Email Update 3

I am finally able to write another update! We moved out to our villa on Thursday and we do not have internet yet. I am working at the office today, so I thought that I would drop a quick line to everyone. We have been really bad about taking pictures and the one day that Levi tried to put them onto my computer the camera batteries died and he couldn’t move them. Some day, I swear, you all will have pics

So, the villa. Since it was a construction site they brought in some cleaning ladies to clean it up. Well these are regular, run-of-the-mill cleaning ladies and not the type that should be cleaning up a construction site, so as you can imagine it was a mess. The superficial cleaning by these ladies did nothing, so my mom, Levi and I have spent the last few days cleaning our new pad. The kitchen is huge, so my mom and I started there, while Levi had bathroom duty. In the kitchen we had to scrap excess glue off the cupboards (they are made of metal and glued together to make “custom” cabinets) and then we had to wipe them all down from the layers of sand that had accumulated. Yesterday we were finally able to put away the dishes we have bought (or were given) and we actually cooked our first meal in it! Levi has done a great job with the bathrooms and today we are going to finish cleaning the floors which have a fine layer of construction dust on them. We have been wearing our shoes in the house because it’s so gross. Also, we have quite a bit of ants invading. There was a sticky spot on the floor the first night, so they were all over it. We sprayed bug spray and cleaned up the stickiness, but the ants continue to come. We will do a thorough cleaning of the floor and spray the bug spray every where. I have been told that someone should be out to do some heavy duty spray but we are still waiting.

I do not want this email to be a list of complaints, even though many things are going wrong with the villa. We know that eventually everything will be taken care of and we can enjoy this huge, beautiful place they have supplied for us. All the floors are marble and in the kitchen and bathroom the walls are also covered in marble. The windows are huge and let in a lot of light, but they are double or triple paned, so they don’t let in a lot of heat. There are plenty of air conditioners, so the house is kept cool enough at all times of the day. I am still in awe of the kitchen because it is so big, but it will be great once I get the table and chairs in there. We are about 20 minutes from Abu Dhabi city limits, but we are near an up-and-coming town called Khalifa bin Zayed City. It is pretty much the Commerce City of Abu Dhabi. They are trying to move out of being an industrial town, but building nicer homes and shopping areas, we are really enjoying getting to know the area. Remember that crime is very low in the UAE, so we are never worried about where we are at or what time of day it is, even in the small town. We discovered a new shopping center that has almost everything we need. There is a grocery store and a small department store; there is also a pharmacy and a film developing center. Connected to it all is a movie theater, but they have no American films right now (I don’t know if they ever will), but there are some middle eastern films that look interesting we just need to find out if they are captioned in English, so we can check them out! There are some internet cafes in town, but we have not ventured into them to find out what they offer.

For me work is going well. We have been doing training because school does not start until September. They are bringing in new people every other day it seems like, so it has been good getting to know everyone. I still have not been out to my assigned school, but I am supposed to meet the principal tomorrow at the Mosaica office. I am anxious to get school started and get into the swing of things – I really want to meet teachers and students too!

My mom and Levi and doing well. They pretty much clean while I am working or they go shopping. We do have cell phones, so we have been able to call home if we need to (especially since we do not have internet).