Deliveries

Getting furniture delivered is a mission. There are no street addresses. We live in Al Ghali near Al Ain Megamart, delivery trucks get to Megamart or nearby and call us for further directions. Given the language barrier, this can be fraught with miscommunications.

The best option is to tackle this in a team, one standing on the street corner and the other running down to Megamart to find the delivery truck and show the way. Here's an example of a typical delivery.

"Hello" says Rau.
"Hello, we at Megamart. Where you" replies the delivery man.
"OK. Drive along the main road, past the lights three streets and turn right at the next shops"
"OK, we know"
10 minutes later.
"Hello, we at Megamart. Where you."

Re read line 3, 4 and 5 several times and you might get the picture, hilarious if you're not waiting in the dark. This happened last night as the last of Rau's furniture was delivered. I was the one who ran to Megamart to look for the truck.

The call came late in the evening so Rau grabbed me and off I went minus my glasses, a bad mistake when looking for trucks in the dark. While Rau was waiting she got several offers from a couple of young men in a car so needed the old girl with her to help fend them off, yep they drove off when I arrived all right.

I ran down to Megamart looking everywhere for the truck. I must have looked like a crazy woman having to peer at the all truck like vehicles because delivery trucks come in all shapes and sizes so we've found. I'm surprised no one called the police. Maybe they're used to our strange ways by now.

In the mean time while I was searching the phone call above continued several times. Then the penny dropped, to the right of Megamart on a back street there's a small block of shops. Sure enough, outside these was a yellow delivery truck with a man talking on the phone. Their faces lit up, big smiles all round when they saw me, the only pale face in the area.

After some discussion, they opened the cab door and all moved over to make room for the ace navigator. So here I was in a small truck cab with three smiling Indian men directing them to our place. Round the corner by our shops.

"Oh" laughed the one who spoke the most English. "You say Alamah Supermarket, then we know." The others all laughed and nodded their agreement repeating the name of our very small, hole in the wall supermarket run by the friendly Jordanian man. Of course everyone knows where that supermarket is!

I'm pleased we have this information now, it might save a few headaches for future deliveries. That is if we buy anything else. I'm set for everything I need now and hopefully we'll get a car soon for any other bits and pieces.

We have the same fun with the taxi drivers. I got one the other day who laughed when I got in. He remembered picking me up and me telling him to slow down in Arabic. He shared a few more words with me as he dropped me to the door, no directions needed.