Today is Camille’s birthday — always the official start of our summer. Usually we’re packing or in the air or recovering from jet lag. Camille likes to time the flight to fly on her birthday so she can have the longest birthday ever . . . we leave here early on the 22nd, fly 17 hours and land in CA and it’s still the morning of her birthday so she gets double the celebration time.
But this year we’re not going anywhere. And I’ll preface this by saying that while I may complain in the following paragraphs, I know that I have more than my share of things to be thankful for and I’m ridiculously grateful to have small problems. However, I don’t do illogical well and my American is showing in my list of grievances.
First, hello Corona! You just smacked the heck out of 2020. I actually blame Corona and social media because you would think that with a global pandemic that shut down the entire world and kept us restricted to our homes for over 3 months, that I would know more than 2 people who got sick . . . but I don’t. I know a handful of people who were asymptomatic that tested positive (as they are testing everyone here who stands still long enough to get a swab up their nose), but they all went on to retest negative twice. False positive? Excellent immune systems? We have no idea. I think if this virus had hit a decade ago it would have swept through without warning and we’d have had a really nasty flu season and then it would have passed before everyone figured out what hit us. I love information, but I’m finding that too much information is just as dangerous as not enough.
Because the name of the game here is “better safe than sorry” and “stay home, stay safe” we have been in virtual lockdown since the beginning of March. School cancelled, strict quarantine to homes from 10pm to 6am (at least it’s 10pm rather than 8pm now), Josh working from home from March 20th . . . all the basics. People under 12 and over 60 not allowed anywhere, including grocery stores, so my senior friends have resorted to hair dye and walking briskly to stock up on food, hoping they don’t get carded and sent home. We’re all in this together, right?
But for the past month, as the rest of the world is going back to normal, our little city has turned inward. It started with a citywide lockdown, forbidding people to cross the borders of the city limits, guarded by police checkpoints. Each time a new policy is announced, (weekly, but lately it’s been daily revisions) people scramble to understand it, jump through hoops to comply with it, and then give up in exasperation. For example, originally the lockdown announcement said people in vital sectors could cross the border to go to work in Dubai (doctors, pilots, etc), but in reality those people either got turned back at the border and haven’t been able to work all month, or they got across one time and now are stuck in a neighboring city, unable to return home to their family and are having to pay for a hotel room, clothes and food for the past 3 weeks. (And they just announced another extension — until June 30th. Inshallah that will be the last one.)
The city lockdown is why we had to hire a driver to take Carter to the Dubai airport last week. About 48 hours after the announcement, they clarified that if you had a plane ticket you could cross, but only the person with the ticket. Maybe . . . some people reported being able to cross back over with a copy of the plane ticket, others said even taxis couldn’t cross. The lack of transparency and clarity on all of this is probably the worst part of it all.
Meanwhile, Dubai opened its malls to people of all ages (unless you are over 70), gyms have opened, waterparks have opened, beaches are open . . . other than masks, life is basically normal. There is free movement around the entire country except for our little city.
Malls and restaurants in Abu Dhabi have been open for a few weeks, but only for people over 12 and under 70 (it was 60 until 5 days ago). That means Camille (and anyone over 60) can’t go anywhere — not the grocery store, not the mall, not out to eat. And when it’s over 100 degrees even at 9pm at night, inside areas are where it’s at.
So we sit at home, while 60 minutes away, it’s life as normal. And as a teaser, they announced this past week that now anyone can leave Abu Dhabi, but they need to apply for a permit to come back. No one has gotten a permit to come back. Well played, AD. Basically a Hotel California situation, but in reverse.
They announced our infection rate from all the testing is less than 1%, the lowest in the UAE, so I guess they want to keep us in our little bubble? It’s especially unfortunate for the many people who live in one city and work in the other — logically this isn’t sustainable long term (though I wouldn’t have thought it was sustainable for a month, and yet, here we are).
The latest head game is we’ve been told that there are new freedoms for travel (HA! We can’t even leave the city yet, but whatever, lay it on us). They are promoted as expansions of freedom, but there’s a new system to apply for approval from the government for travel, mandatory testing before leaving and upon returning, and a list of countries that people are allowed to travel to. The US isn’t on that list. Neither is the UK. Of course now is the season when most expats from these countries typically travel home for the summer to see their families and that news did not go over well. It’s also unclear if the local government can actually restrict a citizen from returning to their home country . . . all these questions with no answers.
Of course a few days after that announcement messages go out warning against listening to “fake news” and a new version is published that only requires registering to leave, not permission, no restriction of countries and quarantine only if you test positive for COVID. People celebrate, but it’s possible that that these freedoms only apply to residents of Dubai . . . ? People’s heads explode as Dubai announces resuming travel for residents on June 23rd and the return of tourists on July 7th — hello, don’t forget about Abu Dhabi! Josh was joking with his US colleagues that they may be able to fly into Dubai, but might not be able to get to the office in Abu Dhabi for work meetings. Nobody knows.
And I’m done talking about it because you wouldn’t believe it if I told you. This morning we woke up to a whole new set of guidelines that are more similar to the “fake” restrictive ones, supposedly overriding all the previous announcements, and nobody knows which way is up. People who have tickets to fly out over the next few days are crossing their fingers and headed to the airport hoping they’ll be able to fly because even the airlines don’t know which policies are in effect from day to day and how to enforce any of it. Blessed are the ignorant because they haven’t gotten whiplash from all of this over the past few weeks.
I’m happy we aren’t planning to travel anytime soon, but my irritation at being treated like a second class emirate continues to burn. I don’t even like going to Dubai, but it’s like living in Oakland and being told you aren’t allowed to cross the bridge to San Francisco or through the tunnel to Walnut Creek — meanwhile life is going on as normal in those cities. Of course in this world, being protected and provided for by the government is a blessing, so there’s a host of people who love the restrictions because it means they are being kept “safe.” My American spirit chafes at that.
Even though this post sounds like a big old whine, I’m writing it down because someday I’m going to look back on this and laugh. It’s classic Middle East and I can’t wait to see what sort of impossibility is announced next.
And in real life news, Carter made it to America, loved spending the week with his Aunt, Uncle, and cousins in Chicago, and now is in California with his brother. He goes to enlist in the Navy officially in 2 days (Wednesday) and will message me after to let me know what his job will be and when he ships out. He is thriving with all this freedom and even boot camp will seem less restrictive after living over here.
