers...."sir....it is two hundred fifty"  "OH!  DIRHAMS!" I show her my ticket and we both get a laugh and she chuckles and giggles with the woman next to her.  Ok...I pay the lady....she takes my info and takes my picture and hands me the papers and tells me to go around the corner.

Another line.  I wait about another 45 minutes or so when I get into a Doctors’ office.  An Egyptian guy - we relate to one another have a little chat he wishes me merry Christmas (it was orthodox Christmas the day before and he guesses I am a Christian from my name although not obvious really) and off I go...into another line to get my blood drawn.  it takes another 30 minutes or so and this guy shoves a freaking horse needle into my arm and draws a few vials of blood puts my stickers on there and tells me to "go to room 15 for x-ray"  I walk out...go down the hall and there it is....room 15....there are a line of chairs so I wait at the end of it.  This guy comes to me and points to the end of the room "line!"  Oops.....sorry.  Didn’t see it but now that I am getting the stare from everyone in line....I know.  I haven't really done my time.  Not really.

So I go to the end of the line which actually wrapped me all the way out to the atrium I was in when I was trying to find the damned copier.  Long line.  When I get close to the end of the line these guys open side doors and usher people backing up the line to snake the line outside the building.  Wow am I thankful as I watch the line for the x-ray backing up like the gas station lines during the oil crises in the 70's.

I finally get my chest x-ray done after waiting about 90 minutes and off I go.  Wow I think - not the 45 minutes May suggested but I am glad it is over as I walk passed the line of people not snaking way out the front door.

Poor bastards.

I get to the office and open my newspaper and read about what I just lived through.  "Long lines at health centers as long as 9 hours in some cases"  whoaaa....mine only took three and a half.  I feel lucky.

I go back the next day to get my results and after my second trip there they were ready and I passed!  Yay - I am done!  but today the lines were 3 times as long as yesterday and I am shocked at how incredibly screwed up the whole notion of protecting the public health comes at the cost of people who have come to this country simply to work are being kept from doing so for a whole day.