Eid Mubarak

Eid Mubarak to my family and friends around the world. For those of you not in the Middle East, I will inform you that Eid al-Fitr is the feast of breaking the fast, where Muslims around the world fast from dawn until sunset for the holy month of Ramadan. The traditional greeting is Eid Mubarak (eed mu Bar eck) with means blessed Eid.

It’s a hard thing to fast all day, every day, for 29 or 30 days, from the sighting of the new moon until the sighting of the next new moon.  That means no food, no water, no tobacco, nothing. There are exceptions for travelers, illness, etc., but this is a time of physical and spiritual purification. It’s like an extreme Lent, except harder and all practicing Muslims actually practice it.

In addition, Ramadan is a time of giving and generosity, and that is a tough test. You know how hard it is to be nice and patient and kind when you’re tired and hungry, right? OK, do that for a month!  But I have never heard cross words or raised voices.  It is a religious obligation that Muslims truly believe in and faithfully practice. I honor their commitment.

At sunset families and friends gather for iftar meal, which may last for hours.  There may be another meal around midnight.  Unless they get up before sunrise, it’s a long time til the next iftar.

The Emirati’s pretty much live at the mall during the summer months. There are good reasons for this, including the fact that it is blazing hot and massively humid outside.  Because of this shopping and food are clustered and enclosed in bigger buildings. There are no isolated, standalone restaurants or grocery stores here.  There is at least a cluster of them in a few places.  If you feel like eating at Red Lobster you go to the al Fatwa Mall in Abu Dhabi.  

If you want Popeye’s Fried Chicken you go to Deerfields Mall, Marina Mall, or a dozen gas stations that also often contain food courts. BTW, Popeye’s is a favorite here! Based on my own impartial, highly scientific research I have observed that in any food court with a Popeye’s branch, it will have the longest lines and serve more people than any other offering. Just sayin’ – it has nothing to do with that being one of my personal favorites because it’s one of the few US brands here that is just like home!

One of the biggest malls in Abu Dhabi is the Yas Mall, which is 10 minutes from my hotel. This year, to celebrate the Eid, they are running a 24-hour sale and celebration, from 10 a.m. today until 10 a.m. tomorrow!  Big party, performances, live music, specials everywhere, etc.  Ferrari World, the top attraction in the Mideast, is attached to Yas Mall, and will also be open 24 hours. I really didn’t think much of it. I’ve seen late night promotions in the USA fail horribly, when a few dozen people showed up and stores lost money paying staff for foot traffic that never showed up.

Today, though, I had to check out and check back into my hotel. One of the managers saw me (they all know me – I’ve been here over a year!) and asked if I would be going to the mall today.  I said I might, thinking of a few things I needed at the grocery, a French hypermarket called Geant.  He smiled and handed me a big red printed card – a coupon for 100 dirhams (about $27 US).  He said it was good at anyplace in the mall during the sale!

So this evening I thought now would be the perfect time to go, and actually had something in mind I could use it for.  Of course, as soon as I started the car I remembered that it needed gas, and soon!  So I thought I could pop into the mall, do my shopping, and then run up the road to the nearest gas station, and be back to the hotel in time for a family Skype date. Pretty good plan.

Except, no. Halfway to the mall I ran into the traffic to the mall. The right 2 lanes of 5 were already backed up.  I bypassed that way and headed toward another artery leading to the mall, and found it was jammed solid with cars!  In fact, every way leading into the mall was jammed solid at 8 p.m.  Apparently, the party was just about to get started! Happily I abandoned the mall idea and went to get gas.

On my way back to the hotel took what I thought would be the longer way to avoid mall traffic flow, but got caught up in it anyway. It was now backed up as far as the hotel plaza, and I’m happy I changed my plans. If I’d gotten into the mall parking areas somehow, I might not have made it out again until tomorrow!  So now I’m wondering about trying to go in the morning before 10. There may not be anything left, but it might be interesting to see.

 #EidMubarak  #YasMall  #UAE

A time to clean out

I was fortunate to be at home from the Mideast for the months of April and May. This working abroad thing is fun, interesting, exciting at times, and has allowed us travel opportunities we’d never had before, but it is seriously wearing thin. I’m in my 5^th year of a planned one-year work abroad opportunity. Neither of us imagined the work here would stretch until now, but the end is in sight and I’m looking forward to it.

Over the past few years Dana and I have gotten a lot of comments like, I don’t know how you do it – I couldn’t do that!  Sometimes we feel the same way. I’m not trying to be negative here, just honest. Folks, it can be a struggle on both ends of the phone line. We Skype every day to stay in touch and share our days, our problems, our successes, and our feels. Thank God for the guys who dreamed up Skype – we couldn’t have done this without it.

When I was home I had the opportunity to take care of a lot of house projects, among other things. One of them was fairly urgent and we put a lot of work into it. Shortly after we built our house I built a wooden foundation for a metal shed.  Over the past few years it has deteriorated to the point it was pretty much wide open all the way around the base and had to be replaced.

After exploring several options, we decided a concrete pad would work the best and last the longest, I found a contractor who could quickly do the job, and we started working.  You see, the shed was full of stuff, and everything had to come out so we could move the shed, pull out the old wooden foundation, and prep for the concrete.  Once we had everything out we knew it was the perfect time to go through everything again, and lighten the load where we could. 

Oh, we got rid of lots of stuff, but kept quite a few treasures, moving them out of cardboard boxes which mice and bugs just love, and into plastic bins. Eventually everything was sorted and repackaged and put back into the shed! It was a busy week to get it all done. 

Which brings me to the point of this post! I grew up in a little town south of St. Louis Missouri, and my big brothers were Boy Scouts. Which meant that I desperately wanted to be a Boy Scout too!  Not Cub Scouts – no, that was for little kids, and I always saw myself as being ready for the real thing. When my oldest brother was awarded his Eagle badge at a council-wide ceremony in St. Louis, it was one of the proudest moments of my young life – Wally was an Eagle Scout, which is a BIG DEAL (really – it really is).  When I got to join I was so excited to finally be a Boy Scout!

There were so many things to participate in!! Campouts, hikes, canoe trips, summer camp!  I was a headstrong boy who didn’t always pay attention, and I learned a lot of lessons on those outings. Like, if you go camping for a week and bring lots of canned foods, bring a can opener and a fork! I learned how to open steel cans with my knife, but a cheap can opener would have been a lot simpler!  

And like, if you go on a weekend float trip, bring more than one change of clothes because you might get wet more than once. Oh yes, it gets cold on a winter campout (well, it used to anyway) and it may rain and snow within a few hours of each other, so make sure the tent has a floor in it and you use the cot your brought so you, your clothes, and your sleeping bag don’t get soaking wet.  

And many more. I can laugh and smile at young Mark now, but some of those were painful, embarrassing lessons learned the hard way. But they were well-learned, and I came away from them better prepared for decision making and analysis and critical thinking later in life.  I learned that it is my responsibility to prepare and take care of myself. I am grateful for those lessons because they served me well as a military officer. 

In amongst the stuff stashed away in our shed I came across some memorabilia that I’d long wondered exactly where it had gotten to. Scouts wear neckerchiefs as part of the uniform, and these were treasures for me. 

One highlight of my scouting days was going to summer camp for 2 or 3 weeks – I don’t even remember how long it was. But I looked forward to it all year and was sad when it was time to go home. The St. Louis Area Council opened a new camping reservation when I was in scouts – S-F Scout Ranch, which had two separate giant campgrounds within it. This was the most amazing place ever with lakes, streams, woods, and craft and activity areas to earn just about any merit badge you could get.

The Boy Scouts of America grew out of the Boy Scouts in Great Britain, started by Lord Baden Powell in 1910.  If you are familiar with St. Louis you know about Forest Park – a gigantic greenspace inside the city. In 1970 Forest Park hosted the Jubilee Camporee to celebrate 60 years of scouting, and some 25,000 scouters camped out in the park over the weekend. This was an amazing event, and the highlight was, if my memory is accurate, when Lord Powell, the founder of scouting himself, came out on stage in a scouter’s uniform – shorts, knee socks, shirt, and flat-rimmed campaign hat! And I still have the neckerchief from the event – how cool is that?? (Does anyone else remember this event?)

I never got too far in scouts, and nowhere close to Eagle. Most of my goals were met by joining and going on outings! One important things was earned, and that was being selected for membership in the Order of the Arrow, the scouting honor society.  I’ve long suspected my older brothers played a large role on my selection, but however it happened it was another amazingly proud moment for me to be selected, and an honor to participate in the associated activities in the Shawnee Lodge. 

 

Scouting was a very important developmental opportunity for me. I learned so many skills that were perfect preparation for my military career, which was the original purpose in 1910. I learned how to survive in the woods, how to navigate with a map and compass, how to plan and execute, how to use a canoe (don’t laugh – they are tricky creatures and if you can handle a canoe properly you can manage just about anything!), archery, and so much more. I owe a lot to Troop 483 in Farmington, MO, and to my dad and brothers and all the troop leaders who kept me safe while bumbling about figuring things out. I needed to make those mistakes and learn those lessons - thanks for letting me do it, and without stepping in to solve things for me.

Happy Father's Day to my Dad, my brothers, and all you guys out there doing your best with your kids every day!