Flying Carpet Ba Ito?

We went to the Autumn Fair at the Exhibition Center last night. Among the lingerie, fabrics, honey, chandeliers and wood arts, Irani carpets stood out among the stall. Our living room desperately needs a carpet so I nudged hubby to ask the price of one particular carpet that caught my eye. Two thousand five hundred (2,500) was the reply. We both asked BD or AED? BD. Maaay gulaaaay???!!!! PHP 270,950!!! Flying Carpet ba ito? We both were amused and decided to pick a mediocre carpet at Home Store for less than BD100.

Anyway as roughly explained by hubby "Iran" is synonymous to "carpet" and these particular carpets are hand-woven. I promise to research more on what makes the Irani carpet expensive.. =)

I Want You!

NSO Paper

NSO Paper

3rd Muharram

Winds and chill greeted me at the door today on my way to office. Bahrain seemed to be in a somber mood with dark clouds and fog enveloping the city. The waves are restless and the streets are damp reminiscent of the scattered rains last night. I saw four soldiers clearing some rocks near their camp at the airport being guarded by a comrade on watch atop a tank with his arms poised in the machine gun's barrel. I wonder who would try to attack them from the sea.

The roads and sidewalk are exceptionally clean today and colorful. The rain washed out most of the city's grime away. I remembered that last week the workers had uprooted the "overnight garden flowers" from the sidewalks and replaced them with new healthy and blooming ones. I remarked to my hubby on the seemingly unnecessary expense of putting in new blooms on top of the daily watering they do. And so today I understood all the oddities. The US flag flying high beside the Bahrain flag in the Muharraq bridge reminded me that President Bush is visiting Bahrain today for talks. My hubby commented with disgust that black flags to commemorate Muharram in a largely Shia community are nowhere to be seen. Instead US and Bahrain flags are flying high and the streets bloom with pink and white flowers.

I bet the roads and highways will have less traffic and the drive to home won't be as jammed as it should be. I am always amused at how the roads are easy to navigate when a foreign dignitary is due at the airport. Traffic lights from Seef to Muharraq bridge is always at green. A traffic enforcer stands by each signal ready to push the button at a command from his radio.

As we cruised along the highway, I noted with a smirk that all the huge billboards of the rulers are gone and a crane has lifted all the scattered stones away. I saw two magnificent mares getting readied. For parade, perhaps?

I wonder why countries beautify their facades when the President from a more influential country comes for visit. I shudder and marvel at the hypocrisy of it all. As a good leader/ruler you beautify country to please your people and to uplift their well-being. You don't try to achieve false good impressions. The well-being of your country and citizens comes first.

Stress & Inspirational Emails

A professor began his class by holding up a glass with some water in it.

He held it up for all to see & asked the students

“How much do you think this glass weighs?”

“50 gms!” … “100 gms!” …. “125 gms!” … the students answered.

“I really don’t know unless I weigh it”, said the professor, “but, my question is: What would happened if I held it up like this for a few minutes?’

“Nothing” …the students said.

“Ok what would happened if I held it up like this for an hour?” the professor asked.

“Your arm would begin to ache” said one of the students.

“You’re right. What would happened if I held it up for a day?”

“Your arm could go numb, you might have severe muscle stress & paralysis & have to go to hospital for sure!” …ventured another student & all the students laughed.

“Very good. But during all this, did the weight of the glass change?” asked the professor.

“No”… was the answer.

“Then what caused the arm ache & the muscle stress?”

The students were puzzled.

“What should I do now to come out of pain?” asked the professor again.

“Put the glass down!” said one of the students.

“Exactly!” said the professor.

Life’s problems are something like this.

Hold it for a few minutes in your head and they seem ok

Think of them for a long time and they begin to ache

Hold it even longer and they begin to paralyze you. You will not be able to do anything

It’s important to think of the challenges or problems in your life, but EVEN MORE IMPORTANT is to “PUT THEM DOWN” at the end of every day before you go to sleep.

That way, you are not stressed, you wake up every day fresh & strong & can handle any issues, any challenge that comes your way!

So friend, remember to PUT THE GLASS DOWN TODAY!

In The Mood For...

... a veeeeeeeeeeeery loooooooooooooooong hibernation.

It's very foggy and cooooooold today. As usual I'm slaving away with month-end and year-end reports. My irritation is continually building up. I feel suffocated and frustrated. When I grow old, I think high blood pressure will be the end of me, hehe..

I wish I could just go home, snuggle comfortably at the living room, watch TV and be unreachable for a week or so. I am so looking forward for my annual leave.

Home..home..home..dreaming..visualizing...home...home! Sigh...

Numerical OC

Rain in BahRAIN

Getting Married in Dubai Courts (Part II)

In the Dubai Courts, Sharia Section Court, the following documents are required:

1. Original Passport + Passport copies of bride, groom and the bride’s father
2. Original Passport + Passport copies of Two (2) witnesses
3. Health Certificate from accredited hospital
4. In case the father of the bride will not attend the wedding, a representative has to be there. For this, a letter of consent for marriage from the bride’s father is additionally required.
5. If the bride is Muslim and her father is not, a No Objection of Marriage Certificate from the Philippine Embassy/Consulate is required.

The very first thing I did was to secure my father’s consent (form here). Our Emirati friend trooped over to the Shariah section to procure a format of the consent. After filling up all the details (In Arabic) I emailed the same form to my Dad. Of course he refused to sign since he didn’t understand a single thing. I explained that it is nothing great, just a note stating that he has no objection of me getting married to my hubby and that my cousin will act as my guardian in his behalf. It would have been required to submit the same papers with English translation to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) – Manila for Red Ribbon (attestation). Only then would the UAE Embassy stamp its seal for the final attestation (for PHP1700). However the UAE Ambassador is a very kind man and we asked for assistance from a mentor who knew him well. (READ: ALERT!!!! RED TAPE!!!!) The UAE Ambassador patiently asked my Dad if he knew what the document says and only smiled in amusement when my Dad didn’t recognize my cousin’s name – to which I got a tongue lashing from Mom who was embarrassed. Damn us Filipinos for having a pet name/nick name that is so detached from our baptismal names J

Once I got hold of the attested documents, I had once again sent it for attestation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (UAE) (for AED150), and finally for attestation at the Philippine Embassy. They refused to attest since my document does not have a Red Ribbon. After a few minutes of verbal battle, the clerk finally agreed to have it “Noted & Seen” by the Embassy (for AED 100 and next day pick up).

We learned of the Health Certificate a little late, only we I prodded and nagged my fiancé to visit the courts to make sure that our documents are all okay. We were instructed to go to a government hospital and ask for medical exams specifically for marriage. Most hospitals follow a 3-day urgent / 5-day normal processing. We went to the --- Hospital in Deira which promised us a next day result at AED250 for both of us. The hospital was bare and opened at 4 in the afternoon. We spent the free time we had by having lunch – mehndi special in a small cafeteria beside a Lebanese shisha shop. By the time we went back to the hospital there is already a small queue. We patiently waited in line, received greetings of mabruk from the doctors and wrapped up our blood test and chest x-ray in no more than 20 minutes. Since all is written in Arabic I have no idea exactly what blood tests they took. What matters was that stamp in red ink “FIT”. I presume those were tests to ensure we don’t have HIV and we do not carry genes of Sickle-Cell Anemia – a hereditary disorder common in the Gulf.

After having all documents and our witnesses ready we went to the Courts where we were “entertained” by a court clerk who was so determined in making our lives a living hell. He didn’t bother masking his disdain to my hubby because he belongs to a different Islamic sect. Our Emirati friend who was a champion of verbal battles, threats and menacing looks and who is in the same sect as the clerk demanded to show my father’s authorization letter to the Sheik to determine whether it is enough or not. After losing the campaign he grudgingly asked us to pay AED100 for the document. I gritted my teeth when I realized that the verbal sparring took more time than the actual “wedding ceremony”

We waited for half an hour for the Judge to finish his marriages and sign our original certificates and promptly left for Bahrain after a day. That was a mistake. In order for the document to be valid in our home countries, we had to attest the document at the Ministry of Justice and once again at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Being out of UAE, I spent a fortune bribing my friend to finish the attestations so we can register accordingly in Bahrain.

All said and done, my say is that getting married is a very costly affair. =)

Photos: Father's consent form, the form attested.

Getting Married in Dubai Courts (Part I)

My fiancé and I have decided to tie the knot after 3 years of being together. The decision itself is a giant leap for both of us. You see we have different religious beliefs. I am a Filipina and he is of GCC Arab descent. We were both unwilling to give up each other’s faith that early on the relationship we told each other that we cannot marry. We would simply enjoy the relationship and see what the future hold for us. At the end of it all for whatever circumstances, we ended up with the decision to get married.

I had no idea that preparing for marriage documents in Dubai equates to a major headache. I am told in fact to be so lucky that I was able to put all documents together in about 4 months. I had a Slovak colleague who had initiated the prep 2 years ago. By all luck, she is still not past the official translations and attestations. She moved to Singapore with her beau even before she could finalize her papers in UAE.

I am having a UAE residence status and he is a GCC national. For the lack of online reference, it had become frustrating for my part to prepare the documents. We are both career-strapped individuals and we simply do not have the luxury of time to run around Dubai for requirements. One thing I learned in UAE is that you can never get proper official information by browsing the internet if you don’t understand Arabic text and just by simply calling up. You have to be physically there to get the info right. Even then, it can likewise be exasperating that your best bet is to bring with you a local to do the talking. My quest for acquiring the right information has been so frustrating that I made several mental notes to blog on this. Maybe I can be of assistance to someone in the future.

Even in the court we had to bring our Emirati friend to work as a wasta (a different story in another time). We chanced upon a civil servant who lets his sectarian interest mix with that of his professional duties. We were tormented with thousands of questions, demands and arguments that we took three times longer than normal to finish our registration. We were all more relieved than happy when we got over the “contract signing”. A ceremony less than 10 minutes with less than 2 minutes participation of the bride is worthy only called as such, and not as a “marriage ceremony”. On different thought, this would actually be appealing to hardened souls who cringe at all the sappy ever-lasting vows.

Dubai Courts – Marriage Section: +971-4-3347777.

Part II (requirements)