Aboo Dobby in Arabian Tights

Around the Neighborhood

2008-02-16T02:21:00.000-08:00

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!

Shout out and Apology

2008-02-16T01:56:00.000-08:00

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 :-).

Good News and Happy Times

2008-02-11T10:55:00.000-08:00

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!

Harry's Debut - Enter Harry Stage Right

2008-01-23T10:43:00.000-08:00

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

Sadie's Battle with THE HORSE

2008-01-23T10:03:00.000-08:00

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.

Other People's Stories

2007-12-27T04:57:00.000-08:00

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!

Car Chronicles

2007-12-23T03:51:00.000-08:00

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!

The Legal Page

2007-12-23T03:13:00.000-08:00

Every day we have the local paper hurled at our apartment door. While in my book it is quite a luxury to have the paper at my door when I step out, this perk is a bit diminished since I have to scrape together the sections into some semblance of a pile in order to read it. But scrape I do and first thing I turn to the national section, home to my favorite: the "court" column.

Before giving you samples from this column, first I must remind everyone that Dobby is in a Muslim country. It can be easy to forget that here when surrounded by so many non-Muslims, most of the time. Many Muslim sensibilities and values are very similar to those in other parts of the world. It is important to remember this basic fact. And some Muslim sensibilities and values are a little different than what we are used to in the West (although not so different from the subcontinent). One such difference involves ideas about appropriate dress and personal presentation--for both men and women. Another involves the possession of alcohol.

That said, the following article caught my eye the other day:

"Secretary 'stripped' to defer paying loan": a Philipina woman is accused of allowing two men to have sex with her. The two men in turn are accused of having "forceful sex" with her and possessing alcohol. I don't know the outcome, but the basic facts involved this woman owing money to her boss and his brother, and supposedly she offered sex in lieu of immediate payment. How is that for a storyline daytime soaps!

"Three men charged with Attempted Murder": This story may be familiar and is quite sad. A French teenage boy was tricked by a local Arab into getting a ride from school, and ended up being raped in the desert. While this guy and his accomplices were finally convicted of rape, it turned out the rapist has AIDS. So the local prosecution have brought a murder case against him. This is an example of non-differing values: it is possible he will be convicted of murder or attempted murder because he knowingly passed on the AIDS virus.

"Girl claims forced to have sex in car": Two local youngsters-16 year-old girl and 20 year-old guy are caught in the car in compromising positions. Now she is claiming he forced her into it. Both are also charged with possession of alcohol.

"Visitor gets jail, fine for carrying fake currency": A guy from Africa is caught with about $ 35K of fake dollars. He claimed he thought they were drawing papers. He was also charged with possession of alcohol.

"Man charged with Grabbing Women's Breast": and possessing alcohol. Apparently some guy grabbed a woman's breast in a mall or something, although the details are vague and it sounds like it might have been consensual. . . . .

And the list goes on. Sometimes entertaining, sometimes very serious, and always educational.

Eid, Christmas, and .........the Shopping Festival!!

2007-12-18T01:23:00.001-08:00

Earlier on this blog we described the Muslim holiday of Eid (Eid-al-Fitr) that marks the end of Ramadan. Now it is time for "the other Eid," or "the Big Eid," more properly known as Eid-al-Adha. This second festival shares a figure with Christianity and Judiasm, as it commemorates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Ismael for Allah.

Eid-al-Adha falls on the tenth day of the Hajj in Mecca, which I just learned begins about two months after the end of Ramadan. Because these holidays are tracked on a lunar calendar, they rotate through the different seasons on the Western calendar. This year, the Hajj and the Big Eid happen to coincide with the other major holidays in December (i.e. Christmas).

This Eid is a four day holiday, which is why it considered bigger than the three-day-Eid after Ramadan. As with the other, going to Eid prayers involves wearing your best duds, and sacrificing your best animals (modern translation: giving to charity). As was pointed out in an article I read, Ramadan and the two Eids fall on the same days every year according to the Muslim calendar. It's just our 365 day calendar that makes it appear to change.

But Eid is actually a bit invisible here in Dubai—especially to us non-Muslims. Sure, we all know we get three whole days off in the private sector! And we know there is a holiday because there are more tourists from the GCC than usual. (Plus the night before Eid started was declared a “dry” night so no booze was available in the bars.) However, lacking the decorative impact of Christmas, Eid seems a bit swallowed, apart from a few “Muslim” decorations in some of the malls.

Not so for Christmas! Christmas decorations are everywhere, although it is unlikely more than 3 percent of the population is Christian. All the malls have Christmas decorations. All the stores have Christmas stuff, including the grocery stores. We can get Italian Panetone, German Stollen, British Mice Pies, South African Christmas pudding, American cakes, and chocolates from everywhere just across the street. A few of our Indian friends even have Christmas trees.

Some of this is charming. Especially when interacting with a Muslim person at the bank, etc. and they wish us “Merry Christmas” followed by a shy little grin for getting it right (must have been part of the English lessons at school….). But some of it is actually disturbing. After all, this is a Muslim country. Has commercialized-Christmas really spread out so far as to take over the U.A.E. as well?

Here is the case in point: Dobby is becoming famous for its annual shopping festival. Supposedly people come from all over the world in December and January to shop, shop, shop till you drop in all the malls and souks. The gorgeous weather this month also attracts the tourists, as does a huge market with stalls from 150 countries that remains open for six straight weeks. Naturally, there are advertisements up everywhere for this festival. There are also lots of decorations on the major roads and landmarks.

And herein lies my concern. These decorations just happen to be green, red, white, and gold. Granted, green, red, and white are the colors of the U.A.E. flag. And National Day was only two weeks ago. But the shapes of the decorations are the source of my suspicion. While not openly Christmas symbols such as bells, branches, bows, etc. the decorations are ALMOST bells, bows, and branches, with nice curves and lines creating patterns that look kinda like bells and bows, etc.

When I brought this point up to some new friends, I was basically dismissed with a “those are for the shopping festival” (silly). But come on. This place is covered in Christmas symbols and decorations! Even the major flagpole (supposedly the largest in the world)! People just seem not to realize it…….

Dear Readers:

2007-12-13T01:34:00.000-08:00

We are so sorry! The last four weeks have been very challenging with many things happening at once (internet access problems, setting up house, Sadie finding employment). As a result, we have a great backlog of stories to share with you. Please don't leave us :-). Our holidays are here and we are ready to write!

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

2007-11-28T02:33:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-28T02:03:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-19T05:32:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-19T05:24:00.000-08:00

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"

2007-11-12T00:17:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-05T04:54:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-05T04:11:00.000-08:00

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…” *

2007-11-04T07:58:00.001-08:00

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

2007-11-04T07:40:00.000-08:00

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.

Cash, Charge, or E-card?

2007-10-25T00:05:00.000-07:00

If someone can make sense of the following, you win the grand prize:

1. We have three gas station brands in Dobby--one owned by Dobby, one by Aboo, and one by the entire federation. Recently, the following notice was posted in the paper:

"Starting Saturday, credit cards will no longer be accepted at gas stations due to excessive fees charged by credit card companies. From Saturday on, only cash will be accepted."

What the f*#@*^? Buying gas with cash only? In a country that can't wait to help you charge your mall/hotel/entertainment purchases?

2. Dobby has recently instituted a road usage toll at certain points on major roads. It is only a few dirhams. However, unlike other toll systems, the ONLY way you can pay for this tax is with a special e-card placed on your windshield and purchased at local stores, that you must go into a store to recharge every time you need more credit on it (therefore, there is nothing "e" about it). You cannot pay in cash at the toll point, nor is there a store right by the toll point. If you pass through the sensors without an e-card, your car is photographed and you get a fine in the mail.

Niiiiccccceeeeeeee.........

3. Visiting government offices is a far too frequent experience in the expat life. While things here are well organized to handle people from many different countries, most essential services are provided directly by the government, requiring extra visits to government offices for electricity and water, phone-internet-cable, and of course residency/driving/alcohol/work-related reasons. As everyone in the world knows, rarely is a visit to any government office not accompanied by some type of fee--from reasonable to exorbitant. And here is the catch--some offices accept credit cards and cash. Some accept e-cards (above) and cash. Some accept e-cards only (the real buggers). And some cash only.

How the h*#^ are you supposed to keep up with all that?

The Booze Situation

2007-10-23T04:27:00.000-07:00

Is not good at the moment. Booze is available in bars, etc. The problem with working full-time though is that at night you want to crash out early, not party it up in a pub or club. So no evening beers for Harry and no Baileys for me.

The good news is this will not be a permanent problem! And much to Harry's delight, the special, government-regulated booze-store is literally out our front door (hours are very restricted, and you would never know what they sell there from the street).

The bad news is we have to wait on government bureaucracy, and who knows how long that will take. Here is the supposed sequence:

1. Harry gets residence visa (check)
2. Harry gets special form government labor contract (not checked yet)
3. Harry files for booze card with government, which will list how much booze per month he is allowed to buy based on salary and family size (depends on #2!)
4. Harry gets booze card, and signs form that gives wife permission to buy booze with his card (ouch)**
5. Harry buys booze (Sadie can only buy booze with husband's permission)

We are still stuck on number one. Also--there is a zero tolerance policy for drunk driving here --you drink and drive and get caught, you go to jail and your ass is deported (even if driving on one drink!). Yikes.

**Husband must also sign a form giving wife permission to work. I hope to download a copy of my form on this site once I start laboring away!

Food Update

2007-10-22T08:03:00.000-07:00

Last night we accidentally discovered what just may become my favorite Arabic food dish (apart from fatoosh—see below):

Fatteh (fat-eh).

Fatteh is an appetizer made from garbanzo beans, yogurt, olive oil, garlic, toasted pita chips, and meat optional. It comes in a medium-sized bowl with the toasted, broken up pita on the bottom, topped with warm whole garbanzo beans, garlic and the grape skin spice (a very light sour/bitter taste), yogurt is spread over all of this and then the olive oil and tiny pieces of sautéed meat are put on top. Kind of like a bowl of Arabic nachos. So delicious! The combinations of warm and cold food, spicy and bland flavors, and different textures were great. Harry and I saw the bowl and said, well, I guess we will have some leftovers. But surprise of surprises when we realized it was all gone.

I am loving “Arabic” food (I did not come up with the label “Arabic”—that’s what the restaurants call it -this chef was Syrian). Despite my previous moaning about eating to much, the truth is this food is quite healthy—olive oil is good for you, the meats are all grilled so they are generally not too fatty, and everything seems balanced with carbs/protein/veggies etc. If you avoid the sweets (which I have not tried much of yet so don’t have much to say at this point) I guess you can see why the Mediterranean diet is so applauded!

While I am on this topic, Harry and I have been spending way too much time in malls as we have one week to furnish our house before Harry has to go on a business trip and I will be on my own for a few days. I have noticed, looking around the malls (where everyone goes thanks to the blessed AC!) that there are a lot of people—perhaps most people who appear to be on the robust side. And everyone is eating, eating, eating—all kinds of mall food stuff from delicious corn with butter and spice to Dunkin Doughnuts frosty coffee chillers (like a frappaccino on crack I think) to burgers, pizza, Indian/Thai/Chinese/etc. I commented to Harry that the people here are similar in girth to Americans, only shorter, yet it seems Americans generally are far more concerned with the overweight and obesity epidemic supposedly taking place in the US. He laughed and said, yeah, but Americans feel guilty about being overweight—here it is not such a judgment call. And perhaps that is the answer—Do we Americans have some kind of guilt/moral judgment about eating too much and not being svelte? Your comments are welcome (and maybe it is just in my family…..).

PS: Here is an addendum on several Arabic dishes I wanted to describe in more detail—next time will be Indian.

Fatoosh (Fa –too –sh): Basically a salad made of greens, whole herbs like mint/rosemary/tarragon/etc., and tomatoes. Can include cucumbers, radishes, and onions. Has a really light, non-oily dressing with lots of lemon and the grape skin spice. Toasted or fried pita pieces are sprinkled on top like croutons. Very fresh and juicy—nice when you are thirsty, which is basically all the time.

Motabal (Moo – ta – bal): Another cold appetizer made from grilled eggplant that is lightly mashed with a little tahini and lemon and olive oil. It is different than baba ganouj, which has the same ingredients but blended more finely and is heavier because it has more tahini and olive oil I think. Both are de-lish-ious!

Lime soda: Not really soda, but fresh lime juice with soda water added and simple sugar syrup to your preferred level of sweetness. In Indian restaurants it seems to come in sweet or salty.

The truth about Abayas

2007-10-22T07:57:00.000-07:00

Simultaneous to our home-furnishings hunt, I have been on a hijab hunt for my friend who has limited access to Islamic clothing. The hijab (a shayla is another style) is the scarf many Muslim women wear, although historically (and contemporaneously) there is much variation in how, when, where, and to what extent this garment is used. Here in Dobby we see a huge range of head-coverings, from the just-barely-there (slipping off half the head) style, to the full head-scarf plus veil, plus gloves, plus mask over the brow-bone style. Many women keep their faces bare, and many also skip on the head-covering completely (sometimes you can see the local teenage girls giggling around the mall sans head-scarf and sans abaya).

The abaya (a-bye-ya) is the floor-length black robe that women wear over their clothes in public. Here too there is much variation, as some women leave their abayas open in the front, so you can see the underlying outfits, some women are so completely wrapped up you can’t see anything, not even a toe, some have it closed just to the waist with a long flowing skirt underneath. Some Muslims (Gujurati Shias – Ismailis for example) don’t wear black robes at all, but richly colorful, embroidered robes. All these variations of both hijab/shayla and abaya (and veiling) are a matter of cultural and religious history in addition to personal choice.

Despite such variety in the wearing of these garments, there is one unifying factor—these clothes are beautiful. And I mean BEAUTIFUL. And they are quite feminine and alluring, even with the purpose being to preserve modesty. Although most scarves and almost all robes are black, the decorations and embellishments on them are multicolored—with patterns and detailing in embroidery, crystals, beading, gold and silver stitching, ribbons, you name it. The overall effect is not garish, most detailing is on the sleeves and edges of the scarves, but quite grand. Bling—but toned down bling, not frightening rapper-bling.

Which brings me back to the hijab hunt. I read in the paper that the trend right now in abayas and scarves is to have them decorated with crystals—especially for Eid (the time to wear your best duds) and the surrounding celebrations. I decided to get such a scarf as an Eid gift for my friend, thinking here there is probably much more choice than in her present residence. So Harry and I start going into the abaya stores (these are in all the malls, along with dishdasha and ghutra stores for men where guys have their robes tailor-made, and the sexy evening dress stores for the dresses women get to wear to weddings because the genders remain segregated).

As you may imagine, at first we got blank stares, even though the workers are all either Indian or Philippino, but then we settled into looking at scarves with crystals. And here is the point of this posting. These things are expensive! And I mean tres, tres cher. The material is very fine, either poly-blends or silk, the crystals often Swarovski, and most things made by hand. What was the price range? For scarves 500-1000 dirhams (about 120-300 USD). For abayas, who knows? I did not ask, but imagine at least four to five times that if not more. And now I have a whole new perspective: if you calculate the entire abaya/scarf/designer shoe ensemble, excluding underlying outfits, purses, and jewelry, many women are walking around in the equivalent of haut couture /Armani suits—just on the outside. In my opinion, it’s quite a lovely way to display wealth.

PS: We have since learned that prices in Dobby and Aboo are inflated when compared to the other Emirates, so for our gift we will do a little bargain shopping next door.

PPS: Mom, if you are reading this, I think you would love an abaya—it’s a bit like your preferred teaching uniforms and would be rather imposing in front of a room of fifth graders. Plus an opportunity for cross-cultural learning…….

Meeting the landlord (s)

2007-10-22T07:04:00.000-07:00

We finally have an apartment! What a relief. It is on the edge of the “Indian” part of town, if there is such a thing considering 80 % of Dobby is Indian. Also, it is only a 7 minute drive to the office in non-traffic times (45 minutes at rush hour from 6-9 am and 4-7 pm boo hoo). I wish I could post our building name here, we don't have a street address—navigation is by building name and landmarks, but suffice it to say it is the name of the owner. Nine mere syllables in three words.

Our apartment is owned by Arabs, maybe locals, and they have their offices in the lobby where they manage all their properties in the area. This is very unusual; most of the time when you rent all you deal with is a middle man (a guy from Kerela it seems), and you never see the owner at all.

Although the apartment was painted and “cleaned”, another cleaning was necessary. The building maintenance guy—a young man from Kerela—agreed to do the job for 50 dirhams. This is about 14 dollars, which I could not stomach, so I paid him three times that much (and his friend who came along separately) even though Harry was a little upset with me. While I had them scrubbing away—they had to re-clean about three times because the first round or two was not up to my standards—(just as Harry warned me would happen if I did not keep close watch) I went to get our signed lease from the manager Abu Bakar (another guy from Kerela). Bear with me on the following story:

I walked into the office and realized not only was Abu Baker not there, but the landlords were; they had been on vacation until yesterday. This was my first personal encounter on my own with local men, in full dishdasha and ghutra, and I paused, not sure what to do. As I was standing there, the younger man comes up and says hello, can I help you. I say I am looking for Abu Bakar because I need our signed lease, but I can come back, no problem (really fast). By this time all the other guys have come out of their offices, so I am surrounded by four local guys and speaking too fast for them to really understand me. But the vibe is really kind and friendly (fatherly) and the older guy (the father and main owner) says welcome, welcome, how can we help you, please sit down. So I sit. And looking up at all four of them, tell them I need the papers for apartment 418 because we are just moving in. Another older man says, 410? In this building? You are in this building? So I calm down a little and say slowly with a smile, no Sir, four-one-eight please, the lease is in my husband’s name. He goes and ruffles through a box (remember, three other guys there smiling), looks puzzled, and then says Harry plus plus ? (a little confusion on his face with the non-white name) 418? Ahh, very nice new apartment, yes?

I say Yes Sir, thank you so much, I appreciate your help and pop up ready to run out of there because I am embarrassed at being so jumpy. Then the younger guy, with laughter in his eyes says no no, sit sit, we must make copy, relax. And I sit, with the three of them there smiling, and wait for a couple minutes until the copy is made. The young guy gives me the lease, they all say good-bye, come if you need anything, etc., and I say thanks as I am already moving for the door (my back was actually to them by this point—but I imagine they were laughing).

By the time I got back upstairs, I realized I had not even given my name, and acted like a fool. So I sucked it up, went back downstairs, and went in the office. The young guy came out (remember, all these guys look like kings in their crisp white robes and white ghutra head-pieces) and asked me if I needed anything. I said no, but I did not introduce myself properly, I am Sadie and my husband is Harry. The guy asked again, but do you need anything? I said no, I just did not introduce myself properly before and wanted to correct that. He got this huge smile on his face, gave a little bow with his hand on his chest and said, “I am Abbas (names changed), my father is “first part of building name”, this is my uncle Abdullah (pointing at guy in his office) and this is Mohammad (another guy in the office). We are here everyday, please come if you need anything." I replied -it is really nice to meet you, my husband will come say hello when he can, and thank you for everything. And Abbas says, please give my regards to your husband—again, all of this is with a really warm smile (nothing weird/etc.). I say have a good day and good bye and leave. And that was that, a really warm and pleasant experience over all! Despite my initial nerves, I am really glad to finally interact with people from here and hope to have further opportunities.

(One of our friends who has been here for a couple years said I scored some serious brownie points with my personal introduction because such introductions are important to Arabs—my instincts confirmed that).

Washers and Toilets

2007-10-22T07:02:00.000-07:00

Alas, my clothes-washer fears have proven true. No offense intended to any of our European readers, and in spite of being generally green-conscious, I must admit, I am partial to large, fast American washing machines. And American clothes dryers.

Too bad for me! When we got here, laundry was the last thing on my mind. I glanced in the laundry room, saw the washer and clothes rack, and did not think about laundry again until it came time to do some. Then I realized how this party was going to go down. Here, as in our new place, we have a typical tiny European washing machine. And a drying rack, as opposed to a drying machine. Having spent a lot of time in Europe, I thought, no problem, this is familiar, no worries. But in Europe I never had to get ready for work, never worried about ironing anything, and generally was not so busy that the washer taking three hours was a big deal. Now, with Harry working a lot and me soon to be we hope, these minor annoyances will become major problems. One tiny load takes three hours, then must to be hung to dry, which takes two days even though this is a desert (the air has a lot of humidity and you can’t leave clothes outside due to the dust). Then you must press everything because it is stiff and crunchy (not a pleasing feeling for undies and socks), fold, and put away. This is some time-consuming sh*%^!! Not to mention really hard on the clothes.

Thankfully, I have a solution. In the Indian neighborhood, having laundry done is cheap, so in addition to all our dry-cleaning, I have decided to send almost everything else for laundering and ironing (jeans, pants, casual clothes, etc.). Quite frankly, once I have to iron underwear and socks, other things will put me over the top. Call me a spoiled American. I miss my German mommies.

(In addition to this of course we have no dish washer—the one luxury above all others Harry and I have been fantasizing about. I guess we will have to continue to do so for the next long while.)

Moving on to toilets. Here I had no fears as I like Turkish toilets so would have been fine with either Turkish or “western”. It turns out "western" is the norm. Bathrooms in Dobby are spacious and plentiful, although the mall restrooms are a mess of women and children, many of whom don’t know how to keep a que or care that you were there first—it is truly survival of the fittest. Further, in our apartment search we observed that every apartment had guest bathrooms, even the one-bedrooms had 1.5 to 2, and larger apartments had even more. Our one-bedroom has two full bathrooms, yeaaahh! (we don’t have a guest room, but when you come visit, you get your own private bathroom :-).

But what I did not expect (silly me—I should have) were all the bidets. Yes, every bathroom has one. And I mean EVERY toilet, including public restrooms in the malls, restaurants, grocery store, gym, offices, etc., all the apartments we visited, and of course our own. Sometimes, as in our hotel apartment, the bidets are the style I am familiar with – the kind you sit on. Most of the time however, the bidets are basically a hose coming out of the wall with a spray nozzle on the end (i.e. kitchen sink hose/nozzle for doing dishes) which you then use strategically to accomplish whatever it is you are trying to accomplish. This style is rather intimidating as it appears deft maneuvering is required – a skill I do not have and probably will not fret over for now. All I can say about these bidets, and forgive me for being graphic, is that it is rather unpleasant to enter a public loo after someone who has used one, water is just about everywhere.

PS: I have included this post for those of you that find this stuff interesting (yes you M&M), plus, when you have been traveling for five months like we have, and visiting more than a fair share of public toilets, you start to notice and care about toilet details far more than anyone should in normal life.

PPS: See this funny article about public loos

Dobby “Appointments”

2007-10-22T07:00:00.000-07:00

Something striking for those of us that grew up in the land of the politically-correct are the appointment (employment) ads in the local paper. Let me quote a few:

“Recruitment officer: Arab Only”

“Male-Arabic Speaking, Western-Educated Trainee wanted”

“Female Buyers wanted”

“Travel manager – Jordanian only”

“Property Consultant – female, any nationality”

“Female Accountant”

And my favorite. . . .

“15 positions – Non-Indians wanted, Indians allowed for 5 positions”

May as well be clear about what you want!!

Congratulations to the Budding Shoe Designer!

2007-10-15T23:35:00.000-07:00

We want to send our congrats to our favorite Bird-lady/budding designer, who has just landed an internship with a prestigious big-brand-name designer in New York. We are following your career with enthusiasm girl!

Death by Taxi

2007-10-15T06:06:00.001-07:00

We live by cab. Due to bloody f*&*&%^ complications with Harry’s drivers’ license and my papers still in process, we are stuck taking taxis everywhere (since there is no other public transport as the train will not be completed until 2010). Thankfully cabs are really cheap, but sadly, there are only 5000 for a city of 1.3 million. This leads to long lines at the malls on the weekends and potential disaster if you take a cab to a location that is not near a major intersection or landmark. This also means interacting with quite a variety of individuals driving cabs, mostly from Kerela, Pakistan, other parts of India, or Afghanistan. All but one have been men (the Lady’s taxis are driven by women). Funnily enough, the non-Indians (read: non-Gulf Muslims) often appear a little afraid of me.

Let me describe some of our more memorable cabbies:

1. The guy from Waziristan (north-eastern Pakistan—current Taliban region). This one was probably our favorite. Harry got in this young guy’s cab after work and came to pick me up at our cousins on the way to do some car shopping. When Harry came in the house to get me he said, just to warn you, I have a preachy-touchy Taliban-type in the car. He has been lecturing me in Urdu about the evils of alcohol and loose white women since I got in there. I better not hold your hand.

I got in the car and the poor chap’s eyes practically popped out of his head. He looked really scared, gave a half-hearted grin, and then proceeded to get completely lost twice on the way out of the neighborhood we were in, finally just driving across an empty field and a pedestrian sidewalk to get to the main road. Then we went to Toyota, and he kept trying to chat in broken English on the way, which was really sweet actually since he still looked really nervous. We asked him to wait at Toyota, went in and looked etc., and when we came back we found him napping on the backseat.

He jumped up, we all got in, and then we asked him to take us to Honda. He looked a little panicked, then drove off, took a right, and got lost in an industrial area. We drove around in circles for a while, before finally landing back where we started at Toyota, where he backtracked along the freeway as he should have the first time. After a couple minutes he came to a screeching halt in front of a store, said something about “asking” and went into the store. Harry and I are totally cracking up by this point, and even more so when he comes back and asks Harry in Urdu to go in and ask for directions in English since he did not understand what the person told him.

By this time the poor guy is looking really stressed, so Harry and I decide to go to Nissan, which is right there, and when we come back we ask him to take us home. This proves to be a problem --- and here is the death part: in the process of getting onto the freeway—which can be really confusing, the guy is driving over 60 miles an hour when he realizes he has just been merged away from the freeway. Rather than take the exit and backtrack, he comes to a screeching halt right in the space between the freeway and the lanes separating off to the right (you know, where you see those orange barrels of water to help prevent fatalities on freeways). Cars are zooming by on both sides, and we have come to a screeching halt, almost not in time to avoid the road barrier—I screech myself, thinking it is really over for us. The guy looks back at us with a sheepish grin, he and Harry exchange a “silly women” look, and he proceeds to merge onto the freeway from a dead stop. By the time we got home I had started breathing again, and Harry tipped the guy extra because overall, this was quite a night to remember.

2. Pakistanis in general seem to be the best cabbies to have. The guys we have had from Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, and rural areas are much more informative and talkative than other nationalities. Some of it may be a better command of English—also, a lot of these guys are trained professionals like engineers, they just can’t work as engineers here. Overall, they are really fun, like to talk about politics, don’t seem afraid or disdainful of me, and like to joke about how “we are all Indians” with Harry. If you have a choice, go for a Pakistani cabbie here!!

3. Young Guys from Kerela and northern-India. I am sad to say these guys are the worst of the lot. Especially with me by myself. I actually had one guy yelling at me because I told him a wrong turn on the way to a well known landmark that he did not seem to know for some reason. Asshole (I paid him in single dirham coins—each is larger than a quarter, so fifteen or so is pretty heavy to carry around). Language could be the problem, but actually it seems like more of a power struggle. If I get in there and act like a bossy, imperious bitch, everything is fine. I don’t like not being nice to people who are doing crap jobs, but I’m learning how to handle these guys.

4. The guy from North-Eastern Afghanistan. This guy had great English. And if his story is to be believed, he is a self-taught (by movie) rural guy from the part of Afghanistan where there is such a struggle between the Americans, Afghanis, and local drug lords/Taliban. In other words (and as he put it) if you work for the Americans, the Taliban kill you. If you work for the Taliban, the Americans kill you. No matter what, somebody will kill you. The little guy always gets screwed. I told him alot of people in the US are aware of the problem, but don’t know what to do about it. His story, true or not, was good enough for an extra tip (you don’t actually have to tip at all—cabbies are salaried here). And he asked us all to pray for his family.

6. The Syrian. Another favorite. But first, some background. Dobby traffic is terrible. TERRIBLE! Not only does everyone have a car, the roads are a weird combination of beautiful, large freeways, tiny back streets, and the abominable, multi-light round-about. It’s like the German autobahn met the Arc de Triumph round-about in Paris and had a love-child destined to carry 800,000 cars per day. The net result of all of this is that everything is actually quite close, but it can take an hour to go a kilometer if you must pass through a round-about (which are totally superfluous—these round-abouts are used where two large roads meet at a cross intersection – one light would be fine, instead, you must go around the round-about through several lights to continue on the road you were on in the first place—all so a circle of green grass with some statue or fountain can “beautify” Dobby).

Further, Dobby has over 250 traffic accidents per day, exacerbating gridlock like mad. Our present apartment looks over the main freeway right in a major business section of town, where rush-hour begins at 4 and lasts until 7. Everyday we have an accident outside our building. A loud screech, loud crash and then horns. It is so inevitable that we now notice when there is not an accident. How crazy is that?

Anyway, add poorly designed roads, traffic accidents, and pervasive construction (including the elevated train) and you have a recipe for disaster in my book. Which brings me to the Syrian. We got in this guy’s cab on the Eid holiday, after waiting in line for an hour at the Italian mall. He was a peaceful, older guy, and I thought he was Iraqi from his accent, but it turned out he was Syrian. After driving into the inevitable traffic jam outside the mall I asked him if this was Eid traffic or normal traffic. He looked at me strangely and said, but Madam, this is normal. I commented that so much traffic was so irritating, etc., etc. He got this humorous glint in his eye and said:

“Ahh, but this is Dobby. And Dobby with no traffic wouldn’t be beautiful.”

The Zen master has spoken. I ruminated on this for a while and have now adopted it as my driving mantra. Dobby without traffic is Dobby without beauty. Traffic is beautiful. To live happily here, which I want for some time, I will chant this to myself while taking deep breaths on my hour turns through the superfluous round-abouts. I think it will do wonders for my health.

As requested by Preggie-Nelly . . .

2007-10-15T04:51:00.000-07:00

Tell me about the Food!

Most people know Dobby is positioning itself to be a major tourist destination in the short-term future. Already, loads of tourists come here for shopping and general luxurious times. In addition to beach and sand dune-related activities, fancy hotels, and the ubiquitous copses of high-rise towers, these visitors (and us lucky locals) enjoy a large variety of restaurants with cuisine from all over.

Beginning with the low end of the food-enthusiast evaluation scale: looking out our hotel-apartment window I am greeted by a 12 lane freeway and then a long row of high-rise office buildings. And what could be a more friendly sight than the red and white stripes of Colonel Sanders and his Kentucky-fried chicken (known as dejaj kentuky in Arabic). It is nice to know the most greasy, least-healthy of all the US brand chain restaurants has a place here in the desert! Of course, next door is T.G.I. Fridays, with Applebee's down the road a bit, so the competition for the bottom spot is a little stiff. Add Micky-D's, Hardee's, Dairy Queen, Dunkin-donuts and Pizza Hut and you might just overwhelm yourself with choices for ingesting grease.

But this is only the low-end -- moving on to the mid-price/super good stuff I am presently experienced with ! (Since Harry is the only one of us to be wined and dined in the five-star hotel environment....)

So far we have eaten Indian food, Arabic food (hummus, labneh-a thin yogurt drink, baba ganouj-eggplant and tahini, grilled meats-lamb-mutton-beef-chicken), mall food (Hardee's and weird spinach pita), a traditional Iftar buffet (which means Lebanese food--lots of salads with eggplant and tomatoes and parsley, meats in sauce and grilled, slightly weird desserts with gelatin for thickener), Irish pub food, English pub food (only places to get booze during Ramadan), Hamour fillets (a popular local white fish), Iranian food (rice with "stuff" and grilled meats), "American diner" "food" (yikes), and really delicious stuff from the local super-market like kebabs, kofta (minced meat with spices added), TABULEH, fatoosh (green salad with olives and tomatoes and fried pita with lemon juice), chicken sausages (pork is available, in a small separate part of the grocery store), zataar bread( thick flat bread with olive oil and spices), "grilled" veggies like eggplant, pumpkin, mushrooms, zucchini (marinated in olive oil--which is on everything actually), OLIVES, and of course fresh pita. Yummmm!

I must say, my favorite has been the Indian food restaurant, which was practically a re-birthing experience, I almost want to cry writing about it -- marinated grilled meats and fish, biryiani cooked with fish in its own clay pot (rice and spices--the traditional way), aloo saag (potatoes and spinach), parathas (stuffed flat bread), mango lassis (sweet yogurt drink). This particular restaurant is supposed to be the best around and happily delivers to the neighborhood where we will be living! (which I have named Little India due to the gazillion Indians living there). I have also had the pleasure of eating "proper-Andra food" with our relatives here (Harry's part of his home country), in addition to making a Mexican food meal with some fab-u-licious guacamole. Pretty good coverage for only two weeks eh?

Which is why, my sweet Nelly (who is having a baby in three months and needs to eat alot), not only is Jazzercise essential at the moment (as I write I am observing my tummy spilling over my belt buckle in a manner not possible pre-Dobby arrival), but further measures are required--including less eggplant "grilled" in oil (completely soaked in oil is more appropriate), more elliptical trainer, and finally getting my butt back in ballet class!

PS: we have not yet tried sushi and any traditional Emirati dishes other than dates. But up coming will be Philippino food, Vietnamese buffet, food from Goa, and more Andra food. Also, for those Starbucks fans out there, Starbucks here (which is twice as expensive) has a DATE frappicino!

PPS: A few tidbits--delivery is big here--groceries, stuff from the convienance store, even Burger King are all available by delivery in most areas! And the grocery stores seem to have prepared Indian, Arabic, and Chinese food--all for cheap. Meat and coffee are also cheap, but spices are handled differently--case in point: I have been trying to buy black pepper for a week, but only saw the pepper corns, not the ground pepper (I don't have a grinder handy yet). I finally looked closely and discovered that most of the spices are in whole form, not pre-ground, but there is a grinder built into the bottle. This goes for pepper as well--so silly me, I spent a week irritated about pepper when all I had to do was look more closely at the bottle and buy the stupid thing.

Correction! Ramadan Fasting.....

2007-10-15T04:49:00.000-07:00

....is actually thirty days and not forty, as specified below. My apologies for such a glaring error!

Establishing Eid (eeee-d)

2007-10-11T03:41:00.000-07:00

As discussed below, Ramadan is the Muslim holy month of fasting and Eid is the celebration marking the end of the fasting period. Sounds straight-forward, right?

BUT, what happens when you follow a lunar calendar, and must read that calendar from a specific point in the desert, and thus cannot pin down exactly when Eid is supposed to take place?

Let me explain.

A few days ago, a cryptic message appeared in the paper: "Government employees will have five days off for Eid, and private-sector will have two days. If Eid is on Friday, government employees will go back to work on Tuesday, but if it is on Saturday, then they will go back on Wednesday. " Whhhhaaaat?

Harry and I puzzled over this. He thinks that the end of fasting, or Eid, is marked by the first glimpse of the moon on or after the 40th day of fasting. That sounds reasonable, so why the uncertainty? WELL. If it is the middle of a lunar cycle, than no problem--you are guaranteed a glimpse of some kind, at some point on Friday night. Thus Eid will be on Friday. But, what if it is new moon? so there is no moon to be glimpsed on Friday? Then you have to wait until Saturday for your glimpse, and thus Eid will be on Saturday. When it comes to determining exactly when a new moon is, I guess it is difficult to be precise about whether it will be before or after midnight (since new moon is essentially no moon) so you can't say in advance if Eid is on Friday or Saturday, you must let nature unfold as she will. (in my completely untrained version of astronomy and the lunar cycle).

Now for the practical application:

I have been going to Jazzercise at the fitness center across the freeway for fun, company, and counter-delicious-food purposes. Classes are Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday (uh-oh). So this morning, the inevitable question is raised--do we have class on Saturday? The teacher says, uhhh, here is the deal. If Eid is on Saturday, then the fitness center will be closed and we can't get in so we won't have class. But if Eid is on Friday, then the fitness center will be open on Saturday, so we can get in and we can have class. So, basically, check your paper to see when Eid is and then you will know when class is. Clear as mud right?

PS: At the time of this posting (3PM Thursday) Harry still does not know when the "workplace" place will be closed, so maybe he will have Sunday off (Sunday is Monday here) or maybe not. So much for planning a weekend holiday getaway!!!

Shout out to A. G.

2007-10-08T05:33:00.000-07:00

And her fabulous blog about law school, and now the budding careers and lives of three new lawyers in Dizzytown. For anyone interested go to http://www.selfloathingsuckers.blogspot.com/.

We love you A.G.!

The "Whitie" Tax

2007-10-08T04:50:00.000-07:00

Before leaving, our pending move to the Middle East inspired images of desert, camels, white dishdashas (the white robes worn by men) and wide open spaces. As could be expected, arriving in Dubai was quite the reality check. Yes, we have desert, camels, dishdashas, and lots of wide open spaces. But we also have designer labels, global brands, tricked-out pimped-out vehicles, and general BLING everywhere (including a tremendous amount of construction on towers--Harry calls them the f***-you buildings). For those of you that know the movie Shrek, recall his arrival in the city of Far Far Away -- change the word plays on the brand names to Arabic script, and you will have a good visual of my first impression of this grand city.

However, something else we have here, of fundamental importance to this growing economy, are about 1 million Indians/Pakistanis/Bangladeshis (hereinafter Indians). Which brings me to the title of this posting. In the US and Europe, Harry and I could go about our business with general expectation that our color difference would mean little. Usually that was true. Not so here! Let me explain:

Case 1: We have been searching for apartments. Since Harry is at work, it was my job to call about places we picked out in the paper. I would call, some Indian guy would answer, and quote me a price for the annual rent (obscene prices by the way--rents have tripled in the last two years, and we are looking at about $30K rent per year for a one bedroom apartment), etc. I started to notice that these published prices were usually higher than the advertised price. Or the place is not available. Strange. Then on the weekend, Harry calls and gets quoted a much lower price for the same thing, or suddenly, places are available. What is happening?

Case 2: Harry, his old friend Al, and I are walking around the "Indian" part of town after dinner (in Old Dobby). We go into a shop because I need some Ibuprofen. By now we are suspicious of the "whitie" effect, so Al asks for the price: 5 dirhams. OK great, I say give me two packs please. Wait, oops, the shopkeeper realizes I am with the Indian guys. Suddenly, he made a mistake on the price--it is actually 8 dirhams, not 5. SO I have to pay 16 total (about 5 USD). Cheeky bastard! He did not even hide his price inflation! (we found out later from another pharmacy that 5 was the appropriate price).

Case 3: On this same evening we are walking around said part of town looking at apartment buildings and checking with the night watchmen for prices and availability. Our strategy is for Al to go in and ask for the price, while Harry waits with me on the street. Seems to work well, the prices quoted are reasonable for the area.

SO, if you have not figured it out yet, this is the whitie tax: the premium placed by Indians on goods and services for white people. SO far the range seems to be from 10 to 30 percent increase, and is imposed when I am present, regardless of Harry being with me or being the one ordering. Before writing I spent a good three days pissed off on principle about this phenomenon--now I am calmer and more philosophical. In fact, this morning, when I put about $2K worth if dirhams in my purse without a worry that I might be mugged (stealing is severely punished, as is rape --penalty beheading--) I decided that I will view this whitie tax as my cost of feeling physically secure in a city full of "brownies". Somehow, connecting a worthwhile (if fabricated) expenditure to such an unfair tax alleviates my outrage at such blatant discrimination.

Ramadan and Eid

2007-10-08T04:31:00.000-07:00

Now that we have arrived--in the middle of Ramadan--, it seems the most appropriate place to start is with something educational. Ramadan is the holy month of fasting for Muslims--it is based on the lunar calender, so every year it takes place at a slightly different time, eventually taking place in all the different months of the year. Ramadan is supposed to be a time of reflection and introspection -- fasting (no food, water, nicotine, or sex) is from sun rise to sunset, at which point the fast is broken with the Iftar meal--a time to celebrate God's goodness and generosity with family and friends (food and drink taste extra good after deprivation, reminding you of God's blessings). Ramadan is also a period when Muslims pay their zakat--or percentage donation to charity. This lasts about 40 days and end ends in a celebration called Eid (eeeed)--which lasts from one to three days apparently, and is one of the two holidays officially approved by Muhammad. (supposedly, Muslims are not to celebrate birthdays and other things, although I think this is not exactly adhered to...). All in all, the spirit of Ramadan seems to be very special, even to an "outsider".

Now, that said, lets talk about what the period of Ramadan means to newly arrived non-Muslims in the second hottest place on earth......

In Dobby, Ramadan means no public eating, drinking ,or smoking. You can be fined if someone catches you (along with kissing in public or other "indecent behavior", but this is at all times). SO, all the restaurants, coffee shops, and other places to hang out are closed, except in the nice hotels and malls, where the food area is hidden behind thick black curtains drawn around entire restaurants--and Muslims are not allowed in. Considering yours truly has no Internet access, and Harry likes his ciggies, these limitations have posed some significant problems. I am all for respecting other religious practices, and cultural differences, but after a week of no Internet --and no water in the desert if I go outside, I can't wait for this holy period to be OVER. Lesson learned: Ramadan is NOT the time to visit us in Dobby !!! :-) Sadie

From one Big D to another....

2007-09-21T12:31:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Welcome to our first posting on what is supposed to be a travel blog about our upcoming time in The United Arab Emirates. While rudimentary, a little anonymity is necessary, so we have our nicknames for each other and some of our "places" which I am sure those of you that know us can figure out. As of this posting, the official take-off is six short days away.........