Wednesday, December 7, 2011
I find myself browsing the UAE classifieds looking for potential positions and feel my eyes swell up with tears, my throat tighten and my stomach turn itself inside out until there’s a hollow tugging pull in all directions. I am terrified of that place. I’m terrified of what it once made me and has the potential to make me again. I’m terrified of how dangerous it really is, with its ass backwards laws and consequences and unexplained actions. I half fear that customs will grab me at the airport as I enter for some unknown, unseen crime I’ve committed (or even just been accused of committing) and been charged with in absence, without ever being made aware of it.

I’m stuck between a rock and a real hard place right now.

It’s literally been months since I’ve spoken to my son. No one ever answers any of the telephone numbers I have for him and his father is useless at encouraging him to call me. After a night of dreaming about my baby boy being in my arms again, I woke this morning knowing I’ve about had enough of this.

Sometimes I curse my own morals and the fact that I couldn’t, wouldn’t and didn’t kidnap him and somehow bring him home with me.

I called Dubai Police. It took four or five different telephone numbers I’d found online before I finally found one that didn’t just ring and ring. The man who answered was kind and gentle, but about as useless as I recall the majority of the UAE population to be. He told me to contact the UAE Embassy in Ottawa as they should help me. I explained I have tried to contact the UAE Embassy in Canada multiple times in the past for various reasons and I am never able to get through (as like most government offices in UAE, no one answers their Embassy phone here, either). He asked me to hold then came back with a local Dubai telephone number for me. After making me take it down, he explained it was the Canadian Consulate’s number in Dubai. They should help me. Of course, I’d have to wait until their tomorrow morning, or our current evening, to get an answer.

So I called the Canadian Consulate this evening. The man who answered the phone spoke with a thick Arabic accent and was so rude I called him out on it. He transferred me to a kind lady, who again couldn’t help me at all. Apparently, the only way I can get the UAE authorities to look into this, is to go back to the UAE myself and file a complaint with Dubai Courts. The only other possible option I have is to somehow give someone who is there, who is willing and able to help me fight for this, power or attorney. Of course, to give power or attorney to someone there, I have to do it in the UAE Embassy in Ottawa – or go to the UAE again.

Dealing with this country is spinning round and round, as fast as you can, in place. You don’t get anywhere and every now and then you find yourself so fucking dizzy you are left with a combination of severe pain and nausea.

So for now, I think I’m going to tuck myself into bed where I’ll cry myself to sleep. I’ll wake up tomorrow and hope being this far from my baby is less hard on me, than it is every other day. And I know it won’t be. So I’ll hope that the days will pass quickly and soon he’ll be old enough to come to me on his own, that he chooses to, and that when he does, he forgives me the choices I’d had to make that have kept us apart for so long.

3 words of wisdom:

Lars said...

I'm sorry it has to be so tough to get through to anyone there. Your little man will grow to be a big man and he'll forgive and love you till the day he dies. The choice you had to make wasn't an easy .. but it was necessary.

<3 I love you <3

Anonymous said...

I cannot even imagine what it would be like to be where you are right now. I do feel for you and your son; and wish things work themselves for the better one way or another.

The laws in the UAE can at time not be clear and it does cause a lot of confusion. My sister-in-law flew in this year from Canada and she was on depression meds which are heavily restricted in the UAE. Each department I contacted had a different story on what is needed to bring the meds in as a tourist/visitor. One said 2 weeks meds maximum and the other was a month. One person said a doctor's prescription was enough, another said an attested doctors report from the UAE embassy in Canada.

In the end we decided it wasn't worth the risk and she came in without them as we were told by the clinics here that they can prescribe them... that in it self is another story.

Max

Tainted Female said...

Max,

Part of the reason I had to leave UAE is severe depression that was medically mis-managed for years in the UAE - making it even worse. They treated me with a combination of potentially lethal, addictive drugs (like Xanax - which for a long while I had a severe dependency and addiction issues with).

I finally have my depression under control here - managed with a proper combination of prescribed drugs. And I have the same fears your sister had about coming back. It's one of the reasons I have so much anxiety over going through the airport. I can't get any answers about what I'm prescribed too - and I simply cannot live without the meds... (I have the scars to prove it!)

:( I'm sorry you've seen such things too.

Thank you for the always positive feedback.

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