Everything you do out in the desert can be termed a safari. We had a party with the American Women's Association this evening. It was dubbed the "Santa Safari" The group met this afternoon at around 2:30 at Safa Park. I didn't know what to expect when were are told that you will need four wheel drive to get to the party. I was expecting some extremely modified 4x4s like you see at the Moab Jeep Safari (yet another safari reference). I was glad to see that everyone was driving their high end luxury 4x4s; Land Rovers, Navigators etc. I didn't see anything with a winch or a roll cage in it. All the trucks had doors and roofs so I stopped worrying.
We convoyed out to a part of the desert near Dubai (Yeah that part of the desert) to a camp that the safari company had set up. It consisted of about seven huts made out of palm fronds with low tables and cusions in them. They all faced out onto a low platform where a belly dancer would perform a little later. We had the chance to ride on camels which is now something we can say we did. To get on the camel herder makes the camel lay down on the ground so you can "mount up" like you get on a bike. Then the guy smacks the camel in the chin and the standing up process starts. You need to realize that a camel is probably about four feet higher than a horse so getting up there is a process. First the front end stands up so you are rolling off backwards, then the back end stands up and pitches you back to an upright position. Then the camel slowly lumbers off into the desert. We sat on the camel western style with one leg on either side but the bedu sit on the front end of the hump with their legs tucked up under them on either side of the hump. They can ride like this all day without getting off the beast. I thought the five minutes we were on the camels was enough for me. A lot of people look forward to riding a camel in the desert, well I'll tell you, it's a pain in the be-hind.
After the camel ride we went "dune bashing". Dune bashing is simply driving your 4x4 out in the desert and trying to get as close to rolling it over as you possilby can without actually doing it. We had a driver from India who said it was his first day. He drove around the dunes lot a lot differently from how they drive on the roads, so it was a wild ride. Christopher had a blast. Every steep dune he saw he wanted to go straight down. The kid had no concept of fear or danger.
As the sun went down our sherpa's lit the fire and started our dinner of Arabic Mezzes and Indian Tikka. After dinner we were entertained by a belly dancer dancing to modern Arabic music. Afterwards Santa rode into camp on a camel with a present for all of the children. Christopher assumed that this was the real Santa Clause because he had a present for him that he actually wanted and it had his name on it. Some of the older kids at primary were saying that Santa wasn't real and this was his way of reasoning him back into existence.
This ended our Santa Safari. It was a really enjoyable night filled with contradiction. As we drove into the camp with the camels at one end, the reed huts at the other, a guy in a dishdasha and gutra walking around, Bing Crosby was singing "White Christmas" over the sound system. More than anything else I think this defines Dubai's multicultrualism.
Merry Christmas.
Friday, December 15, 2006
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Where's Ranjit?
I've been compiling a set of photos of laborers here in Dubai. It is to remind me that my job isn't all that bad. I took this picture some time in July. It was probably 900 degrees C. I'm standing on top of a pile cap that was probably fifty feet away from the edge of the floor slab. The pile cap was about four feet thick with two layers of reinforcing steel, one on the top and one at the bottom of the cap. If you look closely you can see a guy, we'll call him Ranjit, in between the layers of reinforcing steel. Aside from being freaking hot down there he would have had to crawl about 50 feet on his belly to get to this spot. The floor was only about 18" thick so his "crawl space" would be only 12". Your job isn't so bad is it.
I will be posting more of these pictures in the future so stay tuned, and enjoy your job.
Friday, December 8, 2006
Spewed up on the sand
The trouble with modern intercontinental travel these days is you don't have any time to get eased into a new culture. I left Salt Lake City on May first for Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Up to this point in my life the most exotic place I had been was Hackney near London. Even then I only stayed the night and fled to the comparative normalcy of Kent. The strangest thing I encountered on my flight to Dubai was a weird faucet on the sink in the restroom in Amsterdam. I thought "Gee, that's different." I had no idea what I was heading towards.
I thought that I would see a mix of people at the departure lounge for my flight to Dubai, dishdasha, gutras etc. but there was nothing of the sort. Admittedly the people were a bit swarthier than the flight from Minneapolis but nothing like I expected. I was hoping to see some bedu with small wooden cages with chickens in them but I was disappointed. It looked like it was mostly European business people and holiday makers.
That all changed when I got off the plane. The customs counters were manned by stern looking women (the ones who's face you could see) in traditional Arab robes. This was the first indication that i wasn't in Kansas anymore, and it sure wasn't Utah. I got through immigration and customs with only a few suspicious glances and headed out the door to get a cab. It was like stepping onto a different planet. The first thing I remember is the heat, of course. I don't care where you've been, it's hotter here. People that have spent the summer in Kuwait and Iraq say that Dubia is worse because it's humid. Well I can attest that it is hot and humid. It was 11:00 pm and it was about 105 degrees. Immediately as you walk outside your hands become damp with the humidity in the air. Then you feel water trickle down the small of your back. Your thinking, "I've felt all of that.." Then your ears begin to sweat. I've never had sweat running off of my ears until I got here. When your ears sweat you know it's hot.
As you exit the arrivals hall at Dubai International Airport there is a greeting section just outside the doors where all the greeters from the subcontinent wait. It's like walking into a National Geographic documentary of Pakistan. There are huge crowds of guys, mostly, in the long shirts and blousey pants traditionally worn in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The airport authority had kindly installed the cooling fans that you see fanning the cattle at a football game. Unfortunately the fine mist that they spray into the fan only accomplishes increasing the humidity from 98% to 125%. It also sprays the air/water mixture over the crowd so you not only get the sights and sounds of the arrivals hall but you get a nice noseful of the teeming mass of swarthies that are waiting for their brother from Kerala.
It's at this point that you realize that you are not at home. Far, far from it. Luckily you see, across this mass of people, a large queue of nice European looking taxis. So you drag your three massive bags across the pavement to the taxi queue, hop in and are greeted by a head wobbling Indian, dot not feathers. Dubai has the best taxi system that I have experienced in my small experience of taxis. The taxis are well regulated and you don't need to worry about getting ripped off if you don't know where you are going and how to get there. The traffic in Dubai is such that people will take a cab somewhere simply out of convenience rather than drive their own car, get hit by a van on Sheihk Zayed Road, dinged by a car door in the car park and then get pulled over and thrown in jail when they've had one pint at the club. The benefit of this is the cabbies can't ever be sure the guy they got in the back doesn't know exactly where he's going and how to get there. So they usually don't take the chance. I've had to yell at one or two cabbies in the past but they had only been in Dubai for two or three months so they didn't know where they were going.
So I jump in a cab and am thrown back in my seat as my driver speeds off into the Arabian darkness, wobbling his head as he honks his horn.
Depending on the time of day you come into Dubai the trip from the airport to the Trade Center Apartments, where I spent my first month, is anywhere from twenty minutes to six days. Luckily I arrived at about 11:00 pm so it only took me about a 1/2 hour. I was put in a two bedroom apartment that was actually pretty nice. Anyone that enjoyed watching Leave it to Beaver or Father Knows Best would recognize the furnishings. The building was only about 25 years old though. I found out later that they are going to tear it down and build something else more modern. I think the life span for structures in Dubai at present is about 20 years. After that something bigger and better has to be built.
I had been up for about two days with only a short nap on the plane so I was a little hammered. Despite that I had to turn on the TV and see what kinds of programing we had. A nice mix of British, American, French, German, Filipino, Arabic and some comedy from the Shiny Happy Peoples Republic of the Sudan. I couldn't understand it but I'm sure the Sudanese appreciated it.
After some time researching the viewing habits of Dubai-ians I went to bed with visions of camels and dates in my head.
Peter
I thought that I would see a mix of people at the departure lounge for my flight to Dubai, dishdasha, gutras etc. but there was nothing of the sort. Admittedly the people were a bit swarthier than the flight from Minneapolis but nothing like I expected. I was hoping to see some bedu with small wooden cages with chickens in them but I was disappointed. It looked like it was mostly European business people and holiday makers.
That all changed when I got off the plane. The customs counters were manned by stern looking women (the ones who's face you could see) in traditional Arab robes. This was the first indication that i wasn't in Kansas anymore, and it sure wasn't Utah. I got through immigration and customs with only a few suspicious glances and headed out the door to get a cab. It was like stepping onto a different planet. The first thing I remember is the heat, of course. I don't care where you've been, it's hotter here. People that have spent the summer in Kuwait and Iraq say that Dubia is worse because it's humid. Well I can attest that it is hot and humid. It was 11:00 pm and it was about 105 degrees. Immediately as you walk outside your hands become damp with the humidity in the air. Then you feel water trickle down the small of your back. Your thinking, "I've felt all of that.." Then your ears begin to sweat. I've never had sweat running off of my ears until I got here. When your ears sweat you know it's hot.
As you exit the arrivals hall at Dubai International Airport there is a greeting section just outside the doors where all the greeters from the subcontinent wait. It's like walking into a National Geographic documentary of Pakistan. There are huge crowds of guys, mostly, in the long shirts and blousey pants traditionally worn in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The airport authority had kindly installed the cooling fans that you see fanning the cattle at a football game. Unfortunately the fine mist that they spray into the fan only accomplishes increasing the humidity from 98% to 125%. It also sprays the air/water mixture over the crowd so you not only get the sights and sounds of the arrivals hall but you get a nice noseful of the teeming mass of swarthies that are waiting for their brother from Kerala.
It's at this point that you realize that you are not at home. Far, far from it. Luckily you see, across this mass of people, a large queue of nice European looking taxis. So you drag your three massive bags across the pavement to the taxi queue, hop in and are greeted by a head wobbling Indian, dot not feathers. Dubai has the best taxi system that I have experienced in my small experience of taxis. The taxis are well regulated and you don't need to worry about getting ripped off if you don't know where you are going and how to get there. The traffic in Dubai is such that people will take a cab somewhere simply out of convenience rather than drive their own car, get hit by a van on Sheihk Zayed Road, dinged by a car door in the car park and then get pulled over and thrown in jail when they've had one pint at the club. The benefit of this is the cabbies can't ever be sure the guy they got in the back doesn't know exactly where he's going and how to get there. So they usually don't take the chance. I've had to yell at one or two cabbies in the past but they had only been in Dubai for two or three months so they didn't know where they were going.
So I jump in a cab and am thrown back in my seat as my driver speeds off into the Arabian darkness, wobbling his head as he honks his horn.
Depending on the time of day you come into Dubai the trip from the airport to the Trade Center Apartments, where I spent my first month, is anywhere from twenty minutes to six days. Luckily I arrived at about 11:00 pm so it only took me about a 1/2 hour. I was put in a two bedroom apartment that was actually pretty nice. Anyone that enjoyed watching Leave it to Beaver or Father Knows Best would recognize the furnishings. The building was only about 25 years old though. I found out later that they are going to tear it down and build something else more modern. I think the life span for structures in Dubai at present is about 20 years. After that something bigger and better has to be built.
I had been up for about two days with only a short nap on the plane so I was a little hammered. Despite that I had to turn on the TV and see what kinds of programing we had. A nice mix of British, American, French, German, Filipino, Arabic and some comedy from the Shiny Happy Peoples Republic of the Sudan. I couldn't understand it but I'm sure the Sudanese appreciated it.
After some time researching the viewing habits of Dubai-ians I went to bed with visions of camels and dates in my head.
Peter
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