Over the past few weeks I have been collecting a series of actual things and personal impressions from our environment, all so I can share them with you. These are all things we encounter everyday, and find them noteworthy enough to point them out.
1. Arab Google. I love it. Go visit http://www.google.ae/ and you will see what I mean. How cool is it to type your search command in from right to left?
2. Arabic Blogger Log-in. Yes, for this very site, we have learned how to log in in arabic. Not by choice, but because when the page opens here, the dashboard is in arabic, making it somewhat difficult to find the button for switching to english. Since it is fairly obvious which boxes are for the username and password, we just go for it and it seems to be working!
3. Censorship. Yes, the web is censored here. Some restriction does not bother me: i.e. pornography. But come on--can't we have some free music and videos? And don't you think a little pornography might help assuage the problem at the beaches where men go in hoards and just stand there looking at the sunbathers in their swimsuits?
4. Lebanese Music Videos. How to find the words. Imagine a hip-hop video, but multiply the sexual suggestiveness factor by about 100, and you will have the Lebanese music video. Except the zoom-ins on female body parts are not onto nicely lipoed butts and other, no. We are talking full-on cellulite. Normally I would think, how cool! They take women as they are! But actually, when you are at the gym working away at your own lumpy parts, it is rather disgusting to see another woman shaking hers right in the camera, right in front of you on the ellyptical trainer. Yuck. Especially when combined with over-executed coquettishness and other simpering female behavior. I know some of these things are culturally bound, and thus difficult to understand. But I swear, these videos make Beyonce look like a choir girl. And further, considering number 3 above, the whole thing is slightly hypocritical.
5. The FIDC Lifestyle. I work in the "first purpose-built business center in Dobby". Yes, on entering my building complex, which was specifically designed as the principal financial center (with its own courts), stock exchange, and capital market center for Dobby, your first impression will likely be WOW. Swanky. The halls are lined in black marble, classical music is playing, and everyone is wearing a suit.
Of course, entering the building is dependant on getting to the building, and for a "purpose-built business center" you would think the exterior would be well thought out too. But no, not if you approach the building on foot. By car you are fine (if you are lucky enough to have a parking spot). But on foot you are screwed, because the one thing left out of this "purpose-built" fantasy land are crosswalks. And the entire place is surrounded by roads.
Since I walk to work from Harry's office parking across the street, I face this problem everyday (as do many other business people I have noticed walking as well). I have to cross four two lane roads to get to the FIDC. Seems like it should not be a problem. Sadly, it is, for me and others, because cars here are not only pedestrian un-friendly, they are actually pedestrian-aggressive. Drivers will speed up when they see you in the road, rather than slow down and let you pass. The result of this mess is nicely clad business people, in suits with briefcases, are all doing these weird little hop-scurry-leap dances across the roads to get to the FIDC every morning without getting smashed by a Range Rover or Porsche Cayenne. It's hilarious. And severly pissing off (since I am one of these people). And basically, another one of those Dobby situations of "what the f*&*^ were they thinking when they built this mother-*&^*%er?.
6. Working Girls. And I don't mean lawyers like me. I mean expensive female prostitutes that are shipped in directly to some of the five star hotels from their resepctive countries of origin by the hotel-owners (usually some Sheikh). It is really disturbing, but for several reasons. First, how sad, these women have so few choices in life that this one is actually viable. Second, how intimidating! These women are so perfectly put together, tall, thin, young, expensive, and seemingly perfect that being a normal woman, working long hours in some form or fashion, all of a sudden seems really frumpy and unattractive. Which brings me to point three: How irritating! What a mockery of femininity. These women create an illusion that is is normal to be six feet tall (thanks to the shoes), 100 pounds, well enhanced, and always excessively made up and put together in designer brands. If this is what men believe a woman is supposed to be, sorry ladies, those of you unattached (and some that are) are basically screwed. It is a little like being surrounded by models and modelizers...... The problem is, you can't go out to the nice bars and resturants without being surrounded by them.
And this ironically brings me to closing with:
7. The Burkini. Brilliant. If you can't tell by the name, this is a swim/athletic suit designed for "conservative" women. In other words, women who are not supposed to show skin, or just don't want to, can wear this top and pants outfit (with an attached head covering that looks like a swim cap) for swimming, running, sports, etc. It is made out of special sports fabric, can be worn in the water, and while form-fitting, it is not tight by any strectch of the imaginiation. I may sound sarcastic while writing this, but actually, I think it is great. Many Muslim women don't do sports because they don't want to be immodest (one reason all the gyms here have a seperate little gym for ladies only). But this is not good for health at all, so having sportswear that gives these women (and burn victims, or others who don't want to bare all) a comfort zone is fabulicious. Check it out on google. You could even try google.ae!
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Shout out and Apology
I now see it is February 16th, and the last time I posted was back in January. That is just inexcusable (alhtough I have some really good excuses like new lawyer job, traffic jams, grumpy husband and so forth). SO now, it appears a regular feature of this blog will be an apology from Sadie, as only an oldest child who tends to the overly-responsible/guilty can make.
I'm sorry for not posting more! And I am sorry for me, because writing this blog is proving theraputic, and despite my earlier claims to having "adjusted" to life in Dobby, and being "un-fazed by the traffic and bad customer service," I can now honsetly say I was completely delusional when I made those statements. You should see me screaming explicatives in the morning on our way to work (via a massive traffic jam), and degenerating into tears on our way home at 9PM (via another massive traffic jam). Harry just looks at me like who is this creature I bound myself to for life?
But we have both resolved to communicate more with all of you, especially since we miss you all terribly and have yet to click with a group of friends here....although we have met some wonderful people and can count a few neat individuals as part of a network under development.
And now for the Shout-out. Being basically blog-illetarate, other than posting and sometimes adding a photo, I have had trouble listing the two other blogs I read regularly, written by people I admire and love. One of these blogs was the inspiration for this blog, and is written by someone Harry and I hold near and dear, admire greatly, and die laughing almost every time we visit her site. That said, I ENCOURAGE all of you to visit http://www.adventuresinselfloathing.blogspot.com/ (formerly http://www.selfloathingsuckers.blogspot.com/).
And to you Ms. Laaw-yher, if you are reading this, you have some mucho mas huevos and I am excited for your big, ongoing change. Kudos, and much love. And please come visit.
One other Shout-out. To my mother's fifth-grade class: we loved your letters! And yes, we have lots of running water here, and no we don't have our own horses, but lots of other people do. We will write a special posting to answer all of your questions, and send along more if you like. Maybe my mom will give you extra credit :-).
I'm sorry for not posting more! And I am sorry for me, because writing this blog is proving theraputic, and despite my earlier claims to having "adjusted" to life in Dobby, and being "un-fazed by the traffic and bad customer service," I can now honsetly say I was completely delusional when I made those statements. You should see me screaming explicatives in the morning on our way to work (via a massive traffic jam), and degenerating into tears on our way home at 9PM (via another massive traffic jam). Harry just looks at me like who is this creature I bound myself to for life?
But we have both resolved to communicate more with all of you, especially since we miss you all terribly and have yet to click with a group of friends here....although we have met some wonderful people and can count a few neat individuals as part of a network under development.
And now for the Shout-out. Being basically blog-illetarate, other than posting and sometimes adding a photo, I have had trouble listing the two other blogs I read regularly, written by people I admire and love. One of these blogs was the inspiration for this blog, and is written by someone Harry and I hold near and dear, admire greatly, and die laughing almost every time we visit her site. That said, I ENCOURAGE all of you to visit http://www.adventuresinselfloathing.blogspot.com/ (formerly http://www.selfloathingsuckers.blogspot.com/).
And to you Ms. Laaw-yher, if you are reading this, you have some mucho mas huevos and I am excited for your big, ongoing change. Kudos, and much love. And please come visit.
One other Shout-out. To my mother's fifth-grade class: we loved your letters! And yes, we have lots of running water here, and no we don't have our own horses, but lots of other people do. We will write a special posting to answer all of your questions, and send along more if you like. Maybe my mom will give you extra credit :-).
Monday, February 11, 2008
Good News and Happy Times
As you all should bloody well know, we have two newspapers in Dobby because Dobby is a world class city that believes in open competition, and two can compete better than one.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Allow me to present the two marvels of press freedom, editorial independence, and integrity of news reporting in the Gelf... the Good News and the Happy Times!
In keeping with Dobby's vision of having only the world's largest, biggest, tallest, longest, and other superlative things, the Good News is the World's Thickest Newspaper. It is rumoured that many unexplained deaths in Dobby are the result of unhappy, overworked housewives swatting their husbands with the morning's Good News to "wake them up"and then going "oops!"
Happy Times on the other hand, appears to be taking its weight problems seriously. On most days, Happy Times knows it has little to contribute to the discussion and goes off to a corner and slunks (but Happily). Also, since it is a newspaper, and has to actually say something to justify its existence, it paraphrases everything that Good News has to say, and tries to say it better.
The word of the year seems to be "subprime," right? Well, not so in Dobby!
In Dobby, everything's hunky-dory and tick-tock because..., guess what? We have a new crown prince! And a sub-crown prince (or some such). And what makes things even better is they were personally chosen for their new jobs by Big Chief himself! What a pleasant surprise! And so the Twin Typeset-Tragedies would have us rejoice in the knowledge. The two newspapers don't just compete, they bait each other and seek to draw blood every morning... and they pretty much compete on just one thing: who can praise Big Chief better.
So, if Good News says something on the lines of, "Big Chief Rocks!", Happy Times will follow that with "Go Big Chief!"... And then each paper will throw in half a dozen photos of various Chiefs and their sons and their brother and their cousins and so forth in various stages of Rocking in different situations. If they can't find any recent evidence of Rocking, they will get some musty old file photos of period Rocking and plaster them all over with inane headlines like, "Big Chief Rocked back then too" or "Big Chief has been rocking ever since".
Big Chief actually got a little irritated once, and said something on the lines of "The Dobby press is free. It is not freedom that they lack. They are just timid." Well said, Big Chief. As you all can easily predict, Big Chief's comments were plastered on the front pages of both papers. And then, well, they just sort of moved on.
What is singularly irritating is the way the Dobby papers expect everyone to have a short attention span. A case in point being how they refer to Big Chief, or any of the other Chiefs. Big Chief is never just Big Chief in the Dobby papers; he is "His Highness Vice-President and Prime Minister of the Federation and Ruler of Dobby"... I think he is also the Supreme Commander of the Federal Armed Forces or some such, and that is something that doesn't escape the papers' attention. I mean, come on! Everyone in Dobby and Aboo know exactly who all the Chiefs are, how they're related to each other and what titles they all carry. Why waste newsprint space repeating their FULL titles every time?? Don't ask.
There is a theory that the reason for the full title business is, every article is written by a "journalist" of a different nationality, and there is no common editorial policy that requires them to ocordinate their writing styles, so they want to save their skinny a**ses thorugh the use of superlative honorifics.
The one thing that Dobby papers are good for, though, is the fact that they reproduce news from every part of the world. Sincee the majority of the people in Dobby are from one of three nationalities, Good News has rights to reprint ENTIRE newspapers from those three countries as part of itself. Ergo, World's Thickest Newspaper.
As for balanced reporting, well, it's not as bad as one might imagine. Except for the Chiefly families, and their friends, and the government machinery (which takes away a majority of the stuff that newspapers elsewhere like to bitch about), everyone else is fair game. For example, the Happy Times' headline on Dubya's visit to the region said, "Middle East on Bush Alert" followed by his itinerary.
Crime reporting is another hilarious form of journalism here. Every suspect, accused, convict, witness, and victim is referred to by their initials and their nationalities. Nationalities!! Like their being Philipino or Indian makes them worse human beings than say, Saudi or "Western".
The eagle-eyed among you may remember Sadie's post on job listings a while ago. "Wanted smart Western executive secretary: salary 18,000 bucks" and "Wanted Indian Sales Manager: salary 5,000 bucks" and so forth.
Nuff said! Sadie and I are sick of the newspapers here. They suck. Luckily for us, Big Chief decreed a long time ago that TV was ok, and you get TV channels from all over the world. The ones from those parts of the world where they have real editors and real people are especially good. That includes Al Jazeera, from what I hear, contrary to what Bushie might tell you.
Alright. So now we have a TV, and the daily paper shall henceforth park itself directly in the recycling pile. More on the TV when we've set it up. I'm sure the cable company won't make things any easier.
Cheers, all!
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Harry's Debut - Enter Harry Stage Right
Sorry all, but work at the Bon Bon Law Shop (hereinafter "Bonnies") has been keeping yours truly from blogging about anything. Which kinda defeats the purpose of a blog, I suppose, if you can't talk about anything or don't have the time for it? But Sadie, my black-robe-worthy temptation and the joy of my life, has done an amazing job of turning this blog into a work of art. Thank you, Sadie. I love you!
Now, with that little Oscar speech out of the way, let me tell y'all what I really think.
Dobby is not all fun and games. Actually, it is all fun and games for some people, which kinda makes it not fun and games for the rest of us, if you catch the drift. If you've been following Sadie's train of thought closely, you'd have noticed how big a part race and racism plays in our life here. Tried to get a driving license... it costs a thousand dollars to get one! Sadie's took 30 dollars! Apparently, they don't consider my US driving license valid because I don't have a US passport! The guy at the desk actually said to me, "Come back with US passport." Duh!!
Apart from that, life is generally sub-prime. The horses give me a reason to look forward to the weekend, and I start looking forward to the weekend on Sunday (which is the start of the work week here). Of course, every morning, I look forward to the evening, and to Sadie's company -- notwithstanding her being tired and grumpy after seven thirty (which sometimes involves her screaming like a banshee at her toothbrush and other inanimate objects... including me -- I am mostly inanimate at such times).
Oh, and for the record, I DO THE DISHES. And pay for stuff. And very occasionally, appear as a character on this page.
I love you all. Have a good day, and hope to blog / blag some more soon.
Cheers,
H
Now, with that little Oscar speech out of the way, let me tell y'all what I really think.
Dobby is not all fun and games. Actually, it is all fun and games for some people, which kinda makes it not fun and games for the rest of us, if you catch the drift. If you've been following Sadie's train of thought closely, you'd have noticed how big a part race and racism plays in our life here. Tried to get a driving license... it costs a thousand dollars to get one! Sadie's took 30 dollars! Apparently, they don't consider my US driving license valid because I don't have a US passport! The guy at the desk actually said to me, "Come back with US passport." Duh!!
Apart from that, life is generally sub-prime. The horses give me a reason to look forward to the weekend, and I start looking forward to the weekend on Sunday (which is the start of the work week here). Of course, every morning, I look forward to the evening, and to Sadie's company -- notwithstanding her being tired and grumpy after seven thirty (which sometimes involves her screaming like a banshee at her toothbrush and other inanimate objects... including me -- I am mostly inanimate at such times).
Oh, and for the record, I DO THE DISHES. And pay for stuff. And very occasionally, appear as a character on this page.
I love you all. Have a good day, and hope to blog / blag some more soon.
Cheers,
H
Sadie's Battle with THE HORSE
Hello everyone! A thousand apologies for the long delay. Sadie started working, we went to India, and basically we have both been in the throes of what we hope were the final stages of culture shock (yes, I can now say I am relatively unfazed by the bad traffic and horrible customer service. I don't even stop for pedestrians or say thank you anymore).
But we have had some adventures and a lot of mundane working--Harry on some pissing off piddly litigation issues and Sadie on a pile of fricken complicated financial docs. Obviously, the adventures will be of more interest to all of you.....
Our current stockpile of tales to tell all emerge from our struggle with adjusting to this place. After a few months we were really sick of the racism (especially for Indians), the prostitutes in our neighborhood, the rattling in our brand-new not cheap car that the service guys said was Sadie's imagination (NOT--they were not used to women who know cars....), and in general the meaningless lifestyle of self-indulgence that many expats fall victim to. Not to mention that it is profoundly depressing to have a combined income of more than you ever had before and still walk around the malls unable to afford anything.......(its all either crap priced really high, or luxury brands priced even higher!--I can't even tell you how difficult it is to find a nice ladies suit.....).
So we decided to get proactive. Rather than wallow in our misery, we would learn everything we could about this place, including arabic, and have a meaningful experience regardless of the negatives. So we went to the book store, read up on the history, and started exploring parts of the city. Which brought us to.....
The horses. This region is culturally rich, although it is not readily apparant as in some countries. One beautiful example of the heritage here is the importance of horses. Arabian horses are famous worldwide for their beauty, speed, and now we have come to understand, completely head strong and emotional attitudes.
We came across the polo club in Dobby by accident. Normally Iwould never have stepped near something called a polo club, and Harry was more interested in other things at first. But a friend invited me for a desert ride, and cluelessly I agreed.
Now I used to take riding lessons, and have been on many "trail rides" on nice chubby American horses. But always in a western-style saddle. This desert ride was NOT on a cushy wide saddle with a slightly fat hourse looking for its next snack in the bushes. No way. This ride was on Arabian horses trained for endurance races by the local bedouin endurance racing champion cum ride leader/teacher on a miniscule thing they call an English saddle and really short reigns.
What could I say but OH F*&^% once I realized what was about to happen to me.......
And happen it did.....those horses took off at a fast canter, with me bouncing around on the tiny saddle, and mine would not stop (partially because I was giving it western-riding cues and not proper non-western riding cues). We ended up in a battle of wills, the horse and I, that we both basically lost when my horse turned around to head for the stables 5 kms out in the desert, and the trail leader chased us down, grabbed the reigns, and spent the next hour holding me and the horse right next to him on his horse. The horse stayed mad at me however and tried to mess around every time the guide turned his head, despite having her reigns held tightly by him. I swear she was f**&^^%&-ing with my head.
How embarassing. But also enlightening. In that two hour period I realized that the something missing here was finally found. Despite such a harrowing experience, I signed up for riding lessons right away. And so did Harry, who happens to be a complete natural with these Arabians. And it is one thing in Dobby that is actually affordable.
So now we go every weekend for our lessons and desert rides, and slowly we are improving. Harry by leaps and bounds, and me a bit more slowly, as I seem to have a battle of wills with every horse -- the last one threw me off into the mud on purpose, which resulted in our trail leader/teacher/new friend the local bedouin having a screaming match with her in horse language. I was brave though, I got right back on and disciplined her the rest of the ride (i.e. only allowed her to walk slowly), earning me a nod of approval from our teacher.
And yes, we hang out at a polo club, which has a lovely garden pub with outdoor seating overlooking the jumping paddock. But it is cool, there is a huge variety of patrons, of all nationalities (not just snobby whities), the beer is cheap, and the whole atmosphere is peaceful and rejuvenating--some thing very important for life out here.
But we have had some adventures and a lot of mundane working--Harry on some pissing off piddly litigation issues and Sadie on a pile of fricken complicated financial docs. Obviously, the adventures will be of more interest to all of you.....
Our current stockpile of tales to tell all emerge from our struggle with adjusting to this place. After a few months we were really sick of the racism (especially for Indians), the prostitutes in our neighborhood, the rattling in our brand-new not cheap car that the service guys said was Sadie's imagination (NOT--they were not used to women who know cars....), and in general the meaningless lifestyle of self-indulgence that many expats fall victim to. Not to mention that it is profoundly depressing to have a combined income of more than you ever had before and still walk around the malls unable to afford anything.......(its all either crap priced really high, or luxury brands priced even higher!--I can't even tell you how difficult it is to find a nice ladies suit.....).
So we decided to get proactive. Rather than wallow in our misery, we would learn everything we could about this place, including arabic, and have a meaningful experience regardless of the negatives. So we went to the book store, read up on the history, and started exploring parts of the city. Which brought us to.....
The horses. This region is culturally rich, although it is not readily apparant as in some countries. One beautiful example of the heritage here is the importance of horses. Arabian horses are famous worldwide for their beauty, speed, and now we have come to understand, completely head strong and emotional attitudes.
We came across the polo club in Dobby by accident. Normally Iwould never have stepped near something called a polo club, and Harry was more interested in other things at first. But a friend invited me for a desert ride, and cluelessly I agreed.
Now I used to take riding lessons, and have been on many "trail rides" on nice chubby American horses. But always in a western-style saddle. This desert ride was NOT on a cushy wide saddle with a slightly fat hourse looking for its next snack in the bushes. No way. This ride was on Arabian horses trained for endurance races by the local bedouin endurance racing champion cum ride leader/teacher on a miniscule thing they call an English saddle and really short reigns.
What could I say but OH F*&^% once I realized what was about to happen to me.......
And happen it did.....those horses took off at a fast canter, with me bouncing around on the tiny saddle, and mine would not stop (partially because I was giving it western-riding cues and not proper non-western riding cues). We ended up in a battle of wills, the horse and I, that we both basically lost when my horse turned around to head for the stables 5 kms out in the desert, and the trail leader chased us down, grabbed the reigns, and spent the next hour holding me and the horse right next to him on his horse. The horse stayed mad at me however and tried to mess around every time the guide turned his head, despite having her reigns held tightly by him. I swear she was f**&^^%&-ing with my head.
How embarassing. But also enlightening. In that two hour period I realized that the something missing here was finally found. Despite such a harrowing experience, I signed up for riding lessons right away. And so did Harry, who happens to be a complete natural with these Arabians. And it is one thing in Dobby that is actually affordable.
So now we go every weekend for our lessons and desert rides, and slowly we are improving. Harry by leaps and bounds, and me a bit more slowly, as I seem to have a battle of wills with every horse -- the last one threw me off into the mud on purpose, which resulted in our trail leader/teacher/new friend the local bedouin having a screaming match with her in horse language. I was brave though, I got right back on and disciplined her the rest of the ride (i.e. only allowed her to walk slowly), earning me a nod of approval from our teacher.
And yes, we hang out at a polo club, which has a lovely garden pub with outdoor seating overlooking the jumping paddock. But it is cool, there is a huge variety of patrons, of all nationalities (not just snobby whities), the beer is cheap, and the whole atmosphere is peaceful and rejuvenating--some thing very important for life out here.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Other People's Stories
Normally, Harry and I have so many things to share with you we can't fit them into our time to blog. But recently we have heard a couple stories from other people we just have to share.
1. CSI Dobby
A lady Sadie knows from jazzercise class, Karen, had the following experience. She and her family were asleep one night on the second floor of their home when they were robbed. In the morning, once they realized the laptop, camera, and cell phones were gone, they called up the police. The policeman asked for their location, and Karen told him the neighborhood, compound name, and the landmarks (we don't have street addresses here). He said the cops were on the way.
Two hours later, Karen gets a call from said policeman. What neighborhood are you in? Where is your house? We can't find it. She gives him the same information again, hears a pause, and then, OK twenty minutes. An hour later she gets another call from the same guy. Where is your house? What neighborhood? She tells him again, and he says, why are you not outside looking for us? She informs him her husband has been waiting in the front yard for almost three hours. He says OK and finally the police team shows up half an hour later (this house is not in a remote area but in a well-known gated compound in the middle of the expat part of town).
Once the police finally arrived, after three hours of supposedly looking for the house, the investigation began in full force. As Karen put it, her house was swarmed by about fifteen men in their white Khandoras, looking for fingerprints, evidence, etc. Very CSI. None of them introduced themselves, so she and her husband just stood there until the guy in charge came up to ask them questions.
But this guy hardly spoke English. So he sent another guy off to find an English speaker. The "English" speaker arrived, listened to his boss, turned to Karen, opened his mouth to speak, and then said he could not translate and dashed off to get another "English" speaker. This process was repeated two more times until they got to the guy who could actually act as an interpreter for his boss.
So the questions begin, etc. And Karen is informed that the family all need to give samples of their fingerprints so the police can figure out who the thieves are. Karen says no problem, we will come to the station with you now. But no, this is not possible. Her husband and sons can go to the station. But for women, there is only one station in Dobby where women can give their fingerprints. It is on the other side of town in the middle of a major industrial area.
At this point, rather than losing her cool like I would, Karen calmly gets out her map and says, no problem, just show me where and I'll go this afternoon. The guy looks at the map, points to an area of about two square kilometers and says there. In Dobby, this is NOT specific enough. Karen could be lost for hours. So she politely asks, please, sir, what street? By what landmark? The guy looks at the map, calls a couple colleagues over, they look at the map, discuss, look at the map again. Then he turns to Karen and asks, how long have you been here? She is confused but replies, three years. And the fellow says, I have Italian friend. He has been here for one year and knows everywhere in Dobby. How can you not know where this police station is? And walks off.
If you are not already laughing, let me just point out, as Karen did to us: How audacious! This guy is a policeman, and he could not tell Karen how to get to the police station (this is after it took three hours for them to find her house)! Moreover, he had the balls to blame her for not learning where everything is in Dobby at the same time he could not point out where she needed to go. Poor chap--maybe he was just having a bad day.
2. Not Beautiful Enough for the Scarf
We had the pleasure of spending Christmas day with the friends of one of our friends (and Harry's colleague) having what I think was a "British" Christmas at a restaurant. The day was really nice, and we had the chance to get to know some people outside of the legal circles here in Dobby. One family spent six years living in Saudi Arabia--Riyadh--about ten years ago. And the wife/mother of this family had the following, hilarious, anecdote to share.
Mrs. P arrived in Saudi with her husband a couple years before the birth of their son. Saudi women are required to be completely covered, but Western women are required to wear the shayla, or black head-scarf only. Apparently there are morality police walking around everywhere enforcing these clothing requirements.
Now Mrs. P did not make a special effort to conform with the rules, carrying her scarf with her rather than wear it. This was common practice among her friends too. One day she was in a shop with her mates when a morality policeman came in, saw these ladies, and pointed at all of them except Mrs. P telling them to put on their scarves (which of course they did). Mrs. P was really excited that she "got away" with not having to put on her scarf. She continued to avoid wearing it and no one said anything to her for almot two years.
But during this time period, Mrs. P started to wonder, why are they not telling me to wear my scarf? After pondering this for some time, she came to the following conclusion: she was not beautiful enough to require covering. If the point of covering up is to prevent beautiful women from tempting men, then no one was asking her to cover up because she did not present any real threat of temptation. While we were all laughing at this somewhat rational but also completely ridiculous logical conclusion (Mrs. P is quite beautiful now, so she must have been a real babe then) Mrs. P pointed out that at the time she actually believed herself a bit.
So one day, when coming up an escalator into a market (and pregnant), a morality policeman spotted her from the top, pointed at her and yelled "scarf" ("hijab"). And Mrs. P said Yes! Laughed out loud, pulled out her scarf, and did a little dance up the rest of the escalator. This freaked the policeman out of course, but Mrs. P was finally content--now she was a beautiful, threatening temptation too!
1. CSI Dobby
A lady Sadie knows from jazzercise class, Karen, had the following experience. She and her family were asleep one night on the second floor of their home when they were robbed. In the morning, once they realized the laptop, camera, and cell phones were gone, they called up the police. The policeman asked for their location, and Karen told him the neighborhood, compound name, and the landmarks (we don't have street addresses here). He said the cops were on the way.
Two hours later, Karen gets a call from said policeman. What neighborhood are you in? Where is your house? We can't find it. She gives him the same information again, hears a pause, and then, OK twenty minutes. An hour later she gets another call from the same guy. Where is your house? What neighborhood? She tells him again, and he says, why are you not outside looking for us? She informs him her husband has been waiting in the front yard for almost three hours. He says OK and finally the police team shows up half an hour later (this house is not in a remote area but in a well-known gated compound in the middle of the expat part of town).
Once the police finally arrived, after three hours of supposedly looking for the house, the investigation began in full force. As Karen put it, her house was swarmed by about fifteen men in their white Khandoras, looking for fingerprints, evidence, etc. Very CSI. None of them introduced themselves, so she and her husband just stood there until the guy in charge came up to ask them questions.
But this guy hardly spoke English. So he sent another guy off to find an English speaker. The "English" speaker arrived, listened to his boss, turned to Karen, opened his mouth to speak, and then said he could not translate and dashed off to get another "English" speaker. This process was repeated two more times until they got to the guy who could actually act as an interpreter for his boss.
So the questions begin, etc. And Karen is informed that the family all need to give samples of their fingerprints so the police can figure out who the thieves are. Karen says no problem, we will come to the station with you now. But no, this is not possible. Her husband and sons can go to the station. But for women, there is only one station in Dobby where women can give their fingerprints. It is on the other side of town in the middle of a major industrial area.
At this point, rather than losing her cool like I would, Karen calmly gets out her map and says, no problem, just show me where and I'll go this afternoon. The guy looks at the map, points to an area of about two square kilometers and says there. In Dobby, this is NOT specific enough. Karen could be lost for hours. So she politely asks, please, sir, what street? By what landmark? The guy looks at the map, calls a couple colleagues over, they look at the map, discuss, look at the map again. Then he turns to Karen and asks, how long have you been here? She is confused but replies, three years. And the fellow says, I have Italian friend. He has been here for one year and knows everywhere in Dobby. How can you not know where this police station is? And walks off.
If you are not already laughing, let me just point out, as Karen did to us: How audacious! This guy is a policeman, and he could not tell Karen how to get to the police station (this is after it took three hours for them to find her house)! Moreover, he had the balls to blame her for not learning where everything is in Dobby at the same time he could not point out where she needed to go. Poor chap--maybe he was just having a bad day.
2. Not Beautiful Enough for the Scarf
We had the pleasure of spending Christmas day with the friends of one of our friends (and Harry's colleague) having what I think was a "British" Christmas at a restaurant. The day was really nice, and we had the chance to get to know some people outside of the legal circles here in Dobby. One family spent six years living in Saudi Arabia--Riyadh--about ten years ago. And the wife/mother of this family had the following, hilarious, anecdote to share.
Mrs. P arrived in Saudi with her husband a couple years before the birth of their son. Saudi women are required to be completely covered, but Western women are required to wear the shayla, or black head-scarf only. Apparently there are morality police walking around everywhere enforcing these clothing requirements.
Now Mrs. P did not make a special effort to conform with the rules, carrying her scarf with her rather than wear it. This was common practice among her friends too. One day she was in a shop with her mates when a morality policeman came in, saw these ladies, and pointed at all of them except Mrs. P telling them to put on their scarves (which of course they did). Mrs. P was really excited that she "got away" with not having to put on her scarf. She continued to avoid wearing it and no one said anything to her for almot two years.
But during this time period, Mrs. P started to wonder, why are they not telling me to wear my scarf? After pondering this for some time, she came to the following conclusion: she was not beautiful enough to require covering. If the point of covering up is to prevent beautiful women from tempting men, then no one was asking her to cover up because she did not present any real threat of temptation. While we were all laughing at this somewhat rational but also completely ridiculous logical conclusion (Mrs. P is quite beautiful now, so she must have been a real babe then) Mrs. P pointed out that at the time she actually believed herself a bit.
So one day, when coming up an escalator into a market (and pregnant), a morality policeman spotted her from the top, pointed at her and yelled "scarf" ("hijab"). And Mrs. P said Yes! Laughed out loud, pulled out her scarf, and did a little dance up the rest of the escalator. This freaked the policeman out of course, but Mrs. P was finally content--now she was a beautiful, threatening temptation too!
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Car Chronicles
Now that we cruise around in relative safety, I have started noticing more and more about our new home. The following short "postettes" chronicle some anecdotes and observations:
1. Impromptu Drive-Thru. I wish I could clearly communicate what it is like driving around so many Land Rovers, massive Mercs, and Land Cruisers. They are EVERYWHERE. That said, one Land Rover in particular is the subject at hand.
Now that it has been three months, I must admit I have my favorite coffee shops. One of them is in the swanky, European part of town (in reality there are many Gulf Arabs here too). This coffee shop is on a corner of a small street and major street, with a wide sidewalk on both the front and side.
I am sitting inside enjoying my coffee when I hear a screech--a Land Rover has just pulled up to the door, via the curb and the sidewalk ! With a local woman inside. She beckons the coffee-counter person, who comes dutifully running out.
Now this is a coffee shop. Not a drivethru Starbucks like we have in the US. It has windows, a normal door, and people WALK there on the sidewalk. But not today. The coffee-person makes the drinks, runs them out to the woman in the car, takes the money, runs the change back out. And the woman screeches off the sidewalk, through the parallel parked cars on the street, and on her merry way.
2. Jamal al-Junera. This same neighborhood is known for its white ladies with rich husbands who spend their days shopping. These ladies are affectionately known as Junera Janes. ( We live in a less-swanky part of town but Harry calls me Bur Dobby Betty). But this area has another, less advertised feature. It is also the hangout of Gulf Arab men, driving really nice Mercedes and SUVs, and wearing their crisp white Kandhoras. There are so many of them here that it's hard to find parking. So Harry and I have affectionately named them Jamal al-Juneras (the Al prefix in Arabic functions as "the", which is then used to form an adjective).
3. Landing up in La-La-Land. A most unfortunate feature of driving in Dobby is the frequent risk of starting off with a destination in mind, missing the one turn for that destination because you are in the wrong lane (even if you thought otherwise), and finding yourself in another emirate or city before you can turn around. For example, the neighboring city (about 15 kms away) is Shanda. It is on the other side of "old" Dobby. Shanda is not a destination. It was big in the eighties, but due to conservative social and business practices, has fallen far behind Aboo and Dobby.
However, twice for Sadie and once for Harry, Shanda has become an accidental destination, replacing the original destination of our favorite, Ikea (although it is NOT on the way or even nearby). At first we felt really frustrated, and a little ashamed about these terrible mix-ups. Then in the course of chatting with others we discovered landing up in Shanda has happened to everyone. At least once if not more. And it could be worse--one poor chap was on his way to a mall right in the center of Dobby, but ended up in Al-Ein, a tiny city about 100 kms from here.
So now we have perspective (and a new threat)--at least we have not ended up in Al-Ein!
1. Impromptu Drive-Thru. I wish I could clearly communicate what it is like driving around so many Land Rovers, massive Mercs, and Land Cruisers. They are EVERYWHERE. That said, one Land Rover in particular is the subject at hand.
Now that it has been three months, I must admit I have my favorite coffee shops. One of them is in the swanky, European part of town (in reality there are many Gulf Arabs here too). This coffee shop is on a corner of a small street and major street, with a wide sidewalk on both the front and side.
I am sitting inside enjoying my coffee when I hear a screech--a Land Rover has just pulled up to the door, via the curb and the sidewalk ! With a local woman inside. She beckons the coffee-counter person, who comes dutifully running out.
Now this is a coffee shop. Not a drivethru Starbucks like we have in the US. It has windows, a normal door, and people WALK there on the sidewalk. But not today. The coffee-person makes the drinks, runs them out to the woman in the car, takes the money, runs the change back out. And the woman screeches off the sidewalk, through the parallel parked cars on the street, and on her merry way.
2. Jamal al-Junera. This same neighborhood is known for its white ladies with rich husbands who spend their days shopping. These ladies are affectionately known as Junera Janes. ( We live in a less-swanky part of town but Harry calls me Bur Dobby Betty). But this area has another, less advertised feature. It is also the hangout of Gulf Arab men, driving really nice Mercedes and SUVs, and wearing their crisp white Kandhoras. There are so many of them here that it's hard to find parking. So Harry and I have affectionately named them Jamal al-Juneras (the Al prefix in Arabic functions as "the", which is then used to form an adjective).
3. Landing up in La-La-Land. A most unfortunate feature of driving in Dobby is the frequent risk of starting off with a destination in mind, missing the one turn for that destination because you are in the wrong lane (even if you thought otherwise), and finding yourself in another emirate or city before you can turn around. For example, the neighboring city (about 15 kms away) is Shanda. It is on the other side of "old" Dobby. Shanda is not a destination. It was big in the eighties, but due to conservative social and business practices, has fallen far behind Aboo and Dobby.
However, twice for Sadie and once for Harry, Shanda has become an accidental destination, replacing the original destination of our favorite, Ikea (although it is NOT on the way or even nearby). At first we felt really frustrated, and a little ashamed about these terrible mix-ups. Then in the course of chatting with others we discovered landing up in Shanda has happened to everyone. At least once if not more. And it could be worse--one poor chap was on his way to a mall right in the center of Dobby, but ended up in Al-Ein, a tiny city about 100 kms from here.
So now we have perspective (and a new threat)--at least we have not ended up in Al-Ein!
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