When Ottawa journalist Ann Marie McQueen relocated to Abu Dhabi in 2008, she anticipated a one-year stay. Eighteen years later, she remains happily settled in the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
"I love it here. I felt like I found myself here," said McQueen, 55. With approximately 89 percent of Abu Dhabi's 4.1 million residents being expatriates, she has cultivated friendships from across the globe.
"I love Muslim people and I love the people that I've met here," McQueen added.
Her sense of belonging has endured despite the nearby Iran War. An April ceasefire failed, and Iran continues to fire missiles toward the UAE, roughly 400 kilometers across the Persian Gulf. McQueen recalls the first "terrifying" explosions as UAE air defenses intercepted Iranian missiles. Some friends have developed physical stress symptoms; she now experiences tinnitus.
"I really crashed when the ceasefire was called, because I realized how very scared I've been," McQueen admitted.
Despite inquiries from friends and family about returning to Canada, she is staying. "I just kept doing my own personal risk assessment and I think this is my home," she said during a virtual chat. "And I just kept thinking of all the women who've been in war and the women inside of Iran … I'm going to be stoic for them."
McQueen moved to the UAE for a rare opportunity in the newspaper industry: launching a new publication. She was among several Canadians hired for the state-owned English daily The National. After eight years at the Ottawa Sun as a columnist and feature writer, she quit her job, sold her Ottawa condo, and boarded a plane with all her belongings in five suitcases. The landing brought intense culture shock.
"I was so freaked out, and I had this immediate regret that I had this great life, and I had just chucked it. It was the weirdest thing. It was like, happy, happy, happy; oh, my God. What have I done?" she recalled.
Accepting she could not return immediately, she decided to move forward. She initially planned to return to Toronto with international experience. "I was going to come back and fire up my journalism career again. That was absolutely my plan," McQueen said.
However, a year passed at The National, then another. She was promoted several times, including to Arts and Life editor. "I like to say that my personality fractured that first five, six months. I disintegrated and then became like the person that I am here, which is a different person than I was in Canada," she explained.
Abu Dhabi now feels like home. Her apartment, shared with her black rescue cat Ninja Jr., is on the northern edge of the city, near a park where she enjoys barefoot walks. She frequents the oceanfront Corniche and the white-sand Mamsha Beach on Al Saadiyat Island. She also pursues Canadian pastimes such as kayaking in the mangroves and skating at Zayed Sports City.
