This was not a fun adventure

There are hardly any old cars on the roads here.

Even all the ubiquitous Toyota Hilux trucks here that the laborers drive are in pretty good shape.

And this is not to mention the super cars and the sports cars that we see on a daily basis. One Friday recently Jason and I were driving near our house and found ourselves in the middle of a huge group of Maseratis and Jaguars, Lambourghinis and Ferraris, and other sports cars, just driving down the freeway. It was like a super car club was just driving together down the freeway and the lone Mustang in the group looked pretty sad. Not to mention our little Pajero.

It is a common occurrence that when we go to a mall or dentist or anywhere we regularly have to park between a Porsche and a BMW. (Watch the door dings, kids!) Or we might be following a Maserati or a Bently through our parking garage.  Henry barely looks out the window when I say, "Hey! Is that an Aston Martin?"

That's life in the UAE. We live "off the island": in the suburbs, so we need a couple of vehicles to get around, as public transportation isn't extensive here, taxis aren't nearly as cheap as they were just last year, and we have places to go! So when we moved here, in keeping with our middle class mindset and practicality, we decided that we we going to buy used vehicles, just like we have always done. We are not ones for conspicuous consumption. We avoid the immediate depreciation that comes from driving a new vehicle off the lot. And besides, we have a bunch of kids, so used cars have always been the best deal for us. Take care of them, maintain them, and they last for years, right? 

Well, not so much here.  There is something about the heat or the dust or the climate or something that makes cars not last as long and used cars a real gamble. We din't know this 6 months ago. We bought a fun little Mitsubishi Pajero from a South African lady who was moving to Thailand. That has been just fine, even the part where she would only accept cash for the purchase. We even got it "exported" from Dubai to the neighboring emirate, Abu Dhabi, no problem. But we also bought a Ford Explorer as our big family vehicle that has been nothing but a problem.

And Thursday it was a big problem.

"George" the Explorer has been making a strange whining sound for months now. We thought it was maybe a belt. We got it checked out at a mechanic and there were metal shavings in the oil pan. The whining that we now knew to be the transmission got louder ... and louder ... and louder. I started hoping someone in the crazy traffic would just rear-end us or worse. No such luck.

Thursday morning I was driving the kids to their homeschool co-op. The older two have a co-op in one part of the city and the younger two have their co-op about a 15 minute drive away. As we were heading to the teen co-op, George seemed to loose his gear. We were cruising down the freeway, when suddenly he just dropped out of gear. And then when I was backing out of the parking, to head on to the other co-op, he would shift into gear fine, but would't move until I shifted down to 1st and then eased manually up to automatic drive. This was a bad sign, I knew, but I just kept hoping, just prayed we would make it to the other co-op where we could park it and it would magically start up again just fine. Like a computer reboot (clearly I know nothing about cars). When we got to the other co-op, we noticed smoke coming out of the hood. At this point I started hoping it would just burst into flames.

I kept looking out the window all afternoon, but no flames, no smoke, no firetruck.

So since George was still there after co-op, parked all nicely and not on fire, we headed out to pick up the big kids. Again it wouldn't engage in automatic gear and I had to manually shift it up. We got about a mile down the road when it slipped out of gear and then just would not move past 2nd. I was trying to limp it back to a mall we had just passed, where I knew we could park it and catch a taxi easy, when the engine light came on. I was crawling alone the right lane with a huge curb and no shoulder with my hazards on when a tow truck pulled right in front of me and just stopped. So I stopped. This was the end. I wasn't going to make it to that mall. But what to do? The driver came up to talk with me but we couldn't understand each other too well. I finally just told him I was calling my husband and he left. Which was a lie because Jason was working a stressful Dubai Air Show at the time and I didn't want to bother him. So I found our insurance documents online and figured out we had roadside assistance and figured out how to call them and how to "drop a pin" of my location to the tow truck driver from my insurance.

Jamal the tow truck driver was great. He came pretty fast and found the busted radiator hose right away. Then as he was loading up the truck a little white car pulled over. Jamal went to talk with him and then came over and told me this guys was willing to give me and the little kids a ride. 

Now the UAE is a super safe place. But I'm still not comfortable just getting in a stranger's car, especially with my kids. Thankfully, I was simultaneously texting the homeschool moms trying to get a message to my big kids that I wasn't going to be picking them up on time. So I just told the nice man that my friend was close by and I could catch a ride from her. Which wasn't a total lie. I probably could have gotten a ride, had I asked her.

But instead I needed to know where this truck was taking George, so we rode with the tow truck driver to the industrial area, which was thankfully close by. I tried to get Jamal to take the truck to the same garage we had had it at before. "Oh yes, I know the place," Jamal said. But then we stopped, not there but at "Luxury Car Electronics Repair" and I didn't feel like arguing. "Small hose! Easy! Just 20, 30 minutes!" they said. So Greta and Ben and I sat behind their little plastic curtained office for 10 minutes until I saw the garage guy walking with the hose piece down the road and I knew it would be longer. And also, this was obviously more than just a hose issue. There was a whole transmission problem, this was way more than a hose.

I kept hoping it would just burst into flames.  But when it still didn't, I started downloading the Abu Dhabi taxi app as my phone battery quickly died. As I'm standing there, outside the shop, one of the workers comes up to me and offers us a ride. I am sure he was just trying to be kind to the lone white lady in this whole industrial area with the two kids and the dead truck, but still, I was happy that I had the excuse that I'd already called a taxi.

Except the taxi didn't come. And didn't come. I dropped him my "pin" but we couldn't figure out where each other was. Luckily, another taxi stopped and dropped someone off close by and so I grabbed the kids and grabbed that taxi and we headed up to pick up the big kids. We were only 90 minutes late! And after the driver got us to our apartment complex, Henry still got to his online class with 5 minutes to spare!

15 minutes after we get in the door, Jason comes home.

"Hey, where's the truck?" he said.

I had decided that the best option was to just take the Explorer out in the desert and shoot it, set it on fire, something. But Jason has met who is maybe the only Indian Christian mechanic in Abu Dhabi and trusts him. So Mr. Grace Auto Repair Workshop is dropping a brand new tranny in George. And we're hoping he makes it another 18 months without needing a new engine.