Wed Nov 26 - Al Ain UAE

David had his conference on Monday and Tuesday.   Monday I spent the whole day in the hotel reading, (lovely!)  and in the evening we went out to see the new James Bond movie.  Daniel Craig is not my favorite James Bond.  Give me Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan any day.   Tuesday was pretty much the same, but we decided to check out of the Marriott and explore the area more, now that we had free time,  so after David was finished with his conference we took a Taxi to Al Ain, UAE.  It is an oasis city about 1 1/2 hours south of Dubai.  When we got to the hotel here I realized that I had left our passports in the safe back at the Marriott in Dubai!   We called the hotel, and they found them and were able to fax a copy of them to this hotel so we could check in.  They are holding them until we get back to Dubai, so we should be okay.  

The UAE has been very interesting.  Not quite what I expected.    They don't seem to have their own identity to me.  It is like they are taking what they think is the best from around the world and trying to 'one-up' them.   They have the only 7 star hotel in the world.  The world's widest building, the world's tallest building,  the Palms and the World island developments.  They are building an underwater hotel in the Arabian Sea, where the guests are the ones in the aquarium and you can look out the windows to see the fish.    They are building 'Dubailand' which will take 20 years to complete, but will be more than twice as big (or was that 4 times as big?) as Walt Disney World.   There are a TON of shopping malls here, including 'the world's biggest mall'   which is actually only about 40% occupied at the moment.   There is every designer you can think of here.  It has been called 'a shopper's paradise'  and I suppose that would be true if I were a shopper.  Everyone speaks English here and the majority of people in Dubai are wearing 'western' clothing.  We are headed back to Dubai tomorrow and then home on Friday.  Oh, one note:  if you come to Dubai you need the electric adapter for the UK and not the one for the Middle East.

Dubai, UAE Sunday Sept 23, 2008 part 2

David and I spent the day on The Big Bus Tour of Dubai.  Here a few pictures of things we saw.

This is the largest Mosque in Dubai.  It can accomodate 1000 worshipers at a time.

This is Ski Dubai in the Mall of the Emerates.    We didn't ski.

This is the Atlantis Resort.  It is at the very top of The Palms Island.

Far left is David in front of the Burj al Arab hotel.

Another Mosque.

I would write more, but I'm tired and going to crash now!

Dubai, UAE Sunday Sept 23, 2008

David and I are in Dubai for a CIO Middle East Conference.   We had a long 24 hours of travel to get here.  We flew to Atlanta, and then had a 3 1/2 hour layover.  We were able to spend that time in the Crown Room, which was nice, but freezing!  They had the AC cranked and I was afraid I'd catch a cold before our 15 hour flight to Dubai.   The flight to Dubai was relatively uneventful.  We had a few patches of turbulance, but it wasn't bad.   The personal entertainment units help the time go by.   My legs were bloated and cramped by the time we arrived, and it felt good to get up and stretch.   

We picked the slowest passport control line in the airport.  It must have been his first day, because the other lines let 3 people in to his one,  but we made it in the country and found a taxi to our hotel,  the JW Marriott.  It is a very nice hotel.  We get VIP check-in and executive status, because David spends so much time with Marriott.   We have access to the Executive Lounge, where they serve complimentary breakfast and free wi-fi, which is where I am typing this from.   We had  a nice nights rest and breakfast and are ready to go explore!  I will post pictures and more when I have them.

Some Images from our trip

I just wanted to post a few of the pictures from our trip.

Enrichment & Fireside

We did an Enrichment night for the ward in Ensenada.   Our enrichment lessons were on first aid and hygiene since we had a doctor and several nurses with us.  Before enrichment the ward had an hour of Zumba Fitness that we joined in on.  It was a lot of fun.  

We also did a fireside on Sunday for the ward as well.  We had several musical numbers and speakers all in Spanish.   Two of the houses that we worked on were members of the church and the husband of the home had a room built onto it bore his testimony that was really sweet.  It was a very neat experience.

Free Time in Mexico

We did have some free time while we were in Mexico.  We were able to go to the beach and to brunch at a restaurant overlooking the ocean.  

Other Projects

Some other projects that our group completed while we were in Ensenada was to build a room addition onto a house for a family of 6.   The far photo shows the family as well as the people in our group who worked on this project.  We didn't finish the roof, but I think arrangements were made for that.

Another project was for a single widow who lived a the corner of a steep hill whose house would flood every time it rained.  The project

here was to build a retaining wall to direct the water around her house as it came down the hill, instead of straight into it. 

Septic Tank Project

Another project that our family worked on was for a family just down the street from the orphanage.  It was  a family of four who lived in a tiny plywood house about 12 foot square.   Our group put in a new cement pad, so that they could have a floor to add on to their house.  We also had an electrician come and wire the house.  They only had one bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling.   We also dug a big 8 foot deep hole for a septic tank, and poured footings and supplied the cinder block for the wall lining.   This was a cute, hard working family, who hadn't asked for any help, but were gracious in receiving it.   I have to admit that I had a few concerns about whether we were actually helping or not.   While the family only had one bare light bulb, they had actually had their electricity disconnected because they couldn't pay for that.   We also left them with a giant septic hole in their front yard, and no clear plan of how they could finish it and they have a little toddler who I am afraid of falling in the hole. 

Our family also had bring the ground around their new addition pad down 8 inches so that when it rained it wouldn't direct the water into their house.  It was hard, hot work but provided a good discus

sion with the kids about what they need to do to prepare themselves so that they would be more qualified for less manual jobs.  

 The Ice Cream man came by, so we took an ice cream break!

Painting Project

Our first project that our family worked on was painting one of the boys dorm buildings.  The building was blue and yellow, and we had to scrape off some bad spots and then give it a fresh coat of blue and yellow paint.   The building was interesting because it was attached to the building next to it, so you had to hike around the next building and down a hill to get to the back of the building we needed to paint.   There was a lot of what looked like junk behind the building, but it was the teenage boys recycling project, so we couldn't throw it away, but had to move it away from the building so we could paint.   Grandpa Flynn did the moving since he really dislikes painting.  Grandpa Flynn did a lot of clean up around the orphanage.  They have a river bed by the orphanage that was dry, but full of junk that he cleaned out.

Raven helped paint the steps blue.  We were a bit dismayed to come back the next day and see that the kids had already started peeling the paint off the steps again!

Our family worked with the Brown family on this project.  Dr. Wayne & Liz Brown and their daughters Tani, Melissa and McKenzie.   We realized that we used to be in the same ward in Orem 12 years ago!  Since we left the ward, Dr. Brown went to medical school in Vermont and they now live in Fillmore UT.  Raven and McKenzie had a lot of fun playing together during this week.

Mexican Humanitarian Adventure

We have been home for 3 weeks now, but have been busy with the remodel and trying to get back to our school routine, that I haven't been able to record our trip yet.  This years summer vacation was a huma

nitarian trip that we took to Mexico with Family to Family Humanitarian Expeditions.   Our party consisted of our family of 5, plus my mom and David's parents.  We met the rest of the group in the San Diego airport and then drove into Mexico in 15 passenger vans.  There were 39 people in our expedition.   Our base camp was Door of Faith Orphanage.  They have a website at www.dofo.org .   This is one of the largest of the 100 orphanages in Baja California alone.   The orphange consists of many building, most of them being 'dorms' that the kids live in.  There were 114 orphans there when when arrived and 119 when we left.   Most of them aren't exactly orphans.  This is actually Mexico's foster care system.  Most of the kids are there due to neglect or abuse or the inability of their families to care for them.  The majority of the kids are not able to be adopted.  Once a child comes to the orphanage, they can pretty much plan to be there until they are grown.

The directors of this orphanage have done a great job trying to make this place 

as 'homey' as possible.  The kids are divided into dorms based on age and gender.  Each dorm have parents who live there.  They are a married couple and sometimes have their own ch

ildren as well.  The parents are responsible for their hygiene care, bedtimes, getting them ready for school etc.  They don't have to do laundry or meals, as there is a kitchen and laundry staff that does that for the whole orphanage.   There were many kids here with their siblings.  The average family group size had 4 kids, but there was one family here with 8!    The orphanage is painted very cheerfully and colorfully with lots of murals.  

The Door of Faith Orphanage takes in kids from birth through high school.  They got 4 new babies while we were there that week.   Their oldest resident is a 23 year old young man who has lived there since he was 4 months old.   He is currently in college.  DOFO makes education a priority and makes sure all the kids get to school through high school and will pay for college as well if the student wants to continue after that.  One of the dorm fathers is a neat man in a wheel chair who grew up in the orphanage from an early (angry) teen.  DOFO has a soccer team, and he is the coach.  We put together a group to play against them, and we were quite humiliated apparently, since I didn't go to the game.

Condition of the Top Floor

Nathan's Room
Nathan's Mural.  We might build a loft above the door and bookshelf
Master Bedroom

Master Bath
Kids Bath
Raven's Room
London's Room
The top floor is devoid of all our belongings and anything that isn't nailed or glued down at the moment.  Getting all 3 kids bedrooms cleaned out in 48 hours is a minor miracle!  

Home Condition Update

Kitchen
Family Room
"Stuff" in school room
Living Room
Dining Room
Our home improvement project is coming along.  We are mostly done with electric and plumbing, except for installing a few fixtures.  We have tile in the kids bath and laundry and marble in the master bath.  The entry / dining tile is also done.  We get our cabinets delivered tomorrow and installation starts on Monday.  We are getting our fireplace mantel installed on friday.  We have had to take everything out of all the rooms on the top floor and most of the main floor.  The exception is the school room which is currently holding a lot of said stuff.  We have sold or donated a lot of our possessions.   The house is being painted this week.  I have been very happy with the work and with all of the people who are making this happen!