Baptism

Well, this isn't what I was asking for in terms of motivation. Today I was baptized. Yup! I had my first traffic accident. I was informed that the saying goes that sooner or later a driver is bound to have one here. I was hoping for never but you can't have everything. Fortunately, it wasn't very serious. I was rear-ended and if I had to be in an accident with someone, the gentleman who hit me was very kind.

Here when leaving a parking lot or merging into traffic, there's a lane which everyone drives the length before merging with oncoming traffic. In the States we don't use that unless we have to. Instead we wait until we can merge with the traffic. Well I was about to merge when I realized that the cab I was going to pull in front of was coming at a faster rate than I had previously thought. So I stopped but the gentleman behind me thought I was still moving forward and BAM! Gratefully, it wasn't very hard and we were all wearing seatbelts (besides the girls, I had a fellow teacher as a passenger). There was damage to my rental and a bit to the front grill of his VW.

If in an accident you must wait until the traffic officer arrives to assess who is at fault. This is the main reason I waited to get my UAE license before I rented a car. Some teachers had said cars could be rented with an international license but once you have UAE residency, which I do, that is no longer valid. If you are in an accident and don't have UAE license as a resident, it doesn't matter if the other person is at fault. You have to pay and it could be costly.

We had to wait about 30 minutes before the officer showed up. In that time, the gentleman asked if everyone in the car was okay. I assured him we were. He explained why he hit me. I told him that I understood. We agreed that since everyone was okay, then thank God, that's all that mattered. Once the officer showed up the conversation was totally in Arabic and they told me to wait in my car. Quietly sitting there I resigned myself to the fact that I'd probably be charged with the accident because I probably should have kept moving down that lane. The officer came to my window, gave me a paper and told me to take it to the car rental office. He then walked away. I sat there reading it but it was mostly in Arabic. That's when the other man came to my window to ask if I understood. I told him, "No." He proceeded to tell me that he had been charged with the accident and that his insurance would pay for the damage. That all I had to do was take that paper to the car rental agency and it would be okay. I thanked him and we shook hands. Like I said if I had to be in an accident, he was a good candidate. I'll pray for less drama tomorrow.