Off to the (camel) races!

In a recent post I wrote about a few things I was glad I brought or did in advance of coming here. The hands-down best thing I did is to have an amazing and adventurous friend willing to spend her Christmas break in the Middle East with me! It would have been a pretty painful holiday if not for Andrea's visit. As it was, we celebrated both here and virtually back in the States via Skype and we also had the chance to explore my new home. This is a very belated post about one of the awesome things we did.

at the gate

The Dubai Camel Racing Club has a track about 40 minutes outside of the city on the Dubai- Al Ain Road (the road I take to work every day). December to March they hold races on Fridays. We went to the early morning runs (we got there around 7:30) of the younger but not youngest camels. They run different lengths based on their age. An Emirati co-worker read the online schedule for me- it's in Arabic- I think she said they were running the 8km track- what is that, like 4-5 miles? It's a big track! We came at it from behind the grandstand after driving along between camel... not sure what to call them... more than pens, less than farms, not stables... camel outfits? Anyhow, there's a clubhouse for the members and VIP seating both inside and out but peons like us just wandered into the grandstand's general seating area. People were largely crowded around TV screens as the camels were on the far side of the track but pretty soon we could see them coming. Actually, we didn't see the camels coming so much as we could see the sun glinting off the fleet of SUVs that circle the track with the camels. I think owner and remote-control-jockey operators get to ride inside the track along with a daring guy who perches in a chair on top of a big truck and mans the camera that provides the

and they're off!

feed on the grandstand TV monitors. General spectators and anyone else who's up for it ride on the outside of the racetrack it seems. An announcer was calling the race in Arabic but it had the same sound and rhythms as any horse race.

We were the only females at the races for the first half an hour or so (more came later- but only tourists, I didn't see any local women though it's possible- not likely- that they were somewhere in the clubhouse.) There were maybe 6-10 people milling around like us who clearly had nothing to do with the camel care but most people there were camel owners and caretakers and they were caught up in the races. We wandered around and discovered we could stand at the starting gate, right down next to the track. They run about 15-20 camels at once. The gate doesn't have individual slots for each camel like at a horse race. Instead they're all lined up along one pole, side by side and when the pole lifts, the tether that was keeping them at the gate drops away and they're off with their gawky lopes! They kind of sway and some don't run especially straight out of the gate but it's exciting being right up beside them. I just read that camels can run about 40mph (65kmph) in short sprints and can sustain 25mph (40kmph) speeds for an hour or more. If I'd had a better car for it, we might've tried driving alongside on the outer track- next time!

robot jockeys

They used to use kids as jockeys but they put an end to that practice and went hi-tech. There are little robot boxes that sit on the hump. They have a radio controlled arm with a crop that whirls around urging the camels to go faster! We watched some of the camels lounging about pre-race and being fitted with their robot jockeys. Andrea asked a guy testing his out if she could lift one to see how heavy they are and the report is that those little robots are dense. The camel blankets (we also stopped at a weird strip mall full of camel ropes and blankets and food and vets along with giant cooking pots and little else) have a hole for the hump top! The camels have some really expressive faces and remarkable eyelashes. Their front and back knees bend in opposite directions so when they sit, it looks a bit like a card table collapsing. 

The camel races were a great taste of local culture! Come visit in season and I'll take you!

BBQ madness

Last weekend I was invited to join a young Egyptian family on a BBQ. The plan was to go after
prayers on Friday, that translated to 3 or 4 in the afternoon. They came to pick me up: mom, dad, 2 daughters and Filipino nanny plus a small dolly to haul a cooler, four adult chairs, one child's chair, a small charcoal grill and 2 bags of charcoal, lighter fluid, chips, bottled water and 3 giant tupperware containers of meat. plus there was a stroller and the tiny cooler I brought with some bread and salads. I think it was more luggage then I brought when moving to the country for 3 years. We joined the throngs of people filling up Al Safa Park. BBQs in the park with the whole family and practically a small camp set up are wildly popular. We settled on a patch of grass surrounded by other groups and fired up the grill. We ate mountains of lamb chops. We tried both tiny tender Australian chops and big flavorful local chops. But then there were the birds! Little local quail, super juicy. I've seen some hanging out near the apartment hotel because it's sitting more or less in a weird patch of desert. We sat and ate and talked and relaxed. I felt so lucky to be invited along. huge thanks to this lovely couple!

el shaimaa and achmed- notice we're not alone in the park!

livin' and learnin'

I'm hoping that this blog, in addition to being a good way to share part of my adventure in the Middle East with friends and family, can also help me to pull together thoughts for others headed this way. Before I came, I asked everyone I met with experience in the UAE, or experience living abroad, what did they bring with them that proved to be important or what didn't they bring that they wished they had? I'm sure my own answers to those questions are going to evolve and grow once I move out of the hotel apartment bubble with daily housekeeping and dish washing and breakfast on my own... but one thing I've already noticed is that the "why?" behind answers to those questions can be interesting.

One person suggested that I'd appreciate having an unlocked iPhone or something similar, she mentioned that people "conduct a lot of business" here via SMS. I expected colleagues maybe setting up meetings or asking simple questions via text but no, I get the most texts from my bank and they're not junk really. I get alerts when I use my credit card, when a check I've deposited has cleared and the funds are now available, if I'm making a change to my online profile and they need to add  a layer of security they text me an access code and more. I was also alerted by text from the government when my ID was ready for pick up and I was sent a link to the traffic handbook after i got my driver's license. At the mall, there's probably free wifi but you'll need a password and no problem, they'll text it to you. Oh! If you get busted speeding by a radar camera, they'll SMS you with the ticket and if your account with Salik, the toll system, needs recharging, guess how they're going to let you know? Happily, when you receive texts or even phone calls, you don't pay! You only pay when you initiate them. And with my sim card (they handed me about 10 or so and let me pick my favorite phone number from the lot- let me know if you want my number, it has a lot of double 5s) it's super easy to buy a recharge code from the grocery store or the circle K on campus or wherever so I can just add value to my account- no monthly fee, no plan, just pay as I go. Having a phone that you're comfortable with that you can make work with the UAE carriers has been essential. Super glad I had that.

While the whole business of living in the apartment hotel for 2 months seemed like a bad deal at first, I have to admit, I'm kinda glad it worked out this way. Except for not being able to really be with my cat, Butternut, there have been a lot of upsides. For someone coming over with a more typical timeline which allows for a week or less to furnish a place entirely, I'd suggest trying to get to an Ikea

my red couches

repeatedly prior to arriving in the UAE to test beds and couches for their actual comfort rather than how comfortable they will feel when you're panic-outfitting your place on a 120 degree day and you're also stupid with jet lag. I'm the proud owner (with delivery a few weeks out yet) of a fancy name brand mattress with continuous coil and latex and other stuff that went over my head- I decided I didn't want to skimp on my mattress- that I got 50% off because it's the Dubai Shopping Festival all month long. I also scored 2 red couches and a little black footstool type thing at 60% off plus a discount because they were the floor models- no furniture from Ikea yet! (though I expect that is likely to be where i get the guest bedroom stuff) I'm getting most of my kitchen used from a colleague who is moving and I think I'll hold out for interesting and "ethinic" wood pieces like tables and chairs. and carpets! It's about time for me to engage in the carpet buying dance but that will be a post all it's own.

Everyday Islam

At the mall

I was talking to a guy at work awhile back and he made the comment that he grew up in a suburb of Melbourne Australia and that even after being here 4 years, he still notices the call to prayer, it's still just a bit remarkable to him but he's pleased to be raising kids here who are exposed to all sorts of culture and religion. Kids who don't bat an eye at the sound of the call or a woman in a burqa or celebrating Diwali or Halloween for that matter. It's all still remarkable to me too, the way this religion that I'm not so familiar with is woven into the fabric of everyday life.

In the newspaper each day there's a small box, much like the other small box that reports the weather and sunrise and so on, this one is labeled "Prayer Timings" and it lists out the 5 times scheduled for the call to prayer that day. The times shift a bit with the seasons and calendar. I like the voice of the man who does the call at the mosque near my apartment/ hotel, very melodic and peaceful. In my bedroom here there's an arrow stuck up on the ceiling pointing toward Mecca to help with orientation at prayer time. In the malls, LCD screens that normally run ads will switch to a peaceful image of a mosque during prayer time and public buildings- malls, offices, even gas stations that serve as rest areas on an open stretch of highway- will have separate prayer rooms available for men and women. We have a prayer room in the Library.

cloudy morning room view at spa

robes? check. towels? check. prayer rugs? check.

Having certain things separated by gender can be pretty great for me. I went to a post office today that had a Ladies' Line which was much shorter than the general line. On the metro there's a ladies' car (open to kids too) which isn't any less crowded during peak times but does tend to smell better! I went to a ladies only spa this past weekend and it had a lovely vibe with all of us wandering about in fluffy robes by the seaside for mani-pedi's and massages and an overnight stay- we booked all 5 available rooms and had the place to ourselves in the evening after the day spa crowd left. I opened the closet in my room at the spa and thought, "oh! did they provide us with little beach blankets?" but no, upon further inspection I realized there were 2 prayer rugs provided in my room.

While the "ladies only" bits are sometimes nice, the no bacon and booze bits are more of a challenge

"pork for non-muslims" section of the grocery

but not an insurmountable challenge for the non-Muslim. There are pork sections in some grocery stores and liquor can be had easily (if expensively) by the drink at hotels or in full bottles in designated liquor stores with a number of rules and hurdles, but it's not much more onerous than the laws in Utah!

These are all the outside trappings of Islam as I run up against them day to day. Of course there's an entire rich belief system underlying all these things. I've learned a bit about that as well but as a not especially religious person, I find it less compelling than the cultural expressions of belief and traditions inspired by the religion.

post spa stop at the barracuda liquor emporium

purchases wrapped for transport

Prozac nationalism?

in the snowpark at ski dubai in the mall

Recently the Vice President of the UAE, Sheik Mohammed, launched a campaign to thank and honor the President, Sheik Khalifa. The veep called on citizens and residents to blog, tweet, email, stand on a street corner and shout... as part of the whole "Thank you Khalifa!" project.  Now, just a few days later, we're moving on to crowd sourcing a Twitter auto-biography of Dubai. Again, Sheik Mohammed goes to the people and asks them to use social media technology to share their joy and enthusiasm for this town. And, if the free newspaper at my apartment hotel is to be believed, people respond, in the tens or even hundreds of thousands- filling cyberspace with good wishes, photos and stories. The letters to the editor today were congratulating the city on the fabulous fireworks on New Year's Eve and admonishing us to resolve, in the new year, to make the world a better place. There's no vitriol, no complaints, no preaching about how wrong/ sinful/ uninformed the other side is about issue x or y or z... it feels a little like living in a big puffy cloud of self congratulations and enthusiasm. Weird, but actually, not unpleasant. It feels like this whole happy happy thing is really kinda sincere or at least not totally a made up facade. Is there a smiley face slapped over some grim financial inequalities? Are the people so blissed out on huge discounts on mattresses that they don't notice that their ability to self govern is at the pleasure of a benevolent but all powerful ruler? I think so, but I also think a lot of people really are largely content with their reality. I may learn otherwise, given time, but for now, I'm going to check out the Serta king-sizes that are rumored to be 30-50% off for the Dubai Shopping Festival and I'm going to post some lovely pictures of Dubai's charms from my week exploring with Andrea. Qnd the fireworks were out of this world.

from the 124th floor of khalifa tower looking at the fountain

beach on christmas morn

at the camel races

leaving messes

It's the little things that really demonstrate cultural differences to me. There's a tray in the central hall of the municipal building where you visit the kiosk to take a number for any one of several pesky government functions that involve waiting in line- I was there for my driving license- and on the tray there is a carafe of coffee and about 2 dozen china cups. Sure, there's a chance you'd find coffee on offer in a government building in the States. In some smaller towns it might even be free coffee. But it's pretty unlikely that there's going to be coffee with cute little china cups that need washing. We all seem to have enormous carbon footprints here in the UAE where recycling is infrequent and re-use isn't the norm and so you know that those china cups have nothing to do with the wastefulness of styrofoam or paper. Nope, they're there because coffee is an important part of transactions and should be enjoyed in a real cup and because there's someone to clean the cups. There's always someone to clean whatever messes we make.

My urge to pick up after or take care of myself runs pretty deep. I flounder at lunch on campus daily in the act of walking away and leaving a tray or plate of garbage behind. It feels normal and natural to me to just roll a task chair from one office to the next if it needs to be moved or to lock up the library at the end of the day if I'm the last one there. I'm still holding out and doing my own laundry for now (of course that doesn't include towels and sheets because I'm still in the hotel/ apartment.) but I'm

part of the internatl. section of my grocery store

learning that by being a bit of a lazy slob, I am contributing to the employment of countless individuals (from an equally countless number of countries- this is part of why the UAE is such melting pot and has such interesting sections in the grocery stores- sri lankan food!?) We have an entire team of uniformed men and women who are constantly about the library dusting, washing windows, straightening books, climbing ladders to wipe down shelves, cleaning parts of the building every day that I suspect have never been cleaned in many US libraries. I am supposed to leave the moving of office furniture, even roll-y chairs, to them. If I do it, what do they do? I threaten their employment. Ditto the lunch area employees- subcontracted to the University. There are no trash cans or places to stack trays or dishes anywhere in the large eating complex (which, I should note, features a Subway, a Circle K convenience store, a Baskin Robbins and several other lesser known options much like a mall food court- which is another place you leave your mess.)

The University also subcontracts a large "security" staff. They play a pretty interesting roll. One of the things they do is to clear the common areas like the library of women before the men's hours as male and female students use campus at different times of the day in Dubai. They also sometimes escort visitors around- my check book (spelled cheque book) and ATM card were couriered over after the automated text message that let me choose the day and time window of their arrival and used the location feature on my phone to fill in the place for delivery. The

the grape

courier was escorted to me by a member of security. And security locks and unlocks things. Nearly all things. I have one key to my office and because I'm an associate director, I get a second key to the office/ conference room area. Otherwise, security comes at the drop of a hat. They also seem to be there all the time at all of the many entrances and exits to the building. I did a trial run on my route to work this past weekend to get used to driving "the grape" (my weird green suzuki swift) and to learn the way and in my drive by of a random side entrance, I spotted the usual complement of security staff in the entry area. on a winter break weekend day.

my future apt building

I got a sneak peak at the apartment Butternut and I are slated to move into

the windows in one of the bedrooms

in Feb. I look out through giant floor to ceiling windows pretty directly at the Burj Khalifa (world's tallest building.) Andrea arrives in less than 12 hours and we'll be off on lots of great adventures including a New Year's eve trip to the observation deck of the Khalifa on the 124th floor. yikes.

Blog Stew

4 story high waterfall art at the mother of all malls

These are random things I've been thinking about or noticing or experiencing. I don't have pictures to go with most of them so I'll just post a few unrelated pictures from adventures I haven't had the mental energy to blog about. A mishmash or conglomerate or post stew...

The young women at Zayed largely wear abayas (plural may be abayet). These are black robes, usually paired with a headscarf of one kind or another. From a distance, they look remarkably similar but walking the halls with the students, I can't get over how different and beautiful the abayas are.  Some are floaty chiffon, some are shimmery rayons, some have ruffles, pleats, beads, cut outs, lace, small explosions of colored embroidery, block panels in silver, and other adornments and stylistic flares I don't even know how to describe. They are gorgeous and unique.

for a fee you can scuba at the aquarium in the mall

I have a guy who drives me to and from work every day while I'm waiting to get all the paperwork together to be able to get my driver's license. I've never had a driver before. It's a bit of a let down. Mr. Lui is super punctual and is constantly wiping non-existant dust off his cute little Nissan Juke but I got hooked up with him through the Chinese woman in my building and his English is only marginally better than my Chinese. We gesture at the giant orange ball of the sun setting behind Burj Khalifa on the ride home and pantomime taking pictures to show that we think it's remarkably pretty. We say "Hello." We say "See you later." We drive in silence a lot.

choco bars at the giant candy store by the aquarium for Doris

We drive past Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary every day and I stare longingly at the big flocks of flamingos and the bird blinds they've built ("they" being the city, not the birds) so you can get out into the marshy bits. I don't have a way to communicate that: I'd really love to detour over there for a look-see and how much extra would that cost and is it a matter of you can't get there easily from here because I see them from the highway and I can tell you have to exit a ways back in order to wind up at the blinds...

Those three kings of Orient in the Christmas song? One of them brought Frankincense- probably from or through the Arabian peninsula. It's been part of the trade routes here for 5000 years.

Zayed U's Abu Dhabi campus

Perfume, strong and to me, ancient smelling (and no, I can't describe what makes me think of it as ancient smelling, I just do), is a really big deal here. Perfume bottles are beautiful handblown glass affairs with delicate curlicues, and both men and women are not afraid to douse themselves in scent. One scent in particular, I think it's frankincense, sometimes travels in a cloud around a woman in a store or on campus. I kind of like it and it makes my eyes water at the same time.