S -X C !!! (Our new car)

Miracle of miracles, we have jumped through the red tape, and are now the proud owners of a new vehicle. After three months of research, we finally settled on a Volvo XC 90, and wound up buying the sporty version in red with white leather interior, thus her name: S-XC! Sexy!

The road to this point was rocky. Although the car market in Dobby is famous for selling the most top-end cars of any other market, there is one minor point not readily apparent when you come here: choice is an illusion.

Yes, we see Bentleys and Rolls and freakishly large Beamers and Mercs on a daily basis. Range Rovers and Maseratis are everywhere, and even Lamborghinis and Ferraris are common enough that you hardly take notice (but rather criticize anonymous owners on their color choices). All this implies an incredible amount of variety must be available.

No so. Unlike other places, where you go to buy a car and are expected to wade through a long list of optional, variable details, here you don't. Cars -- even high end--come in one or two packages, with few color choices, and while options may be available theoretically, in reality you either must wait for months to get a car with even one option changed from standard, or you must pay a fee to "break" the package, the extra for the options, and then wait a few months for your vehicle to arrive. And this is on top of routine shortages associated with a market growing as quickly as this one--many things are frequently out of stock.

But it is OK! With the restricted choices, we have been forced into selecting our passion red/white-leather-interior vehicle--a statement we might not normally make unless pushed. And now we love it.

Plus, as our friend the former rally-racer said: thank god you chose the red, otherwise you would be like some middle-aged boring-a** old fogies driving around in your extra-safe-and-geeky Volvo. Of course, with a house full of Ikea and now a vehicle designed in the same country, we might be increasing our "Swedification" exposure. But so what--you want a piece of me? Bugger-off, we have a RED car!

Muslim Barbie

Meet Fulla. According to the local paper, she is a big hit in Egypt, Syria, and other Muslim countries. Fulla is a good girl. In contrast to slutty Western Barbie, Fulla dresses in modest clothing, with skirts below the knee and even a proper black abaya for going to the mosque. Our paper featured “Evening Prayers” Fulla, in a sparkly pink hijab rather than full on black abaya and shayla, but this may just be her everyday wear.

Parents think Fulla is a good role model—she wants to be a doctor or a teacher, unlike Western Barbie who appears to want to be a rockstar. Fulla prefers spending time with her family to other, riskier, social activities. And most importantly, Fulla does not have a boyfriend, much less an ambiguously straight Ken companion.

Of course, in the very same paper touting the virtues of Fulla, Giselle Bunchen graced the social page under the heading “role model”. Somehow, having both these females simultaneously as role models creates a hardware melt-down in my head. If I have to choose, I’ll probably go with Fulla. What would you choose?

Dobby Derby

Yes, it is official. I have started driving in Dobby. Our taxi traumas are a thing of the past! But, as with many things, eliminating one thing opens up a vacuum. And in this case, that vacuum has been filled—the delightful horror of which I can only attempt to describe in the rest of this post.

At first glance, Dobby is a very modern city, with posh, glitzy stuff everywhere. This is the first glance. The second, third, and many glances later start to crack this façade; in some cases shattering it completely. For example, there are fabulous high rise towers in this city, with beautiful architecture and interesting designs. Glamorous! But, no one thought to build any extra parking lots to accommodate all the people who will supposedly be living and working in these buildings. So everyone has to park in one of the few buildings that has parking (built in the 1980s), creating—as you can imagine—a complete cluster-f*^#% on the way to and from work! Swanky Dobby is reduced to Sh**%@ Dobby very quickly when finding parking takes more than an hour.

Further, the “new” part of Dobby is the most glamorous. The “old” part of Dobby is quite depressing. And impossible to navigate, as I can personally attest to having completely lost myself twice in this area on what was supposed to be an “easy” trip to a mall. Several hours later, after many tearful calls to Harry, a completely numb bladder, (and surviving the gross stares of the men walking in the streets—this city is something like 70 % men), I found myself back on our side of town after traveling around the airport, a major industrial area, several colleges for Emiraitis, and almost all the way to the neighboring city. While distances here are not on par with some cities in the US, Dobby is actually quite spread out so getting anywhere takes time.

Since these physically and emotionally painful experiences, I have become a bit critical about the driving situation. But there are some things to laugh about. First, the problems:

1. Some people (i.e. locals) don’t seem to care about loss of life. Let’s call this the “Inshallah factor”. If today is your day to die, so be it! I do not subscribe to this way of thinking. (It also really only works if you are a local. Concepts of negligence and duties to others seem to have little legal teeth here—if you are an expat though, you will likely be blamed in incidents with locals regardless of fault—and regardless of God’s will!).

2. The roads seem cool and sophisticated at first. But in reality, they are poorly planned. There is basically one route to any given location, so if you miss a turn or an exit, you are completely screwed—it will take an hour to correct it! The medians on most roads are fences, which means you cannot turn left except very rarely, and most traffic lights are so poorly timed it can take half an hour to go through one intersection or round-about.

3. Navigation is by neighborhood. Arabic-named neighborhood. For me to go from my house to where I teach dance class, I must know the four or five neighborhoods in between, follow the signs precisely (which sometimes give you about ten feet to change across three lanes of traffic) and not let my directional sense get in the way as often you must go in the opposite way from where you feel you are supposed to go because turns are so restricted. Plus, visibility is limited thanks to all the Range Rovers and big trucks on the roads.

4. Some streets have names (mostly named for Sheikh's—which makes it hard to remember which street is which). But these names usually are not labeled at intersections—if they are labeled at all. Every neighborhood has a collection of numbered streets in no logical order. So for example, I turn onto street 22, which intersects with street 7, where I turn for our building. I have not seen a street 8 or 9 or 23 in our neighborhood, although every neighborhood seems to have a 7 and a 22. Go figure!

5. Using turn signals must indicate weakness. Or many drivers are just ignorant about the function of the turn signal. As a result, cars change lanes with no warning, and often they do not even look to see if someone is already there. In the middle of rush hour traffic why would anyone be "there" anyway?

6. TRAFFIC. This is truly indescribable. And I have lived in Los Angeles, near San Francisco, in Dallas, and spent time in Paris, New York, and other places. Grid lock can get so bad it can literally take hours to go a few kilometers. This problem is of course exacerbated by points 1-5, and especially number 2. Rather than miss a turn, people will just stop in the middle of the road and force their way across other lanes to the exit or turn, even backing up sometimes. At first I was horrified by this behavior. But now I understand—if you miss that bloody turn you will need two hours to get back to try again!!

But there are some positives to complement this problematic scenario. Traffic issues are a constant source of public discussion. Construction projects are everywhere, and include a train and several more bridges and ring roads in crucial areas. And best of all, we have the government office in charge of roads and traffic, which regularly communicates with the public through the local papers and road signs. These ads alone are almost worth the traffic problems:

1. “We are working on it!” (Desperate sounding half-page add in the morning paper—listing all the projects and when they should be done against a background of the ideal traffic flow of three cars on a major highway).

2. “Good-Driver Reward Program—Drive well and you could win 750 dirhams!” (The police drive around and pull over 15 people per day they think are driving well—i.e. using signals and not being overly aggressive—then they give them money instead of a ticket and announce their names on the radio. Seems like a good idea, but shouldn’t the police be pulling the bad drivers over?).

3..“Speeding is a Sin. Speeders are Sinners." (I think this likely makes more sense in Arabic than English—but the overall strategy of getting Allah involved is probably good.)

4. And my favorite: “Opinion Polls—What do you think about the Traffic Situation?” (I have not been interviewed, but some ladies I know were polled by policemen at their kids’ school. One lady said she talked to the guy for 45 minutes and told him everything she thought about the roads, drivers, locals, all of it. She said his eyes got bigger and bigger and finally the interview ended with a weak “thank-you madam………”.

I am not sure which oughtweighs which--the negatives or positives. While contemplating this post this morning at the gym, I tried to distill my thoughts into one piece of advice for anyone driving in this enticing city. Although there are so many things to consider on the road, there really is only one thing that stands clear as a "must": always use the loo before you get in the car. Always! You never know how long you are going to be out there in the fray.

Case in point—after having my great thought this morning I followed my own advice, got in the car, and headed home. At the first intersection I got rear-ended by, funnily enough, a henna-dye-bearded-Pakistani dude in a 1994 Teal Toyota Tercel (heheheh—for those of you that know our old car). We both jumped out of our cars, looked at the damage, made phone calls, etc. I decided no real damage had been done, but the whole process took a while. So getting home took an hour instead of 30 minutes. My bladder thanked me for following my advice. Yours will too.

Food Update II

This is far overdue!

First, a major correction: Mottabal and Baba Gonouj. I incorrectly described these two dishes in a previous post. While both are made with eggplant, we in the US have incorrectly named Mottabal (pureed eggplant with tahini, olive oil, and lemon) Baba Ganouj (which is actually finely chopped eggplant, onions, and peppers mashed a little with olive oil, lemon, and salt). So what you order in the US as Baba Ganouj is actually Mottabal here. Both are delicious!

As for new food experiences, we have both been so busy nothing too exciting has come our way. I did have to opportunity to try Hyderbadi Indian food, which was quite spicy and delicious. Especially the Mutton Biriyani, which is a rice dish slowly cooked with meat and spices added separately. We also found a typical American food restaurant with delicious quiches, brownies, and prepared salads. And our Thai restaurant next door has great Thai iced tea and Phad Thai (that comes with a flat scrambled egg on top) with just the right amount of peanut sauce.

What we have been doing more of lately is shopping and setting up house, including the kitchen. In lieu of more restaurant experiences, I though I would share some of the foods and their source countries we are now using at home. Our honey is from Saudi Arabia, our sugar from Australia, the cereal is from South Africa, milk and ice cream are local, we buy coffee from Spain and Italy (not really new), chocolate from Belgium (definitely not new), and produce comes from India. We never thought our own cupboards would reflect theories of comparative advantage so clearly! We feel very global.

As Requested: "Arab Bling"

In response to a request, please see the following website for a sampling of what has been affectionately referred to as "Arab Bling" in previous posts. Sadly, our camera was stolen (strange for a city that claims to have no crime--what we have here is a Hot Fuzz situation, for those of you familiar with the movie). So no personal photos from us at the moment.

http://www.debaj.com/ (you have to close the window in arabic text to get to the correct page).

Specially note the bedsets and fancy curtains.

Debits and Credits: Female Fasting Accounting

Many of you either knew, or now know, about fasting during Ramadan. But there is much more to the thirty days of fasting than first meets the eye. For example, children who cannot handle fasting do not fast, nor do elderly people, or those with serious medical conditions. Business travelers may not have to fast, and those employed in certain types of jobs may qualify for fasting exemptions. Pregnant or nursing women do not fast, and women are not supposed to fast when they are on their periods.

Sounds nice, right ladies? One small advantage exchanged for a week of PMS or nine months of a big belly?

But sadly, it is not so simple, and thus the title above.

For women, and in some situations for men too, these non-fasting days do not disappear. They accumulate. Every day of Ramadan spent pregnant, breast-feeding, or on your period is still a fasting day that must be made up later. So if you become pregnant the month before Ramadan, have your baby nine months later, breastfeed for eighteen months, and then have regular monthly periods, you will miss three 30 day cycles of fasting and interrupt the forth cycle. This means 100 days of fasting must be made up before you stop fasting due to old age. And not only do you have to make up these days, you must keep track of them—a daunting task in itself!

Of course, whether you fast at all is really between you and Allah, including these make-up days. Depending on the level of comfort with Allah, and the level of concern about fulfilling obligations in this life, before meeting Allah in person after death to do a final accounting of all earthly actions, I believe individuals have different accounting methods of varying accuracy. That is Allah’s business.

What I can speak to here are the accounting practices of several women I know. One lady is quite stringent, keeping track to the day how many more make-up days she has from three pregnancies and cycles of breastfeeding, her periods over the last twenty years, and days made up so far. Her current account balance is forty-five left to go to break even before the next Ramadan. Since she is migrating to Canada next year, and is terrified of the cold, this particular lady has decided to make up her fasting days before next summer. With forty-five days left, at least ten periods between now and then, and eliminating weekend days because she does not want to fast when her kids are home (it makes her too angry), she has quite a task! I think she fasts one day a week, and sometimes two.

Another woman is a more relaxed type. She is not sure how many days she has to make up from her two kids and fifteen years or so of periods. She says she will get to it eventually, Insha’allah. This lady is noticeably more relaxed than Lady A.

So ladies, which type of accounting philosophy would you subscribe to in this situation?

Cabbie Update

Although our hours and hours spent in cabs are due to diminish soon, some cabbie-time is necessary, and we have decided to include the “Cabbie Update” as a regular feature on this blog. Some of these guys are just too hilarious not to share with you. For today’s fare we have:

1. The Bigamist--Mr. Bigamist showed up for a solo trip I made to yet another mall in search of house-wares. At first he seemed normal. A Pakistani police officer from Lahore, here in Dobby because being a police officer in Pakistan right now is basically a recipe for death or permanent injury. We talked about Pakistani politics, and after a while he asked me where I was from, surprised by how much I knew about Pakistan (thanks to Harry and all our other cabbies).

Once I told him my husband is Indian, this guy launched into a long soliloquy about his college girlfriend, how much he loved her, and how his family would not permit him to marry her because she was not the right caste. I made appropriate compassionate noises, at least until he came out with how he is married to his first cousin now, and has two children that he loves, but he actually can’t stand his wife because he has known her all his life. That’s when I stopped being understanding and started thinking “asshole…..’. But the real kicker was when, in all seriousness, he told me he is looking for another wife. Not a replacement wife; an additional wife. By this time my eyebrows were at my hairline with sadly no place to go when he asked me, “so, do you know any US women?”

I told him we don’t tolerate that kind of arrangement, paid him, and basically fled the cab.

2. The Giggler—If only I had a recording of this completely incomprehensible cabbie from India. Harry and I got in his cab after looking for a taxi for almost two hours on a busy Sunday (first day of the workweek) morning. Both of us were pissed-off, hot, and Harry was over an hour late for work. We climbed in the back, and Mr. Giggle immediately started talking about something; I later found out even Harry could not understand him. He looked at our faces, started giggling, and then turned on the radio to Sheryl Crowe’s “Everyday is a Winding Road” bull#*@* song about feeling fine, which we were not. All this while he continued talking and giggling, and we giggled back at him, with me thinking Harry understood what he was talking about.

After a while Mr. G asked where we were from. Harry said India, and she’s from America. The guy got this glint in his eye and said: “Made in India”, “Made in USA”, giggling and pointing at each of us respectively. I had to crack up for real at that one, at least until he pointed out the window at an ad on the side of a truck picturing a white woman in a sports bra. Here he gave an evil giggle, said something like “she made in USA too”, at which point Harry was not laughing and thankfully we arrived at the office soon after. Bastard.

Insha’allah: “If God wills…” *

Fajr 4.02am, Shorooq (sunrise) 5.19am, Zuhr (noon) 11.30am, Asr (afternoon) 2.58pm, Maghreb (sunset) 5.43pm, Isha (night) 7.13pm.

Many people know Muslims are supposed to pray five times per day, at specific times, and facing in the direction of the holy city Mecca. Here in Dobby, the local papers publish the prayer timings every day, and if you are near a mosque or in a mall or large store you will hear the calls to prayer at midday, twice in the late afternoon, and once in the early evening. Hotel rooms are marked with an arrow in the direction of Mecca, and apparently you can buy compasses that point to Mecca rather than north to assist in proper-prayer alignment.

If you are unlucky, and you did not read the special expat guide to living in Dobby saying watch out for apartments near mosques, you will hear the first prayer of the day between 4:30 and 5:30 every morning. This picture is a sample of the prayer timings on any given day in the Gulf region, and actually there are six timings because I believe two of the prayers can be combined. Preparing for prayer usually requires special ablutions and washing, at least to the extent practicable (most malls, hotels, and large stores have prayer and ablutions rooms; separate for men and women of course).

Besides daily ritual prayer, there are four other pillars (duties) required in Islam: profession of faith; paying alms tax (zakat); fasting during Ramadan; and the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca once in one’s lifetime. As a note, these five pillars are required by Sunni Islam, but Shi’a Islam usually requires some version of them along with up to three other pillars, depending on the sect. Aside from these main unifying factors, Muslims are quite a diverse lot, reflecting a huge variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds. So what you may think is “Muslim” is really a reflection of any given group’s unique heritage and its assimilation of Islam.

But let us get back to praying. Before Harry and I moved into our permanent apartment, we lived in the batcave apartments. These apartments are truly indescribable in their full horror, the one redeeming factor being a really nice gym overlooking the main road in town. Seeing as I am temporarily a lady of leisure, I took advantage of this gym daily, for health purposes, and my favorite activity of spying on others, known in polite circles as “people watching”.

So I am sweating and people-watching away when the noon-time prayers hit. Outside my window are the parking lot, sidewalk, construction zone, and a little green space with a tree set to beautify our apartment complex. Because we are very centrally located, this space is also a major passage for business people and others around the area. And this fine day the small patch of grass became the personal prayer area for one dishdasha-dressed man and his piece of cardboard-cum-prayer mat.

At first I felt quite lucky and a little naughty—watching a Muslim pray in the direction of Mecca is beautiful and quite moving, although I did feel somewhat the voyeur. But I watched him anyway. After a couple minutes of standing and bending completely flat in child’s pose, Mr. D-D finished up sitting on his heels with his fingers on his eyes. The gesture was really poignant.

And that’s when, God willing, some prayer was answered. As Mr. D-D made one final prostration, an absolutely beautiful, overly put-together (non-abaya) BABE sways around the corner and comes into his line of vision. He is sitting up and catches sight of her, his head swiveling 180 degrees from left to right, completely focused on her for a good solid minute, sitting on his heels. Whether she noticed or not I could not tell. After she passed, Mr. D-D got up, put on his sandals, hurled his cardboard into the construction site, and walked away down the road. Life is good, Insha’Allah!

(Clearly there is something to this daily prayer business…..)


* see this article for more information about this phrase and others (especially the last paragraph).

Ikea: the Expat Rite of Passage

How many of us here in Dobby have made the following journey more times than should be humanly possible?

Wait in cab line—traffic—arrive at massive mall—enter cavernous showroom—struggle through house-wares—lose it in self-service—wait in line—wait in home delivery line—have loud argument with “customer service”—exit massive mall—wait in cab line—traffic—stagger into apartment—collapse.

All for the pleasure of furnishing your place with affordable, sometimes well made, non-bling-i-licious stuff.

To be fair, Ikea in Dobby is actually a lifesaver. Without it, we would be paying twice as much for crap made in China, but geared-towards-Arab-bling crap, not nicely organized, space- efficient, sometimes not so crappy crap. So ultimately Harry and I are happy with Ikea. My struggle is to carry these feelings into the moment when we are somewhere in the middle of the above sequence of events. Once you have passed the third or forth screaming child, it is really hard not to just start pitching a fit of your own. Harry of course is far better at maintaining his cool than I am.

But we are not alone. Thanks to Ikea, I get to feel like a normal-height female due to all the European families that share our commitment to some concept of value for money. Once in a while not feeling like a tall, gawky stork surrounded by little roundish black birds is good for the spirit. Plus Harry gets a break from the constant barrage of Indian “brothers”.

And speaking objectively, the mall housing Ikea is actually quite nice. It is a massive rendition of a waterfront and canal, where you can walk along the “water” (as soon as construction is completed and the water actually arrives), but still peaceful despite being completely fabricated. Since it is so far off the beaten track, and most people seem to go for Ikea only, outside Ikea is not crowded at all. What a pleasure after elbowing through hoards at other malls, dodging shopping carts and fighting for your place in the toilet cue!

Which brings us to the rite of passage. Now that Harry and I have completed four rounds of the trip to Ikea, we feel we can officially claim the title “Expat” with pride. Yes, we are initiated to the life abroad, where familiar global brands promise, but few deliver with the panache of Ikea—a complete physical, mental, and emotional experience. It could almost become a spiritual discipline.

However, on Friday morning (first day of the week-end) as Harry and I sat on our Ikea couch drinking Ikea coffee from our Ikea coffee cups (after getting up out of our Ikea bed), we looked around, shared a “dawn of realization” glance, and immediately headed off to Zara Home. Unless Ikea gives out prizes to those customers that create potential Ikea advertisements in their own homes, we decided we had to mix it up a little or we might just wake up in the Ikea universe.