Anticipation and fulfillment

Waiting at Seattle airport for our flight stoked the fires of anticipated experiences yet to be discovered. The waiting area was filled with national dress from several nations and the air was filled with tongues which had no association in my past…certainly Arabic and Indian were very present, but others as well that went way beyond my understanding..ladies in Burqas and tattooed hands, men in long flowing beards made me realize this was not a flight to Calgary to see the Whiddens. I had booked my usual window/aisle combo in the hopes that the middle would stay empty and it did…only disappointment was when I tried to use my travel agent card to get an upgrade and was told that if I had contacted corporate headquarters, they upgrade TA’s to business class for basically the same price…aarrgggghhhh…but, take note, ladies of Silver Star Travel, my home base in Vancouver. The seat in the middle did stay unoccupied and was a lifesaver for the two old folks who aren’t as limber as they used to be. Arrival in Dubai was a “Wow” moment. What an opulent place even the airport is, and one of efficiency and expedited bureaucracy as well…coming down escalators with waterfalls on the side like some tropical rain forest rather than the desert, glitz everywhere, and really wide open spaces gave the feeling we were in a high end convention center rather than an airport…6 escalators rather than the normal one, bearded men in long flowing gowns smilingly directing traffic, and the really efficient way of processing the visitors took all the tension away from the usual “oh, oh, now we have to deal with getting out of the airport. Dubai has computerized passport control where you just stick your passport in to be read like your rewards card at the supermarket. We couldn’t make ours work so we had to go to the usual passport control, however there were about 20 stations open and there were not any lines at any of them…just find an empty one and zip, you’re through. Luggage came immediately and we were out the door where our hotel transportation was waiting for us. We were informed that there was a sand storm taking place and did we have any respiratory ailment? It looked “smoggy” from the fine sand blowing and while we didn’t actually feel any biting sand on us, people were walking with masks on mouths and noses and cars were coated with a layer of very fine sand. Checked into our hotel at 10:00 p.m. always a great time to arrive since it is much easier to get adjusted to the new time zone (exactly opposite to west coast time). A little walk to flex the leg muscles brought another realization…Middle Eastern desert locales are night time places…Long lines of cars looked like 5:00 traffic across the bay bridge on a Friday night. My friend, Najla, couldn’t call us when I contacted her because she was having dinner with her family….at 11:00 p.m. This is like Spain without a clock. The Burjuman mall was the glitzy spectacle I had expected…over the top opulence and muy, pero muy, upscale shops…walking past one a little six year old girl was looking at blouses and came running outside to say: “May I have photo with you?” So in we went where mom, dad and little brother all smiled. The photo was taken and it was a sweet little moment…but because I was really tired from the trip, I wasn’t into my travel mode as I should have been and didn’t find out her name or where they were from….but it did set the tone for what I know will be a wonderful trip. Our first morning was a bit of a wake-up to reality of life in the desert..looking out the widow it looks like Beijing, but it’s not pollution but the fine sand that blots out the sun and gives a grey haze to the place… during the day, the wind picked up and blew the sand across the streets like a fine layer of snow on a wintry day. This continued until late in the day…It finally subsided when, of all things, it rained… We met my friend Najla who is Uzbek/Palestinian in heritage, but was born here and has lived here all her life. Yet, she still is considered an outsider…She’s not really an Emirate.”…the class system here is very much in place with lineage as important as birth conditions. Accents, phraseology, and simple gestures define a person, Najla says.

She wears the hijab, the head scarf, but not the niqab, the face veil. She says that it is a hindrance to success here, since, even in Ultra Muslim Dubai, not being able to see a woman’s face raises some level of uncertainty in trying to get employment and educational advancement. The abaya, the long black robe is worn my most Emirate women and underneath it is some pant type clothing which covers the legs so that when they walk and the abaya which can be open in front does not infringe upon a woman’s modesty.

The Emirati men have long white gowns with white head scarves…interestingly, the head scarves are being replaced by baseball caps…it seems very out of place to see the elegance of the white robe juxtaposed with the down home baseball cap. Most men have very neatly trimmed, close cropped beards on their faces. It seems that the beards are always about a four day growth, never longer. Old men let their beards grow longer, but I haven’t seen any young men with this.

It’s really easy to tell an Emirati on the streets…if there are workers on almost any level, they are foreigners..with a population of about 2 million, only 20% are Emiratis…the male female ratio is also striking about 80 % male…this being brought about by the huge influx of workers from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc…..Nannies are usually Philipinas, or Sri Lankan women who are distinguished by their clothing which differs from the black abaya worn by the females of the household…the other telling factor is that in restaurants, the mom and elder daughters are almost oblivious to the antics and distress of the little kids as the eat their meal while the nanny is fully occupied with her responsibilities. You will never see an Emirati working in shops, doing construction or other blue collar jobs. The Emiratis work for the government or other “official” policy making entities…they will be involved as managers and owners of businesses, but never on the nitty-gritty, down and dirty real work. These foreign workers are the real underpinning of the society, without whom the system would collapse…The lives and conditions of the workers here may be infinitely better than what they would have in their countries of origin, but it is a squalid, pitiful existence here. Money is sent back to support far-flung families, and they eat and sleep in conditions that can only be described as marginal, at best. So, one has the feeling that this is an artificial existence, a society based, not on values, but simply a “we’ve got it and we’re keeping it” rule of social Darwinism to its extreme. Oil, naturally is the grease which lubricates, literally and figuratively, the system…The glitz and opulence is everywhere…auto dealerships selling Bugattis, Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and other high end vehicles abound in different areas of the city…there isn’t just one such dealership. Louis Vuitton shoe stores sell no shoes under $2,000 a pair and the architecture is absolutely stunning…from the Burj Kalifi, the world’s tallest building (for the moment, since there other taller structures being planned, to the Burj al Arab hotel where the cheapest room goes for $2,300 per night, no continental breakfast included. Every company seems to want to outdo the others with the latest most avant garde design and it makes for spectacular settings, even given the artificial nature of the place.