New Car

I'm too knackered to give this 'adventure' justice, but I got a new car this afternoon.  I'm actually renting, but it's a new rental-Honda City.  It's about the size of a Civic which is good for Sergey and I.  Of course, it wasn't smooth sailing.  Two friends came along, plus one husband.  Shagufta and I were going to rent cars, and her husband and Bernise came along so that neither of us had to drive home along.  So I picked a car without about 3 minutes...new, light gray...good enough for me.  I pay etc., and go outside to check for dents or imperfections and surprise...my car was rented to someone else right from under me!!  Ok, so I ask what's up, and Mr. Abu Baker--not sure if it's first or last name, had filled out the paperwork wrong, so I got a dark gray one, which is fine.  I like the color better actually.  So then they tell me I can't leave because the car needs Petrol.  I suggest that I stop at the Petrol Station on the corner, but they insist.  I am not exaggerating...1 hour later, the car comes back with 1/8 of a tank of gas!!  I gave Mr. Abu Baker a piece of my mind.  I was totally not being myself, but I told him that I brought him business and we work for QF and if is going to run his business like this, we're all going to tell our colleagues not to do business with him anymore, etc.  He was apologizing and saying he would bring a new car tomorrow to my house, yada, yada.  By this time it was rush hour and dark and we were 35 minutes from home, with a semi-accurate map in hand.  Clearly we made some wrong turns, as it took us close to 2 hours to get home, and I kept stopping and asking people at red lights or when traffic was stopped which direction to go.  Of course, Arabs don't like to say they don't know, as that is considered impolite, so we were off on a wild goose chase.  It was quite funny, and the driving was easier than I expected.  DC driving prepared me to be aggressive.  The round-a-bouts are a mess, but you just have to look ahead and put your foot on the gas, and ignore all of the horns.   We kept looking for ANYthing that we recognized, and finally, quite out of the blue, on our right side we drove past our school, in the wrong direction!  Not sure how that happened, but we at least made it home.  After dropping off my friend, I had to pick up Sergey and go get some petrol.  Whew...what a night.  And the day was absolute madness as well.  Everyday is a new adventure.  Having a car is going to make life so much simpler.  I was ambivalent, but now I'm really glad I got one.  Tomorrow is back to school night at Sergey's school, next night is soccer/futball practice, Friday is volunteering at animal shelter, and Sat. is soccer again.  Coordinating taxis would have been a nightmare.  I'm too tired to even begin to get into what happened today, but suffice it to say that as at FPHS, I seem to be a magnet for students who are in serious crisis.  The cultural piece makes it all very complicated.  Do you tell a parent that a kid is cutting if you are 100% sure he will beat her within an inch of her life for telling family business in public?  In the U.S., it's easy....here not so much.  I have to consult with a few people tomorrow and really hope that the young lady is in school.  Ugh!  I don't mind being the "go to" counselor for emotional issues, but it's a different world here and I need to get some supervision on how to handle  various scenarios.  I also have to participate in kicking a student out of the school tomorrow in the gentlest way possible, as she is emotionally very fragile.  Fortunately, her parents were very reluctantly agreeable to get her counseling, which I set up with the local hospital.  Father is going to be very angry--at school and daughter when he finds out that we just can't handle her level of emotional needs.  Not in a full IB Program.  Tomorrow should be fun. :-(  I better get to sleep.  At least I got a car and had a good laugh over the ridiculous-ness of the whole thing!  I'll post some pictures tomorrow.  Oh-I finally got my QA ID card today too.  That was a bonus. :-)  It's only taken a month now....