We're Maid Up! (But you couldn't make it up)

And so, 7½ years into our Arabian adventure, we have finally succumbed. We have hired a live-in maid.

To those not familiar with Middle Eastern life, this probably sounds alien, decadent, slightly like we're getting a bit above ourselves ("Live-in" you say? What, like "in your house?").

But it really isn't. In fact, for you eyebrow-raising doubters out there, it is probably fair to say that for some time now we have actually put up with more abject disbelief from friends here who have not been able to comprehend why (and more importantly how) we have managed to live so long with young children without help.

And after about a week, we are beginning to wonder too! Those in the UK possibly take a little for granted the availability of a spare pair of hands now and then to "have the kids for the night/weekend/week/month(?)". But for 'we who have nothing' (especially now that we have 3 energetic and demanding little angels), it has at times been a drainin experience. I know that Michele in particular has been feeling somewhat harassed. And so the release has been enthusiastically embraced.

So - welcome Sally to our life. She is 35 and from the Philippines. And she seems to love cleaning. A lot. Up at 6am (despite our having told her not not to be) she dusts, cleans, picks up toys, polishes, hoovers, picks up more toys, washes, irons, picks up toys again, feeds Rhys, tidies, cleans again, etc, etc, etc. She's great. And seemingly more than happy with her room at the back of our house that measures only about 9' by 6' (large by most local standards).

But now begins the process of getting her a visa. All non-UAE nationals working and living in the UAE must have a sponsored residence visa in order to be able to stay here. For most people the sponsor is one's employer (as is the case with me) and dependents are then sponsored by the principal bread-winner. So Sally (like Michele and the kids) has to be sponsored by me - a process which you would think would be easy to follow through. But this is of course the UAE where 'Bureaucracy is Best', and where unemployment is a proudly low statistic due to the policy of being able to easily make even the simplest of processes that much more complicated by involving, on average, 7 more people that it needs to.

For any Western visitor to the UAE, you would ordinarily arrive at the airport, face the usual mumblings that pass for immigration questioning at passport control ("Where you from? Why you come?"), and get a well placed, never to be removed (due to the force with which it is quite literally stamped) 'visit visa' stamp in your passport, enabling you to remain for 30 days (or so it says; actually it's 60 days, but let's not let a thing so trivial as accuracy get in the way of good old fashioned confusion here).

The problem for Sally is that, being from the Philippines, she is not allowed to simply show up and obtain a visit visa. Like all other people from the short list of specific countries from where maids can only be employed (also including India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh) she must apply, before coming here, for a 30 day "Tourist Visa".

And here's the punch - once here, and having found a maid's job with a family like ours, you go to convert your tourist visa to a full length residence visa and find..... that you can't. It is, of course, only possible to convert from a visit visa (the one you can't have, being that you come from the Philippines) to a residence visa.

In other words:
- you validly hold Visa Type A;
- you want to convert (and have the sponsor backing to allow you to convert) to Visa Type C; but
- you cann't go straight from A to C. First, you must go and get yourself Visa Type B (the one that you weren't allowed to get at the outset because of where you are from, and the one that you don't ultimately need or want anyway and are only being forced to get so that it can be immediately cancelled and replaced with Visa Type C).

A painful process. But presumably (you, and logic, would think) this cumbersome A to B to C process just requires some more form filling doesn't it?

Well know. Obviously... it requires you to leave the country, and then immediately turn around and re-enter with a (this time pre-approved) visit visa, in order that the authorities can then immediately cancel the visa (presumably with the ink still wet) and convert your visit visa into the residence visa you wanted all along.

And here's the best part of all. Is it simply a case of simply walking three steps over the border, before turning 180 degrees and returning, I hear you ask? Well, no, nothing so mundane.

The official line is, of course, to get on a plane.... and fly to Iran. To the island of Kish to be precise. I swear this is the commonly advertised solution that the Government state is the solution to the problem that the Government created.

All to be funded by your generous, afore-mentioned bread-winner.

On second thoughts, does anyone want to come and have our kids for the weekend?