Words cannot express the joy that I feel in returning to the land of my birth – but I guess I shall try to express it in words anyway. Hahahaha
Everything seems perfect, everything seems ideal – simply because it is and I have returned from living hell – the hell of the UAE – but more about that later.
The moment that I landed in Vancouver everything turned rosy and wonderful. Compared to the hell that the Toronto Airport was – this one was absolutely joyous. Great people to push my wheelchair, a porter magically appearing to whisk my many pieces of luggage off to the Fairmont that is conveniently located at the Vancouver Airport. It was just a hop, skip and a jump away. Not only is it close by but I had opted for the Fairmont Gold – now it is expensive but as far as I can tell at this point – it is worth every Canadian cent and the American dollar Is worth more than the Canadian dollar and I am paid in American dollars by my retirement fund. .
So it was absolutely jolly checking in, much laughter with all of the staff and the other guests. My bellman is an amazing young man – he is 18 and his nickname is ZED, which is Canadian for ZEE. He is so ambitious., smart and has the greatest of attitudes. We spoke for the longest of times – his work day ended at midnight – so off he went. He is the antithesis of those in the UAE – who have been beaten down my their repressive and oppressive employers. The Premier Inn is a superior employer in Abu Dhabi but hotels and business are known for their lack of humanity – workers are inhumanely treated – often not achieving days off for weeks and having to work at least 12 hour days. It is unconscionable which is defined as not right or reasonable.
It has scores of synonyms which say it all: amoral, immoral, unprincipled, indefensible, wrong; unscrupulous, unfair, underhand, dishonorable, dishonest, corrupt, depraved; shady. uncalled for, unreasonable, unfair,, immoderate, extreme, undue, outrageous, preposterous, monstrous, inexcusable, needless; over the top.
Will these practices ever change in the UAE ? I do not thinks so. Thought perhaps the Abu Dhabi Ruler might emerge in greater control and make a difference but now do not suffer from that illusion. I, with my excessive empathy had to get out of there and I did. Yesterday, as a matter of fact. I so empathized with the oppressed workers that I was in pain – I was walking in their moccasins. But it served not useful purpose as they seemed unable or unwilling to do anything about their plight, except attempt to extract money from me. They succeeded but only for awhile. The breast ran dry as the expression goes and my relationship with them terminated. They probably could have extracted more of my retirement dollars if they had played their cards right but their greed got in the way. Play your cards right is a slang expression meaning to do things in an intelligent and well-planned way. Used in a sentence: If I play my cards right, I’ll be able to graduate next year. To put it in other words, If you say that someone will achieve success if they play their cards right, you mean that they will achieve success if they act skilfully and use the advantages that they have.
I have moved on. S.A.D. and Rashid are past history, not whom they appeared to be. In my past life I used to have to marry somebody to find out who they really were – took a lot of hard knocks before disillusionment set in. I was never going to marry S.A.D. to be perfectly clear but had considered paying to educate his two Bangladesh daughters. Now Rachid was another matter but Allah made it known that I should not trust him, marry him or have anything more to do with him. So he is history. He definitely was not who he appeared to me. I now. doubt that he was even a Muslim and having my name written in the sand with a subsequent LOVE YOU was quite grand but very ephemeral. Both of them are in the UAE, unable to escape and I am safe in Canada without them.
This my second day in Canada, being pampered and cared for totally. Although I thought I needed a chance to detoxify from the horrors of UAE here in Vancouver that did not work out. and so my new life shall begin at 5:30 with a wake up call, a bellman coming to pick up me and my luggage for an 8:10 flight to Edmonton. A new beginning as a young Nepalese woman working at Costa Coffee at the Abu Dhabi Airport Premium Inn called it.
I am at the sumptuous breakfast buffet overlooking the busy airport. A photograph will be included, showing the sights. Trees, grass and mountains in the distance. At the moment the mountains are not visible, hidden by clouds but they peeked out yesterday and were such a fine sight. Somewhat more special as they were previously hidden from view. Vancouver is beautiful but as Pierre Burton famously said: “It is a great place for a city but not a great city.” His comments more true today then when he originally spoke. He also said: “A Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe.” Now that if funny.
At breakfast spoke briefly to a man, a former lawyer from Montreal. We were talking about people who refused to get vaccinated and he spoke of not suffering fools lightly, an expression I had forgotten. “Suffer fools gladly is a well-known phrase in contemporary use, first coined by Saint Paul in his second letter to the Church at Corinth (chapter 11). The full verse of the original source of the idiom, 2 Corinthians 11:19 (KJV), reads “For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise.” The New International Version states “You gladly put up with fools since you are so wise!” In its current usage, the meaning of the negative, not to suffer fools gladly, has been stated by the Cambridge Idiom Dictionary, 2nd Ed. (2006), as “to become angry with people you think are stupid”
