Why We Relocated To Abu Dhabi, UAE In 2023 And How That’s Going.

Time out!

Did you not literally just get to Saudi Arabia?

Yup!

And you moved countries again in less than one year??

Yup!

Ok let me explain.

In a previous blog post, I wrote about how we moved from Kenya to Australia, then how we moved from Australia to Saudi Arabia. Well, we moved again – this time to Abu Dhabi in the UAE.

This move was made in August 2023, so we’ve been in Abu Dhabi for less than 2 months as of the time of writing this post.

You would naturally ask why!

Moving to a new country isn’t easy, and it further complicates matters when you’ve got 3 kids in tow, with a 15-year-old who’s in a ‘critical’ period in the academic journey, his final year of iGCSEs.

The choice to move to Abu Dhabi was not taken lightly, only because as mentioned we’d only been in Riyadh since mid-September 2022.

Rest assured Alex and I usually have a good think through with these family decisions and weigh at length what’s best for our kids and for our family.

What prompted the move?

Did I not write about how we ‘loved it here’ in Saudi Arabia in a previous post?

Yes. And that was true. But I like to think that that was the initial ‘bed of roses’ honeymoon period….

Until we started feeling the thorns (chuckle)!

Listen. Saudi Arabia is indeed a beautiful country with kind, gracious and hospitable people, so much on offer to tourists, expatriates and locals, vast development projects that will make it must-visit tourism hub and global economic powerhouse in the near future, but it’s not for everyone. It wasn’t right for us in the season we’re in.

There were 3 very solid reasons we decided Riyadh was not going to be a long-term plan for our family.

STRIKE 1

The biggest drawback was the quality of education, or lack thereof. This is what mostly prompted us to start considering other options.

We had enrolled our kids in a British Curriculum School in Riyadh, the Reigate Grammar School. There are just a handful of them, though more are increasingly being established. The rest are local schools, which means the medium of instruction is Arabic or other non-English speaking foreign national schools such as French.

By the by, one of the most important considerations to make when selecting a school in Riyadh is the proximity to your home because Riyadh traffic is very heavy! It is not fair on the kids to commute an hour to and from school, each way, in gridlocked traffic.

Nothing is worth that much stress frankly.

Reigate Grammar School Riyadh was about 20 minutes by school bus from our residential compound, which was do-able considering. The only other school of choice was British International School Riyadh, which has 2 campuses 25 and 50 minutes away respectively, but our kids were accepted into the farthest one. No bueno!

Their birthdays could come and go while they were sitting in traffic trying to get home! Nope.

Considering the children transferred from Australian schools, whose quality of education is very high, we found that Reigate Grammar School Riyadh left a lot to be desired.

There were no quality extracurricular activities for the kids to get involved in during school, the sports programs after school were non-existent, the recreational areas were severely inadequate for the school population and the quality of teachers was not that of a British International School standard, in our experience.

In addition, and critically, the quality of school and the fees were not aligned, the latter much higher than the former. The straw that broke the camels back was a few incidences of absolute unprofessionalism from a couple of my son’s teachers and we knew it wasn’t the right school for our kids.

STRIKE 2

Our not being able to openly practice our Christian faith unhindered was another negative factor.

Whilst the COVID era opened the option of online Church, I find that physically attending Church and meeting with other believers makes a huge difference to one’s faith journey.    

Firstly, in Saudi Arabia the week runs from Sunday to Thursday with the weekend on Friday and Saturday.

The kids would go off to school on Sunday morning at 7.00am and I would be the only one left at home to attend online Church. I would then watch the church service that had already taken place because of the 7 hour time difference with our home church in Adelaide.

Secondly, when the kids would come back from school, online Church was the last thing on their priorities because homework, schoolwork or play took precedence, naturally. This would eventually lead them to disengage from their Christian faith, especially when growing up and living in a predominant Islamic country with no other faith visible.

Again, this is not a compromise I was willing to make with my kids.

I feel it is of the utmost importance to ground our kids in faith in God. Nothing is more important for our family!

STRIKE 3 – AND WE’RE OUT!

I hate traffic and madness on the roads!

I hated chaotic Nairobi traffic before we relocated and I still hate it when we visit.

There was no traffic to speak of in Adelaide so bonus point Adelaide.

Predictably, I hated Riyadh traffic! Boy oh boy. It’s one thing to have traffic and it’s another to couple that with crazy driving my friend.

There is nothing scarier than having someone tailgating you at over 110km/h on the freeway – for funsies! Or out of ignorance or arrogance…. Who knows?!

In my experience, Riyadh roads are a lot like the Wild Wild West – or more aptly the Fast and Furious – all 12 of them!

I can’t tell you the number of incidences of mad driving that we observed daily. Literally jaw dropping! Running red lights is not a rare occurrence, which goes ‘unpunished’ by and large.

If there were hefty fines for running a red light I am certain that would be reduced considerably. But alas.

I never felt ‘safe’ driving in Riyadh. Driving a car is a risky affair most days, but when ‘normal’ driving is paired with a cocktail of impunity and unpredictable every single day, resulting in hair-raising experiences, it can take its toll.

And it eventually did. Another compromise we were not willing to make.

CONCLUSION

So, there we have it. There are several other reasons but for brevity’s sake, those 3 strikes were enough for us to call TIME OUT and move elsewhere.

I firmly believe that life is too short to be very unhappy or very stressed with your situation, especially one you consciously put yourself in.

We chose to move to Riyadh, so we can choose to move somewhere else. We’re not planted.

I guess it depends on what your level of compromise is. If you’re not happy with your house, move.

If you’re not happy with your job, get another one.

If you’re not happy with your couch, change it…. You get the idea. It’s not always that easy, but it’s not always that hard either. Just don’t be frozen in inaction that then impacts other areas of your life negatively.

How’s Abu Dhabi then? Love it, love it! I’ll write more about it here in my posts including the process of moving to the UAE, the path we took to make it possible and how you can too if interested in making a move. It’s worth it!

Until then, change something today, if it’ll make you and yours happier.

Godspeed! Thanks for reading.