Copied Blog: Pina Coladas and Poop

Original Post: 16 July 2009

Not much to write over the last few days.  However, Zachary was fairly entertaining today so I thought I would share his antics.

This morning Zach informed me that he could not go to camp because he needed to poop.  He could not poop at camp because they have no toilet paper and the kids have to use the “butt sprayers” (as we have so eloquently named them).  For anyone who does not know, Arabs believe that the use of toilet paper is unclean, therefore every bathroom is equipped with a hose and sprayer… a bidet on the wall.  Every bathroom in our house has a hose.  The hose actually makes it quite convenient for rinsing out the soft scrub! (That’s a joke, I don’t clean).  Ok, so I told Zach that he in fact was not going to miss camp just because he had to poop.  I said, “Dude! No worries, we will just go late.  Take your time and we will leave when you are finished.”  He continued talking to me like he feels necessary whenever using the bathroom… he’s a chatty, whistling pooper.  He then says, “Can you please call them and tell them I will be late? Because I am wondering if we have art first. Because if we have art first I might have to take a long poop but if we have swimming first I will be finished really soon.”  Hmmmm.

Later this afternoon, we were driving in the car while the kids were talking to my Mom on the cell.  I said, “Hey Zach, tell Gram why you can’t use the bathroom at camp.”  So he tells her the story and then he says… “You know Gram they have those butt sprayers, those…. Pina Coladas.”  I could only hear one side but I was assuming she was speechless anyway.  I asked him where on earth he heard that but I guess also my Mom was also asking him who calls them Pina Colada’s???  He goes, “GRAM, the Abu Dhabi people call them that… you know Piiiiiina Colaaaaadas??!!”  I seriously have no idea…. Then Abby piped in with how they are bidets and how could he ever think that (she really loves pina coladas) then she started whining about how could she ever drink another pina colada since he called the bidet one?  Plus, he was dead serious.  When he got off the phone, Abby started in on him and he just screeched at her, “I AM ONLY 5!!!  I don’t know fancy words like bidet! If you want me to know “bidet” you have to teach it to me.”  And she just “humphed” and looked out the window.  These are the people I hang out with.  Every day.

While the kids were at camp Angie and I went around the city trying to take some pics.  I will try to get them uploaded tonight.  It is basically hazy here from June-September so the cityscape pics are pretty bad but at least there’s a sense of how it looks here.  Some of the pictures were taken at around 30 mph so again, not the best ever, lol!  I got a picture of the Presidential Palace gate but then as I got closer I realized there was a tank in front of it with an armed man pointing his turret looking weapon right at our vehicle.  So that was a little unnerving.  They do get a little funny about picture taking here but hopefully that gun pointing thing is just something they do in general.  In terms of the heat today, I am pretty sure I lost 10 or so pounds of water weight in sweat while we were out… no worries tho, I ate them back    It was only 99 today but the humidity (thus the haze) is just unbearable.   I have never ever experienced anything like it.  My face was so red, I thought I was going to faint by the time we got back to the car after our second outing, lol!

So that’s all for the moment.  We are going to ADNEC (AD National Exhibition Center) for Summer in Abu Dhabi tomorrow with the kids.  Friday and Saturday are the weekends here and this week Sunday is a holiday so we have a nice three day-er thanks to some prophet’s feast day!

The website for this carnival extraordinaire is http://www.summerinabudhabi.com

if you want to check it out.  Of course it doesn’t open til 2 pm because UAE simply doesn’t believe in getting an early start to the day.  Actually tomorrow is Friday so nothing is open much earlier than that as Friday  is the sabbath but ADNEC doesn’t open til 2 on any of the days.  Back home I could drop the kids off at 8… go to the gym, go to the grocery store… have all the annoying stuff out of the way before noon you know?!  But not here.  It’s a night life city… I guess that may be due to the fact that the sun isn’t burning a hole thru your skin at night!

More later!

Love,

E