Americans in Dubai

From NPR.

Let's Talk A Little More About How Great UAE Is

There's this awesome gyro place right by our house that delivers fresh hot gyros and yummy fresh-cut french fries directly to our door. I think I'm gonna get some tonight for sure. Sometimes I tried to get a gyro-style pita from Pita Pit in Portland, and it was always a darned good pita, but nothing compares to that yummy juicy gyro meat in a fresh hot flatbread. MMMM! To be fair, I don't think I can credit the UAE for this - I 'm pretty sure I have to send my props to Greece.

And Another Thing

As long as I'm ranting, and being irritated at the lack of quality of certain female VP candidates, I think I'll address women's issues in the UAE.

Here's all I'll say: If I ever have kids, I'm definitely having them here, and not in the States. Why? Because in the States, I can use up my 2 weeks of vacation for maternity leave, and after that I'm rushing back to work as fast as possible because my family needs the income. Yeah yeah they'll hold my job for up to a year; big deal with a mortgage to pay. Here? I'm on Fully Paid Leave for 4 months, 1/2 paid leave for another month after that, and only after That am I concerned about rushing back to work for income, although I've got another 5 months that I can take unpaid if so desired. This is a policy that says: women's full participation in the workforce benefits everybody. And when mothers stay home longer with their children, everybody wins. Is this bad for business? Are women having trouble finding jobs here? No, and no. In this middle-eastern bastion of capitalism, we're competing with Finland on progressive work-family policies for women. Write your congressmen. That's all I have to say.

Obamadan

Before we get started, let's address some of the exciting American election news that has come about of late. I'm speaking of course, about Senator John McCain's pick of one Mrs. Palin as his running mate. The reaction from this voter is decisive: I'm all in favor of having a woman sit in the veep's chair the next four years, but I am NOT all in favor of that woman looking better than me. So, without much hoo-ha, the gig's up. Sorry, McCain/Palin, you've lost my vote.

NOW: Will I cast my ballot for Obama/Biden, or will I abstain? This issue remains undecided, until I hear directly from Obama how his administration plans to address the needs and concerns of the under-25 homeowner iPod-listener expatriate female cat-lover voting block.

With that out of the way, let's move on to the cultural phenomenon that is Ramadan. During Ramadan, many muslim families in UAE with the means cook meals for their entire neighborhoods every night of the month. Some people set up Ramadan tents on street corners and feed people as they pass. Mosques feed THOUSANDS, and run every single night, all month long. People donate money to help the poor. The government forgives loans and promotes charity. It's a whole month out of the year when observers focus intensely on God, spirituality, loving thy neighbor, etc etc, through both physical and mental exertion. Is this not the most noble thing you've ever heard of? Opportunities abound to join with the nation in this observance; anyone can sign up to "fast with a family" and join them in their home for the evening meal (breaking the fast). My co-worker (non-religious) said that last year her Muslim neighbors left her a complete feast-to-go wrapped on her doorstop every night, along with everyone in their whole complex. Do we ever hear about the remarkable charitable month of Ramadan in the US? Never. I learned to sing "dreidel dreidel" and fabricate Kwanzaa costumes in public school around Christmastime but never did anything for Ramadan or any Muslim holidays. I'm getting an education now.

On the job learning

So, I just realized that my teaching capacity is 6-9 hours a week, and I had already scheduled myself for 20 hours in one week. Learning, learning.

Mall and a Conference, two bits

Yesterday we went out with F. to see Tropic Thunder at Mall of the Emirates which, I have to say, was pretty dang funny. The funniest part was probably Tom Cruise playing a fat, bald, egomaniacal studio exec. But before that, we got some great food at Japengo and did a little shopping for boys. We tooled around a variety of shops looking for men's shirts: Dan and F. both walked away with slick selections, I walked away empty-handed, but happy to be able to contribute to the cause. F. seemed like a newcomer to dress shirts. We explained to F. that, in America, when you tuck your dress shirt into your jeans, you look like a cowboy.

We got home around midnight which allowed me to get just enough sleep to spend all day eating fantastic food and watching indoor fireworks displays at a work-related conference. You want to know where the good party's at? Follow a sheikh, any sheikh. We couldn't find a regular taxi home after the event, so we asked the nearest hotel and they provided us with a Lexus. Sometimes I think life here is so over the top.

Tonight we'll head out to Blacklist again for the last night before they shut down for the month of Ramadan, and on Friday we'll have to stock up on any wines/liquors we want to consume during the month before the shops shut as well. I ate way too many cookies today, so it's time to get some ibuprofen and offset the sugar headache.

My New Job

Big news: I've got a new job. I'm working at the same place, but I'm no longer a public services & ops librarian. Now, I'm a teacher-librarian. Sea change!

My new job makes me responsible for the information literacy instruction of the largest academic department in the college, full of fresh high school grads who are (hopefully) eager to learn both English and the finer points of catalog searching. How did I end up with this job? I don't know, but my bosses sure think I'll be good at it. Pass the crackers, Jack, I'm going for a ride.

Axis of Evil

Need a diversion? Enjoy...

Dubai Is Schizophrenic
Iran Calls America
Persians vs. Arabs

Salazmeyer leaves home

A couple more snaps of our trip to Abu Dhabi. : Top: Emirates Palace. Below: Sheikh Nahyan and Emirates Palace. Below that: Arabian cartoon characters on Sheikh Z Rd.Below that: our neighborhood in Al Qusais.

Stanley failed to mention that, apon arriving at the Emirates Palace gate, we were provided with a letter of invitation on heavy cardstock with a custom die-cut border which explained in no uncertain terms that this invitation gives us access ONLY to the art gallery, and that's it. For permission to make a reservation in one of the many fine restaurants, a phone number was provided. We actually drove by this place the first time and had to turn around and come back, because we thought it was the presidential palace and not a hotel.

Blacklist (Again) and Picasso

So Wednesday we went to Blacklist again. In all honesty, I really have no great love for the "metal" genre, it's just a fun thing to do with an evening, so you can all stop worrying (those of you who have been worrying) about me growing my hair out and buying black shirts adorned with band names that are depicted as dripping with blood. Ok? Ok.

A couple more people from AUD came along this time: A guy from India, a guy from Pakistan and a couple of Americans (a Dartmouth student and a Johns Hopkins student, respectively), good people all of them. Our Iraqi friend was our once again the lead metalhead among us, and acted as our bridge to the strange crowd which, as before, welcomed us with open arms. Among the new initiates there were a couple of conversations wherein I was nervously asked, "Uh, so, do you listen to this kind of music a lot?" Uh, not really, but the energy of the place is infectious and the true aficionados of the genre are a friendly and passionate bunch that one can't help but enjoy being around.

In a nice transition from the beautiful chaos that is "Blacklist: Savage Metal Night", we made the long anticipated trip to Abu Dhabi for the Picasso exhibition at the Emirates Palace Hotel. First, it was nice to test our little Ibeza on a longer trip (about 2 hours) and determine that, yes, this car is worth at least the 4000.00Dhs we paid for it. I love that damn car. I can't even help it.

Second, Abu Dhabi is a beautiful city: Set on a narrowly separated island in the gulf, populated with shining buildings, and surrounded by crystal-clear water, it's a nice change from the "unfinishedness" of Dubai's crane filled cacophony. Make no mistake... Dubai is superior in many ways: The people are more cosmopolitan, the finished buildings are nicer, it's just generally, I don't know, a little more "2009"...but Abu Dhabi is a nice place to visit.

Third, Emirates Palace is gorgeous in a way that only that rare combination of unlimited capital and tasteful design (think Vegas only classier) can create. The bathrooms alone create a sense that this place was built for people with whom I have never associated: People who find the use of paper towels beneath them and require a cloth hand towel taken from a neatly stacked tray decorated with several fresh rose blossoms near the deep marble sink in which one could bathe a two-year-old.

Finally, the paintings turned out to be fantastic. Beyond anything we'd hoped for. A massive collection from each stage of Picasso's life. You look around for awhile until all of a sudden you find a painting that you can't fully understand, but it makes your heart beat a little faster and you find it hard to tear your eyes away and move on to the next work of genius, but finally you do and in a couple of minutes you're glued to the floor again. And did I mention it was free? It was free. Unbelievable. Afterwards we hit a nice Italian restaurant where we made up for the cheapness of the day going all-out on fantastic pasta and then rolled home. No speeding tickets, no breakdowns, no getting lost, and it was not even necessary to use my A.K.. I'd have to say it was a good day.

Scared Straight

May Nom Es Alicia. Work is getting better. Today I went to "personality dimensions" and discovered I'm "green". That means I should have chosen engineering as a profession, I have no tolerance for emotional outbursts, and I take a loooooooooong time to make decisions. I can't wait to show Dan my score, so that he can better understand why I take a half-hour to choose between two brands of kitchen towel.

I also watched a great video on plagiarism that the college shows all the students and makes them sign that they have viewed and understand. The main crux of the plot is that a young, abaya-clad student shoos away her conscience (here embodied as her angelic self clad in a white abaya), cheats on a paper, and watches her future unravel as she is dismissed from college, the news media reports it to the whole city, her parents express their shame and disappointment, and no one will agree to marry her, after which her father dies of a heart attack. It's really very dire, and would scare the sh*t out of me if I was even THINKING about cheating.

Are those Euros?

Alicia here. We picked ourselves up an 11-dirham version of Monopoly at Lulu's the other day after a 15-year hiatus thinking that surely there would be some kind of 'reminder' about the rules included in the box. We were sorely mistaken! Thank God for the internet.

It also turns out that a $3 version of Monopoly includes a cereal-box quality cardboard game surface and barely enough paper money for two people to make change after landing on Community Chest and drawing a $15 school fees card. Nonetheless, with plenty of determination and gin, one can have a great time with this game.

Just out of curiosity, is that in fact a $15 school fees card, or a 15-Euro school fees card? Or is it 15 British Pounds? The game includes Arabic translations for everything from "Go to Jail" to "Trafalgar Square", but the currency used is clearly not intended to be a dirham or a riyal or a gold bullion. I am absolutely fascinated thinking about some regional product developers at Parker Brothers sitting around in a board room somewhere making these kinds of decisions.

In related news, the new librarian at work taught me some Afrikaans today: My Name Is translates to May Nom Es (spelling uncertain), and with a few more lessons, I'll be well on my to complete and utter confusion with Spanish, Arabic, Malayalam, and Hindi and will subsequently suffer a complete mento-linguistic purge of all the English I once knew.

Reality Check

Alicia here. OK so, I'm back at work now, and it kind of reminds me of the first day of school after summer break. It's like, all exciting in theory, but then you get there and remember that you're going to have to do homework and stuff, and your friends are there and all, but they'll have to do homework too, and you discover that your favorite liaison department got yanked from you and given to someone else, which is sort of disappointing. And, as hard you try to give the new people a good impression, you have to listen to other people all day tell them how much the traffic/bureaucracy/weather/taxis/insert-complaint-here sucks in Dubai. Which, FYI, it doesn't. There are some people who just, I think, get some kind of bizarre camaraderie feeling out of group-complaining about targets that can't respond. So, my balloon is a little deflated. I hardly have the energy to sit through another day of it, really. So, I'm just going to have to bury my nose in my homework and try not to be bothered by that which I cannot control.

Countdown!!

Alicia again. I am SO excited to go back to work tomorrow. You should see my Outlook calendar for the next couple of weeks - first, welcome back breakfast. Then, team lunch. Then, pizza party. All the while discussing how to better deliver educational and information services to our constituency. It's gonna be great! Until then though, we're gonna watch rented movies from the nameless movie-rental place by Spinney's on the basement level of Sahara Center. We've walked by this place a thousand times thinking it was just a DVD *sales* outlet. Turns out it's a rental place. They merely require that you leave a 100-dirham deposit for every movie you rent. This is a revelation, really. We've been idly waiting for the neighborhood door-to-door DVD man to come knock and sell us some cheap movies, and that strategy hasn't exactly been working out real well.

Blacklist

Stanley here. I met a guy at work from Iraq, ("The Fifty-First State, he calls it) and one thing lead to another, we started discussing music over lunch in the cafeteria, I found out quickly his musical tastes run the gamut from "Metal" all the way to "Death Metal", and before I know it Alicia and I are joining him and a few of his friends at a local bar for "Blacklist" the local metal night at Touch (a club at the Four Points Sheraton - Wednesday nights - free before 10). We showed up early, tossed back a few scotches, got introduced to the members of a local Metal band, quietly sighed with relief that we'd trusted our instincts and worn black, hung out with the group for awhile, drank numerous tequila shots, swore we'd go to their next show, and basically enjoyed being part of the "Dubai Metal Scene" for the night. Surprisingly (or not surprisingly, I guess) it was a freaking blast.

Getting to Know the Neighborhood

Alicia here. This morning Dan and I went to Festival City to do a little "Come Look My Shop" (note; I can now read the name "Festival" in Arabic, and it's spelled "Festifal"), and on the way home, brilliantly decided to try to take the airport tunnel instead of the Al-Ittihad freeway. It worked like a charm. In an ideal world, nobody ever has to go to bed hungry, and nobody ever has to take the Al-Ittihad.

We took a walk after sunset down the road and discovered a fantastic Chinese restaurant called Lotus Garden. It's on Baghdad street near NMC specialty hospital in Qusais. The place had great interior ambiance, fantastic won-ton soup with lots of ginger, and hospitable service. The complete price tag for two including tip came to a mere $21.70 US. Plus, they deliver. I see many pieces of crispy chili chicken in my future. We kept looking around starstruck and musing that this place was "awesome". I think we're still suffering from comfort-shock being back in Dubai.

Dan also successfully booked a week-long trip to Thailand w/ Emmo this morning for early October. Me? I'll be rolling the dice trying to get sevens on the time off and an affordable ticket by the time I can get the time off. We'll see what happens. All in all, an extremely positive weekend. The only negative thing I can think of has been my complete and total failure to locate a single kaffir lime leaf in this city. I've scoured at least three supermarkets in both the fresh and dried sections; I'm pretty much running out of ideas. I *know* people cook Thai food here. I know it! I've just got to think harder.

Alicia Gets Bored

Today, I updated the blog and added some widgets.

Ways and Means

Alicia here. The other day I went out to lunch with my gal pal to India Palace which dishes up fantastic Indian fare in exchange for a reasonable number of dirhams. She generously bought my lunch; as we were settling the bill and getting ready to leave, the waitress brought me a comment card and asked me to leave my valuable opinion of the restaurant. Conspicuously, my friend was not invited to leave her opinion. Now, I find my friend much more highly qualified to speak on the issue, since she is actually from India. So I was surprised that the restaurant seemed more interested in my opinion.

Later that day, she told me a story of being at the movie theater here in town with her sister, when a British lady ahead of them in the ticket line became irritated, barked something unintelligible at both of them and stormed off. The sister, surprised and confused, followed the woman to the popcorn line to ask what the problem was. Instead of answering, this woman waved her hand in the sister's face and turned away, and her newly appeared male companion pressed himself against her front-to-front and demanded, "Is this polite?" We infer from this act that the woman had been offended because she felt that my friend and her sister were standing too close. Well, shit really hit the fan after that. The sister called security and the theater manager and demanded the uncooth Brits be ejected. After getting a lackluster response from all parties, she demanded, "Would they be ejected if he did that to an Arab woman?" And, shockingly, the security and the theater manager admitted that yes, actually, he probably would be on his way to jail right now if she were an Arab woman. And, with that fact out in the open, the authorities concluded that it was only fair to eject them. The Brits eventually persuaded the sister to drop the charges if they apologized, which she did, and they did, which is good. But the whole incident just reminds me how racially charged things can be around here sometimes.

What's Up Now, Etisalat?!

Alicia here. I finally got myself hooked up with Yahoo voice, which means a lot of you can start expecting annoying phone calls soon. For the last six months, I've been enslaved to the monopolistic telephonic services company Etisalat due to lack of market competition, which charges me some kind of outrageous rate to call the United States. (I think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.71 a minute or something). My modus operandi thus far has been to send a mysterious two second ring to the person I'm trying to reach, click off before they pick up, and then cross my fingers and hope they realize it was me and call me back by way of a competitive, affordable US-based communications service. You can imagine I just haven't spoken all that often with the folks back home. Well, this little dance, while fun, is now over - the miracle of PC-based calling is now connecting me to my friends and enemies for a mere 1 US cent per minute. That's right - the same currency I use to loosen flathead screws and see exactly how long an object has to fall to reach the bottom of this 16-story tower can buy me a full minute of talk-time. This morning I left my mom on hold while I went and answered my doorbell just to spite Etisalat, actually. They've still got one on me, though - I can't get a technician to come out and move my internet connection from one room to another over the phone. I have to visit their office in person and apply for "internal shifting." Grr.

Our Indian Roadmap

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Home again, Home again

Alicia here. We've made it back to Dubai, and BOY does it feel luxurious to have air conditioning. Not only that, but every single bathroom I attend, public or private, is stocked with toilet paper. Not only that, but the electricity stays on 24/7 and the tap water is potable. What kind of wonderland is this, exactly?? This, friends, is what 7 weeks on the road in India will lead you to appreciate.

I went to the college today to pick up my mail and check out the library, and, with a full week of vacation left yet, fully relished the opportunity to look in the new books delivery and bug the HR department about the impending arrival of our new librarians. Yessir, I've got two whole entire librarians coming to join me on Sunday, and I'm so, so, SO glad, because I really wasn't ready to die yet, and I really would have had to kill myself if I was facing the prospect of being the sole librarian again. God bless my boss, she really tried to keep us offering full services with only 33% staff. Have you ever tried to do 3 full-time jobs in under 55 hours a week? It's actually impossible. For those of you in the library biz, can you imagine trying to be a public services manager, and a collection development librarian, and a teacher-librarian, and a reference librarian, all at the same time? I am soooooo glad to get some help.

I'm newly resolved to start teaching myself Arabic and have already learned 11 letters and all the vowels and can recognize them on paper. Dan and I are gearing up to take the GMAT and see who gets a better score. Place your bets now, friends, he's going down on the quantitative AND the essay. It could be closer on the verbal.

One Lap Around India and Back to Where We Started: Kochi

Stanley here. As of yesterday morning, we're back in Kochi. After four lovely nights looking at the crashing surf of Mamalapuram from the balcony of our 12.00 per night hotel while eating fried fish (served whole) and washing them down with semi-cold Kingfishers (due to the intermittent nature of the electricity supply in Tamil Nadu "cold beer" was a relative term), we took a cab to Chennai and an overnight train to Ernakulum Junction. We are now resting, once again, in the comfort of Priya's house in the friendly neighborhood of Kasturba Negar.

Surprisingly, everyone was exited to see us and could not wait to hear about our travels in the limited vocabulary required for understanding. Our friend, Mr. P. D. Jose, (one of the nicest people in the world) took us down to the local Kwiki-mart last night where we reconnected with many of our acquaintances from the neighborhood and from our backwater excursion six weeks ago. Mr. Jose did not find it difficult to round these people up. Apparently they can be found most evenings in front of the Kwiki-mart where they congregate to shoot the shit and eat peanuts and drink tea. It may surprise many Americans, as it did me, that the fine people of this neighborhood (and I assume many Indian neighborhoods) routinely make their way around to five or six of their neighbors' homes most evenings or set aside time to congregate in the most arbitrary of places (really? the Kwiki-mart?), simply because they value and enjoy interaction and contact with those in their community. Who knew?

I'm not quite ready for it to be over. I feel right now that I could make another lap, hitting different places this time around, and then we could see if I felt ready to stop. I'm not tired of life on the road, not by a long shot, but work and obligation beckon from Dubai and tomorrow I'll be catching a plane back to a place that I'm just now beginning to think of as home. Ah well.

Bargain for your Supper

Alicia here. Ah, the joy.

"Welcome to our fine beachside restaurant," the waiter says, setting glasses and napkins on the table. "Would you like to try some lobster or prawns?"
"Maybe. How much are those prawns?" Dan inquires.
"900 rupees for ten big prawns." Says the waiter.
"900? That's crazy!" Dan scoffs.
"Sir, these are very big prawns. Like this, this big. (He hold out a thumb and forefinger). Very fresh. 10am this morning they are coming."
"I'll give you 450 for those prawns." Dan states dryly.
"Sir, 900 for two people. Big prawns! Coming with veg rice, chips, everything. Today for you, special price - 800."
"With everything? Rice and chips for both? Maybe. Still, that's a lot to spend on lunch. I'll give you 600."
"Salad too sir, this is very good price. Those people there paid 2000 for 15 prawns this size." He gestures at a nearby table.
"I don't care what those people paid for their prawns. Those people are rich. I'm not rich."
"Well sir I give you 700, last price."
"700? With everything? .....OK."