Many Yemeni Men

Picking up from the last post with a semi-false subject line that I couldn't resist using because it's fun to say- try it: many Yemeni men! There really weren't that many, but they- our drivers and guides and cooks, all affiliated with El Hamed Tourism- were so charming, quick to smile and dance and they totally rocked their man-skirts! In their capable hands, we made our way down off the plateau- with a stop at a meteorite crater described so picturesquely as the "falling star landing place"- toward the second largest "city" on the island, Qulansiya. There we traded our SUVs for painted wooden boats and headed up the coast.

Milosha's pic

Again, the water was breathtakingly beautiful, it seemed to emanate light, so much so that the white undersides of gulls' wings reflected an electric blue.


The boats slowed and suddenly we found ourselves surrounded by easily a hundred spinner dolphins, leaping and flipping, playing and diving all around us. A group of 3 or 5 or 6 or so would swim in formation, under the boat only to surface in tandem, like they were dancing all around us. They'd leap in 2s, one would go and shortly after another from the same subgroup- maybe it was a competition or a case of inspiration. It was remarkable. 

After a long, wonderful day on and near the water, we went to Hadibo, the largest "city" and the site of our last night's lodging. Most of the group stayed in Socotra's largest hotel! I was tickled by the chosen superlative. Not the "best" or "best value" or anything like that, simply the largest. There are rumored to be only 2 other hotels on the island to give them competition for the title. There would be small reminders like this throughout our stay of just how remote this island is. One of the most interesting things to me is the fact that there's a Socotri language that is most closely linked to a pre-Islamic Arabic language that doesn't have much in common with modern Arabic.

Restaurants are in short supply as well but no matter. Our cooks set us up a long table on the beach after dark. We enjoyed a last meal under the stars and then a local women's band performed a few numbers for the group. Some groups trickled back to the hotel, others stayed for a farewell shisha and campfire.

The last morning we visited a nursery where they are growing baby versions of many of the endemic trees and plants. Young Dragon's Blood trees look remarkably like an ordinary desert yucca plant. It can take a hundred years or so to grow the fantastical umbrella trees like the ones we saw on the plateau! Baby Bottle trees, on the other hand, are unmistakably related to their older versions.

A very last stop before heading to the airport: a few shops in Hadibo. Some of the sarong style wraps worn by the Socotri men featured beautiful patterns and high quality cloth, several of us admired the fancy versions in the shop but settled on a simpler, everyday style to use at home as a sarong or throw or table cover or whatever. 

After this last stop, it was back to the airport for our goodbyes and thank yous (something like "illa bukalla" in Socotri) to our crew and their beautiful and unforgettable home!

Dr. Seuss in the blue lagoon... my weekend in Yemen

Around the time I moved to the UAE I saw some list making the rounds on FaceBook: 35 places to see before you die, or the 29 most amazing places, or something like that. In the list was a Yemeni island called Socotra and especially the Dragon's Blood trees, the specific variety that grows there grows no where else on earth. Well, Yemen is in the neighborhood but the travel logistics sounded a little daunting and, I mean, Yemen. Was it OK to travel to Yemen?

Happily, a group I'd heard good things about, Escape Travels, announced a trip!- a long weekend just before ZU's spring break- perfect. And, there would be camping involved! I have been missing the whole sleeping outside thing quite a bit. I was intentionally vague when describing the trip to mom ahead of time, I think I managed to avoid entirely mentioning it was in Yemen or that we'd be flying a Yemeni airline and making a mainland stop. As hoped, all of that went smoothly, the most daunting part being staying up late in order to get to the Sharjah airport for a 4AM departure! In the pouring rain. An aside, I was surprised to discover a well stocked duty free at the airport in the dry emirate of Sharjah and they had the smartest things (which I of course availed myself of): wine in plastic bottles!

Upon arrival at the Socotra airport we cleared customs- only 4 flights per week land on the island, makes me wonder what the immigration officials there do the rest of the time. We split up into about 10 SUVs and headed directly for Delisha Beach. The waters surrounding the island are turquoises aquamarine, azure and indigo... so remarkably beautiful that words fail. Shells and brainy textured hunks of coral are scattered on the fine white sand. Quirky
Egyptian vultures with punk rock yellow mohawk hairdos started stalking us before that first lunch, they, along with goats, were pretty constant companions. One goat is rumored to have eaten a visitor's passport. We snorkeled and floated and napped in the shade until it was time to head for our first night's campsite at Arher Beach along a freshwater stream and next to a tall snowy white dune. For several months of the year, Socotra is blasted by near constant 120 kph winds that blow the beaches right up the mountainside making for dramatic slopes. We had a taste of the wind the first night and most people were desperate for sleep after the 4AM flight ordeal so after the sun went down and a bit of ooohing and aaahing over the magnificent starry night, many people, me included, hit the tents.

In the morning we hiked up a steep trail at Homhil. Most of the group hit a freshwater rock pool at the top, some of us limped back down before the summit for a quick run to the beach. We saw some of our first Bottle trees and Dragon's Blood trees on the hike but far from our last.

Attentive FaceBook or blog followers may notice that the Bottle trees look a little familiar. They are a variety of the Desert Rose which is the same plant I used for my first Dubai Christmas tree.
The ones on the island grow especially bulbous bottoms making them look exactly like something dreamed up by Dr. Seuss. My Christmas plant wasn't so Seuss-y but the blossoms that opened up after the holiday were exactly the same.

We made our way up to the Dicksam Plateau on winding roads, both paved and dirt, making a stop at one of the only 2 gas stations on the island. The plateau is where the Dragon's Blood trees grow and where we made camp the second night. Four of our goat friends joined us for dinner that night, as the main course and while our chefs were doing the prep, we headed down into a wadi (canyon) to a green rock pool with a natural slide. wheee!

Camping night two among the Dragon's Blood trees (called that because of their bright red sap which is harvested, dried and used for medicines and make up) included a campfire and marshmallows. (After the fresh goat which was quite tasty.) So much fun to share a first experience roasting a marshmallow with people from all over the world. My tent-mate is Bulgarian, one fellow
rider in Ali's party SUV (we sang and danced along to pop songs top volume driving up and down the mountain roads- including repeated renditions of the odd 90s "Barbie Song" by one hit Norwegian wonder, Aqua- not what you expect on a remote middle eastern island!) is Hungarian, I shared a taxi to the airport with a Spaniard and an Indian but on the ride home swapped out one for an Aussie. I count at least 13 different nationalities in our group. A lovely mess of accents.

Day three had us coming down off the plateau, back to the blue blue waters of the Indian Ocean but I think I'll cover that in a part 2 post so as to be able to get this one out in a timely fashion! More pictures first!

clean sheets

So what did I do this weekend? Oh, just took a little dip in the Persian gulf. It's so much prettier than
I expect, each time I visit Dubai beaches. I guess the name Persian Gulf conjures up images of oil and war and then instead there's the elegant Burj al Arab, fine soft sand, and turquoise waters. It still doesn't seem entirely real to me that I live here.

Milosha & Krassa in Safa Park

I also went to Safa Park with a few friends from last week's trip to Socotra Island (a blog post about that amazing adventure is in the works too) and enjoyed seeing the place so well used- families, sporty groups (cricket players- now there's a sport I know absolutely nothing about!), birthday parties... it's hard to think I'm living in a desert while in the park. And I went to a ladies night at a Mexican/ shisha joint in the Dubai Marina area which was my first foray into that part of town- but not my last. It feels a little like hanging out in Barbie's world, things are a little luxe and plastic, but so pretty. We drank free margaritas, ate half price duck quesadillas, smoked an apple hookah and watched yachts cruise past as the sun set.

Oh and I did laundry- far less exciting but perhaps still worth a comment. In so many ways the UAE seems to have taken their development cues from the US more than say, Europe. I think it's a product of the era in which they were growing so rapidly- the 70s, 80s and into the 90s- the US was at the height of its culture exportation days- pre Bollywood, post Beatles. We were creating MTV and cable television, car phones bigger and heavier than bricks and Nike shoes. We were exporting consumerism- maybe something that resonated with the Bedouin trading past of the region? Now that oh-so-American phenomena of the mall is done here in spades. The UAE has out-mall-ed the USA. Car culture is king, luxury rides, oversized SUVs, muscle cars... again, it's more American than America in some ways. But not when it comes to appliances for some reason. Dishwashers are stunningly inefficient, running several hours even in the "Eco" setting. And dryers... I hear that people in villas or big compound houses- and that probably includes most Emiratis- have dryers more akin to those I'm familiar with but just about every expat I know in the high rises has this oh so European tiny
washer/dryer combo that doesn't actually dry. It just spins wrinkles into everything. I have a few contraptions for hanging all my damp wrinkly clothes but I was stumped on how to deal with my sheets- nothing big enough to hang them from/ on- so I caved and just sent them out to a laundry. Free pick up and delivery. Talk about your first world problems, have to send the sheets washing out because I've nowhere to hang dry it and my "dryer" won't fluff and dry.

clean sheets (at least i put them on the bed myself!)

Oh! Oman!

road trip!

The weekend before last, I left the country for the first time since I arrived! On Thursday after work, we drove out to Hatta, a sleepy town tucked into the mountains on the border of the UAE and Oman (on the UAE side). There are weird little patches of Oman, however, tucked into the UAE which we had to avoid on Thursday night as we'd only purchased Omani car insurance for Friday and Saturday. There's an easy highway drive-around solution which we'd mapped out on Google, but Roger (my GPS) wasn't in on the plan and kept suggesting that we take the fastest route because I can set it to avoid toll roads or to avoid highways and the like, but I can't set it to avoid Oman. And the road signage in the UAE is only so-so, often skipping a route number and only posting a destination city. So our Thursday drive involved a tiny bit of of backtracking and going slow trying to puzzle out the route. Meant we did the last bits in the dark which I think was a shame as the little I could make out of it via the headlights looked quite pretty with dunes running right up to the edge of rocky mountain slopes. Another time I'll take the route in the day, it's only an hour and a half or so if you keep up with the speed limits.

Hatta Fort Hotel

We stayed at the Hatta Fort Hotel which is the only gig in town so far as I could tell. It's very relaxing with cool evenings, green lawns, peacocks and rabbits on the grounds, a couple of pools and gorgeous flower beds. After a peaceful night's sleep with the window open- a nice luxury- we headed across the border. It was a simple crossing. We met someone doing one of the famous "border runs" from Dubai. basically, a family member comes to see one of us with a resident visa and can only get 30 days or so on a tourist visa (or maybe it's 60 or 90, I don't know, I just know it runs out.) In order to stay longer, they need to leave the country and come back in while applying for a new tourist visa and another 30 (60? 90?) days. Hatta is a popular border crossing for this but we were doing more than just crossing over and back. We got our UAE exit stamps and then drove on through a customs checkpoint for Oman and then on for a mile or so, and then through an abandoned looking bunch of official buildings and then a bit further. We were starting to worry we'd missed something when there it was: both the place to get the visas and a great little herd of goats.

Muscat tucked between mountains and the sea

We came down out of the mountains and drove along a coastal plateau, a highway punctuated with round-abouts, until we reached Muscat which is a pretty low-slung city that stretches miles along the Gulf of Oman. There are no giant highrises, some places with 6 or maybe even 10 stories, but generally the buildings are dwarfed by the low mountains and hills which come right down into town. White and cream buildings with arched windows and doors or fancy roof edges and turrets are perched on dark black brown hills stepping down toward the corniche.

camel, it's what's for dinner

After a camel burger- with haloumi cheese and rocket (wild arugula) and Lebanese pickles for lunch at the hotel bar (tasted a lot like a regular burger, maybe a little gamey and/or salty but that last could have been the way it was prepared more than the meat itself), we headed to the old downtown souk area for a walk along the sea looking back up at the remains of a Portuguese fort and over at the giant statue of an incense burner (to commemorate Oman's contribution to the Arabian frankincense trade) in a hilltop park. Then we plunged into the souk. It's a nice one. A good mix of souvenirs and everyday stuff and a similar mix of tourists and locals. Leslie bought an abaya, I tried a few on but didn't find the one for me yet though I did purchase a carpet/ wall hanging type thing and some art.

Sultan Quboos Mosque grounds

The next morning we headed out to the Sultan Quboos Grand Mosque. We'd both been to the Sheik Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi and couldn't help but make comparisons. SQ's mosque won out the in the gardens and grounds categories and in the carved wood competition. I prefer SZ's mosque's marble inlaid inner courtyard and sheer size/wow factor though really, both deeply beautiful structures.

carpentry workshop in Seeb

My new Omani wedding chest

We broke the return drive up with several stops including one in the town of Al Seeb where I found a traditional Omani wedding chest that will serve as a bedside table and also in the town of Sohar where we walked on the beach collecting a few shells after a tasty lunch. Back through the border crossings and Hatta and on past the big red dune and the weird little bits of Oman wrapped in the UAE and home to my highrise cat.

girls on one side...

inside the spaceship! from the courtyard of the AUH campus

Zayed University is about 15 years old. It was started as an all-women's University but maybe 5 years ago, they started a small segregated men's program and some co-ed graduate programs. It's one university on two campuses. I work mostly at the Dubai (DXB) campus but travel to the Abu Dhabi (AUH) campus once a week or more on the daily shuttle van. The drive takes about an hour and 15 minutes.

The gender segregation is an interesting complication in the libraries on both campuses. The idea is to keep marriageable boys and girls apart in a place where they're supposed to be learning, not flirting or meeting unchaperoned. I guess by graduate school, everyone is either mature enough or already married so there can be gender mixing on a limited basis. Also, once a young man or woman is employed- even if they are a recent grad- then in the course of business, they can interact with the opposite gender. I should mention that other universities in the UAE are co-ed, ZU just provides a choice for those girls (and everyone here calls them "girls", many

complicated hours- male and female days

do arrive fairly sheltered and young-seeming) or their families who are more comfortable with the segregated undergraduate experience. So the Dubai campus was built before there were programs for males. We have only one of big resources like a cafeteria, a gym, a library. We have to segregate by time. Female library hours are 7:30AM - 4:30PM, male hours are 5PM - 9PM. Yup, the men get the short end of that stick. The Abu Dhabi campus was built (to look like a giant spaceship!) after the introduction of men's and co-ed classes and so they built two of a lot of big resources, like cafeterias and gyms, however, they couldn't really, in good conscience, build and fill two complete libraries side by side- those books get crazy-expensive. Instead, in Abu Dhabi, they ran a wall down the middle of one floor of the Library so there's a men's side and a women's side each with some English language learning resources (duplicated) and a help desk and study rooms and other materials. And then, on the 2nd and 3rd floors, they employ a maze of retractable opaque walls and on certain days of the week, men move freely from the first to second or third floors and on other days of the week, women do. If it's a men's day, however, and you're a young female student, you're stuck on the 1st floor in your

from my office window in AUH, female day in the courtyard

section and if you need a book from upstairs, you request it from a staff person who will go pull it for you. Similarly, there's only one courtyard off the 2 cafeterias and so if it's a Tuesday (female day) and you're a young man, you're eating inside.

 Other than the whole gender segregation thing, much of my daily work life is not unlike my work life in the US. There are a few other reminders that are now becoming so commonplace I almost don't notice them any more. My keyboard is bi-lingual! And for any library or teacher friends who might be familiar with Ellison dies, we have Arabic alphabets and I asked the tech in our Curriculum Resource Center to cut out the letters for my name.

click on this to see it larger and to see the Arabic letters

If there had been a test on how to order and put those letter together to spell my name, I probably would have failed, or maybe squeaked by with a low C grade. I did know which letter came first, second/third combo, and fourth. And I knew to order them right to left. But I flipped 2 of them over and put the dots that go above and below to make the letters complete in absolutely the wrong places. With quite a bit of coaching, I managed to glue them down correctly!

that says Diane!

livin' the high life

the view down my street- SZB

After 2.5 months of living in a hotel/apartment (and enjoying the daily housekeeping, breakfast, pool towels, etc.), I've finally moved into my Dubai digs for real. I have a 2 bedroom apartment on the
14th floor of the 54 story tall Manazel al Safa building. My building is located on Sheik Zayed Blvd (SZB)- the main 10 lane highway through the middle of the city and the road that you take to Abu Dhabi. The metro parallels SZB and I'm between the stop for an area called Business Bay and the Dubai Mall stop. I'm living amongst superlatives. The mall is the world's largest (based on total area) and houses the Dubai Aquarium which boasts the world's largest acrylic panel for viewing the big tank (who knew Guinness would certify such

the acrylic panel! colored bit are reflections of the candy store sign

random things?) right across from the world's largest candy store, Candylicious. The mall is also connected to the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building. I've now got with me the world's cutest globe trotting cat (Guinness has yet to certify him, but I know it's so) after he did a stint at my sister's, my parents', my aunt's and my colleague's homes, not to mention the layover at the pet hotel in Frankfurt. Shipping a cat around the world may put me in the ranks of the world's most frivolous, but having him here is pretty great.

I'm second building from the left.

I took a walk around my new neighborhood last night. I used the metro station pedestrian overpass to cross the highway out in front to see what's across the street. There are a few luxury car showrooms, a men's thawb/ thobe shop and tailor (also called dish dashes or kanduras, they are the sharp white robes commonly worn by Arabic men), a hotel and a Baskin Robbins and Dunkin Donuts. That side of the street has some tallish buildings (maybe 10-20 stories) but nothing like my side of the street. Over here though, I noticed something kind of crazy: between these big, sleek towers, there's sand lots. Along the smaller access road running parallel to SZB there are some sidewalks, but then between one building and the next, unlike in NYC or Chicago, for example, there's empty space and non-paved space. I even noticed a couple of scraggly trees just hangin' in there like they did when this was a patch of desert, between two buildings next to mine. I park, usually, in a sandy empty lot between my building and the next because my spot in the parking garage is on the 10th floor and all that spiraling up and down is a pain and makes me queasy.

My apartment is pretty empty- though I'm planning to do something about that this weekend- and has

from the front door looking into the living/dining room

amazing views. I realized the other day that I've never actually lived higher than the 2nd floor anywhere. I'll share a few apartment pictures but will hold off and post a more complete tour of the place after I get some more furniture.

butternut and i on the couch reflected

bedroom 2- the fishbowl!

life is a highway

I've been driving in Dubai for nearly 2 months now and I'm getting somewhat comfortable with the roundabouts and aggressive speeders who suddenly appear in my rearview mirror flashing headlights like mad. I remain unable to get my bearings, however. I'm totally reliant on Roger (my GPS, named by Andrea.) He delivers directions in a crisp British accent and directs me to "Take slip road right." This translates to "take the off ramp" in American English. It seems that I'm frequently taking slip roads as most roads here are highways or turn into highways at a moment's notice. For example, my apartment (I really will move in there someday insha'allah) is on Sheik Zayed Boulevard (SZB) which is a little 12 lane superhighway flanked by 50 story skyscrapers, at least that's what is is in my hood- it's also the highway to Abu Dhabi, flanked by a lot of empty desert with occasional camels to spice up the view. Try to imagine if say State St. in Chicago or Wall St in NYC were 6 lanes each way. it makes for a strange downtown. the above ground metro runs along SZB too and there are pedestrian bridges over the street at Metro stops but that's a walker's only chance of crossing the street and the other side of the street is probably a half mile away. There are also frontage roads on either side so a taxi can stop in front of my building, for example. In the old part of the city (and remember, in Dubai, old means 30-50 years ago) things are more walkable, and in many of the newer neighborhoods too, I guess. except when they're not. My cat is staying in Deira which is in an older part of town along the "creek" (I'd call it a river personally) and for the most part, the streets there are just 2-4 lanes though repeatedly, I've missed a turn trying to get there or back to my hotel from there and I wind up being swept along as a 4 lane city street starts gaining lanes and the shops drop back and then suddenly the speed limit is 80 and then 100 kph. and I'm having to take slip road right to loop around and correct.

the flock and the skyline

Sometimes Roger doesn't seem to be able to find what I'm looking for. every day on the way to/from work i drive by a lagoon with flamingos but the access to the bird blind that gets you close to the flock is on another highway. I can see it but had no idea how to get to it. I've tried aimlessly driving around where i think you might access it to no avail and plugging all manner of things into Roger in hopes that wildlife, bird, sanctuary, viewing, blind... something might yield directions but nope. but one day, I was probably lost, I drove by the access ramp to one of the blinds! I marked the spot in Roger as we zipped by and then one evening the following week pointed Roger toward it only to learn that the blinds are only open 9am - 4pm Saturday - Thursday. so finally today, a Saturday, I made it back to the blinds- yay flamingos!

There's a driving school near my apartment hotel and so daily- especially on the weekends- there are dozens of student drivers looping the roundabouts and getting on and off the highway. they drive a fleet of matching innocuous white Ford sedans with an arched sign over the roof "Belhasa Driving School" Not sure why, but seeing them always cheers me up. They seem very hopeful these baby Dubai drivers... As an American, I'm lucky, I could just fill in the paperwork and take an eye test and get a license based on having one in the US. That's not how it works for people from lots of places who know how to drive. They have to take an expensive series of classes.

this one's just right

I did a bit Goldilocks-ing around my vehicle. the first quick rental from the desk at the apartment hotel was too small (and ugly), the next temporary loaner that my leasing people set me up with was too big (a small bus, practically) and now I'm driving the wine red Honda CRV that I should have for the next 2 years. one of my coworkers, seeing the picture of it all shiny and new (it had 45 km on the odometer when i got it) said, "you need to hire someone to wash it everyday." I thought she was kidding. The thing is, here, she wasn't. I did eventually set something like that up pretty easily (not every day, but 2x per week.).