the nanny search
I placed this ad in Gulf News:
Part-time nanny, preferably Urdu / Hindi speaking, required for a Western family on Muroor Rd. Flexible working hours in the afternoons.
The woman at the office edited it for me, so the wording is actually all hers. She did well I think it reads wonderfully. It ran yesterday, for one day only, and one person called. There were several other responses, but they were men. I intended to run it again if no one materialized, but I hate wading through applications.
I had a good feeling from the woman who called, we both fumbled and stammered on the phone, which is always a good sign. I told Nathan: I think she's great. I forgot to ask her name, and every time I asked a question she ignored it and asked her own, but I thought that was great too, a sort of bold ignore-the-language-barriers approach. I had a bit of trouble describing where I live so I said meet me at Al Quds bakery, at the corner of Muroor and 15th. She called at 10am this morning, and Iola and I went out to meet her. As we approached the bakery a man waved at us, and I hesitated, then realized he must be her father, so I waited, unsure. Then two women stepped out of the car, mother and daughter, both in full purdah. I was thrilled again! Maybe because of the exoticism, I don't know. So we walked the three blocks back to the apartment, the daughter (Zaara, I learned, twenty years old) and I walking side by side, the mother five feet behind us, and the father five feet behind her.
The apartment was embarrassingly messy, and stupid me, there were two empty beer cans on the dining room table from Nathan's last night with us. I cleared off the couch and we sat down. The father hung back at the dining room table (politely ignoring the beer cans, he did remark on the gnarled pumpkin, saying he used to grow them on his farm, before he became an oil man. I trust a farmer). The women had taken off their veils in the elevator, and the mother took Iola eagerly when I extricated her from the sling. I explained about Urdu, about my aunt in India, that it would be good for Iola to hear the sounds of the language. Then I realized the mother couldn't understand a word of Urdu, and the daughter was interpreting in Pashto. Well, Pashto probably has all the same t's, d's and r's that are so hard for a non-native speaker to hear, I rationalized to myself, so speaking to her in Pashto would be great too. I asked for references, and the mother said (interpreted by daughter, interjections by father) that she had had nine children, and that she (the mother) would take care of Iola, and Zaara would only play with her, so references weren't necessary.
Nine children is a lot of experience, and the daughter came out so well, so I feel pretty good about it. They were gentle and sweet with each other, and with Iola. I'm feeling very warm-hearted toward conservative muslims right now: I get two caretakers for the price of one! And they'll fight over who gets to hold her. What could be better? Neither of them can drive, or go in a taxi, or work outside the home, so the days when the father cannot drive them I'll drop her off at their house (also on Muroor, just a couple blocks further out of town). I'll visit their house and work a bit from there to make sure all goes well. And we'll start slowly, with three hours a week, working up to 10 in a couple months. That's the plan, anyway. And the daughter's Urdu is really good, so that's something.
I have been requested to show more photos of me with Iola, so here are a couple taken by Chelsea Moore over thanksgiving.
Oh! Two more things. I'm up to 6 kilometers now (read here). An excerpt:
... Every week I read about another study that keeps me putting one foot in front of the other. One recent example found that exercise reverses age-related decline in neural stem-cell production in mouse brains; another showed that exercise helps typically sedentary children reduce anger expression. I am not a mouse. I am not a child; and am not prone to angry outbursts – but if it helps them, it must help me maintain inner, youthful calm. But as everyone knows, not even all the science in the world can rouse a procrastinating soul.
...
And John's story about the Abu Dhabi Natural History Group:
... So now here I was, part of the caravan on E11, already feeling lulled by the hypnotic swoop of the power lines. I had driven across the Western Region a few times before, and considered it an exercise in sensory deprivation. I am someone who harbours rather romantic ideas about cultivating a sense of place, and I have spent some of the happiest years of my life in deserts. But Abu Dhabi’s Western region had already strained my affinity for subtle landscapes. Driving along that morning, I struggled to find anything to look at. ...
Part-time nanny, preferably Urdu / Hindi speaking, required for a Western family on Muroor Rd. Flexible working hours in the afternoons.
The woman at the office edited it for me, so the wording is actually all hers. She did well I think it reads wonderfully. It ran yesterday, for one day only, and one person called. There were several other responses, but they were men. I intended to run it again if no one materialized, but I hate wading through applications.
I had a good feeling from the woman who called, we both fumbled and stammered on the phone, which is always a good sign. I told Nathan: I think she's great. I forgot to ask her name, and every time I asked a question she ignored it and asked her own, but I thought that was great too, a sort of bold ignore-the-language-barriers approach. I had a bit of trouble describing where I live so I said meet me at Al Quds bakery, at the corner of Muroor and 15th. She called at 10am this morning, and Iola and I went out to meet her. As we approached the bakery a man waved at us, and I hesitated, then realized he must be her father, so I waited, unsure. Then two women stepped out of the car, mother and daughter, both in full purdah. I was thrilled again! Maybe because of the exoticism, I don't know. So we walked the three blocks back to the apartment, the daughter (Zaara, I learned, twenty years old) and I walking side by side, the mother five feet behind us, and the father five feet behind her.
The apartment was embarrassingly messy, and stupid me, there were two empty beer cans on the dining room table from Nathan's last night with us. I cleared off the couch and we sat down. The father hung back at the dining room table (politely ignoring the beer cans, he did remark on the gnarled pumpkin, saying he used to grow them on his farm, before he became an oil man. I trust a farmer). The women had taken off their veils in the elevator, and the mother took Iola eagerly when I extricated her from the sling. I explained about Urdu, about my aunt in India, that it would be good for Iola to hear the sounds of the language. Then I realized the mother couldn't understand a word of Urdu, and the daughter was interpreting in Pashto. Well, Pashto probably has all the same t's, d's and r's that are so hard for a non-native speaker to hear, I rationalized to myself, so speaking to her in Pashto would be great too. I asked for references, and the mother said (interpreted by daughter, interjections by father) that she had had nine children, and that she (the mother) would take care of Iola, and Zaara would only play with her, so references weren't necessary.
Nine children is a lot of experience, and the daughter came out so well, so I feel pretty good about it. They were gentle and sweet with each other, and with Iola. I'm feeling very warm-hearted toward conservative muslims right now: I get two caretakers for the price of one! And they'll fight over who gets to hold her. What could be better? Neither of them can drive, or go in a taxi, or work outside the home, so the days when the father cannot drive them I'll drop her off at their house (also on Muroor, just a couple blocks further out of town). I'll visit their house and work a bit from there to make sure all goes well. And we'll start slowly, with three hours a week, working up to 10 in a couple months. That's the plan, anyway. And the daughter's Urdu is really good, so that's something.
I have been requested to show more photos of me with Iola, so here are a couple taken by Chelsea Moore over thanksgiving.
Oh! Two more things. I'm up to 6 kilometers now (read here). An excerpt:
... Every week I read about another study that keeps me putting one foot in front of the other. One recent example found that exercise reverses age-related decline in neural stem-cell production in mouse brains; another showed that exercise helps typically sedentary children reduce anger expression. I am not a mouse. I am not a child; and am not prone to angry outbursts – but if it helps them, it must help me maintain inner, youthful calm. But as everyone knows, not even all the science in the world can rouse a procrastinating soul.
...
And John's story about the Abu Dhabi Natural History Group:
... So now here I was, part of the caravan on E11, already feeling lulled by the hypnotic swoop of the power lines. I had driven across the Western Region a few times before, and considered it an exercise in sensory deprivation. I am someone who harbours rather romantic ideas about cultivating a sense of place, and I have spent some of the happiest years of my life in deserts. But Abu Dhabi’s Western region had already strained my affinity for subtle landscapes. Driving along that morning, I struggled to find anything to look at.
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