I can't think of a headline for this one...

It was only 33 degrees today....The weather is changing - yahoo!
Actually, it’s been absolutely beautiful the last few days. I discovered that I can even see the sea from my bedroom! I have a room with a view and until the weekend, didn’t even know. Since I arrived in the UAE 6 months ago it’s been hot, humid, hazy and horrible. Now, there are even blue skies and clouds (didn’t know the Middle East was capable of such natural wonders) and you can sit outside in the evenings without looking and feeling like a melted bowl of Haagen Dasz.

The big news is that I have decided to buy a car. I swore blind that I wouldn’t - I am an ardent supporter and lover of public transport - but it is MUCH MUCH more “cost-effective” (like the marketing speak?) to buy a car. Petrol is ridiculously cheap here - about the equivalent of R2.90 per litre. And I can buy a really nice little environmentally-friendly 4x4 brand new - something I would never ever be able to afford at home. You don’t pay a deposit, the interest rate is only about 3-4% and monthly repayments are much less than the monthly cumulative total of my daily ferryings between my apartment and our car-pool rendezvous spot. Have I convinced you yet? Good.

There’s only One Little Problem.

I can’t seem to get my head around this left-hand-side-of-the-road-driving-thing. All the cars are automatic, so I don’t need to worry about changing gears with my right hand or anything like that. It’s just that my brain is stubbornly stuck to the idea that you turn left at a roundabout (traffic circle). And can you believe that none of my friends, or colleagues, will let me drive their cars around parking lots to try and get used to it? They call it “my insurance doesn’t cover anyone else driving.” I call it “rude”. So I’m probably just going to have to get into my new vehicle and, in the immortal words of Nike’s mid- ‘90s campaign, “Just Do It.”

I have to admit that besides the (obvious) financial benefits of buying a car, the best thing will be that I will no longer have to deal with taxi drivers. It may just be me. Or the fact that I am blonde. Either way, I have been proposed to twice.
And don’t get me wrong. I like Pakistani folk as much as the next person, but seriously.......??!!

Driver: “ You beautiful. You married?”

Me: “No. I need to go to Spinney’s on Al Wasl Road.”

Driver: “Children?”

Me: “No. You know Spinneys? Al Wasl Road?”

Driver: “ You need husband. Children good. You beautiful lady. I take you home to Pakistan. You like country.”

Me: [under my breath] “yeah, and can we honeymoon in Sierra Leone then too?”

It can get particularly awkward in peak hour traffic, where there’s nowhere to get out, and nowhere to hide.

They are an interesting lot these taxi drivers, who are typically from Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. You get ones that sing along unashamedly to the latest hits on the local Bollywood station. Or ones that are particularly interested in talking about South African cricket (“Hansie Cronje best player. And Alan Donald. Best batsman”).
I once got a taxi driver who INSISTED that I smoke in his car (“I like my customers to feel comfortable”) and despite my persistent protests about it being illegal, stopped at a store and bought me a pack of Marlboros. And then there was the guy who after ten minutes of driving piped up [insert Indian accent, and that beautiful, typical head-bobbing thing here] “It’s getting a little uncomfortable in silence. I put on radio”. I had tears...... Perhaps you needed to be there.

Anyway, there’s one thing that all taxi drivers have in common - and that’s a complete lack of verbs, adverbs or prepositions in their sentences - pretty much everything except the most basic of instructions. I am aware that English is a really difficult language, but you can never ever say to a driver: “at the traffic light, you should do a u-turn because I need to go in at the rear entrance of the building.”

You have to say: “At light, u-turn, back-side building.”

It’s the only way. Anything else is lost in translation.