Oh yeah... Easter

I got an e-card from family reminding me it was Easter! I never would have known. It's funny how, when you live in a non-Christian nation, you don't get those little "heads up" clues in all the stores in the 8 weeks before every Christian holiday. Not here - no easter eggs, bunny baskets, pastel pink and blue ribbons, candies and chocolate wrappers; no nothing. I even had three people ask me "is there a holiday today?" on Easter, and I still didn't remember. I thought for sure they were just misusing the English term 'holiday' to comment on the season finale of Survivor or something. To compound the difficulties, it was recently Arabic Mother's Day, and so when I saw all the Mother's Day crap in the stores, I thought I had really blown it and not even called my mother. Turns out American Mother's Day is still like 2 months away. -whew-. Next Easter, I will be sure to share my Western heritage more fully with my non-western pals by recruiting them to help me dye easter eggs and stew a rabbit. (Is that part of the tradition?)

Does this guy look important?

Sheikh Nahyan, ruler of the great nation of the United Arab Emirates, today visited our college to give a variety of speeches and attend a variety of events, including a graduation. This is on the scale of, say, President Bush visiting your school in the US... except without the protests. I didn't realize he was here until I walked outside to get my lunch and ran into his entourage, which was composed of about 60 people including some scary looking body-guard types. Then, in the lunch line, my avenue was crammed with big tall dishdasha-clad boys! What a sight. I think the ladies were quite enthused about all the male presence on campus.

Anyway, I'm starting to wonder how they keep those dishdashas so white. Maybe they buy new ones every few weeks? What's the secret? If I could keep my whites that white, I'd be working for Tide.

My weekend

This weekend was a leisurely weekend, based primarily on shopping and lounging. It was a 3-day weekend, in celebration of the Prophet Mohammed's (Peace Be Upon Him) birthday. I convinced myself to do some sweeping but no mopping, and spent the rest of the time wandering the streets of Dubai looking for things to purchase. The highlight of the weekend was probably visiting the Souq Madinat Jumeirah (pictured) where I bought some loose-leaf tea and a brilliantly delicious sushi lunch w/ a friend from the college. Definitely the best sushi I've had so far. I spent most of the day Saturday lounging about in the Sahara Center Mall which is right across the street from the apartment. I picked up a few work clothes and sat in a Starbuck's sipping a latte, eating carrot cake and reading the paper for a couple of hours. I was extraordinarily lazy. Mmmmm.... laaazy.

Now it's back to work though - and work is busy busy busy. Our staff is supposed to have 3 librarians, 2 library technicians, and 4 library assistants, but we only have 1, 2 and 3 respectively, which is about to go down to 1, 1, and 2. It's going to be rough. There's so much little stuff to do everyday that I can hardly afford to spend any time thinking about the larger picture (like, developing library classes, etc), and I find myself constantly skipping breaks and lunch in order to actually accomplish anything. So... when the weekend comes again, I'll probably forgo the mopping again and kick back with a latte to save up energy for next week. But.. the best part is those sweet, sweet students!! See below for a perfect example. There's nothing more rewarding than connecting a student with the right resource. Totally geeky librarian, I know, but I can't help it.

FW: Library resources for water project

Dear miss Alicia Salaz;

Thank you very much for helping us in finding the accurate and good resources for our project. The recourses were really helpful. It was really clear that you are doing the best to help the students. =)

I wish the best luck for you.

Thank you again … =)

Shamah 

 

 

 

Did I mention driving is dangerous?

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you exhibit A: two photographs of the Abu-Dhabi/Dubai highway accident which occured a couple fo days ago in foggy conditions. The accident injured almost 400 people and stretched for several kilometers from front to back. I think, remarkably, only 3 or 4 people were killed.

Yes, it was foggy; but the real cause of this accident was people paying absolutely no attention to the fog and rocketing down the freeway at 120kph without being able to see the wall of flaming cars 20 meters in front of them.

More people here are killed in traffic accidents every year than one can possibly believe. Call me paranoid, but if it's foggy outside, (which it is about, 2 days a year), I am not driving. Forget it. Too many nutjobs. Other than that, I think maintaining a reasonable speed, and driving in a late-model car with airbags and seat belt, should probably keep me alive. Fingers crossed!

Hair Salon

Yesterday was my first foray into "luxury Dubai", the other end of town which is comprised of multimillion dollar villas and the Burj-al-Arab and a suite of other topscale hotels, eateries, shopping centers, etc.

I went there for a haircut and color, because after having had the same wonderful hairdresser for 7 years, I am now lost in the hair wilderness, blindly stumbling around searching for a new one. I found this salon in a couple of directories so decided to try it out.

The hotel in which this particular salon was housed is a massive, lush complex of marble, stone and gold, with ambient lighting and attentive service staff unobtrusively catering to one's every need. Before the appointment, I had a latte and an orange juice on an outdoor veranda overlooking the gulf and was served a variety of delectable little cookies and pastries along with. It was only $7 for OJ and $6 per capuccino, so not too bad. I was initially worried about being accidentally ushered into a $100 brunch or something. As it turns out, had I snuck the gold-plated latte spoon into my purse, I could have walked away ahead.

Then: the hair appointment. I was cut and colored by a really good looking gay Syrian guy who had two assistants of his own. The assistants were bringing me tea, dropping my sugars in my tea, stirring my tea for me, bringing me magazines, and handing him tools and stirring the haircolor and applying and removing my towels and giving me a head massage. It was quite the experience. Net tab? $195. More than I'd like to have paid, but I'm willing to live with it - it carries me another 8 weeks, at least. (Cut & color at high-end Dubai salon: $195. Looking gorgeous when boyfriend arrives? Priceless.)

And... luckily... the hair turned out great! It's a little darker than it was before, so I think now I look more French, or Iraqi. (I keep getting comments that I look Iraqi.)

Two months from now, I may go back - and if I do I'll drag Dan along. This guy does men's hair too, and I think he might be able to apply a stylish mohawk to Dan's coiffer.

Diamond-studded Credit Card?

I just saw this in the local newspaper - a credit card that actually comes with an actual diamond embedded in it. It is called the "Royale Card" and is offered to members of the higher eschelons of local society as an invitation-only no preset limit credit card. There's a full-page ad in a magazine that actually says, "Imagine how your guests will be impressed when you pull it out to pay at dinner" or something to that end. I think this goes in the "only in Dubai" pile. I mean... think about it: they're actually ISSUING a DIAMOND to somebody.

Darts

Tennis is over, but Darts are in full-swing. This week was Sports Day, (Sports Day = a 3-day event) and I was assigned to supervise the Darts activity for a large number of giggly students clad in stiletto heels under their black abayas - most of whom (I would say, at least 100%) had never seen a dart in their lives.

It was certainly good fun, despite the fact that I was also asked (read: required) to come to work for three days in gym attire. By the end of the third day (Darts day) I was wishing I had an abaya to cover up the wrinkled standard-issue tee-shirt I'd been wearing for half the week. But... at least -I- had the good sense not to come to Sports Day in stilettos. "Ladies!" I gasped at them, exasperated. "You'll never hit the center of the board in those!!"

They don't care, of course - they're just there to have fun, and as long as they're not tagging passers-by, that's ok with me. I didn't even bother to explain the points system.

Not a great way to wake up

Murray beats Federer in Round 1 of the Dubai Tennis Championships?? What??? Is this really my life???

At least Nadal will be there. (Hopefully.) And maybe Djokovic. I think Federer is on a bender. After losing in the Oz open he obviously didn't work very hard or practice in the lead-up to DTC. Thanks a lot, Roger. You are now my SECOND favorite tennis player, and I don't care how boyishly good looking you are. I'm going to be at the aviation club all day Friday and Saturday (a total loss of a weekend, I could be mopping), with no chance of seeing a Nadal-Federer battle. Crap!

This one's for Dan

Momo

Last night attended Momo, somewhere on the other side of town, with a few friends from Sharjah Women's. Smoked some apple-flavored Sheesha and ate way too many appetizers. Also drank Moroccan tea out of the most ornate gold-and-silver-relief teapot ever. Listened to live DJ spin cool persian house music. Amusingly, the DJ eventually switched to American pop/house music, at which point the waiters and bartenders who were there became much more animated and started to bust some dance moves while they were walking around. It occurs to me that they probably have to listen to the same cool persian house music mix every single day of their lives... so perhaps the Justin Timberlake was really something refreshing for them? I bet it was somebody's personal mix CD. (As it got later, the place got emptier.) We were there until the lights went up and they kicked us out. My pal Sally from Oz was hit on by an Egyptian taxi driver on her way over, who said she could call him anytime for a taxi. She tested out his offer by calling him when we left - and, poor useless fellow, he was at home sleeping and unable to provide the promised ride. Now he'll never get anywhere with her... although dating a taxi driver would be ideal, since nobody thinks twice about a single woman alone with a man who is driving her taxi. People DO think twice about a single women alone with a man pretty much anywhere else in the world. All of our buildings have security teams who keep a watchful
eye on everything... I was surprised to learn that some of my galpals actually have to sneak in their male guests (she'll go in, he'll wait outside for five minutes and then follow.) Not that they would be stopped, just that it might create a hassle. Soon all the neighbors would be talking about the floozy western woman in their building, maybe even calling the police to complain. Just a hassle. Speaking of police, I imagine they spend a lot of time attending to traffic accidents and
complaints about western floozies, since there's not much actual crime.

Also, the Italian tennis player who beat Justine Henin has been eliminated from the tourney. Sigh.

The Apartment, etc

Today I mopped about 25% of the apartment, then gave up and decided maybe I'll start again tomorrow and work on it in geographic increments. Today is Friday, the first day of the weekend, so in the spirit of productivity (after being unable to continue mopping), I also went to Lulu's Hyper Market and bought the only hairdryer for sale in the entire shopping complex. Lulu's is my "corner store", but it isn't much of a corner store. For one, it isn't on the corner - it's actually about a kilometer away. This necessitates purchasing only what I can carry for a kilometer... although I'm pleased to say that "what I can carry for a kilometer" is steadily increasing. Second, it isn't much of a "store". It's more like a massive, two-story mall with a grocery store and a variety of helpful vendors (pharmacy, photo-development stand, western union branch, electronics store, beauty store, home/baby/linens store, exotic perfumes stand, candy corn stand, cellphone store, emirates islamic
bank branch, rug store, food court.) So, are you surprised they only had one hairdryer? I was. The pharmacy man had to dig it off of the top shelf, where it was wedged under a curling iron. This hairdryer is imported from Italy, and it's pretty hot stuff. Four heats, two speeds. Very exciting.

In other news, last night I scored a free ticket to the Dubai Tennis Championships women's quarterfinals with some friends, where I saw Justine Henin lose out in two sets. This was extremely fun for me, even though I don't follow women's tennis, because I instantly hated Justine the moment I saw her. Plus, the opponent was Italian, so I instantly liked her. I became vested in the outcome very quickly. I already had tickets to the Men's semifinals and finals next weekend, and I've been
too busy to check yet how the men are doing. If I can see a Federer-Nadal match, I can die and go to heaven.