Last Day To Relax

Today is my last day to relax. I am starting some real work in the unit tomorrow and I knew that I will be into lots of things.

 

I went to Neima Clinic to check out my medical test results. They found nothing in my lab tests, and also from my xray, so I was happy to come home and relax for the rest of the afternoon.

 

I fell asleep as soon as I lied on my bed. I was only awaken by Roger, who reminded me of our plan to go to the Recreation Center after the sun is out. He went ahead of me, and I followed there after I fixed myself. I went online for an hour, then decided to sit by the bench with some friends outside the building.

 

When we went home, we saw Remyr and Miller by the building entrance, who were about to fetch us up at the Recreations. We almost forgot about Remyr’s invitation for dinner at his place.

 

Remyr cooked some Beef Stew. After eating, I went back to my own unit to retire.I need to be early for tomorrow.

A Saturday Life

My biological clock woke me up again. I wanted to sleep some more but I can’t go back to sleep, and my bladder is killing me. I got up and fixed myself a nice cup of green tea. I have a new cup, by the way. I got it from Dubai last night.

 

I decided to have bread this morning, and some cream cheese.

 

Few minutes later, I was found putting my new uniforms in the washing machine. I also scrubbed the bathroom sink, bowl and tub.

 

I was preparing lunch when Miller called me to eat lunch at Roger’s flat. The three of us ate together. Remyr is the only guy missing. He stayed in Dubai last night at his cousin’s place so he didn’t come home with us last night.

 

I went back to my unit after that, and had a nice siesta. Around 5pm, Roger and I decided to go to the Coop store to buy some stuff.

 

When we came back to the compound, we decided to eat dinner here in my unit. Both of us have some left overs we could both just heat. Remyr joined us later after coming back from Dubai. The three of us went to the Recreations Center after eating.

 

 

I went online at the internet and answered emails. After an hour, Roger invited me to play table tennis. We played for about an hour until we all decided to go home.

 

We need to wake up early tomorrow. We have to catch the early bus. We are going to get our medical test results at Neima Clinic which is two rides away from the housing compound.

 

Zzzzzzzzz.

Welcome to UAE!

It’s Friday, but most offices are already closed today. Friday here is the equivalent of a Saturday back home. And so Saturday here is the Sunday I know. Here, everybody goes back to work on a Sunday, because that’s their Monday! Yup, I am in another world!

 

Welcome to the United Arab Emirates! It has been nine days now since I arrived in this foreign land to start a new adventure overseas. It was an eight-hour flight from Manila. There were 22 others on-board who were also joining Tawam Hospital. After landing in Dubai, we had a two-hour road trip to Al Ain via shuttle bus.

 

When we reached our housing compound, each of us were brought to our respective flats, as each one will be having their own units.

 

I was just amazed by the accommodation that they provided for us! My unit had a huge living room, dining area, bedroom, kitchen and a spacious bathroom! And it was completely furnished! It’s like a condo unit back home. The fridge had some food inside already, and there were new towels and kitchen utensils. This was a very warm welcome.

 

The next few days was spent basically on orientation sessions. There were lots of lectures and trainings that our group attended. We had a lot of written and practical exams that was really mind-draining.

 

We had some tour of the city, which included visits to some malls, museums and other important landmarks.

 

The city of Al Ain is a very progressive community in UAE, and is billed as the Garden City, for its year-round temperate climate, beautiful scenery, and abundant greenery. There were lots of trees that were obviously planted on soil that were made to become rich. Water was distributed thoughout that vegetation through a hose system under and sometimes on the ground. No wonder the plants were all green and flowery.

 

Al Ain is more conservative than Dubai and Abu Dhabi, so most people here still wear the traditional clothes. It’s a quite place and the traffic is not that much. I found the people here very friendly.

 

Tawam Hospital is a 468-bedded tertiary center located in Al Ain, and is considered one of the best hospitals in the UAE. The hospital is in affiliation with, and managed by John Hopkins Medicine which is #1 ranked U.S. Hospital. The institution also has the distinction of being a Joint Commission International (JCI) accredited hospital.

 

I have seen a lot of the hospital’s state of the art faciltites, and is completely amazed by the management’s drive to excellence in health care.

 

I hope to enjoy my stay here. I will be working in the Surgery Unit and I’ll be starting on Monday. I heard it’s a very busy ward so I am expecting a heavy week ahead. So having said that, let me enjoy the rest of the weekend!

 

Cheers! 

 

 

 

 

Lunch and Dubai with New Buddies

I woke up at half past six in the morning. I set my celfone alarm last night to wake me up at 10am, but here I was, wide and awake, and could not go back to sleep.

 

So I decided to do a little sorting out in the house. I threw the garbage out, threw my laundry in the washing machine and prepared breakfast – green tea and cornflakes. I ate in front of my laptop again. Oh, I just love this computer table! It has enough room for my plates and cups.

 

10am. I started preparing for lunch. I thought of inviting the guys over for lunch, so I decided cooking a nice dish. I cooked giniling (ground beef with potatoes and tomato sauce). Food was ready by 11am, so I started calling Roger, Remyr and Miller to eat lunch in my flat.

 

Before they came, I realized the food may not be enough for the four of us. So I hurriedly sliced some onions and garlic and opened a can of mackerel. A little sauté and walah! A second dish!

 

It’s nice having invited them over. I have eaten in their units a couple of times, and this is my payback. I saw their support towards me knowing I did not bring a lot of money to support myself till salary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were still a lot of construction and infrastructure going on at the city, so I was not really impressed as yet. The place that I passed by was just like Ortigas back home. But I am sure that in two to three years, after completing all their beautification drives, Dubai will be one of the most amazing cities in the world. They have all the financial sources to make their place a good tourist destination.

 

We were dropped at Deira City Center Mall. My friends and I roamed around the mall. My eyes were tempted again, after seeing lots of things to buy, but I was lucky not to have bought anything I would not need in a couple of weeks. I only spent about 50 dirhams including food expenses. That’s about 500 pesos only. I’m amazing, ain’t I? The things that I bought were mostly kitchen stuff that I need badly.

 

I have very limited cash at hand so I have to budget it properly. Yup I just received my cash advance, but I lent half of my money to my other friend who did not get his cash advance yesterday. I do not want to mention it, but I just do not want you to get puzzled where my money goes.

 

Around 945pm, the bus returned to fetch us up and bring us back home in Al Ain. On the way home, the driver had difficulty finding a gasoline station, as the first three stations we visited were all out of diesel. It was only the fourth gas station where we were able to reload. UAE gas stations ran out of diesel? What’s happening?

 

I reached my flat at 12 midnight.

Thursday Madness

Today is the last of our orientation days, and I am having the last of the series of tests given to new hires.

 

I woke early to review my lectures a bit. I was lucky to have saved some articles related to Physical Assessment in my laptop. I was not really scared with this last practical test because I have been doing this procedure several times. Add to that, this topic was part of the lecture I gave in Bacolod City two months ago. It was when I invited as guest lecturer for local board exam review sessions in the Visayas region.

 

So it was not really a big deal, except that I had to take note of how they do the procedure here in this hospital.

 

Before I went to the training center, where the test will be conducted, my colleagues and I went to the HR department first to get our IDs activated. When I start working next week, I need to get my ID and my index fingerprint scanned by a machine, in order to get into the get into the main hospital, as well as to log in my attendance. High tech, huh! We had our fingerprints recorded in the system, and so now, we are officially Tawam employees.

 

I also went to see the person who’s arranging for my cash advance, but she told me that the paper was still not signed, and that I should just comeback later during the day. Damn! I don’t have anything in my wallet except for a bunch of cards.

 

We were a bit late going to the training center, as we had to wait for the next bus going there. But the lecture did not start, until we came. The afternoon session was the practical exam part, and I was able to breeze through it successfully.

 

Let me mention that we all received a new stethoscope today! I have been wanting to buy one, and I was just so glad that I did not have to purchase one, as it will be very important in my everyday work.

 

I finished my exam a bit early so I  went with Miller to pick up our uniforms at the laundry area. We collected for Remyr and Roger, too. Before ding that, I dropped by the Admin building to see if my cash advance was ready. And Walah! I got my money! I was trying to get for Remyr, too, but the lady refused to give it to us because she needed Remyr’s signature. Remyr was still in the training center doing his physical assessment test.

 

After resting in my flat for a couple of minutes, the boys went to Chiotram for some grocery shopping. But before doing our shopping, we ate first at a small Filipino-Chinese restaurant in front of Chiotram. We had Beef Asado and some veggies.

 

After doing my grocery, I felt some stomach upset, so I decided to take the first shuttle going home and just texted the rest of the boys that I needed to hurry home as I was not feeling well. I think the shrimps on the food that we ate got me!

 

After relieving myself at home, I decided to go the recreations center for some internet surfing until 10pm. After that, I went back home and fixed the groceries to the kitchen cabinets.

 

I tried to fix the shower curtain pole that went off few days back, but the superglue I bought just won’t work with the tiles. Hmmm…

 

I had a long day.

 

And that goes my day.

Town Tour

Our group was picked up by the shuttle around 8am in front of the Recreations Department. Today we are scheduled to have a tour of Al Ain.

 

The tour guide was a Sri Lankan lady who works in the HR. She has been in the place for 28 years. Whew! She must have liked it here very much.

 

We passed by key buildings in the town. I noticed how green the city was. There were lots of bushes and trees along the road. The streets was lined by flowering plants. The whole town is clean and well-maintained. No wonder it was called the Garden City.

 

We then went to a place called Jabeel Hafeet. It’s a tourist destination in Al Ain. As the shuttle climbed to the mountain top, everybody was just breathless with the amazing view we were witnessing. The rock formations on the mountains were spectacular. We also passed by a palace at the top of the mountain.

 

When we reached the peak, we rested for a while. The others took the chance of taking pictures. Oh, I just missed my cellphone. I used to take pictures with it, and the resolutions were very good. Darn that guy who stole my fone.

 

After that, we went down the mountain and headed to Chiotram – a small shopping area. Would you believe what I bought ? It’s a pack of  Purefoods Tender Juicy Hotdogs! They’re selling it here! OMG, I’ll come back to buy ten packs when I get my first salary!

 

Next stop was the Al Ain Museum. It was said to be the residence of a sheik during the early times, but was now converted into a museum. We went around the place, checking out old bedrooms, gardens and paintings.

 

The last destination was Al Ain Mall, which was said to be the biggest mall in Al Ain. This is nothing compared to our MOA and Megamall. This is just like SM Marilao. But gosh, the stores were mostly signatures.

 

Al Ain is basically a developing province in the UAE. The pace of life here is slower than that in Dubai or Abu Dhabi. But I guess, I will like it here. I just need to get used to the place.

First Weekend

It’s a Friday here, and it’s a weekend mood in this place. This day is the equivalent of Saturday in the Philippines. Not everybody works today, except for some few.

 

In the morning, my flat was visited by Ruth, the housing compound madam who comes from the Carribean. My two other friends joined me as Ruth explained the House Rules.

 

Before lunch time, I went with one of my buddies to the Coop Store, which was a few blocks away from our compound. I bought some food including rice and drinks. My bags were so heavy, and the sun was scorching hot when we walked our way home. I was perspiring all over when I reached home.

 

I was invited for lunch at Karen’s flat where I discovered a strong signal of wi fi from her laptop.

 

I was supposed to go to church this afternoon, but the shuttle going to the church did not come. The others who were also waiting for the bus decided to take another shuttle to be able to come out of the compound, and then take a cab going to the church. I wanted to come but I did not have much money left to pay for a cab, so I decided to go backto my flat.

 

I cooked my dinner in the evening and invited Roger to eat with me.

 

Zzzzzz.

Lost

I woke up at 5am to get myself ready for my first day of orientation. We were supposed to wait outside our houses, and a shuttle will pick us up at 730 am to bring us to our first orientation site.

 

The three other boys in my batch live in the same building where I live. We have been sharing a lot of stories since we came, and had made some bonding somehow.

 

Though I was ready as early as 7am, I needed to wait for my other colleagues who ended up coming out of their units at 8am. And so we (four of us) got left behind by the service bus. One of my colleagues suggested that we go to the nearby recreations center. A group of orientees were just leaving the building by the time we came there. It seemed though that it was not the same group we had yesterday, as this group was composed of mostly foreigners. We need to join the Pinoy group J – the one that took the same plane as ours last night.

 

The staff at the recreations department told us that we were late for the orientation session there and that we should just follow the others who went to the lecture hall of the Polyclinics Building . And so off we went there.

 

Before we came in the lecture room, we had asked several people where we should go, and that we were new hires. And all pointed us in the direction of the lecture hall.

 

The lecture was already starting when we arrived. It was about Fire and Safety. I noticed that my batch mates who also arrived yesterday were not in the audience, and so I felt that the four of us were in the wrong group.

 

After the speaker ended his lecture, the four of us decided to leave the room and look for our other batch mates. We decided to go to the Human Resources Department.

 

And so when we arrived there, we found out that the people there have been looking for us. And that the bus was sent several times to fetch us. Our batch mates have left, and has gone to Neima Clinic, where the orientation will continue, and some series of tests will be done for medical examination.

 

And so after being issued with a new ID, we were brought to Neima Clinic where we finally joined our group mates – the original barkada J.

 

We realized that there were two groups of orientees. The first group arrived last June 2, and has started their orientation for the past two days. This was the group we joined in earlier, as people we asked direction from kept pointing towards them, not realizing that there were two sets of orientees. My group was the one which arrived June 4, and is only on the first day of orientation.

 

Yup, we got lost on our first orientation day.

The Arrival

The plane landed in Dubai about 5am (9am Manila Time). There were 22 others in the plane who would join me in Tawam Hospital. And so the group gathered inside the arrival area. There were three other guys in the group – Roger, Remyr and Miller.

 

We got lost at some point trying to find where to pick our original visas up (there’s a visa collection area in the airport for people who are going to work there. The visa is not readily available in the passport). After obtaining our visas, we had our eyes scan – that’s their version of our fingerprint! High tech!

 

After that, we went to the immigrations area, then later collected our luggages at the baggage collection area. The Tawam representative was at the arrivals area waiting for us. He started checking us one by one with the list that he was holding. After that, we were made to board a shuttle.

 

It was about a two hour trip from Dubai to Al Ain. There was a quick stop over in the middle where we were asked to pick anything we want from a small store. I just got a bottle of water and a can of coke. That was all I need so far.

 

Looking from the bus window, I saw the place as something like the one I left behind in Saudi. The houses were built the same. The small stores were the same. There were dates everywhere.

 

When we arrived in the housing compound, each of us were brought one by one to each of our flats. When I was brought in to my own flat, I was just amazed by how big my place will be! It was like a condo unit, fully furnished!

 

The living room is complete with couches, center tables, two lamp shades, a computer table, and a shelf. At the end of the room, there was a six-seater dining table. There was a veranda overlooking at the Bermuda-covered lot fronting our building.

 

The kitchen was complete with amenities also! There was a huge fridge and a four-burner electric stove. The kitchen cabinets were very functional. We had, as gifts, boxes of kitchen utensils such as dining sets, spoons, forks, knives, can opener. The fridge has some food also!

 

My bedroom was just as astonishing! I have a queen size bed complete with linens and comforters. There were 2 big clothes cabinet, a closet, a bedside table with a lampshade, and a big tokador with a big mirror. Wow, what can I ask for?

 

I haven’t mentioned the bathroom, have I? The water heater and the washing machine is there. There was a nicely shaped mirror at the top of the sink. And there was a bath tub that can accommodate at least three persons!

 

I started unpacking and tried fixing all the things that I have in my luggage to the cabinets. I was just amazed by how the Tawam staff prepared everything for our arrival.

 

When all the excitement has gone, I felt all the tiredness on my shoulder, and started feeling empty. Yup, I have a pretty big place all for my self. But I am alone.

 

The Flight

The flight was delayed, as usual. The scheduled flight was 1220am but we only got to board the plane a few minutes before 1 am. I am used to delayed flights though. I felt it is something we should always expect but we still need to come to the airport two hours before the scheduled flight. Hmmm… Good thing I was with two new friends, Eden and Karen. Both of them will work in the same hospital where I am going. We spent the waiting time chatting about our lives.

 

It was my first time to ride an Emirates plane. I was expecting that I would be able to sleep on the plane during the eight-hour flight. I had a busy day before I left and I was very exhausted. I was drained physically, mentally and most importantly, emotionally.

 

But I was wrong. I did not get the sleep that I needed. I was on and off closing my eyes. Probably, my loved ones kept thinking about me on the ground and so there I was, restless above.

 

I never liked airplane food. It always turn my stomach upside down. But I had to eat something in order not to feel dizzy for the rest of the flight. But I liked the touch-screen TVs in front of the seats. There were lots of movies and music to choose from, most of them old though, but better than none at all.